Author's Note: This chapter is told from Scorpius' perspective.
"And here's my stop, Rosie." I gestured the dark wooden door leading to my defence class. I threw her a smirk.
"Have educational fun, Scorpie."
Her warm fingers were still locked between mine with no sign of budging. My smirked turned into an affectionate smile. I suddenly -almost- didn't want to go to Defence. I had a five-page essay on duelling jinxes waiting for me. I wasn't about to reveal my nerdy side to Rose. Not that I was Professor Crepsley's biggest fan but I would take what I could get when it came to building up my duelling knowledge and skills.
My jaw tightened my thoughts ultimately circling back to my father's cold grey eyes, his always buttoned sleeves and how bloody skilled he was. The last person in the world I wanted 'training' me and spending hours upon hours with was my father.
Shudder.
His most recent letter contained a detailed rant about my detention and how I was reckless.
'You are pretty reckless, Scorpie.' Rose had grinned at me earlier in the library.
I frowned, fighting back the urge to give her the full-on eye roll I was saving for Father.
'I wasn't the one who tried to single-handedly fight off a death eater.'
Rose crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip. I immediately softened. Merlin, she was cute when she wanted to be even when she was about to rip into me.
'I was trying to save that poor wizard. We should figure out who he was and whether he ended up in St Mungo's…' and on it went, eating up one of my 'free' periods.
Nott, a boy whose house I unfortunately shared, sauntered past us into the classroom. Confident enough to hitched the corners of his sneering mouth upwards and pointedly stare at our intertwined hands but enough of a coward (wise enough, maybe) to quicken his pace and save his jeers until he was in the safety of the classroom with the rest of the Slytherins.
I looked at Rose, expecting to see her cheeks flushed red with a combination of worry and embarrassment or her glaring at the now shut DADA door.
She brought her shoulders up in a half-shrug. "You can kiss me if you want."
I feigned shock. "Rosie, it's only…" I pretended to check my pretend watch. "Two o'clock in the afternoon."
"Yeah, it's two o'clock which means your defence class is starting now." Without hesitation, she stretched up and managed to peck the 'v' of skin my loose unbuttoned collar formed. My breath caught. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do when I say goodbye to my brilliant boyfriend?" she pulled a face suddenly. "Too mushy, way too mushy, Rose." She shook head to herself. "I think I made myself sick but… em… have a productive class." She released my hand and switched to playing with the straps of her bag.
I leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek but she easily and playfully dodged it, batting her eyelashes at me.
"See you later, then, Rosie."
"I'm giving you something to look forward to." She smirked at me, already walking down the corridor. Her back hunching into a cringe when she realised what she just said.
I tugged at my green and silver tie. Was she ever going to relax?
"Hello, Malfoy," Eleanor Flint gave me plenty of notice of her presence before sitting down, tilting her head to the side, silently asking 'can I still sit with you?'
My internal answer: I don't care as long as you don't bug me.
My external answer: What I hope is a warm smile.
In actuality, she kind of reminds me of the young thestrals I saw last week when Hagrid was checking out the herd. Timid and unsure of where they belong in the herd besides their parents' shadow.
"Hey, Flint," I said, looking up from underlining key words in my Defence notes.
Potter and his gang's chairs creaked as one as they switched positions to do the worst possible thing they could do to me. Bark.
I shook my head, returning to my notes, such intelligent torture.
Flint squirmed beside me, self-consciously licking her teeth. Their crookedness she inherited from her father Marcus Flint, one of the most brutal, toughest player in the country. He recently retired and was now the manager of an Irish team- not that she wanted to talk about any of that.
"How are you today, Malfoy?"
"Great. How are you?"
"Okay, thanks."
Awkward pause.
My eyes flickered to the door at the top of the stairs leading to the Defence Professor's office. It was very unlike Crepsley to be anything but five minutes early. He liked using the extra time to take points off anyone who wasn't in Slytherin who dared walk through the door late and laugh at their excuses.
