Chapter 3
A/N: Hello readers! I've actually had this chapter for a few days... but I forgot I had it! Yeah... I'm an idiot. In my defence, I've been really busy.
Anyway! Here's the next chapter.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and to thestarlitrose and Myno.1fan for betaing!
~Frosty
Albus had been watching the monumental display of idiocy as his two best mates made their problem even larger over dinner. He could only imagine the damage they'd done to their confused relationship while they'd been ignoring each other all day. How was he supposed to get them together if they were always working against him?
When Rose left the Great Hall, he followed determinedly after her.
"What's with you?" he demanded, grabbing her shoulder and stopping her retreat.
Rose whirled on him, her fiery curls fanning out around her with the speed of her movement. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I send you to talk to Scorpius and you chase him away completely! Not only that, but he chewed me out a while ago for telling you about his little episode in the Head's common room."
She was all for male solidarity and that sort of thing, but she was Albus' friend too, so why was he always siding with Scorpius? It was favouritism that was bordering on a complete disregard for her feelings. They were always banding together against her, it seemed.
"I told him that it wasn't his fault, and he's avoided me since," she snapped, not wanting to deal with yet another unreasonably uptight male. Weren't girls supposed to be the ones with the erratic behaviour and mood swings?
She should have known better than to have two boys as her best friends. The stories her mum had told her about her own time at Hogwarts should have topped her off to the troubles that boys brought with them. Unfortunately, Rose had never been one to take advice from her mum.
It would be nice to have a female friend to listen as she complained about how messed up Albus and Scorpius could be.
If there were reasonable boys out there, then she didn't seem to know any of them. They probably lived in some far-off world where foods with reduced fat tasted just as good as the originals and no female was ever accused of having PMS. She would have to visit some day.
"You didn't do anything else?" her cousin asked, sounding entirely unconvinced.
Rose narrowed her eyes at him, hoping she looked dangerously angered and not all squinty and ridiculous.
Done with Albus' accusations, she brushed past her cousin and stormed away, not stopping until she was safely locked in her room. Her nice room with her books, where everything made sense and she was left alone. The people closest to her always seemed to cause her trouble – particularly Scorpius.
Rose sighed as she remembered the first time she'd met Scorpius. He'd been trouble then too.
The animosity every Weasley felt towards every Malfoy was practically legendary in the wizarding world. Rose's mum didn't approve of that kind of thinking, but that didn't stop her dad from trying to pass on the hate at every opportunity.
For as far back as Rose could remember, her dad had been telling her to watch out for 'blond, Slytherin gits who had more money than they did brains' once she got to Hogwarts. Confused, little Rose had asked what she should do in the event that she came across one of these creatures. Ron had been adamant that she should 'punch him'.
When her mum heard him say these things, she would always scold him and remind Rose that violence was never the answer. For a while, her Dad would look properly contrite, but as soon as Hermione's back was turned, he'd mouth 'punch him' and nod encouragingly.
Considering this was the way she was raised, it was completely unsurprising that the first time she boarded the Hogwarts express, she got into trouble.
It had started as an innocent enough encounter. Rose had been perched nervously on her seat, trying to keep her attention focused on the battered copy of Hogwarts: A History that her mum had bestowed upon her. Hermione Weasley believed that books made everything better, but Rose wasn't of the same opinion. Books were great, but they weren't the all-knowing source of knowledge and wonder that her mother liked to think.
Somewhere between boarding the train and finding a compartment to occupy, little Rose had lost track of her hoard of cousins and had been forced to sit on her own. She had her book, but she would have much rather had some human company to talk with about her school fears, or at least to distract her from them.
"That book is older than we are, I can hardly see it being relevant anymore," someone scoffed from the open compartment door.
Rose looked up to see a blond figure leaning against wood panelling of the wall, appearing more assured than a first year had any right to look. She immediately disliked him, feeling even more worried when sitting in the shadow of his confidence.
"It was my mum's when she was in school. I'm reading it for sentimental reasons rather than information." She wasn't going to tell the boy that reading her mum's book made her feel closer to her mum. It was comforting to have a piece of home even when she was going far away, even if she would have preferred a real person. Rose had a pretty good idea that the book was better company than this person.
When her cool blue eyes glanced down at the tomb fondly, the blond darted forward and snatched it from her hands.
"Give that back!" she ordered, trying to fight a trembling lower lip. She'd lost her cousins, was away from her family for the first time, and now she had to deal with a blond bully.
The boy merely smirked and held it above his head, out of her reach. How could he be the same age, yet already so much taller than her?
"Grandfather said I need to make sure people respect me on the first day, it's the Malfoy way." His pompous voice was starting to grate on her last nerve.
When what he'd said hit Rose, her eyes widened. This boy was a Malfoy! The years of being told that Malfoys were evil and that she needed to punch their heir on sight came back to her. Sure, her dad had a temper, but he would never deliberately deceive her.
There was only one thing she could do. The boy looked a little confused when she pulled her arm back and made a fist, but he got the gist when she punched him in the nose.
