A/N: Wow, I take forever to update :/ sorry, but, thank you, again, chel123 for leaving a review! Anyway, this is, more or less, a filler chapter to set things up, I guess.
Chapter 4: Boyfrienemy (or, My Best Friend's Hot)
"Oh, boy," James breathed dramatically.
"Yeah..." Gwen agreed. She looked closer and noticed the shadows under James's eyes.
"So...", Scorpius looked from one upperclassman to the other.
"Listen, Scorpius..." Gwen entreated. She led the boys further from the changing rooms. She was trying to buy time for either herself or James to figure a way out, but any further away and they'd have caught up with some of the students who'd lingered post-match.
"Scorp, you fancy Rose, don't you?" James intervened. Scorpius balked.
"Yeah, but...don't try to change the subject!"
"I'm just saying...it's something like that," James said, lowering his voice and eyeing the other students. Gwen eyed him warily.
"What? That doesn't-Hold on a fucking minute, are you...no, that doesn't make sense at all..." Scorpius frowned in concentration, attempting to piece his thoughts together.
"Is he having an aneurysm?" James whispered.
"If we leave now, he may never notice," Gwen replied.
"Merlin," Scorpius rolled his eyes, "how did either of you pass first year?" James and Gwen glanced at each other and shrugged. "And you say you're not really a couple."
"You know, in real life, that whole 'opposites attract' crap never really pans out well. And that whole love-hate thing's a load of troll vomit," Gwen scrunched her face in amusement.
"Please don't look at me like you're teaching me something," James grimaced.
"So, that means you and Rose have got a much better chance of going out than James and I ever will," Gwen said, as though coming to a happy conclusion. "I didn't know about that, by the way, that Malfoy fancies your cousin," she added to James, knocking her arm against his. James grinned back, waggling his brows scandalously.
"When did this become about me and...and Rose?! I was just curious. Can't either of you ever give a straight answer?" Scorpius waved his arms in frustration.
"Hmm, yes," James exaggeratedly brought a hand to his chin, "that dangerous Ravenclaw curiosity's what gets Al in trouble all the time."
"Strange, I was sure it was you," Scorpius deadpanned.
"Alright, alright," Gwen conceded. "James, let's stop playing with our food," she told him, with a playful wink to Scorpius. "James and I fancy other people. We made a deal: I help make Tippy Cornwallis jealous enough to dump Matthew Weinstein for him, and he'll never bother me again. Ever," Gwen shot a pointed look at James, "Never." James mimed taking an arrow to the chest.
"That is..." Scorpius began, "the single most convoluted plan I've ever heard, and History of Magic isn't exactly a collection of the most logical decisions wizardkind has ever made."
"True," Gwen nodded. "Not my idea, though. I'm just going along so that awful prank war can finally end," she rolled her eyes as Scorpius nodded sympathetically.
"So, I'm thinking, you haven't got any reasons to tell anyone about this, really," James said, carefully.
"No, not really, though it'll be difficult to keep it a secret from Al and Rose. I don't usually-", he paused at the exasperated look James threw him.
"Rose might actually for once think you're interesting if you dropped the puppy dog thing and had some mysterious secret or something," James meant this sarcastically, but Scorpius perked up.
"You think so?" he asked, in a daze, considering possibilities.
"No...not really," Gwen gave him a concerned once-over.
"It just might work," the blond boy mumbled.
"How do you always manage to drag people into your careless, messy, convoluted schemes?" Gwen asked James.
"I lure them in with their Heart's Desire?" James smirked.
"So...what you're saying is...my Heart's Desire is to be rid of you forever?" James's brow furrowed as he processed this. "No takebacksies!" Gwen cried.
"Al, Rose, wait up!"
"Scorp, where've you been, mate?" Al replied, waiting for Scorpius to catch up.
"Yeah, you took forever cleaning up out of your Quidditch things," Rose chimed in. As a huffing Scorpius caught up, the three made their way to the castle.
"Stilwell cornered me after the game, talked my ear off about that summer internship he's got coming up," Scorpius and Al grimaced.
"I think it's wonderful that Thomas has got a job lined up after school that he's really excited about," Rose told them absently.
"Well he's just bragging though. He'd tell anyone stupid enough to stay put once he gets going," Al grumbled. Thomas Stilwell had once interrupted him just as he'd been about to talk to some Gryffindor classmate he'd wanted to ask out.
"Anyway, it was a good game today, Scorp. You played well, but..." Rose waved her Hufflepuff banner at him ruefully.
