A/N: Well, I think it's about time for some more ScoRose to help ease us through the darkening days and hellish second wave. I've wanted to write this plot-line for a while but thought it might be a bit too ridiculous. Then I decided ridiculous fanfiction is exactly what the world needs more of right now! Hope you all enjoy and, as always, I love to hear from you!

Huge thanks to Arnel 63 for their brilliant beta work.

Chapter 1: Viaducts & Vexations

Rose Weasley was having an absolutely atrocious day.

This, in itself, was not great cause for alarm, as Rose tended to find that any day on which she was required to attend her desk job at the Ministry could be considered fairly appalling. The remarkable thing about this particular occasion, however, was that it was still only ten past nine in the morning.

Hobbling across the Ministry Atrium – brandishing a broken-heeled left shoe, whilst a rather large coffee stain seeped slowly into her blouse – Rose squeezed herself into the next available lift, jostling three heavy case files under her arm, and turning just in time to be smacked squarely in the face by a particularly aggressive interdepartmental memo.

She rolled her eyes skyward, huffing her unruly fringe out of her eyes, and pointedly ignored the sympathetic smile from the middle-aged lift attendant for the duration of the ride down to Level Five – Department of International Magical Co-operation.

"Good morning, Rosie!"

"No, it really isn't, Martin," she snapped, staggering into their small, shared office and tossing her broken shoe and files onto a desk already littered with parchment.

Martin Creevey peered at her from behind a copy of that morning's Daily Prophet. "Let me guess," he started tentatively, "somebody tried to repair their own Floo again, didn't they? I said you'd better get a man in —,"

"Yes, well, 'a man' costs more galleons than I'd care to part with." Rose collapsed into her desk chair, rubbing at her bare foot with a wince. "And besides, I really thought I had it this time! I made it over to my Dad's new place just fine last night, then I tried to Floo to work this morning and shot out sideways in some old lady's living room. Poor thing got the fright of her life."

Casting a quick and rather well-practiced Reparo on her broken shoe, Martin tutted, "One of these days, Rosie, you're going to break more than just a heel —,"

"You make it sound as if I enjoy gallivanting about other people's fireplaces!" she cried, finding she had to laugh as the only alternative was to break down in tears and it wasn't even ten AM yet.

In reality, her dear colleague and co-habitant of the broom cupboard they jokingly called an office had a point. She ought to have had her Floo fixed weeks ago but she'd simply been too busy. Its current list of casualties – not counting her little adventure that morning – included her cousin Roxanne, who had been attempting to Floo home and found herself in a library in Leicester and her brother, Hugo, who had been summarily deposited on his head on her living room rug last week when he'd last popped in to check his sister was actually still alive.

Martin was probably right – she should just pay someone to come out and fix the bloody thing. But then her mum would find out somehow, like she always did, and offer to tutor her on elemental transportation charms, which Rose really didn't have the time for either. Frankly, it was a no-win situation.

With a sigh, she turned her ire towards the chaos of parchment that was her desk, and made a valiant attempt to pay attention as Martin regaled her with the tale of last night's dating disaster. She failed almost instantly for two reasons – the first: Martin had a thing for burly, monosyllabic Quidditch players, so it was never a particular surprise when they turned out to be terrible conversationalists. And secondly, she'd just spotted the familiar royal blue of an interdepartmental memo from the Ministry Treasury sitting in her in-tray.

Shoving her stack of files to one side, Rose hastily unfolded the letter, still twitching at the edges, and sat back with baited breath to read the long-awaited response:

Dear Ms Weasley,

We regret to inform you that your recent application for funding has been declined. Whilst we agree that the renovation of Wizarding Britain's historical sites is a worthy cause, we at the Treasury feel there are more pressing matters that require our attention and charity in the current economic climate.

As this is the sixth request for funding that we have received from yourself in regards to this matter, we respectfully remind you of the annual limit to applications that we are able to receive from one individual. You have already exceeded this number by four -

And, just like that, the memo went sailing into the rubbish bin. Honestly, it was a testament to her self-restraint the bloody thing hadn't burst into flames.

