Hey, another Harry Potter Next Generation one shot. This time it's RosexScorpius.
I liked writing this. I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER. THESE ARE ALL CHARACTERS OF J.K ROWLING.
except for my two OC's, Annie and Lionel.
Enjoy
Rose Weasley is not a coward. So much so, that she is barely afraid of anything. She is not afraid of heights, as she rides a broom for the Gryffindor Quidditch team as their Keeper. She is not afraid of the dark, as she learned from her mother's stories that that monsters did not always exist in darkness, but rather in people themselves.
One thing, however, that Rose Weasley fears, is spiders.
It was no different whatsoever on an afternoon when she saw a spider sitting carefully on a library shelf. The book she was retrieving was clutched close to her chest, and her knuckles were turning white against the blue cover as she screamed. The scream echoed throughout the entire library, and it was surely heard by everyone.
Particularly, the blonde haired boy in the aisle next to her, who immediately jumped up at the sound and found a frightened red haired girl pressed flat against the shelves, her eyes bright and blue underneath her fluffy hair and her many freckles apparent on her pale skin. She was tall, and her limbs were awkwardly splayed out as she attempted to get as far away as possible.
Scorpius Malfoy smirked as he looked at the reason for her fear.
The little spider seemed to be equally frightened, as it stood for a long moment before scuttling between two books and disappearing. Rose relaxed for a moment, but the book stayed firm against her and her knuckles remained a bright shade of white.
"So, Weasley is afraid of spiders." Scorpius smirked, turning to the girl. She looked over at him, as though just realizing he was there.
"What an excellent reaction from a Gryffindor." He said.
Rose huffed out a held in breath, and it blew parts of her hair up into the air and down again. It caught his eye, and he could not look away when she tucked a few stray pieces behind her ear. Her cheeks turned a deep red as she glared at him. He raised an eyebrow, a smirk forming on his face.
"My dad has a thing about spiders, is all." Rose said. "It's just…a typical reaction, I suppose." She nervously pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and bit her lip, her eyes straying to the place where the spider had been.
Scorpius stared at her then, really taking her in. Sure, he knew her, and her cousin was one of his best friends, but this was something that made his heart beat frantically against his chest. It was new, and he felt a nervous shudder run through his body.
"What do you care?" Rose asked, turning to look at him. Her eyes were lit up with something like annoyance…and embarrassment.
He looked her in the eyes. They were blue, just like his, but warmer somehow and they were gleaming with something more like knowledge and maturity. He noticed the freckles splayed across her cheeks and the way her lip curled under her teeth and made a dimple visible in her chin.
"I heard a damsel in distress, Weasley." He said, the smirk returning to his face.
Rose narrowed her brow further. "You wouldn't even know what to do with a damsel in distress if you got one." She said.
Scorpius stepped closer to her; he felt the need to be nearer, and wanted suddenly to touch her but he gripped his hands in fists to resist the urge. She raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her through hooded eyelids. He was closer to her than he had ever been.
Rose felt a small flutter of something in her stomach the moment he stepped close. He was all blonde hair and smirks. She stared into his eyes, and they made her wonder how they got to be such an icy blue. And she felt this warm feeling as though someone had poured a bucket of hot water over head and it trickled all the way down to her toes as he stared back.
"I'm here, aren't I?" he stated, his hand reaching up and lightly gracing her arm.
Rose turned a deep shade of red, and the book fell out of her hands. She cursed as Scorpius stepped back and reached down to get the book for her. As soon as the moment began, it was over and they were left with an awkward silence and a slightly abused Astronomy book.
"Don't play games with me Malfoy, I'm not one of your little fan club whores." She said, and glanced up at him with a light like fire in her eyes.
Malfoy smirked.
"What in the Devil is going on over here?" the librarian emerged, books ever present around her, floating as though by some invisible string. They seemed to gravitate around her, like they were planets and she was a star.
"It's nothing. Sorry, I saw…a spider." Rose said, turning to the woman.
The woman stared incredulously at them, her hair coming out at certain ends of her bun and her robes in disarray from the run over to the shelves. The Hogwarts Library was a big place, Rose figured.
"Get out. Go somewhere else to be loud and obnoxious, will you?" she hissed.
Rose placed the book in Scorpius' hands and walked away, her head spinning and mind racing from his nearness. It seemed to be that he was still in front of her, and she could feel the heat that radiated off him. She traced a finger across the part of her arm where he touched, but it did not feel the same. She remembered the shiver that ran through her and the cold caress of his finger seemed to be etched into her skin.
And for the next couple of days, she could not stop thinking about Scorpius Malfoy. The way he would run a hand through his hair during potions, and how he would shield his eyes with his hand when he wrote notes in the great hall just made her think why she never noticed it before.
"He's beautiful." She whispered a few days later, sitting in the common room. Her long lanky legs were splayed on the armrest of the couch and her wand was tucked behind her ear amidst the frizz of red hair she had pinned back with a quill.
Annie, her best friend and fellow Gryffindor, lifted her head from the book she was reading and gave her a look of confusion.
"Who?" she asked.
