Authors Note: This was inspired by Compliments. It is my first Next Generation fanfic. Now I have an issue in that I don't have much of a plot for this- only a very vague one-but this reads much more like a Chapter 1 than a One Shot. So at the moment consider it a one-shot that inspires and exists within a longer fic that is in a contemplative, unwritten stage. :D
Possibilities oneshot
or
Rose Weasley's Revelation oneshot
"Hi Rose!" Little Lily, my cousin, waved happily as she skipped down the platform to meet us.
Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny were quite a bit behind her, walking slowly with distinctly fixed smiles plastered across their face as Albus and his best friend- against all odds- Scorpius Malfoy walked with them. Behind them, looking slightly disapproving but mostly very uncomfortable as every head in the station turned to watch the procession, Scorpius's parents trailed after them with his trunk. I heard Dad snort behind me and had no need to ask why. School rivalry, Mum said, was pathetically something that had not died out from the war. I was expecting nothing short of a public duel to come between my Dad and Mr Malfoy when they found out that it was to be me and Scorpius who were Head students this year.
I knew that Mum would want to avoid an argument over it, but it was hard to say how much she really cared about Dad hexing Mr Malfoy and how much she felt she had to appear to care, simply to give the right impression of maturity for Hugo and I. After all, I had definitely heard Aunt Ginny call the Malfoys "a family of slimy snakes" and the laugh that followed, I'm sure, was Mum.
"Hey little Lily" I smiled back, ignoring her scowl at the nickname I'd christened her with age 4, shortly after she'd been born. She had been a very little baby. Aunt Luna, her godmother and one of her namesakes, had worried that Ginny might have come into contact with a Blibbering Humdinger upon conception which had caused Uncle Harry to choke on his drink and exclaim "I hope not", Dad to laugh and say "What's she been telling you, Luna?" and for me, James, Albus and Teddy to look very confused.
"Shut up" Lily muttered.
"Ah, ah" Dad grinned, waving his finger warningly "Can't say things like that to our Rosie; she's Head Girl now."
Lily scowled further.
"She wouldn't put me in detention"
I raised my eyebrows.
"Willing to test that, are you?"
Her confident expression faltered slightly but she was saved the necessity of answering by the arrival of her parents. Uncle Harry and Dad did that stupid man-hug thing were they clapped each other on the back whilst Mum and Aunt Ginny smiled at each other happily.
"James not here to see them off?" Mum asked and I rolled my eyebrows at Albus. As if James would compromise a lie-in just to do something pointless like, y'know, say good-bye to a brother he wouldn't see for months. Albus grinned back and my glance moved over to the boy next to him. Scorpius Malfoy, soon to be my partner in crime in terrorising the prefects and the rest of the student body. I smiled at him too and received a wink back.
Ok, small confession time? I had the teensiest- and I do mean teensiest - slight crush type thing on that guy. But it was totally under control. For example, I could have spent two hours this morning panicking, charming and curling my hair and plastering on my make-up and searching for the earrings he'd bought me last Christmas just because I would be working with him on the train in the prefects meeting and there was the odd chance he might notice. Instead, I barely spent 10 minutes. This was all to do with my calm and collected, down-to-earth attitude I had in regards to him and life in general and nothing to do with the fact that I overslept. My hair was a frizzy mess and I hadn't even bothered with make-up. And this did not make me uncomfortable in the slightest. That bastard had better be bloody noticing how totally self-effacing I am.
Dad cleared his throat behind me and for a second I thought he'd noticed my lingering gaze at Scorpius, who was chatting animatedly to Albus about their final year of Quidditch. "We've got an unbeatable team this year! Lily, Roxanne and I have been training all summer" "Well my summer was spent with girls who were not my cousins and had no interest in riding brooms"
I looked away in disgust as Albus sniggered and their conversation took a decidedly lewd turn. Looking over at Dad I saw immediately that he was eying Mr Malfoy distrustfully.
"Hello" Draco Malfoy said stiffly as his wife, Astoria, smiled awkwardly by his side. Mum, in return, gave what may well have been the world's most forced smile. Scorpius' mother was a very beautiful woman with an immaculate appearance and fashionable robes. Mum still had the same bushy hair I'd seen from her school time photos, I didn't think she'd ever had her nails painted and had donned plain black work robes for when she went straight off to the Ministry. However the wizarding world in its global entirety knew Hermione Granger had been the brains within the trio of Dad and Uncle Harry and had helped defeat the darkest wizard of all times at age 17, so I didn't think she should feel all that intimidated. Brains before beauty. Heroine before hussy.
"And then I met the lovely Natalia- part time model actually- in Otranto and then Sophia, blonde, in Venice so I've had plenty of practice in my Italian- Ciao Bella. Then of course last week we were visiting the Grandparents in France and I just so happened to be introduced to a charmante fille qui s'appelle Eloise..."-
What. A. Womanising. Bastard.