She didn't need to read the rest. After five previous and identical letters, she could practically recite the brutal words of rejection from the Ministry Treasury by heart. In fact, she thought crossly, she might as well just start writing them to herself, cut out the middle man entirely.

Rose let her head loll back against her desk chair with something akin to a growl of frustration. After weeks of hard work – her evenings devoted to pouring over blueprints and reconstruction spells, missing out on trips to the pub and even dinner most nights – she'd been foolish enough to hope for a different outcome. Hoping that instead of more diplomatic brush offs and patronising apologies, the Ministry Big-Wigs up on the first floor might have considered parting with a few lousy Knuts to support this latest cause.

The historic, architecturally astounding Glenfinnan Viaduct, that had once formed part of the journey for the Hogwarts Express, was crumbling to its very foundations. No longer necessary for travel – as students were now permitted to make their way to and from the school at the start and end of each term via a carefully regulated, closed-off Floo network – the railway line and its viaduct had become obsolete. The stonework of the colossal pillars and elegant arches had not been properly maintained for over ten years now, and the entire thing was at risk of collapse if the Ministry didn't put some serious galleons and man-power into its timely restoration.

And, really, was it so much to ask? She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried not to startle Martin by screaming aloud in frustration. She was the one who'd already spent hours working on this project in her spare time – to the detriment of her social life, her healthy eating habits, not to mention her actual job. The case files she was supposed to have been working on these last few weeks were piling up thick and fast (the three currently weighting down her desk were just the tip of the iceberg), but she found the time anyway because she knew it was important, because it mattered.

With a great deal of reflection, Rose had eventually come to terms with her previous rejections. She could understand why there'd been limited support of her quest to resurrect the statue of Samson Wiblin: Runner Up in the All-England Wizarding Duelling Competition of 1430. And there'd been nothing but general confusion when she'd campaigned for the re-institution of the flushing toilet entryways into the Ministry lobby, deemed an unhygienic way to commute since before she was born. But this time she'd been sure they would listen, that there would be interest in trying to save this amazing monument that had once allowed them all to pass safely through the wilds of Scotland.

Rose had fallen in love with the History of Magic (despite Professor Binns' best efforts) from her very first year at Hogwarts. She'd been fascinated by the Founders, gripped by the tales of Uric the Oddball, and found the Giant Wars of 1911 to be utterly compelling. The fact that no one else seemed to share her passion for all things ancient was a source of constant dismay to her.

Even her own mother seemed to have limited enthusiasm, referring to Rose's latest cause as 'another of her pet projects' – which, actually, Rose found a bit rich coming from a woman who spent the better part of her education trying to assault house elves with woollen hats.

Feeling a sudden flare of temper, Rose fished the crumpled memo out of the bin – wondering which prat with an abacus had been given the task of rejecting her this time. She hadn't failed to notice that her applications were being handled by someone further and further down the food chain with each passing rejection, as if the higher ups had decided to wash their hands of her entirely. It was probably some lowly intern, fresh out of Hogwarts that she owed for this latest missive —

Or… not.

Rose stared at the elegant signature at the bottom of the letter, a wave of something that could only be described as a furious nausea threatening to overwhelm her.

Scorpius. Bloody. Malfoy.

Shiteing Salazar, she seethed through clenched teeth. Not only had that absolute cretin managed to get himself promoted – to Assistant Deputy to Minister Finch-Fletchley, Head of the Ministry Treasury, or so his ridiculously long signature claimed – but he'd also been the one to refuse her application this time.

Oh, and she'd bet he'd done it with glee! Probably cackling to himself in that roomy corner office of his, sitting on his piles of galleons and rubbing his pasty hands together as he turned her down. Not today, Weasley, better luck next time! She could practically hear the smirk echoing down the Ministry corridors.

To call Scorpius Malfoy her 'arch-nemesis' seemed awfully childish and dramatic. It was also the greatest understatement of all time. It still baffled Rose that they had managed to make it through seven years of education together knowing little more than each other's names. How one could live within the same castle as the personification of evil and not know about it was something she puzzled over regularly.

