AN: This is sort of a prequel to my very long one-shot "The Cycle" that focuses on how Rose and Scorpius become friends. It was mentioned that Rose got detention every month for hexing Alexa Zabini, and this piece focuses on the very first time this happens. It was also mentioned that Rose set aside her distaste of Scorpius for Albus so this is how her standing develops. Enjoy!

Rose Granger-Weasley sighed. Of course they would punish her with non-magical cleaning. She hexed that awful girl, didn't she? At least her mother gave her plenty of practice at home, much to her father's dismay.

She dunked the rag into the soapy water and headed over to one of the cauldrons. Peeking inside, she gagged. "Ugh. What was in this cauldron? It reeks like my dad's and Hugo's dirty socks combined!"

Never mind the colour! It looked like someone puked in it. Maybe someone did. Whoever did was so lucky to not clean up after themselves! Not that she could say the same thing, of course, when she was cleaning up after someone else. Wrinkling her nose she slowly lowered her hand with the wet rag into the cauldron and began wiping it, cringing at the squeaky sound the rag was making. She honestly couldn't wait for this detention to be over. "Next time, I'd better be hexing Zabini without getting caught."

The thought of that awful girl was enough to make her scream. How dare she do that to Albus! At this point, she seemed even worse than Malfoy was and that was saying something. The Slytherin girl deserved that hexing Rose gave her. No one messed with her cousin without getting in trouble.

The door behind her made a rumbling sound as it opened. She stopped as she heard Professor Longbottom's voice saying to someone "…and, of course, there will be no magic used so you'll have to give me your wand for the next hour. Understand, Mr Malfoy?"

Malfoy! Of course he had detention. No surprise there. Wait, detention with him for the next hour?! No way. Well, she would just have to ignore him then. Her mother taught her that it was useless to start fights with people who were to be distrusted, even Malfoys. Her father would've loved a good hexing, but she already had detention so it was pointless to do so.

"Yes sir," said Malfoy.

"Good. I see Miss Granger-Weasley has already started so you can pick up from the other end. I will be back in one hour."

"Y-yes, sir," Malfoy's voice, though he tried to hide it, held a tone of surprise. Rose snorted. He would never expect her to land in detention, of course. Well, if he tried to make fun of her then that would just prove that he was a bad friend for Albus. Poor Albus, all alone in Slytherin. It wasn't fair to her cousin or her.

"What the heck are you doing here, Weasley?" Malfoy asked as he grabbed a rag and soaked it in the bucket. Rose groaned at the partial use of her surname. Didn't he understand that it was Granger-Weasley, not Weasley? "I thought you'd have your face buried in a book in the library as usual."

"Oh, you know, I decided to have a change of plans and do my second favourite thing in the world," Rose sneered, her voice soaked with sarcasm. "What do you think, Malfoy? I'm in detention, just like you."

Malfoy looked at her in disbelief as he passed her from behind. To her annoyance, his sopping rag dripped water onto her robes. "Oy, watch it! Are you trying to make me catch a cold?!"

He sighed annoyedly. "Sorry, Weasley. I guess I should get you hot soup and a towel as well as Pepper-Up Potion to make up for it?"

She opened her mouth to object to his offensive sarcasm when he cut her off. "Back to my question. You in detention? What did you do, arrive late to class because you were too busy studying for some quiz that you predicted was coming?"

Of all nerve! "No! For your information, not that you deserve it, I hexed someone in the corridors today. Something I'm sure you're very familiar with, of course."

She looked up just to see Malfoy's face darken with bitterness. "Oh it's something I'm familiar with, all right. You think I've been hexing people left and right?"

"Well, obviously. It's not like people are hexing you."

"Weasley, sometimes I think you are the dumbest person in the entire world. I must be evil because my father was a Death Eater and hated your parents so people are too afraid to 'stand up' to me. Well, you're wrong! DEAD. WRONG."

Rose was taken aback by his anger. She was even more shocked when he stepped away from his cauldron and marched up to her. He yanked back his left sleeve and shoved his arm right in her face. She stared speechlessly at the angry red mark on his forearm. "See that! That's what a seventh year Ravenclaw did to me last week! He cursed me with some spell and I had to go to the Hospital Wing in the middle of day, which was when you accused me of skipping class! And see my eye? LOOK AT MY EYE!"

It was the black eye she had been seeing for the past three days. She had assumed he started a fight with someone at the time. What was he going to say now? "You thought I started a fight? There was no fight! A fourth-year Gryffindor and his friends ambushed me and beat me like I was trash! I had to the Hospital Wing then too and this is the only thing I have left from it! I told Madam Pomfrey to keep it there just so everyone could see what they're doing to me! And it's working! Except for a lot of ignorant people like YOU!"

Rose backed away from him, slightly terrified. Malfoy was still panting with anger. What he said next, though, was so eerily calm and so eerily…accurate. "Do you know how many times I have attacked people unprovoked? Zero. Zero times. I've been trying to clean up the family name ever since I stepped foot into this school, and it's November. I've been doing well in class, and I've been making friends. Fat load of help it's been doing me. There's too many bigoted people who are too narrow-minded to see that people aren't like their parents. What about you, Weasley? Are they expecting you to be top of the class and to save the world? Do they gawk at your stupid red hair and stupid freckles and your stupid surname? Look at me in the eye and tell me they don't."

