Rose Weasley was soaked. The freezing mid-February rain fell thick and fast as she hurried from the alley behind her building toward the front door, cursing her decision to ward the muggle flat against apparition. As she fumbled for her keys, the door flew open, revealing a tall blonde man holding a steaming cup of tea.
"You're home early," she exclaimed, so startled that, for a moment, she forgot that she was still standing in the rain. Scorpius shrugged.
"Things have been quiet," he answered vaguely. He gestured for her to come inside, where he took her satchel and pressed the cup of tea into her hand before taking out his wand and casting both drying and warming charms on his girlfriend.
"You are too good to be true," Rose sighed as the warmth washed over her.
"That's because I'm not," he deadpanned. "I'm actually a fictional character and our whole existence is the romantic fantasy of some bored mum somewhere."
Rose snorted with laughter, nearly spilling her tea.
"Idiot," she muttered with a smile. "Do I smell food?" Scorpius followed as she wandered around the corner from the front door into the kitchen of their small flat. The miniscule table that they'd shoved into a corner to serve as an eating space was covered in a linen cloth and set neatly with miscellaneous bits of mismatched dinnerware that had been donated by friends and relatives when they'd moved in together.
"What are you up to?"
"Nothing," Scorpius denied, attempting and failing to look innocent. "Can't a bloke make a nice Valentine's Day dinner for his girlfriend?"
"We don't do Valentine's Day," she responded suspiciously.
"Sometimes we do Valentine's Day," he argued.
"Not since Hogwarts and that was only because we were at the mercy of the school's Hogsmeade schedule."
"Well, maybe we should," he insisted, guiding her into a chair. "Now stop being so difficult and just drink your tea. I'll have dinner ready in a mo'."
Rose sighed and sipped her tea, watching as Scorpius fussed around the kitchen. He'd been her best friend since they were eleven and her boyfriend since they were seventeen, so she knew him better than nearly anyone else. There was obviously something funny going on, but she decided to play along and let him have his fun rather than wrestle it out of him.
"So is Al planning something romantic for Alice too?"
"As if I would tell you," Scorpius snorted. "The two of you gossip like a couple of third years. If my best mate is planning to surprise his wife, I'm not going to ruin his surprise by telling my girlfriend."
"You think I can't keep a secret?" Rose demanded, affronted.
"No, I know you can keep a secret, but only if you want to," he clarified, pulling a small pork roast from the oven. "The two of you get together and you can't help yourself. Does something about the end of seventh year ring a bell?"
Rose scowled before draining her teacup. "I wouldn't even have time to tell her anything," she argued. "By the time I see her again, it will have been over with."
"Don't be so sure," Scorpius muttered with an enigmatic smile as he began placing dishes on the table. The pork roast was served with applesauce and a side of roasted potatoes. Rose accepted a small glass of apple cider with a smile and Scorpius turned to place what looked like an apple crumble in the oven before taking his seat at the table.
"I'm sensing a theme here," Rose observed. "Was there a deal at the market on apples?"
"No," Scorpius answered, sipping his cider.
"Then why does every dish you've made have apples in it?"
Scorpius smirked over his glass, a mischievous look in his eyes.
"Orchard," he responded quietly. Rose's eyes widened and she blushed at his reference to the first time they'd made love.
"So that's what this is all about," she laughed. "You're just trying to get into my knickers!"
"Is it working?" he asked with a grin.
"Maybe," she responded with a smile of her own. "Mmm, this is really good."
They ate happily, sharing stories about their day and speculating about how various members of her large family were spending what she referred to as "this ridiculous tradition". Scorpius related a story about Teddy attempting to pick up his young son from The Burrow, only to find that the boy had taken on the appearance of his cousin and no one could work out which one was which. Rose laughed so hard she had to put down her fork.
"You'd think Nana would be better at that, having once raised identical twins," she mused.
"Little Johnny's a handful, that's for sure," Scorpius chuckled.
"It runs in the family," Rose laughed as Scorpius pulled the apple crumble from the oven and laid it on the stove to cool. "Mmm, dessert," she said excitedly, attempting to wedge past him in the tiny kitchen. He easily blocked her, however, herding her back toward the table.
"It's too hot," he warned. "You'll have to let it cool first."
"But what'll we do until then?" she asked with an exaggerated pout.
"Well, as it happens, I have just the thing," Scorpius answered. He reached up to take something out of the cabinet over the stove before returning to sit with her at the table.
"Rose, I have loved you for half my life," he began. "If I were to spend the rest of my days living in this microscopic flat, playing lackey to more experienced men at work, as long as I spent my life with you, I would die a happy man." He opened the ring box in his hand and laid it on the table in front of her. "Will you marry me?"
