So, I'm new to this whole journaling thing. How am I supposed to start? Maybe I'll tell you why I started. That seems like a relevant but safe thing before we get into the meaty stuff.

Hm. Or maybe I'll start by telling you about myself, give you some context before the how-we-got-here bit. I'm Rose. Rose Weasley. And just to get this out of the way, yeah, my parents are Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, the two closest friends of Harry Potter the Savior himself, blah blah blah. There, I said it and now we can move on to the interesting stuff.

I'm 17 and in my seventh year at Hogwarts. I'm in Ravenclaw (ooh, scandalous) and my favorite subject is Advanced Runes (there are only so many ancient runes one can study, but the opportunities for using runes in the modern world are limitless). Relative to the rest of my family I'm not really an athlete but I do enjoy the occasional run outside when the weather is nice. But most of the time you can usually find me holed up with the Ravenclaw study group (who am I kidding, that's what we call just hanging out in the common room) or at Modern Runes club, where we build fun things with runes and occasionally bring in speakers to talk about their experiences with runes outside of school. Oh, and I'm also Head Girl.

The fun stuff starts when I tell you who Head Boy is. Go on, guess. With this kind of lead up, there's only one person it could be. Alright, we'll both say together on the count of three. One, two, three. It's Scorpius Malfoy. Surprise!

Okay, I'll admit it. I was more surprised when I heard that that Scorpius was named Head Boy than when my Head Girl badge fell out of my seventh year Hogwarts letter. I'd always thought he was too busy feuding with my cousin and best friend Albus Potter to bother with the grades and stuff. But, looking back, I guess that was silly of me. He was a very responsible prefect, and I guess he does have that Slytherin cunning – he managed his pranks and coursework and stayed in Headmistress McGonagall's good graces. Yeah, even though my dad was keen on my keeping up with the Weasley-Malfoy rivalry schtick, I just thought that there were better ways to spend my time. Working toward my future, mostly. I guess I get that from my mom.

I get a lot of things from my mom, actually. Including the suggestion to write this journal. Let me tell you how that happened.

Over the Christmas hols, my mum found me hidden in my favorite nook in her study (it's decked out with cozy and colorful cushions and has its own little bookshelf for my favorite books, including some by my favorite Muggle author Olivie Blake). Normally this wouldn't raise any red flags, but she found me there during the annual Weasley-Potter snowball fight crossed with capture the flag. It's normally loads of fun, but I just wasn't feeling it. So right off the bat, she knew something was up.

"Hey Rosie," she said, plopping down on the cushions next to me.

She never calls me Rosie anymore unless she thinks something is wrong, so that's her way of asking me if I'm okay and if I want to talk about it.

"Hey Mum," I said, scooting closer to her. She rested her chin on my head and we just sat like that for a bit. She doesn't like to press if I don't willingly offer information, so the silence was, well, not quite comfortable, but comforting, at least.

Eventually, the best I could come up with was, "Do you ever, just…?"

I could tell she was smiling from the way her cheek flexed against my head. "Do I ever just what, honey?"

I flapped my hands around ambiguously. "Just… feel… tension?"

"Oh, sure, all the time, and I imagine it's all the more confusing at your age. But you'll have to be more specific than that."

"I, well, I don't know how to describe it. There are other people involved? Well, person," I amended.

My mother got a knowing gleam in her eyes, but she's still gentle when she asked, "Who's this person?"

"I can't tell you that," was my instant response. Bad response, Rose.

My mother got a thoughtful look, and instead of saying directly what was on her mind, she said, "Don't you usually talk to Albus about this kind of thing?"

I'm absolutely certain she knew immediately who I was talking about. She's too smart to not be able to put together the pieces of my omissions.

"Well… I can't really talk to him about this particular person."

"Alright honey. But clearly you've got something on your mind, your Aunt Luna would say that you've got Nargles."

I laughed at this, I love my mum, she's so great at defusing my stress.

She was silent for a moment, then said, "Do you feel safe in your interactions with this person?"

"Yes," I said honestly. "Ask me another easy question."

"Okay, that's great. Do you promise me that you'll come to me or Albus if you ever don't feel safe?"

"Also yes."

"That's perfect, Rose. But I wonder if there's something we could do to handle this other situation. Maybe writing out your feelings would help?"

"Do you mean journaling?"

"Yes, that's the one."

"Um, I'd be willing to give it a shot."

"Great! When you choose a journal, would you be willing to bring it to me to check over? I promise I'm not spying on you or anything, I just want to make sure that it's not cursed."

That one was kind of a weird request, but I said yes and bought a journal from a Muggle bookshop in town and now we're off to the races.

So. Scorpius Malfoy. Head Boy.

