Red Rose Chapter 1

Rose Weasley plopped down the grass underneath the shade tree that isolated her from the happy chaos of her large extended family and the rest of the Quidditch fanatics here for the World Cup. Unlike the rest of the clan, the red headed 17 year-old couldn't care less about people on broomsticks, chasing balls. She very much preferred her arithmancy calculations. And this equation assigned for the summer was absolutely fascinating.

Rose cracked open her scrolls and notes and dove right in. As the minutes passed, Rose became so engrossed in the equation that she didn't notice a sparkling object hovering in front of her.

"Watch out!"

Rose looked up and saw a dark-haired man tossed off his broom just after he tried to avoid crashing into her by pulling a rather unsuccessful Wonky feint, or was it Wonkers? Rose could never remember those Quidditch terms like the rest of her cousins. The man's groans pulled Rose out her thoughts.

"Oh, let me help you!" Rose dashed to the man and offered a hand. "Are you alright?"

"Been better," grumbled the man in a thick foreign accent. "But I'll live. What were you thinking, woman, blanking out like that! You could have been hurt."

Rose stared at the man, who looked rather young, probably even younger than Victoire. "Well excuse me! I was perfectly fine, minding my own business, when you decided to almost crash into me. And now, no!" She let go of his hands as she raced towards her swirling notes that are now scattering around due to the windy impact.

The stranger looked at her bewildered. 'What an odd girl,' he thought as he watch her run around after random parchments of paper. He checked himself and shrugged. He felt fine, so he helped himself up. He caught hold of one of the flying papers blowing towards him and looked at them.

Arithmancy? He was dropped for an arithmancy homework? Thank you very much, Red! That went in quite well for his ego. He looked at the girl again, scrambling and muttering to herself.

"No! No! No! Come back!" she cried. On normal occasions, he would have laughed, but something about this girl and her arithmancy just tug at his insides. He slowly bent down and slowly picked up whatever came his way.

"Here," he said, handing her his collection. "Hope you still have everything."

"Thanks!" The red head sniffed, "I think they're all here. I probably have to rearrange them though. That's going to take awhile."

He inwardly snorted. From what he saw, even without magic, she could easily reorder her note as they were already labeled with page numbers and headings. Not to mention, he was pretty sure the notes were all color-coded. He looked at her again. She was completely ignoring him as she seems to start reorganizing.

He shrugged again and went back to pick up his broom. He walked back to the girl and wondered if he should just fly off. He doubted she would notice anyway. While this treatment was quite refreshing, he couldn't help but feel his ego slightly bruised.

Rose was already planning her reorganization strategy, when she felt a shadow looming over her head. She looked up. Oh, the stranger!

"Oh, I'm sorry! How selfish of me! How are you feeling? That was quite the fall. I'm sorry I dropped you! I can get easily distracted so easily." She said, standing up. "It was just that I was about to finish Polyrachma's Puzzle and the notes flew and…"

The stranger held his hand up. "It's alright, I'm fine." He smiled. For a moment, Rose thought her heart stopped beating the moment he flashed his pearly white teeth and a dimple on his right cheek. "Now, I understand." He continued. "Polyrachma's Puzzle was quite a killer. It took me four months to realize that you should analyze and find the correct probability number first so that you can find the x, rather than trying to figure out the y."

Rose suddenly felt here heart rate speeding faster than the golden snitch. "I beg to differ!" She challenged. "I find that it is imperative to solve y first as you need it to find j, m and d(x)!"

"But you can't find d(x) if you don't have x."

"Yes, but you can find x by using y's probability."

"Have you?"

"Not yet, but I will!" She retorted hotly. "I'll show you!" She pulled him down and spread out her notes. Searching for the right pages, she handed him her calculations. Looking into the notes, he couldn't help but feel impressed. The red headed woman meticulous note-taking, calculations and insights could rival professional arithmancers he knows.

