prompt: none
competition: The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 13 [final round]
Again
The branches clawed at him, anxious arms reaching for a barbed embraced. Leaving through the window had sounded more poetic than the reality turned out to be. Louis Weasley picked himself off the ground, wondered how he'd managed to land with his feet above his head and his arm stuck underneath his back, brushed the dirt from his clothes and shook the leaves from his hair.
He emerged into the almost-daylight and mmediately regretted doing so. The sun was yet to leave the horizon but the light was already too bright for his weary eyes. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. His mind was running several steps behind the rest of him and while he seemed to have mastered basic movement, conscious thought still seemed an abstract concept.
These are just excuses. Louis Weasley was clumsy, all appearance of grace aside (and, if anything, looking like he could dance barefoot on a moonlit lake only made his lack of coordination all the more apparent), and his mind was always closer to the clouds than on wherever he was walking. Still, if you asked him, it wasn't his fault. He may have stepped out onto the path without checking if the way was clear (spoiler alert: it wasn't), but he wasn't the one who was running along it. Louis didn't run, basically ever. It was ungainly. Also he was awful at it. And lazy. And he didn't like to sweat.
Something slammed into him with the weight of a dragon armoured in gold, and Louis hadn't even the chance to stagger before he fell to the ground. Again. He was considering applying for permanent residency.
From his spot sprawled on the pavement, he looked up at a figure, tall and blonde, wearing a halo of sunlight. He had the vague impression of muscles and sweat and the kind of smirk that made him want to punch things.
Louis scowled. "Malfoy, I will slice that dastardly grin from your face, turn it into a cockroach and feed it to your grandmother."
"Charming as always, Weasley. Fine morning for a walk of shame?"
"The above offer still stands."
"Offer? I thought it sounded more of a threat. Is the Ministry aware of your psychopathic tendencies?"
"Is the Ministry aware you're a twat?"
"I'm not sure if it's made it onto their agenda, though there's always next month. Besides, I'm not so sure it's true."
To Louis's credit, it isn't easy to be threatening when you're slumped on the ground and your arms have just been scratched up by a rose bush of all things and you know there's still leaves in your hair because one's tickling at your nose, and also you don't have the face for it. He scowled. Scorpius Malfoy looked less than bothered. He scowled again. "I can vouch for it," he said eventually.
"Would a twat offer you a hand up?"
Louis squinted suspiciously at the offered arm. "He is appearing to." But he took it. He clasped Scorpius's hand like a handshake between gentlemen and he used Scorpius's strength to pull him down to the ground while raising himself up to standing.
Of course, as should have been expected for the young Weasley, things did not go entirely to plan. Instead of a clean exchange in position what he got was a tangled mess of limbs. Elbows colliding with faces, knees hitting just where it hurts (and possibly not entirely by accident).
"You crock of cracked pepper," Scorpius half-gasped.
Louis managed to pull away without kicking himself in the face and breaking his own nose (it was possible, he would know), and, seated a little way away on the pavement, glowered at Scorpius with all his worth. Unfortunately his stare had no magical properties to it and Scorpius wasn't transfigured into a mollusk or vanished into another universe.
Instead, Scorpius merely smirked. He looked approximately like the exact opposite of a mollusk. "Are your feelings hurt?" he asked.
Louis wanted to say that no, though every other part of his body was. What he actually said was, "I hate you," and his real answer was in that.
"I highly doubt that," Scorpius said, with all the confidence of someone who never has been nor ever will be the largest of the marine phylum.
Maybe Louis couldn't cast spells with his eyes but he could communicate with them and he glared at Scorpius until Scorpius's smiled dropped.
"I'm sorry," Scorpius said.
"You're not."
"I am, though." Scorpius ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick on end. It made him look more unhinged than Louis felt. "Really. That was a shit move of mine."
Louis pretended to be very surprised, all wide eyes and overplayed expressions and suffocating sarcasm. "Oh, you don't say."
"No, I do."
Louis looked away. "I'm not going to forgive you, just like that."
"Good. I'd think less of you if you did."
"Are you stalking me?" It was a genuine question. Louis could never truly believe in coincidences. Was Scorpius really just on an early morning run? Louis looked at him. See, he could believe that too.
"Don't flatter yourself."
"Okay, I'm leaving." Louis stood up.
Scorpius caught at his arm. "Don't. I'm sorry. I'm trying not to be an arse, I mean it. It's just..."
"Really difficult not to be?"
"Exceedingly so. I'm fighting against my very nature."
"That's dramatic."
"Says you."
Louis huffed, only proving Scorpius's point.
"Come on, I'll buy you a drink. You can keep an eye on me, make sure I'm not following you."
"I've never heard such flawless logic." Louis looked at his watch. "Also, it's 7am."
