Monday October 31st 2022. 12pm.

6th Year NEWT Potions.

Scorpius sat at the work bench in his Potions class with his chin rested against the desk. He looked around through the faint mist and fog left by the first years that had been brewing prior to his class. It smelt like a Baneberry Potion gone wrong, and Baneberry Potion smelt bad enough when it was brewed correctly. As the rest of his class piled into the room, he sat up and grabbed his notebook, ink and quill from his bag before opening it up to the next blank page. Scorpius realised it was Halloween as he scribbled the date in the corner of the page which meant one thing. A feast, but not just any feast - a Halloween feast. That meant sweets and puddings and sugar enough to make a toddler go a year without sleep.

The professor walked in the classroom, instantly waving his wand and clearing the room of the smell and the mist that had been left. This snapped Scorpius out of his thoughts and he looked at Professor Carter, the Potions teacher who had only been at Hogwarts since September. He was young and pretty much every girl older than second year had a crush on him, which was why there seemed to be a distinct increase of girls in Scorpius' NEWT class than there had been in his OWL class.

"Good afternoon, class." He said, waving his wand at the chalkboard. A small piece of chalk levitated and began to write a word on the board. "Today we're moving onto a new Potion. I know you all had your hearts set on learning how to brew a Draught of Living Death and even though it's Halloween, I'm not sure you guys are ready for such a thing. We're going to see what your hearts really are set on." He explained which caused a few audible groans to come from various areas of the room.

"Bet it's something boring like Essence of Dittany." Whispered Albus Potter, Scorpius's best friend since first year, who had been sat next to Scorpius since class started, although he had barely noticed.

"Essence of Dittany is actually a useful potion, you know." He whispered back and Professor Carter coughed sarcastically at the front of the class as he stared at the two boys.

"What we are studying, Mr Potter, is not Essence of Dittany." The professor said before waving his wand back towards the chalkboard, placing the chalk back down. "But, if you read the board you'd see we're going to learn how to brew Amortentia in today's session."

Albus, as well as a few other boys in the class groaned once more, while most of the girls were obviously quite excited. Scorpius was quite neutral. He didn't care for the potion itself, he just liked brewing, he found it calming; especially when he worked with Albus. Albus would never do any of the work which meant Scorpius could take his time and not get distracted by Albus adding an extra slug or something.

"Can anyone tell me what Amortentia is?" Professor Carter asked and as Scorpius began to raise his hand, he was cut short by a girl at the front of the class.

"It's the most powerful love potion ever. Apparently it smells different to everyone if brewed correctly. It smells of what attracts them to someone and can cause incredibly powerful infatuation." The red head explained. That was a habit of Rose Weasley's that Scorpius had hated ever since his first year of school. She would never raise her hand but simply answer the question. Depending on which Professor was teaching, she would have points taken away for it, but more often than not it was "5 points to Gryffindor" because she'd always get the answer right.

"Exactly, Miss Weasley." Professor Carter said. "Now, if you open your textbooks to page 57 you'll see the ingredients and recipe." Scorpius turned to the page and looked at the recipe. "I'm putting you in different pairs today for brewing though. You guys spend too much time with the same people, you need to try working with someone else."

All the students glanced around at this point, including Scorpius. In a matter of seconds they were trying to decide who they would and wouldn't be okay with working with, but it was the Professor's choice, so the chances are someone in the room would be disappointed.

Professor Carter pointed his wand out in front of him at each individual as he went round the class to count how many students there were. "18" He mumbled to himself. "Okay." He said once more before pointing at each student again, assigning them a number between one and nine then round again. Scorpius sat at the back of the class with Albus and was assigned the second number 6.

"Okay, everyone go with the person with the same number as you and start brewing. You have an hour and a half." He said. Scorpius picked up his books and looked around the room.

"Number 6?" He said to a Ravenclaw girl who walked past him and shook her head. "Number 6?" He repeated to a Gryffindor boy before he heard someone behind him ask for a number 6 and he turned around. "You're kidding me." He mumbled as he spied Rose Weasley. "Number 6?" He asked her and she let out a groan.

