Thursday 8th December
- Five -
Though this wasn't the longest period Georgette had frozen Rose out for, it sure felt like it.
The girl pretended Rose didn't even exist—her eyes passing over Rose as though she were under a Disillusionment charm. Rose knew that even trying to talk to Georgette was pointless, as Georgette's stubborn streak was completely unparalleled, and she'd ignore Rose for as long as she felt it necessary.
So—it went without saying—that Rose's day had gone pretty shittily. But she, according to Magda at breakfast, didn't have it the worst.
"Did you hear about Scorpius and Lauren Avery?" Magda started, her voice low with scandal.
"They've been shacking up in broom closets?" Rose snorted, "Because I already knew that."
"No," Magda said, looking a little disappointed that the girls weren't as invested in the gossip as she was, "they had a huge argument in the Slytherin common room last night. Apparently, she accused him of treating her like a slag—she called him a commitment-phobe."
That piqued Rose's interest a little, she thought back to Malfoy's strong denial that the two were a couple, "What did he say?"
"He just told her to stop making a scene."
Tessie rolled her eyes, "Slytherins are such gossips. There are literally people starving to death in Africa, and all they talk about is who's dating who. Such trivial bullshit."
There was a silence in the group—usually at this point Georgette would interrupt, accusing Tessie of being a fake activist, as what was she currently doing to help the starving children?—but Georgette wasn't present at the Gryffindor table.
"She cinched it with that though, hasn't she?" Magda filled the silence.
"Huh?" Rose was distracting by the sinking feeling induced when thinking about Georgette—a recent development.
"Avery." Magda explained, a little impatiently, "By calling Malfoy out so publicly, she's put him between a rock and a hard place. He'll either not date her—proving her right, or he'll be forced to date her, with all that honour and virginity nonsense those old families are obsessed with. But she's put her stamp on him—letting everyone know that they've been shagging. He was obviously trying to keep it on the downlow."
Tessie looked at Magda in part amazement, part confusion, "How'd you get all that from a piece of idle gossip?"
"You, dear Tessie, are not thinking like a Slytherin."
Tessie laughed, "I don't think I could get my head that far up my own ass."
Rose shoved her gently, "Hey! Albus is in Slytherin!"
Tessie patted Rose on the head, "You know, Rose, that all Slytherin jokes exclude your dear Albus."
"Promise?" Rose pouted.
"Pinky promise." Tessie said solemnly.
"Anyway, it'll be interesting to see where this heads." Magda interjected, and Tessie shrugged.
"Maybe we'll have a little heart to heart in our detention tonight." Rose giggled, and the other two grinned.
"The only 'heart to heart' I could imagine you two having, would be if you ripped them clean out of each other's chests." Tessie pointed out, and Magda laughed.
"I don't know," Rose shrugged, "he has been a little more tolerable than usual. I haven't wanted to kill him as much."
"Tolerable? Malfoy? Merlin, Rose, are you under the Imperius curse?" Tessie poked her in the ribs, as though testing she hadn't been replaced by a robot version of herself,
She coloured, "It's not even a big deal." She tried to brush it off, but she could tell her friends were surprised.
"Well just make sure you send out a 'save the date' soon, I've got a busy summer and—" Tessie teased.
"Oh, fuck off." Rose rolled her eyes, but her friend's matching grins were infectious.
Even though Rose attempted to pretend that the affairs of Malfoy and his 'not-girlfriend' Avery were of little interest, Rose found herself keeping a curious eye on the boy through their detention.
Maybe it was her imagination, but she was sure Malfoy was crushing the bicorn horn with a little more vigour than necessary, his jaw a little tighter than normal perhaps—but again, maybe just a result of looking for reasons to interfere.
Rose didn't also like the feeling of being emotionally indebted to him—he knowing a vulnerable piece of her. Their relationship had always been eye for an eye, and Rose felt ready for gouging out what she was owed.
She convinced herself—rather persuasively—that this wasn't for comfort, or comradery, but an attempt to settle score, as though Malfoy had torn the truth from her somehow. It was the better alternative than to admit she'd done something as idiotic as tell Malfoy the events of Saturday.
To his credit, he seemed to have kept him promise, not so much as whispering the words 'Hogsmeade' and 'Selwyn'. Realistically, he probably didn't care beyond his own morbid curiosity, which Rose was sure she'd sated.
"I heard about you and Avery." It wasn't as tactful as she'd been hoping for—and it was the last word she'd use to describe herself—but it sounded harsh, and Malfoy stiffened as though the abrasiveness of the words were a physical sensation.
"I'm sure the whole school has." He muttered darkly, his jaw tightening a little. As opposed to finding triumph in the movement, Rose found a microscopic amount of pity—of course, it lay dormant somewhere in an atom in her left toe, easily ignored and practically non-existent.
"Do you…" The sentence sounded stupid in Rose's head, "I don't suppose…" for Merlin's sake, "would you like to talk about?"
The sentence—somehow—sounded even dumber outside of her mouth.
It didn't help by the excruciating silence Malfoy allowed to follow it—his previously dark expression twisting into disbelief, confusion, before settling into something that was questioning Rose's sanity; a lift between his brows, mouth pursed,
"Excuse me?"
"You heard what I said," Rose mumbled, her face flaming. She didn't know what the fuck she'd been thinking, attempting to console Malfoy. And he was reminding her of it too, looking at her, stuttering away, as if he'd trodden in something nasty, and had just found it on the bottom of his shoe.
"I heard what you said, but I'm sure not if you've just accidentally inhaled cauldron fumes or—"
"I just," her explanation came through gritted teeth, "thought that maybe you'd want to talk. Or does it only go one way?"
