We did not go back to dinner after our resolved fight. I actually felt sick after shouting at Scorpius; I couldn't eat anything else even if I wanted to. Scorpius had grabbed my hand—something that he never did, so I was too shocked to even wonder where he was dragging me (not to mention my heart jumped)—and started pulling me outside. I hadn't objected to this, even though I probably should have. It was against the rules to go outside after supper. But Scorpius had assured me that we wouldn't get in trouble; supper wasn't over yet, anyways.
The first thing I noticed when we were walking down was that his hair was so blonde that we wouldn't need a wand to guide our way at all. Alright, I guess that was a bit of an exaggeration. When we were at the edge of the lake, he sat down, still holding my hand. I wasn't tall enough for him to yank me down as he did this; my brother had received the tall genes from my father. Not to mention that Scorpius was at least five inches taller than I was, meaning that sitting down I was barely taller than he was. Okay, so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration as well. He really was a lot taller than I was, though.
I sat down next to him and watched the moon reflect off of the water. It wasn't entirely dark yet, but the moon was already shining. It was a waning gibbous, something that we had to learn for Divination (because strange things happened at full moon, supposedly). I wondered if that logic was correct, though. This moon—this waning gibbous—could be causing everything that was happening right now. How else could I explain Scorpius holding my hand? I was still in shock.
Sometimes, it was hard to believe that we were seventeen years old now. I was Head Girl—which was scary all in itself. Scorpius was at the top of his muggle studies class; something that I was sure his pureblood family was incredibly ashamed about. We had met at such a young age, and our parents were the first ones to tell us not to become friends. I think that was probably the only thing I have really done wrong in their eyes. But seven years had past, and I was still doing the wrong thing in everyone's eyes.
"Scorpius," I said quietly. I dragged it out so it had sounded more like a question than anything else, but even if he didn't want to hear what I was going to say, he would have to anyway. "Did you hear what my parents had told me the first day we met? They were talking about you, and your dad nodded at us. I'm assuming that you looked over when he did that." Scorpius shook his head. "My dad told me to beat you at every test, and not to get too friendly with you."
"Hey, the one rule you've ever broken!" he announced happily, forcing me into a thumb war. He seemed way too excited about this—I would have thought that he would be insulted that my father wanted me to beat him at every test. And that he didn't want me to be friends with a Malfoy. "Well, okay, you haven't broken the 'beat me at every test' thing, but there's still time for that. You think we're too friendly with each other?" He snickered, not looking at our hands anymore.
I was watching our thumbs twiddle around each other, and I was struggling. "You know, I think I'm failing this test," I admitted, smiling as I tried to hold his thumb down; I could only do it for three seconds. "You have longer thumbs than me, this isn't fair. One, two, three, four! Scorpius, stop! You're a boy, I'm a girl! You're supposed to be a gentleman and let me win!" I was failing miserably. That wasn't even the worst part, either. He was laughing at me.
It seemed to end so fast. He held my thumb down against our entwined hands and counting slowly to ten. It seemed to go by so much faster, though, and I knew I was done. I gave up after he counted to five. He had won, only proving that he was not a gentleman. He was a boy who wouldn't let his best friend win. He was a boy who fought his way to victory and won. I liked that about him, though; he would not let me win just because he could.
"Good game," I said, holding out my hand for him to shake, and just as he reached for it, I pulled it away. He laughed, leaning closer to the lake and splashing the cold water up at me. I didn't scream, though, but I did open my mouth in a shocked expression. My clothes were damp, with spots of darker colors where I was hit with the water. My hair, short and frizzy, was becoming puffier by the second, expanding out from being wet. I stood up and ran back towards the castle.
Dinner had just ended when we got back inside; I could tell by the hoards of people running around the castle. It was a lucky thing that no one saw us come back in, but I didn't think anyone would tell on us anyway. Still, Scorpius and I stealthily moved to the hallway going down to the dungeons, just in case someone was running off to the headmaster.