The first month or so of working with him was okay, I guess. As okay as possible for two people who had existed in the same sphere for six years but had never really interacted except for a civil nod in the halls or a passing comment during prefects' meetings. We'd never been paired together for a class or for prefect rounds, maybe because the professors and upperclassmen were all worried about poking the sleeping dragon of our family histories.

After the first month, though, the stiff edges started softening, and we opened up to each other more. We'd start Heads' meetings (just the two of us in our own designated common room, very plush) by catching up, shooting the breeze, starting with easy things like, "How was your day," with those naturally leading into learning about hobbies and whatnot. At our last meeting before the Christmas hols, I learned that he isn't looking to follow in his family business ("What's the family business?" "The business of wealth accumulation.") but rather was interested in sports healing ("My father tells me it's beneath me, but I think Mother talked him around, because last summer he pulled some strings and got me an internship following around the staff healers for Puddlemere United.") and therefore had taken on an elective helping Madam Pomfrey after Quidditch matches.

If we're being honest (and we ARE, what else is the point of a private journal?) I was lowkey attracted to Scorpius before that point just because of our increasing familiarity with each other, but that was definitely the moment that my attraction to him kicked into high gear. And why not? He'd just told me that he wanted to be a caregiver (let's just gloss over the "for athletes" bit) and let me tell you, to a rational and future-oriented mind like mine, that's worth more than any silly size measurement or reputation in the sack.

But, I'm still a teenager, with poor impulse control and only extremely belated emotional processing, so this blossoming attraction dropped out of my mouth like an ungainly frog. I've been doing my best to forget this cringe-worthy exchange, but it happened something like this.

Please don't hold me accountable, I really don't know what possessed me. For now I'm blaming the teenage hormones.

Me, leaned back in my chair, chin lifted: "Seen a lot of bodies, then?"

Scorpius, after a minute, or an hour, I don't know, during which I sat mortified but too much the daughter of two Gryffindors to show it and he raked his eyes over my body, and maybe he licked his lips?: "Enough to know a fit body when I see one."

Ooh, if I was just a little bit hornier I would have jumped him then and there. But I held onto my single modicum of composure – I'm not trying to ruin relations with my co-Head not even halfway into the year, no thank you. And before you accuse me of being a prude, I'll have you know that I have some experience under my belt. Below the belt, if you will.

Last year, I dated my house's Beater, Edwin Twookes (pronounce it as two-oaks), a year ahead of me.

During a party after a Quidditch win, Edwin, slightly tipsy on Butterbeer, told me that he thought I was fit, so I kissed him. That was a terrible first kiss, yikes. Mostly teeth. But we got lots of practice over the next couple of weeks, in broom closets and empty classrooms (why does Hogwarts have so many of those, anyways?). It was in a broom closet that I learned that kissing is a full body activity – he had me pushed up against the wall, and I could feel, well, a firmness pressed into my belly.

That first time, I got scared, and Edwin's a respectable bloke, so we stopped there. But the next time, I was prepared – my cousin Dominique had briefed me on all the necessaries. The second time I felt Edwin getting hard, I pushed back with my own hips, and Edwin took this as positive encouragement and picked me up and positioned me so that my legs were around his hips and I could feel his hardness right at my core, and we rubbed like that until he came in his pants. I had to finish myself off that night, after he left to clean himself up, but we did it through our clothes a couple more times (yes Mother, we put to use the contraceptive charm that we learned during the sex ed unit of fifth year Charms), and once I was brave enough to put my hand in his pants, he came almost immediately. Handys were as far as we got, though. If you can't already tell, we spent most of our time together in the dark, horny and handsy. There was one time we tried to go on a date in Hogsmeade, but he could only talk about his workouts. It was an exciting couple of weeks, but he wasn't my type of guy, so I broke it off. The Ravenclaw Quidditch captain made me wait until after the Quidditch Cup, though – we won, so it was worth it. Poor guy, best day of the year and a pretty bad one, in the same week. But anyways, he's fine now, he's a backup player for the Treworgy Apples and dating a cheerleader. I'm sure they have great sex and have lots in common to talk about.

Back to Scorpius. He has his own reputation – he's the Ice King, desirable as the Sorcerer's Stone but no one, boy or girl, has managed to get so much as a kiss out of him, and certainly not for lack of trying. Meanwhile, it has only taken me three months of forging an honest human connection to get a single innuendo out of him.

But, yeah. That's where we left things, honestly. At the time, we kind of moved on from that bit, pretended nothing had happened and got on with business. And after, we wished each other Merry Christmas and went our separate ways, and now I'm so horribly confused. Aroused and wondering if it meant anything.

Well, we're going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, and our first Heads' meeting will be in the evening. We'll see what happens.

A/N: The old tried and true Rose and Scorpius have S3xual Tension but (spoiler alert) this time they're gonna resolve it by communicating and asking for consent.