"Let's just get this done." She said, obviously a little annoyed to be working with Scorpius, but the feeling was mutual. They sat down beside each other at the nearest cauldron and opened their books again.

Scorpius and Rose had had a rocky relationship since their very first year at Hogwarts. The girl had made it clear that she'd been told to stay away from him and he had no doubt in his mind that growing up she had been told the terrible stories of the Malfoy family and how they'd betrayed the Wizarding World. Of course, Scorpius had been told the same stories growing up about the Weasleys from his grandparents and father; how their association with other blood-types and muggles was shameful to the name pureblood, and how Ron Weasley married a mudblood was even worse, Rose being the daughter of a mudblood.

Scorpius didn't believe in the discrimination against the other blood-types or muggles, in fact he found them interesting and even decided to pursue Muggle Studies as a NEWT, but Rose had certainly lived up to the ideals of his father. She was obnoxious, she was a smug brainiac, she was stubborn and she could even be flat-out rude. He never really knew what actually started off their feud, but for as long as he could remember he would bicker with the girl on the daily basis and play pranks on her.

Scorpius began to read the information on the page. "Okay, it needs to have a "mother-of-pearl sheen" whatever that means and "spiralling steam" and-"

"I know what it needs, Malfoy." Rose said. "I've studied it before and I also have a book in front of me. I can read." Scorpius let out a groan before standing up with his book in his hand and going to the ingredients shelves.

He grabbed the ingredients that were needed and took them back to the workbench for the two of them. Rose had her wand pointed underneath the cauldron and muttered "incendio" which created a small fire beneath the cauldron. The water began to boil rapidly.

Scorpius placed each ingredient on the workbench in the order that they would be needed. "Very efficient, Malfoy." Rose said, laughing a little.

"I take pride in my efficiency." He said, sitting down on his stool.

"You're too proud."

"Or you're not proud enough."

"No, Scorpius, you're too proud." She repeated bluntly, staring down at her textbook. "We have to wait for the water to-"

"Boil for 10 minutes." Scorpius interrupted. "You're not the only one who can read ahead."

Rose rolled her eyes. She looked across the workbench at the ingredients before grabbing one of the stones I had grabbed for the potion. She stood up and took it back to the shelf, grabbing another one and bringing it back.

"Oh, was mine not satisfactory?" Scorpius said with a twinge of annoyance in his tone.

"It was too big. The book says it has to be as close to 2 inches as possible and the one you grabbed was larger than that."

The next hour and a half went pretty much like that. Scorpius did things that Rose thought were wrong and vice versa. Eventually the Amortentia potion that was being brewed in their cauldron was looking like the picture in the book and matching every characteristic it was supposed to have.

"I can't smell it, what's it supposed to smell like?" Scorpius asked.

"It smells different to everyone, idiot." Rose replied and Scorpius shook his head at himself.

"Oh right, yeah." He said, inhaling deeply as he leaned over the slowly bubbling potion. "I can't smell it."

"Maybe if you weren't wearing so much of that stupid body spray of yours you'd be able to." Rose retorted. "Seriously, you stink of a mix of musky teenage boy and chocolate it's disgusting."

"It's called Cocoa Temptation, okay? And anyway I think it's you that's the problem. Did you use a whole bottle of citrus shampoo this morning or something? You stink of oranges; it matches your ridiculous hair." Scorpius said, groaning. "And did you borrow more old books from the library or something because the stench of dusty parchment is giving me a headache."

"Oh shut up." Rose huffed before scanning the text book. "I'm not sure what we did wrong but it definitely hasn't worked." She said, reading each step carefully.

Professor Carter walked over to them. "This station looks steamy." He said, looking into their cauldron and at Rose and Scorpius individually as they both looked flustered and frustrated.

"We messed it up, sir, but I don't know how." Rose said, pushing her frizzy hair behind her ear. The steam from all the cauldrons had made her hair about twice as large as it was when she had walked into the class an hour earlier.

"What do you mean you messed up, it looks like a perfectly good brew to me." He said.

"We can't smell anything." Scorpius chimed in.

"Hmm…" Professor Carter said, leaning down to the cauldron and inhaling. "Seems fine to me." He said.

