A/N: Chapter two of my Scorpius/Rose fic. I know in the original play, Benvolio and Tybalt lead the fight, but in my version I made Scorpius and Joe have a fight, and Joe isn't even supposed to be an equivolent of Tybalt but I don't care, it's almost one in the morning. Okay? :)

Chapter II

I walked into breakfast next morning feeling slightly apprehensive. I'd had a strange feeling that everyone would be looking at me or talking about me, as self-centred as it sounded – but luckily, everything was fine. With relief, I flopped down next to Albus, who was helping himself to toast.

'Hey, Al.'

'Hi,' Albus smiled. 'Where's Celeste? Putting on another layer of makeup?'

I raised my eyebrows disapprovingly. Albus was always making jokes about Celeste because she was exactly the sort of fluffy-pink feminine boy-obsessed girl that we always made fun of. 'Come on, Al, she's not like that. She's just...really girly,' I shrugged.

'There's a fine line between girly and just plain – well - '

'Morning, all!' said a voice right behind us, and Albus looked away, trying not to laugh. Celeste dropped into the seat opposite me. 'Ugh, for the name of Merlin, today's the worst day on our timetable. Double History of Magic and Divination...Potions...'

'Nothing wrong with Potions,' chipped in James cheerily, sidling down the bench next to Celeste and nicking a slice of Al's toast. 'In fact, lessons can be quite fun sometimes...although only when a Filibuster's firework is involved.'

I rolled my eyes haughtily, my eyes on my pumpkin juice, but James saw.

'Something wrong, Miss Prissy? Yeah, I might've known you'd disapprove...I thought you'd lighten up a bit now you've got a date to focus on instead of your school studies.'

Celeste laughed and Albus elbowed me playfully, but I felt myself blushing. 'James, please don't tell me you've told Joe anything about me - '

'Me? Never,' James replied innocently, with a twinkle in his eye. 'Well – I'd better be off, I've got Care of Magical Creatures first and it's all the way out in the grounds. Besides, I think Joe wants to talk to you – he seemed very concerned for you when he found out you once cried that time in Transfiguration when you came second-from-last.'

'James!' I said angrily, going furiously red as he sauntered off looking pleased with himself. 'I'll kill him – that was only because I misheard the essay task!' I shouted after him desperately. 'And I had dust in my eye!'

Albus was roaring with laughter and even Celeste was hiding her smile behind a pink-nailed hand.

'Oh, shut up,' I muttered, grabbing a box of cereal.

'Dust in your eye, my arse,' Albus sniggered.

'It was first-year!' I retorted. 'I was eleven!'

'Yeah, but – '

'Rose?' came a curious voice from behind me.

I turned around. It was Joe, looking as though he was trying not to laugh. My heart almost stopped...I hoped desperately that he hadn't heard what I'd just said.

'Hi,' I said quietly, deciding it was best to act as though he hadn't.

'Er – have you finished with breakfast?' he asked tentatively.

I hadn't, but I suddenly wasn't hungry now he was here and I was desperate to get away from Albus and Celeste anyway.

'Yes,' I said gratefully.

'Well, what's your next lesson? I'll walk you there if you like.'

I could practically feel Celeste's eyes flashing with excitement behind me. I grabbed my bag and stepped over the bench, and Joe grinned and led the way out of the Great Hall. I chanced a glance at Celeste as I left – she gave me a thumbs-up.

'Bye,' Al called. 'Hey – maybe you should take a box of tissues in case you start crying again!'

Inwardly cursing him into the next century, and glowing like a beacon, I followed Joe, who either hadn't heard what he'd said or was pretending to spare my feelings. It was probably the latter.

'I've got History of Magic first,' I said, sighing. Joe whistled.

'Nasty,' he smiled. 'I'm so glad I've dropped it now. I think I would've pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower if I'd had to cope with Binns for another two years.'

'You know, everyone moans about it, but actually, it's not that bad,' I said reasonably as we climbed the marble steps in the Entrance Hall. 'I mean, I found the goblin riot topic quite interesting – it certainly puts things in perspective, doesn't it? And it makes you see goblins in a whole new light – '

'Wait, you actually paid attention to Binns's lectures?' Joe said, amazed. 'The only way I passed that exam for five years was by looking stuff up in the library – and even after that I still scribbled some made-up stuff down.'