With something resembling a snarl, Rose bolted from her chair, startling poor Martin in the process who almost spilt his cup of Earl Grey all over his newspaper.

"Rosie, where are you going?! We've got briefings in ten —,"

"I need to see a man about a bridge!" she snapped, auburn curls flying as she tore out of the office and back towards the golden gates of the lifts: a woman on a mission. Because if Scorpius Malfoy thought that he could put her back in her box with one neatly written memo, then the slimy git was even more delusional than she gave him credit for.

The slimy git – or, as he preferred to go by: Malfoy, Scorpius Malfoy – was actually having a rather pleasant morning.

He'd rolled into work a little after nine, fortuitously bumping into his good friend and old dormmate, Jasper Nott, who just so happened to owe him ten galleons.

"I don't get it," Jasper had sulked, as Scorpius grinned and slipped his winnings into the inside pocket of his robes. "No way you could have known about that early collision! I swear you've got the league fixed somehow, Malfoy."

Scorpius merely chuckled. "No fix, it's just simple physics. Potter's half the size of O'Hare, which means half the weight. The latter was never going to beat him to the Snitch, even without the broken arm."

He'd bid a cheery, wealthier goodbye to his sullen friend who stepped out at Level 3: Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophe's, before enjoying the rest of the lift ride up alone. On the short walk to his airy corner office, he happened to notice that they'd hired a new secretary. This one seemed pretty and perky, and blushed furiously as he bid her a good morning, which he rather enjoyed. And finally, as he sank into the soft leather of his desk chair – polished brown leather to match the antique desk he'd recently had shipped in from Borgin & Burkes – he found a piping hot caffeinated beverage already awaiting him, courtesy of his attentive personal secretary.

Oh, yes – he was having a very pleasant morning indeed. The only slight dampener on proceedings sat before him on the desk: yet another pile of funding applications to sort through.

He appraised the stack with a familiar grimace. This particular responsibility had landed in his lap courtesy of his recent promotion to Assistant Deputy. It was a step up the ladder, in the sense that he was now trusted to make such decisions on his own – which projects would receive the financial backing of the Ministry and how much gold to part with – and the job itself was a stepping stone, of course, to Deputy and Head of Department, then Minister beyond. It was just that, more than half the time, the applications he received for public funding were nothing short of utterly barmy.

Last week alone he'd turned down a variety of ridiculous appeals, including (but by no means limited to) a request for funds to open a spa retreat for werewolves in East Surrey, another for a research grant to study the effects of dipping bunions into Gillywater, and one from some old hag in Wiltshire who wanted the Ministry to pay for her kitchen extension. Needless to say, each had received a polite but firm refusal of funds from him.

Most days, reading through such a pile left him wondering about the general wizarding populace's mental state, it really did.

As if on cue, Scorpius' head jerked up at the sound of a scuffle coming from outside his office door and, a moment later – in a flurry of limbs and red hair – one such applicant came stumbling into the room, practically dragging one of the poor secretaries with her, who had evidently made a valiant attempt to stop her intruding.

"Malfoy," came the familiar yell, "I want a word with you!"

Scorpius marvelled, as he always did, at the sheer volume of Rose Weasley. He wondered if the woman realised that she was, in fact, indoors and not out in the middle of the Quidditch bleachers…surrounded by Erumpents…whilst a hurricane raged around her.

His poor secretary tried to catch her breath, "I'm so sorry, Mr Malfoy, sir. I tried to tell her you were very busy and that she couldn't just come in here without an appointment —,"

Scorpius smiled tightly and held up a hand to quieten them both. It worked on his secretary; Rose let out something that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

"Not to worry, Jemima. I have a few minutes before my first meeting, perhaps I might be able to assist Miss Weasley to calm down in that time." He looked up at them both, innocently, taking private delight in the murderous crimson flush that soaked Rose's cheeks.

He waited for his secretary to leave them alone before finally relenting to the shit-eating grin that had been eager to come out and play from the moment his old classmate had barged through the door.

