Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This was just written for fun.
Character(s): Scorpius Malfoy, Rose Weasley
Word Count: 609 | 11,808
It took Scorpius exactly one week and five days before he was able to get Rose to speak to him for more than a few seconds. He tried to rationalize the situation by telling himself that they had just come back from Christmas break and Rose would be busy keeping order in Gryffindor Tower with the other Gryffindor Prefects as everyone returned to school and settled into their routine for the next term. But as the days wore on, he began to fear that something was really, really wrong.
"Rose, are you okay?"
Asking if she was okay in the middle of Transfiguration class was probably a bad idea, considering the fact that Professor Runcorn wasn't the sort of professor that tolerated students quietly whispering to each other during class.
"I'm alright."
"You don't sound convincing."
Rose ignored him for a moment and scribbled a few more lines in her notebook about changing owls into opera glasses, before she gave him a stern look. "We do need to talk, but not right now."
"Well, you've been avoiding me since we got back, so we might as well talk now." If they put off their conversation, Scorpius was afraid that they would just fall back into the routine that they had established since the end of the holidays.
Rose let out a sigh of exasperation. "If you must know, my parents know. About everything." 'Everything' seemed like a better word to use instead of 'us', because she still wasn't entirely sure if there was an'us' that existed between the two of them.
"Huh."
"Aren't you going to say something other than 'huh'?" she hissed at him under her breath.
"Well, my parents know too."
"…what?" she spoke a bit too loudly that time, earning a few glares from their classmates in the process. "You told them?"
Scorpius shrugged. "It came up. You told your parents?"
"Yes. It um, also came up." It was a nice way to hide the fact that she'd nearly screamed it at them over Christmas dinner. "And I told my dad that he couldn't stop us from being together if we wanted."
Scorpius blinked at her as he tried to process what she'd just told him. "So you've been avoiding me because your parents don't care that we're dating?"
Her heart skipped a beat when he said the word 'dating', because it wasn't something that the two of them had ever discussed, but now that the matter appeared to be somewhat settled, she knew that they had a bigger problem.
"No, it's just – my parents owled me yesterday. They want to meet you."
"That doesn't sound that bad."
Professor Runcorn looked in their direction for a moment, which prompted both Scorpius and Rose to glance back down at their notebooks so that they wouldn't attract unneeded attention.
"Scor, I'm sorry – but you haven't met my dad."
"Well," he remarked. "I don't mind having dinner with them if it means they'll be more okay with us."
"Wow," Rose muttered, "agreeing to meet an auror and a member of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement? That's possibly the most romantic thing you've ever said."
Professor Runcorn looked in their direction a second time, and Rose thought for a moment that they were about to get detention, but instead, she called on someone in front of her to recite the incantation for the transfiguration they had studied in their previous class.
Considering the fact that Professor Runcorn had a habit of giving detentions without much provocation, neither one of them spoke much more, but for a moment, Rose could have sworn that she heard Scorpius say:
"You're worth it."
