It was a lovely summer afternoon, the warm sunshine inviting all the students of the castle to come outside and enjoy this rare occasion in Scotland. One of the students was Rose Weasley, she was sitting next to the lake, the cool breeze coming from the water playing with her red hair and bringing a sense of calm to the young girl. She was still in her school uniform, with some books and parchment sprawled around her, obviously a failed study session, however unlike everyone else in the grounds she wasn't in the mood for playing around with her friends. No, Rose had come outside for an entire different reason, and that was, to be on her phone.
Since the Second Wizarding War, the ministry of magic has been promoting good relationships between all kinds of species. This meant more importance to the Muggle Studies lessons and more acknowledgement about all the different cultures and species, magical or non-magical. Therefore wizards and witches alike, especially the youngest generation, started to use muggle technology: computers, phones, ipods, etc. Hence new charms and spells were created to enable muggle technological artefacts to be used in areas where magic could cause problems to them, a.k.a. Hogwarts.
This has enabled multiple students to stay in contact with their friends and family from their muggle world whilst they are attending school, and although blood status doesn't matter anymore, most students that come from pure-blood families haven't yet become fully comfortable with this new range of accessories. This is the reason why, Rose thinks, her best-friend Scorpius sat down next to her and looked at her phone strangely. Although it might also be the fact that the photograph of Rose's face has some features that you would normally find in a dog, a cute dog mind you, but still a dog.
"Hey!" says Rose cheerily, finding the confused expression in Scorpius' face cute and amusing at the same time, "you alright there?"
"Yeah, erm alright!, What is that? And why are you a dog?" says Scorpius, pointing towards her phone and gaining the attention of a few people passing by, "Did someone hex you or something? wh-" Scorpius stops talking when he realises that she's laughing at him.
"It's a filter! You idiot." she finally says once she's calmed down a bit, "I was talking to my muggle best friend, when you interrupted."
"Wait! I'm your best friend" says he, more distraught about the fact that she has another best friend than the fact that she had insulted him, "I mean...me and Albus are your best friends and, you go around replacing us?" he whined, "Who is he? I bet he's not as awesome as me or Albus, I mean obviously who could be, right?"
"For your information, my best friend is actually a girl. Remember Riley?" said Rose stifling her laugh, " But that's beside the point. What's wrong, Scor? Can I not have any more male friends than you and Albus, or what?" she asked feigning annoyance.
"Of course you can! I was just asking, you know, to see if I could be friends with hi- her as well. You know, your muggle best friend." explained Scorpius with a grin in his face.
"Right." she said, returning her attention towards her phone, "Oh no, I forgot what she asked me! See why it's wrong to go around interrupting people when they're on their phones!"
"Sorry, I didn't know it was that important" he apologised.
"It's fine, don't worry, I'll ask her again" she said, "Anyway, what did you come here for? Not that I don't like your company but-" she asked whilst typing on the screen.
"Well I came here to see what you were up to, I mean you were looking very intently at the "little screen" and sometimes you would pull stupid faces whilst holding it up. I just came to check that you still know that it's not a baby, just one of those small "fellytones" " he said looking at her worryingly, especially when she started laughing like a mad women.
After waiting for 5 minutes for Rose to calm down, she finally explained to him how the app worked, from the new filters to the emojis next to the different names. He seemed particularly curious about the fact that the messages couldn't last long, and that unless you saved a text or replayed a photo or video, they would disappear forever. He was so awed about the whole app that he wrote to his parents to ask for one of those "little screens", as he called them. After a lot of persuasion and some confusion about which one to buy, Scorpius finally got one of those phones, and started downloading all the apps that Rose told him to. This lead to lots of questions from Scorpius to his two best friends, Rose and Albus:
"Why is there a fire next to your name Rose?"
"Ew, Albus we have a heart? I mean, I love you mate but only like a brother you know that right?"
"What is a notification?"
And with each one of those questions Rose couldn't help but feel how she fell in love with him more and more each day, although she tried to deny it. However Albus noticed and he couldn't stop teasing her about it.
She tried to get over her feeling during the Christmas holidays, because her and Scorpius were only friends and that's it. She couldn't go around ruining friendships because of some feelings, right? However the fact that her and Scorpius had a streak to maintain didn't help her, or the fact that he always look so hot in his pictures. But what absolutely made it impossible for her to get over her feelings was the fact that according to Albus, Scorpius hardly ever used the app to communicate to anyone else apart from her.
"You know what this means right?" Albus asked her one night, when they were sat on a bench in their grandparent's garden.
"What?" she asked back, "And if you say one more time that he likes me I swear to Merlin, I'll kill you!"
"Okay. Then I won't say anything" he said, and quickly went back inside to avoid being murdered by her cousin.
"Ugh, guys" she said exasperatedly, with an annoyed expression in her face.
That expression was quickly changed by her phone screen. It showed a notification from Scorpius. She quickly opened it (although not too quickly, no need to look desperate) and smiled. It was a picture of him in bed using the filter of the dog, the caption said "Off to bed, can't wait to see you tomorrow. Good night, baby girl".
"ALBUS!" she screamed.
"If you're going to kill me remember, I didn't say anything!" he said coming to where she was sat.
"Would you call someone baby girl?" she asked dismissing his previous comment.
"Depends." he said, baffled by her change of topic, "If I was going out with them, or if it was the girl I like probably, yeah. Why?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it" she said smiling to herself. 'After trying to forget during the whole of the holidays, and at the end Albus might be right. I have to have a serious conversation with Scor tomorrow.'