A/N: ok so hi! welcome to my first story. you can skip this if you want, but these are just a few things i think are worth saying before everything else. first of all, thanks for taking time to read this story, even if you only read a couple of words. second of all, the third person will follow scorpius in some chapters but it starts out as rose. i don't know if i am going to do an alternating pattern or if i am just gonna do whatever fits yet, but i will probably do the latter. we'll see. anyway, please enjoy and leave me some constructive criticism if you want because i'm trying to improve! i usually won't have notes this long for every chapter, so sorry about this lol.
Rose had always liked Scorpius.
She had liked him in their first year, back when hardly anyone turned their head when he entered the room, back when he wasn't popular, back when he wasn't "the hottest boy ever."
Rose had liked him when he was "just Scorpius" because she liked him for him.
But when he walked into Platform 9 ¾ to take the Hogwarts Express and start his 4th year, she knew everything would be different. His wavy, platinum blonde hair was a bit messy, but it was the kind of messy that looked good as if he had styled it to be messy on purpose. He had grown taller and more muscular, and his muscles were slightly defined through his t-shirt. The only things that were the same were his sharp, silver eyes and his cute smile that Rose treasured so much.
Her suspicion that everything was different was confirmed when he spotted her among the crowd. Instead of walking up to say hi, he just waved a little bit with a smile and went to talk to some pretty girls in their year.
Rose supposed they would catch up on the train, so she hugged both of her parents and said her goodbyes before bringing her stuff on the train to find a compartment.
Ten minutes passed, and there wasn't a sign of Albus, Scorpius, or Ross (Albus's boyfriend). The only person who joined Rose was Roni, her best friend.
The five of them always sat together when going anywhere on the Hogwarts Express.
She tried to pay attention as Roni told her stories from over the summer, but all she could think about was the fact that Scorpius hadn't even cared enough to say a word to her since they first saw each other. She had seen Albus all summer and she didn't expect Ross to say hi unless Albus did, but there was no reason for Scorpius to just not care enough to talk to her. She wondered if he would even talk to her once that week.
When they finally stepped off of the train a few hours, Rose saw the three boys and ran up to them, crossing her arms.
"Care to explain why you didn't sit with me and Roni?" she asked annoyedly, and Albus and Scorpius glanced nervously at each other before looking back at her.
"We sat with Lily," said Albus, flipping his raven-colored hair out of his eyes, and the tears started to glitter in Rose's eyes.
"Really? You're just going to lie to me? Only six people can fit in a compartment, and Lily would never sit without Maddie, Lorcan, and Lysander, plus you three always sit together, so somebody would have to be left out and I'm sure there is nobody that would just be willing to sit somewhere else," she argued with an irritated sigh.
"Okay, okay," Scorpius said before Albus could talk again. "Karlie and Rachel asked us to sit with them, so we did, and we're sorry." Rose couldn't believe her ears. Karlie and Rachel were the two prettiest, most popular girls in their year, and while Rose didn't hate them, she couldn't believe that her best friends chose them over her.
And besides, they probably only wanted Scorpius. Albus and Ross were both gay, so it's not like Karlie and Rachel would expect to win them over. In fact, Scorpius probably went out of his way to find them and ask to sit with them because Albus and Ross would never suggest leaving her and Roni hanging.
"Rosie? You okay? We're really sorry." Scorpius's expression was very guilty.
"Yeah, whatever. I don't care," she said, catching up to Roni without even waving to the boys.
"Hey, wait," a person called and ran up to her, pulling her to the side. It was Albus, not Scorpius. "It was really wrong of us not to sit with you two."
"And?" she asked impatiently, not stopping to talk to her cousin.
"How can I make it up to you?" he asked thoughtfully, and Rose sighed, supposing she can't be mad forever.
"It's okay, I forgive you. Just... next time you want to sit with girls more pretty and fun than us, you could at least let us know first," she said, and it was Albus's turn to sigh.
"They aren't prettier or more fun in my opinion. If it makes any difference, Karlie and Rachel are really boring, and I didn't really wanna sit there. Neither did Ross. It was kind of Scorp's idea to stay," said Albus, brushing his fluffy black hair out of his face making it easier to see his bright green eyes.
