"Good morning, students," Professor Scarrow said stiffly, walking to the front of the room. "I appreciate you choosing your own seats, but I've already drawn up a seating chart for you..."
The classroom was filled with groans of despair from the first year Gryffindors and Slytherins. Rose gave Violet a miserable look. The two friends had pushed their desks together right away and had been drawing with some of the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes art quills. She had been looking forward to Potions above her other classes after hearing Uncle Harry's stories about the Half-Blood Prince at Christmas last year, but now it looked like the class would be boring and lonely.
"Violet Wayland," Professor Scarrow announced, pointing at the desk in the very front row. "Your older sister is the Gryffindor seeker?" she asked as Violet shuffled to her assigned seat. Violet nodded as she dropped her textbook on the desk with a loud thud. "I've got my eye on you." Violet and Rose exchanged gloomy expressions. Rose had only known Violet for a few days, but her older sister Nina had already proven to be a trouble maker and a bit of a bully. "Mordred Vale," she added, pointing at the desk next to hers. A tall Slytherin boy pulled a face and threw himself into the chair.
Albus was seated in the third row of the classroom next to a stern girl, and the only other Gryffindor Rose knew was put in the desk next to theirs. As Rose realized she was not only going to be sitting next to a complete stranger, but in the very back of the room, her heart sank. She didn't have vision so bad she needed glasses, but she was ever so slightly near sighted. It would be hard enough to just read the board from her seat, forget the classwork itself.
"Rose Weasley," Professor Scarrow announced, pointing to the absolute last desk. She sat down and tried to catch Violet's eye, but a sea of heads was in the way. "And Scorpius Malfoy."
A blond haired boy with a sharp jaw and incredibly pale skin sat down on the bench so gingerly Rose thought he was afraid he'd break it or something. He flipped open his bag and emptied an ink pot and a few blank rolls of parchment onto the desk. For some reason, he looked vaguely familiar.
Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie, she remembered her dad whispering to her on Platform 9 and 3/4. And of course Mum's horrified face as she began berating Dad for saying something like that. He was a Malfoy! She knew there was plenty of bad blood between the Malfoys and the Weasleys—of course, if you listened to Dad, there was bad blood between the Malfoys and everyone in the whole world—and now she was sitting next to him in Potions.
Today just kept getting better.
She had been looking forward to going to Hogwarts for her entire life. She and Albus and James had all talked about what they thought it would be like—and then last year, when James got back for the Christmas holidays and he actually could tell them what it was like, it had been so much realer. Until that point, Hogwarts had been more like a fanciful daydream, but all of a sudden, it was really there. What had really driven that point home was Aunt Ginny threatening James over his grades and telling him that if they didn't improve, he'd better forget about leaving the house until the day he turned seventeen.
She snapped back into reality, realizing someone was calling her name. "Ms. Weasley," Professor Scarrow was saying. She wondered how many times she'd had to repeat herself. Judging by her thin lips, Rose was guessing it had been more than once. "Are you even paying attention? What is another name for Wolfsbane?"
Rose hesitated. The word sounded vaguely familiar—she was sure Dad had mentioned it in one of his school stories over the dinner table. She just couldn't come up with it, though.
"No?" Professor Scarrow asked, looking disappointed but rather pleased at the same time. "Can you even tell me what the practical application of a bezoar is? Show me you've been listening a little, or it's detention."
Rose froze. She had absolutely no idea. She could just imagine Mum sending her a Howler. Detention on your first day of school? How could you not even know what a bezoar is?
Professor Scarrow seemed to be fighting a smile. Rose imagined the ancient woman took pleasure in watching her students fail. Who gave out detention on their first day back to class? "No answer? Well then..." she said.
"It's an antidote to many poisons," Scorpius whispered suddenly, pointing to the top of his notes—all of which were taken in impeccable handwriting.
She figured she had nothing to lose with his guess. "It's an antidote," she called out, cutting off Professor Scarrow. "To many poisons."
Professor Scarrow's face fell, obviously upset about not getting a chance to punish Rose. She gave Scorpius a suspicious look, even though his face had remained turned to his textbook throughout the entire encounter. "Correct," she said, striding back to the front of the classroom. "Now, everyone open your textbooks to chapter one and follow along. Take notes, we'll be having a test this Friday."
Rose was quickly lost in the jumble of phrases that Professor Scarrow was spouting, not even bothering to explain to the students. She looked around the room and saw that Albus was scratching his head, equally confused. He turned around to catch her eye, but Professor Scarrow barked, "Potter!" and he spun around quickly, dropping his eyes.
