Chapter 10
A few weeks passed without much interruption. I was just studying like crazy. Malfoy wasn't trying to attract me as much anymore, which I was incredibly thankful for. He was still giving me tons of attention though. Every time we were together, he wanted to play the game where we told the other something they didn't know. He had officially named it 'You Don't Know'. Then, of course, it was time to go to the Burrow.
During the past few weeks, a new and terrifying thought had dawned upon me.
My birthday is December 27. My birthday would always be during the winter break. Because of this, Malfoy had never found out my birthday. His was March 26. I knew that because he would always receive his birthday presents from people then. I would always send him some present that would explode or do something embarrassing. The first time I did that, in first year, he had been furious, and demanded that Al tell him when my birthday was. I had convinced Al to keep quiet, by using threats, that he apparently he took very seriously, because seven years had passed, and Malfoy still didn't know my birthday. Now, Malfoy would be with me for my birthday. This vacation was going to be more like hell than I thought it would.
"Oi! Rosie! A little help?" Hugo shouted, lugging his trunk down the platform in Hogsmeade. I had already gone in, found a good compartment, and placed my luggage in it. I was now leaning casually against a fence, watching everyone else struggle on to the train.
"Sorry Hugo, but you probably wouldn't want my help with luggage!" I shouted back. "I might try to get revenge for what you did at the beginning of the year."
He glared at me, but didn't argue. I heard a loud laugh from somewhere on the platform, but couldn't figure out where it came from. Then, Malfoy's face emerged from the crowd. He had evidently heard my response to Hugo. He walked casually up to lean next to me. His luggage must already be on the train.
"Oh, you can't say that you didn't enjoy that Weasley," he smirked.
"Telling you how hot you were and how I wanted to be snogging you? Yeah, I really enjoyed that," I muttered sarcastically.
"I find it very amusing that we aren't even half way thorough the year, and you're already starting to fall in love with me, Malfoy stated. I glared up at him.
"Where are you getting this false information, Malfoy?"
"Well, just when I said that, you blushed," he started, "And you haven't directly insulted me since I came to stand by you."
"That's your proof that I'm falling in love with you? You mean for the 20 second you've been standing next to me?" I questioned.
"Yup. It's a new record," he laughed. For the first time, his laugh wasn't harsh, mean, or laughing at my embarrassment. It was a real laugh, as if we were just two friends joking around with each other. His natural laugh is pretty sexy, I thought. When he isn't being a complete jerk, he can be hot, maybe a little bit- Rose! Wake up! This is Malfoy! I shook my head, to get the thoughts to leave my brain. Malfoy saw my head twitch, and smirked.
"Thinking about something, Weasley?" He questioned, raising his eyebrow.
"No," I said quickly, and he laughed. Remember when I said that he had just laughed in a way that wasn't at my embarrassment? Yeah, that was short lived.
"Oh Rosie, you're just so hot when you're embarrassed!" he exclaimed, throwing an arm around my shoulder. I felt myself cringe slightly, but didn't try to wiggle out. Showing weakness was not something I dealt with lightly.
"Oi! Lovers!" Lily shouted at us. I looked up at her automatically, while Malfoy smirked again.
"Oh, knew she was talking to us when she said lovers, did you?" he whispered seductively in my ear, and I could feel my body quivering. Remember when I said he hadn't been flirting with me for a few weeks? Yeah, that was short lived too.
"Get on the freakin' train!" Lily yelled, clearly not realizing Malfoy had said anything to me.
"Okay fine, we're coming! Jeez," I muttered to her. Still with his arm around me, he steered us over to a door on to the train, Lily following close behind. We found the compartment that I had claimed with my luggage, now with four other people in it. Hugo had moved where I had deliberately but my luggage, so that he was now in that seat. Lily quickly claimed her seat, which left two open seats, for Malfoy and I.
"Bastard," I whispered to Hugo as I passed him.
"What did I do?" He asked innocently.