A minute later, Eleanor Flint cut across my inner monologue about wand movement stating the obvious.
"That's weird." She snorted. "He's never late. Do you think he's out?"
I shrugged and immediately heard my mother's voice in my head scolding me for behaving common.
"Probably just late, Flint."
"You know," she pushed a strand of her straight black hair behind her ear. "You can call me Eleanor."
I raised my eyebrows without thinking. Yeah, I 'saved' you from Potter once to humiliate him. I've sat next to you a total of four classes. Never shared a joke with you or anything beyond observations and stiff formal 'how are yous' and 'hellos'.
My mind flashed back to Hogsmeade a year or so ago. Rosie's voice rang in my ears 'Call me Rose. Weasley doesn't sound right anymore.' And I remembered how her words made me feel like my heart was about to burst out of my chest. A wave of hope crashed over me, she liked me, 'maybe she likes me… exactly like I like her.'
Pretended to turn my attention back to my essay. I was getting big headed it was nothing like that. Flint did not like me. I wasn't exactly the most desirable guy in the year. The surname Malfoy, my paleness, my large nose and my less than warm presence insured no one but Rosie looked at me twice for a good reason.
Abby's voice chimed in my head. 'Back the f up, bitch.'
I bit back a smile.
She was probably just lonely. She wasn't in the inner circle of Potter's group anymore as far as I could tell and I didn't ever see her with anyone but the toad she petted in the corridor in between classes.
I could sense Flint's mood shift beside me. Colour washed over her tan face.
I tried to be warm and kind. "Yeah, you can call me Scorpius. I don't mind." I cringed. I sounded like one of the parodies of Father circulating around Wizarding pop culture. Examples include: Draco buys HP flowers. Malfoy tries to join the golden trio. And my favourite, Draco got run over by a hippogriff.
Flint brightened up, her posture turning ramrod straight.
She sucked in a deep breath. Something bad was about to happen.
"Are you going to Hogsmeade, Scorpius?"
For Merlin's sake. Be nice. "Yes… with my girlfriend."
"You have a girlfriend?" she asked as if I was teasing her.
"Yeah."
"I thought the mudblood thing Potter was sending around was a joke."
I gave her a sharp look. "Abby is my friend. Rose Weasley is who I'm going to Hogsmeade with." Probably. I had to ask her.
Her eyes darted to the ceiling of the DADA classroom.
"And here's Crepsley," I said relief evident in my voice.
"Isn't she half-blood?" Flint's nose crinkled slightly.
"Why don't you ask her?"
That shut her up. My skin was itching with the urge to say more. Professor Crepsley had already whipped into action doling out the essays in the order of the seating plan while taking points off some Gryffindor girls with piercings all the way up their lobes.
I held my breath as Crepsley came to our table. I tried to school my expression into classic boredom. Not that I wanted Crepsley to say anything to me. If he said anything to a student while handing back an assignment it was usually something cold and critical about the content or angry about their yellow or pink ink. He really had something against ink that was not black.
He gave me a curt nod as he set down my parchment result face down.
I pressed my lips together, trying to contain my smugness. Merlin, I was turning into a swot. I blamed the amount of time a spent with the queen of the swots.
He moved onto Flint. When he had to comment to his Slytherin students he did it as close to 'kindly' as he could get. "When I say thirteen inches, Flint, I mean thirteen not twelve. Re-do."
I flipped my parchment over to see the result while Flint examined her, own gnawing on her lip, and Crepsley marched onto the table behind us.
'O'
The bell rang and Crepsley's wand returned to his robe pocket. The chalk stopped writing mid-sentence and set itself down on his desk.
"We'll return to this next lesson," Crepsley announced even though the good majority that made up the class, Gryffindors, had fled. "Remember to read chapter 101 again. There will be a test, Slytherins." He folded his arms. "Also there will be a house meeting in the common room at ten o'clock tonight for all year groups, spread the word. From my experience, no student goes to bed before midnight anyhow. And Potter, a word without you're 'gang'. Now."
