Preview:Scorp blew hair out of his eyes and shrugged. "Who wants to be a Prefect, anyway? Peter's much better at herding first years around and helping them with the riddles." The truth was, he had been a bit disappointed at the time, wondering if McGonagall and Flitwick had agonised over it or if he hadn't even been considered. But now he knew he would be a dreadful Prefect, so clearly no matter what the reasons were, the right decision had at least been made.
Raindrops on Roses
Sixth Year Part 1
2023
~*-S-*~
~*-S-*~
When the time came, it was incredibly hard to leave the Leaky Cauldron. Scorpius had never thought he would ever not want to go back to school. Hannah had become a very close friend, and he thought he would never respect any man as much as he did Neville. The Professor would be returning to Hogwarts, of course, but Scorpius was no longer doing Herbology; he would see much less of him.
"You must come, on Christmas Day," Hannah insisted, hugging him just as tightly as she had Lizzie, on platform nine and three quarters. "Promise? Write a new song for us?"
"Course I will," he said thickly, as she reached up to ruffle his hair.
"All our regulars will miss you!" she said. "What am I going to do for evening entertainment?"
"Mum, leave him alone or he'll quit school just to go back with you," Lizzie said, rolling her eyes.
If this wasn't bad enough, saying goodbye to Alice was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. He would have just given her a quick hug and run away before it all got too much, but she seemed to understand that he was leaving and refused to let go of him. "Scoooor!" she screamed, loud enough for nearly everyone on the platform to hear. "Nooooooo!"
"Oh bloody Merlin," he muttered. "You menace, people are going to think I'm kidnapping you!"
"She doesn't care that I'm leaving," Lizzie said, offended. "Alice, stop being a baby and let him go, the train's leaving, come on…" She tried to detach the little girl, but she only screamed even louder and clung on for dear life. Hannah made a motion to pull her away, but Scorpius shook his head. He didn't want anyone to have to drag her off him. He didn't want her to remember him as something she had been torn unfairly away from.
"It's okay," he said, taking a breath and putting his arms carefully under and around her so she didn't have to hang by his t-shirt like a monkey. "Ally-pally, it's okay. It's only for a little while, and I'll see you at Christmas, all right?"
She stopped screaming, but only so she could bury her face in his shoulder and cry. He stroked her hair, helplessly. It had only been three months, but in that time she had become just like a little sister to him. Even now he was afraid that he would come back at Christmas to find that she didn't remember him at all.
"Oh, that's so sweet."
The Potters and Weasleys had chosen the most inopportune time to arrive. Scorpius could see Ginny, Hermione, Fleur, Rose, Albus, Hugo, Louis, Lily, James, Fred, Roxie, the twins' mum Angelina, and Molly's mother Audrey holding the hand of a tiny little red-headed first year he could only assume was the youngest cousin, Lucy. It was Ginny who had spoken, coming forward with her hands outstretched. "Alice? Come to Aunty Ginny, sweetheart. Come on, remember Aunty Ginny?"
Alice finally, finally allowed herself to be peeled away after several minutes of cooing and cajoling, and sat sulking in Ginny's arms, sucking her thumb.
"Thanks," Scorpius breathed, straightening out the creases in his beloved 'Bands' T-shirt. He picked up his guitar and swung it over his shoulder. It felt odd to be standing here on the station with it. Some people from other houses he didn't know were giving him odd looks as they passed by. He would have been ashamed if he didn't know how to deal with looks by now, though.
The youngest Weasley, who looked very small compared to everyone else with her red hair in neat little pigtails, burst into tears at this point. The new sixth and fourth years managed to escape the platform at last while everyone made attempts to comfort her.
"Poor Luce," Rose said as they dragged their trunks onto the train. "She's had her mum and dad to herself while Molly's done all seven years. She'll miss them like crazy."
"Baby," Lily muttered. "I didn't cry, my first time."
"No, but you cried the first time James left," Albus pointed out, and she glared at him. They found a compartment with only a couple of first years in it, and Albus shooed them out, much to Rose's disapproval.