"Took my seat you jerk."
Oh c'mon Weasley, you know you want to sit next to me!"
"Whatever, Malfoy."
I glanced at Al, making sure he was okay with us sitting next to each other. Luckily, ever since he had freaked out about us flirting, he had calmed down. He was still protective of me, but understood that what Malfoy and I were doing wasn't because we liked each other. In fact, he was becoming less protective about it, and was starting to find it as amusing as Hugo did.
Al grinned at me at I sat down next to Malfoy. My whole family was turning on me.
I felt the ground underneath us jerk slightly. With a glance out the window, I knew that the Hogwarts Express was now moving. Great. Sitting next to Malfoy for eight hours.
I pulled my latest book out from my bag. I drew my knees up so that my chin was resting on them, and made a little blanket by using my school cloak. I now had a little bit of a nest in my seat, and snuggled down to read for hours. It was harder that you might thing though, since Malfoy was sitting so close to me. My feet and legs kept bumping against his thighs, and I blushed every time they did so. He just stared at me reading, and smirked every time I touched him. The rest of the compartment was watching us, waiting for someone to say something. After about an hour, Malfoy finally spoke.
"Weasley, you look far to awkward pressed into your seat to even get any reading done," he told me. Before I could say anything, he grabbed my feet, and had pulled them up, over, and then dropped them again, so that my legs were draped casually over his lap. I could feel my face turning scarlet, and snapped my book shut.
"Malfoy, I'de appreciate it if you didn't touch me with out permission," I said, holding my head high in the air while glaring at him. He sighed.
"Fine Rosie, do you want to stretch your feet out over me?" He asked sarcastically, speaking slowly like I was two years old. I considered him for a moment, then turned back to my book.
"Sure, why not," I said simply. Not sure why I said that.
And so I sat like that, for the next three hours. It was surprisingly comfortable, and I got tons of reading done, but not as much as I would have. Malfoy had nothing better to do than stroke my legs softly the whole time, and stare at me reading. Though I never acknowledged him, I would sometimes just stare blankly at my page, pretending to read, while my insides where freaking out. Strangely, I felt like there were butterflies in my stomach. The type of butterflies you get when the person you like is touching you. Very weird...
At about the four hours mark, the candy lady came into our compartment. We all got tons of stuff, and I put my book down to eat and chat with the rest of them. Before the candy lady left, she looked at me, with my legs stretched over Malfoy.
"Ah, young love," she said fondly, then walked out, leaving me to bury my face in my hands from embarrassment.
"Don't worry about that Rose," Alice assured me.
"Yeah, but, when you look like that...you do sort of look like a couple," Hugo added, grinning.
"Shut up," I said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, Rosie, was your book good?" Malfoy asked mockingly, changing the subject, with the damn glint in his eye. He knew something I didn't. I studied his face, and saw him secretly wink toward Al. Shit.
"Yeah, it was fine," I said cautiously, wondering what the two of them were smirking about.
"That's what I thought," Malfoy said, hardly able to keep some laughter out of his voice. "In fact, I think it was so good, that you were pretty distracted by it for a while. Barely even noticed what the rest of us were doing."
"What about it Malfoy?" I asked.
"Well, I'm pretty sure I saw Al take a picture of us, but I didn't want to take your attention away from the book, so I didn't bring it up," Malfoy grinned.
"Al!" I shouted.
"Sorry Rose! He talked me into helping him with the bet," Al admitted. He held a photograph up to me, which he had been hiding behind his back. It was a moving picture, so I knew that they had somehow developed this picture the magical way while I was reading. How did I not notice?
The picture showed Malfoy gently stoking my legs that were stretched out on top of him. I was grinning from ear to ear. I'm pretty sure I had been laughing at something in my book, but this picture made it look like I enjoyed him touching my legs. I glared up at Malfoy and Al, who were sniggering together.
"So it is just your plan to make this vacation a living hell for me?" I asked, with malice in my voice. "You better not show this to anyone, Al," I warned.