"I'll see you later," I told him, standing against the wall and touching the wet spots on my shirt. "Look what you did to my hair!"
Scorpius laughed at me and began to walk away, heading down into the dungeons for a well-deserved rest, especially after our little fight. It was apparent that Scorpius wasn't as tired as I was, but there was something about crying that always made me so exhausted. It was as if I had shattered all of my energy crying, and I was so worn out that I just needed to sleep.
I started back up to the Gryffindor Common Room, overly excited that it was getting late. I had finished all of my homework earlier, except for an essay that I was going to put off until tomorrow. My mother would always complain about me putting things off until the last minute—something, she said, I had gotten from my father—but I didn't do it often. There were only rare cases, like the one tonight, that I would hold schoolwork. It would always be something important.
And if fighting with a best friend wasn't important enough to push homework aside, I wasn't sure what was. There was just no way that I was going to do that assignment tonight.
When I got up to the common room, Albus was leaning up against the wall, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I hadn't noticed how toned he was until this moment; it was obvious that Quidditch was helping with this. It struck me as a mystery that he didn't have a girlfriend, although I had heard that he fancied Katy Ainsworth, one of my good friends. I almost doubted that she liked him back, though.
Still, I wondered why he was looking at me so… nastily. It wasn't like Albus to be mad at me, especially because I was related to him. If he was mad at me, I wanted to run up into the girl's dormitory before he could catch me, and talk to him in the morning. By then—if he was mad at me—he would be cooled down, and might not have remembered what he was mad at me for.
I wasn't fast enough, apparently, because he caught me right before I could get to the stairs. "Hey," I greeted, dragging the word out and flattening my hair with my wand. He stepped back with the flick of my wand, apparently worried that I was going to curse him. The fear, which had been there for only a second, disappeared quickly. "I'm going to bed."
"It's only seven o'clock…" he exclaimed, looking shocked before he replaced that expression with a serious one. "I need to talk to you. I was heading to the bathroom a little while after you left to talk to Scorpius, and I heard shouting in the Entrance Hall. I went to go see what was going on… you know, being Head Boy, I should probably know—" I wanted to tell him that he needn't explain that to me; I was Head Girl, I should already know what to do.
"—and I saw you and Scorpius fighting. You were crying, and it stung to see you looking so hurt," he admitted, looking almost sad. "Ever since the news came out about the muggle attacks, nothing has been going right for the two of you. He's acting strange, isn't he? Not to mention, his father could possibly be a criminal, which might be the reason why."
I gaped at him. How could he even suspect my best friend? Sure, things had been a little tense since the muggle killings started, but hadn't I just worked that out?
"I saw you coming in from outside with him, too," he said, looking at me with flashing eyes. He wasn't stalking me, or anything, I knew. He was just being worried, like an older brother. My own brother Hugo would never dream of actually worrying about me. I was closer to Albus than I was to Hugo. "You know that it isn't allowed to be outside after dark, right?"
"Of course I do," I said, running a hand through my hair—which was even harder to do now that it was wet, even though I had straightened it out. "It's not like you don't break the rules. I've seen you going out to visit Hagrid after hours, when you should technically be doing your rounds… inside. So, don't even complain about me. You're breaking two rules at once—only you're doing it by abusing your title."
Albus blushed at this, and I smiled out of satisfaction. "You've gone to visit him after hours, too," he shot back. It was probably a good thing that no one was close enough to hear what we were talking about—we were awful rule-breaking Heads, apparently. "And you've gone to Neville's office after hours, too. You went to the library, too!"
"This isn't about what rules we're breaking! You've broken your fair share, and I have too. Let's not argue over who has broken more, all right?" I snapped, feeling my face getting hotter. Okay, so I've gone to Neville to talk about things going on at home before—and Herbology assignments; he was a biased graded, but that was okay with me. I've gone to Hagrid because he was so fun to talk to, and he made great tea. And I've also snuck into the dungeons to talk to Scorpius before, but we needn't talk about that.