"What? We're sixth years now, we're one year away from ruling the school. First years are basically our slaves."
"That's not funny, Al. No wonder you never got made a Prefect."
"Speak for yourself."
"Why didn't Professor McGonagall make any of you Prefects last year?" Hugo asked. "Mum was sooo disappointed…"
"Shut up!" Rose hissed. "Anyway I don't have time to be a Prefect, with school and Quidditch, neither does Alby."
"Scorpius doesn't have Quidditch," Lily pointed out.
The three Ravenclaws looked at each other, awkwardly. "Professor McGonagall hates me," Scorpius said eventually, by way of explanation.
"Scorp! She does not." Rose looked indignant.
"Right, so that conversation we had about her not even wanting to let me come to Hogwarts was in my imagination?"
"That was four years ago. I'm sure she's come around to you, by now."
Scorp blew hair out of his eyes and shrugged. "Who wants to be a Prefect, anyway? Peter's much better at herding first years around and helping them with the riddles." The truth was, he had been a bit disappointed at the time, wondering if McGonagall and Flitwick had agonised over it or if he hadn't even been considered. But now he knew he would be a dreadful Prefect, so clearly no matter what the reasons were, the right decision had at least been made.
The Weasley parents came to the compartment window to say their final goodbyes. Listening to Louis chattering to his mother in French, Scorpius realised just how long it had been since he had spoken in that language, except in his head, or when he particularly wanted to curse.
Hannah waved at Lizzie, then at him, and he felt a slight pang as he remembered that the last time his own mother had seen him to the station, he had been twelve. He hadn't seen her now for two years.
Ginny held up Alice, who took her thumb out of her mouth to wave tiredly. His own brother would be two and a half, by now.
Audrey had finally convinced Lucy to get on the train. Rose got up to give her tiny cousin a hand onto the step, and then they all stood at the window, waving as the train let out an ear-splitting whistle and set off from the station.
Scorpius, Lizzie, Rose and Albus sat around a table at a booth while the Gryffindors coaxed Lucy into a game of Exploding Snap, pulling out their wands with excitement after a whole summer of being forbidden to use them, and showing her some of the things she would be learning in Charms and Transfiguration.
"How come none of your dads came?" Scorpius asked, as King's Cross disappeared from view out of the window. He had thought it was strange that only the women had come to see off their children, when normally it was like an annual family reunion on the platform.
"Too busy," Albus shrugged. "Soon as we got back from Italy, the whole Shadow thing blew up. Everyone's tracking down the operatives, interrogating them, staking out drop-off points… they don't seem to be getting any closer, though."
"He's a very clever smuggler," Rose explained. "None of the lower down people, who do the actual smuggling, know who he is."
"Or who they are," Al interrupted. "There's still no evidence that it's just one guy."
"So your whole family is hunting him, or what?" Scorpius asked, confused. "I thought it was just the Aurors."
"Well more and more people are getting involved," Rose said. "Teddy's doing spy work in Europe, Uncle Percy's in Portugal as a liaison, Uncle Bill is trying to work out the spells they're using on the packaging, even Mum's been to some of the interrogations. Apparently she's really good at it," she added, unsurprised.
"The trade's getting worse and worse here, that's why," Albus explained. "Dad said a few people might have already been killed by this dark stuff, but it's hard to tell because there's no way to trace any of it."
"Anyway," Lizzie was already bored by the conversation. "What classes do you think we'll have together?"
"Well, Charms, Defence and Transfiguration are big classes, there might be two of each, so I don't know," Rose mused, instantly distracted by the topic of schoolwork. "I'm the only one doing Ancient Runes -"
"Nice knowing you," Albus muttered.
"But you and Al will probably have Care of Magical Creatures together, Lizzie, and me and Al will have Potions together, and Scorp…"
"Will be doing Muggle Studies by himself, as usual," Scorpius sighed dramatically.
"What about Stacey?" Albus grinned. "Any future touching of hands over the textbook?"