None of this was making sense. Aside from writing in this microscopic cursive, Professor Scarrow talked at a million miles an hour in a monotone drone. In front of her, two Slytherins were snoozing on their textbooks, seemingly surrendering to failure. She glanced at Scorpius, who was hunched over his notes and writing in an infuriatingly fast and neat way. He was nodding along with the lecture like it made sense. Rose was torn between grudging respect and complete hatred for him.
"Are you getting any of this?" she whispered to him. He gave a tiny nod as he dipped his quill in his ink pot and resumed the mad writing, if anything speeding up as if to make up for his lost time on the tiny pause.
Rose tried to just listen and pick up on anything she could, but Professor Scarrow stopped suddenly. "Answer the questions on the board from the lecture," she commanded, waving her wand at the chalk board. All of her tiny notes were replaced by another tiny list of questions. "Due at the end of the hour," she added maliciously, giving them a wicked grin.
This was turning into a nightmare.
She squinted at the board hard, but she couldn't even make out what was written on it. How was she supposed to answer questions she couldn't read from a lecture she hadn't even heard? Next to her, Scorpius had pulled out another leaf of parchment and was carefully printing out the first question. Rose tapped his shoulder and whispered, "I can't read the questions—what do they say?"
Scorpius opened his mouth to respond, but Professor Scarrow snapped, "No talking!" and he instantly clapped his mouth shut.
Rose took out a blank leaf and stared at it. In front of her, one of the Slytherins let out a long snore. She wondered if she might just put her head down and take a nap, too. It would probably be the most productive thing she'd do the whole class.
Scorpius pushed a few sheets toward her and tapped the top one with his quill. She looked at it and realized it was his notes and a concise list of the questions on the board. Flashing him a big grin, she began filling out the paper.
By the end of the hour, she had barely finished the very long list of questions when Professor Scarrow announced, "Turn all of your papers in now, finished or not." There were some horrified groans around the room as everyone looked at how much they had left. Scorpius stood up and marched away fast.
At the front of the room, Albus stopped her. "What's the twelfth principle of potion making?" he muttered in a panic. Rose pushed her paper toward him and gave Professor Scarrow a quick look to make sure she wasn't watching. He copied down what she had written and mumbled, "Blimey, your handwriting is awful."
Rose punched his arm and snatched her sheet away. "This is the thanks I get?" she asked indignantly, but couldn't hold back a smile. As she handed over her paper to Professor Scarrow, the grim faced teacher made a little tutting noise and shook her head. Rose hurried back to her seat and gathered her things. "I just wanted to thank you, you really saved me back there," she said, but as she turned her head she saw Scorpius was already out the door and hastening away from the classroom.
"What a first class!" Albus exclaimed as he joined her. "She talked and it was like I wasn't even hearing her words! How did you stay so on top of everything?"
"The boy next to me is a whiz at this stuff," Rose told him. "He let me borrow his notes—probably already memorized the entire lesson plan."
"That Slytherin?" Albus asked, letting out a low whistle. "You really lucked out—my partner's notes were more crude drawings with captions that I won't repeat." He gave her a lopsided grin. "That witch was picking on you—how mean is that! Did you remember Dad's story, then?"
"Uncle Harry?" Rose asked, confused. "What did he do?"
"He used a bezoar to save Uncle Ron, right? That's how you knew the answer to the question?" Rose opened her mouth to correct him and explain Scorpius's part in it, but Albus's mind had already wandered away and he was asking, "Wonder what's for lunch?"
James joined them at the table, sighing as he flopped down with a stack of books. He slammed his head against the pile in dismay. "Mum's already on my case," he groaned. "'Cut one more class this year and I'll shove a blast-ended skrewt so far down your throat...' And she's got McGonagall dogging my every step. I've got 'independent study hall' with her every night this semester, which is just a fancy way of saying 'detention until you shape up'. So much for Quidditch tryouts..."
"Think you'll go out for Quidditch, Albus?" Rose asked, reaching across three people for the chips. A sandy haired Gryffindor exclaimed indignantly as she dragged her sleeve through his soup. "Sorry!" she added, hastily pulling her arm back and taking out her wand to remove the tomato soup.
Albus shook his head. "No first years allowed, remember?" he pointed out.
"They made an exception for Uncle Harry," Rose reminded him.