"We weren't planning on it," Malfoy informed me, "We are just going to use it as blackmail. Just do what I tell you to do, and I won't accidentally leave this in the kitchen."
"You can't blackmail me! Besides, what would you make me do?" I asked suspiciously.
"Tell me when your birthday is," Malfoy said quickly. I exhaled, and rolled my eyes. Of course that is what he wanted to know.
"December 27," I muttered, hoping he wouldn't hear me, but he did.
"Excellent!" He cried, clapping his hands together. "Jeez, I've been waiting seven years for this Weasley!" He smirked.
"You do realize that that giving me bad presents on my birthday or embarrassing me in front of my family is really not going to help you win the bet, don't you?"
"Ah, but it will! You see, when I do embarrassing things to you, they wouldn't embarrass you if you truly weren't in love with me. The more I do this, the more infuriated you get with me, but the more you will fall in love with me as well. It's like you are attracted to the things that you hate," he chuckled at my red face.
"That is total crap Malfoy. Why would I be more attracted to you while you were driving me crazy?"
"Because there's something about the bad-boy thing that really intrigues you. As much as you want to deny it, you fall in love with me more each time we argue. Have you ever noticed that on the days we argue more, you always snog me senseless later that day?" He said the whole thing as though my attraction to 'bad-boys' was obvious.
I wasn't sure how to respond to his question, so I just ignored it. He took that to mean 'yes'.
"That's what I thought," he said smugly.
"Kay, lets stop talking about my older sister's snogging, shall we?" Hugo announced loudly. I nodded my head vigorously, and the subject changed. After an hour of so of talking, we started getting very tired. I took my legs off of Malfoy, straitened my self in my seat, and used my book bag as a foot stool so I could still lean back comfortably. I hadn't realized how tired I was until I closed my eyes. I was out in about five minutes.
"Weasley," a familiar voice whispered in my ear. I tried to ignore him, and snuggled my head deep into the arm of my teddy bear. Yes, I'm almost 17 and have a teddy bear. Get over it.
"Weasley," the voice repeated. I kept my eyes firmly shut, and hugged my teddy bear tightly.
That's when I realized that I hadn't gotten my teddy bear out before I went to sleep.
It is when I realized that my teddy bear was small, and whatever I was snuggling with now was very large.
It was when I realized that my teddy bear was stuffed, and whatever I had my arms and legs wrapped around (I could feel my legs wrapped around it, though I hadn't actually opened my eyes) was most certainly human.
That is when I realized that what I was using for a teddy bear was the body that belonged to the voice I had been trying desperately to ignore.
My eyes snapped open, and my arms, that were wrapped around his waist, shot off him. My head, that had been pressed gently into one of his arms, jerked backward. My legs, which were wrapped casually around his, sprang away. I felt my face burning, and looked up into the eyes of Scorpius Malfoy, with a bigger smirk than I had ever seen plastered on his face.
"Hey Weasley. Enjoy your nap?" he asked, grinning maliciously at me and cocking his head to the side.
"Go to hell Malfoy," I mumbled, avoiding eye contact with him. I looked out to the rest of the compartment. The other five were watching us, all of them cracking up. I glanced down at my watch and groaned. I had been asleep for three hours. For most of that, I had probably been wrapped around Malfoy.
Malfoy's hand came out and grabbed my chin gently. He forced my head up so that I was looking him in the eye.
"You seemed to really enjoy it," he grinned, the glint in his eye back.
"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" I barked at him, and the rest of my compartment.
"Because I didn't mind it at all, " Malfoy smiled mockingly.
"Especially with your sleep talking," Anna giggled, unable to keep herself from saying it.
"What are you talking about?" I asked sharply. Instead of just telling me, Hugo decided to demonstrate. He wrapped himself around Al like I had been around Malfoy just moments before. He started slowly rubbing his head against Al's arm.
