AN: This is my first story on Fanfiction, got my inspiration when I heard the boys I live with discussing a rating chart they saw on LadBible. So please if you like it, review!
The story will be told in Scorpius' POV unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, any character you don't recognise I've probably made up, but apart from that I'm just orchestrating the works of good ol' JK.
"Come on, Potter. Longbottom's working at The Leaky Cauldron all day, and none of us are gonna tell him what you rated his sister."
"I don't give a shit whether or not Frank is here," I heard James snap. As I grew closer to the pool of the Burrow, where my friends were gathered around, I could see the eldest Potter brother folding his arms across his chest. "Alice is my girlfriend, and I refuse to rank her using some stupid rating system."
"Oh come on, Jamesy," Albus said playfully, nudging his older brother. I could see the surprise on his face, even from a distance. He couldn't blame him; over the course of the five years we'd had been at Hogwarts, we'd seen James with dozens of girls. "Two or three months ago you would've ranked any girl and not felt guilty about it."
"That's where you're wrong, Al. He still wouldn't have ranked Alice," Fred piped up, stretching his freckled arms upwards before resting back on them. "Always had a soft spot for her, even before he finally plucked up the courage to tell her he had feelings for her. I remember back in our second year, when we watched her get sorted into Hufflepuff. Frank was upset, but Merlin, James was terrified for her, not knowing anyone in her house."
"Potter!"
"You soppy git."
"Who knew there was a girl out there who actually has the ability to make James Potter feel?" I said teasingly, grinning at the older boy as I sat down next to him. James simply rolled his eyes back, knowing the I was only joking.
Since Albus had been sorted into Slytherin in and had started hanging out with a group of boys in his own house, naturally the older Gryffindor boys had taken us under their wings. I would never admit it, but I always saw Frank, James, Fred and Louis as the older brothers I never had.
"Trust me, when you meet the right girl, you'll just know," James said, confident in his love for the auburn-haired Hufflepuff. I could see by the twinkle in James' brown eyes that he was serious about her, and I couldn't help but think of how happy he'd been when he'd proudly announced to us that she'd agreed to go to Hogsmeade with him. "I would choose a movie night with Ali over a Quidditch celebration anyday."
"You're whipped."
"Are you sure you can't rank her?"
"Fuck off, Stack."
Tobias Zabini (known more commonly as Toby), Benjamin Hamilton and Lucas Stack, the other three boys we hung out with, were all known for being notorious players. In fact, our entire group was, minus Lysander Scamander, who was currently on holiday in Romania with his twin brother, and we blamed that on the fact he was a Ravenclaw too caught up with his studies. Before James had started seeing Alice, none of us had ever had a girlfriend; we merely slept around, or got with a different girl every party. Yet, we were still that group of boys who girls naturally gravitated towards, despite being completely aware of our reputations.
"Potter, this chart is completely accurate," Lucas said, pulling a folded sheet of parchment out of his pocket. "Jake showed it to me, after one of his Muggle mates showed him. It's one of the only Muggle inventions you'll hear me praise." Jake was Lucas' twenty one year old brother, who worked at a nightclub in Ibiza. He'd been in Slytherin too, and whilst we hadn't been as close to him as we were the Gryffindor boys, we'd all thought he was pretty cool. "Explain exactly how this chart works then," Ben said, the curiosity clear in his voice.
"So, you rate a girl, first by her looks, then by her personality –"
"I already hate this concept."
"Shush, Potter."
"And with the two together, you work out what category she falls into."
"Category?"
"Well, if she's not very attractive and her personality isn't great, that's 'No Man's Land' –"
"Stack, that's horrible!" Louis protested, his lips curling into a frown. Louis Weasley, the moral compass of the group. Though he had his fair share of girls falling at his feet (the Veela genes probably helped a bit), he always knew the right way to treat them, and how to let them down gently. I was pretty sure he was the only one in our group who still managed to be friends with some of the girls he'd slept with over the years.
"It's just blunt and to the point," Lucas said matter-of-factly. Brutal honesty was a trait of Lucas' I had to admire; at least people could never accuse him of being two-faced. "If she's not that great looking but has a cracking personality, that my friends is what we call the 'Friend Zone.' If she's slightly more attractive, we've got 'Friends With Possibilities' –"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Come on, Al, surely you've got that one friend you'd just die to shag. Or not even shag, but you're kind of attracted to her."
"Think Tilly Clearwater," I said, turning to my best friend, my lips curling into a smirk as his cheeks tinged pink. Matilda Clearwater was a Ravenclaw in our year, whose long, chestnut hair was the envy of most girls. She'd been friends with our group since first year flying lessons, when she'd helped Lucas get his broom off the grass. Despite being a complete girly girl, Tilly was one of two girls who played on a Hogwarts Quidditch team, serving as Ravenclaw's Keeper.
"Okay, I get it," Albus murmured, clearly embarrassed by my dig. I'd seen the way he looked at her when she was helping him study for our Potions OWL, despite not being in our class, and I'd held it against him ever since. "So what are the other categories?"