'Why does everyone do that?' I wondered, more to myself. 'Al said all he ever did in History of Magic was make stuff up. How much harm can it do to actually learn something once in a while?'

'We're boys, we don't think like that,' Joe told me, shaking his head. 'Although, boys find intelligence in girls very cute.'

'Not all of them,' I corrected him.

'The decent ones,' he retorted, giving me a sidelong grin.

'Oh, and would you deem yourself decent?' I asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Of course,' he said seriously, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. 'Prefect, Quidditch player, model student...future Head Boy...'

'Don't flatter yourself,' I snorted. Though, thinking about it, he probably was going to be Head Boy in the future.

'Okay, sorry. I know girls don't like boys with heads up their arses.'

'No-one does!' I retorted.

Joe laughed. 'So, Saturday. What do you want to do?'

'I don't know, what do you want to do?' I asked.

'I'm asking you,' he smiled.

'Well, I'm asking you,' I countered.

'Okay, well, I thought we could go to The Three Broomsticks for a bit. And then we could go to Honeydukes, because I know girls like it when boys buy them chocolate.' He flashed me a perfect grin. 'And then, if you want, we can go to Scrivenshaft's.'

'Why would we go there?' I asked confusedly.

'Because you might want to buy a book to help you with Transfiguration, and then you won't come second-to-last again.'

'Joe!' I cried in despair, pushing him. 'I expected it from Al and James, but you – '

'Calm down, I know you were only a little first year,' Joe assured me. 'And I think that's really sweet.'

'I had dust in my eye,' I muttered feebly.

'I'm sure you did,' he said solemnly. 'Well – History of Magic. Here we are.'

We reached the familiar classroom door, belonging to Professor Binns, the ghost professor of History of Magic.

'Thanks.'

'It's alright,' he shrugged. 'Well, it's Ancient Runes for me – '

'You took Ancient Runes?' I asked in disbelief.

'Er – yeah,' he said awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. 'Sam takes the piss out of me all the time, he says it's a soft subject, but – '

'No, I love it!' I said truthfully. 'It's one of my favourite subjects!'

'It's great, isn't it?' he said enthusiastically. 'It's even better at NEWT level, you get to translate whole scripts and everything – '

'Ooh, fascinating,' said Albus, who had just reached the top of the staircase.

'Go away, Al,' I said in annoyance, but it was Joe who made to leave.

'I'll see you Saturday, Rose,' he said quickly, and, with a smile, he walked away.

OoO

I walked into the Great Hall gratefully at lunchtime, my mouth watering. After double History of Magic, Divination and Potions, even I was starting to feel tired and hungry. I found myself looking forward to Saturday, when I didn't have to endure boring lessons and could spend the whole day with Joe.

Sitting beside Al and Celeste, I started spooning mashed potato onto everyone's plates.

'Thanks, Rose – at least it's only Defence Against the Dark Arts last, eh?' Al said, sighing in relief.

Our teacher, Professor Doctus, was a young, blonde-haired, red-lipsticked woman who had arrived in our third year, when the previous teacher had retired after twenty-two years at Hogwarts. My dad had said that he'd never thought he'd live to see a Defence teacher who'd stayed at Hogwarts for so long. Professor Doctus was fresh from the Ministry and specialised in Dark curses and objects. This, coupled with the fact that she was young and understood us well, meant that she was well-liked among both students and teachers.

'Yeah,' I agreed, starting eagerly on my toad-in-the-hole. 'At least I'll be able to pay attention better.'

'Me too – I would have fallen asleep in History of Magic if I wasn't reading Witch Weekly under the desk,' Celeste nodded.

At that moment, James appeared, sitting down opposite me wearing a sort of pitying grimace. He was eyeing me as warily as if I were a time bomb. I frowned at him. Why did I get the feeling I was always the last one to know everything?

'What's up now, James?' I said, rolling my eyes.

'Don't get mad at me,' he said. 'I thought you'd know by now.'

'Know what?'

'Well,' he began, 'it looks like maybe your Lover Boy isn't going on a date with you, after all.'

My heart sank.