Rose realized she said it out loud and quickly returned to writing her notes for Care of Magical Creatures, brushing Annie off with a loud sigh and, "Nothing.", which was muttered with frustration and a hint of longing.
Surely she couldn't let anyone know that Scorpius Malfoy was the object of her fancy. He was already half the school's obsession, that being most of the Slytherin house girls and the Ravenclaws simply swooned over him.
Rose wouldn't let the boy get to her. But Annie wouldn't let it slide.
"Who's beautiful, Rose?" Annie asked, placing her book on the coffee table in front of her. It was then that Albus walked in through the portrait door with Lionel.
The two heard Annie and proceeded to skip over with questions.
"Hey, Rose, what's going on? Someone's beautiful?" Albus asked as a grin spread across his face. He looked just like Uncle Harry in the moment that she had to double take before she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.
"Shut up, Albus." She said.
"I'll tell you, that Lexi Johnson is certainly getting better day by day." Lionel said, looking over at Albus and then glancing slightly at Annie.
Annie shushed him and turned to Rose. "C'mon, Rose. We're you're best friends." She said.
Rose grew frustrated at the guilt trip and threw her book down onto the couch as she stood up with rigid limbs and a great red shade appearing across her cheeks. The boys knew what that meant and backed up, shrinking into the couch. Annie simply stood up and calmly took her arm.
"Let's go up to the dorm, Rose." She said. It was quiet as she rushed past the groups of students lounging around the room, clearly hearing the conversation going on and equally interested.
"Annie, it's not really a big deal." Rose said once they entered the room.
But her friend knew her too well and simply looked at her and stated, "Its Scorpius isn't it?"
Rose blinked.
"I've seen you watching him for the past couple of weeks." Annie brushed a hand through her dark hair. "He's been looking at you, too."
Rose swallowed, the dry of her throat calming slightly. She looked down and at her red shoes that stood out like a sun against the dark threads of carpet. She shook her head, giving up.
"Yeah." She said.
It was a moment of silence where Annie was waiting for her to say more. Like maybe an explanation as to why a Weasley would like a Malfoy?
Were there any reasons at all?
"I don't know." Rose said. "We were in the library the other day, and there was a spider. You know how I'm deathly afraid of spiders. He came over and the spider went away. He looked at me strangely and I looked at him and he was…," she struggled for a word. "Well, he was different and I know that sounds strange, but you have to understand."
Annie raised an eyebrow. And then laughed.
Loudly.
So loudly, that the students in the common room could hear it. And Rose angrily clenched her fists.
"It's not funny, this is serious." She said.
"Rose." Annie said as her laughs died down to a small gasp of breath. "You like Malfoy now because he saved you from a spider?"
She realized then that it couldn't have been something as simple as that. Throughout their many years at Hogwarts, Scorpius and Rose had not been on completely agreeable terms. Their constant fighting seemed to unnerve Albus in fourth year, so he simply stopped speaking to the both of them until they stopped.
It was effective and they simply got along to please Albus.
She still hated how he thought he was better than everyone else. And she hated how he called her 'Weasley' and never by her actual name. She suddenly hated how she hated all these things about him when he had so many characteristics she found fascinating.
"Well, he didn't exactly save me." She murmured. "But he was there."
"Oh, shit." Annie said her tone turning serious. "You really like him, Rosie?"
Rose shook her head. She didn't know. How could she know that?
"I don't know!" she shouted, frustration leaking through her voice and resonating through the dormitory. Annie waited a moment before speaking.
"Well, then, whats got you in such a twitch?" Annie asked.
She smiled at her friend, watching as she gazed helplessly back at her. The confusion was written all over her face and it was a strange thing to see on Rose Weasley. She was strong and assertive, and this was something new.
Something terrifying for her, I'll bet, Annie thought.
Rose turned away from the humored expression of her best friend and recalled the feeling of looking into his eyes, and that feeling made her heart pound. It was strange. She began to laugh.
Annie followed. "Really, Rose? A spider?" she asked, and Rose hit her shoulder. "Ow! Damn it, Rose."
"Stop laughing." She said.
"I'll laugh if I damn well want to." Annie said, shoving Rose out of the rooms and back down the stairs.
They exchanged looks with the boys when they sat back down. Albus clasped his hands together and leaned towards the two of them, his smile bright and filled with mischief.
"So, who's beautiful now?" he asked.
"We were talking while you were gone, and concluded it was probably me." Lionel smirked, his joke obvious as well as his arrogance.
"Shut up, Leo." Annie said. "You're not all that, and besides, it doesn't concern you or anyone else you know, so shove it."
Lionel feigned hurt and moved over to her side of the couch. "But, Annie, love, you must find me the slightest bit handsome. I mean, we are getting married once you admit your feelings for me." He drew closer, and Annie hit his side with her heavy book she was reading earlier.
Albus and Rose shared a laugh. Rose looked over at her cousin and gave him a look that meant, 'everything's-okay-don't-worry.'
And he nodded.
Rose Weasley is not afraid of heights, and she is not afraid of the dark. But for some reason, spiders, and Scorpius Malfoy are among the things she fears the most. However, Scorpius Malfoy is not something, she thought, that she could entirely stay away from.
Thanks for reading!