Scorpius laughed dryly. "I don't know if she's taking it. It'll be a small class, either way, there are so few ignorant purebloods like me in our year."
"You're not ignorant." Rose was suddenly looking sour, for some reason. "At least you're making an effort. And it's not like the rest of us are experts on Muggles…"
"Your grandparents are Muggles!" Scorpius pointed out incredulously.
"Okay, but we don't see them that much, and we were all just as clueless as you at the cinema."
Scorpius frowned, wondering why she was so defensive all of a sudden. He thought guiltily back to their middle-of-the-night conversation, nearly a week ago but clear in his mind. It had been hard, very hard, to relive the first few days of his summer after so long trying to forget it completely. But he had felt better afterwards, like he had been keeping secrets from her and was now free of them. Oddly, he didn't feel the same compulsion to tell Albus, and he didn't think Rose had, either. Then again Albus had always been fiercely protective, and Scorpius didn't think he needed anyone to protect him anymore. He was taller, stronger and able to take care of himself, and he was turning seventeen in March. Yes, Al could definitely live without knowing.
~*-S-*~
~*-S-*~
His grandmother, at least, had seemed genuinely sad to see him go. Of course, this could have been confused with her terror at coming in to find him thrashing on the floor in the throes of the Cruciatus Curse. He still didn't know how she had stopped it. He remembered only her dragging him by the arm into the dark, dust-covered sitting room as he stumbled blindly along behind her, and pressing half a handful of Floo powder into his hand. "You mustn't tell anyone," she had said in her husky voice. "Your grandfather is ill… very ill… if he goes to Azkaban again it will kill him."
"But where do I go?" he had asked, holding himself up by the mantelpiece, trying to focus beyond the lingering pain, the shakes that wracked his body, and the double vision.
"Anywhere else," she told him firmly, though the look on her face was one of regret. Her wand was held tight in her right hand as though she expected to have to fight at any second. "Just don't stay here. You grandfather… he's very…"
"Ill, yes, you said," Scorpius muttered. His legs were shaking madly and he wasn't sure how long they would hold him. Every now and then there was a stab of pain through his stomach, like a cramp. "What about you?"
"I am in no danger," Narcissa told him. She raised a hand and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. Her touch was very cold. "Just like your father," she said, sorrowfully. "Just like him."
For once, Scorpius didn't have the energy to argue. He looked down at the Floo powder in his hand. Where could he go? Back to school? Would anyone even be there? He had confused visions of living in the kitchens with the House Elves for an entire summer. And if someone was there, what would he say? They would just owl his father to pick him up, and he could just imagine how well that would go. For a brief, hopeful moment he thought of Rose and Al, and then remembered crushingly that they were in Italy, and would be for months. His next thought was the Leaky Cauldron. The only people who had ever made him feel like he belonged. But they weren't his family. He wasn't as close with Lizzie as he was with Rose and Albus, and while Hannah and Neville had been kind to him so far, he wasn't sure how they would take his imposing on them for months. He didn't have nearly enough money to rent a room for that long…
There was an agonised roaring sound from the study, and his grandmother flinched. "Go," she whispered. "Don't come back. Please."
There was no more time to think. Scorpius threw the powder into the fireplace, - "Leaky Cauldron, publican's apartment!" and stumbled into it.
The next thing he remembered was someone bathing his face with cool water, and muttering. Coming to, he realised he was lying on a soot-stained carpet, and his head was in the lap of his Herbology Professor. He tried to sit up and fell back, his whole body shaking.
"Stay still," Neville muttered, flicking his wand over Scorpius' limbs, and the shaking was suddenly not quite as bad.
"I'm sorry!" Scorpius exclaimed, seeing the mess he had made of the Longbottom's living room. He must have tripped over the grate, something he hadn't done since his father had taught him not to from the age of four.
"Shh. Don't try to move, you'll make it worse. I haven't seen shakes this bad for years. Do you have cramps?"
Scorpius squinted up at the man. There was concern in his face, but also a terrible, frightening fury. "Yeah, a bit," he said, unable to tell anything but the truth in the face of that look.
