Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in the story.
This is my first fanfic so please read and review. I know it may be long and draggy now, but please bear with it. At least give the story a chance. Thank you.
Chapter 1: Table of Betrayal
"Lumos," he murmured casting a strong beam of light from the tip of his wand and squinted, taking a few seconds before his eyes adjusted to the blinding gleam. He had no idea what he was doing, or where he was going, taking a little hike down the isolated hallways towards the impending darkness ahead of him. He was just heading towards where his feet were carrying him, and god knew where that was.
His back ached in protest of the cold draft that occasionally blew past, wanting to head back to the cozy refuge back in the Gryffindor dormitory, but for once, he was not in control of his limbs, just a measly little slave to his body parts. He growled, how he hated times like this where he succumbed to himself, not being able to make decisions. The shadows that clung on to his robes and the walls surrounding him were starting to make him feel tingly with unease, and he disliked that feeling, it made him feel like a coward.
'You are not a coward,' he reminded himself, desperately trying to warm himself with his free arm by rubbing it against the sleeve of his robe. The attempt was fruitless, the icy wind still drifted down his neck causing him to shudder. Whatever stood at the end of the line had better be worth it, if not he swore he was going to chain himself to his bed at night, whatever the consequence. He was not going to risk another night, creeping down passages feeling like a popsicle.
Pacing, he made another turn round the corridors and found himself travelling down a flight of stairs leading towards the balcony – his favourite haunt whenever he needed some time alone. 'Why bring me here?' the thought pondered in his mind, his curiosity piqued, it didn't make any sense.
Then, his eyes caught sight of a familiar silhouette leaning forward against the balcony porch and his heart practically lunged out of its ribcage. It was her, his best friend's cousin. The girl who graced every single test with ease, the only girl whose mouth wouldn't start drooling whenever he passed, the girl who had managed to resist his charms, and the girl who had stolen his heart.
Wait. He couldn't be in love with her. He couldn't. That was absurd. He already had a girlfriend, the daughter of one of his father's good friends, Allison Goyle. He loved her, didn't he? After all, they had been going out ever since fourth grade, surely, it must have taken some affection for them to last together that long. She was a well known flirt, and he, a cassanova. If they didn't love each other, they would have long dumped the other party for some other person. That was the case in all his previous relationships, and he was pretty sure it was the same with Allison. But no, what he felt for Allison was different from what he felt for the girl standing right in front of him. With Allison, he felt at ease; when she kissed him, he would feel bliss tugging at his heart. However, just the sight of this girl would knock the breath out of him, every second with her drowned him in ecstasy, he just couldn't explain it.
Perhaps it was the way her loose, wavy auburn hair drifted in the breeze, his eyes travelled down her body and eyed ravenously at the way her clothes seemed to tug at her curves. Her smooth porcelain like skin…
Ooof.
He tripped over the last step of the stairs and found himself sailing forward before he managed to grip the handles near the staircase, preventing him from falling and making a mockery out of himself in front of the girl he liked. Or loved. Idiot, he chided himself lightly, stop being so distracted by her.
The noise seemed to startle her as she whipped her head around instinctively, her hair flitted across the sky with such gracefulness, it was intriguing to watch.
"Oh, it's you Scorpius. What took you so long? I was convinced you weren't going to turn up for our secret rendezvous," she said shyly, snapping him out from his trance. "Erm…… hi Rose," he stuttered, mentally slapping himself for being so preoccupied with her hair. For goodness sake! It was just hair for crying out loud. And what was with the stuttering, Rose might get the impression that he was another of those imbecile fools. He had never lost his cool demeanour in front of girls, it was the girl's who lost theirs while talking to him, if they even had one to start with.
"I kind of forgot about it, it was my feet that dragged me here, if not I would probably still be in bed right now, sorry," he apologised, tucking his wand into his robes.
She shook her head and giggled. It rang like silver belles in his ears. "It's alright, you came in the end. Now that's all that matters." She ambled towards him, her blue eyes bore into his, enticing him to step forward as well. A surge of emotions welled up inside him, anxiety, excitement, confusion, bliss. He could feel more adrenaline pumping in his veins with every step he or she took.