A sickening crunch told her that she'd hit her mark.
Something was tickling her nose. That was the first thing she registered upon awakening. Slapping at her face didn't seem to be stopping whatever bit of fluff that was tormenting her. It was so annoying! She made a small grunt of irritation and tried to roll to escape the itchy thing.
Her eyes snapped open at the sound of a deep chuckle, meeting sparkling grey orbs. There was a quill in his hand, he must have found it on her desk and decided to tickle her awake. He was evil like that, and she wouldn't have him any other way.
"Morning," he said with a smirk, reaching out a hand to further ruffle her sleep-mussed hair.
Rose blinked. "You're speaking to me now?"
She was secretly pleased that he seemed to have forgiven her for whatever it was that she'd done to anger him. She had missed her friend. Her pride, however, stopped her from expressing that pleasure.
Heaving a deep sigh, Scorpius climbed into her bed and stretched out beside her, folding his arms behind his head. "I was a git."
That was probably as close to an apology as she was going to get.
She blinked at her friend, not entirely awake. Somehow, something was different. Once upon a time, it wouldn't have affected her in the least to have him stretched out beside her, but now, Rose couldn't help but be overly aware of him. All of her skin nearest to him seemed to light up with warmth. To distract herself from her new-found hyper-awareness of her friend, she pulled her pillow out from under her head and whacked him with it. All was forgiven.
Scorpius snatched the pillow away from the laughing redhead, but she just grabbed a different one and started to hit him again. He was relieved that she was laughing again. It had been wrong seeing her so serious, she was supposed to be looking at him with that brilliant smile that lit up her eyes and made them sparkle, not a clouded, depressed expression.
"Take THAT!" Rose exclaimed, hitting him right in the face and jerking him out of his contemplation of her smile.
She squeaked in surprise when he suddenly burst into a flurry of motion, jumping up from the bed, stealing her fluffy weapon, and flattening himself on top of her. His weight pinned her to the mattress.
"You're crushing me," she complained. In reality, she liked his warm weight on top of her, it felt safe and exciting at the same time. He smelled of expensive cologne and Scorpius and home, only adding to the overall feeling of safety. It felt like nothing could hurt her while he was there, keeping the real world at bay.
His chuckle at her complaint resounded in his chest, making her feel the sound as well as hear it. It did strange things to her insides. Strange things that she wanted to happen again.
"Serves you right for trying to break my nose again."
Rose ignored his complaint. It was impossible for her to break his nose with pillows.
When she felt him starting to pull away, she wrapped her arms around him tightly on impulse. She hadn't wanted him to move and had acted before her brain could catch up. Quickly, she searched for something she could say that would make him think she wasn't just being annoying and clinging when he just thought of her as a friend.
"It really wasn't your fault that I got hurt. Don't beat yourself up about one little accident. They happen all the time in Quidditch." Yes, that was both true and made her seem less clingy.
He let out a surprised breath that puffed along her skin and threw her off balance once again. She wanted him to do that again, but it was probably best for her sanity that he didn't. It was very likely that her head would tilt back of its own volition so she could press her lips against his.
He needed to get off of her before she did something that would ruin their friendship.
"Say what you want, but I don't have to believe it." There was a sad smirk on his face. Merlin, the idiot wasn't going to just let her erase his guilt. He was going to wallow in it for a while.
He put his hand over her mouth to stop the protests he knew she was about to voice. "Nothing you can say is going to talk me out of feeling this way, so don't waste your breath."
With a warning look, he removed his hand from her lips.
"I can't breathe," she complained. That said, she released him, allowing him to stand. The closeness was nice, but it had been a little hard to breathe with that much weight constricting her poor lungs. It was a little worrying that Scorpius was still silent. He wasn't going to go off on another spree of ignoring her, was he? She wasn't sure she could take that again, it really hurt.
A tad awkwardly, he stood up. Rose immediately felt the loss. She'd prefer he was back on top of her than be able to breathe any day.
"I'm here to remind you that practice starts in half an hour and I expect my star chaser to be there," Scorpius said, breaking the slightly uncomfortable silence they'd fallen under.
Her eyes widened. He was going to let her play? Better yet, he'd come to get her just to make sure she made it to practice on time?
In a rush, she stood up. "Since when have I ever been late for anything?" She was already pushing him towards the door so she could put on her Quidditch practice gear.
"I thought it might be a little hard for you to know when practice was since I announced it in the Ravenclaw common room last night."
That gave her pause. She didn't share Ravenclaw tower with him and every other student of the house anymore. While she missed the camaraderie, she appreciated her new privacy – when Scorpius wasn't sneaking into her room and invading said privacy. "How'd you get in here?"
"Albus," he smirked. "It seems he feels that our fight was partially his fault and he owed it to his two best mates to help them make up, even if it meant letting a man into his completely unsuspecting cousin's room."
"I think I'm safe," she said dryly, going back to shoving him out of her room. In her mind, she was picturing that Slytherin brunette at dinner. Scorpius went for girls that were all breast and legs with no brains, not people like her. There was no way her little delusion would ever come to pass.