"It'll pass. It depends on how long you were under. There's no countercurse, as I'm sure you know, but I know a few charms to relax the muscles so it doesn't hurt as much. Tired?"
"God yes."
"We'll find you a bed. Bloody hell, I should have known something like this… when you're settled I'll go straight to the Ministry. Who was it, your father?"
"No, I…" Scorpius stared. "How did you know…?"
Neville looked grim. "I've seen this curse used more times than I care to count. Trust me, I know the signs." He helped Scorpius to his feet and helped him limp into one of the back rooms. It was decorated in Gryffindor colours, very neatly arranged, and clearly unlived in. Tony's room, he realised. Scorpius collapsed on the bed and put his hands over his face. The light was burning his eyes - at least, that's what he told himself later. Neville switched it off and leaned against the door jamb for a moment, gathering himself. "You rest," he said eventually. "I'll be back in a bit."
Scorpius sat up, every muscle protesting fiercely. "Professor - please don't go to the Ministry."
Neville sighed. "I have to report this, Scorpius. You're my student -"
"Not now, though," Scorpius pointed out. "It's the holidays -"
"Mr Malfoy," Neville's tone turned hard and Professor-like. "As I'm sure you are aware, the use of the Cruciatus Curse warrants a life sentence in Azkaban. I can't simply overlook -"
"But not without evidence, right?" Scorpius interrupted again. "I'll deny it if you tell them."
There was a pause while Neville stared at him incredulously. "Why?"
Scorpius had not been able to answer. He hadn't been to put the reasons into words until much later, when Rose had asked him, and even then it still seemed jumbled in his mind. Neville tried a few more times to convince him otherwise, but he was adamant, even between stages of fitful sleeping. Lizzie, on hearing that he was there, walked in on him during a shaking fit, and had to be calmed down. He heard his Herbology Professor arguing loudly with Hannah in the living room, and though he couldn't quite make out the words, he knew it was about him. It took him about a day to recover completely, and Neville told him that meant he must have suffered the curse for a long time, longer than most wizards would dare. Much longer and he might have been killed, or driven mad. Hearing that sent a chill down his spine.
Hannah and Neville sat down with him and told him he was welcome to stay, but warned him that some of the patrons of the pub might be less than friendly. He was ready for that, though. He begged to be allowed to work for his keep, and they in turn insisted on paying him a wage above it. He was good at the work, and he enjoyed it, especially when Hannah convinced him to play his guitar in the evenings - Neville used the Floo to go back to Hogwarts and retrieve it from under his bed in Ravenclaw Tower. He knew he should have written to Rose and Albus, but some deeper instinct told him that any lies he could come up with, they would see right through. Rose especially. And she had seen right through it.
He thought back to that night, when he had woken blearily to find her at his door, wearing borrowed pyjamas and her face full of concern. How she had sat with him, held his hand and put her arm around him, and suddenly none of it seemed to matter anymore. He couldn't believe how lucky he was to have friends like that.
"Dude, are you okay?" Al's voice brought him back to reality with a jerk.
Scorpius shook his head. "What? No, I'm fine - what's 'dude'?"
"Moving on," Albus grinned. "Bets on Head Boy and Girl? Thank Merlin James and the twins aren't in the running."
~*-S-*~
~*-S-*~
There were three people Scorpius knew at the Sorting that year - unusual, for him, as the first years were usually faceless randoms he clapped for on automatic. Lucy was one this year, looking very small and timid at the back of the line. Halfway down were the twin boys that he had met during his first Christmas visit to Diagon Alley. He still couldn't tell which one was which, but he remembered them asking a lot of annoying questions.
They alone out of their year group looked confident and excited to wear the hat, as Professor Longbottom began reading out the names. The rest seemed to be following Lucy's example, trembling in their shiny new school shoes.
"Were we ever that small?" Scorpius asked over the sound of applause from the Gryffindor table as 'Beggs, Tui' was Sorted.