Not that I cared.
"Good summer?" My Dad asked with forcible cheeriness, obviously nobody else was listening to Scorpius recount every sordid detail of all the sluts he'd encountered over the holidays.
"Pleasant" Mr Malfoy replied. "Yours"
"It was alright" Dad replied nonchalantly "You might have read in the Prophet that we visited the Bulgarian Minister for a week-"
"Yes." Mr Malfoy said abruptly "And met their Head of Magical Sports, Viktor Krum. I saw a photograph of you swearing at him."
Dad's ears went red. Mine probably did too. It had been very embarrassing. I had never heard Mum laugh so girlishly like that and hoped I never would again, regardless of how many World Cup winning Quidditch player ex-boyfriends she bumped into.
"So" Aunt Ginny said hurriedly, sensing the tension "I see congratulations are also in order for Scorpius."
"Excuse me?" Dad spluttered, still angry.
Astoria Malfoy all but exploded with pride.
"Our Scorpius had been made Head Boy." She smiled happily, pointing at the badge that glistened on his robes.
Dad's face turned even redder.
"Really?" he asked in a would-be calm voice. Mum was sending me a 'did you know? Why didn't you tell us?' look that was usually reserved for James' pranks. I hastened to look away. Uncle Harry talked about legilimency now and again and I sometimes wondered if Mum had learned to read minds.
Mr Malfoy raised his eyebrows.
"As has our Rose" he replied argumentatively.
"Of course she has" Mr Malfoy said in a way that almost made it sound insulting but I couldn't work out how. His eyes met Mums briefly. If he was making a joke about how Mum would have died of disappointment if I hadn't been made Head Girl or something then he was two years out, all jokes of that ilk had been exhausted by Uncle George when I was made prefect.
Somebody cleared their throat next to us. A woman with a young boy standing next to her, who judging by the Hogwarts robes and terrified expression meant he was a first year, was all but wetting herself with excitement.
"Excuse me" she said with a think Irish accent "Excuse me. You're Harry Potter aren't you sir. You're Harry Potter and you're Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger."
"Hermione Weasley" Dad corrected the woman.
"Hermione Granger-Weasley" Mum corrected Dad and I snorted.
"Wow" The woman breathed.
"Could I- I mean. It's amazing to meet you. My son will be at school with your children- wow. Say hello, Benjamin."
The boy, Benjamin apparently, froze.
"Say hello" She snapped "Benjamin, say hello to Harry Potter's children now"
"Er...Hello" He muttered, going very red and looking down at his shoes.
"Hi Mate" Albus grinned and Lily and Hugo both waved.
"You'll love Hogwarts" I said reassuringly and he looked up hesitantly "Aim for Gryffindor" I said smiling .
"Rose" My mother scolded, "You're Head Girl. You can't be biased"
"Nah." Scorpius said, thankfully preventing my mother from continuing her tirade. "You shouldn't shoot for anything less than Slytherin. Take my word for it. I'm Head Boy."
I spluttered.
"Well I'm Head Girl!"
"Alright" Scorpius said shrugging "So when I'm not around to be listened to then they can listen to you."
"So what, I'm like your deputy?" I asked.
"Well...you don't need to put that on your badge or anything"
"No, no. Maybe I should." I placed my hands on my hips. It was my well known no-nonsense pose that I usually reserved for James, Albus or, less often, Teddy Lupin. "In fact, maybe I should just defer all responsibilities to you, oh mighty superior, hmmm? Perhaps I should just sit back and let you lead the Prefects meeting, yeah? Maybe you could do all the paperwork and run all the patrols?"
It was in all in good humour. Scorpius was grinning at me- Merlin I loved that grin- when Dad muttered something behind me. I only caught a bit of it –'can't give Malfoy's too much power'- and I didn't think anyone else could have heard any more than that but it was enough. Although we, the kids, didn't realise anything was amiss and still stood around rolling eyes, grinning or- in my case- glaring in a half-hearted attempt to look hateful up at a guy I didn't think I could ever actually hate, the adults had suddenly turned unusually hostile.
"Ron!" My Mother had snapped whilst his sister, Aunt Ginny, jerked her head slightly as if she agreed with his sentiment. Mr Draco Malfoy had turned white with anger and appeared to have been half in the act of reaching for his wand when his wife had stopped him. Uncle Harry appeared to be the only one remaining at all sane, raising his hands to pacify the other adults who I felt- and my feeling appeared to be mirrored in Albus and Scorpius's expressions- to be hugely overreacting.
Breathing deeply, Mr Malfoy wrenched his sleeve out of his wife's grip.