"Mmm...Scorpius," he smiled with his eyes closed, pretending like he was having a dream about Malfoy. I just stared at Hugo, continuing to rub his head against Al, and making sickeningly happy noises. It was making me turn maroon, but if I looked away, I would see Malfoy. That would make it worse.
I honestly couldn't remember a thing about my dreams from the past three hours, but I'm glad. It would've been worse if I remembered what Malfoy and I had been doing in my dreams. If I could remember, I doubt I'de be able to look him in the eye for the rest of my life.
The other people in the compartment started cracking up at Hugo's impression.
"It isn't funny!" I fumed.
"Oh Rosie, it really is. Its actually incredible accurate," Alice told me, giggling.
"Damn it," I muttered under my breath.
"If it makes you feel any better, we got a lot of pictures of it!" Hugo offered.
"Gee, thanks," I said sarcastically. "More blackmail. Just what I need."
"Well, as enjoyable as the last three hours were," Malfoy grinned, "It is time for us to get off the train."
I realized the train was no longer moving. We all got out of our seats, and gathered up all of our luggage. I tried to keep myself as far away from Malfoy as I possibly could, while he had the opposite plan. He was constantly trying to stand just slightly closer, and see when I would blush. He found out that if he was just within five feet of him, I would turn red, a fact that he enjoyed immensely.
We finally clambered off the train. All of our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and parents were waiting for us at the platform. The moment I stepped off the train, I heard shouts form James and Fred, who graduated last year.
"Rosie!" They yelled in unison, and sprinted down to were I was. I dropped my bags, and allowed them to both carry me around the platform for a while. I took turns hugging all of my relatives.
After a while, Grandma Molly was starting to get impatient.
"Oh yes yes yes, it is lovely to see you all, but we can catch up more at the Burrow," she announced. Everyone starting walking toward the barricade that separated us to the muggle world, moving as a giant amoeba.
I ended up walking next to Malfoy, Uncle Harry, Hugo, and Al.
"Thank you for allowing me to visit Mr. Potter," Malfoy said politely. If only he was that innocent all the time. He will never let me forget that train ride, an we both know it.
"Scorp, you've know my son for seven years, and have been over to my house countless times. It is okay to call me Harry," my uncle laughed.
"Well then, thank you Harry," Malfoy said, laughing nicely.
"No problem! The winter holiday is always the best," Harry winked at us. James and Fred heard out conversation, and came to join us.
"You bet your ass it is!" James yelled.
"This is going to be the best pranking war ever," Fred exclaimed. "We want to split into two teams, so that the pranks will be epic, because they're designed to get more than one person."
"Fine with me," I said cheerfully. "I just want to be one the team with my two favorite cousins," I told James and Fred, winking at them. I specifically glared at Al.
"Oh jeez, what did you do to make her mad this time, Al?" Harry joked.
"Long sorry, but lets just say that I have photographic evidence of some stuff she doesn't want other people to know about."
"Enough said. Please, don't tell me any more. I don't want to know," Harry said quickly.
"Oh, and I want to be on the opposite team of Al and Malfoy. That okay?" I asked Fred and James, pretending like Harry and Al hadn't just said anything.
"I think that can be arranged," Fred smiled. I hugged him, and then ran up to go talk to Victoire about her recent engagement to Teddy. As I left, I heard them continue their conversation briefly.
"You'll want to watch out for her. I think she has it in for you," Harry muttered.
"Oh, I think I can find ways of distracting her from the pranks," Malfoy said. Without even looking behind me, I could here the smirk on his mouth.
"Don't let Ron hear you say stuff like that," Harry whispered to Malfoy.
"I won't," Malfoy reassured him. Then they had moved on to talking about Quidditch.
Good luck distracting me, Malfoy, I thought happily. Then I turned to Vicky, and asked her about her plans for the wedding.
A/N: Okay, this is kind of a filler chapter, but I think it will lead into the pranking wars nicely.
If anybody had any thoughts, opinions, or questions, please review! I love you all!