I, Rose Weasley, am sick.
There's no other possible explanation.
It's a strange kind of sickness, too. It only pops up at random moments. The first was in Potions when the potion Scorp and I were almost finished brewing exploded in my face, and he was trying to wipe it off with a rag. It must have been the fumes or something. Then in History of Magic Al dared me to Levitate the book Binns was reading from out the door to see if he noticed, and I refused, Scorp told me it was because I needed to keep my goody-two-shoes reputation with all of the teachers. It could have been fear of detention, but I was so nauseous I was surprised I didn't vomit on the spot. The one I can't explain, though, was during lunch when Al and Scorp and I were laughing about the dungbombs I had most definitely not planted in Zabini's teapot in Transfiguration after he had called Scorpius a blood traitor. We were practically falling out of our seats, and then once we had calmed down, I choked on my milk and Scorpius smirked that horrible annoying smirk when Professor McGonagall had to come over and clear my throat because Al couldn't remember the spell.
It must have been the milk in my lungs.
"What's wrong with me?" I moaned, collapsing on the couch.
"Do you really want to know?" Scorp asked, sitting next to me and squishing me against the arm of the sofa. "For one thing, you're a bossy know-it-all-" I shoved him off the sofa. He climbed up again, slinging his arm around my shoulders.
I huffed at him, annoyed, as I felt the nausea coming back.
"Really!" I said. "What?" Al asked, not looking up from the potions essay Scorp and I had finished two weeks ago.
"I think I've caught some sort of horrible disease," I told them.
Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Really? Oh my, you don't look too well." He thought a moment, then shook his head. "Never mind, you always look like that."
"Seriously!" I insisted. "I've been feeling dizzy and like I'm going to throw up. And it isn't all the time, it goes away completely sometimes."
"Were you feeling sick during Divination?" Al asked.
"Well, it's hard to judge, because I'm always sick during Divination."
"What about Astronomy?" Al asked.
"Apart from being supremely bored, because your two best buddies weren't there to entertain you, of course," Scorp said.
"No, I wasn't sick, I was actually in a very good mood because I was spared from the presence of two complete idiots in that class at least."
"You know you love us, Rose," Scorp said.
I glared at him, trying to mask the feeling that a Quidditch match was going on in my stomach. "I'm going to Madame Pomfrey's," I said, standing up.
"If you die, let us know," Scorp called after me as I disappeared out the portrait hole.
I rolled my eyes before clomping off grumpily to the hospital wing.
"I think I'm sick," I told Madam Pomfrey once I got to the hospital wing.
"Really?" She felt my forehead. "You don't have a fever. How do you feel?"
"I'm getting dizzy and nauseas at random times during the day. It'll go away and then randomly come back all of a sudden."
"Have you noticed any pattern?" she asked.
I shook my head, confused.
"Tell me all of the times you felt sick."
I listed all of the times I could remember. When I was finished, she smiled knowingly.
"This isn't my area of expertise," she said. "I would tell one of your girl cousins everything you told me. Maybe they will be able to help you.
I walked out of the hospital wing, confused. Talk to one of my girl cousins about some apparently nonexistent disease Madame Pomfrey couldn't fix? I still had an hour left before my next class, so I decided to find Lily.
She was in the common room I had just vacated. Apparently Al and Scorpius had left, so I walked over to her.
"Hi, Lily," I said.
She looked up from her book. "Oh, hi Rose."
"I need some help," I said.
She grinned. "Boy trouble?"
"No," I said, confused. "I've been feeling really weird lately, like I'm going to vomit, but when I went to Madame Pomfrey she just said to talk to you about it." "What, exactly, does it feel like?" Lily had the same knowing smile Madame Pomfrey had said.
"It's like when I was about to take the O.W.L's, really nervous and weak, and my head is spinning and I can't think clearly."
"Yep, boy trouble," Lily said. "Have you noticed a pattern of any kind?"
I shook my head. "Madame Pomfrey asked me the same thing."
"What about...when you're around Scorpius?"
"What?"
"You like him, don't you?"
"No, I'm not!"
"You're in love with Scorpius and you don't even know it."
On the seventh floor of Hogwarts, by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, James Potter appeared to be pacing impatiently. Then he looked around, making sure no one else could see him, and slipped into a doorway that had just appeared.
The hall was quiet for a while. After a moment, the sound of footsteps and Hugo Weasley protesting as his cousin Lily dragged him down the hall grew nearer, and soon the duo disappeared in the same manner, and soon after came Lucy and Roxanne, chatting quietly, and then the Scamander twins, Alice Longbottom, and Fred Weasley.