Albus nodded in agreement, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, looking awkwardly at me. "You're right. I just think that breaking rules with Scorpius isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world to do, especially because his father has been accused of doing all of this. He used to be a Death Eater, you know. Why wouldn't he be one now?"
"He hated it! He only did it because if he didn't, he would probably be killed," I muttered, looking down at the auburn colored rug. "Sure, he was an ass. But he wasn't an evil one. Scorpius is different than his father, anyways."
"I know that, but his father… if you're involved…" He was murmuring now, and I rolled my eyes at this.
"His father is innocent!" I yelled, and people finally began to stare. Lily, who had been sitting on the couch reading, closed her book and walked over to us. He red hair was flowing gracefully behind her, emitting a sort of grace that I envied.
She looked at me, shaking her head. "You guys fight more than James and I," she said, patting Albus on the back. "No, you fight more than he fights with James." She pointed to Albus for that one. I laughed, particularly because I knew how much Albus and James didn't get along. The closeness in age was difficult for them.
Lily walked back to her spot on the couch, yelling at someone as they tried to sit down before her. It was frightening that she was the same age as my brother—Lily was too smart for her own good.
"Rosie," Albus said calmly, putting his hand on my shoulder, "like I said before, I'm just trying to protect you. But don't you think you should get rid of Scorpius before you really get hurt? I mean, don't get rid of him. That sounds a little mean. Just… you're going to get hurt one way or another. Be careful. Please?"
I raised an eyebrow. I was going to get hurt one way or another? What was that supposed to mean? "What are you talking about? Why would I get hurt? He's my best friend. Even if something did happen to his father, nothing would happen to us."
"You like him," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck again.
"Well, of course I like him." I laughed, punching my cousin on the arm. "He's my best friend. I'd be worried if I didn't like him."
Albus blushed, rubbing his nose now. He moved his hands a lot when he was nervous, I noticed. It was like his defense mechanism. If I tried out for a play, I would just throw up over everyone. If he tried out for a play, though, he would just start rubbing his nose and neck. I could only imagine how he managed to make the Quidditch team without actually having any hands on his broom. He was using one to rub his nose or neck, and he was using the other one to hold the Quaffle.
"No, I mean… you like him. Well, you love him," he murmured. I almost didn't hear what he had said, but I caught it at the last second. I wanted to scream. This was the most embarrassing thing ever.
However, when I actually thought about it, he was right. I mean, how many times did I have to deny that I liked him? And in my dream, he had held me, and I liked it. He had held my hand earlier, and my heart went crazy. I had known him for so long; it was bound to happen. He was so nice, and handsome, and wonderful. He was so arrogant!
I understood what Albus meant, though. Scorpius had gone out with a bunch of girls—all of them much better looking than I was. I mean, I was short, and I had short red hair that expanded when it got wet. They were all gorgeous, and I was just bland. I only wore a little bit of makeup: eyeliner and mascara. They were loaded with it. I was going to get hurt because I wasn't what Scorpius wanted. Even if I was, what if he found someone better? There was no happy ending for me.
I knew in the end, Albus was right. I was in love with my best friend; I just wasn't sure that I wanted to be.
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Author's Note: Hello! I have finally updated again—which kind of stinks in a way, because I have gone over five chapters. Which basically means that there are a lot less people to request reviews from. Oh well. Maybe I can convince people to review this chapter because I hated it so much.
Seriously. I hated this chapter with a burning passion. I didn't like it at all. Okay, except maybe the paragraph about Albus playing Quidditch with no hands and the second to last paragraph (because aren't those girls the stereotypical ones that everyone wants to be; the ones we hate and envy at the same time?). But still. Two out of, like, fifty paragraphs isn't good. (
Anyways, credit goes to J.K. Rowling for the characters and setting and everything you recognize. I only did the plot, OC characters, some other stuff. Yeah.
So, guys, review! I know how many reads I get… and I know how many reviews I get. It isn't really good. I have a ton of reads—now I need more reviews. Especially for this chapter since I didn't like it! I want to know what you think!
Thanks so much!