She couldn't. It was all true. She made friends, yes, but how many of them were actually interested in her as a person and not her as Weasley? And the staring! It was very unnerving. She especially didn't like how some of the older male students were looking at her. Not at all.

Malfoy still looked angry, but she saw the triumph in his eyes. "See, Weasley? You're no better than they are. You look at my surname and judge. And you think you're Miss Goody Two-Shoes? You're so wrong. You abandoned your own cousin. You sneer at me for no good reason. You strut around the halls with your popular friends and your good grades and your perfect everything. How are you better than I am?"

She wanted to say "my father's not a Death Eater" but knew that it was the wrong answer. Was he right? Was she really no better than everyone else? Was she even better than Malfoy? In the end her weak argument came out as "I don't strut."

He laughed bitterly. "I was lying about the strutting part but not everything else."

"I didn't abandon Al."

"Right, because you still think that he abandoned you. Face the facts, Weasley. You left him because he became my friend. And because he's in Slytherin like me. If you didn't abandon him, where have you been for the past two months? Do you know what he's been through?"

She couldn't answer that, but her silence was enough for him. "I rest my case."

"The only reason I'm here is because of him!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do tell, Weasley. How does Al factor into you getting detention?"

An image of that wretched girl formed in her mind, and her hands clenched into fists. "That awful friend of yours was bullying him. He looked so scared and humiliated. I had to do something. I told her to leave her alone, and she just took it as a means to bully him even further. She deserved that hexing I gave her."

"Shockingly, I agree Weasley. But where have you been before that? Do you know how long she's been bullying him?"

She shook her head, afraid to find out.

"Ever since the school year started. The day after the Welcome Feast, in fact."

She shook her head again. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, because you didn't care about the cousin who became a Malfoy's Slytherin friend. You paid absolute zero attention to what was happening to him."

"I care about Al! At least, I'm not friends with that bitch!"

He laughed bitterly again. "Cursing, Weasley? What a surprise. And Alexa Zabini's not my friend, anymore. She's just as bad as her mother, maybe even worse."

"I still care about Al."

"You have a pretty bad way of showing it, Weasley. Heck, I've shown it better. I'm his only friend, you know? He can't open up to anyone because everyone's abandoned him. Including you."

"We have a big family. We wouldn't abandon him like that."

"Denial's not just a big river in Egypt, Weasley. Have you seen what his brother and friends are doing?"

"Of course not. James, Fred, and Louis are so annoying. I try to ignore everything they do unless they prank me or my friends, especially Amy Finnigan. Fred won't leave her alone."

"Wow, Weasley. You're more self-centred than I thought."

"Not as much as you are!"

"And yet who is the only one there for Al?"

Rose glared at Malfoy but didn't say anything. Malfoy chuckled darkly as he crossed his arms. "I must say, Weasley, you've definitely got a lot to learn. Al moans so many times about how he lost his family and how he's scared when the holidays start. I don't blame him. I'd be scared too."

She wanted to cry. She was feeling awful about everything. Mostly about Al. "I don't want him to be scared. I just don't."

Malfoy sighed, his expression looking slightly more sympathetic. "Well, wanting's not going to make him feel any braver. You're going to have to actually do something about it, Weasley."

"I'll apologize. For everything. I'll be his friend. His best friend. That is, if he'll take me back."

"He might, but it'll take a while. He's not going to forgive you that fast."

Rose sighed. He was right. As a matter of fact, he was right about everything. Merlin, she had been so wrong. She felt like she failed the most important test of the year. It actually was. Now, she would have to make it up. And here was the first section. "I'm sorry. For everything. It was wrong. I shouldn't have judged you as a bad person based on your surname, and I shouldn't have been acting so awfully towards you. You're right about everything. It's my fault. I abandoned Al. I made him feel that what he was doing was wrong. He was right to be your friend. If only I had done the same thing. You're probably one of the last people to want to be my friend because I'm a Granger-Weasley."

Malfoy looked pleased. "Rose Granger-Weasley apologizing to me? Never thought I'd see the day that would happen. You're probably one of the stubbornest people in the entire world."

"I guess denying that would just prove your point, wouldn't it?"

"You're catching on fast, Weasley."

"Rose."

He looked at her inquiringly. "What?"

She smiled. "Call me Rose."

He looked surprised but grinned back. "Call me Scorpius."

Their hands shook together, sealing their new friendship for what would be the rest of their lives and possibly even more.

The teachers and students stared when the redheaded Rose Granger-Weasley approached the Slytherin table and the black-haired green-eyed Albus Potter. The two cousins hadn't spoken since the school year began so it was quite a shock to see them talking quietly, her with a sorrowful expression and him filled with hope. They hesitantly hugged each other after a few minutes before Rose seated herself next to the blond Scorpius Malfoy who flashed her a welcoming smile.

Rose Weasley was willingly sitting with Slytherins and a Malfoy on top of that. What the heck had happened to her?

Only last night's detention could answer that, judging by a small smile on the face of Professor Neville Longbottom.

AN 2: This turned out to be more dramatic than I intended. It was meant to be more of hurt/comfort and friendship instead of drama, but it still worked out in the end. What do you guys think? Reviews (and I mean real reviews that aren't one- or two-worded praises) are greatly appreciated so thanks in advance to those of you who do!