James shook his head at her, like she'd said something amusing. "Dad was the best seeker Gryffindor had seen since Grandpa James was a kid," he informed her. "Albus is Albus."
Rose flung a piece of bread at him. "Look who's talking!" she said, even as Albus ducked his head and bit into his sandwich. They dissolved into bickering over Quidditch lineups and sports talk, and all thoughts of Potions slipped from her mind.
Scorpius sat in the owlery miserably. For a school his parents had both raved about fanatically, he didn't feel like it was living up to his expectations. He had chosen a perilous perch on the windowsill, pressing his feet against one side and his back on the other. The dungeon disturbed him too much to stay in there. Just sleeping in there was bad enough.
And his house-mates weren't exactly welcoming to him. His stuff kept turning up in the toilets or shredded by someone's cat. There wasn't a single person he could call a friend here. It wasn't helping that there had been no reply to any of his letters so far, even though he had written plenty. Every day this month, he had sent an owl home to Malfoy Manor. And every day, as the post arrived, the owls never dropped a letter in front of him.
No, his parents hadn't strictly promised they'd write every day, send all their love, hugs and kisses and whatnot. He hadn't wanted that. But he would have liked them to say anything. Every time he wrote, he talked about how great his classes were, how great his friends were, how great things were, how great, how great, how great. What he wanted them to do was look at his letters and know that something was wrong, and that he had never felt more alone in his life. Yes, he knew Dad was busy. He knew that the family rarely even looked at their mail because of all the hate letters wizards were sending(over their Death Eater involvement so long ago), many of which were Howlers that they often had incinerated before they could even open.
The only class he could abide was Potions. It was his best subject—not that he'd struggled with any, really. It was sort of like cooking, he reflected, but there was something much more satisfying about a Draught of Living Death than a fresh batch of cookies. His desk partner was hopelessly incompetent, though. He suspected she couldn't see the board from where they sat, as she was always asking him about directions. Ever since the first day, when he'd helped her out on their first assignment, she seemed to want to be friends with him. Only he didn't. She was a Weasley, after all. His dad would positively kill him.
He didn't know why he had been so nice, anyway. Maybe it was his hatred of the cruel teacher picking on her, or maybe it was his hatred of having a question answered incorrectly, but he had muttered the bezoar answer as well. What was coming over him? All the other Slytherin first years had been laughing about what an idiot she'd looked like and what a shame it was she had somehow escaped detention. 'Bad luck', they called it. He was sure if they found out, they'd dislike him even more.
Ever since then, he'd ignored all her attempts at conversation. It wasn't hard to shut her down with a muttered answer, although he couldn't resist helping her out as she floundered. Although even with his help, all of her practical applications usually turned black and boiled away so badly he wondered if she had a hexed cauldron.
He was reviewing for their first really important test now, although he was having trouble focusing on actually studying—the owlery was chillier now that fall was starting to really kick in in full effect. And Hogwarts, while unwelcoming, was nothing if not beautiful at this time of the year. He could see the campus for miles. The Forbidden Forest was brilliant oranges and reds and the sky was deep blue with only a few picturesque puffy clouds sailing by in the distance. It was hard not to appreciate the elegance of it all.
But, he reflected, with nothing under his robes but a thin tee shirt and a pair of jeans, he was growing cold fast. Although he had decided to wrap his Slytherin scarf around his neck—who put on a scarf, but not a jacket? He nestled his face into it and breathed out warm air to thaw his frozen cheeks. Then he slid off the windowsill and pushed all his belongings back into his bag. The library, he decided. No one would bother him there if he sat next to Madame Pincer's desk. And Madame Pincer kept the library warmer than most saunas. It was boiling in there. Just the kind of place he felt like going right now.
As Scorpius reached for the door handle to leave the owlery, the big door flew back open to smack him in the face. He went staggering, stars spinning in front of his eyes as he clutched his forehead. "Oh, no!" cried a familiar voice. "I'm sorry! Are you okay?"
He nodded, straightening up and blinking away the dancing lights. It was his potions partner, Rose. Speak of the devil, he mused. "I'm fine," he said finally, realizing she was waiting for him to speak. His voice was two octaves higher than it normally should have been. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Fine."
She smiled, embarrassed. "I can't believe it. You helped me out so much in Potions and I repay you by bashing your head in with a door."
Scorpius gave a faint grin. "I'm fine," he said again, feeling like the dumbest ape on the entire planet.
