Scorpius felt his throat dry up as he knelt down. He didn't think he had ever felt more nervous in his life.
"Rose," he said, attempting to show her exactly how much he loved her just through the way he said her name. "Will you marry me?"
Rose smiled and Scorpius nearly sighed with relief. It was going to be all right.
"Wake up Scorpius," she said with a smile.
"What?" he asked, thoroughly confused.
"Wake up," she said again and he stared at her. This was not how it was supposed to go.
"Scorpius Malfoy will you get your lazy arse out of bed? Aguamenti." he heard someone yell and suddenly he was in his bed, very awake and very wet.
"Wha-" he mumbled as he blinked groggily.
"You're late," his girlfriend said tartly. "And you absolutely cannot be late today."
He groaned. "Did you have to be quite so violent in your waking-up methods," he asked.
"You're late," she said firmly, but the sides of her mouth quirked up at the sight of her sodden boyfriend.
"You know I can think of about a thousand better ways to wake someone up," he said.
"Better maybe," she conceded. "More efficient? Unlikely. Now get in the shower. It's not everyday you get an award from the Minister of Magic."
"Are you all set?" Lily asked anxiously. She had come over approximately three hours ago and was driving Scorpius up the wall.
"Yes Lily," he said. "I am more than all set. We've been over this a hundred times. Rose comes home, I give her the dinner that I cooked, then I get down on one knee and ask her if she wants to spend the rest of her life with me."
"Are you sure you don't want the flowers?" Lily asked. "When David proposed there were flower petals everywhere."
"Well I'm not David am I? No flower petals," Scorpius said. "I'll be fine. Look at me. Not nervous at all."
"You're lying," Lily said, calling him out on his bullshit immediately.
"What are you a Legilimens now?" he asked defensively.
"No I can see the sweat stains under your armpits from a mile away," she said bluntly. "Change your shirt."
"Oh right," he mumbled.
"Okay I'm not going to freak you out anymore," she said, holding her hands up. "You'll be fine. You love each other and she'll say yes. And you're going to be fine. It'll be fine."
"You've used the word fine about thirty times in the last sentence," he said, feeling distinctly out of his depth. Need someone to save a room full of Muggles from a potentially fatal curse? He's your man. Take out a Manticore and rescue a group of teenagers? Look no further Scorpius is here. But even the thought of proposing to his girlfriend had him practically shaking at the knees.
"That's because I know you'll be fine," she said firmly.
"'Fine' doesn't even sound like an actual word anymore," he groaned. "She's going to turn me down, break up with me and go marry Scamander instead isn't she? And I'll be alone. I'll probably have to get Kneazle for company."
"Stop being such a big baby," Lily said, resisting the urge to smack her almost brother-in-law around the head. "Just ask her. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Have you not been listening to me for the last hour?" Scorpius asked in disbelief. "Sad, alone and pathetic. That's the worst that can happen."
"Well you'll always have David and me," Lily said, laughing at his rather forlorn expression.
"That's a relief," Scorpius grumbled.
"Why don't you go shower and I'll clean up the mess you made trying to cook," Lily said, soothingly. "Just order in from the Leaky Cauldron. She likes their Shepherd's Pie."
"Yeah I should shower," Scorpius said, entirely aware that his current sweatiness made him rather unappealing.
"Good luck," Lily called as he left the room. "You'll do great."
When Scorpius got out he had to admit that Lily had done a rather nice job with their living room. There were candles all over the place for appropriate mood lighting and apparently not trusting him to order in, she had already gotten a massive Shepherd's Pie and some extremely exciting looking chocolate cake for dessert.
Unfortunately Rose had had a rather tough day. After watching her boyfriend get the Order of Merlin First Class she had gone on to have an extremely exhausting shift at St. Mungo's. She privately swore to shove a firecracker up her cousin Fred's arse because at least ten percent of the injuries she had had to deal with were because of improper use of Weasley products. Though really, when did people get so stupid? I mean after the first four times you would think Poderic Thurst knew better than to use more than one Daydream charm at a time.
So all she really wanted to do when she got home was curl up in bed and sleep till her next shift, which was at one p.m. the next day.
And then she walked in to a rather different looking apartment.
"What's…" she started rather overawed by the candles.
"I thought we were going to celebrate tonight," Scorpius said, with a smile.
"Oh of course," she said, remembering the rather prestigious honour he had just received. "Didn't think you were a candle man."
"I thought it would be nice to go all out tonight," he said, pulling out a chair for her. "Make a memory y'know."
"It's very nice," she said. "But shouldn't I be doing all this stuff for you?"
"Please," he snorted. "You work harder than I ever have. If anything I should do this more often."
"And Shepherd's Pie," she said excitedly. "Ooh that looks rather good."
"Mead?" he asked, holding up the bottle.
"I wouldn't mind that," she said, with a grin. "Might put me straight to sleep though. I feel like my eyeballs are going to fall off."
"Maybe we'll skip the mead then," he said hastily.
"No no," she said. "Bring it on."
He poured a glass for her rather unwillingly. None of his plans included his prospective fiancée collapsing into her pie. He topped his own glass up and took a sip to calm his nerves. He had better do this quickly.
Just do it, he told himself firmly. Don't think of the Kneazle you'll have to get if she turns you down. Just think of a lifetime of happiness. That's worth a possible Kneazle isn't it?
"Rose," he said.
"Oh this is delicious," she said, tucking into her Shepherd's Pie. "I could live on this forever."
"Rose," he said louder.
"What?" she asked, looking slightly put out, by his interruption of her enjoyment of the pie.
"Nothing," he said, for some reason unable to get up the nerve.
He took another sip of the mead and started eating his own portion of the pie.
Almost a whole bottle later Scorpius finally got up the nerve to take the plunge.
"Rose," he said, getting up and walking to her side of the table.
"Are you alright?" she asked, a little worried. "You've gotten kinda sweaty.
"I'm fine," he said and rather unsteadily dropped down on one knee, pulling out a box with a ring in it.
All of a sudden thousands of flower petals cascaded down from the ceiling.
"Fuck," he swore, feeling distinctly disoriented. He sneezed. There was a reason he had said no flowers.
"Scorpius?" Rose asked, her voice oddly unsteady for some reason. It took a minute for him to realise it was because she was holding back laughter.
"Wait a second," he said, and then he sneezed again.
"While I appreciate the gesture," she said. "Especially the rose petals. Y'know. For obvious reasons. You really didn't have to set off your allergies to propose."
He sneezed again and Rose just couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing and dropped down onto her knees too.
"Rose Weasley," he said, his nose sounding quite blocked. "Will you marry me?"
"After you've possibly put your life in danger to propose I suppose I had better say yes," she said, continuing to giggle.
"Not my idea," he said, sneezing again.
"Yeah, this isn't really your style," she said, as he put the ring on her finger. "I sense the work of my favourite cousin."
"Can you unblock my nose please?" he asked. Both of them were still on the floor. "I'd do it myself but I think I've had too much mead. I'd rather not blast my nose off."
"You're an idiot," she said, a broad smile on her face as she waved her wand twice, once to get rid of the rose petals and once to unblock her fiancé's nasal passageways.
"But you love me anyway," he said and then pulled her towards him for a kiss.
a/n: So I did this oneshot for the Ollivander's Challenge. Didn't actually win but I figured I'd put it up here anyway. I hope you like it :)