'Joe? What? He can't've cancelled – he really, really likes Rosie, he's not going to just – '

'No, it's not that,' James told Celeste, and relief flooded through me. 'He's in the hospital wing. You could go and see him if you like, Rose,' he added, looking at me with a smirk, 'and sit by his bedside...serenade him...bring grapes...'

'Shut up,' I snapped. 'But – seriously – why's he in the hospital wing? What's happened?'

'He got in a fight,' James replied with his eyebrows raised.

Celeste gasped dramatically; Al snorted and continued eating as though getting in a fight was nothing to get worried about.

'A fight? How bad was it? Who with?' Celeste pestered, desperate to know more.

'It was just before our Transfiguration class,' James began, pleased that we were all craning our necks inwards to listen to his story. 'We were waiting outside the classroom door and there was a little group of people going to Arithmancy. I was trying to chat Genevieve Goldstein up – '

'Genevieve Goldstein? That Ravenclaw who looks down her nose at everyone all the time? Oh, James, please – '

'Hey, she's fit!'

'Get back to the story, James!' I groaned, elbowing Celeste to make her shut up.

'Okay. I was chatting up Genevieve Goldstein and I'm going out with her on Sunday so it's all good. Anyway, I don't know how it started but suddenly Joe was pushing away Sam – he must've been holding Joe back or something – and then, he was walking towards that Malfoy and about two or three of his friends – '

' – Malfoy? Wait, not – not Scorpius Malfoy? In our year?'

'Must be him,' James nodded.

'No! Really? I didn't think he'd get into a fight – was it like a violent fight, or –?'

'Wait, Scorpius Malfoy?' I interrupted quickly. He seemed vaguely familiar, and I had several classes with the Slytherins, so he must have been present at some point, but I knew for sure I'd never even talked to him. I'd heard his name being mentioned a few times by the other Prefects when they were mentioning a group of Slytherins who'd gotten into trouble, but apart from that, I was oblivious to his existence, and by the sound of him, that was probably a good thing.

'Yeah, Scorpius,' Celeste said. I looked at her blankly.

'I know who he is,' chipped in Albus, spearing a sausage with his fork and gnawing on it.

'See! Even Albus knows who he is. Rosie, he's quite tall, pale, blonde hair, weird – '

'I know who he is!' I gasped suddenly. I'd seen him on my very first day at Hogwarts, as I was boarding the school train. Dad had told me, 'make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie'. Well, I thought as I swelled slightly with pride, I was pretty sure I'd achieved that. If Scorpius Malfoy was beating me, I'd know about it.

'Finally!' Celeste sighed, clapping her hand to her head. 'You are just not with it today, Rosie.'

James cleared his throat pointedly.

'Sorry! Go on.'

'Anyway. Joe was all, "I think you should shut up, mate" and then Scorpius said, "Yeah? fucking make me", and then there were curses being fired everywhere in the corridor and the next thing you know, Joe's ears are swelling to twice their normal size – '

Albus chuckled quietly into his plate of mashed potato; I stamped on his foot.

' – and that's when they gave up on wands completely and started beating the hell out of each other.'

'What?'

'Is Joe okay?'

'Trust them to consider that a good way to resolve an argument,' I sighed, marvelling at the occasional stupidity of boys.

'Sam and some of the Malfoy kid's friends joined in, too – but I think Sam was trying to stop Joe getting hurt more than anything, because that Scorpius is bloody vicious as hell. He's a nasty piece of work, I'm telling you now. I was going to join in with the fight, but you know, I needed to keep my good looks intact for my date with Jenny.' He winked. 'And Professor De Muto came out and stopped the fight, and gave everyone involved a detention on Monday, and thirty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin. But Joe and Malfoy are both in the hospital wing – Joe's got a black eye and a broken nose now to match his swollen ears.' He clutched at his heart pityingly. 'And the moral of the story is, children, don't resort to violence. At least, not physical violence – just shove a Filibuster's Firework up their – '

'I can't believe he got into a fight!' Celeste said sadly.

'Sounded like Malfoy deserved it, though,' James shrugged.

'Yes, but – what if he's not well enough for Rose's date tomorrow?'

'He will be – Pomfrey's a genius.'

'I'm going up to the hospital wing to see him,' I said firmly.