Inside the Room of Requirement, the Weasley/Potter family was waiting restlessly for someone. James was about to start talking when Albus Potter finally walked in.
"What took you so long?" Fred asked.
"I couldn't shake off Scorpius," he answered.
"Alright. Everybody, please be quiet," James said loudly. Everyone found seats on the various armchairs and beanbag chairs scattered around the room. "We are gathered here today because of recent developments in a relationship we have been observing for years now. We-"
"Just get on with it!" Fred said. "Enough with the formalities."
James glared at his cousin. "Lily says she has news for us."
"Rose is in love with Scorpius!" Lily burst out excitedly. "She told me herself!"
"She told you?" Albus asked.
"Well, not exactly," Lily admitted. "She told me about this weird feeling she's been getting, and I think it's always around Scorpius, so it's basically the same thing."
"We have decided it's time to do something," Fred said. "James and I have developed a plan to get them together."
"We are going to have a contest," James said. "Whoever succeeds wins two hundred galleons. If you want to join, hand over twenty galleons to Fred. You have until the end of this school year. You can work in groups if you'd like, but you'll have to split the money. We will judge as soon as they start dating. Who's in?"
Everyone was.
Hugo immediately announced that he was going to work alone. The rest of them broke off into groups. James and Fred, obviously, Lysander, Lorcan, and Lucy (They were willing to split the money three ways) Roxanne and Lily, the ones with the most experience in that area, and finally, Albus and Alice.
The next morning, Saturday, Rose woke up early as usual and came down to the Great Hall. It was around five thirty, and the Hall was completely empty except for a solitary blond boy, his oatmeal growing cold because he was so absorbed in the book he was reading.
Rose sat down across from him, stabbing a sausage and putting it on her plate.
"'Morning, Rose." Scorpius looked up from his book. "You're later than usual. Did you sleep alright?"
Rose shrugged, pulling out gigantic copy of Hogwarts: a History from her minuscule purse and opening it to her current page. The two sat in silence until Lily and Roxanne entered, greeting the two and sitting a ways away from them, gossiping loudly, and apparently not realizing that, as there were only two other people in the Great Hall, they could hear every word.
"...I know! They're perfect for each other. I'm surprised they aren't together yet."
"Although, I feel sort of sorry for Al. Once they do get together, he'll start to be the third wheel."
"At least he has Alice."
Rose suddenly realized that they were talking about her and Scorpius, and she felt a blush rising in her cheeks. She glanced up to see Scorp smirking at her, and stood up.
"I...um...I told Alice I would meet her to help with a...Transfiguration essay." She walked out quickly, the nausea returning. Scorpius, though he knew Alice wasn't awake, didn't question it.
Roxanne and Lily grinned at each other. Mission accomplished.
The Scamander twins and Lucy were having some difficulty thinking of an idea. They knew James and Fred would go for something big. Lucy, being very close to Roxanne, had discovered that she and Lily had a plan to make Scorpius and Rose realize that the feeling was mutual between them. Alice and Albus knew Rose and Scorp very well, so they were likely to simply talk to both of them separately and then go for a blunt approach; maybe locking them inside a broom cupboard for an hour or something. Hugo refused to reveal his self proclaimed cunning ingenious plan, but they were pretty sure it had something to do with a love potion.
That didn't leave them with very many ideas. Finally they decided to take a blunt approach. They would just talk to one of them, and see where that took them. Something small and simple was least likely to fail. Extravagance had never been any of their strong suites anyways.
Hugo had a scheme. A very good scheme, he thought. It involved spiking their morning pumpkin juice with a love potion. It didn't need to be very strong; all they needed was a little more motivation to act.
He wrote a letter to Uncle George that morning.
Dear Uncle George,
I need help. We are having a contest to see who can get Rose and Malfoy to fall in love.
I want to use a love potion. Could you send one as soon as possible? I plan
to put it in their drink, so it would be best if it was a liquid. And I think love potions are
banned, so it would be best to disguise it.
Thanks,
Hugo
Uncle George replied promptly.
Hugo,
I am proud to call you my nephew. You are turning out just like me. Here are two bottles of mild love potion.
One suggestion: Accidentally leave the bottles where they will find them, and they will think the other left it for them.
All you have to do is put one of the hairs of each of them in a bottle, and then they will fall even more in love. Good luck!
You're Proud Uncle,
George
Hugo grinned. This would be too easy. He slipped into Scorp's dorm, and was lucky enough to find one of his white-blond hairs on the pillow. Then he grabbed his broomstick and flew up into the deserted girls dorms. He had done this before, to see what it looked like up there. Now he crept anxiously into the bathroom, where a hairbrush was sitting by the sink. It had Rose's name on it, so he pulled a long hair out of it and flew back downstairs.
