Chapter Seven – Fairytales

When I was younger, say seven or eight, I believed that the princesses from Muggle fairytales actually existed. I believed that there was a Cinderella somewhere who had gone from a maid to a princess overnight. I believed that because I could do magic, I was going to end up being a fairy Godmother someday and granted some random girl's wishes.

I wanted to be one of those princesses, not the fairy Godmother. There was that one princess that fell into a coma for biting into an apple—an apple, of all things; I never trusted them again—and a random prince came and kissed her. Suddenly, she was all better, and they rode off into the sunset to get married! How long had they known each other? Five minutes—minus their meeting in the very beginning of the story. I literally thought people fell in love like that.

Of course, since I knew magic existed, I truly thought these things happened. I thought that apples could be turned into a sleeping draft and spinning wheels could, too. I thought people could turn into dragons—I'd seen people turn into birds and mammals before. I also thought that a kiss was really all it took to be in love.

I had a Muggle friend named Jeremy—a boy, of course. Albus, Jeremy, and I would play together at the local park after he got home from school (my mother "home schooled" me). One day at the park, I decided to find out what love felt like, so I lay down in the middle of the grass and waited for Jeremy to find me.

"Rose, what are you doing?" he asked me when he saw me lying in the middle of the lawn with my eyes shut. I didn't respond or open my eyes, but I could picture him in my mind; he had brown hair like the prince in the fairy tale I had read earlier, and it was falling in his face as he looked at me.

"Rose!" Albus shouted, and I could picture him running off to find my dad or his dad. I remained silent, and I was attempting to choke down a laugh; princesses didn't laugh while they were in comas.

I could feel Jeremy begin to shake me, and I knew then that he was going to make this a lot more difficult than it ought to be. Princes didn't shake their princesses.

So, I reached up and found his face with my hands and pulled him down. I forced his lips onto mine and waited for something magical to happen. I waited to feel what love felt like. Jeremy only slapped me off of him, and I opened my eyes to see him running away from me. I blinked, confused, and began to cry.

Love was a whole different kind of magic, and I didn't understand it.

I remained awake all night thinking about what Albus had discovered. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that he was right. There were times when I grabbed Scorpius' hand, feeling a tingle run throughout my body. There were times when I looked at him—just looked at him—and felt something that I shouldn't feel. When he had grabbed my hand, instead of the other way around, I was so dumbfounded that I didn't even care where he was taking me. He could have been taking me to the end of the Earth, and I probably wouldn't have noticed or cared. And when he asked if I thought we were too friendly with each other, he looked in my eyes, and I couldn't think. So, I made a joke… because we were friends, and he would joke right back. I guess it was better to be friends than nothing, though. I was in denial, anyway—again, how many times did I deny to other people that we were a couple, and truly believe it? I wouldn't even second guess myself and think, Oh, but I want to be. I just said we weren't, and that was it. It was the truth. He didn't like me back, anyway. Looking back on the Chiromancy I learned in Divination, I remembered reading my own hand that day he wasn't there. My life line faded in the middle, meaning that my vitality of life grew weak at some point. My heart line was faded in general; I couldn't help but think that there was some sort of connection between my life line and heart line. Love could affect your health, couldn't it? The following morning, I got up early—or, earlier, I should say—to finish the schoolwork that I had put off. I got dressed in my uniform and ran a brush through my hair before doing the rest of my work, so I could go straight to breakfast if I took too long. I didn't know how, but I managed to complete all of my assignments without Scorpius interrupting my thoughts. He didn't come into my thoughts again. When I looked up from my last essay to see if I had anything else to do, I jumped violently. Lily was kneeling at the other side of the table I was working at, watching me carefully. She laughed when I jumped, but I just breathed harshly. She had taken me completely off guard—it was usually Albus who scared me in the morning, not Lily. "Hey, Rose," she said, smiling at me. I finally found it in me to smile back, after I had calmed my breathing down. She laughed again. "I just have a quick question for you. Why do you get up so early everyday just to do assignments? I mean, half of this stuff probably isn't even due until tomorrow, right?"