'Good, give Scorpius another punch from me!' James called.

'See you in Defence!' I said hurriedly to Celeste and Albus, and, snatching my bag and flinging it over my shoulder, I hastily walked out of the Hall.

I was a little shocked and scared that Joe had been in a fight. It made him sound like some violent monster...no, he's not like that, I told myself. He wasn't a violent person...what Scorpius Malfoy had been saying must have been bad or he wouldn't have gone that far...he didn't sound like a nice person at all...then again, he was a Malfoy, and both Dad and Uncle Harry had warned me that the Malfoys were about the worst family they knew. They had told me not to bother even talking to Scorpius, and I was glad I hadn't.

Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips when I came to the hospital wing doors, but she didn't turn me away. Given that the fight had occurred mere hours ago, she forewarned me that he still needed to rest and wasn't looking quite as normal as usual, but I wasn't bothered, as long as he was okay.

Joe beamed when he saw me approaching, a stiff smile on his slightly swollen face. His ears had returned to normal size, but his right eye was bloodshot and there was some patchy bruising around it, an artist's pallet of yellow, brown and blue. His nose also had a bandage on it.

'Ah, no!' he said thickly as I dropped into the chair beside him. 'I was hoping you wouldn't see me like this.'

'Doesn't matter,' I shrugged. 'You know lots of embarrassing stuff about me, I'm guessing.'

'James actually only told me about the Transfiguration thing,' Joe replied.

'That's surprising,' I said seriously.

'I'm guessing he told you about the fight, too?'

'Yeah,' I said gently. 'Are you okay?'

'Of course I am,' he smiled. 'I'm healing already. I was ten times worse an hour ago. You'd have probably ran screaming if you saw me then.'

'I wouldn't,' I said sincerely. Joe chuckled nasally.

'Where is he, anyway?' I asked quietly. 'The one you had the fight with?'

'Over there,' Joe said with a stony expression, indicating the bed at the very end of the hospital wing, covered by a screen. I didn't blame Pomfrey for putting the two of them as far away as possible.

'What even happened? I never thought you'd have a fight – '

Joe sighed. 'I thought you'd say that. You do still want to go with me tomorrow, don't you? You don't think I'm some short-tempered raging idiot?'

'No, of – of course not! Can you still come, though?' I asked anxiously.

'I'll come even if I have to hex Pomfrey to clear the doorway,' Joe winked.

'You'll build yourself a bad rep!' I said sternly. 'No, but honestly – what was he saying? Malfoy? Did he provoke you?'

'Honestly, Rose, you have no idea how angry he made me,' Joe said, his breathing quickening as though he was preparing to fight again. 'He was saying all sorts of stuff; stuff about his family, and about blood-traitors and Muggle-borns and how they're scum and filthy and how no-one's killed them all off by now – '

'What?'

'It's crazy! His family are all bloody weirdos, it's no wonder he has about two friends. And, God, Rose, I just couldn't stand there and take it. No-one even has that old prejudice about magical blood any more! Just because he thinks his family is some sort of royalty – what a prick.' His voice was increasing in volume the more he spoke, and I was desperate for Scorpius Malfoy not to hear.

'Calm down, Joe, getting angry and stressed isn't good for healing,' I soothed.

'Sorry,' Joe said more quietly. 'And I've lost us thirty points as well, which isn't great...'

'It doesn't matter about that,' I said quickly. 'House points stopped getting interesting in about third year.'

Joe grinned widely at me, his bloodshot, bruised eye watering.

'That looks sore,' I said, wincing.

'It is,' he simpered. 'Oh, the pain!'

I giggled. 'Have you got medicine?'

'Yeah, there's Dittany on the table...could you just put some on my eye –?'

Feeling embarrassed, I up-ended Essence of Dittany onto a cotton cloth and dabbed it around his blossoming bruises.

'I feel like your mother,' I mumbled.

'Nah, my mum worries much worse than this,' Joe said, his eyes closed. 'Joseph William Parrus, you stupid boy, just what do you think you were doing, haven't we taught you that violence isn't the answer?'

'Your mother's right,' I nodded.

'She is – but in the case of Scorpius Malfoy,' he added, 'I'm sure she can make an exception.'