"What do you smell, Professor?" Rose asked, causing a few girls to turn around curiously, as if they were ready to take notes on how to attract the man.

"I can smell freshly made coffee and a few other things but that's my secret. I can definitely smell it though. Well done, guys, good job." He said, making a few notes in his notebook before walking away to another pair.

Scorpius and Rose sat there staring blankly at the cauldron. "He must have been picking up the smell of someone else's potion." Scorpius said, looking down at the textbook.

Rose looked around at the other groups. None of them seemed to have the right consistency or steam or characteristics of the Amortentia potion. Suddenly, her eyes went wide, as if she'd come to some sort of realisation.

"Scorpius…" She said almost hesitantly. Scorpius looked up at her with a quizzical look.

"What?"

"I ran out of citrus shampoo last week." She stated.

"So?"

"I'm not wearing it."

When she said that, Scorpius remembered how he had slept in today and had woken up late. He had rushed to his Herbology class in the morning after getting dressed and hadn't remembered to use his body spray.

He looked her in the eyes. "I… I'm not wearing my body spray." He told her awkwardly. "I woke up late and forgot to put it on." He explained.

Immediately the blood flushed to his face and he could see that Rose was almost as red as her hair at that moment. He looked away from her quickly.

"I feel sick." She said.

"Me too." He said, scooping up his notebook and textbook and shoving them in his bag. He looked to Professor Carter "I have to go, sir, sorry." He said as he stood up from his stool and left the classroom without a second thought and headed back to the common room quickly, leaving Rose sat alone.

When he arrived in the common room, Scorpius threw his bag aggressively at his bed, his books flying out onto the floor as he did. "Shit, shit, shit." He said, kicking his bedframe. "What the fuck was that?!" He questioned himself. He looked over at the table beside his bed. On it was a photograph of him and his family, a quill, treats for his pet owl, a clock and his body spray. He grabbed it and sprayed a little in front of him. He inhaled quickly.

"Chocolate and teenage boy musk. She's right." He said, tossing the body spray can at the wall. "How is she right?! What is going on?! She wasn't even wearing her goddamn shampoo, how did I smell that? How did I even know what her shampoo is? That's creepy as fuck." He said, falling face first onto his bed and screaming frustrated into his pillow.

"I'm not in love with Rose Weasley. I'm not." He said as he sat up, pushing his now empty bag onto the floor. "I can't be. That's impossible." He mumbled to himself.

Scorpius couldn't help but think about it for the rest of the day. He thought about the Amortentia and he thought about his relationship with Rose. It had been nothing more than bickering and hate… had it? The more he thought about it the more he started doubting it. He realised how much he liked the stupid way she'd answer teacher's questions so confidently and with no hesitation in class, even if it meant he didn't. He realised how much he didn't hate the sight of her flowing hair from across the court yard, how their bickering was actually quite playful and he realised how he much he liked the way her eyelashes were incredibly long, before worrying about the fact that he knew her eyelashes were incredibly long.

Scorpius had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach all night and when the Halloween feast came around, he was far less excited about the idea than he had been that morning. He walked to the Great Hall with Albus that evening.

"What happened to you in Potions?" Albus asked as they walked. "I had a brilliant plan to get Katie Long to fall in love with me." Katie was a Hufflepuff girl that Albus had been crushing on since their third year. "I got to work with her and I was going to have her tell me what she smelt in the Amortentia then get you to ask me if you could borrow some gum with the same flavour or something but when I looked up you were gone."

"Sorry about that. Felt sick all of a sudden, had to leave." Scorpius told his friend.

"You owe me." Albus said, downheartened.

"Dude, give it up, if she wanted you she would have made it known by now. For all you know you would have smelt something completely different in that Amortentia. That's what it does. It's like a slap to the face that fucking potion. You think you know what you'll smell and BAM! It just gives you a haze of confusion and "why the fuck am I attracted to quill ink and dusty books" thoughts."

"You're attracted to dust?" Albus snickered.

"Shut the fuck up." Scorpius said, walking into the already crowded Great Hall and making his way to the sixth year's section of the Slytherin table and sitting down beside.

