"Hi. I'm Rose" the tall redhead stated as Scorpius entered the train compartment. He sat down across from her and took the offered hand. "Scorpius. Nice to meet you." "Finally" Rose replied, laughing. It was strange but true that over the past six years the two had never been in a class together. However, they had certainly heard each other's names and reputations, and seen each other around the castle and at prefect meetings. Both were interested in cross-checking the gossip. "Alright, so the prefects will be here in half an hour. We should probably start working on a rough draft of the patrol schedule." Scorpius nodded. "Likes to take charge, check" he though, and, out loud "Last year's system of pairing older prefects with new ones in the same house, and then changing to different houses within the same year seemed to work pretty well." "Quite observant, check".
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"You didn't need to interrupt me." The last of the prefects had just left and Rose rounded on Scorpius. "I was explaining fine. We agreed that I'd go over privileges and responsibilities, and you'd talk about patrol schedules and how to contact us." Scorpius sighed. "Well if you hadn't been explaining at approximately the speed of MOLASSES, I wouldn't have interrupted. I did want time to change into my robes, thank you very much." "You should have changed into your robes before they arrived like I did if you were so worried about! There was no need to undermine me like that!" "We're here. We'll talk about this later." "Fine."
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Later never happened. There were passwords to set and meetings to have and rounds to do (they had agreed to put themselves in the rotation with younger prefects, same as the other 7th years), and besides, it was a bit awkward to have a "clearing-the-air" conversation with someone you barely knew. And so the space between them had grown. They weren't nasty to each other, they were instead carefully polite, and with the occasional "Good morning" or "How your day" or "What was the last ingredient in that potion". All of that exploded sometime in early November.
"I left my book here, I know I did." Rose muttered to herself. Coming off a break period, she had defense, potions, and herbology, and she was currently missing her herbology book. Just then, Scorpius arrived. Seeing her running around frantically, he called out "Need help?" "I left my herbology book right on this table earlier today and now its missing!" Scorpius cleared his throat and pulled the missing volume out of his bag. "I couldn't find mine, and yours was right here so I…" He trailed off at the look on Rose's face. "And you couldn't leave a note" "I was hurrying, I didn't think of it!" Rose grabbed the book and stormed out. From then on, she was careful to never leave anything laying around. Scorpius tried a couple of times to apologize, but Rose never listened and eventually he got fed up with her stubbornness and stopped trying. They forced cheerfulness for prefect meetings and otherwise avoided each other at all costs, leaving for winter holidays without another conversation held.
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Rose had a dilemma. It was cold, and Scorpius had pulled the couch right in front of the fireplace in the heads common room. Not a chair, which would have left enough room for her to pull one up too, not a decent distance away so she could slide in front, but the couch, right freaking there. Granted, there was enough room for them both on the sofa, but it wasn't like she and Scorpius were close friends. Or even civil, really. They avoided each other at all costs. But still. It was COLD out, and the fireplace seemed very welcoming. Rose grabbed her Potions book and her quill and curled up on the corner of the couch farthest away from Scorpius. He didn't say anything, but inched more towards his own side. Still, they sat like that for the rest of the week, and when she was about to head up to her room on Friday evening to pick out an outfit for Hogsmeade the next day she heard a voice. "Sorry I interrupted you and took your book." "Sorry I yelled and ignored you."
The next week, they allowed themselves to spread out a bit more on the couch. They have reached a delicate equilibrium.
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By the end of the moth, they were sitting side by side with their things spreading out towards the sofa's ends. It made sense this way, they reasoned. Their essays and parchments and quills wouldn't get mixed together, and besides, it was additional warmth. January in Scotland was nothing to be taken lightly. They still didn't talk much, but it wasn't out of the question for them to compare class notes or discuss a bit of gossip. They wonder if this means they are becoming friends, but neither says anything to avoid bringing on the round of awkwardness that was guaranteed to ensue.
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His right arm was squished, Scorpius thought as he sat next to Rose in front of the fire. His left was busy turning the pages of the quidditch magazine he was reading but the other one was stuck between their bodies on the couch. He extracted it carefully, and, hesitating for a brief moment, dropped it around Rose's shoulders. Much to both of their surprise, she didn't jerk away or yell. She barely reacted at all, actually. Her only response was to let her head droop onto Scorpius' shoulder, and adjust her novel a bit to accommodate the new position. They are pretty sure this means they are friends. "Maybe a little bit more", a voice in the back of Scorpius' head nags. He ignores it. They barely talk, how can they really be anything at all. But when Rose lets out a contented sigh and nestles closer to him, he allows himself the smallest of smiles.
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She curled her legs in closer so that the very tips of her knees were resting on Scorpius' lap and rested the latest edition of Spellman's Syllabary on her thighs. One of his arms has found its way around her waist, holding the very bottom corner of his muggle studies textbook. "I study it because it's fascinating" she murmured, half reabsorbed in the text already. "I didn't ask" he replied smiling. "But you always do, so I figured I'd cut to the chase." Now she smiles too. They've been talking more lately, and Rose finds herself glad of the long winter. It means they have an excuse to stay where they are, wrapped together in front of the fire. It means they can do things she's pretty sure friends (That's what they are, right? Friends?) don't normally do, like laugh into each other's hair and tangle their feet together on the table they sometimes pull in between them and the fire, with keeping a decent body temperature as a valid reason. Merlin. What were they going to do when the "lamb" part of March kicked in and their convenient little excuse came to an end. Although sometimes when she catches a glimpse of him when he doesn't think she's watching, she's pretty sure her body goes to a very indecent temperature indeed.
"Hey Rose?" "Yeah?" "Can I borrow your herbology textbook tomorrow?" "Sure"
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It was mid-May and they were talking for real. Towards the beginning of April, they had spent an afternoon rearranging the room around the couch being in front of the bay window, because of course they needed to catch the spring breezes! It had been a wonderful month and a half with plenty of laughs and jokes and it had become commonplace for them to borrow each other's things, making sure to leave notes behind. They could definitely say that they were friends, really and truly. The problem, of course, had become that friends was not good enough. So Scorpius "accidentally" let his foot touch hers on the windowsill when he stretched out and Rose "accidentally" let her left hand rest just slightly on top of his when she finished talking with the grand gestures she favored and they went on in a comfortable, if pregnant, mix of silence and pleasant conversation. But the clock was ticking and they both knew it.
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It started an accident.
Scorpius turned his head to ask Rose if she could show him her potions notes and Rose turned hers to ask Scorpius if she could borrow his defense textbook tomorrow, and they were so close it was impossible not to close that last bit of distance. And once they were already kissing, it made perfect sense to fully intertwine their fingers and let their feet tangle together. When they were out of breath, they leaned back until their foreheads touched. "Scorpius I…" "Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean…"
They gathered up their things quietly, bringing them back to their own rooms, and then Rose climbed the stairs to Scorpius'. The whole thing about girls being more trustworthy than boys seemed to have been applied to even the most responsible students in school. She lay next to him, and then they were kissing again, and their hands were sliding up each other's shirts and their pants were sliding down their legs and their bodies were sliding over each other's and their breaths were sliding out of their mouths.
It ended completely on purpose.