"A word, Scorpius?" he asked, nodding over to a slightly quieter area of the platform.
Scorpius shrugged and walked over with his father. Mrs Malfoy stood still for a moment in silence, flashed a quick smile and hurried over to join her husband and son.
"Rose" Dad muttered, pulling me over to one side as well. I resisted, with great difficulty, to roll my eyes but a glance over at Scorpius told me he had yielded to the temptation and was glancing up to the heavens in amusement.
"Um" the woman who had joined us didn't appear to know what to do "Could- could I get your autograph please?"
I heard Aunt Ginny tut noisily as Uncle Harry floundered a little and then conceded, writing his name quickly on a scrap of paper and then immediately busying himself with checking Lily's trunk, giving the woman no real choice but to heed Aunt Ginny's glare and hurry away, dragging Benjamin with her. She shot a look at Dad and Mum but apparently thought better of coming over and asking.
"Now Rose" Dad said in a voice that suggested he was trying very hard not to sound insane "I understand you're friendly with that Malfoy boy"
If I thought Dad would remotely appreciate deadpan humour I would have replied 'Yes Father. I'm carrying his lovechild'. However knowing that this would induce a potentially fatal heart attack, I merely blinked and waiting for the Capulet and Monatgue style diatribe. Er...not that Scorpius and I were Romeo and Juliet...
"I'm just telling you, for your own good" Great. The 'it's for your own good' parenting.
"Malfoy's are trouble." Well, that I knew.
"And Slytherins are trouble" Again, yep.
"And you're Head Girl, so just watch out. That kind of power will go to his head."
What power? The ability to increase prefect patrols from once a week to two unless they don't want to in which case they can pretty much overrule us anyway? I'll be sure to watch out for Scorpius donning a cape, a mask and prancing around as the next He Who Must Not Be Named. That wouldn't happen, I was confident. Scorpius would want everyone to speak his name.
I blinked again to find Dad staring impatiently at me.
"You're absolutely right Dad" I said firmly, not particularly knowing what he had said the whole time but relatively confident it was along the lines of 'Malfoys are evil. Stab them with your quill.'
He nodded approvingly and I walked over to the group again. Scorpius had been escorted to the train by his parents. Albus was sulking at being left alone.
"We won't take the whole train journey" I promised him and he shrugged, having noticed Dominique and her friend Kathy standing with Victoire, Teddy – bright blue hair- and Aunt Fleur-who kept sending horrified glances at the aforementioned blue hair. He walked over with Uncle Harry to say hello and I waved at them quickly, walking on to the train.
"Hi there" a voice whispered in my ear and my arm, that had been waving at my family, was suddenly grabbed and I was spun like a dancer into a nearby compartment, giggling.
See, how could I not a fancy this guy? He made it impossible.
"Guess what?" he asked and I felt lucky that I could pass off my looking flushed as being caused by the spin.
"What?"
"I was told to stay away from you."
I laughed.
"Me too."
"Medieval, isn't it."
"Absolutely. Now take your hands off me lest you tarnish my reputation, knave."
He laughed and let go. Which was a good thing, I'm sure. I checked my watch. We had 5 minutes. Thank God for Mums punctuality, I'm fairly certain if it was just Dad we would be leaving the house right about now.
"So. Prefect meeting." I said "How do you want to play it?"
"What do you mean? Like good cop, bad cop style?"
"Well that wasn't what I meant, but sure, why not?" I grinned. "Wait, who's who?"
"You can be bad cop" he said graciously.
"Great" I said rolling my eyes, "Well now we've got that cleared up, I'm going to change" I gestured to the muggle jumper I was wearing- fortunately not a Grandma Weasley gift-and held up brand spanking new uniform and cloak that Mum had bought me so I 'looked the part.'
He nodded but made no sign of moving.
"Alone, preferably"
His innocent, blank expression would have looked convincing had a smirk not momentarily spread across his face.
"Leave." I said firmly.
Sighing, he stalked out of the room.
My cheeks were burning. I seriously hoped that hadn't been when he was smirking at me. So...term hadn't even started yet and he had me blushing. Fantastic. But I totally had it under control.
There was a cough from outside the door.
"Whenever you're ready, Weasley. It's not like there's a group of prefects waiting. Take your time Rose"
"I will, thanks."
I took a deep breath, mentally prepared for the prefect meeting and pathologically ignored the thought that was dancing in the back of my mind every time I saw him.
That I- Rose Weasley- the epitome of gracelessness, geek of Gryffindor with a mane of hair that no other person and few lions could compete with, who had never had something even close to a boyfriend in my 17 years- had somehow for reasons that I would probably be exploring in detail years from now to a therapist had FALLEN FOR SLYTHERIN SERIAL MONOGAMIST SCORPIUS MALFOY.
Well, wasn't that just dandy.
