I hate Rose Weasley for what she does to me.
As we were walking up to the new Head dormitories, I tried to ignore her. I tried to pretend that she didn't exist; I tried to hate her with a vengeance.
And I failed, just like always.
How can you hate someone when all you can feel is sickening, gut-wrenching guilt about how you treated them? How can you hate someone when all you can do is torture yourself over how you made them cry with a few well chosen words?
That really stung, and I loathed the fact that it affected me. Life would be so much simpler if I didn't care for Rose at all. If I really wished her some sort of bodily harm. I thought she had decided to embrace the enmity that Slytherins and Gryffindors shared at last, and that's why she stopped being my friend. That made her a lot easier to hate. But it wasn't true, and I couldn't kid myself.
It was me.
All me.
It was my constant inability to grow a spine that meant she was subjected to verbal abuse every day she was friends with me. It was me turning my back on her as my so called friends bullied her. And it wasn't just my friends... it was my own cruel words that had driven her away.
Her expression that day... I'd thought she was just offended by the comparison to a troll. I'd thought she'd forgive me and make an allowance. Boys and their jokes, and all that. But I'd broken her. I'd been mean and selfish and heartless, and the worst part was that she'd believed every word I'd said. I told her I didn't mean it... but she took it as gospel truth, just like she had when we were eleven and I'd told her that gnomes could fly, and bowtruckles made good pancakes. I'd laughed at how gullible she was then, Albus and I together. It didn't seem so funny anymore.
How could she have believed me? How could she seriously think I thought she was ugly? Rose was many things; headstrong, opinionated, a bit of a know it all, sometimes tactless and completely oblivious to her own worth, but she was never, and could never be, ugly. Her big sapphire eyes that you just got lost in, her fiery curls that cascaded down her back when she didn't have them in that uptight ponytail she always wore, the way her nose wrinkled when she was annoyed and made her light dusting of freckles stand out, the way her lower lip pushed out when she pouted...
She was the most beautiful girl in our year, as much as it pained me to admit it. She always had been.
And I still couldn't help but wish that she was my best friend again. And I still thought about her every sodding second. And I was still as hopelessly in love with her at seventeen as I had been at twelve.
I hated her for making me love her. But I hated myself for making her hate me more.
She stopped walking abruptly as she reached the portrait that concealed the entrance to our new living accommodation, and I had to brace my hand against the wall to stop myself walking straight into the back of her.
'Merlin, Weasley, warn people before you decide to stop walking. I nearly had to touch you!' I was very good at this game. I'd had years of practice. Keep your guard up and don't let her have any idea how you really feel about her. Taunt and mock and ridicule and make sure she won't ever know the truth. Rule number one, in short; lie.
I was a damn good liar.
She turned to me with a look of deepest loathing. I nearly recoiled from the intensity of it, but I stopped myself in time. Rule number two in the Malfoy school of acting: do not let her know how much she gets to you. Suck it up.
'You know, Malfoy, I'm glad you have good reflexes. Any contact with you and I would've been forced to bring up my lunch,' she replied coolly.
A good comeback. She'd learnt to perfect them over the years.
'What's the password?' I merely asked, gesturing towards the portrait.
'Er... I'm not sure,' Rose chewed her lip thoughtfully. I tried not to find that distracting, and failed, once again. Not that she was aware of that.
The portrait, a picture of two wizards brewing some sort of potion together over a golden cauldron, was evidently where we needed to be, but McGonagall hadn't mentioned a password to either of us.
'How about... Hogwarts?' she asked the portrait hopefully. I rolled my eyes as one of the wizards, who had a pointed black beard and a gold tooth, replied 'Guess again, dear.'
'Why don't you just tell us?' I proposed logically.
'No, I couldn't do that. I'm afraid you're going to have to guess. It's part of the rules.'
Rose ground her teeth in frustration.
We sat there for half an hour, bored out of our skulls and disagreeing on everything and anything, no matter how trivial. A few times, I swore that Rose was deliberately playing devil's advocate just to annoy me. I'm sure she realised I was doing the same thing.
'This is ridiculous!' I groaned after the seventy-eighth password we tried (Hungarian horntail) didn't work.
'For once, Malfoy, I agree with you,' Rose sighed.
'Well done, now you may choose your password!' The other wizard in the portrait – a thin, lizard-like man – piped up.
'What?' we chorused, confused.
'You managed to co-operate, which was what you had to do in order for us to let you set a password,' the bearded wizard explained.
'Oh... erm, okay, password?' Rose turned to me expectantly.
'Snitch,' I said firmly.
'Whatever, I'm too tired to argue,' Rose replied.
'Password is set, sir and miss.' The lizard-y wizard bowed and the portrait swung forwards to admit us. Rose climbed through, and I raised a hand unthinkingly to help her. Nobody could say that Malfoys didn't have manners.
She just gave my hand a dirty look and brushed past me. I sighed.
'I was only trying to be polite, Weasley.' This was the longest I had spent in her company since we were much younger, and I was relishing it. Not that she was aware. Even her venomous looks and her barbed comments were welcome. At least she was there to hate me. At least I could talk to her. I didn't care if she was shouting, just as long as I heard the sound of her voice. I briefly wondered when I had gotten so pathetic.
I could peg it to one day in late September 2017.