"You were," Albus said, smirking. Scorpius shot him a quelling look in reply and turned his attention back to the first years. When the twin boys' names were called, one after the other, they sauntered up to the hat without a care in the world.
"Scamander, Lycan!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Scamander, Lysander!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Oh great," Albus sighed, clapping politely as the dark-haired twins found seats at the end of the table. "We'll be jumping off the tower just to get away from them in two days."
"Be nice," Rose scolded him. "Listen, it's almost Lucy's turn."
"Travers, George!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Vane, Emily!"
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Weasley, Lucy!"
Everyone watched as the last Weasley in the current generation made her way to the stool. The hat seemed to take its time with her. Scorpius supposed it must be talking to her, because she seemed to calm down a bit, her hands releasing their death grip on the stool to rest in her lap.
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Oh good!" Rose exclaimed, almost giving her cousin a standing ovation in her enthusiasm.
Scorpius thought the girl might be disappointed - nearly all her family was in Gryffindor, after all - but she seemed cheerful enough as she handed the hat back to Neville and came over to the Ravenclaw table. Rose made Albus scoot over so that she could sit between them. "I'm so glad," Rose whispered to her as Professor McGonagall began her welcome speech. Lucy smiled back at her.
For the first time, Scorpius was not quite overjoyed to sleep in his four-poster in the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory. It was nice to see Gaius and Peter, of course, and to put his guitar back in its accustomed place under the bed. He left his father's lock-box in his trunk. After the events of the summer, it made him uncomfortable to look at it. But as he went to bed, he found himself missing his little room at the Leaky Cauldron, the sound of Diagon Alley nightlife outside his window. It was hard to sleep, and when he finally did sink into unconsciousness, it seemed like only minutes before Albus was shaking him awake again to go down to breakfast.
"We need timetables," Al reminded him when Scorpius muttered that he'd rather not go. Grumbling, Scorp forced himself out of bed and made for the shower. He was so despondent that he forgot to do anything with his hair, so that it hung flatly around his face like a curtain. Rose gave him an odd look when they met her in the Common Room. He did his best to ignore it, but he felt self-conscious all the way down to the Great Hall.
Professor Flitwick was all over the place at breakfast, trying to determine whether the students had done well enough in their OWLs to get into their preferred subjects. Of course, most of the Ravenclaws had passed all their OWLs, and wanted to do the more advanced classes, which seemed to make it even more difficult for the old wizard.
"Here's a thought," Albus muttered while Flitwick finished up with Gaius. "Why don't the school and the OWL examiners talk to each other? Then they could sort all this out before we even get here."
"Brilliant," Scorpius mumbled back, trying to eat toast without getting any in his hair, and contemplating Transfiguring something to tie it back with.
"Mr Malfoy!"
Scorpius flinched and grimaced. No one had called him by his last name in months. "Yes, Professor?"
Flitwick handed him a timetable. Even sitting, Scorpius had to bend down to receive it from him. "All your subjects are acceptable, but you had better pull your socks up in Transfiguration this term or Professor Davies will let me know!"
"Who in Merlin's name is Professor Davies?" Albus asked, once his and Rose's subjects had also been confirmed.
"He must be the new Professor, the youngish one. He was on the staff table, last night."
"Another one? What happened to Professor Ashborne?"
"Oh come on, Alby," Rose sighed. "They're all getting old, you know that. Mum says all the older teachers will be retiring soon - McGonagall and Flitwick are next, she thinks. They've been here the longest."
"McGonagall's been here about three hundred years," Scorpius agreed, earning him a giggle from some nearby first years who included Lucy Weasley. She seemed to have found a few friends among her year group - not including the Scamander boys who were apparently carrying on an in-depth discussion with each other about the contents of their boiled eggs.
~*-A-*~
~*-A-*~
Rose's vague description of 'youngish' translated into a tall man in his mid to late forties, with thick dark hair. Even Al could tell he was good looking. As they entered the Transfiguration classroom for their first class of the year, he noticed that the entire front row and most of the second were occupied by girls. Albus rolled his eyes and took his customary seat on Scorpius' left, with Rose on his right. They had flanked him like this for years, and it was a hard habit to break, even if he clearly didn't need it anymore. Lizzie came and sat on Al's other side, though even she seemed to have eyes for the new Professor.
