Flump!

"Ow! What the hell was that?"

Rose opened her eyes to see the curtains of her four poster drawn back and three giggling faces looking down at her.

"Sorry man, you slept straight through the alarm. We had to wake you up some way." Rachel grinned at her friend, holding the pillow she had just used to wake her.

"Thanks a bunch guys." Rose groaned, rubbing her eyes.

"Why're you so tired anyway?" Tina asked.

"Yeh? Were you having fun with Scorpius till late last night" Louise snickered.

Rose gave her a look. "Actually I did sort of have fun I guess. Not in the way you mean though." she hastened to add.

"Really?" Rachel asked, surprised. So he wasn't as bad as you thought then?"

"Not really." Rose grabbed her wash bag and headed for the bathroom. "But then I was pretty much expecting the worst."

She went out the room, leaving the other three to stare at each other, rather surprised.

###

Rose and Tina went straight to Arithmancy classroom, being too late for breakfast. To their surprise they arrived in time to secure their favourite seats at the back, where they could talk unseen by the professor and people watch. For some reason Rose found herself looking around for Scorpius. After talking to him last night she was curious to see if he would still behave the same in the light of day, or look as tired as she felt after their late night patrol around the castle.

When he did enter, just in front of Professor Burke, she was rather put out to see that he didn't look as if he had suffered a disrupted night at all, but instead was seemed awake and alert, his hair as sleek and perfect as normal. Rose felt an overwhelming urge to smooth her own unruly waves, but instead she looked up and met his eyes, giving him a small smile. He kept her gaze for a moment, but then sat down a few seats along from her without giving any other sign of acknowledgement. Rose blushed, though she didn't know what she else she had expected anyway. She forced herself to look down at the test that he had correctly predicted was coming their way the night before. Despite her best efforts though, Rose found herself looking over at Scorpius sitting a few seats to her left. Once again he had the look of frowning concentration she recognised, and she noticed his lips moved slightly as he read the words on the parchment in front of him, taking in their meaning.

She jumped abruptly as Tina slid a torn piece of parchment towards her with her familiar loopy writing scrawled on it.

What are you staring at? Are you planning on starting this test anytime soon? I need help on 2c!

Rose glanced quickly at the clock on the wall and pulled the test towards her. She had better get started or Scorpius's threats of beating her would come true.

###

Before lunch that day Rose was sitting in the common room making use of one of her rare free periods to start her Potions essay. Before she could get started however she heard a sharp tapping on the window, and looked up to see Artemis hovering outside with a letter. She got up to open the window.

"That was quick." She said to the owl, stroking the side of her head. Rose had sent her parents a quick note yesterday morning, just to say they had arrived alright. She let Artemis fly back out the window to the Owlery and curled up in a nearby chair to read the letter in written in her Mother's neat script.

Dear Rose,

Thank you for you letter. Dad and I are fine, he is of course moping around the house as he always does when you two leave, though he's denying being in a bad mood, as usual. We are both busy at work just now. Yesterday I had to deal with a particularly interesting case dealing with the rights bestowed on Merpeople, but I'll tell you about it when I next see you. How are your lessons so far? I hope you are up to date with your work. I'm sorry to hear about your prefect duty partner Dear, but give him a chance and do try to be civil. I know how you feel about him. You take after your Father, who I might add was not happy to hear that you are working with Scorpius, but I try to ignore him of course.

Can you ask Hugo to write to us with a list of what he forgot to take with him? I've found his keeper's gloves and dress robes here, but I'm sure he left more than that behind and it would be easier to send everything at once like we normally do (yes I know he left the dress robes behind on purpose, I don't care.) Tonight Dad and I are going out with Harry and Ginny to see what the new restaurant in Diagon Alley is like, the one we passed on the way to Flourish and Blotts?

I best be off Rose, Dad is getting impatient but he sends his love and is telling you to be good.

Love from,

Mum x

Rose smiled settled down to reply, making a mental not to chase down her brother at lunch.

###

Not long later she was interrupted by Matt tapping her on the shoulder.

