A/N: Written for the "Don't Get Too Friendly": A Rose/Scorpius Competition. Prompt: Who I Am Hates Who I've Been -Relient K
Disclaimer: The song used as a prompt belongs to Relient K, not me. Anything Harry Potter related belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. not me.
Stop Right There
Chapter One
Scorpius
I pushed my trunk into the back of my father's car, slammed the lid down, walked to my door, and sat down in my seat. I quickly opened my book and started to read, but before I even finished a sentence, my father asked: "Is anything wrong, Scorpius?" In the last two months I had grown used to those four words, so answering his question wasn't that hard. I just said what I always said.
"No." I replied calmly, not wanting to elaborate and have the truth come out. He looked at me curiously, but turned away when my mother entered the car. There was no doubt in my mind that they would be talking about me on the way home. I didn't care much. Hopefully they did realize that there was something wrong, that I was confused, that I didn't even know whom to call my friends anymore.
Rose
"Hey, Al!" I called over the crowds of Hogwarts students and their parents. We had to talk. My favorite cousin jumped and turned around quickly looking everywhere but at my small family of four. Hugo, who had been watching Albus the whole time, started laughing, and he finally saw us. Al smiled and waved at us, then he, Lily, Uncle Harry, and Aunt Ginny started towards us. James was probably already on the train with his friends.
When they reached us, Dad said to Al and Lily, "So, how have you been for the past- what was it?" He turned to Mom, "The past day since we've seen you?" Everyone rolled their eyes.
"Ron, if you're going to attempt to tell a joke, at least make it funny." Said Aunt Ginny. Lily, Al, and I laughed.
"Yeah, seriously, Dad." Said Hugo, sternly, "And make it one you don't say every time we see James, Albus, and Lily. You're embarrassing us." A small smile appeared on his face and one glance at Dad was all it took for me to clamp my hands over my mouth to suppress the fit of giggles that was threatening to overtake me.
"Me?" Dad cried, "Embarrassing you? Never! Oh, and would you mind making people laugh at your own expense instead of mine, Ginny?"
Mum wrapped her arm around his and leaned into him. "But it's so much more funny when she makes fun of you and Harry." Dad and Uncle Harry pretended to be shocked at her words, and I grabbed Al's arm and pulled him away from our families.
"You okay, Rose?" He asked, looking worried.
I decided to ignore his question, and started on what I had wanted to talk to him about all summer. "Okay, so I never said anything all summer about this cause' I always thought that I might hear something from him before we got to Kings Cross, but I didn't."
He looked at me, puzzled. "And…" He asked, moving his head in a way that I clearly took to mean 'get on with it, then.'
Taking a deep breath, I asked, "Has Scorpius written to you at all this summer? You know how on the train ride back at the end of the school year he said he would, but he never wrote me anything this whole summer! Do you think there's something wrong? I mean we only knew him really for a year, but he's our best friend! I sent him a letter, but he didn't write back. Scor wouldn't not write…" As I said the last four words, I tried to convince myself as well. But then, maybe we didn't know him as well as we thought we did, after all.
Albus seemed to be thinking about it for a long time. People had started rushing more, trying to get their trunks and animals onto the train. Near us, I could see our parents giving us strange looks. Finally, Al spoke: "Now that I think about it, Scor hasn't sent an owl to me either. I thought it was pretty odd. Did you ever hear the story about how a house elf was keeping letters from your parents from my dad?"
I nodded, understanding what he meant. "I highly doubt that a house elf would not be letting letters from Scorpius get to us. We don't have any evil thing at Hogwarts that wants to kill us, like your dad had."
"Good point. I suppose there's not much we can do now, though. The train's about to leave. Let's just find him in there." Al said, already heading back toward our families, "Come on! Hurry!"
Shouting our goodbyes while racing towards the train with giant heavy trunks was not easy, but somehow we managed. We hurried through one of the doors that had not yet been closed. Standing by the door's window, we waved out the window toward our family.
In about a minute, the train started moving and we watched the people on the platform get farther and farther away.
"C'mon," I said, "lets go look for Scorpius." Albus and I started down the corridor, saying 'Hi' to old friends, and new ones that we had met last year.
As we walked past a compartment of nervous looking first years that were discussing what they had heard about Hogwarts, we heard a voice call our names. Slowly, we looked in the direction it had come from to see another cousin, Dominique, beckoning us to her. "Hey, guys!" she called, "You want to sit with us?" Her younger brother, Louis, appeared beside her.
"Sure," I nodded toward Al to follow me, "We were just looking for someone. Can we leave our stuff here and come back later?"
"Oh, okay." She said smiling.
After we stored our trunks, Al and I agreed to split up to look for Scor. I went down one side of the train and Albus went back the way we had come, just in case we had missed him. I walked for a few minutes until I came up to an almost empty compartment. There was one boy sitting alone, looking out the window at the passing scenery.
I knocked on the door, he didn't look up, and so I opened the door. "Hey, Scor, how's your summer been?" I asked, sitting down across from him. He didn't answer.
"Um…" I started, unsure of what to say, "You didn't reply to any of our owls. Is everything okay?" Scorpius didn't reply. Again.
We sat there for ten minutes ago, him looking out the window and ignoring any attempt I made at conversation. After a while I gave up and just watched him carefully. There was something…something different about him.
I had been in his compartment for half an hour, sitting in silence. He wasn't going to talk to me. Had I done something? Was there something in my first letter over the summer that had upset him? Finally, I left and headed back to Dominique and Louis' compartment.