Rose flips through pages of her textbook, biting into an apple. Albus waves a hand in front of her face, effectively cutting off her vision, so she glances up at him in annoyance. She looks around her table, the Gryffindor table, to see her friends snickering. Rose raises an eyebrow at her cousin quizzically.
"Al, what do you want? I'm studying."
Albus simply points across the table to Andrew Finnigan, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Al takes the book from her hands, handing it to the duo's other friend, Lysander Scamander, to confiscate. Rose much prefers hanging out with her cousin and his friends, despite the more-than-occasional acts of immaturity, and the testosterone-induced fights.
She sticks her tongue out at Andrew, forcefully wrenching her textbook from Lysander's hands. Al rolls his eyes, fed up with trying to tease his cousin, and turns to flirt with a few of the ever-present girls that hang around the small group.
"What do you want, Finnigan?" Rose chirps, trying to smooth out the dog-eared page that Albus wrinkled when he grabbed the book.
"Rosie," Andrew begins, like a concerned mother, "the bloody studying is getting out of control. We're holding an intervention; you've obviously gone bonkers," he quips, raising a finger and twirling it against the side of his head – you're nuts.
"Unlike some of the dirty prats at this table, I don't bum around. Especially when the N.E.W.T.s are coming up," she replies, closing the heavy text and focusing on the breakfast in front of her as she spoke.
The Great Hall was, as always, chaotic with the number of excited students it held. Rose tries to shut out the nose, and brushes a wild curl from her eyes. She exchanges a few more words of banter with Al and Andrew when they try to accuse her of reading erotic novels.
Good-naturedly, she snaps "Fucking wankers!", laughing a bit too boisterously, a bit too tomboyishly. But she's enjoying her morning, and that's all that matters. At least, she was enjoying her morning, up until Lorcan whistles, low and loud. Everyone sitting around them turns to look at the stranger twin, shaggy haired and grinning wolfishly.
"Whassit, Scamander?" Albus asks, and his friend points across the Hall as the giant doors swing shut. Scorpius Malfoy, of all bloody people, has sauntered into the hall with this week's girl, arm hanging over her shoulder. The couple looks disheveled, and the poor girl tries to fix her hair self-consciously when the entire student body turns to stare at them. Rose voices her opinion with a judgmental snort, and Al shakes his head in agreement.
Considering the state the duo are in and how late they are to breakfast, it's obvious to everyone what they've been up to.
"How does he bloody do it?" Al asks in astonishment, ogling the pretty brunette hanging all over the taller blonde boy.
"Do what?" Rose asks nonchalantly, as if she isn't focusing on Scorpius's sexily messy appearance, like she's not trying to hold down the strange sting of jealousy that twitches in her stomach.
Lorcan and Andrew join Al in their state of awe. "He's got a different girl almost every fucking day, Rosie," Lysander says, and his twin raises a hand to his forehead theatrically. "Yeah, oi, what's wrong with us? Why don't we ever get any?"
Rose chuckles, shuts her book, and allows herself to watch the annoyingly attractive pair strut farther into the Hall. They do look rather good together, she admits silently.
"Think the answer to that one is obvious, Scamander," she says, poking fun at Lorcan's obnoxious Gryffindor sweater vest, askew glasses, and tousled curly hair. She falls into a fit of laughter when a muffin chunk bounces off of her forehead, thrown by the faux-offended boy.
Al tears his eyes away from the girl, shaking his head in disbelief again. He turns to Rose, setting his head in his hand with such a cheeky sense of thoughtfulness that Rose just has to mimic the gesture.
"Honestly, Rosie. You're a girl, right?"
"Occasionally!" Lorcan and Lysander chime.
"Naw, she's got no tits," Andrew announces.
Al shushes them. "Tell us, what's so damn awesome about Scorpius Malfoy?"
Rose, astounished and wondering if he's found out about her dark secret crush, stares at her cousin blankly. He takes the expression for disgust, thank Merlin, and laughs.
Really, she could have listed ten thousand wickedly attractive things about the Slytherin boy. His messy hair practically begs for someone to run their hands through it, and his body, sweet mother of... It was well-known that most of his spare time was spent on Quidditch, and Merlin, did it show.
Or, fuck, Rose groans mentally, or his voice, and the husky, masculine tone to it. She feels something start her heart at an irregular beat. There goes that memory, the time he'd cornered her in the library, when he'd pressed his lips to her neck and Merlin if he had jus-
HALT, screams her conscious, STOP THAT!
Rose shakes her head, trying to clear all possibly images of the Slytherin from her mind. She bites into her apple a little too violently, turning to Albus. "Really, he can't be that bloody good of a shag," she says darkly, throwing what she hoped was her best disbelieving glance at the couple. Albus, the twins, and Andrew all look pretty doubtful, despite being the heterosexual boys they are.