In truth, this wasn't an entirely uncommon occurrence. At least once a week they had some form of altercation – whether it was Rose marching in here to declare war over his latest insult to her sensibilities, or an impromptu sniping match if they bumped into one another in the hallways. He enjoyed the simple thrill of watching a lift door close in her face, of beating her to the last blueberry muffin in the lobby coffee shop. Once, in an interdepartmental meeting, he'd charmed one of the legs on her chair three inches shorter than the rest, and watched on in delight as she'd spent the next hour and a half swaying back and forth precariously.

It was hard to explain, but infuriating Rose Weasley had rapidly become one of the greatest joys of his adult life. He could only assume it was the physical distance between the Slytherin and Gryffindor common rooms that had prevented him from discovering this pastime during their adolescence. How on Earth he hadn't noticed that one of his classmates was the human incarnation of a Hungarian Horntail would forever remain a mystery to him. The woman was as quick-tempered as she was insufferable. And, really, if she wasn't always so quick to bite, so quick to bare her teeth at even the lightest of teasing, it wouldn't be nearly half as fun. She practically brought it upon herself.

Grin widening, he relaxed back in his chair. "As ever, you make an entrance with both grace and decorum, Weasley. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Rose glared at him, hotly. "You know perfectly well why I'm here. I want my funding!"

"Ah, yes," he chuckled, reaching for the top most file from that day's stack of applications and pretending to peruse it. "Your little bridge project…Terribly sorry about that, but as I said in my memo, the Ministry has other priorities in this current economic climate and -,"

"That's hippogriff shite and you know it, Malfoy! I bet you didn't even read my proposal, did you? Just took one look at my name and sent the entire thing up in flames!"

"First of all, I believe that would constitute a rather serious fire hazard, considering your application was well over twenty pages long," he drawled, tiredly. "And secondly, there was nothing personal about it, Weasley. Whilst you apparently struggle to maintain any degree of professionalism at work, it's hardly in my interest to use my elevated position to carry out personal vendettas." He pointedly reached a hand across the desk to straighten his shiny, brass name plate and fixed her with another grin. Rose simply rolled her eyes, acerbically. "I rejected your application because I didn't feel it deserved the funds."

"'Didn't deserve the —'," Rose gawked at him. "You must be joking?! It's a national monument, Malfoy! It's a symbol of our nation's past. Think of the hundreds of years' worth of students – us included! – who took the Express over that viaduct, year in and year out. It has meaning! It has importance!"

He stared up at her, calmly, "I disagree. It's nothing more than a crumbling structure in the middle of the Scottish wilderness. Frankly, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen and somebody should tear the bloody thing down. It's obsolete."

"Obsolete?!"

He tilted his head to observe her, evidently amused. "Indeed. As in: useless, no longer required, to serve no functional purpose —,"

"I know what obsolete means, you arse!" she snarled, slamming her palms down on his desk and bringing her gaze – a caerulean sea's worth of fire – level with his. Oh, he'd really unleashed the banshee now, he thought, gleefully.

"You know," she continued, venomously, "I really don't know why I expected an uncultured boggart like you to recognise that something might have value, other than in the form of cold, hard galleons, that is."

"I'm confused," he feigned, "weren't you the one begging me for money, just moments ago?"

Rose let out another high-pitched growl of frustration and Scorpius frowned as he heard one of her work-appropriate shoes make contact with his bespoke mahogany desk. She fizzed with rage, raking a hand through her unruly mess of curls, and turned away to mutter a string of unkind expletives. He caught something about her upcoming plans to set his robes on fire and chuckled, darkly.

"Look, Weasley, do you want my advice?"

"Certainly not —," she started.

"Stop wasting time on these little pet projects of yours and stick to your day job… Which reminds me," an indulgent smirk crept up the side of his mouth, "have you managed to escape the dizzying heights of that broom cupboard you share yet? Got yourself a nice little corner office all of your own?"