I had been sitting under our tree; mine, Rosie's and Al's, with the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 open in my lap, trying to learn how to do a disarming spell. I heard footsteps beside me, and I glanced up to see a smiling Rose standing over me, a heavy textbook in her hands and a wide smile on her pretty face. She had worn her hair in plaits then, and little curls poked out every so often.
'Expelliarmus!' I cried, pointing my wand at her, and Rose's book flew out of her grip. She looked completely astonished.
'How did you do that?' she asked, throwing herself down onto the grass beside me, her book lying a few feet away, forgotten.
'I've been practising. I'm getting quite good,' I admitted truthfully.
'We haven't even been taught that yet!' she protested weakly. I smiled at her.
'I don't want to look stupid if I can't do it when we get taught,' I replied with what I thought was infallible logic back then.
'But that's why we get taught, silly. It's okay to make mistakes, Scorp.'
'But what if I couldn't do it, Rosie?' I shot back. She shrugged nonchalantly.
'You'd learn eventually.' I remember, even then, being completely taken in by her deep blue eyes. They were hypnotising.
'I want to be smart,' I confessed, feeling my cheeks flush a little.
'But you are smart, Scorp. You're really smart. You might even be smarter than me, though I'm not going to tell anyone.' I laughed as she said this, and then felt a swooping sensation in my stomach as she patted my knee.
I watched her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh.
'Rosie, what's wrong?' I asked immediately.
'Nothing, it's just... Flora Montague was teasing me today.' Rose's cheeks burned with her humiliation at admitting weakness. She always hated to be weak. I think that was something she got from her Aunt Ginny, the way she and Al described her.
'What did she say?' I asked gently, not really thinking about it as I leaned forward to brush a loose piece of her hair away from her eyes. My fingers tingled as I touched her skin, and her eyes widened a little.
'It's stupid.'
'Tell me anyway.'
'You'll laugh.'
'I won't.'
She measured me for a moment to make sure that I was serious before continuing.
'She said that I'll never have a boyfriend because nobody will ever fancy me or love me, and nobody would ever want to kiss me,' she blurted out, super-fast.
'Why wouldn't anyone ever love you?' I frowned in confusion.
'Because I'm ginger, so she says.' I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. It was just so ridiculous.
'I told you you'd laugh!' she exclaimed angrily. I could hear her mumbling all sorts of dire threats under her breath, all involving my painful death – and it made me laugh harder. She was so funny sometimes.
'I'm sorry Rosie, but it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What's wrong with being ginger?'
'That's what I said.'
'And what did she say?' I asked, still holding back my laughter.
'She didn't have an answer.'
'Well then, there you go. I can't believe that bothered you.' It really did surprise me that Rose would be bothered by anything Flora Montague said.
'It's because I'm always worried about that.'
'What, about Flora? Rosie, she's just jealous because you're prettier than her,' I replied.
'No, not about her about – really?' she turned to me with a hopeful expression.
'What?' I asked, puzzled.
'Do you really think I'm prettier than Flora?' she checked.
'Definitely,' I assured her, and I meant every syllable. Rose was so blind. She was prettier than everyone. She made my stomach do back flips. 'But what do you worry about?'
'Well, the idea of nobody ever wanting to kiss me. Or nobody ever falling in love with me.' She blushed a deep crimson as she said it.
'That's ridiculous, Rosie,' I scoffed. Who wouldn't love Rose, really?
'But I still worry.'
'But you shouldn't. She's being mean and it's not true,' I argued.
'But nobody has ever kissed me before,' she answered quietly.
I don't know where the surge of bravery came from, but somehow I managed to find the courage in that moment to lean over to Rose and kiss her, full on the lips. It surprised the hell out of me, I remember, that her lips were so soft. I'd expected them to be all rough, but they were smooth and soft and warm. She tasted like strawberries. My heartbeat began to go strangely hiccup-y in my chest, pinging around like it was on elastic. And then I'd pulled away and grinned at her, feeling more confident than I ever had before. There was a new feeling too, one I wasn't really sure about.
'Okay, well that's not true anymore,' I whispered, smiling widely.
Rose looked slightly dazed, like someone had just hit her over the head. Her eyes were like saucers, wider and bluer than I had ever seen them before. They glittered in the sunlight.
'You... kissed me,' she whispered incredulously.
'Uh-huh,' I said, fighting to keep the smug grin off my face. I kissed her! I kissed Rose!
She brought her shaky fingers up to her lips and touched them softly.
'Wow...' she breathed, and then proceeded to turn bright pink.
In that second, I realised what the feeling was. I hadn't ever felt it before, but I knew what it was instinctively.
Rose Weasley didn't have to worry about nobody falling in love with her anymore, because someone already was.
Me.
As soon as the portrait hole swung shut behind us, the tension and awkwardness in the air was palpable. I noticed that the common room we shared was small and intimate, a couple of bookshelves, a notice board, one sofa and two armchairs. An empty grate with a handsome mantelpiece faced these seats, and there was a rectangular coffee table in the middle of the room. On one side was a door with a green hanging over the entrance. On the other, a red hanging. There was a doorway between the two, the bathroom no doubt.
Rose took one look at me and marched over to the red door. She threw it open and darted through without a backwards glance, slamming the door behind her. I just smiled to myself and settled into one of the armchairs. Living with Rose was going to be fun.
Then I thought of her tear tracks glistening on her face as she stared out of the window on the Hogwarts Express, and the smile slid off my face.
This Malfoy didn't have as many manners as he thought.