hi guys! happy Friday! here's chapter 11. I apologize for how short it is, but that's the drawback for having considerable progress in the story! X3

I had planned on having Aria do something rather drastic in this chapter, but decided halfway through that it would be better to wait a little bit until Rose and Scorpie got to know each other better so that's the cause of the abrupt change in pov...

please enjoy and please review!

"Scorpius?" Aria asked in a small voice, looking up at him. He didn't hear her. He was gazing at something else. Or someone else, she realized as she followed his gaze. There was Rose Weasley, chattering obliviously to the Street Rat. Suddenly, she broke off to meet Scorpius's eyes. They just…just looked at each other for a second before Rose smiled and turned back to her Gryffindor friend. Scorpius sent a small smile back.

"Scorpius." Aria repeated loudly, drawing his attention back to her. Good – that was how it should be.

"Hm?"

"Here, you distract it and I'll get the flower." She was referring to the current assignment Longbottom had given them – they were to extract the seeds from the vicious Carnivorous Vivantuim, which was a two-man job due to the aggressive nature of the thing.

Scorpius took up the stick they were using to occupy the Vivantium and jabbed at the jaws of the plant a little reluctantly. It snapped its unfriendly teeth and he quickly drew his hand back.

"Oh, don't be such a wimp!" Aria snarled, wrenching the stick from him and proceeding to provoke the plant herself. "Quick, you get the flower!"

The Vivantium latched onto the other end of the stick and Scorpius reached out for the flower that was behind its jaws. The plant noticed too late that its precious seeds had been taken and only managed to get a mouthful of Scorpius's sleeve instead of his hand.

"Stupid thing." He spat, shaking his arm but to no avail – the Vivantium remained attached.

"Relecipus!" someone said nearby, and the Vivantuim immediately recoiled and let go of the sleeve.

"Th-thanks." Scorpius glanced over at the castor, "Uh…Rose, right?"

Like he didn't know her name, Aria thought irritably.

"Yeah. And you're Scorpius." She grinned from two tables away. Aria was too preoccupied shooting ice daggers from her eyes at the Street Rat to deter Scorpius from interacting with the idiot girl.

"Well…thanks, Rose." He said, a red flush creeping up his neck.

Aria broke eye contact with the Street Rat. "Scorpius!" she reminded him sharply, "Help me get these seeds out."

"Yeah, yeah, calm down." Scorpius grumbled, turning back to their flower. Aria pried the flower open while Scorpius dug out the seeds, getting pulp all over his hands, which was rather nasty.

"That Weasley is such a tease." Aria remarked disdainfully, waiting to see his reaction.

"Uh-huh." He agreed unconvincingly, which was not the kind of response Aria had been wanting to hear.

"Shoulda caught her at the ball." He mumbled a few moments later. Aria looked up quickly.

"Why's that?"

"Oh, um…" Scorpius stumbled, realizing his mistake, "I just…she spilled punch on my nice shoes, that's all."

Aria narrowed her eyes. "Did you think to use Scourgify?"

….

"Fifteen. Points." Parkinson glared at Rose, "For cheating."

It was completely unfair!

"But Professor!" Rose protested, something she didn't normally do because it just made her punishment worse, "I wasn't cheating! He stole my paper! I didn't give it to him!" she pointed accusingly at the Slytherin beside her. Parkinson's eyes flashed.

"That's another five for lying and a detention tonight as well."

"But…" Rose trailed off and slumped in her seat, defeated. At the rate Parkinson was going, there wouldn't be any rubies left in the Gryffindor hourglass by the end of the school year.

"Now," the professor continued, addressing the class, "Your instructions are on the board. This is an easy potion for those gifted few…but for others, I'm afraid you'll have to actually try to work for once."

…

By the time Rose got out of her detention, it was fifteen minutes past curfew and the hallway was deserted. She was in a good mood as she'd served detention using the reparo spell on an enormous stack of beat-up, ancient library books with the Grey Lady for company, and the library was a lovely place to be when there was no-one else there but a ghost.

Alone, Rose skipped down the hall, and her skip then morphed into a dance of hops and twirls.

"Not so clumsy when nobody's watching, are you?" a new voice bloomed from ahead.

Which of course, caused her to lose her balance and trip over her own feet. Scorpius caught her on the way down, arm across her collarbone and hand on her shoulder. She hoped he couldn't feel her heart beating wildly in her chest as she was brought upright again to look him in the face.

"Malf – Scorpius!" Rose yelped, "What are you doing here?!" She hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory.

"Coming back from Astronomy. You?"

"Detention." She answered breathlessly.

"Parkinson?"

She nodded, lost in his eyes. Since when had Scorpius Malfoy had such nice eyes?

Since the ball, of course.

But now they were so much warmer, playful and laughing, with a small twinge of shyness.

There was a silent, wonderful moment of just standing and staring. Then Scorpius cleared his throat.

"Can I, um…walk you back to your Common Room?" he asked hopefully.

She was startled back into reality. "Oh—oh yes of course. Um…it's this way, this way."

Without thinking, she took his hand and pulled him towards the Gryffindor Common Room. Then, having realized what she'd done, flushed and made to drop his hand, but he curled his fingers around hers in response and together, a Malfoy and a Weasley walked down the corridor hand in hand.

They reached the fat lady too soon.

"Password?" she asked regally, then upon catching sight of Scorpius, "I'm afraid you'll have to leave, young man. Slytherins are generally not permitted into the Gryffindor Tower…"

"Oh, yes of course." Scorpius rushed, "Sorry."

"Can I ask you something?" Rose cut in, ignoring the fat lady.

"Yeah – yeah sure."

"Did…did your broom really kick you that day on the Quidditch pitch?" she whispered softly. She had to know. Scorpius was silent for a long moment.

"No." he whispered back.

Rose grinned, and then he was gone.

(squeals!) I love scorpirose

-oldsoul

.

I feel it in my bones

enough to make my systems blow

welcome to the new age

to the new age

welcome to the new age

to the new age