A/N: Sorry I've been so lax about updating. I have no excuse. The only thing I can say is that I got distracted with another fic. I've finished writing that one, but I haven't posted it yet. I've made a deal with myself that I can't post a chapter of that one until I update this one. So I'm posting this chapter, then next week I'll post the first chapter of the other one, then I'll post another chapter of this one, and so on. Hopefully this will help me keep a better schedule. Now to the story.

Chapter 3: You're On Thin Ice

Scorpius awoke the next morning to the sound of something hitting the wall above his head and falling on his pillow with a soft thump. His eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw was the scuffed sole of a size 12 shoe, half an inch from his face. Not wanting to get hit, Malfoy scrambled out of bed, shouting to his roomies, "What in the name of Merlin are you two doing?"

Two of his fellow sixth year boys, Goyle and Bertram Smith, had each other in headlocks and were gradually turning purple. Gasping through Goyle's hold on his neck, Smith choked, "He spilled his horrible cologne on my clean shirts. Now I'm going to smell like him all week!"

"What's your story?" Scorpius asked Goyle exasperatedly.

"He threw his shoe at me."

"Yeah, I noticed," Scorpius replied shortly. Knocking the shoe off his pillow to the floor, Scorpius threw it (the pillow, not the shoe) at the remaining Slytherin sixth year, who was still sleeping: "Come on, Herm. Let's get out of here before they break the place down."

Roughly five minutes later, Scorpius was straightening his tie as he and Herman Mohanigan made their way toward the Great Hall for breakfast. Despite the fact that his dorm mates were already at each other's throats, which really shouldn't surprise him much anymore as it was a regular occurrence, Scorpius thought the coming year held a lot of promise. He was just asking Herm if he thought they would have Transfiguration that morning when he walked through the Great Hall doors and straight into Rose Weasley.

Such a small girl should not make such a hard impact, Scorpius thought as he grabbed onto her in an attempt not to topple over in a pile of limbs. There were a few frantic moments of flailing arms and scrambling motions before both had successfully regained their balance.

"I'm so sorry!" Rose exclaimed as she disentangled herself and steadied him at the same time, "I really need to start paying attention to where I'm walking. My cousin Al tells me that I need to stop looking at my feet when I walk or one day I'll walk straight off the edge of the earth. That would be completely ridiculous since everyone knows there is no World's Edge, but you don't care about this, do you, Scorpius?"

Scorpius hadn't really been listening until she said his name. Once he realized who he had run into, he had been panicking and looking for an escape route. He knew he had made a resolution to talk to her this year, but it was the first day of class for Merlin's sake! He had expected to have some time to either work up the nerve or talk himself out of it before an opportunity even presented itself. Apparently Merlin had gotten bored in death and decided to mess with Scorpius' life. He hadn't even made it to his first class yet and here he was, holding her in his arms, and not in a fun way.

He had just been inwardly cursing Mohanigan for ditching him so fast when his name called him back to the situation at hand. Oh shit, she expects me to say something. What am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to think with her so close to me and the smell of her perfume clouding my brain? Oh! That's it! Step away. Put some distance between you and her, then maybe your higher thought processes will begin to function again instead of acting like a bunch of nargles invaded.

With great difficulty, Scorpius unfogged his brain enough to remove her elbow from where it had accidentally plunged itself into his stomach, spit out a clump of her hair that had somehow ended up in his mouth, and arranged himself in a normal standing position. Now say something cool and natural.

He smiled at her in a way he hoped said "casual" and not "nervous-out-of-his-pants." "Don't worry about it," he told her, "No one was hurt." No one was hurt? Great, Scorpius, real great. I guess it's technically true. No one was hurt unless you count his elbowed abdomen and the chunk of her hair. But really, who got the worse end of that wand? Me or her? Her hair now has spit in it and will probably dry weird, but no one really likes hair in their mouth. While it may smell good, hair itself is not particularly tasty. I guess it's kind of a mutual loss.

"There you are, Cor," said a voice from behind him. Rose saw Blair coming, gave him a small smile and muttered, "Sorry again, Scorpius. I'll see you around," before she carefully stepped around him and walked out the doors.

