Chapter 2

A/N: Hello readers! I told you this was going to be updated fast. These chapters are shorted than my usual, but you're going to get them quickly. For those of you who are wondering, this story is 12 chapters long.

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! Special thanks to the anonymous guest who pointed out my little typo in the title...

~Frosty

Rose had every intention of investigating the two people the Aurors had pinned as suspects for the new Death Eaters, but first, there was something that needed her attention more.

Professor Lockhart had given her a disappointing grade on her last paper and she needed to have a word with him about it. Scorpius preferred to get his good grades the old fashioned way by actually putting some thought into his assignments. He didn't interfere with her methods, but he usually preferred to go to class while she had her fun.

It was Lockhart's free period, so his classroom was empty. Rose walked to the front of the room, perched on his desk and crossed her legs, arranging her shortened uniform skirt so that nothing important was showing. After all, blackmail wouldn't really work if he only listened to half of her threats because he was distracted by a scrap of her panties showing. Rose wasn't careless like that.

"Miss Weasley? What are you doing here?" Lockhart asked when he saw her, paling a few shades. A private visit from Rose Weasley was never good.

Rose smiled a toothy smile that was all venom. "I think you've forgotten our little arrangement." She held up her paper that showed an E instead of the O she should have received, as per their agreement.

Ever since her parents' second year, Lockhart had been slowly recovering from the memory loss he'd given himself. Headmistress McGonagall had been a fan, so she'd given him a job as the charms professor when he'd finally recovered enough to be released. Rose knew his secret though.

"I thought you didn't want the headmistress to find out that you have holes in your memory?" It had been a good day when she'd overheard him muttering to himself about the gaps in his memory in an empty corridor a few weeks ago, so much better for blackmail than what she'd been using before to keep him in line. What had initially been a tenuous hold at best was now pretty much iron-clad.

"I-I don't," he said, steadily losing confidence until he was wringing his hands nervously.

Rose wasn't deceived. She knew he was still more than willing to alter her memory if he thought it would work, if he thought that he could catch her off guard to cast the spell. Her eyes never left him, always making sure that his hands were in front of him instead of drifting towards his wand.

"I'll fix the mark, change what it says in my book," he offered, somewhat desperately.

Rose smiled and hopped down from the desk. "I'm glad we could do business."

At lunch, she sat down beside Scorpius with a sigh.

"Since when does the prospect of extortion not put you in a good mood?" Scorpius asked with a frown. He knew very well where she'd just been. "Did Lockhart not agree to raise your grade?"

"No, he agreed." Her voice was lackluster and her eyes were without their usual malicious spark.

Not much of a talker, Scorpius quickly grew bored with guessing what was upsetting her and fell silent as he finished his lunch, sure that she would tell him when she was ready. He was onto his dessert before Rose spoke again.

"I'm starting to wonder if this whole Auror business is going to be too much. I enjoy manipulating people, but this is so serious, more like a job. I'm worried it's going to take all the fun out of it."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Nothing will take the fun out of blackmail."

She perked up a little.

"You're right. What was I thinking?" Rose fished the pictures out of her pocket and held them out to him. "Which one do you want to speak to?"

He shoved the pictures back towards her. "Neither. I have class and then I have a charms essay to write."

"I could just talk to Lockhart and have him-"

"No. I'm going to write my essay. Be careful while you ask questions. These people have already proven themselves to be dangerous."

Rose rolled her eyes at his concern, grabbing an apple to go. She made sure to flick her skirt at his as she stood, smirking when he just rolled his eyes. "I'm always careful."

It took Rose all of three seconds to figure out where Hy would be. There was a Slytherin Quidditch practice out on the pitch, and since the weather was starting to get warm, there was a good chance that they were practising without their shirts. Shirtless boys were Hy's type.

Hy smiled when Rose sat beside her in the stands, not from any genuine pleasure at seeing her though. It was more of a smile of obligation. Few people risked being on Rose's bad side.

"What brings you out here, Rose?" Hy asked, flipping her glossy brown hair over her shoulder in a way designed to catch attention. It worked. Rose watched as one of the chasers nearly collided with the middle ring. Both girls laughed, sharing a moment of camaraderie over the misfortune of the easily influenced.

"I can't just join you in appreciating the Quidditch players?"

Hy shook her head. "Everyone knows that you and Scorpius have a thing going."