"Welcome class," David said, smiling, and a few girls made little sighing noises. "My name is Professor Roger Davies, and I'll be your new Transfiguration teacher for this year… and perhaps beyond, depending on how things go. I went to Hogwarts myself, like most of your teachers… Ravenclaw class of '96, if anyone's interested. Now, congratulations everyone for getting through your OWLs. However I must warn you that sixth year is likely to test some of you more than you were expecting. I'm sure you're all aware that it's the time when you start practicing non-verbal spells…"
A few people groaned. James had warned Al about this, but he had mostly forgotten.
"…harder than a lot of people think!" Davies was saying now. "So today we'll start it slow. I'm sure you remember turning matches into needles in your first year, well, let's see if you can still do it, eh?"
A few people snickered. Al could see Carcer and Daws making cynical faces - Jian evidently having either failed his Transfiguration OWL or deigned not to take the subject at NEWT.
The matches were handed out. Everyone got out their wands and sat staring silently at their matches, turning red as they held their breath and willed them to turn into needles.
"No cheating!" Davies called out cheerfully as one of the Gryffindors muttered the incantation audibly enough for him to hear. Al had to admit that the man's attitude was a bit more enjoyable than the dry and dusty tones of old Professor Ashborne, or the sharp, no-nonsense rhetoric of Professor McGonagall, who had filled in a few times.
By the end of the class, no one had managed to turn their match into a needle, although Albus thought his looked greyer than normal, and Rose's had gone quite pointy. Scorpius had got further than anyone else. His match still had four noticeable edges, but it was silver, sharp at one end, and there was a hole at the other end. Rose was visibly unhappy about this.
"But how come you can do it?" she asked as they left Transfiguration for Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"I dunno," he said helplessly. "I guess, maybe because of the music charms?"
She looked at him blankly.
"You know, keeping track of all the different instruments, controlling them in your head… it's hard! I spent ages learning it, and there's no incantation."
Al supposed he was right. He had been doing non-verbal spells for months, and they hadn't really thought twice about it.
Defence Against the Dark Arts turned out to be pretty similar to Transfiguration. Professor Tufty had them line up in pairs and try to jinx their partners while the other tried to repel them with a shield charm. After a while it got really boring, standing for over an hour and glaring at each other while they strained to make something happen.
Rose paired with Scorpius, apparently determined to wrest the secret of his success from him, leaving Albus to partner with Lizzie. He stood there waiting as patiently as possible while she screwed up her eyes and brandished her wand at him.
"Switch!" Tufty announced, to everyone's relief.
"Don't you dare hex me," Rose muttered to Scorpius as they swapped places.
"That's kind of the point!" Scorp hissed back.
"Don't worry," Albus said to Lizzie, who was looking worried. "I'm rubbish at this." She didn't look convinced.
After a few minutes, Rose let out a shriek. Albus looked, just in time to see her cast a flickering shield charm that only just failed to stop Scorpius' hex. It hit her in the shoulder, nearly all its power sucked out by the shield. "Ow!" she cried.
"Very good, Mr Malfoy," Tufty said wearily. "Miss Weasley, your shield charm will have to be a bit more solid to deflect any real attack."
Albus knew his cousin well enough to read the expression of fury she wore behind the facade of forced calmness. When the class finally ended, they left the room with a great deal of tension. "I can't believe you're angry!" Scorpius was protesting. "I just did what we were meant to do - it can't have hurt that much. Anyway it made you do a shield charm, right?"
"You're making it worse," Lizzie hissed to him.
"But -"
"Just leave me alone," Rose snapped. She stormed off to Ancient Runes while Scorp threw up his hands in frustration.
"What's the problem?" he demanded. "You guys wouldn't care if I accidentally hexed you, right?"
"I wouldn't, but… she's a girl," Al pointed out.
