Rose

It was time for prefect duty again. I was paired with guess who, and waiting for him outside the Slytherin common room. I wished fervently that I'd had Potions with him today, so that I could have negotiated this. But I hadn't seen or heard hide or hair of him save for the note this morning dooming me to this probably fruitless vigil. I cast a time-checking spell and sighed. Late. Fifteen minutes late. And knowing him, it'd probably end up being thirty.

I moaned loudly and whacked my hand against the hard stone wall. Why was it that the Head Boy and Girl seemed so intent on thrusting us together? At best, we wouldn't argue too often. At worst, it could become the kind of screaming match we were supposed to be berating others for having. Perhaps I'd done something to one of them—pissed them off or something, though I couldn't see how. I kept my complaints re being paired with Scorpius Malfoy for prefect duty to myself.

Well, mostly to myself. When I saw a head of sleek white-blond hair significantly taller than mine turn a corner, I went dashing after it and grabbed the robes of the person it belonged to. "Merlin help you, Scorpius Malfoy, if you don't have a good reason for sneaking about fifteen minutes after you were supposed to meet me for prefect duty," I hissed in the general area of his ear.

I could feel the languorous smile spreading across that git's face. "Dear Rose, don't get so upset. It's just that I happen to find several things more interesting than prefect duty, and sometimes I get… caught up in them."

I spun him around, enraged. "You will get caught up in fucking Filch's dungeon if you are late one more time! I am sick of this shit! You have me wait outside your damn common room, getting looks right and left and sneers up and down, and then you go off pretending like you don't even see me rotting out there—"

"I didn't see you."

"Oh, who gives a shit, Malfoy? You were obviously off to go debauch or something. You are unappreciative, irresponsible, and I don't understand why in hell you are a prefect," I fumed, tugging a loose red curl behind my ear.

Malfoy stood there and took it. It was the weirdest experience of my life. When I was finished, there was a silence. He didn't say anything, didn't look up. "Well? Are you going to explain yourself?" I asked impatiently. "Or can we go?" He didn't talk, so I started to walk. In two long strides he had caught up with me. It seemed like he still wanted to say something, so I waited.

Finally he sighed. "I'm not going to explain myself, Rose," he said quietly, "but I will make it up to you."

It was kind of an apology, but I couldn't stop myself from replying sarcastically, "Oh, and how would you do that? Take all my prefect shifts for the rest of the year? That'd be the fair way of doing it."

"I'm serious, Rose. I'll find a way. If that's what you want me to do, I'll do it."

I rubbed my temples. All of a sudden I had a splitting headache. First he comes off all nonchalant. Then I scream at him, and he's like a puppy with a tail between his legs. Then he decides he's the chivalrous knight fallen from grace. This is just ridiculous. "You are so confusing. Since when do you give a damn how I feel?" I tugged at my hair sullenly as we walked down the hall, aware that I probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and that this reaction would probably frustrate him out of his previous kindness. But I didn't care. There was some subconscious part of me that didn't want Scorpius Malfoy to be nice to me, if only because I wouldn't be sure of the implications of that, and the ones I could guess at were… undesirable, to say the least.

"Well, you seemed really upset."

"Well, who wouldn't be? It's frustrating. You know, it just—I mean, sometimes it seems you don't take anything seriously."

"That depends on the day of the week," he teased. "But I take my schoolwork seriously, don't I? I'm about even with you."

"Only because of bloody Potions."

I looked up at him, because he'd suddenly gone silent. There was a strange new light in his gray eyes and he said, "That's it."

"What's it?" I said uncertainly.

"I'll tutor you in Potions to make up for being late."

"Oh no, Malfoy. I don't trust you. I think you've got to have some kind of weird ulterior motive that's going to bite me in the ass."

"Let's check the library. Someone's always snooping about in there."

"So you do have an ulterior motive."

"No. I just think we should check the library."

I shook my head. "I think you're mad. But we can go check the library." I sighed. "So this tutoring in Potions… I mean, what would it entail?"

"It would entail me revealing the mysterious world of Potions and allowing you to—"

"Mostly I meant where, you idiot. Obviously not in either of our common rooms."

"My room?"

I rolled my eyes. "May you die a slow and painful death. No."

Scorpius laughed. "Hey, what's with the death threat?"

"Whatever you may say about me, I'm not stupid. What would people think?"

"About me tutoring you?"

"About me traipsing up to your room on a 'study date.' The only thing that would be missing would be the giggling and hand-holding." I said dryly.

"That's not true. And I assure you, my intentions are of the absolute purest nature. I merely wish to edify you in the noble arts of—"

"There are three problems with what you just said. The first problem is that the first statement is an irrefutable lie. Or, if it's not a lie, it's a display of startling naïveté. No one is invited into the room of the school stud and studies. The second problem is that the second statement is quite probably also untrue. Malfoys are like onions—they're layered. There is never just one motivation, just one random action. You all plan things very carefully."

Scorpius laughed. "Oh? And what would my motive be this time?"

"I have no idea, and that's what scares me the most. Anyway, the third problem is that your speech got really fucking flowery just then, and that almost certainly means that you're lying."

"You're saying my speech gets poetic when I lie?" The bright look of amusement on his face came dangerously close to jellifying my lower body. I bit my lip and kicked myself. Jesus, Rose. What's gotten into you?

"Yes, absolutely," I answered. "Like when you lied the first time about why you were late to the prefects' meeting. Personally, I think it was stupid of them to ask where you were; it happened to be blatantly obvious to me."

To my surprise, he blushed. "Yes, well. It's the Malfoy charm."

I smiled and couldn't resist teasing, "In which instance?"

Scorpius grinned back at me. "Both."

"I knew you would say that."

We entered the library, looking about for misbehaving children in companionable silence. When it was evident that no one was in there, or at least that they were damn good at hiding, Scorpius said, "So you still haven't said yes to being tutored by me."

"You act like there's not another answer."

"There isn't. Look, Rose, you're barely managing an E average. You fail these O.W.L.s…"

"I won't!"

"I know you won't," he said soothingly, stroking my cheek so lightly I wasn't even certain that he'd done it, "but wouldn't you rather be sure?"

Yes, I thought, fighting to keep my hand by my side, I want to be sure what you're feeling about me. You just touched my fucking cheek! More than that, I want to be sure what I feel about you. I should be angry, not wanting more. You're being forward! I hate it when you're forward! Don't I? I sighed. "Yes. Fine. Whatever."

Scorpius' grin flashed brilliantly across his features. "Great. So my room?"

"I told you, no. The library, you rabbit."

His laugh rung through the empty library, echoing in my heart hours after we'd left.