Now, only a foot away from each other, he saw her lean towards him, her breath pouring full force onto his face as she pressed her body against his and pulled his face towards hers. They were right about to kiss when he realised what he was doing, It was wrong, it was very wrong. He had a girlfriend, he couldn't be doing this. And yet, he couldn't pull away, at least not when she was only a few centimetres away…
"Nooo!" he cried out. At that moment, everything in his vision vanished and the faint glow of the moonlight slipped into darkness.
His eyelids flew open as he bolted upright, before realising that he was still in the Gryffindor dormitory propped up against his bed, not on some balcony porch meeting up with a girl. He flushed upon remembering that he was about to kiss her when the dream ended and felt a sudden rush of gratitude for choosing to wake up at that time.
"Keep it down will you Scorpius, I want to sleep," Albus – Scorpius's best friend, groaned shifting uncomfortably under the blankets, obviously detesting the fact that he was awoken from his peaceful slumber.
"Oh… sorry, bad dream," Scorpius mumbled, the sweat trickled down his forehead like a leaking water faucet. However, the only reply he got was snores. Well, at least his friend wasn't preaching about the negative effects of waking people up and unearthly hours and he was deeply thankful for that.
Turning back to his pillow, he lay on his bed, but the instant he shut his eyelids, the image of Rose would immediately zoom back into his mind, how her eyes sparkled faintly in the moonlight, her auburn hair framing her heart-shape face. It was most disconcerting, how much she appealed to him. It was frightening.
What about Allison?
He had almost forgotten about Allison. He could cheat on both of them, going out on secret rendezvous like his dream suggested, but Scorpius wanted to remain faithful to Allison, as long as they were together, so as to prove that he was not all just a playboy, and that he could be serious if he wanted to. And this Rose matter was complicating his life, haunting him even in his dreams. It was maddening.
You big fat cheater, you are cheating two people out of their feelings. How could you be so heartless?
Scorpius heart clenched at the word 'cheater', though he knew it was true. He was thinking about another girl and yet he was unwilling to part with his current girlfriend. At least not yet, until he was sure of Rose's feelings for him, and that was extremely selfish of him.
"Argghhh…" he growled softly, not wanting to wake Albus up. If he was going to continue this debate with his heart any longer, he was going to snap. He rubbed his eyes and got out of his bed, he wasn't going to sleep anyway.
Heading over to his wardrobe to get ready for breakfast which was in two hours time, Scorpius made a mental note to try and not think of Rose for the day and instead, concentrating on how good his girlfriend looked. Sighing, he shook his head at himself for getting trapped in such a problem, before reaching out to grab a new robe.
*****
"Hurry, I heard that Snape's in a grumpy mood today, you don't want to be given detention for being late for Potions class right?" Albus said breathless, dragging poor Scorpius through a throng of students lounging around the corridors. Scorpius did not bother to point out that it was mainly Albus's fault that they were late, all because he had insisted on staying behind to finish all the cream tarts. Albus never did listen and all his advice and criticism usually fell on deaf ears.
"Not that I'm surprised, Snape has been in a grumpy mood ever since the first day he joined Hogwarts," Scorpius commented to his friend, trying to edge his way through the mad rush.
They entered the dungeon, relieved to find that Professor Snape had yet to arrive and plopped down on a seat at the back of the class which was not yet taken. The class turned unusually quiet, the moment the stern faced Professor entered.
"Take out your Potions textbook and turn to page two hundred and thirteen," Snape ordered as the Potions book on Scorpius's table flipped open automatically. Scorpius groaned upon seeing that one of the ingredients were mashed up scarab beetles. He hated getting his hands and robes filthy.
Suddenly, a flurry of black robes caught his eye as the student rushed past, panting badly. It took a second before he realised it was Rose. "Sorry I was late Professor… but …Professor McGonagall wanted to meet me to discuss… with me my… progress on my transfiguration class."
Professor Snape frowned at her and pointed towards the vacant seat next to Scorpius. He could feel his heart beating forcefully against his ribcage when Rose approached his direction and sat right beside him. "Hi," she smiled a lopsided smile, pulling out her Potions textbook and manually flipped to page two hundred and thirteen.