He was looking down at her smiling. "Rose? I've called your name twice and you haven't looked up."

"Sorry, I didn't hear you. You know what I'm like when I'm concentrating." She smiled back at him.

"Yeh I know. I'd don't get how you can just drown everything else out like that. Anyway do you want to go to lunch?"

"Yeh I'm starving." she nodded. "Just let me put this away."

Rose and Matt headed down to the Great Hall, discussing how they felt their Quidditch practise was the previous day. When they got down the only seats free on the Gryffindor table were beside some forth year girls, one of who was their Beater Nat.

"Rose!" she grinned as her team mate sat down beside her. "I've been thinking of ways to get out of Al's next team talk if it starts going the same way as the last one."

Rose looked over her shoulder sneakily, then turned back and lowered her voice. "I'm listening."

"Ok so I've got some Nosebleed Nougat from your Uncle's shop. I'm thinking I come down with a disastrous nosebleed and you have to take me away to the medical centre."

"Oi!" Matt was listening in while pouring gravy. "What about the rest of us? We have to stay and listen?"

Rose laughed. "It wouldn't work anyway. It's not like Al hasn't seen it hundreds of times before in our family."

"Hmm." Nat crinkled her nose and swallowed her mouthful. "Oh well, I suppose we could always hire the Slytherins to come and create another disruption."

"I'd rather you didn't." Matt grumbled, his face clouding at the mention of the Slytherins. "They were bloody annoying yesterday, especially Malfoy. Hey Rose, you never really explained what happened on your patrol together. Are you sure he wasn't a prat to you and you just don't want to tell me?"

"Why wouldn't I tell you?" Rose raised an eyebrow.

"So I don't kill him." Matt explained as if it were obvious.

Rose snorted. "Please I can deal with him myself. And I told you he was actually alright."

"I don't see how he could have been. He's always been awful in the past."

"Yeh well it was fine. Can we change the subject? Actually has anyone seen Hugo?" Rose looked down the table. "I have a message for him from Mum."

"He's down at the other end talking to that awful Danielle Murray." Nat wrinkled her nose.

"Awful? I always thought she was alright…" Matt tailed off as both of the girls were giving him a look. "What?!"

"Well you would do." sighed Rose, stabbing a potato brutally. "You're a boy."

"Yeh she just has to flick that long blonde hair of hers and it's like bees and honey pot. Hugo looks like he's been hit on the head." Nat sounded disgusted, but then a thoughtful expression appeared on her face. "Mind you I could do that too. Behold the power of the beater bat!"

"Well feel free to hit my fool of a brother." Rose agreed, amused.

Matt looked for a moment like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it, choosing instead to turn the conversation to their approaching quidditch match, a hell of a lot safer.

###

When they had finished eating Rose left Matt on the way to the common room and headed up to the Owlery to post her reply back home. She didn't normally reply so quickly but she had fancied a walk, and a bit of quiet away from people, the Owlery was normally perfect for that.

On entering that afternoon however, she found there was already somebody there. As she opened the door she heard a gasp of surprise, and looking in she saw that Scorpius was standing there, having jumped up from where he was sitting, startled by her unexpected arrival. A large eagle owl who had been perched next to him was now flapping angrily beside him, hooting loudly. Scorpius looked strangely red in the face and seemed uncomfortable.

"Weasley," he stuttered. "Don't creep up on me like that. Shush Apollo." He tried calming the owl, but it flew grumpily up to the rafters.

"I uh…I came to send a letter," Rose mumbled awkwardly, inwardly cursing herself for saying something so stupidly obvious.

"Right." he said, looking down at the floor now. "Well, see you."

He brushed out past her quickly, without looking up to meet her eyes. Rose stared after him in confusion, then walked over to where Artemis was perched.

"Well," she addressed the owl. "What was wrong with him?"

She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. He had seemed pretty upset to her. In fact, unless she was very much mistaken, he looked like he'd been crying.

AN: Thank you for reading! Please leave a review, I love to know that there are people out there sharing this with me. Any constructive criticism is very wecome!

idlesparrow :D