Flint turned to me and stared like she expected me to say something to her. I pretended I didn't feel or see the look and continued to fold away my notes into my DADA book.
"So how did it happen?" she finally cleared her throat and spoke.
"I'm not an expert on spells but-"
"No, not the knockback jinx I meant with Weasley. It's just so weird."
I frowned. Great word choice.
She continued when I didn't jump to answer her. "Your parents can't possibly allow it. And hers-"
"It's hard to explain," I answered even though it wasn't. Honestly, I wasn't in the mood to give her a story to report back to Potter.
"Did you meet in class or outside?"
I stood up. "Don't remember." The first time I saw her was in the Daily Prophet with her parents at the Quidditch World Cup. The first time I saw her in the flesh was on Platform Nine and Three Quarters and we first spoke when she tried to attack Goyle, I first touched her then as well.
Flint wasn't convinced.
"Do you have a special someone?" I asked kindly but all cheese.
Flint stood up too. "As a matter of fact," she lifted her chin. "I do. He goes to Durmstrang."
"Interesting," I said blandly, certain she was lying.
"He's German and pureblood."
"What's his last name? I might know the family."
Her face paled and she pulled on her bag. Slowly she picked up her pile of books from the desk. "I don't like to show off," she eventually answered, her voice timid.
I didn't get to a chance to reply. Potter strutted over to Flint and brought his fist down on the pile of books in her hands with an ease that was sickening. The textbooks fell to the floor with a bang, parchment scattering across the floor. Potter's thugs and the other Slytherins heading for the door exploded with laughter.
Flint's eyes watered.
"Hey, Flinty," Potter said with a sneer on his face. His hand went to cup Flint's cheek like she was nothing more than a puppet for him to poke and prod. "You didn't-"
I stepped between them. "Leave her alone, Potter."
Flint used the distraction to run out of the classroom rubbing her eyes furiously.
Potter watched at her over my shoulder, his sneer curling into something disgusting and angry.
Professor Crepsley chose this moment to be a teacher again. "Mr Potter and Mr Malfoy, what are you doing?"
Potter fiddled with his nose ring. The skin surrounding it was tinged green. What a rebel.
"Nothing." Potter stepped back from me when it was clear I wasn't budging. "I was just giving Malfoy advice on how to talk to girls."
I bit back a response which included a brief history of Potter's perviness in choice language.
Professor Crepsley smiled dryly. "Your time would be best spent concerning yourself with textbooks, Mr Potter."
Potter flashed him a polite smile. "Of course, Professor, why do you think I'm getting straight Es in your class?"
Crepsley waved him off. "Mr Malfoy, I would like to speak to you now. I'll see the rest of you in the common room."
"Keep your eyes on your own wand, Malfoy." Potter hissed at me, with his back turned to Crepsley. His polite demeanour dropped like a sheet.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I scowled.
"You know exactly what I mean, Mal-foy." His eyes glared into mine daring but with a glint of something else… sinister.
He kicked Flint's books out of his way like he was stomping through snow. Before I could say anything back or dwell on Potter's oddness, oddness as in odder than usual, Crepsley beckoned me towards him with a finger. The Professor was blissfully unaware that all this was taking place. His focus was instead on a yellowing volume on his desk.
"Yes, Professor?" I didn't try to disguise my current mood.
He waited until the classroom door clicked shut behind the last of the Slytherins before speaking.
"Mr Malfoy," he drawled. "I believe you have a detention tonight with Professor Flitwick, is that correct?"
My eyes went to the ceiling, yeah don't remind me. "Yes."
"That shall be cancelled." He stated plainly.
"What?"
He cleared his throat pointedly at my lack of manners. "'I do not understand, Professor' is the phrase, I believe. Your father has been owling me consistently for the last week. He does not believe his son should be punished with nothing more than the reduction of house points. He believes you have been a victim of Hogwarts' bias to Slytherins." He flashed his surprisingly chalk white teeth.