He gave her an unreadable look over his shoulder, allowing her to propel him the rest of the way out of her room.
Albus was waiting in the Head's common room sipping a cup of tea. "Why do you look like you swallowed a flobberworm?" he asked his friend when the blond flopped in a chair.
Scorpius visibly deflated as he looked over at Rose's closed door. "She looks so serene when she sleeps, so helpless. Before I grabbed a quill to irritate her awake, I was standing there, thinking what it would be like to always wake up to her."
Setting his tea on the table, Albus grimaced. "Out of all the people in the school, it had to be Rose you picked, someone I'm related to? Do you know how disturbing it is to hear my best mate talk about my cousin like that?"
"You're practically related to half the school, there was a good chance I'd choose someone you're in some way connected with," the blond said dryly.
"It's been Rose since she broke your nose on the very first day of school and then held your hand and cried while they fixed you. Don't even pretend there's ever been anyone else."
Scorpius shot a worried look at the Head Girl's door, concerned that her cousin was talking loud enough for his voice to carry through the thick wood.
Catching the look, Albus barked a laugh. "Don't worry, after that little display at dinner last night, she doesn't suspect a thing. And she never will if you don't say anything. You know how oblivious she can be once she gets it in her head that something's impossible. Hell, she didn't believe Victoire was going to have a baby until she was nine months pregnant and waddling everywhere."
The blond was saved from having to answer when Rose's door opened and she came out, broom slung over her shoulder.
"Are we going, captain?" she asked with a grin, completely unaware that they had just been talking about her.
"One day she's going to meet a boy who isn't completely intimidated by the mass of male relatives she has looking out for her and you're going to regret not saying something," Albus whispered to the blond while Rose hopped around trying to get her boots on her feet.
Jaw tight, Scorpius looked over at Rose.
"Would you be able to watch her with someone else?" Albus continued. "You can't expect her to stay single forever. I know she's my cousin, but she's not entirely unattractive."
"Scorpius, it'll look bad if the captain is late for his own practice. Come on," Rose said impatiently from the portrait hole. She may not have been all too enthusiastic about joining the team, but once committed to something, Rose wasn't the type to only put in a partial effort and she hated being late for anything important.
"She'd already got you wrapped around her finger, the only difference in a relationship would be you'd get to kiss her," Albus said as Scorpius stood from his seat. He shot a venomous glare at the green-eyed nuisance and caught up to Rose, who had grown impatient and started out the portrait hole as soon as she saw that he was standing.
"I never found out who else made the team," she commented as they made their way towards the pitch.
Scorpius grimaced. "That's because I didn't want to tell you until the last possible moment."
A bad feeling in her stomach, Rose narrowed her eyes at the blond suspiciously. "Why?"
"Because Scarlet and Vermilion Goldstein are your fellow chasers and you're too polite to chew me out about choosing them if they're present," he said just as they set foot on the pitch, where the rest of the team was waiting. Their name was a running joke in Ravenclaw – it was like they'd been destined to be in Gryffindor, yet the sorting hat had placed them in the house of blue and bronze.
The fourth year Goldstein twins were two of the most annoying people Rose had ever met. Since their first year, they had regaled audiences with the stunning – and completely fabricated, in Rose's opinion – stories of their father's victories in the battle against Voldemort. As a result of their preoccupation with the past, they seemed to think that every child of war heroes should also acknowledge the battle prowess of their father, Anthony.
Rose's first meeting with them hadn't gone well, and their associations had only gone downhill since. They'd approached her in their first year with something akin to hero-worship in their eyes, asking if she had any stories about their father that they hadn't heard. Her response of "who?" hadn't been well-received.
After writing a letter home to her parents asking about this 'Anthony Goldstein,' Rose had truthfully told them her mum's memories of the man (making sure to edit a little and make him sound less repulsive), placing her firmly in their bad books. It really wasn't her fault that they'd put their father on a pedestal and didn't take it well when someone tried to bring them back to reality.
Their relationship had only worsened when both the blond twins seemed to simultaneously develop a huge crush on Scorpius and resented Rose for spending so much time with him. Rose disliked the both of them immensely and couldn't see how she was going to be able to work as a team when they so obviously hated her.
"How do you expect me to be able to work with them?" she hissed, trying to burn Scorpius with her glare.
The evil blond ignored her, addressing the team as a whole. "I know some of us don't get along all the time, but we're here with a common goal; to win. I expect you to work your hardest and put aside petty disagreements," he said with a pointed look between Rose and the twins.
Rose took to the air along with the rest of the team, making a mental note to murder Scorpius – as soon as they weren't at practice anymore and he lost the ability to make her do laps or drills.
Unsurprisingly, Scorpius was a good captain, a good leader. He worked them really hard, but he knew how to bring them together and motivate them. By the end of the practice, Rose could barely move from exhaustion, but she'd managed to actually work with the Goldstein twins without feeling the need to bash someone's head in. There was hope for their team yet.