I shrugged. "I couldn't sleep last night. Besides, some of this stuff I actually put off. Hey, that was two questions," I replied, and Lily shook her head.

"Right," she agreed, leaning forward to get a better look of my essay. "Oh, nice stuff. The Origin of Veritaserum." She paused, running a hand through her soft red hair—thinner and finer than mine. "I have another question for you. What were you and Albus fighting about last night? You were loud, but I couldn't understand anything."

"Oh," I muttered, biting my lip. I hadn't thought of Scorpius since now, and I didn't really want to. "Um, lots of stupid Head Girl, Head boy stuff that you probably wouldn't be interested in. Boring grown-up stuff that you shouldn't be bothering with."

I wasn't really one to lie, but everyone had fallen under circumstances that kept them from telling the truth. This was just one of those situations for me. I couldn't keep myself from lying.

Lily, of course, didn't fall for it. She was too smart for her own good—something that my father repeatedly said of me when he thought I wasn't listening. I had heard the conversation before; Uncle Harry and my dad would be in the kitchen, and I would be in the living room next to it, minding my own business. Then, one of them would bring up their kids: "Oh, you should have seen Hugo the other day!" Eventually, my dad would say, "Rose is just too smart for her own good—kind of like Hermione."

"What do you take me for, a two-year-old? I'm fifteen; I think I can handle whatever you were fighting about, and I'm sure it wasn't Head Girl, Head Boy stuff," she snapped, placing her hands on her hips. I scowled, stalling by piling up my scrolls and placing them in my bag beside my chair. Lily was growing impatient. "I heard you say, 'His father is innocent!'"

"We were fighting about Scorpius, okay? You know everything that's been going on with the Muggle killings and the arrests," I said, and Lily nodded. "Your dad and my dad don't really like Mr. Malfoy—I'm sure they've told you the stories. Albus knows that Mr. Malfoy used to be a Death Eater, kind of, and he just thought it was dangerous for me to be Scorpius' friend right now. And then he said that I liked Scorpius as more than a friend… and I'm trying so hard to just prove that Mr. Malfoy is innocent."

Lily placed her hand on her chin and looked as though she were deep in thought. "Well, you do like him," she finally said with a smile. "Anyone with eyes can see that. And he likes you back, too. It's so funny, though, because I clearly remember that day at Platform 9 ¾, when Uncle Ron told you not to get too close to Scorpius." I blushed, amazed that she could remember that. "And as long as someone believes in Mr. Malfoy, then he could be innocent."

"He is innocent," I muttered. I could hear girls laughing up in the dorms, and I became quiet. Everyone was starting to wake up, meaning that breakfast would have to be soon. Meaning that I would have to face Albus again. Meaning that I would have to face Scorpius.

"Well, as long as you believe that, it's true," she shrugged, and I looked at her, somewhat stunned. That had sounded rather insightful—something that was rare, coming from a fifteen-year-old. "By the way, Michael and I and Hugo and Janice are doubling for the next Hogsmeade trip this weekend, and Hugo was wondering if he could borrow a couple Galleons from you. He was too scared to ask you."

Then, of course, she would say that, and kill her insightful comment.

I walked down to breakfast before everyone else started down, when it was quiet and I could think. If I had loved Scorpius all along, nothing would change between us, anyway. It was just that no one had pointed it out to me before so obviously—everything was exactly the same.

Lily had said that Scorpius liked me back. He had never let on—wasn't that just more proof that everything would remain exactly the same?

When I got to the Great Hall, there were only a couple of other students there, but the food was already on the tables. Since my parents had been at Hogwarts, they had changed the rules a little bit. Students could sit wherever they'd like, meaning with any house, with the guarantee that everything would remain calm. Slytherins sat at the Gryffindor table, and Hufflepuffs would join them. Ravenclaws could sit at the Slytherin table, and so on. I noticed one particular Slytherin sitting at the Gryffindor table, all by himself.

"H-hey," I started nervously, prodding Scorpius in the back with my finger before sliding down next to him. I left enough room so that I couldn't feel him next to me at all. "This is strange. What are you doing here so early?"

