Well hello !

This is my third Scorpius and Rose story. I wrote so many one-shots about this couple in my 'A to Z' story that some of the material was bound to inspired me for a multi-chapter fic.

This story is a little different and slightly unconventional. So, no Gryffindor-Rose-and-Slytherin-Scorpius-love-at-first-sight stuff here. It will be a little darker, more angsty. The first chapter is a series of flash-backs and thoughts Rose had the night of her Sorting. That's why it will be a little different from the next ones.

I hope you'll be surprised (in a good way), so please review and give me feedback, you know I always love it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter nor any of the characters and setting JK Rowling created.


I want to be myself
I can't be no one else

(Oasis, Supersonic)


I sat at the table of my new House, my eyes sweeping over my classmates' faces without really seeing them, my head hazy and full of the thundering beating of my heart.

That was it.

The Sorting.

I couldn't go back now.

That's who I'd be for the next seven years. For the rest of my life.

I could see my family staring at me all the way across the Hall, half of them looking stunned by the news, half of them looking devastated, on the verge of tears. As if I had suddenly become a leper. A freak.

But who were they to judge me? Who the hell were they to judge me?

I hadn't done anything wrong. I was just me. Rose. Rose! I didn't care to be just any other Weasley! Didn't they know that? I had only been Sorted in another House than theirs and suddenly I was a stain on the otherwise flawless family tree? Didn't they know I wanted to live my own experiences, meet my own friends, live my own life outside the Weasley clan? Like I cared about their rules – the rules that said where I should be Sorted and who I should be like. I didn't want to have rules. I didn't want to abide by the rules. I wanted to be myself.

After all these years, turns out the only one who truly understood me was an old, mouldy patched Hat.

Sly-

At the call of my name, I perched on the wooden stool sitting in front of the four tables aligned in the Great Hall. Was my head too small or the Hat was too big? In any case it covered my eyes entirely. It was pitch black in there, the smell a mixture of old rags, mould and hair. Never before had I realized how young I was – how small, only a child – and that realisation stroke me as my first thought as a teenager. I guess you start becoming an adult the day you start feeling like a child…

'Ahem.'

I managed not to jump up. A little voice had just echoed in my ears. Was that how it was supposed to happen? Did the Hat actually talked to each of us? Nobody had ever told me that.

'I've been waiting for you for a long time, Miss Weasley.'

The question mark that flashed in my mind must have been rather obvious, because the Hat went on:

'Believe it or not. Not every day does an old Hat like me get to meet the daughter of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. And what a daughter they have…'

I wondered what it meant by this.

'You're not like the others, Miss Weasley, and you know that. Therefore, I cannot decently put you in Gryffindor with all your other cousins.'

I flinched, but strangely I wasn't surprised.

'You're intelligent, oh yes, and faithful and loyal,' the Hat seemed to be doing some quick thinking while talking to me, because it sounded lost in thought, 'but… you seem to always manage to get what you want… by any means... cunning, yes… and there's something… rebellious about you that needs to be expressed in much bigger ways… This is why you'll be in…'

And that's when it shouted the name.

-The-

I was sitting in one of those tiny boats that were supposed to bring us to the other side of the lake safely. With such a weather – something I would have personally called a hurricane because the lake rose and fell like a roaring dragon – I didn't believe in magic so much. But Hagrid seemed relaxed and confident, as always, and all I could do was shut up and pray. I pressed my tiny silver owl Artemis against my chest and waited for the boat ride to be over.

I caught a glimpse of white-blond hair as a lightning bolt flashed away in the mountains. The boy was still here. My father had told me not to get too close to him. If he had known me at all, he would have known this was the worst thing to say if he didn't want me to be intrigued. But I bet I would have felt curious anyway. I was fascinated, to say the least. He looked… so lonesome. Serious, yet sparkling smart. As if he had grown up too soon. Too fast. I had never seen such an expression on any of my cousins' faces – and I had to admit the expression in this boy's eyes was much more appealing than my cousin James's childish funny faces. Just before the boats bumped lightly against the stone edge of the castle, a thought, so powerful it frightened me, crossed my mind: I wish I was Sorted in the same House as him.

-Rin.

Scorpius Malfoy was the most interesting person I had ever met. Unlike me, he had a shadow in his grey eyes that told me he had suffered – he had discovered very young what it meant to be a Malfoy after the War: beating little Malfoys up in the playground was the rule for other wizard children – and unlike me, he came from an infamous family. But we had both just been made Slytherins, and we had both had enough of rules, and so when we sat next to each other at the table that night, it happened. My eyes left the red-haired group over the Gryffindor table. I turned around to look at him. And something like an electric shock moved me to my core. I knew, somehow, that despite our different appearances, the shy platinum-blond boy sitting next to me was the closest thing to a soulmate I had ever encountered. As it turned out, he definitely was.

I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Even without speaking a work, we already understood each other.

'Rose,' I said.

'Scorpius,' he answered, as if our names were a topic for conversation in themselves (Rose and Scorpius. They certainly could have been).

The moment we introduced ourselves was the moment we became friends. Inseparable.

That night was the beginning of my life, a new life where I would still be related to my family, but without giving up who I was. And I intended to make it fantastic, ecstatic and like no one else's.

No more rules.

I guess one day I'll have to give my thanks to that Sorting Hat.


So, what did you think? Reviews are welcome... Next chapter coming soon!