3rd Year

"I cannot believe you would say that about The Tale of the Three Brothers!" She protested indignantly.

"Rose, you cannot seriously be mad at me about this. It's a children's fairy tale for Godric's sake!" Scorpius contested, his grey eyes wide and face innocent as a choirboy's.

She had a short temper and no patience though, and huffed off towards the tower, angrily muttering Norwegian Ridgeback as she arrived. She considered stomping straight to her room, but stopped short in the common room to check on Hugo, who was still settling into his first year at school.

After several rounds of exploding snap with her numerous Gryffindor cousins and all irritation with Scorpius faded, she retired to her room. She noticed a small leather-bound copy of The Tales of the Beedle and the Bard lying innocently on her bed.

Perhaps he had used a banishing charm to levitate the book up to her dormitory door, or had simply asked Allie Longbottom to drop the book off, either way she found the gesture touching. She shook her head and picked it up, reading the little note he had attached in his untidy boyish scrawl.

RMW,

I missed you at dinner. I'm sorry I insulted your favorite story. Truly. It will never happen again, lest Death comes to visit me along a lonely, winding road at twilight and murders me himself.

-SHM

She giggled at his ridiculous note and hugged the book to her chest. Settling into her bed she flipped to a random page and saw that it was not a new copy as she had first thought, but rather his personal copy with annotations and notes in the margins. One in particular caught her eye, only three little letters RMW. Her. Rose Minerva Weasley.

She noticed the deep indent the marking had left in the page and knew that he had traced over the letters at least a dozen times. She flipped to several other pages and found her initials doodled there too.

She beamed.

The next morning he joined her at breakfast with his disheveled hair and a sleepy smile. She felt the sudden urge to lean over and kiss him on the cheek.

But he was her best friend, and best friends didn't kiss each other, so she didn't.

4th Year

Rose Weasley had a thing for blonde hair and as much as she tried to deny it, her track record proved otherwise.

First there had been sixth year Quidditch Captain Connor McLaggen with his shaggy dirty blonde hair and impossibly toned physique. As soon as she told Dominique of her childish crush she knew it was a mistake. The whole family knew within the hour and spent days making kissing noises and teasing her to join the Quidditch team just to be with him. (She purposefully stayed away from tryouts and dodged him in the hallways for the next two years until he graduated).

Then there was Sam Macmillan, her partner in Charms with golden honey curls and a charming smile. He was a bit precocious, but easy going and liked to playfully flirt with her. Their lighthearted banter stopped abruptly after a few weeks though. His snide remarks about Scorp's family set her over the edge and she 'accidentally' set his eyebrows on fire while practicing a fire-making spell. (He tended to avoid her after that).

When Michael Davies, the sandy blonde Ravenclaw prefect, asked her to the next Hogesmede visit, she had been thrilled to be asked out by one of the most popular boys in school.

She knew little about him though and found they had little to talk about beyond Quidditch and classes. By the time they got to the Three Broomsticks, the awkward silence made her desperate for an excuse to leave. Thankfully, in that moment, Scorpius walked in and saw the miserable look on her face.

"Rose!" He called out and rushed up to her. "Albus was hurt, something about a boxing telescope gone mad. We have to go check on him in the hospital wing!" He said it a bit too theatrically for it to be convincing.

Rose tried not to laugh. "Gosh, I'm so sorry Michael, I have to go. He's my cousin you see," and she slipped out of the Three Broomsticks into the fresh autumn air.

She was so pleased to get away from Davies and walk towards the castle with Scorpius who had grabbed her hand casually that she could have kissed him.

But he was her best friend, and best friends couldn't kiss each other, so she didn't.

5th Year

Rose had inherited not only her mother's brains but also her crippling self doubt and terror that she wouldn't pass her classes.

O.W.L.s were only three days away and she was desperately trying to learn the dates of the goblin riots of the eighteenth century, the names of Jupiter's moons, and the list of ingredients for the Polyjuice potion. Why had she put off studying for Owls until third year? She knew she should have started in second.

Just when she felt she was about to crack under the sheer exhaustion and stress of it all, Scorpius suddenly materialized in the Gryffindor common room. He had come to borrow a book from Albus, he explained. Had she not see him come in? She realized he had asked her a question. She didn't answer and barely registered his presence even as he sat down next to her. She was so raggedly tired her eyes started to drift out of focus from her potions notes.

"Scorpius, I don't think I can do this," she choked out and rested her head against his chest.

"Hey. Hey, come on," he pulled her chin up, brushed the back of his hand against her cheek and then rubbed small circles along her jaw with his thumb. The gesture was so sweet, intimate, and comforting she nearly burst into tears. "You're the smartest witch I know." He continued, pushing a red curl back behind her ear. "Please, try to get some sleep. I'm worried about you," he breathed into her ear.

She wanted to brush her lips across the corner of his mouth as a silent thank you.

But he was her best friend, and best friends wouldn't kiss each other, so she didn't.

6th Year

There was something about the smell of the library, the ink-and-parchment-and-leather scent, that had always appealed to Rose.

As she approached their usual table drenched in the late afternoon light, a ray of sun cast down on her best friend as though he were under a spotlight. His platinum blonde hair appeared even brighter than normal.

He was preoccupied with his Ancient Runes homework, so she plopped down across from him silently and started on her own mountain of homework. An hour had passed in compatible silence when Rose glanced up and saw Scorpius absentmindedly rubbing his quill against his chin and chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip.

His tie was loose and the sleeves of his white button down were rolled up. He felt her gaze and smiled at her easily. "Hey, what's the difference between ehwaz and eihwaz?" He asked.

She doesn't know why, but in that moment she suddenly became hyper aware of him- the way his head tilted slightly to the left when he asked her a question, the way his blonde hair seemed to glow white in the sunlight, the way his bottom lip was fuller than the top.

She realized she was staring at him and still hadn't answered the question. She rattled off her response quickly. He didn't notice anything strange, however, and scribbled down the answer on his parchment.

She couldn't shake the feeling that she should just do it, lean across the table and find out exactly how soft his lips were, how smooth his hair was. She knew she loved him, but it wasn't until 4:28 on a Wednesday afternoon when her asked the difference between ehwaz and eihwaz that she realized she was in love with him and not in a platonic he's-my-best-friend way.

She wanted to kiss him.

But he was her best friend, and best friends shouldn't kiss each other, so she didn't.

7th Year

"ROSE! ROSE! ROSE, I GOT IN! I'm going to be a healer!" He sprinted towards her clutching and waving around his letter as she entered the Great Hall for breakfast. He was breathless and trembling and the smile on his face made his face look as though it were going to split into two.

This was everything he had been working towards, all his hopes and plans and late night study sessions had been in pursuit of becoming a healer, and he did it.

She wanted to kiss him. And not just a celebratory peck on the cheek. She wanted to kiss him and show him exactly how much she loved him and how unbelievably proud she was.

She wanted to kiss him. And he was her best friend. So she did.

A/N: In the refrain sentence at the end of each section, I tried to make the difference between didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, and shouldn't subtle. I'm not sure if it came across, but I wanted to show how Rose's feelings of kissing her best friend as absolutely forbidden as a young girl (best friends didn't kiss each other) i.e. she didn't even entertain the thought, gradually changed and loosened over time. By the time she got to 6th year (best friends shouldn't kiss each other), it was meant to be more of a hopeless longing/frustration.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave a review and make my day a bit brighter :)

PS/Shameless self promotion: I just wrote a companion one shot to this called Four Times Scorpius Wanted to Kiss Rose (And One Time He Did) so feel free to check it out!