He wanted to stop her, but he couldn't think of a reason. His brain seemed to have shut off again. Honestly? All he could think was She was right in front of you and all you could do was panic and think of spit. Way to go, Scorpius. Way to go.

Refusing to give into the urge to swear in embarrassed frustration, Scorpius disregarded the irritating girl calling his name and stomped over to the Slytherin table where he took a seat next to Herm. He felt rather than saw Blair slide in next to him and linking her arm with his. He shrugged her off by reaching for the toast and piling half the stack onto his plate.

She huffed at his unresponsiveness, but practically cooed at him, "Good morning, Cor, honey."

He knew it was a bad idea. He knew he would get an angry letter from his father (but never a Howler because the plebian masses were not allowed to be privy to the internal dynamics of the Malfoy family). He knew he would never have done this in the past, but he was very confused about what had just happened with Rose, and he couldn't take Blair's stifling presence any longer.

Scorpius swung around on the bench, stared straight into Blair's over mascaraed eyes and spoke firmly, and possibly louder than necessary, "I will say this only once, so clear the hairspray out of your ears and listen: WE ARE NOT TOGETHER. I am not your boyfriend. You are not my girlfriend. I'm not even sure that I like you as a person. So, please, give me some space." He turned back to his toast, feeling both guilty and oddly triumphant. Blair was still frozen and wide eyed when Scorpius added, "Oh, and stop calling me 'Cor.' It sounds ridiculous. My name is 'Scorpius.' Scor-pi-us. Is it really that difficult to say?"

Blair came back to life at his insulting of her precious pet name. She sat up impossibly straight and became frighteningly calm. Scorpius was so surprised at such an out of character display that he paused halfway through shoving a whole piece of toast in his mouth. He swallowed thickly as she leaned closer and hissed, "We are together. You are my boyfriend. I am your girlfriend. We are an item until I say so because it's what I want. And what I want is what my father wants. And if you don't give me what I want, my father will fire yours. And while he may not need the money, he will stop you from taking that stupid trip I know you've been dying to take for, like, ever. So watch it, Cor, you're on thin ice."

Scorpius felt as though he had been hit in the face with another shoe. The worst part was that she was completely right. She would complain to her father if Scorpius did something she didn't like. Mr. Zabini would fire Father. And then Father would take away his only chance to ever get away. From her. From school. From everything.

Ever since he could remember, Scorpius had been fascinated with Muggles. Not considered a particularly admirable trait in a Malfoy, Scorpius' father had not been thrilled with his son's obvious skill and interest in Muggle Studies. He had, however, agreed to allow Scorpius to take the summer between sixth and seventh year to try to live as a Muggle and travel Europe to his heart's content, as long as Scorpius continued to take all the classes his father deemed appropriate for joining the family trade and didn't do anything socially unacceptable. Making Blair Zabini angry (and her powerful father, through proxy) was exactly the sort of thing that would ruin his chances of living a summer without magic.

Dread caught in Scorpius' throat like a very dry, half-chewed piece of toast. Blair, seeing her victory was near, reclaimed his arm with a casual grace and poured herself a glass of orange juice. This time Scorpius didn't move away from her touch, mostly because she had saved her final demand for that moment, "Oh, and you're taking me to the Halloween Ball. I've already spoken to your father about it. I'll let you know when I decide what our costumes are."

At the end of her pronouncement, Blair downed her juice, kissed him on the cheek, and sauntered away, clearly pleased with herself and not caring that she had just left Scorpius considering stabbing his fork into his eyeball.

No longer hungry, Scorpius pushed his plate away and replaced it with his head. He had thought the day was holding some promise. Then he went and knocked Rose Weasley to the floor, tried to get rid of a permanent leech, and had failed miserably. Could it get any worse?

"Hey, mate," Herm nudged him, "let's go. We've got double Transfiguration this morning."

Apparently it could.

A/N: Let me know what you thought.

Just in case you're curious, the other fic I'll be posting soon is another Scorpius/Rose. I guess I just have a thing for them. It's called Teddy Lupin is Getting Married, and I'm really excited about it. I hope you'll keep an eye out for it.