I have a confession – I'm a huge history nerd. A little ironic, I realise, since I had spent my entire school life looking down on Scorpius for committing the same crime that I myself had committed; being overly enthusiastic about stuff. I'm sure this became apparent to Scorpius, as he made the deadly mistake of asking me about Stonehenge.
"So what exactly were these stones used for?"
"Well, the exact use is debateable…" and so began the Great Stonehenge Explanation, which started when we entered the site and continued for almost our entire circuit of the rocks. I was so caught up in my lecture that' it took me a while to realise Scorpius was chuckling to himself.
"Merlin, Al wasn't wrong about you liking History."
I promptly shut up, feeling incredibly embarrassed and somewhat offended. Just at that moment, Al and Alice caught up with us.
"She boring your head off?" Alice asked, an ice cream already in hand (it looked like Albus had given in and bought her one).
"No, though I am slightly worried how long she must have spent reading up on this place." He grinned, and I relaxed a little.
Albus laughed.
"You should have seen her! She bought all these books and…" I hit him over the head with my travel brochure.
After another twenty minutes of sightseeing, or rather Albus gawking at Muggles, Alice exclaiming "It's just some rocks, for fuck's sake" and me dragging Scorpius around, we all decided it was time for lunch. I unfolded our bedraggled picnic blanket, Alice handed out various sandwiches and snacks her mother had made, and we all settled down to eat.
"Not exactly like your posh lunches at Malfoy Manor, Scorp," Albus noted a little later, as we stared out at the car park and the grid-locked motorway beyond.
"This is way more fun, trust me," he replied, already on his third smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel.
"What, even with Rose the Historian dragging you around?"
"It's interesting!" he protested, and I couldn't help feel a little proud. "I didn't know half this stuff about Muggles, and it's incredible to think they managed to do all of this without magic."
"Thanks Scorpius," I said, looking pointedly at the others. "It's good to know someone appreciates my knowledge."
Alice rolled her eyes. "You may have 'the knowledge', but I have the Butterbeer."
Several glasses of aforementioned Butterbeer later, we all clambered back into the car, this time Alice driving and myself calling shot-gun, which had the disadvantage of having to navigate, but the advantage of being in control of the music system.
"I'm not playing the Bent Winged Snitches!"
"Oh come on! We've had to listen to you and Alice's drivel for the past half an hour!" Albus exclaimed, trying to reach the CD player. Scorpius smirked, staring out of the window in refusal to join in the argument.
"Hey!" Alice protested, "I caught you singing along…wait, shit, where am I going?"
I glanced at the map. "Keep going straight on and follow the signs to Bournemouth."
"Anyway," Alice continued, "You can't sing along to your crappy music."
Albus glared at her. "Scorpius, what do you want to listen to?"
"I really don't mind," he replied noncommittally.
Suddenly I had an idea, and promptly began digging through our pile of CDs.
"I almost forgot, mum made me a CD a while back of Muggle music she used to listen to…aha, here it is!" I slotted it in.
As soon as the first few notes began, Albus' eyes lit up.
"I love this song!"
"I know this song!" Alice began bobbing her head in time.
"What is this song?" Scorpius looked completely bewildered.
"When I wake up…"
We sang along, in our best Scottish accents, Scorpius cracking up laughing in his confusion.
"When I go out…."
Scorpius began to get the gist of the song, and started humming along. He didn't have a bad voice, I noted.
"And I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door!"
We opened the windows and half sang, half shouted to the motorway.
"Doo-doo doo doo!" Alice and I shouted.
"Doo-doo doo doo!" Albus (and partially Scorpius) responded.
"Doo doo dumumdumdumlala" A car passed us, with its windows open, the Muggles grinning as they recognised the song. Both cars slowed down in the traffic.
"Doo-doo doo doo!" We all shouted.
"Doo-doo doo doo!" the inhabitants of the other car responded (they looked our age and half of them seemed incredibly drunk.)
"Doo doo dumumdumdumlala," we both yelled at each other, before they sped off.
A few minutes later after the song finished, Alice and I screamed "ROAD TRIP!" and we all collapsed into a fit of giggles.
"That," Scorpius gasped, "Was hilarious, and I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for the next ten years."
I grinned. "We're actually doing this."
Albus stuck his head out of the window. "We're FREE!" he yelled.
"No more school!" Alice exclaimed.
"No more exams!"
"No more sitting through Professor Binns' lessons!"
We continued with our list, growing euphoric as we sped along the road. As the excitement died down, realisation dawned on me.
"Fuck" I said "We have to get jobs." Everyone groaned.
Albus recoiled in horror. "Ughh, don't mention the J word!"
"We should have a deal," Scorpius said, "No mention of jobs, responsibilities, any of that crap for the whole of this trip."
"Yeah," Alice agreed, "we should make the most of trip, Carpe Diem and all that shit."
We all shook on it – or at least Alice tried to, before we all yelled at her to keep her hands on the wheel.
The roads didn't become any less busy as we sped down to the coast, but miraculously the traffic kept moving. Mum's music was a huge hit, with even Scorpius remarking that Muggle music wasn't half bad (though he wasn't a fan of the Spice Girls.)
"It's like they just gave up and put in nonsense words!"
"It's fun," Alice argued.
"And if I hypothetically wanted to be someone's lover, I wouldn't get with their friends; they'd probably hate me!"
Albus sighed "They don't mean 'get off with', Scorpius, you pervert."
"Oh."
I giggled to myself. Scorpius' sheltered life was beginning to show.
Alice hit the button on the CD player, and If you wanna be my lover started playing again.
"NO!" Scorpius yelled.
All three of us sang loudly and obnoxiously to piss him off, and it worked.
"If I give you food, would you turn that crap off?"
"Sounds like a deal," Alice said, as she had already complained three times of being hungry, starving and famished, in that order. I paused the CD, and reached back to grab whatever snacks Scorpius had, feeling secretly hungry myself.
"Aha, here's the catch, Rose – you can't look at what I'm giving you."
"What, is this some kind of Bertie Botts challenge?"
"Something like that," he replied conspiratorially.
Albus, who was sitting behind me, put his hands over my eyes and Alice burst out laughing, presumably at the sight of whatever Scorpius was about to feed me.
"It's not a spider, is it?" I said, slightly worried.
Scorpius didn't reply, and dropped something round into my mouth. I bit into it, and my mouth was filled with a recognisable and absolutely disgusting taste.
"Fuck! It's a cherry!" I spat it out on to Scorpius' hand (served him right), pulled Albus' hand off my eyes and slapped Scorpius round the face.
"You know," he said, wiping cherry off his hands and looking disgusted, "For someone so eloquent you really are violent."
"Well, for someone so innocent and sheltered, you are really cruel." I retorted.
Alice smirked. "Aww, look at you two, bickering like an old married couple."
Scorpius banged his head on the seat in front of him in exasperation. "Please don't say this is going to be an ongoing joke."
"Well now that you've said that…"
Scorpius and I groaned.
"Wait!" I shouted, "That's the sign for Bournemouth!"
We all cheered, and I put on five hundred miles one more time, and this time Scorpius sang along as well, doing an absolutely awful Scottish accent. I felt a rush of affection; Scorpius was a nerd, but a nerd I didn't mind having around at all.
Thanks for reading guys! Hope you liked the chapter and we should be able to post the next chapter some time next week. I should post my chapters (the odd numered ones) with a little more frequency than previously as I actually have a) time and b) wifi. Reviews are so so helpful so please keep posting them :)