A/N: Wow, thanks for the reviews, and support, and everything! It's really encouraging to me when I find a nice review or favorite, or even alert added! :) Anyway, enjoy this one! It's probably one of the first ones I wrote – I had the idea for a while. So, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter, the usual.

.:Live to Love:.

.x. burn .x.

I remember one day in Potions third year.

Professor Griffith had assigned us the Shrinking Potion for that class. We were to concoct it, bottle it up, and test it on our desks with him watching. He would grade it based on the success rate. So, if it turned into a tree, obviously we passed. I remember inwardly thanking him for not trying it out on my owl, since Uncle Harry constantly told us of the time the old Potions teacher, Severus Snape, tested it on Professor Longbottom's toad.

That class was double potions with the Gryffindors. For one rare period, I was partnered with my best friend Albus Potter. Professor Griffith never put us together, being cousins. But, he must have had too much mead to drink at dinner the night before, so Al and I were set to work together on the Shrinking Potion.

Let's just say that Potions wasn't, and still isn't, Al's forte. Actually, quite frankly, he has to be the worst potions concocter in the entire universe, even with one of the world's greatest Potions masters as his middle name. If there was a way to screw up a potion, Albus Potter would find it, guaranteed.

"Al, you stick with putting everything in, OK?" I said to him once I planted my Potions book next to his cauldron. "No offense, but I don't trust you with any of the ingredients."

I, on the other hand, am not terrible at potion making. It has to be my easiest subject – no doubt handed down from my genius mother to me. My dad's misfortunate gene must have skipped my generation.

"I wouldn't trust me either." Albus grinned a little. He knew how bad he was at Potions and warned anyone who worked with him.

So, I started pouring the leech juice and cutting the caterpillar. Al stuck to adding and stirring – according to my strict directions, of course. Everything was going smoothly, even working with the world's worst potion concocter.

"Okay, Al, here. Add this." I handed him some daisy roots, cut into a few big chunks. Albus took them with care, cradling them in the palm of his hand.

I turned back down to the cutting board in front of me, picking up the knife to start cutting again. I hadn't even started to chop up the rat spleen when I felt a searing pain ripple up my left arm.

Letting out an anguished cry, I stumbled backward from the table while Al looked on in horror. My affected arm was hot, hotter than anything I had ever felt. It was sizzling, frying, burning with the intensity of the sun. The pain was almost too much to bear.

"Oh, Merlin, I'm so sorry, Rose!" Albus had cried faintly in the distance. I was hopping around on one foot – no idea how that was supposed to help me – and eventually stumbled over my chair and hit my head on the stone floor.

And, as you can guess next, I blacked out.

Needless to say, that wasn't the only thing I remember about that day. It wasn't the way that Albus dumped the daisy roots into the potion to spill it on to my delicate skin, and it wasn't the way my arm had burned furiously from elbow to wrist. It was something entirely different.

I was lying in the Hospital Wing a day later – Madam Pomfrey insisted that I didn't leave until the huge bruise on my head was fully healed – when a familiar white-blond haired boy came to visit.

"Word's around school," he said with a wide grin on his face. "Burn and concussion? Merlin, I didn't even think it was possible for both to happen simultaneously."

"It was all Al's fault," I grumbled, frowning, as Scorpius Malfoy took a seat next to my bed in an old, rickety chair.

"Al's fault or not, you're still in this bed." Scorpius looked at me with a gaze that I thought held some pity. But when could I ever decipher Scorpius Malfoy's emotions?

"True." I sighed, adjusting the bandage wrapped around my head. I probably looked like a freak mummy. "I'm going to be so behind in all my homework, not to mention class work. Professor Griffith already gave us a zero, Al just told me, and – "

I was silenced by Scorpius's finger on my lips. I instantly shut up, closing my mouth tight with wide eyes. When I looked up at him, he moved that hand to caress my cheek. Softly, gently, tenderly. "You're Rose Weasley. You'll do fine."

It was like a million fireworks had burst on my skin where he touched me. I could feel the blood rise to my cheeks, but I was too caught up in the brushing of our skin to care. The soft caress was sending tiny starbursts dancing, and it was so strong I lost all sense of anything – which I was known for, mind you.

And then, he pulled back and left without another word, his gray eyes as unpredictable as always.

If Al's potion burned me, then Scorpius Malfoy's touch scorched me.

A/N: I'd really, really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to review :)