Albus and Alice didn't need much time to formulate their plan. It was quite simple, really. All they needed to do was plant an idea in Rose and Scorp's head, and then leave them together for a while to sort it out. All they needed was a place to do that.
The answer to that was the kitchens.
They would take Rose and Scorpius to the kitchens, start teasing them about being in love, and then they would leave, having instructed the elves to keep the two happy, cast a sealing charm on the door, and wait.
"All we have to do," James said, "Is get as many people on our side as possible."
"As in..." Fred grinned.
"The whole school," James finished.
They were so going to win.
"We have to make him jealous," Lily said. "He won't do anything otherwise."
"But what if Rose actually sort of falls for the person we set her up with?" Roxi asked.
"That's why we don't actually set her up with anyone," Lily explained. "That would be too hard anyways. And we don't actually tell Scorpius that she likes the person at all. We just say that someone Rose doesn't hate, maybe Oliver Wood II, really likes her and wants to ask her out."
"Good idea. Only you have to tell him, since it was your idea."
Scorpius was scribbling away at his Transfiguration essay when a girl sat across from him.
"Hey, Weasley," he said without looking up.
"Hi, Scorpius."
His head snapped up. At first he had automatically assumed it was Rose, but this girl's voice was much softer, and she had neat brown hair rather than Rose's wild red mane.
"Oh, hi Lucy."
Lucy looked confused for a moment, but then said, "You know, I think Rose would really appreciate it if you would send her flowers."
"What?"
Lucy's brow crinkled. "You should send Rose flowers."
"How...who...what...d-did Al tell you?" Scorpius stammered.
Lucy shrugged. "Maybe. Are you going to?"
"Do you think it would be a good idea?"
If Lucy had been any less patient, she would have rolled her eyes and made a sarcastic remark. But she was Lucy, and her response was encouraging.
"She was actually pretty disappointed last Valentines Day when you didn't get her anything."
"Really?" Scorpius's eyes lit up like a small child.
Lucy smiled and stood up, joining the Scamander twins who were waiting at the door.
"Hey, Scorp!" Scorpius turned to see Lily Potter hurtling down the hall towards him. She skidded to a halt beside him, and then started walking, making sure the confused blond was beside her.
"You know Oliver Wood?"
He nodded.
"Well, he really likes Rose. I think he's planning on asking her out really soon." Lily got right to the point.
"Um..." Scorpius looked down at the breathless redhead. "Isn't Oliver dating Samantha Finnigan?"
"Um..." Lily reddened. "Oh. Right. Never mind."
Too bad.
The next morning, Hugo watched excitedly as Rose and Scorpius drank their pumpkin juice during breakfast. The bottle said that it only took thirty seconds to act. Thirty seconds after Rose downed the last of her pumpkin juice, nothing happened.
Thirty seconds after Scorpius finished his juice Al burst into the Great Hall shouting,
"Troll in the dungeons!" Before collapsing on the bench next to Rose, who motioned for everyone to keep eating.
So much for that.
Hugo decided they were too far in love already for the potion to have any effect. Later he confirmed the suspicion with Uncle George.
"Let's go to the kitchens," Alice suggested to Rose. It was ten o'clock, and neither of the girls could sleep. "I told Al I might come."
"I don't know," Rose said.
"He's bringing Scorp."
"Alright. I'll come."
"I haven't seen you since breakfast," Rose said to Scorpius once they were seated.
"Miss me?" he smirked.
"Actually, it's been quite pleasant without your huge head in the way of everything."
"I know," Scorp agreed. "You can't look at anything but me."
Albus and Alice exchanged glances. This shouldn't be too hard.
They had already informed the house elves of their plan. All they had to do was get out without arousing suspicion, and seal the door.
"Oh no," Alice said suddenly. "I think I left my wand in the common room."
"You might want it with you if we're going to stay here for a while," Albus said. "I'll come with you to get it."
They both stood up.
"Don't get too comfortable while we're gone," Albus told Rose and Scorpius. "I don't want to have to break the news to Uncle Ron that Rose is dating a Malfoy."
Rose turned bright red and shoved Al out the door. Alice followed.
Rose, feeling awkward and sick, pulled out her book and started reading. Scorp seemed completely at ease, cheerfully munching on a brownie while watching Rose read. Finally, she closed her book.
"That was boring."
"What?" Scorpius asked.
"This book. I kept thinking something was going to happen, but it never did."
Scorpius nodded, not really sure what to say. Eventually Rose sighed and stood up.