"If she's considerably attractive but her personality isn't great, you make her a 'Friend with Benefits.'"
"Do people still do that? And not develop feelings for one another?"
"I'm sure it's possible. Anyway, stop distracting me. If she's highly attractive but her personality isn't great, she's known as 'Eye Candy.' Pretty to look at, but you wouldn't really want to go there. If they're highly attractive with a decent personality, you're 'Together But Not Going Out', otherwise known as casual dating."
"So you're not exclusive to one another, but you like each other?"
"Exactly, Ben! Now, the 'Relationship Zone' is a bit more complex. A girl lands in there if she's relatively pretty with an amazing personality, but can also be placed there if she's got an okay personality but is incredibly hot."
"Right."
"The 'Marry' bit is the same, but obviously to a higher degree."
"And what if she's got the perfect personality and she's insanely beautiful?"
"Please," I said, laughing dismissively at Toby's innocent question. "There's no such thing as the perfect girl." "As scarily cynical as you are, Scor, you're right. That section's called 'Impossible' because there is no such thing."
"What are you idiots doing?"
I fought to keep a scowl off my face at the irritatingly familiar voice, and turned my head to see Rose Weasley walking towards us. Great.
Despite my friendship with her cousins and family friends, Weasley and I had never seen eye-to-eye. If I were to look for a reason, it would probably be the rivalry between our fathers. That and our competitive natures.
Since First Year, everything had been a competition with us. She was top of pretty much every class, to my disdain. No matter how many hours of studying I put in, I couldn't beat her, I could simply match her a large majority of the time. We both played as Chasers on our respective teams, and I'd never wanted to hex her more than when she won the award for Best Chaser at the end of last school year.
We just didn't get along; no matter how many times Al had tried to intervene, we just couldn't. It would normally start with the redhead making a cutting comment about me, so naturally I'd retaliate, and by the end of the argument, our wands would be drawn, ready to hex the other into oblivion.
I hadn't had to see much of her this summer, despite me constantly being at The Burrow, because she'd been working shifts at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, but she still popped in every now and again. Unfortunately.
"Well, if it isn't my favourite cousin," Fred said, grinning up at her. I tried to conceal a laugh as James, Louis and Albus all began grumbling. Everyone knew that Fred had a soft spot for Rose Weasley, out of all their brood; she was just as much a sister to him as Roxy was. Albus had always said it was probably because Rose was the only female cousin who was interested in pranking and Quidditch, and had been from a young age.
"Hey," Weasley said, smiling at our group, her smile in my direction more-than-slightly forced. Well, at least she was being civil. "Just thought I'd warn you, Nana says you're not getting pumpkin pie unless you lot go upstairs and clean your rooms."
"Is she joking?" James whined. He might have been going into his seventh year, but James had the same maturity level as most second years. Rose shook her head, and I could tell by the twinkle in her blue eyes that she was as amused by the situation as I was. "I Floo'd in from work, and Nana was grumbling about how the bedrooms haven't been this messy since Dad moved out."
"Can't we just use a Cleaning Charm –"
"Please, you know Nana. No magic."
"Oh come on, Rosie. At least help us?"
"Help you? Why do you need help?"
"I've got about three boxes of WWW products that are gonna need to be carefully hidden."
Weasley rolled her eyes, but nodded, reaching for Fred's hand and pulling him up to his feet. James, Louis and Albus followed in turn, with Albus muttering that they'd be back soon.
"Ah, Rose Weasley," Lucas sighed as the petite redhead made her way back into the Burrow, leading her cousins. I could practically see his eyes glazing over at the sight of her long, lightly-tanned legs, clad in a pair of tiny denim shorts. "That girl gets hotter every time I see her."
"So, seeing as you practically start drooling whenever she's around us, would that make her a ten for looks on your stupid chart?" Toby said teasingly, moving his head before could Lucas hit him. "No girl is perfect lookswise," I muttered sullenly under my breath, trying to place how Lucas, and most of the male population of Hogwarts, could be so obsessed with the irritating girl who posed as my rival for just about everything I did.
Okay, that might be a teeny tiny lie.
There was no denying Rose Weasley was good looking. In fact, she's one of the only girls I would actually consider labelling beautiful, not that I would ever admit that to anyone.
That was yet another thing that irritated me about the eldest child of Ron and Hermione Weasley: it just seemed so damn effortless to her. Most girls in our year spent at least an hour before breakfast in the Great Hall preening at themselves in the mirror but during the days spent at the Burrow over the years, I'd seen Rose come out of her bedroom looking immaculate. Then again, there was always that foul temper of hers to balance out how annoyingly good-looking she was.
"Oh come on, Scor," Ben said, rolling his eyes at the familiar disgusted tone in my voice, affiliated only with the Golden Girl herself. "We all know you don't like the girl, but even you can see she's easily the hottest in our year." I forced a scowl on my face and shrugged my shoulders, lying through my teeth. "There's loads of girls I can think of who are better looking."
"Oh yeah? Name them."
"Kitty Taylor."
"Cakes herself in make up."
"Lauren Carter."
"She looked better brunette than she does blonde."
"Megan Leese."
