Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.

Chapter Two

Rose clapped her hands unenthusiastically as a chubby blonde first year was sorted into Slytherin. Scorpius clapped the boy on the shoulder as he sat down to him. The child was shaking in fear. He had been sorted into the 'House of Evil', as the older students liked to call it, and let the older boy mercifully reassure him. Rose tore her eyes away from the duo to the first year student currently being sorted; a prissy-looking, delicate brunette.

Rose's eyes slid close as the girl was sorted, a wave of exhaustion drifting over her. She fluttered her eyelids in a vain attempt to keep them open. She gently drifted off into a deep slumber. The loud, chaotic cheering and yelling quieted down in the back her mind as she slumped back down into her chair.

She was abruptly awoken minutes later as Lily Potter pulled her chair out from underneath her. Rose let out a petrified shriek as she tumbled to her knees.

"What the-? Lily!" she yelped. She quickly quieted her tone down as a few younger students turned back to look at her in alarm. Rose stared up around the Great Hall. It was almost empty, as the majority of the staff and students had gone off to bed. Including the first year students, of whom she was supposed to look out for and take them back to their dormitories.

"Serves you right for sleeping through the feast. And I wouldn't bother sneaking down to the kitchens tonight anyway if you're hungry. Peeves threw a dung bomb in there earlier." The second year raised an eyebrow and flung her shoulder-length auburn hair over her shoulder before stalking off out through the open doors.

Just as the second year said it, Rose felt hunger nestle in her stomach. Groaning, she pulled herself up from the table. She was the only person in the hall, or at least that was what she could see from where she was standing. She made her way out, stumbling over a few chairs as she went from her haste. Soon, she ran the steps to the Gryffindor common room. She shuddered from the cool breeze that had begun to snake into the castle through the windows.

"Rose! Wait up!" she turned boisterously, and glared at the boy in her path.

"What, Malfoy?" she huffed. Scorpius looked awkward and sheepish as he scratched his neck. It had blossomed a humiliating red.

"What are you doing?" he responded, glancing at anything but her. Rose folded her arms.

"I could ask you the same question."

"Owlery. Have to go send a letter." Rose arched an eyebrow; or attempted in her best efforts at the very least.

"Well, don't let me get in the way of your late night happenings. And, for your information, I was going back to the Common room." She said, superiority stinging in her tone. Scorpius furrowed his brows.

"But… aren't you a prefect?" his eyes were locked on the gleaming badge, of which had tilted lopsidedly amongst her short-lived slumber.

"So what if I am?" Rose replied snootily, tone merging on defense.

"At least in Slytherin, the prefects take the first years throughout the common room." Rose failed to respond. "Were you sneaking off to see Jenkins?" he burst out all of a sudden. Her mouth rounded into a perfect 'o' shape before it straightened back into a hard line.

"What's it to you?" she snapped accusingly. Scorpius squirmed from where he was standing, less than half a metre away from her. For some unknown reason, that made her feel nervous and excited. She mentally slapped that part of herself.

"Well, he was talking to you earlier and it kind of looked like-" he cut his rambling off in the middle of the sentence.

"Looked like what, Malfoy?" she said snidely.

"That you were doing stuff!" Scorpius blurted out, flinching away from her in fear. Rose stared at him.

"What?" she asked incredulously, blushing her knotted hair out of her face as she stared at him. Scorpius looked up, the fright slowly drained away from his features.

"... You aren't mad?" he asked in disbelief.

"Well, I don't actually know what you mean, so I can't be mad."

Scorpius whimpered, and realisation clouded her features. "Did you think that we were hooking up?!" she cried out rhetorically.

"I'm sorry! Don't hurt me please I'm begging you!" his face was clearly displayed with nothing but absolute terror. He had all but crumbled to his knees and looked like he was fearful for his life. She sighed and held out a hand for him to grab and to his benefit, he had calmed down a fair bit in the few seconds she had let him relax.

"I'm not going to hurt you, idiot."

"You... aren't?"

"For Merlin's sake Malfoy, just calm down. Go send that stupid letter of yours. I don't care. He took her hand and stood up.

"Okay..."

"What are you waiting for?" he was standing rigidly still, and she was becoming extremely exasperated as the time went on.

"For you to slap me," Scorpius said, a wavering trace of fear in his voice.

"You know what? I will slap you if you don't get out of my way." With that, she pushed past him roughly.

He didn't speak a word as she jogged up the stone path to her common room. With a long-lived sigh, he watched her retreating figure, before spinning on his heel and going back in the direction he came in.

Nobody he passed put in any effort to spark up a conversation with him and he took it with a brush of the shoulder.

He murmured the password to the painting and he had soon resigned to the familiar bed in the dungeons under the school that had been his since that fateful first day, when he had first met Rose Granger-Weasley.