Scorpius Malfoy always listened to Rose Weasley drumming. It didn't matter what time, which classroom or how long for. He was always there. He couldn't help himself. He always listened to Rose Weasley drum.
Scorpius always listened to her drumming. He didn't even know how it started; first year he supposed. It didn't really matter anyway, it wasn't like anyone was going to ask him. He didn't remember the first time anymore, why should he after all?
It took time before he worked out who was drumming. It wasn't until second year. Scorpius stopped listening for a while; it was, after all, his father's enemy's daughter. It didn't matter though, he came to realise. It didn't matter at all. She would drum and he would listen - that's just the way it was. Neither she nor anyone else had to know.
Scorpius Malfoy always listened to Rose Weasley drumming. But he never used to watch. He didn't have an invisibility cloak after all, and disillusionment charms were far too advanced. Like his father, he wasn't the brightest wizard in the year. He would often jam himself into a broom cupboard near by and listen. But not always. Rose had a tendency to change classrooms regularly and not all of them had a broom cupboard.
He always listened to her drum. He listened to her craft beats, grooves, fills and pieces. It was an escape for him. No one knew he was there, and to be honest he didn't care, he just liked the escape. There was no grandfather talking of disappointment, no mother scared of his shadow, no father stuck in his office with no time for his only son. And there were - perhaps most importantly - no stares.
The staring always riled Scorpius. He wasn't a death eater, merlin, the whole school new that. But it was something to cast upon him, someone to blame for the loss of uncles they never knew or grandmas they never met. Listening was a way to escape.
Of course there were a few stares, this was - after all - Hogwarts and no corners of the castle were that secret. But Scorpius either didn't mind or didn't notice. Probably the latter; he was so wrapped up in the thumping that he forgot the rest of the world existed. But there weren't that many really, Rose always had a way of picking secluded rooms.
Scorpius Malfoy always listened to Rose Weasley drum. He could finally get lost. He didn't notice anything or anyone and that was the way he liked it. He didn't even notice Professor Longbottom - Neville - cross the corridor and give him a knowing smile.
Scorpius Malfoy always listened to Rose Weasley drum. It was just, he supposed, what he did.
Rose Weasley knew Scorpius Malfoy listened to her drumming. Of course she did; she was the brightest witch in her year, just like her mother was. She didn't tell anyone, afraid that he would be embarrassed and leave and not come back. She didn't want that. Scorpius was, after all, the first person that didn't like her talents - or pretend to anyway - because of who her parents were. He listened because he wanted to, not because he wanted fame. He was the first person to give her hope.
It wasn't by chance the rooms were secluded. But Rose made sure Scorpius never knew. It was the time she tiptoed out of the classroom to find Scorpius curled up in a ball, tucked against the wall, asleep (although she never could work out how someone could sleep with all of that crashing), that she decided. Scorpius should never be somewhere that he couldn't sleep. Sleep changed him; he was no longer frowning, or trying to make himself invisible. He was just Scorpius, a normal teenage wizard. Rose liked that Scorpius.
Rose Weasley had been able to cast silencing charms from the Christmas of first year. James taught her (although how he learnt it she never knew, as silencing charms were only taught in fifth year), he said she'd need the practice in order to become a prankster (apparently some of his victims liked to scream and professors would come running).
But Rose never cast them when she was drumming; then there would be no Scorpius and for Rose that wasn't right.
It wasn't chance that he always found her when she drummed. The cleverest witch in her year obviously was not going to rely on pure chance. Because that wasn't what Rose Weasley did. No, Rose Weasley calculated and so (with a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs) she always walked past him with a pair of drumsticks in her hand.
Neville knew. Rose Weasley was aware of that much. He'd always give her this knowing smile as she glanced across to the blonde-haired Slytherin during Herbology. She didn't mind though; of all the people in her meddlesome family (blood related or not), Professor Longbottom was far more likely to keep his mouth shut than one of her idiot cousins.
Of course, Albus knew too. They had been practically joined at the hip since birth and getting hold of the map without him would have been an impossible job. But they were the only two people Rose trusted with her secret about drumming, not to mention the listener.
Rose found it strange at first. Her dad's enemy's son listening to her drum was not quite what she had expected at Hogwarts but soon she didn't mind. It was nice, she supposed, to have someone there for her.