Rose patted him on the head—she was a good ten centimeters taller than he was, he realized with some embarrassment. "I never did say thank you—you vanished so quickly," she said. "You really saved my butt back there. How are you so good at that stuff? I barely understand her words, much less her concepts."
Scorpius mumbled an incoherent reply that probably was more than half stuttering. He hated how she had turned it back on him. You vanished so quickly. Of course, it probably wasn't intentional, but it was a trick his parents sometimes used when they wanted him to do something, and he had grown to resent people who used it as such. "Sorry," he muttered finally, silencing his babbling.
Rose seemed to sense the conversation was taking a turn for the worse, so she shifted gears. "Mailing a letter?"
He shook his head. "Not anymore," he said. There was a bit of an awkward silence as Scorpius realized he was supposed to say something back to her. He fumbled for a question. "Who are you writing to?"
She waved her envelope in the air and one of the owls hopped over, snatching it out of her hands with its beak. "Mum and Dad. They've written me so much, but I've just been really busy with everything. I'm barely keeping up in History of Magic—Binns just puts me straight to sleep." Scorpius felt he couldn't relate here—History of Magic was his other favorite class. He loved to know exactly how everything happened, and he loved the undeniable facts that it provided. Yes, Professor Binns was a bit of a droner, but Scorpius found he learned best when he could set the words to a sort of rhythm. "Your parents write loads?"
"No," he said sharply, and she startled in surprise. "I mean, they're really busy," he remedied. "I don't write them much, either."
She nodded, like she had understood something else. Scorpius flushed. He hated being pitied. Short, nerdy, and pale though he may have been, he was still a Malfoy. And he had plenty of pride. Scorpius brushed past her and hurried down the hall. His plans to go to the library abandoned, Scorpius set his course for the third floor. It was usually unpopulated, which would make it even better for avoiding anyone he knew.
"Oi, Malfoy!" Rose bellowed as he rounded the corner. Blimey, she had a pair of lungs on her. Scorpius ducked his head. "I'm sorry!"
"Shut up," he muttered under his breath, stuffing his notes back into his bag.
But Rose didn't shut up. She was waiting for him before Potions the next morning, already sitting at her desk and obviously primed to talk to him. He dawdled in the hallway until Professor Scarrow was within sight and then he ducked into the classroom to take his seat. Rose opened her mouth to say something, but Professor Scarrow silenced her when she slammed the door shut behind her and announced, "Essence of Dittany!"
And while she was quiet for the rest of the lecture, she started talking incredibly fast the second Professor Scarrow dismissed them, like she had memorized it. "Before you disappear on me, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry if I offended you yesterday when we were talking and I should have been more considerate before opening my big fat mouth," she recited.
Scorpius lifted his head, amused by the speech. "I'm not mad," he said, relenting. And he found he wasn't. How could he be? No reasonable person could expect her to have known that he didn't like to talk about his parents. His dad had said many times he held grudges far too long.
"Really?" Rose said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at him. "Because you sure looked mad."
He shrugged. "I'm over it," he told her.
"Rose!" her cousin shouted, standing at the door. "Let's go, James said he'd show us what Uncle George mailed on from Weasley Wizarding Wheezes!" Rose jumped up and chased after him.
"The sweetbox?" she asked as they bustled out the door. Scorpius stuffed the rest of his things in his bag and hurried out in the hall. It was lunch time, yes, but he had lost his appetite during class—Essence of Dittany smelled rather like burning rubber in the brewing stage, and it was clinging to the insides of his nostrils. In fact, he was starting to feel rather nauseous. Perhaps he ought to go see the nurse...
By the time Scorpius hauled himself into the hospital wing, he was shivering all over and was quite sick to his stomach. Madame Pompfrey ushered him inside, taking one look and making a tsking sound. She directed him to one of the beds. "It's just a bug that's been going around lately," she assured him. "You'll be fine. Stay here tonight, and you can ask one of your friends what you missed in class tomorrow. Alright?"
Scorpius nodded feebly, although he wasn't sure who he knew that would give him the work he missed. Rose would, a voice in his head murmured. His other classes weren't with her, though. He shook his head to clear that thought.
He was quite bored for the next hour, until just when lunch was set to end, in bustled a small crowd. "We can't get her to stop vomiting," a boy was explaining. He looked like a second year and was patting the back of a girl with her face turned to a bucket. "It's one of the Weasley products, but the other end is defective." For good effect, the girl chose that moment to let out a moan that ended with the disgusting sound of puke hitting the bucket.