"Of course. He probably flirted with them the whole time, and he'll probably be dating one of them by next week," she said annoyedly.
"What? Are you jealous?" he asked, and Rose's head snapped towards him.
"No! Gosh no, Al. I just think Scorpius deserves better than them, that's all," she said quickly. Wow, real smooth, Rosie.
"He didn't flirt with them, anyway. He doesn't really like either of them," said Albus, and Rose felt somewhat relieved.
"Then why did you sit with them?" She asked as they approached one of the flying carriages. The others had gone ahead of them, so they stepped into a carriage with two other random students in their year.
"He had to get to know them before he formed his final opinion of them."
"I could have told you guys how boring they are and you could have saved yourselves from a lot of wasted time."
"You know how determined he is once he makes a decision, though. It's a Slytherin thing."
"I'm glad to hear that he's so determined to not sit with me," Rose said annoyedly.
"Hey, don't be mad at me! I just thought you deserved to hear the truth. Be mad at Scorp all you want," he said defensively as they stepped off of the flying carriage.
"Sorry, Al. I'm just mad that everyone likes Scorpius all of a sudden because of his looks," she said, noticing Scorpius stepping off a carriage with some pretty Ravenclaw girls. "We're his real friends."
"He knows. He is just having some fun. He will still hang out with us," Albus said, patting Rose on the back.
They both walked towards the castle quietly, and Rose was watching Scorpius and the pretty girls out of the corner of her eye.
"So you are jealous." Albus was looking at her with a small smirk on his face.
"I am not jealous."
"How long have you liked him for?"
"I don't like him."
"Rosie. How long have you liked him?"
"...three years and one day. I have always liked him, Al," Rose said, giving up. Her cousin had an impeccable skill of always being right about relationship-related drama.
"You should tell him," he said, and Rose thought he was joking, but he was using his serious tone of voice.
"And ruin our friendship? No thanks," she replied. "I would honestly prefer if we just stop talking about him." She watched as Scorpius and the girls he was talking to all laughed, and he was smiling at all of them. Her stomach dropped and burned with jealousy at the same time, and her heart was breaking. They walked into the Great Hall. "See you." Rose waved and sat at the Gryffindor table next to Roni as Albus went to sit with the Slytherins.
Roni was talking about something but Rose wasn't listening. Her brain was thinking at a pace of a mile a minute but she was trying to block out each and every thought she had.
"Rosie? Is everything good?" Roni asked, which finally captured Rose's attention. She nodded.
"I am fine. I am just very, very tired. I'm sorry," she responded.
"No, I understand, I am pretty tired too," Roni said reassuringly with a smile.
After the feast, which seemed to take forever to Rose, she started to head for her common room until a hand grabbed her arm.
"Rosie! We haven't talked at all yet for the most part. You're... not still mad, are you?" Scorpius ran his hand through his platinum blonde hair and smiled sheepishly at Rose. "Because I really am super sorry. I shouldn't have sat with other people without telling you and Roni, and I realized that once it was already too late."
"It's fine, I don't even care. I'm just tired," said Rose with a sigh, lying through her teeth. She cared a lot, of course, but he would just think she was weird. he probably already did. She was making a big deal out of nothing anyway.
"Come on, you expect me to believe that? You never were good at lying, you know. I screwed up but you know I could never replace what we have and you'll always be special to me," he said. Rose's heart beat a little faster at this statement, but she knew he was just talking about their friendship. Of course they'd always be friends. Hearing Scorpius say so would have been reassuring if being friends was what Rose wanted, but here she was, having a crush on someone who would always just be her friend.
"I said it's fine. Look, let's talk later," she said, and she just turned and walked away before he could say another word.
When she arrived at her dorm, Rose immediately undressed and prepared herself for bed. She curled up under her covers and sat there awake for a while, thinking about random things. She thought about how awful it really was to be one in a million. Because when you compared someone like her to 999,999 other girls, she was just another girl that Scorpius would never like back as more than a friend.