"Okay, you're more bitter than usual, what's going on?" Albus said as he sat down, looking at the bare plates in front of them. The feast hadn't begun yet so the tables were all totally empty.

"Nothing's going on." Scorpius replied, looking around the Great Hall in hopes of spotting Rose. She was sat beside another Gryffindor sixth year girl and her cousin Lily, Albus' sister. Scorpius couldn't help but stare at her. She had fixed her frizzy hair from earlier in class and wore her tie slightly loose. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail with a couple of loose curled strands on either side of her face.

The sick feeling was coming back to Scorpius. He wasn't sure why. It was as if he was repulsed by his own apparent feelings that he didn't even know he had until a few hours ago. Scorpius was completely zoned out, just thinking about Rose and what he had smelt from the cauldron, he didn't even realise the Headmaster had been speaking and had already began the feast until Albus nudged him out of his trance.

"Dude, what's wrong with you? Eat." Albus said and Scorpius did exactly that. He grabbed some food from the plates and piled his plate high but as he looked at the food in front of him he didn't feel like eating.

He looked back up to see Rose staring right at him. They locked eyes for a few seconds and Scorpius stood up. "Sorry, man, I don't feel good, I'm going back to the dorm." Albus reached his hand up and patted Scorpius on the back.

"Feel better." Albus said before going back to his food and speaking to his cousin Louis who was sat beside him.

Rose watched Scorpius walk out of the Great Hall and thought for a few moments before following him out. She walked out of the Great Hall and saw him a few paces in front of him. Instinctively she ran over to him and grabbed his arm. He turned around to look at her.

"We need to talk, Malfoy." She said but Scorpius shook his head.

"Talk about what? I can barely get my thoughts together so that I can understand them, I can't articulate anything I'm thinking right now." He said.

"I'm thinking that you smelt my shampoo in that love potion. You smelt my library books too. I smelt your body spray. That's not a coincidence."

"No. You hate me, Rose. It wasn't a love potion, we did something wrong in it, we must have."

"Is the idea that you like me really that repulsive that you're coming up with stupid excuses?"

"It's not a "like" potion, Rose! It's a love potion. I can't love you! You hate me, I hate you. That's how it's worked for 6 years. It can't just change in an afternoon. That's not how love is supposed to happen!"

"Oh, 'cause you know how love works do you?"

"Okay fine, are you willing to admit that you love me then? Are you honestly going to admit that you, Rose Weasley are in love with Scorpius Malfoy?"

"No- I mean- You can't just- This is a difficult situation for me too, Scorpius! You've made my life miserable for years but I can't fight what I've been hiding from myself, okay? I may have not realised it before today with that stupid potion but I'm not going to forget about it. That potion led me to you and it led you to me."

"But we hate each other! I hate the way you crinkle your nose before you sneeze, I hate the way you tuck your fucking hair behind your ear, I hate the way your eyes are piercingly green, I hate that you're so goddamn stubborn and that you always have to be right! This isn't right! You loving me isn't right and me loving you isn't right!"

"Why? Why isn't it right?"

"You don't just fall in love in a day, Rose! You don't!"

"You haven't! Don't you get it. It hasn't been just one day, it's been six years!"

At that moment they stared at each other. Silver eyes burnt into emerald eyes and after standing and staring at one another, Scorpius took the girl's cheeks in his hands and he fiercely pressed his lips against hers. Rose, first taken aback, wrapped her arms around his neck and stood up on her tiptoes to gain some height. They kissed passionately as Scorpius's arms moved down and wrapped themselves around her slim waist.

They broke apart and both breathed deeply, resting their foreheads on each other's. Rose could feel his warm breath against her lips as he caught his breath.

"I- um-" Scorpius mumbled quietly.

"Yeah." Rose said, looking into his eyes.

Scorpius's hands rested on the girl's waist as he stared at her. "That was… I don't know." He said then, without thinking, he very gently brushed his lips on hers. She kissed him back softly, her hands running through his messy bleach blonde hair. He pulled away slowly then kissed her forehead quickly.

"This is going to be a mess, you know that right?"

Rose nodded and rested her head on his chest. "A huge mess." She said before he accompanied her back to the Gryffindor common room.