"What was I meant to do?" Scorp said helplessly. "Just not do the exercise?"
"Yes," Lizzie said firmly.
"What? Why? You were doing it."
Lizzie gave him a long-suffering look. "You two are so clueless," she sighed. "No, you weren't supposed to hex her. Honestly."
Scorp stared at her, then frowned at Albus, apparently looking for answers, but Al didn't get what she was hinting at, either. "I give up," Scorpius sighed. "I've got Muggle Studies - see you at lunch."
Lizzie and Albus had Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid was pleased to see them, as usual, and if he was disappointed that Rose had been unable to continue with his class, he didn't show it.
"'Ello Albus!" the old Professor called out as they approached. "'Ow was Italy?"
Albus grinned. Hagrid was one of the few people he didn't mind being singled out by. "Great," he replied. "How was your summer?"
"Ah, not too bad," the man smiled widely through his great bushy beard. "Me and Grawpy went exploring in the Highlands."
Everyone who did Care of Magical Creatures had met Grawp, Hagrid's half brother, at one time or another. For a gigantic, illiterate, half-dumb giant, he was very interesting to be around.
"So what was that about?" Al asked Lizzie, when they had each been given samples of different eggshells to identify and the class had begun chattering away to each other. "Why shouldn't Scorp have cursed Rose? It did help her do the shield charm without the incantation."
Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Boys! Are you blind? She likes him."
Albus frowned. "Come on."
"He likes her too, if he'd just admit it to himself." She flushed a little, a crack showing in her air of social superiority. "I… might have mentioned to Rose last week that Scorpius has a crush on her."
"You what?"
"Well I didn't realise they'd start biting each other's heads off! It should have been happily ever after. Why are Ravenclaws so stubborn?"
Albus groaned. "It's not Ravenclaws, it's Rose. She wouldn't admit to fancying anyone if you put her under torture." Certain things were starting to fall into place. Rose had been acting oddly since they had got back from Italy, and now he came to think about it, it might have started that night when they had met Scorpius at the Leaky Cauldron. She had got all shirty when Albus had brought up Stacey on the train, and she didn't like the way Scorp put himself down, even as a joke. Albus had to admit that someone probably shouldn't hex their girlfriend and expect to get away from it, even in class - but she wasn't his girlfriend, and that was why Rose couldn't say the real reason why she was so upset.
"Someone's got to tell him," he said flatly.
Lizzie shrugged. "Go on then! Rather you than me."
Albus immediately blanched from the humiliation he could imagine ensuing from that conversation. "Er… no thanks. They'll work it out." He realised he wasn't totally thrilled about the idea of his cousin and his best friend getting together, either. He had a terrible impending sense of third wheel syndrome.
~*-A-*~
~*-A-*~
Rose didn't speak to Scorpius at all for the rest of the week. Any hope of the situation working itself out was rapidly starting to fade, but luckily Al had less and less time to worry about it. This was because on top of all the homework that was already starting to pile up, most of which involving practicing non-verbal spells and charms, Albus had to think about trying out the new Ravenclaw Quidditch team. He had organised the tryouts for the next Saturday, directly after Gryffindor had had their tryouts.
James, now the Gryffindor team captain, waved at him cheerily as he passed. "Choose wisely, little brother! You're going to need some decent backup this season."
Albus considered making a rude hand gesture, but decided it was beneath him.
He watched as the Ravenclaw hopefuls lined up on the pitch. There were a lot more than there had been last year, or the year before. "Big turn out," he muttered as Rose came up behind her, wearing Quidditch robes and with her hair tied back into a loose braid.
"Not surprised," she said, tossing a Quaffle up and down in one hand.
"Why?"
"It's you, you ass. Remember when your dad told us he had about a hundred people show up for his first try out, and some of them weren't even Gryffindors? Everyone wants to see how you're going to coach the team. No pressure or anything." She grinned and tossed him the ball.
"Thanks," he muttered. "Right, any first years, you're forbidden by school policy to join the team, so scoot."
Lysander and Lycan skulked away from the group, looking disappointed.