Rose burst into laughter.
Scorpius sighed, leaning back in his chair with a resigned expression while she composed herself.
"What is this thing?" she asked, picking up the ring box. "Is it going to turn my hand blue? Or is it a portkey, set to take me to The Burrow where everyone's waiting to have a good laugh? Did you get it off my Uncle?"
"It's an ordinary ring, Rose," Scorpius replied quietly. "I even got it at the Muggle jeweler down the road."
"But you can't be serious," she chuckled, searching his face. Her smile disappeared and she sobered. "You're serious," she breathed. "You're abso-bloody-lutley serious. Why on earth would you propose to me on Valentine's Day? That's –"
"The most cliché thing I could possibly do," he finished for her. "Which is why you'd never expect me to do it. Because you know that I know that you think Valentine's Day is stupid. It's the only day out of the entire year that I could possibly catch you off-guard. Even today I had a time of it. You were suspicious from the moment you walked in the door."
Rose only stared, gobsmacked. Her mind reeled as she struggled to comprehend the situation.
"So forget about what day it is," Scorpius continued softly, leaning forward and taking her hand in his. "Just answer one simple question. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me or not?"
"Yes," Rose replied automatically. "Yes, of course I do." Scorpius' face split into an enormous grin before he pulled her close and kissed her.
"How long do you think it'll take the crumble to cool?" Rose asked.
"Awhile yet, why?" Scorpius replied.
"Because I've just thought of something else we can do to pass the time," she told him with a wicked grin. Scorpius smiled and allowed himself to be pulled out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.
It was perhaps two hours later that they were curled together on the worn sofa, a jar of blue flame on the makeshift coffee table next to their empty apple crumble bowls, when a ghostly silver wolf padded across the floor.
"Oi, Malfoy!" The wolf spoke with Al's voice, but the voice was abnormally loud and the wolf appeared blurrier than usual. "Think you can shtop shagging my cousin long enough to come and have a drink with your besht mate?"
"Is he drunk?" Rose exclaimed.
"The idiot," Scorpius sighed. "He invited me down to the pub after work. I tried to explain that I had plans, but he wouldn't hear it."
"Didn't you tell him?" Rose asked.
"And have the entire family know?" Scorpius scoffed. "Did I not express how much I wanted this to be a surprise?"
"Well, someone had better go take him home," Rose sighed. "I'll send a patronus to James. I don't think Alice will be up to dealing with him like that." She pulled out her wand and muttered the spell and the message before watching the blurry silver shape disappear into the night.
"What does that mean?" Scorpius asked, eyeing Rose shrewdly.
"What does what mean?" she replied innocently.
"That Alice isn't up to dealing with him?" he clarified. "What do you know?"
"Nothing!" Rose insisted, shaking her head adamantly, her eyes wide. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"You're protesting way too much," Scorpius laughed. "Out with it."
Rose sighed, covering her face in her hands to hide her blush. She used to be reasonably good at keeping secrets, but it seemed that certain types of secrets, about certain people, just couldn't be kept easily.
"Alice is pregnant," she blurted. "No one knows yet. I'm not even supposed to know. I only found out because I went down to the potions lab this morning and I caught her mixing up a morning sickness cure. You can not tell anyone! If this ends up all over the family before she decides to tell everyone, she'll hex me into next year."
Scorpius swore under his breath. "Do you think that's why he wanted me to meet him? Maybe I should go down there after all."
"No, James will sort him out," Rose assured him. "You can meet up with him tomorrow. He'll tell you his news and you can tell him ours. Just make sure you act surprised when he tells you!"
Scorpius nodded with a smile, pulling his fiancé back into his arms. They lay quietly together, Rose listening to his heart beat as Scorpius played with the ring that she now wore on her left hand. After a minute, however, Rose sat up and looked Scorpius in the eye.
"What about his plans?" she asked.
"What plans?"
"You said Al was making some kind of plans for Valentine's Day with Alice, but you wouldn't tell me what."
Scorpius smirked. "No, actually, you asked if he was and I said I wouldn't tell you one way or the other."
"You made it sound like-" Rose insisted.
"I let you think there was something you didn't know about," he explained smugly. "It was a convenient way to distract you from trying to figure out what I was planning."
Rose narrowed her eyes. "How very Slytherin of you."
Scorpius shrugged. "It runs in the family."
A/N: This story was written for the Teachers' Lounge 2014 Valentines Promptfest. Please leave a review, and check out the other stories, which are listed at topic/119413/104638777/1/2014-Valentines-s-Promptfest-story-list