"Body like a twelve year old boy."
"Ouch, and I thought I was meant to be the shallow one," I chuckled, shaking my head in disbelief at Lucas' judgements of the three Slytherin girls I'd just named. "You and I both know that Weasley is hot. She ticks every single box."
"Oh Merlin, don't tell me there are boxes you tick off," I groaned, looking at the sheet of parchment with the chart on it. Sure enough, above the chart were two tables, one which supposedly helped you rate a girl's looks, and the other which helped rate her personality.
"I'm giving Weasley full marks for her boobs, ass and figure."
"What?! You're joking."
"I agree with Luc on this one. I would kill to see her naked."
"Half of our year probably have."
"Like you can talk, Scor!"
"Can we just give her a ten for looks?"
"You can't," I snapped, a weird feeling bubbling in my gut at the sound of two of my best mates lusting after the redhead. They looked up at me confused, as did Toby, who'd been silent the entire time, and I cleared my throat as I gestured at the table. "You can't give her a three out of three for her face. One of her eyes is slightly bigger than the other."
"So you're saying that we can't give Rose a three for her face because one of her eyes is bigger than the other?"
"Precisely."
"You're ridiculous."
"I just have high standards. Maybe if you idiots did you wouldn't be spending so much time fantasising about Weasley."
Even the thought of my best friends lusting after her made my blood boil. What was that all about?
"Personality is the hard one to rate," Lucas said thoughtfully as he wrote down what we'd been saying. "Because I don't know about you guys but Weasley isn't exactly known for being classy." I could agree with him on that. Apart from Alice, who'd been a family friend of hers since birth, Rose didn't hang out with other girls, and wasn't all that elegant. She was constantly surrounded by her male cousins, and swore so often that I was sure expletives were naturally embedded in her vocabulary.
"And there's no denying that she's pretty cocky and stuck up." Again, true. Not that I could call her out on it without being a hypocrite. Whenever Weasley would successfully shoot the Quaffle through a hoop, I'd catch her laughing proudly to herself, high-fiving one of her cousins before turning her attention back to the game. I itched to hex her every time she was given a higher grade for an assignment, the way she'd turn her head to smirk at me instantly had me reaching for my wand. Merlin, I dreaded to think about what I'd do if her OWL results were better than mine.
"She's funny, we'll give her that." Over the five years I'd known her, Weasley and I had gotten in our fair share of arguments. Okay, that was an understatement. We bickered so often that the Hogwarts population had accepted that the tall blonde Slytherin boy and the petite redhead from Gryffindor wanted to kill one another. It was perfectly normal to turn a corner and see the pair of us pointing our wands at one another, reading to duel. But whilst I was known for my harsh, blunt nature, Weasley was known for her sharp tongue and witty comebacks.
"As for sensible… we can give her half." "Why half?" I said curiously, raising an eyebrow at him. Though I disliked the girl, I'd never really thought Weasley to be insensible, and I felt myself feeling guilty at the fact we were pointing out her flaws. Oh man up, Scorpius. It's just Weasley.
"Because she's rational and pragmatic at times," Lucas replied, the corners of his lips curving upwards into a smile at the . "Don't tell me you've forgotten how she used Accio to get all the food in the Great Hall one dinner in fourth year because she was angry about how James' year had been abusing the House Elves' hospitality?"
Ah, how could I possibly forget that.
Weasley had come back from our weekly midnight Astronomy lesson to find the House Elves serving James and his friends food. Apparently, studying for OWLs had become incredibly stressful, and they'd been getting the Elves to deliver them food late at night instead of going down to the kitchens themselves.
Though everyone had thought her protest crazy (including McGonagall, who, although admiring Weasley's passion, obviously had to punish her with a month of detention), I couldn't help but respect her for it. Though we had House Elves ourselves at the Manor, I couldn't stand it when my grandfather belittled and berated them. I wouldn't ever be brave enough to stand in the Great Hall and criticise injustice in the world, though that was just classic Weasley. Not only was she the daughter of Hermione Weasley, who'd founded SPEW back when she was at Hogwarts, but she was the epitome of a true Gryffindor: brave, strong-willed and daring as they come.
"So that's… a three for personality and a nine for looks?" Toby said, leaning over me so he could look at the sheet of parchment. "What category does Weasley fall under on the ol' chart then?"
"Just a bit of eye candy," Lucas hummed, leaning back on his elbows. "Not that I'm disagreeing with that. She's fit but there's no way I'd want anything more than a quick shag with Rose Weasley. She's not really the kind of girl you date now, is she?"
For some reason, I found myself opening my mouth to defend her, but my potentially detrimental out-of-character action was saved by Albus sticking his head out of one of the windows of the Burrow.
"OI, YOU LOSERS WANT SOME OF NANA'S PUMPKIN PIE?"
I'd been on the Qudditch team with these boys since our second year, and never had I seen us all run so fast. We were so quick to run inside and land ourselves a slice each of Molly Weasley's pumpkin pie that we completely forgot about the chart Lucas had drawn out.
Little did we know, we'd be kicking ourselves about that in a couple months.