I wondered did Father disclose most of this was because my girlfriend was a Ravenclaw with red hair, unbelievable wit, beauty and a very famous last name.
Crepsley continued. "That Professor is now under the impression you are spending this evening in detention with me. It would be very beneficial to all parties involved if you behaved like that was the case."
"It's fine, Professor," I said, thinking of Rosie doing detention on her own and the complaining I would have to listen to after. "I was in the wrong."
Crepsley looked up from his book and regarded me for a second. He could sense dung. "Also your father wrote a very interesting paragraph on your new found interest in duelling."
I bit the side of my mouth. So it wasn't Father then it was Mother, I would place a 100 Galleons on it, using Father's name to get Crepsley to take her seriously.
"And?" there was a defensive note in my voice.
"It shows." He simply put. "Don't bother with detention tonight, focus on your Defence and maybe if your improvement catches my eye again I might be able to help you sharpen your skills."
"Okay," I replied. Now I felt defensive and uncomfortable. Thanks, Mother.
"But, Mr Malfoy?" he raised his eyebrows. "I think you should watch out for Mr Potter, for all our sakes."
"What?" was Potter's pretentiousness rubbing off on everyone or could no one speak without feeling the need to be dramatic anymore?
"Well you are the only one not under Mr Potter's spell and I can't be everywhere at once, report back to me if you sense anything dark."
So this was what a curt nod and help from Professor Crepsley cost: being his gargoyle and watching over Potter.
"Shouldn't the prefects be doing that?"
Crepsley cackled before falling into silence and waving me out of the room. I gathered up Flint's books on the way out. I wasn't sure what to do with them but it would feel wrong to leave them there for Crepsley to throw in the bin.
"Hey, Scorpie," Rose called from a bench in the corridor, books and notes surrounding her. "You were ages."
What could the word dark and Potter in the same sentence be pointing to? I would've put 'immature' but it was unlike Crepsley to misuse a word.
"Rosie," I forced the thoughts of Crepsley and Potter to the back of my mind.
I sent her grin and headed towards her. I bent and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. My lips came back tasting salty like tears.
I stepped back to look at her properly. Her eyes were unnaturally red and her lips were chapped.
I squatted down in front of her not bothering to move the books.
"You okay?"
Rose cleared her throat. "I'm okay. How are you?"
"Worried about you."
She gave me a playful shove, her face lit up when I pushed her back.
"Let me guess," I dropped Flint's books and rested my hands on her knees. "The book you wanted in the library was checked out?" I was joking but I could still hope, even though I knew perfectly well Rose didn't cry over those things. She got annoyed, angry or both. Louder. Not quiet like this. "Someone misquoted Hogwarts: A History?"
She pushed my hands away and stood up. "Not this time." She said with a ghost of a smile.
I stood up slowly. "Rosie?" I prodded.
"My parents are talking about taking me and Hugo out of Hogwarts." Her breath caught.
My heart fell my stomach. "Why? You're safe at Hogwarts. It's safer than Durmstrang, Beauxtons and llvermorny combined."
She gritted her teeth. "They don't want to send me to another wizarding school. They want me and Hugo to be taught by Aurors who owe them 'favours' in the Austrailian outback with my muggle grandparents." Rose caught herself. "And I'm not saying muggle offensively. I'm saying muggle to convey how shut away from my friends and magic I would be. Not that I don't love my grandparents I do but…" she trailed off into a series of groans.
Now the acid in my stomach was eroding away at my heart.
"You won't be able to survive that heat."
"I know." Rose clapped her hands over her face.
"And it's just Harry Potter," I said. "It's been quiet for a good two weeks now."
Rose separated her fingers so she could peer out at me. "It's not over but the fight is not at Hogwarts."
Whether she liked it or not she was starting to see where I was coming from and starting to believe it herself. Even if she wasn't ready to admit she was breaking free from the fairytale 'Harry Potter is the centre of everything' world she grew up in.
I grimaced. "You're about five more forboding sentences away from sounding like Trelawney."