Malfoy knew how to wield his silences—utilizing them so Rose had the perfect amount of time to recognize how stupid she was, before speaking,
"If you're referring to the incident in which you word-vomited the events of the Hogsmeade trip, I can't agree."
She was getting a cramped feeling in her chest, as though humiliation was running out of space to fill. Arguably, it wasn't standard between them—anger being the only emotion Malfoy was usually able to create within her—but she'd accidentally offered him a personal piece of herself, and he was throwing it back in her face as condescendingly as possible.
"You're such a prick!"
But he wasn't interested in her half-hearted abuse—instead he was stepping closer to her, his face twisted venomously, and Rose's heart stuttered fearfully in her chest,
"Don't mistake these hours of forced companionship for anything resembling a 'blooming friendship'," he hissed, voice low, "or any other cheesy Gryffindor bullshit. The only reason I'm tolerating you is for my Potions grade, I need this potion completed within the time-frame, and fighting is a distraction. Don't try to be nice. Don't get close to me. I'm here because I am forced to be—it would do you well to remember that."
In that moment Rose felt the full effect of Scorpius' namesake—a fatal sting to an area of vulnerability, sending Rose reeling. She stammered, grappling desperately for a response,
"Y-you just hate half-blood girls, don't you?" she accused.
For the weak response it was, she seemed to have thrown him a little, and he stepped back,
"What?"
"We've all noticed." She snapped, getting a little of her stride back, "You'll only ever date pure blood girls. Is that why you hate me?"
His upper hand was slipping—he was furious, and the anger had stripped away his confident cruelty,
"How dare you—"
"How dare I?" Rose could've laughed, just to make him madder, "I bet that's why you don't want to talk about Avery, huh? She's a reminder of the fact that you're a blood purist! Just like your whole family, and you—"
His wand was out, pointing at the space between her eyes.
"Finish that sentence, Rose, I swear—"
She wasn't afraid. There must've been something wrong with her, because she wasn't afraid. Him hurting her; it was a possibility that had never even risen in Rose's mind, not once. For all the times he'd tormented her, made her life miserable, he'd never physically hurt her—not in this beastly and barbaric way.
He'd insulted her, critiqued her, teased her, wound her up—and even stooped to charming mashed potatoes to fly at her—but he'd never caused her injury, not in such a visceral and obvious manner.
He'd hurt her, but he'd never made her feel unsafe.
"You won't do it." She said, refusing to break their eye contact. His eyes were narrowed—practically slits, for the snake he was sorted to—and each of their breaths was shared, synced as though shaving fractions off oxygen from the air they passed back and forward, "You won't."
Rose had started to see Malfoy in two forms. There was last detention's Malfoy—sympathetic, curious, practically a pacifist—and then there was him—reactionary, cutting, cold—as though he was expecting war each time she opened her mouth. But now, she saw both parts of him; angry and understanding, sympathetic and cold, calm and raging.
She was at the end of the wand, but he was the vulnerable one.
He turned, and his wand found a stray beaker, and it shattered into shreds so fine it was as though he'd blasted it out of existence. Rose jumped in fright, but clenched her jaw to hide the feeling.
Then he stormed from the room—not even stopping to grab his bag—slamming the door with a force the shook the walls. Rose was briefly and ridiculously reminded of her fear of collapse, one that Malfoy had just unintentionally reinforced.
Rose was shaken, but not from fear, rather surprise. She'd lashed out with a pathetic response, from her own hurt rather than intention to inflict it, but she'd triggered a landslide. It was like she'd thrown a dart in the dark, and struck a perfect bullseye.
She gathered her things, trying to put her concentration into sliding her books in her backpack, instead of getting lost in an over-analysis. That would be for later—most likely—in her bed, stopping herself from falling asleep and driven to tears from over exhaustion.
She ate, uncharacteristically quiet as she focused on staying present. The girls noticed—excluding Georgette—but decided not to remark in the moment.
It wasn't until they were tucked into bed, lights out, that Tessie was there, opening Rose curtains and parking herself rather stubbornly at the end of Rose's bed, squashing her feet. Magda was sitting up in her bed—which was the furthest from Rose's but still in easy hearing distance—watching Rose concernedly.
"Rose… what's going on?" Tessie asked gently, her voice so sweet and worried that that was all it took.
And then it all came out—with tears to boot—everything about the argument with Malfoy, and by extension, the incident with Selwyn.
"I don't know why I'm so upset," Rose sobbed, a few minutes later, "I argue with Malfoy all the time! W-why," her throat caught on the tears, and she hiccuped, "has it affected me this time? It just feels like we took a step backwards—he was so amicable, and I wasn't even dreading the d-detention—"
"I think that's it, Rose," Tessie smiled, patting Rose's knee, "you put yourself out there, and gave him a little. When have you ever done that before? When have you ever let yourself be vulnerable before him? And he threw it back in your face! No wonder you're so upset."
Tessie pulled her into a hug—as though her body warmth could stem the tears—and soon Magda padded across the room to join them, wrapping her arms tightly around the two of them.
"I'm s-s-sorry," Rose sniffled, "crying all over your bloody pyjamas. I've made a right mess."
The other girls laughed,
"Fair enough, Rose," Magda said, "if I'd had a past week like yours, I'd be crying on everything."
Rose managed a humoured sniffle, before the girls were pulling away, Tessie rubbing her head affectionately.
"I don't suppose she's helped much," Tessie remarked as she withdrew, nodding towards Georgette's empty bunk. Merlin knew where their Quidditch captain had planned to spend the night, but it wasn't in her bed.
"The icing on the bloody cake, really." Rose agreed, and Tessie snorted.
"Oh well, Rosie," she said, "come Monday, it'll be a new week. A fresh start is what you need."