"I'm tired."
She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.
"I think it's jammed," she said, kicking the stubborn door. Scorpius joined her. Finally, I stopped kicking it to examine the side of the door.
"Sealing charm," she said.
"What for?" Scorpius asked.
"What do you mean what for?"
"Obviously this was cast by Albus and Alice, and they're clearly not coming back."
Rose thought for a moment. Then her eyes widened. "I know! They're trying to keep us from finishing our homework! I have a Transfiguration essay due Tuesday, and if I don't finish tonight I won't be able to get it in on time."
"I don't know," Scorpius said. "That seems unlikely."
"So how do we get out?"
They tried every unlocking and unsealing spell they could think of, but nothing worked. Finally, when Rose was about to give up, Scorpius got an idea.
"I know." He motioned for Rose to back up, and he did the same. "Reducto!"
With a bang, the door blew up. Rose, poking her head out, saw Al and Alice sheepishly reeling in extendable ears from the ruins of the doorway.
Scorpius and Rose climbed out, and Rose, after repairing the door, glared at her cousin.
"What was that all about?"
On Monday morning, James stood up on the Griffindoor table and shouted for everyone to be quiet. Everyone, except for Rose and Scorpius, who had been convinced by Fred to help Hagrid catch the runaway niffler, was in the Great Hall today, and everyone heard James' request.
"Fred and I have a plan. We are trying to get Rose and Scorpius together as soon as possible, and we would like the whole school to help. All we ask is that you do small things to help push them along; prefects, give them detention together, tease them, make sure they're partners in class, things like that. And if there is any question about why you are doing these things, it is because I told you to. And please do not tell Rose and Scorpius what we're planning to do. Thank you."
He stepped down from the table, smirking at all of his cousins.
"There's no way we're going to lose."
Hugo was just about ready to Imperius Rose and Scorpius. James and Fred were sure to win, and if they didn't, it wasn't going to be Hugo. So he developed another scheme.
If Rose and Scorpius were already in love, all they needed was a little luck to get together. The obvious solution was the Felix Felicis.
He just happened to have nicked a bottle from the potions room a month ago, and now was the perfect time to use it.
Hugo divided the potion into two tiny bottles. When Rose and Scorpius came in, he managed to distract them long enough to dump a little into their glasses.
Rose picked up her pumpkin juice, and was about to take a sip when she froze. She sniffed it, then stirred it around with her spoon.
"It's been spiked," she said. Scorpius looked at his.
"Mine as well."
They both looked at Hugo, who innocently eating a plate of scrambled eggs and watching the two out of the corner of his eyes.
Rose and Scorpius glanced at each other, and put down their cups.
What a waste of Felix Felicis.
Plan of action number two was just as simple as the first one. This time, they were going to make Rose jealous.
Roxanne walked up to Rose, who was reading at the top of a moving flight of stairs. It had taken her ten minutes to find her, and she was certain that she was going to be at least twenty minutes late for class.
"Hey, Rose," Roxanne said. Rose looked up.
"Oh, hi Roxy."
"Have you heard? Scorpius is dating Samantha Goyle."
"What?" Rose went pale. "He can't be."
"But he is. They were kissing in the Great Hall after breakfast after you left."
"That's not possible," Rose said.
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, he would have told me if he was dating anyone, and for another, he hates Samantha Goyle."
"I think you're just jealous." "Who's jealous?"
Rose turned around. Scorpius had just hopped on the staircase before it swung around to another spot.
"Rose is," Roxanne said with a grin.
"Of what?" Scorpius asked.
"Are you dating Samantha Goyle?" Rose asked.
Scorpius scoffed. "Are you crazy? I would never do that."
Rose couldn't help but breath a sigh of relief.
"So that's what you were jealous of?"
"I wasn't jealous," Rose insisted. "I was just concerned for your sanity."
"You should have seen her face when I told her you and Goyle were kissing after she left," Roxy told Scorpius. "She looked positively green."
Scorpius smirked at Rose. "Yep, you're-"
Rose's Hogwarts: a History smacked him in the face before she walked off.
At breakfast the next day, an owl dropped something on Rose's lap. It was a red rose, and attached was a note in very familier handwriting.
A rose for Rose
Even though I know you hate them.
Please don't kill me,
Scorpius
Rose stifled a laugh at the message, but composed herself when Scorpius looked at her questioningly.
"Even though I know you hate them? Really?"
Scorpius grinned. "Couldn't resist."
Rose leaned over, hit him on the head with the rose, though she was careful not to damage it, thanked him and walked away.
As Lucy told Scorpius, Rose kept the flower in a vase by her bed, kept fresh with a preservation charm she had learned from Professor Longbottom.