Rose pulled her hands away from her face. "I'm not leaving Hogwarts. I've worked too damn long on my OWLs and you can't be a prefect if you don't go to school."
"And me?" I added.
The corners of Rose's mouth pointed upwards. "And you. Your letters are never long enough." she held one my hands between the two of hers tracing soothing circles into my skin with her thumbs.
"How did you find this out?" I pulled myself away from her intense brown eyes.
Her expression flickered to agitated. "One letter from Mum. And one from Dad. They came at the same time but with different owls. The first letters in a long, long time and they both read like Prophet articles. No questions just full stops and semicolons in Mum's case. I've already sent them a bullet-point list back." She smiled thinly, dropping my hand and beginning to pack away her books. "Do you want to go for a walk? We have an hour before dinner and I need to clear my head. I almost punched Potter."
I waved her off. "That's normal." I kept my voice neutral and the tidal wave of rants and questions building up inside me behind a dam. Releasing them would make Rose freak out. "But I do need to find Flint," I said, picking up her books. "She ran away from Potter without her books."
Rose raised her eyebrows. This was an impossible thing to do in her world. "Why-"
"She's shy. Really shy. Okay. Do you want me to take your books?"
"You know the answer to that." Rose linked her free arm through mine, idly resting her head on me as we walked.
"And I don't have detention tonight."
Rose's head shot back up. "You're kidding."
"Not. My parents wrote to Crepsley and Crepsley got me out of it."
"Is it too late for your parents to save me?"
"Considering it's in two hours, Rosie, maybe but anything is possible." I gave her a smirk, my arm snaking from her arm to her waist, pulling her closer to me. "Crepsley wants me to pay him back by keeping an eye on Potter."
"Surely that is against the unwritten rules of Hogwarts. But who knows you might be a Slytherin prefect-"
"Let me stop you right there. N-O. You can be the prefect and I can abuse your privileges."
Rose shook her head. "Merlin you're-" she stopped abruptly.
"Dashingly handsome." I beamed.
Her face contorted into a frown. She stared down at the books wedged unevenly against my arm. She grabbed the top one for closer inspection. There was nothing special about it as far as I could see unless you were into stick figure doodles and love hearts.
"That's weird." Rose cocked her head. "See." She pointed to an inked triangle symbol that marked each of the corners of the book.
"The deathly hallows," I said, quickly losing interest.
"No," Rose said quite firmly. "It's not the deathly hallows. The hallows doesn't have a square in the centre. That's going to bother me… I recognise it from somewhere."
"A band?"
Rose pressed her lips together. "I'll see if it's a rune in my textbook later. I thought you might recognise it."
I raised my eyebrows. "Thanks for trying to include me in your little detective game but 2000 year old runes are the last things on my mind."
Rose put the book back where it was, straightening the pile while she was at it.
"I'll leave these in the common room and we can get back to our routine of snogging in a broom cupboard."
Rose's nose crinkled. "Yeah, in you're fake Divination predictions, Scorpius. We will go outside in the fresh air to do that." Rosie gestured to Flint's books again. "You should really give those back to her personally. They'll probably end up down a toilet in the boy's bathroom if Potter gets his filthy fingers anywhere near them."
I squeezed her waist. I didn't want to think about Flint or the fate of her books if I left them in the common room. Yes, her books looked like they were brand new and yes, they had notes in them but my patience and kindness for today had reached the end of its rope. When I didn't see her in the common room I left them on a cupboard holding two burning candles and a plaque marking Slytherin's last quidditch victory in the 1990s while my parents were still at school.
It was fine, I told Rose, wrapping a long red curl around my finger. And I thought again how much easier my school life would be if I was sorted into Ravenclaw.
Author's Note: Hi, everyone, I know I have been gone for a long time and I am sorry. A lot has happened in my personal life that has affected the updatings of my fanfictions. I plan to update regularly now.
Thank you again for reading and supporting me. It means the world to me. :)
