prompt: watercolours and charcoal

author: PrincessPearl


"Do you always color in the lines?"

A sweeping turn, a hasty spiral, a splash of color on a canvas whiter than his skin – but nothing.

Nothing outside the lines.

Scorpius sighs in frustration, throwing down the paintbrush and wondering how a little girl of only fourteen with her head in the clouds and stars in her eyes had managed to reduce him to this with only a single, absent-minded remark.

"This is ridiculous," he mutters, ready to roll up the canvas and throw it away, when a light, feminine voice interrupts his irritated musings.

"What's ridiculous?" Dominique pipes up, a popsicle in her hands – why she's eating an icy, artificially-flavored stick in the middle of the Scottish winter, he doesn't really know.

"This whole painting business," Scorpius scowls, standing up, ready to dramatically storm away. "I don't like it. I don't like coloring outside the lines, either."

Dominique blinks at him. "Well, you don't have to. I mean, you're using watercolors, not markers or something. Shouldn't it be easier for you to color inside the lines?"

Scorpius stares, momentarily dazed by her leaps of logic. What was she talking about? "What are you talking about?"

Instead of answering, Dominique tilts her head, examining the canvas with a sloppily-drawn picture of a Hogwarts courtyard. "You know what this painting needs? Some charcoal. Have you ever tried watercolors and charcoal together?"

"I've barely tried watercolors on their own!" he protests, but she's already got that light in her eyes that a Weasley always does when they've got an idea, so he knows there's no use arguing with her now.

"Come on!" she says cheerfully. "I'll show you what to do!"

And she grabs his hand and drags him away to find some charcoal, and he's left thinking that maybe coloring outside the lines might not be the worst thing in the world.


a/n: please don't favourite without leaving a review, thanks.