Scorpius was speechless, he just couldn't seem to get a simple greeting out of his mouth, the words were plain stubborn.
Rose gazed at him. "Are you alright?" she asked concerned, her blue eyes scanning every inch of his face.
"Erm… yeah," he managed to choke out a reply and swiftly turned to face Albus. Albus shot him a look. That guy always seems to be so strange around my cousin, I wonder why?
Scorpius saw it and blushed deeply, then pretending to be occupied with the lesson, he drove his attention to his scarab beetles and started mashing them in a hurry.
Squash, splat, squash, he pounded the scarab beetles, venting all his confusion on the poor creatures that laid on the table. She's just a girl, why can't you handle her? Scorpius growled in frustration, what was it about this girl that made him feel so uptight and anxious, he just could not comprehend.
Pound, smash, pound-
"I am aware Mr. Malfoy that you are very concerned about having to keep in shape to capture the ladies' heart, but I am sure that the last time I checked, Potions class was not a body building session," a sarcastic remark came from behind, "Or perhaps, the beetles had a riff with you in your past life."
Scorpius turned behind, startled to see that Professor Snape was standing right there. Apparently, he had heard the noise conjured by his mashing and come to investigate. The rest of the class were now staring at him, some trying to suppress their giggles as the Professor continued to sneer at the slight dents formed on Scorpius's table.
"Well of course," Snape added with a glance at Rose, "No doubt you might want to show off your strength to impress this young lady beside you." Scorpius scowled, he could feel embarrassment searing in him as the seconds droned on, his face turning into a beetroot at the mention of Rose. He knew that Snape was enjoying his reaction from the taunting and tried to remain calm, however it was hard not to be apprehensive, given how annoying Snape was.
Chorus of laughter erupted in the dungeon, and Scorpius could tell that they too were enjoying the free show. Hoping that the Professor would finally leave him in peace, Scorpius pulled the cauldron closer and tipped some of the mashed up scarab beetles in, before resuming the mashing. However, Snape was not yet satisfied and went on commenting, "That's since she doesn't seem to have any strength in her arms, an effect of one of those idiotic dieting schemes girls seem to come up with these days to look good. You two should learn to be less concerned about your looks like your friend, Potter over here who doesn't even bother to comb his hair in the morning." Snape shook his head at Albus's messy hairdo and scorned. Albus face fell at the statement and tears were brimming in Rose's eyes.
If Scorpius had been embarrassed, he was now furious, picking on him was one thing, picking on his best friend and Rose was another. Despite the urge to retort at the Professor right then, he willed himself to stay silent, seething rage through his teeth. He knew Snape was deliberately trying to provoke him so as to deduct points from his house Gryffindor, which would be used to decide on the champion house for the year as Gryffindor had been the champion house for many years running with Slytherin, Snape's house, a close second. Instead he started slicing the ginger roots at breakneck pace, being done with the scarab beetles.
Realising that his taunts were not working, Snape left their side and continued his patrol around the class, resuming the search for any other unlucky Gryffindors to pick on.
"That was mean," Albus whined softly at Snape's comment, tugging at his messy fringe. "It's remarkable that you didn't burst into an outrage just now." Scorpius did not reply, just focusing his attention on the ginger roots, his vision was starting to blur with fury and he could feel the slight tremble of his hands as he gripped the knife. Albus sighed and turned back to his job, he had rarely seen his friend this furious. It was scary to witness. Rose too seemed disturbed by it, her eyes gazed at Scorpius's ginger roots uneasily.
"Scorpius, the roots are fine enough," she muttered to him.
"No, they are not!" Scorpius snapped and faced Rose, his dagger chose to land at that moment, slicing his finger which was holding the ginger root in place. A stinging pain rose and blood gushed out from the wound. Scorpius quickly dug his finger into his robe pocket trying to stop the bleed.
Snape, who had apparently heard the commotion, took this chance to deduct away points from Gryffindor. "Throwing tantrums in class I see. Ten points from Gryffindor," a sly smile escaped from Snape's thin lips.
Scorpius rose his glare to meet Snape's, he had enough of Snape's annoying taunts. Who cared if they were going to lose more points or earn detentions? Scorpius was on the verge of exploding.