He didn't respond right away. There was a piece of bread on his plate that he hadn't yet touched, and from the lack of crumbs on the rest of the plate, I could tell that he hadn't eaten anything else, either. He had just been sitting here, by himself, staring at his plate. There was obviously something wrong with him today.

"The same thing you're doing here," Scorpius replied coolly. "Eating."

I laughed, picking up his piece of toast and looking at it. "I hardly count staring at a piece of bread as eating. What are you really doing up here this early? You're usually the last person to breakfast," I chuckled, but Scorpius seemed oblivious to my tiny joke. I furrowed my eyebrows and crossed my arms. "We already had that talk about how you can tell me anything… Do you really want me to go over it again?"

Scorpius' eyes widened, and he shook his head. "No, not really," he said, sitting up taller on the bench. I smiled. "You know how I don't usually dream? I mean, I've lied about most of my entrees into our dream journals. But last night I had a dream about the Aurors coming to my house and taking my dad away. Don't you think there's something wrong, here? First you had a dream, and now I did? I never dream."

I had to admit, it was a little odd that Scorpius had a dream. But he had been thinking about his father all day; it was only natural that he would have a dream about something like that. He was just worried—and obviously tired, if he slept so soundly that he had a dream. There was nothing to worry about!

"You're just worried about him. It's normal to have dreams or nightmares when you're stressed. It happens to me all the time," I shrugged, and he looked over at me—seeming slightly incredulous—for the first time since I sat down.

"You always dream. Because you're always stressed," he snapped, and I was taken aback. I wasn't always stressed. Just sometimes. "I've been stressed before, and have I ever dreamed about my father being arrested? No. There seems to be a trend going on here, and I think it's only a matter of days before something bad happens."

"You're scared for him?" I asked, although it was more of a statement than a question. He was frightened—absolutely terrified—of what was going to happen to his father. It was genuine, too. It wasn't just that if his father was arrested, he wouldn't be as popular anymore, or that he would be treated differently. It was that he was just a son scared for his father.

"Scorpius," I sighed. "He'll be fine. I promise. As long as you and I believe that he's innocent, then he is."

He smiled at me, looking somewhat confused. "That was surprisingly insightful. I didn't know you were capable of being so sensitive," he said seriously, although I knew—at least, I hoped I knew—he was joking with me.

"Yeah, well… Lily told me that, first," I admitted, and he laughed. I felt something warm touch my hand. Scorpius slipped his hand into mine, entwining our fingers under the table. A shock ran throughout my body, and I could feel myself begin to blush. Scorpius didn't seem to notice.

"I appreciate it more coming from you, Rosie," he whispered, and I could feel myself getting even redder.

By this time, everyone was filing into the Great Hall at an alarming rate. I started to pull my hand away—thinking that Scorpius would want me to—but he tightened his grip on my hand. I looked at him, startled.

"Don't," he said, looking right in my eyes. So, we sat at the table as everyone else settled in around us, still holding hands.

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Author's Note: Okay, okay. Don't yell at me, please. I've been gone for a little less than six months (pathetic, I know). To be completely honest, I thought I had given up on fanfiction forever, other than beta reading. I basically have, actually. I just came on here the other day and starting reading my own fanfiction—just to see how it was. Then, I felt bad for not finishing this. So, here I am.

Yeah, six months, I know. I'm bad. Sorry. That's, like, the ultimate wait for a chapter.

Anyway, I like the beginning of this chapter. I just think that would be so cute if it actually happened in real life! I'm sure someone somewhere has kissed someone because of a fairy tale. I just think that's so cute—and kind of depressing, considering that Jeremy had run away from Rose.

Seriously, though! Didn't it always seem like the princesses would fall in love with their princes in, like, two minutes? Look at Enchanted (which totally happens to be the best Disney movie of this decade)—Robert was so flabbergasted when Giselle said she was in love with Edward after a day. (Literally, this is what happened: Giselle fell from a tree and landed in Edward's lap—who went to find her because of her voice—he asked what her name was, and then declared that they were to be married in the morning. Yeah, that so doesn't happen. Ever). I just don't believe in love at first sight…

Okay, I've talked enough. Leave reviews! Yell at me for being so slow with updates! Talk about Enchanted! Just leave a review!