"I bet you prats five hundred Galleons he makes those…rumos up himself," she nods in finality. For the third time, Al shakes his head, snapping it back to motion to the brunette girl.
"Dunno, Rosie. She looks pretty pleased. Looks like she's having a hell of a time walking."
Andrew snickers darkly and Lorcan guffaws in agreement. Indeed, the girl's legs are shaking and she's leaning into Scorpius's side for support. Rose feels her face flush, dismayed at the images Al's speculation pulls up, before replacing her look of jealousy and embarrassment with one of devilish mischief.
"That, boys," she says, biting into her apple once more, "is because she spends most of her time on her knees."
It's a low blow, completely uncalled for and a bit heartless, especially coming from Rose Weasley's introverted personality.
They stare at her in obvious, open surprise before exchanging shocked glances. Lorcan is the first to break the group's silence by starting a slow, impressed clap. Each of them, one by one, bursts into a fit of raucous laughter. Rose joins in, eventually, finding it difficult to draw breaths when she hears Albus gasping and braying like a donkey
Suddenly, the boys stop, and Rose removes her hand from her mouth, slowly and with more than a little worry.
"What?"
Their eyes all nervously turn to something behind her, something she can't see, and Rose can feel her heart drop. She dares a look over her shoulder, red curls bouncing against her chin as she turns.
Scorpius stands there with the girl, who looks downright pissed. Her eyebrows are knitted together, and Rose thinks that, if the brunette weren't holding hands with the tall Malfoy, one of her fists would probably be aimed at her face.
Scorpius, on the other hand, looks like he's doing his hardest to stop an amused smirk crack his stoically straight mouth.
"Clever, Weasley. Though…do I detect a hint of jealousy?"
Rose's boys look extremely angry, about as miffed as the brunette, and Al opens his mouth to retaliate to the implication.
She can't help but think back to the incident in the library a few weeks back, when Scorpius had her absolutely flustered and shoved against a bookshelf. They hadn't done anything, really, just an unhealthy dose of flirting and implying on Malfoy's part, but even if the simple memory causes something pleasing and full of frustration to zap into her head, she's not about to let Scorpius wind her up again.
"Oh, no, Scorpius. You misunderstand. I was simply calling out your collective sexual promiscuity." Al's mouth opens again in the same shocked expression of admiration, and the twins lean forward to hear the final bit of Rose's zinger.
"Alone, you've both got quite the reputation…but together, Merlin. The broom closet must get a lot of business between classes, hm?"
Albus can't contain himself any longer, and he slams his dark head into the table, shoulders shaking spastically with hysterical, silent laughter. Andrew has a hand over his mouth, but it's not enough to hide the corners of his obvious grin. The twins, however, are open about their reaction, turning towards each other and laughing into the others' shoulder, looking collectively redder than Rose's hair.
She realizes she has gained the approval of several girls at the Gryffindor table, who are, no doubt, as jealous as she is, and happy that one of Scorpius's many girlfriends has finally been taken down a few pegs.
Scorpius remains collected and Rose wonders if his mischievous grin ever vanishes –she can't tell if she's amused him or not. His date, however, has gone absolutely mental, twisting away from under his arm. She stomps out of the Great Hall, muttering something about the Malfoy heir failing to defend and uphold her honor.
The Slytherin Keeper, along with every other student in the Great Hall, watches her storm out. When the large doors slam shut, he turns to the hysterical Gryffindors in front of him. His attention is focused suddenly on Rose, and her knees practically turn to jelly at the sexy grin he shoots her way. Stubborn as ever, though, she turns her back.
She can feel the astonished shock and change in his body language as she does so. He seems to recover quickly. Once again, similar to the moment in the library, Rose feels his breath on her neck, on her ear, just below her temple. Some part of her, weak and awed, begs for him to plant his lips on that spot.
"Being subtle is not one of your stronger talents, Rosie."
Rose swivels around to tell him off, but he cheekily holds up his hands and takes two steps backward, arms open wide in a peace offering. Her gaze, along with almost every other pair of female irises at the table, follow the tautness of his shirt stretched over his chest.
She blinks, slightly dazed, and slips her eyes back up to his face. Crossing her arms, Rose lifts her eyebrow coldly. Scorpius mocks her by mimicking her crossed arms and raised eyebrow, looking wickedly handsome as he does so.
Rose rolls her eyes once again, turning her back for the second time. Still, she can't stop her hands from shaking excitedly, and she's pent-up with excitement for the rest of breakfast. Albus notices, and suspiciously questions her strange behavior when they leave the Hall.
"Bloody hell, you prat. I'm worried that I may have caught something – did you see how close the creep got?"
Albus, ever gullible, crows with laughter and jogs off to tell Andrew and the twins what she had just implied.
Rose can feel a pair of stormy eyes watching her as she turns the corner to Divination. Unable to help herself, her own lips pull into a mischievous smirk, and she raises her hand in a cheeky wave goodbye.