With a jolt, Scorpius recognized Rose and her cousin Albus. That must make the older boy 'James'. He watched in mild fascination and concern.
"Oh yes," Madame Pomfrey said, looking disinterested. "Get her to one of the beds. She'll be fine, I deal with these cases quite often. My own remedy isn't as effective as the Weasleys in that its not instantaneous, but she'll be able to attend dinner on her own. And please turn over the box, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes is strictly forbidden contraband."
James reluctantly passed over a black cardboard box and sighed. "We didn't even get to try the Nosebleed Nougats," he complained.
"Can we keep her company?" Albus asked, looking worried as Rose gave another loud retch.
"Get to class," Madame Pomfrey ordered, looking quite displeased. She examined the box with a disgusted expression and tossed it in the garbage next to the door. James gave Rose a cheeky grin as he headed to the door and snatched it out without ever breaking his stride. He tossed the box in the air, looking proud of himself, before hurrying off down the hall.
Rose stopped vomiting every five minutes within a half hour, and it was then that her steady stream of visitors began to wander in. First was a seventh year with equally ginger hair that Scorpius assumed was another relative. When the class ended, Albus and James reappeared in the room for a few minutes, and they were followed by a beautiful girl who looked like she was part Veela. Scorpius rolled over and shut his eyes, determined to sleep. He didn't want to talk to Rose, once her friends all filed away. He didn't want to open his eyes. He felt nauseous and cold, and was none too happy about either.
But sleep eluded him, and he lay there until the lights dimmed from the windows—the sun was setting. He was left with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. But at some point, he must have fallen into a light sleep, as he was woken by the sounds of Rose's cousins collecting her for dinner. Scorpius kept his eyes firmly shut until the door clicked shut gently behind them, and it wasn't long until he returned to his restless sleep.
"Rose, wake up," Albus whispered to Rose. Rose sat up and rubbed her eyes blearily. Had she fallen asleep while she was sitting here? She hadn't even been that tired. Her unfinished Muggle Studies paper sat in her lap, the ink smudged from where it shifted over the white sheets. Big purple streaks ran across the top sheet.
"Madame Pomfrey is going to kill you," James breathed in delight, looking quite amused by the thought. "Let's get you out of here before she sees."
Rose scrambled out of her bed and pulled her robes back on over her pajamas. She was discovering the very convenient fact that nobody ever saw what she had underneath her big black robes and as a result had taken to keeping her fuzzy night pants on all through the day, paired with a red and gold tie. She gathered her stuff and began hurrying for the door. "I'm still mad at you for the Puking Pastille," she added, shooting James a look. "'Defective sweet', my foot. You know, it can't be good to eat only the antidote when you haven't taken the other end."
"It was the last one, and I thought—what the heck!" James said, shrugging. "You have to admit it was funny. Right, Albus?"
Albus looked torn between a stern face and raucous laughter. "Maybe a little," he said.
James began pantomiming Rose emptying her guts on the Great Hall floor. Rose turned bright red. "I did not make that face!" she squawked indignantly as Albus opened the door quietly and held it for them to slip through. She glanced over her shoulder into the infirmary for one last check and saw Scorpius sleeping with the thin sheets pulled up to his ears. She felt a little sorry for him—after all, her family and friends had all made an effort to come make sure she was feeling better, and not a single person had come in to check on the sallow faced Slytherin.
He was an odd case, that Scorpius Malfoy.
A/N: Well, it's me again! I finally thought I might write something after all this time, and my best friend(who is a big Rose/Scorpius) shipper had her birthday yesterday. This is my present to her! So, since this is for Estelle, I'd like to take a moment and say a few of my favorite things about her. 1. She is such an independent thinker. She won't accept what's spoon fed to her by society. 2. She's very easygoing and playful. She's very rarely down, and she always cheers other people up with her presence. I'd like to keep saying a few things about her each chapter, if that's alright.
About the actual fanfiction itself- While I'm trying to use characters JK Rowling created, I unfortunately cannot do that for all of them. I dislike OCs as much as the next person, but there will be a few of them this story. I do not intend to make them major characters or 'self inserts' in any way, however. This chapter was a little shorter than I would have liked, but I intend to make my others longer to make up for it.
Thank you for reading! Please review with any suggestions or comments!
Final note: As this is a birthday gift, I will only update on Estelle's birthday. See you all next year!