That irked, he could tell – her shoulders stiffened and she glowered at him over her shoulder. He knew perfectly well that she hadn't, of course. The Treasury had close links with the Department of International Magical Co-operation where Rose worked, and he was very aware that she'd recently been passed up for a similar promotion to his – losing out to Niall Finnigan, of all people. That layabout leprechaun could barely spell 'work ethic', never mind possess some of his own. What he did have, however, was an easy charisma and a close personal friendship with the Head of Department – and that, folks, is politics in action.

"My career prospects are of absolutely no concern to you," she muttered, coldly. Scorpius could only imagine the sheer amount of will power she was exerting by nothexing him square in the face.

"I beg to differ," he leant back in his chair, "you see, we have a pool running – myself and the other Assistant Deputies, that is – about whether you'll ever manage to get yourself promoted. I've got twenty galleons on you taking an indefinite leave of absence due to mental hysteria before the year is out."

"Enough!" Rose spun on her heel and levelled him with a glare so poisonous, Scorpius had to resist the urge to check his own pulse. His grin widened.

"Listen to me very carefully, Malfoy." She advanced towards the desk slowly, her voice low and dripping with venom. He leant forward, eyebrow quirked in amusement, until there was only the stack of applications between them. "One of these days," she continued, "everyone else here is going to realise what I've known for years now: that you're nothing but a smarmy, stuck-up toe-rag, with no actual skills or qualities to speak of. And, when they do, I'm going to make sure I have a front-row seat as they escort you from this building and toss you out on your designer robe-wearing arse."

Scorpius blinked up at her in mock offence. "Careful, Weasley. Any more talk of my arse and we'll find ourselves sitting in a sexual harassment in the workplace seminar before the week is out."

Rose stared at him for a beat longer before throwing up her hands in furious resignation, (almost certainly not) accidentally knocking over the stack of applications so that parchment flooded his desk. Scorpius frowned in annoyance, watching as she turned on her heel and stomped back towards the door

"This isn't over, you know?" she seethed at him. "I will get my funding, even if I have to come here and yell at you every morning, until one or both of us dies!"

"Be my guest, Weasley. Do me a favour and try and make it within my actual office hours next time, yes?"

The door slammed so hard in its frame that his signed photo of the Wimbourne Wasps' league winning team of 2009 fell off the wall.

Well, he thought to himself, that was… bracing. With a quick straighten of his tie and a sip of his coffee, he attempted to turn his attentions towards some actual work. He'd managed as much as re-stacking some of the discarded files, when another sharp knock at his door gave him pause.

"Weasley, if you've come back because you've thought of a better insult, you ought to know it's really all in the timing —,"

His secretary, Jemima, poked her head around the door. He couldn't fail to notice she looked a tad bedraggled from her earlier wrestling match with Rose.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you again, Mr Malfoy," she dithered at the door. Scorpius watched her swallow nervously and sat up a little straighter in his chair. "It's just…well, your parents are here. They say it's rather urgent and that… err, that they're here to discuss your birthday."

And, suddenly, Rose Weasley wasn't the only one with coffee all down their shirt.

A little-known fact about Wizarding society was that when Cantankerous Nott – renowned author of The Sacred Twenty-Eight and raving Pureblood supremacist looney – compiled his directory of those most ancient and worthy houses, he neglected to mention that his book's title hid a second (and more problematic) meaning.

For, not only does the term relate to the number of families that could still boast an unsullied lineage of Pureblood wizards at the turn of the twentieth century, but it also hinted towards a most secretive and ancient bit of magic. A blood-oath, sworn by the ancestors of each of those houses, that should any heir reach the sacred age of twenty-eight years unmarried, they would be bound in betrothal to another descendant from within this exclusive circle.

Scorpius Malfoy frequently tried to forget this particular little titbit of history. But, as he glanced in horror from his nervous secretary to the calendar adorning the back of his office door, he was sharply reminded of one crucial thing: that he, himself, would turn twenty-eight in a mere six months. Or, to be exact: five months, twenty-nine days, fourteen hours and… six minutes.

But who's counting.

.