"Yeah, good game," Scorpius shrugged. He wished he could figure out how to make himself more interesting to Rose.
James and Gwen had made it a habit to occasionally eat at each other's house tables. This particular Sunday morning, the day after the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw match, James sat wearily beside Gwen for breakfast. He pressed his forehead to the top of her head as she speared a bunch of fruit slices with her fork and nibbled on them like a kabob.
"What's wrong? I thought we were having lunch together, not breakfast?" Gwen finally asked. James lifted his head to fill his plate and Gwen saw how tired he looked. "Oh, Merlin, James..."
"That bad?" he pulled a face at her as he loaded his plate with carbs and heavy breakfast food. "I thought I might sit here for breakfast. I spent all night going over plays for the Slytherin game, and I am not up for answering questions about it, just this morning."
"So...you're avoiding your team?" Gwen looked genuinely, completely, confused. "Since when do you avoid confrontation?"
"Since I realised I could conveniently escape to...well, here," James grinned and gestured at the table of oblivious Hufflepuffs. Gwen noted that her own friends had turned away to speak to each other and give her and her fake boyfriend some privacy.
"You're really worried about that game, aren't you?"
"Scouts are coming to see me play," James's brow creased as he focused on his food.
"James, that's wonderful!" Gwen said earnestly. James stopped eating and turned to her.
"Well..." he smiled wryly, "they're here to see if Harry Potter's son is good enough to add to their roster, y'know, add a crowd-drawing name, and all that. I'd like to show them I'm better than that."
"You are," Gwen insisted, rubbing his back soothingly, "trust me. You know I just hate complimenting you." They gave each other matching grins, and just at that moment, Gwen felt a twinge in her chest, and a sudden urge to plant the most innocent kiss on James's cheek.
"Thanks, Gwen. You're the best," James said, and for the benefit of those looking, kissed her on the temple. Gwen's heart skipped a beat. Shit, she thought, shit shit shit.
Rose watched as Scorpius took down notes from various resource books at the library. He was quite organised about his schoolwork, and he liked to compile notes before actually writing his papers. Rose, on the other hand, found she couldn't really enjoy what she was reading when she had to think about how she'd work it into her essays. While Scorp preferred to use facts to explain things in an orderly fashion, Rose preferred to write about connections, observations, and possibilities that no one had considered yet.
However, Rose wasn't thinking about this, at that moment. There were very few people who willingly spent Sunday afternoons at the library. Scorpius was one such person; Rose was not. Al definitely was not, and therefore wasn't with Rose and Scorp at the library. So, what was Rose doing at the library on a Sunday afternoon? Getting maddeningly distracted from her homework, of course.
"It's getting so much colder these days," Rose whispered aloud to stop her train of thought. She forced her gaze away from the perfect slope of her friend's nose, the way his lips and cheeks begged for her to kiss them... Rose inhaled sharply, imperceptibly.
"It's almost winter," Scorp replied obligingly, smiling up from his notes. "Are you cold?" his concern touched her, and reminded Rose why she couldn't kiss him, no matter how much his lovely face begged. She would never risk their friendship.
"No, I'm fine," she smiled in that wistful way that, unbeknownst to her, made Scorp feel exactly as she did whenever he turned his attention to her, which was a fluttering in the stomach, and a tightening in the chest.
"It'll probably be snowing on the next Hogsmeade visit," Scorp commented.
"Yeah, it'll be nice. We could freeze our faces off outside, and then warm ourselves with all the butterbeer we could possibly stomach," Rose giggled.
"Al will want to scare a few first years at the Shrieking Shack, of course," Scorp rolled his eyes.
"Of course," Rose nodded, though she briefly considered ditching Al, altogether, and spending the weekend with just Scorpius. Across the table, Scorpius considered the way Rose looked dreamily outside the window. It was depressingly cold and cloudy at that moment, and weeks away from Christmas cheer, and the next Hogsmeade visit.
"Let's go for a walk," Scorp suggested.
"What?"
"You look like you're just about dying to leave the library," he laughed.
"You're crazy. We'll freeze our tits off outside," Rose protested, but she was laughing too, and already packing up her things.
Once outside, the pair stood just by one of the castle's exits. It had begun to rain, and there was no sign of it stopping. Likely, it would rain that whole week, well into the weekend, which was the Gryffindor/Slytherin game, just before the ceaseless torrent would mellow out into frigid snowfall.
Rose shivered and pressed against the warmth of Scorpius's side. He wrapped an arm around her and brought her closer.