"I am not throwing a tantrum, and you know why none of the students or teachers ever like you? Cause you are annoying! You take pleasure in other's pain and misery! No wonder you never got married. No wonder you never had any friends!" Scorpius retorted icily, his chest rising and falling. Snape was taken back. None of his students had ever dared to talk back to him like that in his entire life of teaching at Hogwards. Snape's eyes gleamed dangerously. "Further fifty points from Gryffindor, plus another month of detention for talking back to the teacher," Snape said with animosity.
The rest of the lesson went on in awkward silence before the chime of the bell rang overhead, signalling the end of class.
"You are dismissed," Snape hissed to the class and strode away. To avoid any more outbursts, Scorpius dumped all his ingredients into bag with his Potions book and attempted to rush out of the room but Rose stopped him.
"I'm sorry Scorpius, I didn't mean to get you into trouble. Please let me see your finger, I could help with the pain," Rose apologised sincerely and to reach for Scorpius's injured hand.
"Back off, it doesn't hurt, and even if it did, I don't need your help," he bit back harshly before storming off in a fit of pique, leaving Rose behind feeling extremely crestfallen. "I was just trying t help," she told Albus.
"Don't fret about it, he's just in a bad mood today," Albus comforted his cousin, "Erm… bad dream I think. I will go after him. Trust me, he's not mad at you." With that, Albus hurried out of the door to find his fuming friend.
*****
Scorpius rammed his head against the wall, hurling verbal insults at himself. "You idiot! Why were you so rash? Now Rose thinks you hate her. Wait! Why are you so affected by Rose? Arghhhh!" Scorpius picked up his pillow and wrenched it towards the door, hitting poor Albus who was entering the room squarely in the face.
"Oww… That hurt a lot," Albus winced, rubbing his chin. He had been hoping his friend had calmed down by now, however, from what he had heard outside for the past ten minutes, it was pretty obvious he hadn't.
"Sorry, I didn't expect anybody to bother me at this time," Scorpius said, calming down a little. Now, he was starting to feel regret over his actions, from getting so worked up to throwing that pillow. It was certainly one of the worst days in his life.
"You know, you have been acting strange ever since this morning," Albus started, after he had picked the pillow up from the floor and placed it on Scorpius's bed. Scorpius remained silent, he knew how this conversation was going to turn out. Albus playing the psychologist, and him being the patient. "I know you aren't angry with anyone, but not everybody knows you that well. Rose pretty much thinks you are mad with her and she's probably stressed over how to get you to forgive her. She's my cousin and I don't want to see her upset."
"I know I acted like a jerk just now, I don't know why but for some reason I got off with a rough start this morning," Scorpius explained while Albus urged him to continue. "Remember my nightmare last night?" Albus nodded his head, recalling the deafening yell that stirred him from his sleep. "It's making me nuts, I can't stop thinking about it. It's frustrating." Scorpius slammed his fists against his head, trying to get the images of Rose out from his mind.
"What was your dream about?" Albus queried.
"Allison," he lied after a while. It isn't really a lie, you did dream of Allison, he tried to convince himself. Yah, you dream of betraying Allison, that's two different things, the voice in his head said. Scorpius looked down guiltily at himself, though Albus did not notice.
"Oh," Albus responded, love affairs. He was never very good at patching up couples, more like breaking them up. "Maybe you could talk to her. If you have any insecurities, you guys could trash it out. It's better than mopping around here throwing pillows at me," he added, silently praying that this time his advice would actually work. So far his success rate had been zero.
"Thanks Albus, I'm not sure if it's going to work, but it is better than doing nothing," Scorpius said, although he could not picture the conversation. What was he to say? Oh hi Allison, nice to see that you are here. I wanted to talk to you about some insecurities I have been thinking about all morning. You think we could work out something so I wouldn't betray you and fall for Rose? It sounded dumb and he would probably get a smack in the face for that. But still, he had to do something, he could not avoid it forever. It was probably better when he nipped the problem in the bud then waiting till everything got more complicated.
"I'll see you later Albus, right now I need to find Allison," Scorpius told Albus as he got up. Albus gave him the thumbs up, "Good luck." Scorpius shot him a smile, and turned to leave. Albus thought to himself silently, 'With me for a love counsellor, you are definitely going to need it.'