"What are you talking about?" Rose was actually surprised. She and Scorpius had never been anything but platonic. Sure, they spent most of their time together, but it wouldn't do to have people think they were together. Certain types of manipulation required her to be seen as available, or at least for it to appear that she wasn't tied down in a serious relationship. Scorpius might not have a reputation for being someone big on talking, but something about his silent persona had people believing that he was dangerous – dangerous enough for some of Rose's schemes to collapse if people thought she was dating her blond friend.

"You're not with Scorpius? You two are always together and you're one of the few people he actually talks to. You've never noticed the way he looks at you?"

Rose was so surprised that she actually let it show on her face before she could stop the telling emotion. "Looks at me like what?"

"Like he can't understand why you're at his side, but he'd rather be with you than anywhere else." She sighed wistfully. "I wish someone would look at me like that."

Rose flirted with the idea of telling Hy that boys would think more of her if she didn't sleep with them before even knowing her name. This idea was quickly dismissed. She wanted Hy's cooperation and insulting her wasn't the way to get that.

"I'm sure you'll find someone like that one day," Rose said consolingly. She didn't bother to deny any further Hy's suspicions about Scorpius. Actions spoke much louder than words and too much denial would only make it look like she was hiding something.

Hy nodded her thanks for the kind words. "Now, let's get down to the real reason you're here. We both know that you're not really interested in watching the Quidditch players."

Much thought had gone into what she was going to say to Hy, what angle Rose was going to play. She wished that Scorpius wasn't so set on attending class so that she could have asked him what he thought of her ideas. It was always good to have a sounding board, and Scorpius was an exceptionally intelligent and intuitive one.

"Did you hear about the attack on Jade Day?" Rose asked.

Hy thought about it for a moment, not really taking her eyes off of the Quidditch players. "I may have heard something. What's in this for me?"

"You won't make an enemy of me," Rose said flatly. She knew what Hy was angling for, and Rose wasn't about to set Scorpius up with the girl he'd gone out of his way to avoid for years. Their parents were friends, so Scorpius had practically grown up with her, and mention of the girl never failed to make him shudder with revulsion. Hy seemed to take his avoidance of her as a personal challenge.

"Fine," Hy huffed, not interested in the battle of wills that they both knew she was going to lose. "I'm not involved with the blood supremacy nonsense, but there are a lot of fourth and fifth years that are obsessed with it. I can't name names though; I don't pay attention to boys under fifteen. You know that."

Rose nodded, she did know that. She also knew that Hy probably didn't have much information on trivial things like a Death Eater uprising when there were Quidditch players to ogle.

Speaking of Quidditch players...

While she was on the pitch, Rose decided to solve another problem that Hy had brought to her attention. She put her fingers in her mouth and blew an ear-splitting whistle that halted the practice completely. A crooked finger had the Quidditch captain, the keeper Noah Pick, landing in front of her and looking at her questioningly.

"Why are you interrupting my practice, Rose?" he demanded. Noah was a seventh year like her and Scorpius, but they didn't really interact regularly. That didn't mean that Rose lacked blackmail material on him.

"I need a favour." Best to try and get him on her side before she resorted to blackmail, there would be less hostility all around and she may have a greater need for that blackmail material at a later date. It would be a shame to waste it on something that he would probably do for close to free – few Slytherins did anything entirely for free, but she knew some simple ways to make it worth his while. And no, she didn't mean sexual favours. That was Hy's thing, not Rose's.

Noah was immediately suspicious. "What kind of favour?"

Hy was watching them with entirely too much curiosity, probably mentally recording everything they were saying to report back to her gossip mongering friends at a later date. Keeping that in mind, Rose leaned so close to Noah that her lips were practically touching his ear and his sweaty boy smell was nearly overwhelming.

"I need you to pretend to date me for a while."

That hadn't been what Noah was expecting, something he made clear by rearing back and staring at her in disbelief.

Rose rolled her eyes at his overreaction. It was a simple yes or no questions – and for his own good, he better choose yes because she had some dirt on him. He and Keegan Edwards, a Ravenclaw seventh year, had been caught together in a broom closet a few months ago. Rose had acquired the photographic evidence from a second year that had attempted to use it to get himself out of trouble when Rose caught the creep trying to take a picture up her skirt. It was a given that the second year had found himself suddenly transferring to Durmstrang when his father inexplicably lost his job. He'd suffered the consequences and Rose still got her photographic evidence.

"Well?" she said impatiently when he didn't answer. Really, it would benefit the both of them; Rose needed someone to stop people from thinking that she and Scorpius were an item and Noah wasn't ready for the school to know that he was gay.

Noah shrugged. "Works for me."

Excellent. Rose's plan was working out nicely.

Before Noah could fly back up to his team, she grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him long and hard to seal the deal.