"That's never stopped you before."
A retort was lost on Louis's tongue. Generally, acknowledging any moment between them other than the present had ever occurred was against their unspoken rules.
Those were Scorpius's favourite kind to break. "We can also have eggs. There, breakfast."
Louis sighed. "I must be an idiot."
"Why's that?"
"Because you are."
"That's a yes, right?"
Louis was determined not to look at Scorpius, not if he could help it. The problem was that he couldn't. They sat in the booth at the back corner of The Leaky Cauldron and the only thing in Louis's frame of sight that wasn't Scorpius was the wall. Louis found himself enthralled in trying to puzzle out exactly what colour the wall was under all the grime. 'Dirt brown' seemed the most likely option.
He didn't see the way Scorpius made his butterbeer dance up out of the glass and draw pictures in the air. There weren't hearts and words like 'sorry' and something that looked like an incredibly unflattering portrait of Louis. There wasn't any of it.
And Louis wasn't in denial.
He spoke, before too long. He couldn't not, though Scorpius seemed content to sit in smirking silence.
"I can't work out if you are for real or not," Louis said.
Scorpius was lounging back in the booth like the whole place was his own and he looked up at those words like he was surprised to find Louis was even there. "I'm not a dream," he said, with a smile that seemed to imply he thought himself just that. "Though I understand how you could make the mistake."
"You're a nightmare, that's what you are."
"I'm sorry to keep you up at night," Scorpius said, like he wasn't at all.
"You're ridiculous. I don't understand how you're even real. And don't twist that into me complimenting you."
Scorpius smiled like a child in a lolly store, like a cat that had caught the mouse, like a boy who was extremely pleased with how a series of events were panning out.
"I am unique," he said, obviously deciding he didn't need anyone else to compliment him, he had himself for that. "A treasure."
"Are you really so in love with yourself? How? I can't be around you for a minute without wanting to slap that smirk from your stupid face."
"I limit how long I stare at myself in the mirror, best I can. It's a struggle."
Louis looked at his own glass like he wanted to tip it right over Scorpius's head. This was because he did. "I'm leaving," he announced.
"Tally ho," said Scorpius.
Louis glowered at him. Scorpius had his smirks, Louis had his glares. They were always running in circles. "Aren't you going to stop me?"
Again, Scorpius only smiled.
"I will rip that stupid expression off your stupid face."
"What harsh words. Your obsession with my stupid mouth is almost concerning."
"I'll give you something to be concerned about."
"You a master of wit, Raven boy."
"I'm half asleep."
"And angry at me."
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because you're an arse."
Louis was half out of his seat, ready to leave, when the unexpected happened.
Scorpius laughed. His hand went to his face and he shook his head. "Oh Merlin, I know." He sounded genuinely amazed. "Don't go." He looked up at Louis then, and Louis surely must have been seeing things, for Scorpius's eyes looked almost sincere. "I'm really bad at things," he said suddenly, and with very intense, very grey eyes.
"I don't believe you," Louis said. It meant to sound sarcastic.
Scorpius seemed to miss that entirely. "You have to. Or, you don't, I'm not going to make you. See? I can't phrase anything right. Won't you just give me a chance?"
"A chance?"
Scorpius nodded.
Louis sat back down. "A chance for what? You haven't even told me what you wanted.
Scorpius froze. "I haven't?"
"No."
"No, I must have. I did." Scorpius looked at him expectantly.
Louis stared right back. He couldn't believe he was supposedly the spacey one. A minute passed. "I still don't know," Louis said, curiousity winning out in the end. It always did for him. "What you're trying to say."
"Oh. Well, that's a thing."
More silence. Louis waiting. Scorpius... well, who know's what was going through his head?
"Are you going to tell me what it is?"
This time, when Scorpius smiled, it was the least violence-provoking thing Louis had ever seen.
"Will you just go out with me some time? Not like this. Properly. I'll, like, buy you flowers. Or a boat. It'll be after midday."
"No."
Louis watched the hope, the last hint of courage, watched as it died on Scorpius's face.
Then Louis smiled. He smiled like a child in a lolly store, like a cat that had caught the mouse, like a boy who was extremely pleased with how a series of events were panning out.
"You were joking. Please tell me you were joking. I am right about this, aren't I? Please tell me."
Louis looked absently above them. "I thought I already did."
Scorpius's mouth opened then immediately slammed shut. "You're not funny," he said.
Louis smiled. Revenge had been sought. He felt better already. The cycle continued. "I am," he said.
Scorpius huffed out his chest. "I hate you."
"Good. I hate you too. Friday at 7?"
"In the morning?"
"On your boat?"
"Twat."
"The Ministry's been informed."
There was quiet. Scorpius was the one to break it. "...That's a yes, right?"