"I must say, I'm very impress, Red, but if you look at this part, it surely needs a specific range to go further into the question." He pointed at her notes.

"First off, it's Rose! Not Red!" She snapped. "Secondly, this number is insignificant if it's not the answer I'm looking for !"

'Good point,' he thought. "But you'll need it eventually."

And off she went, stating her thoughts and challenging his ideas. Though he must admit that Rose has excellent reasons, as someone who already suffered through Polyrachma's Puzzle, he felt as though she needs to see that he's right in the end. They continued on debating and bickering for a good part of an hour, until he realized they weren't even arguing about the puzzle any more.

"So there!" She stated triumphantly with a wide grin on her face. For a moment there, all he could do was stare at this red headed Rose. He noticed that she was quite pretty. Not gorgeous like the 'Blonde Bludger' on England's national team, nor is she breath-taking like a Veela, but she's adorable enough in her intelligence and self-confidence. Heck, it's been awhile since he's had a normal conversation with a girl. Well, to him, Arithmancy is a topic of normal conversation, though many of his peers beg to differ.

Before he knew it, he pulled her close and gently placed his lips on hers.

What the heck! Rose eyes widened. She had just finished making her point when she noticed that he was looking at her funny. The next thing she knew, he was kissing her. And Merlin, he was kissing her well! But then again, the only time she could possibly compare this to was the one in which Irvin Creevey stole a kiss underneath a mistletoe on her fourth year. But then to compare these two would be unfair as it's not even comparable she sighed.

"Ahem"

They both fell back and saw a tall blond man looking at them, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Oh hi, Score!" Rose jumped up, gathering her things. "Is it dinner time already? Sorry, I lost track of time." She blushed.

"Not yet, but they sent me to come looking for you since we know how hard it could be to find you so that we could have dinner as soon as possible." the blond smirked, "but I see you already went ahead and had dessert." Oh how Rose wished the earth would swallow her whole at the moment! That doesn't sound as painful as the embarrassment she's feeling now.

"Malfoy," She gritted her teeth. She then turned to her, what do you call him? Stranger? Friend? New friend? Kissing friend? "I have to go now, ummm… what's your name again?" Merlin! She just kissed a man whose name she didn't know! What's wrong with her?

The stranger's eyes widened for a bit, but turned to glare at the choking blond, holding his laughter.

"Andrei," the stranger said. "You can call me Andrei."

"Well, I'm Rose, but you knew that, but well…" She looked at him uncertainly. "Well, it's lovely meeting you, Andrei," she said ignoring Scorpius' "I'm sure" comment on the background. "I hope you'll stick around after the Cup. You are here for the World Cup, aren't you?"

At that the blond invader burst out laughing. Both Rose and Andrei shot him death glares.

"Please excuse my ex best friend. He's obviously quite barbaric." Rose seethed. Andrei looked at her strangely before answering her.

"Yes, I'm here for the Cup, but yes. Maybe I'll stick around afterwards."

"Oh lovely, I'm sure you'll like England. I mean, if this is your first time here," Rose gushed. "Um, anyway, I'll look into what you said about the probabilities though." She blushed further. "Well, I have to go now." She jetted off, dragging the laughing blond in tow. "Bye, Andrei!" She waved for the last time as she ran uphill towards the camp of spectators.

"Drei!" A voice called over the young man as Rose and her friend disappeared. "Where have you been? The coach said you were only going for a practice round with your snitch and you disappeared for almost two hours! Finals starts in less than three hours and Bulgaria can't exactly play World finals with their star seeker missing in action now, can they?"

Andrei Krum looked at his own watch. 'Ivan's right,' he thought. It had been merely been over an hour since he met Rose, the most intelligent and refreshing girl he ever got to know. His Red Rose, he smiled. He'll keep his eyes out for her tonight. Surely there can't be that many curly haired red headed witches in England watching the World Cup tonight, right?

Poor Andrei, was he oh so wrong!