"I still don't understand why this matters so damn much," Rose whined as she marched with Al across the snowy lawn of Hogwarts, down to the greenhouses. "It's not like it can't wait until it is above freezing-"
"You haven't seen my most recent Herbology grade, have you?" Al snapped, ending Rose's tirade. Rose knew Albus was a regular genius at Charms and had quite the talent for Potions, but working at the NEWT level in the other subjects, especially Herbology, was a constant battle for the seventh year Slytherin.
Rose's glasses fogged up as she walked into the balmy greenhouse, but she was grateful for the warmth. Rose and Al began stomping off the snow from their shoes and dusting it off their jackets, and Rose wiped off her glasses before looking around to appreciate the beauty of the plants inside. Of course, the majority of them were problematic at best (deadly at worst), but it was still nice to have some green in the dead of the December weather.
"Rose! Al! I was wondering if you had gotten lost on your way from the castle," Professor Longbottom said with a warm smile, pulling off the dragon hide gloves he had been wearing. "Your workstation is set up in the back, Al, and Scorpius should be able to catch you two up with everything-"
"Wait? Who?" Rose said with a start, blushing slightly when she realized that she had just interrupted her professor, family friend or not. "I mean, I didn't know anyone else was here, is all."
Al rolled his eyes. "Please, Rose, it's just Scorpius. I must have forgotten to tell you he was coming to help- he is my Herbology partner," Al said with a casual shrug.
Rose gave her cousin a death glare worthy of a Weasley woman, but didn't say anything. She was sure that Al would never 'forget' that his best friend (and someone who Rose found utterly rude and aloof) would be working with them, but she was willing to let the matter go until she could properly interrogate Al.
Neville gave a bemused glance at the two for a moment. "Well, I'll be in my office if you have any trouble!" he said, going back to the rear of the greenhouse.
Rose made every effort to ignore her cousin as they put on aprons and gloves to prepare for what was promising to be an interesting afternoon.
p-p-p
"So remind again what it is you have to do?" Rose said, eyeing the aquarium tank sitting on the table with some trepidation. The water inside resembled bog water, and seemed to be writhing unpleasantly.
"I managed to botch the lesson on gurdyroots-" said Al.
"-quite marvelously, actually," Scorpius added. "You managed to ruin an entire batch of harvested roots because you were too busy practicing for the Transfiguration practical test."
Rose winced- the gurdyroots had been a pain to harvest. The secretion from the root was highly toxic, incredibly odorous, and horribly painful to the touch. Strengthening Spells had to be cast on all the students' dragon hide gloves every thirty minutes or so in order to keep the Gurdyjuice from eating them away.
Ignoring Scorpius, Al continued, "- so my make-up assignment will be to harvest this ripe batch of gillyweed."
"And why are the two of us here?" Scorpius asked. Rose felt a little relieved that she was not alone in her confusion as to her purpose in the greenhouses that day.
"You're my Herbology partner," Al said with a too-innocent face. Scorpius was clearly peeved by this tenuous tie that bound him to a Friday afternoon of make-up assignments.
"And my dear Rose is not only blood, and therefore bound by in some manner to help me, but has a rather Ravenclawish knowledge for someone so profoundly Gryffindor," Al said, grinning at Rose. This did not put her at ease.
"You know very well I'm not doing this out of familial relations," she said sternly. "I'm doing this because I, for some reason I've yet to figure out, enjoy your company." Rose pulled her long curly hair back to begin work. "And I'm certainly not doing this because you can cast a corporeal Patronus while I just get mist and we're having a test on it next month."
Al rolled his eyes, and Scorpius smirked. Al opened a rather thick book on Herbology on the table. "At any rate, we should probably get started- 'gillyweed harvesting can be rather difficult due to the depth at which the roots grow, even in domestic crops...'"
p-p-p
Two hours later, all three were covered in mud up to their elbows, and the ripe gillyweed was resting in a mushy pile beside the tank. Exhausted from the effort of digging up the stubborn gillyweed, Rose was attempting to scrub the caked on layers of mud off of her body. The frizz around her hairline was sporting flecks of mud, never mind her muddiness of her arms, clothes, and face. Silently cursing her cousin's lack of Herbology prowess, she turned around to fetch her wand and almost ran right into Scorpius.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed, stepping back so not to muddy him any more. Except for he was already pristine- his blond hair looked freshly washed, his robes freshly pressed, and even his fingernails looked positively perfect.
"My apologies," Scorpius said, grinning slightly at the look of confusion on Rose's face. "Is there a problem?"
"How in the name of Merlin's toe socks are you so clean so fast?" Rose said fervently, torn between feeling impressed at his speedy change and anger that she had not managed the same.
"Are you a witch or not?" Scorpius said with a slight sneer. He waved his wand, and Rose was sparkling again; even the apron she had donned to keep the mud at bay was white again.
"Well, thank you, Scorpius," Rose said as cordially as she could muster. Her face flushed red with embarrassment as he walked away.
p-p-p
"Now, don't tell me you actually enjoyed getting, what was it, oh yes, 'tutoring a pathetic excuse for a NEWT Herbology student with a pompous ass Gryffindor cousin of yours,' Scorpius?" Al said, positively bouncing on his bed.
Scorpius glared at his too-energetic best friend. "I never said I actually enjoyed it, Albus, just that it was bearable."
Al let out a megawatt smile. "I knew it! You are growing soft, my friend!"
Scorpius snorted. "Please, Malfoys don't get soft. I never told you that the alternative to my Friday afternoon was saying yes to some sort of early Christmas gathering with the rest of my esteemed Divination class?"
Al's nose wrinkled. Scorpius's one easy NEWT was Divination; unfortunately, the class was filled with absolutely silly and often obnoxious girls who alternated between incessant giggling and awestruck reverence towards the subject. "I suppose that you might have had fun if we had gone on a date with the Giant Squid, but still, it wasn't all bad, was it?"
Scorpius just looked at Al before gathering his things for bed.