Scorpius went down the spiral staircase and peered around the Gryffindor common room hoping to find Allison, but it was empty besides Posse, Allison's best friend, who was busy painting her nails. Thinking that she might have an idea where Allison was, he approached her.
"Hello Posse," he said, tapping the blonde girl gently on her shoulder. Posse swiftly looked up and giggled, seeing that it was Scorpius.
"Oh... hi… you looking for some company?" Posse asked, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at Scorpius. She flicked her gaze from Scorpius's face to her nails and cooed, "I'm kind of busy right now, but I am sure I can set aside some time for you, darling." Scorpius gagged at the word 'darling' , although he was aware that Allison and her friends had the habit of calling everyone 'darling'.
"Actually I was looking for Allison, I need to speak to her about something important," he said seriously. Posse seemed somewhat disappointed at the reply, however she pointed to the girl's room. "She's in her room," as she said that, her eyes glinted playfully, which could only be a bad thing. Scorpius thanked her and quickly departed for Allison's room, before Posse could fling herself at him.
Scorpius was outside Allison's door when he heard movement and muffled whispers coming from the room. Wondering what Allison could possibly be doing, Scorpius proceeded to turn the door knob. Realising that the door wasn't even closed, he took a peek into the room and froze at what he saw.
Allison was seated on the lap of a tall hunky guy with brown locks, kissing him passionately, her hands grabbing his head as the guy cradled her in his arms like a child. Scorpius felt a stinging blow in his chest, as though someone had punched him while he watched his girlfriend bitterly.
After all this time, he had thought he was the betrayer to be falling for Rose when Allison was busy catering time to her other boyfriends. The thought made Scorpius mad.
Unable to watch this any longer, he pushed the door fully open alerting the couple that someone had caught them red handed. Allison quickly broke off the kiss realising that someone was around and gasped when she realised that the person was none other than her boyfriend. The guy looked at him before glancing at Allison with a look of bewilderment.
Allison got up from the guy's lap, "What are you doing here?" Scorpius scoffed, "I should be asking what you were doing, with him! I wanted to talk to you to discuss with you about our relationship and it's apparent what you think about it. We are over." For Scorpius, the day couldn't get any worse, he messed up in Potions class, got himself a month of detention, found his girlfriend cheating on him when he though he was cheating on her and was now about to be dumped. God was so unfair to him.
Allison turned back to the guy and shot him a grin, "I'll see you later Evan darling, got to talk to little Scorpy here first." Nodding, he got up and shot out of the room.
Scorpius folded his hands across his chest, he muttered coldly, "We have nothing to talk about." Allison rose her perfect eyebrows, "Really? You said you wanted to discuss with me about our relationship. And I was planning to do so."
"How?" Scorpius asked, with mock sarcasm he added, "By telling me 'oh, it wasn't me who started the kiss, it was him and I just couldn't resist it.' There's no point, I saw it with my own eyes." Allison laughed at his statement, "No. Actually I came up with a proposition. Both of us get to benefit from it. I say we both break up for the time being, get together with other people, you know back to our previous ways. And after six months, we get back together again."
"Why?" Scorpius did not understand, this would make things extremely complicated as they would be neither together nor apart.
Allison sighed, twirling a strand of hair with her fingers, "Because we both love each other to much to part and yet we cannot stand being together only. Once a player in the love field, always a player." Scorpius could not help but agree that her idea made sense, they would be able to go out with others and once they were sick of them, they would be back as the great couple again. It was the only right decision.
"Ok, we will go ahead with your idea, but tomorrow, we will have to announce that our relationship is over. No girl's going to want a taken man," Scorpius pointed out. Allison agreed, "Of course. And once the six months are over, we will go back to seeing each other. Deal?"
"Deal."
"See you in six months time darling Scorpy," she said before strutting away. "Yah see you," Scorpius uttered.
Now that he and Allison had broken up, he was at a lost of what to do. He supposed he could confess his feelings to Rose and ask her to be his girlfriend, but it would not work, since there was a major problem with the capital letter M.
Rose had a boyfriend.
I hoped you liked that. Reviews are gladly appreciated. Thank you.