Scorpius grinned like an idiot for the rest of the day.
"Well, that failed," Albus said.
"Yeah, but if they had stayed in there longer it might have worked."
"If they were willing to stay there."
"Why don't we try again with something like that?" Alice suggested. "We could make a scenario where they were perfectly willing to stay in a cramped space together for at least an hour."
"We could play Sardines in a Can," Albus said. "One of them could be it, and none of us find the person except Rose or Scorpius, and then we ditch the game and see what happens."
"Sardines in a Can?" Alice raised an eyebrow. "That's for toddlers. Why don't we play Truth or Dare?"
"That's lame."
"Not nearly as lame as Sardines in a Can."
"Fine."
"You know what you should do?" Lorcan asked.
"What?"
"Ask her out."
"Rose?" Scorpius said.
"Yeah."
"But I don't want to make an idiot of myself," Scorpius said. "She'll probably say no, and then it'll be so awkward between us that we won't even be friends anymore."
Lucy shook her head. "Of course she'll say yes. Hasn't she told you how sick she's been feeling lately?"
"Yeah..."
"It's because she's in love with you! She almost even admitted it to Lily!"
The smile on Scorpius's face was impossible to get rid of. "Really?"
He stood up. "I'm off to the greenhouses."
Lorcan, Lysander and Lucy watched him leave. Maybe a blunt approach was the best way to go.
"Alice, I really don't need to play Truth or Dare," Rose said. "I still have homework to do!"
"Homework can wait. The game can't."
Rose was about to argue, but once they got into the Room, the noise level made it impossible to think, much less talk. Finally, Al got everyone to be quiet and sit in a circle.
The game went as it usually did for the first ten minutes, with at least three people already getting detentions from the idiotic dares they had to do. Finally, Al asked Scorpius.
"Truth or dare?"
"Dare," Scorpius responded.
Without hesitation, Al said, "Kiss Rose."
Rose's jaw dropped, then she clamped it shut and shook her head.
"Rose! I'll get a chicken!" Scorpius said.
She shook her head again, burying her face in her arms.
"Please?"
"No."
"Come on!"
"No!"
"Rose, I'll do all of your homework for the rest of the term," he said desperately.
"No! You'll mess it up!"
"Why don't you want to?" he asked.
Rose lifted her head, shrugging. "I don't want to kiss anyone on a dare and in public, I guess. It's not you, necessarily."
"Oh, it's not you," Alice said. "She'd give anything to kiss you."
Rose chucked a convenient cushion at Al.
"Doesn't seem like it," Scorpius said. "Look, it's a dare, and I have to do it, whether you like it or not."
He walked over to Rose, grabbed her by the shoulders, and planted a kiss on her mouth before sitting back down.
Both of them pretended it never happened.
For some reason, I always wake up early on weekends, but on weekdays I have to force myself out of bed and usually ended up coming to breakfast later than even Al, who isn't exactly a morning person.
I was grumpily eating cereal and listening to Lily and Roxanne chattering away like little monkeys. Scorpius seemed extra anxious today, and he kept glancing up like he expected Voldemort to come flying through the window on a broomstick any minute now.
Something did come through the window, but it wasn't a resurrected dark lord. It was the owls.
I didn't expect anything to come for me, so I was surprised when something dropped on the table by my cereal.
It was a carnation, which was my favorite kind of flower. There was a piece of paper attached to it that read,
Rose,
Hope you like it.
-Scorpius
I looked up in surprise. Scorpius was staring at me expectantly.
"Um...thanks?" I wasn't sure what to say.
"Rose?" he said, even though he had my attention already. "Do you want to come to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?"
My face broke into a grin. "Of course!"
He leaned over the table and kissed me, and the whole table broke into groans.
"Come on!" James said. "We go to all of this trouble, and then they go and get together by themselves!"
"Actually," Lysander broke in, "It was us. We convinced Scorpius to ask her out."
"How?" Lily asked.
"We just told him that Rose was already in love with him, and she was sure to say yes. It was really simple," Lucy told them.
"What?" I stared at my cousins.
"We were having a contest to see who could get you guys together first," Fred said.
"Everyone else had these elaborate plans. Fred and James convinced the entire school to help them, and Hugo spiked your pumpkin juice with love potion, but it didn't do anything," Lorcan said. "In the end, all it took was telling you to ask her out."
I glared at my cousins, who were watching grumpily as Fred handed Lucy, Lorcan and Lysander two hundred galleons.
Lily looked over at me. "Admit it, Rose. You weren't sick."
Okay, so maybe I wasn't