"Mm, Honeydukes. What a treat." Rose took the ice cream. "Did you go all the way to Hogsmeade?" She gave him a sideways dig in the ribs, a smile lighting her face, pale in the strong July sunshine.
"There's a concession by the gate," he said, before he could stop himself. She arched an eyebrow. Shit. He'd walked into that one. At that moment, the roar of the crowd—deafening and continuous for the past two hours—cut out, saving him. Rose broke eye-contact, narrowing her gaze to sweep the stadium. He found what she was looking for a second before she did. "There it is," he shouted."Look!"
"I see it!" The match commanded the whole of their attention for the next thirty seconds. A blob of ice-cream dropped off Rose's spoon. The stadium erupted. "That's that then," she said briskly. "Come on, let's beat the rush." Expertly, she started weaving her way through the seats towards the nearest flight of stairs. He followed. Without conferring, they headed down into the bowels of the building towards the emergency exit that was always open.
The floor of the restaurant was tiled, and the furniture spindly. Rose peered over her menu. "Isn't this place a bit..."
"What?"
"Expensive?"
He shrugged, and studied the wine list. The prices might have gone up a tad since his seventeenth birthday. Not that he'd been the one footing the bill that time. "The Leaky Cauldron's got a two for one offer on tonight," he said coolly. "We can go there if you'd rather."
"Don't get prickly. I appreciate the invitation. I just hadn't realised you and Al are in the habit of post-match dinners a deux."
"We aren't."
"So why have you brought me here?"
"You must know why I invited you?" There couldn't be another reason she'd agreed to spend a minute longer than necessary in his company. "The internship? At the Ministry?" He watched closely. Finally, her eyes flickered, and she looked down and away.
"Yes, I heard about that. How's it working out?" Still avoiding his eye, Rose reached over and took the wine list out of his hand. A second later, a waiter was at her elbow. She indicated a bottle. He couldn't see the name of the one she was pointing to, but it was near the top of the list with the cheaper ones. He could only hope she hadn't chosen the house white.
"Great, actually. Your mother's great to work for."
"That's nice." Rose returned to her scrutiny of the menu. "When did you start?"
Her body language was giving nothing away. Was she rubbing his nose in how easily she'd got him the position? The girl he'd known had never been vindictive, or vengeful, but a lot could happen in three years, he supposed. Perhaps she was just embarrassed at giving patronage to a former acquaintance with no connections or contacts. He masked his uncertainty with the palaver of tasting the wine, which had just arrived. "You mean you don't know?"
"Why should I?" Rose was staring at the menu as though she was trying to burn a hole through it. "I only found out the other day when Al offered me his ticket for the match."
He took a large gulp of his wine. Diabolical, of course.
"I haven't been home recently," continued Rose in the same distant voice. "Too busy in the lab."
"I just assumed…"
"What?"
Say it. In a strangled voice, he managed to get the words out. "That you'd put in a good word for me."
"Then this evening was to thank me?"
He nodded. After all the petty humiliations he'd experienced in the last year, he should be used to this. Rose was staring at him. "You have met Mum, right? Even if I'd been around, she wouldn't have told me you'd applied."
He couldn't process what she was saying.
"You got the job by yourself, OK? No need to feel grateful." She was openly laughing at him, pricking his fragile bubble of self-importance the way she always had. He considered casting a spell that would cause the tiled floor to crack open and swallow her.
"I suppose that's why you've been treating me with kid gloves all afternoon?" She was merciless. This was the Rose he knew. "I must say I was beginning to wonder who'd Polyjuiced the real Scorpius Malfoy." She lifted her glass. "Congratulations, superstar. "I'll pay, of course. This is a celebration."
Despite her sarcasm, his spirits rose. There were two courses to come before she could politely leave. After the meal he'd only have a handful of Galleons left in his Gringott's account, but so what? He was gainfully employed and, moreover, it appeared he'd got there on merit. The evening could only improve. He lifted a finger to summon the waiter back. "We're ready to order."
A second bottle followed the first—red, his selection—and the atmosphere warmed. Rose was waxing nostalgic about school days, carefully avoiding uncomfortable topics, like the circumstances under which they'd last met. They'd slipped so easily into the teasing of their younger days he could almost believe the three years of silence had never happened. He might be none the wiser as to the reason she'd dumped him like a heavy brick three years earlier, or why she'd jumped at the chance of her cousin's season ticket this particular Saturday, but that was just fine with him.
"When did you pay the bill?" Rose sidestepped and held out her hand for her coat before the hovering Maitre d' could put it on for her.
"When you went to the toilet. I invited you, remember?"
She walked through the door he was holding for her, ostentatiously holding it open for him in turn and sticking out a red-wine stained tongue as he walked past.
"This evening is starting to feel suspiciously like a date."
He knew better than to walk into a trap like that. "You don't go on dates, remember?"
"Where'd you get that from?"
"It's what you always said at school. You told all your worshippers you were busy with your studies."
"Well, that part is still true, as it goes."
"There you go then. Case closed."
"Nicely done. You should be a lawyer."
"Ha." He was feeling more comfortable by the second.
"But actually, I still don't go on dates with men like you."
He should have remembered that conversations with Rose tended to take unpredictable and sharp turns. He kept walking at the same steady pace as before, and said lightly, "What men are those?"
"Oh, you know. Men I've known since I was eleven. Men who've stayed at my cousin's house in the holidays and seen me in my Cannons pyjamas." She slung a drunken arm around his neck and whispered, "Men who sleep around with undiscerning women."
Her moist, warm breath was against his neck. He moved away from the pressure of her breasts against his arm, unwrapping her wrist. Too late. Almost three years had passed, but his dick was telling him it was yesterday.
They'd kissed only once, a sloppy lunge outside the Hog's Head after their final exams. At the Potter's a few weeks later, he'd been all set to ask her out. That day, she'd acted like nothing had happened, and blanked him at every turn. He figured he'd left it too late, blown it somehow, but assumed there'd be more chances. After all, they were friends, they'd see each other all the time. But it hadn't worked out that way.
"I don't sleep around. What are you basing that on?"
"It's a small world. I hear things." Rose danced away from him. "Are we getting the bus or Apparating?"
"Did you want to go on somewhere?" he asked in surprise.
"Of course, why not? It's early."
"It'll be even hotter in town. We could go for a walk."
"Great idea. Not London though. Let's go somewhere different. I know, take us to the best place you can think of. Surprise me."
"You're going to let me decide? Stars must be aligned with Mars."
Ahead of him, Rose stopped dead in the middle of the pavement and spun round. "Scorp, I have missed you." She ran back, threw both arms around him—his waist this time. "No one insults me as well as you, not even Al." She reached into his jacket and slid his wand from his inside pocket. "Shut up and get on with it. And make it somewhere good."
Fuck. Apparating with a hard-on was not his idea of fun.