Albus rolled his eyes. "Okay. Can we split into groups please?"
After about two hours of watching people fall off brooms, get hit in the face with Quaffles and injure themselves with their own Beater's bats, he had a team. One of the seventh years from the old team had chosen not to rejoin it, but Benjy, the Keeper, had got back in after a great trial. Rose had been by far the best Chaser out of all the applicants, but there were two fourth years, Emerson and Wendy, who had managed to score enough goals between them to join her. There was actually a lot of good competition for the Beater positions, but Albus ended up picking a third year, Thom, and Rose's dormitory-mate, Janey, who turned out to be a bit of a dab hand with a bat. He made sure to nominate plenty of reserves for all the positions. It meant more work for him in terms of coaching, but he had always thought it would be a good idea to have more so that they had someone to practice against.
Still, he waited until he and Rose had a bit of space on the way back to Ravenclaw Tower before asking. "So… did I pick right?"
She smiled at him. "You have to ask?"
"You know as much about Quidditch as I do. C'mon, I'm under a lot of pressure here…"
"You picked right. The only problem is going to be getting Janey to stop chatting long enough to get her in the air."
"You know, the girls are right, you really should try harder to make more friends."
"Shut up."
"Rosie?"
"Yeah?"
"How long are you going to keep giving Scorp the silent treatment?"
She stopped and gave him a cold look. "How do you know I - "
"Because I know you, and I know your evil methods of getting people to apologise to you." He sighed. "Look, why don't you just tell him you like him?"
Her eyes widened. "What? I don't -"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lizzie told me."
"She what? That girl is such a gossip - "
"Look, you're making him miserable for no reason. At least, no reason he understands. Either tell him, or stop treating him like he just killed a puppy."
She frowned, and then her face crumpled. "I can't tell him," she said softly.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because - because what if I do tell him? I'm afraid… I think he'll think it's stupid. I don't want things to be weird… it'll ruin our friendship..."
"Okay, but if you don't tell him, you're going to keep getting mad at him when he doesn't treat you the way you want him to treat you, and your friendship will be ruined anyway."
She put her hands over her face and took a deep breath. "Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I will apologise for blowing up over the whole Defence Against the Dark Arts thing, and we will start speaking to each other again. And you are not going to say anything about this to him, okay?"
"Hang on -"
"No. You say nothing. Got it?"
Albus rolled his eyes. Clearly he wasn't going to win. If a stalemate was all that was achieved for now, he would just have to deal with it. "Okay, okay. Let's go then."
They walked the last few stairs to Ravenclaw Tower. There weren't a great deal of people in the common room, it being a sunny Saturday and most people wanting to spend time outside before the weather became too cold. Scorpius was sitting by the window reading The Taming of the Shrew. "Oh… hey," he said when he noticed them approaching, eyeing Rose suspiciously as though afraid she was about to blow up at him.
"Hey," she said shyly as he stared up at her.
Al could not believe that he hadn't seen it before. Now that he knew, it was painfully obvious, from the way they looked at each other to the palpable tension in the air whenever they spoke. He felt like banging their heads together.
"I'm sorry," Rose said after a painfully long moment. "I shouldn't have shouted at you."
Scorpius relaxed noticeably. He closed his book, keeping his fingers between the pages as a temporary marker. "It's okay. I need to be shouted at occasionally. It tames my ego."
She smiled gratefully at him and Al had to suppress the urge to slap himself in the forehead in frustration.
"Oh just kiss and make up already," he muttered. Rose shot him a glare that, if looks could kill, would have had him prostrate on the ground with green foam bubbling out of his mouth. Scorpius had gone slightly red. He stood up and hugged her. It was incredibly awkward to watch, and Al was glad when it was over, even though Rose returned to glaring at him. He had a feeling he was going to get an earful the next time they were alone.
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Thanks for reading! Just letting you know now that updates may or may not come on schedule for a while as my folio is due in four weeks. We can always hope it will all be hunky dory but the curse of the folio is never an easy obstacle. It might just be your reviews that keep me going… dot dot do