Scorpius took so long to pull himself together than Elspeth found him in the kitchen still fiddling with his hair. He had the good sense to look abashed, at least. He'd expected her to be enraged. Who wouldn't be, right? Mistletoe or no, he'd gotten carried away. That kiss had been... superfluous at best, and the results weren't subtle. He frowned down at his rumpled shirt, and set out to fix the buttons he'd done up incorrectly the first time.
Elspeth looked amused, the twinkle in her eyes only hinting at something unfamiliar.
"I snogged Weasley," he blurted, evidently losing all sense of delicacy in his delirium.
"I heard!" came her laughing response. He balked. She got to work correcting his belt and tie. "Poor thing. I imagine you're feeling a bit shaken?" Her words were so gentle, so empty of malice. He merely gave a tentative nod. "Mm. She has that effect on people." He was frozen there, fingers mid-button. "Did you have fun, at least?"
Scorpius was accustomed to traps, and that simply had to be one. "I'm not sure how to answer that," he mumbled, each word a tiptoe over eggshells.
Interestingly, that had her looking more offended than anything else he'd said that night. "Wha- Honestly, maybe?" Elspeth shook her head with a dry laugh, brows furrowed in his direction.
His gaze flicked over the pinches of her face, the frown and the thinly veiled upset simmering in her eyes. He mulled over his situation for too many seconds, picking and choosing his words carefully. He'd be damned if he'd let Weasley ruin whatever was between then, especially not when it was so new. "No," he finally decided. "It was terrible and I wish it'd never happened."
Elspeth's eyes hardened, squinted, and rolled. "Liar." She shook her head, hands dropping from him. He ached at the loss. "Clean yourself up, Malfoy. I'll see you inside." Her words were clipped, and she all but fled the room, arms crossed and eyes like stone.
It wasn't the reaction he was expecting.
He cursed, kicked a table leg (which didn't help, only made his toe throb), and looked frantically about for something reflective.
Things settled down again after Rose left - in a flash of singing confetti precisely one second after midnight as we rang in the New Year, classic - and Elspeth's relationship with Scorpius settled into a turbulent rhythm. They spent most of their time cooped up in a blissful bubble at whichever of their flats was closest to where they'd eaten dinner that night. Most nights were perfectly lovely, she thought. They'd unwind (sometimes with a shower, sometimes with quality bed time), do their chores together, then play a game and listen to the radio; or, if one had some extra work to do, the other would sit in the same room and read a book or do a puzzle and chat. They made easy, pleasant conversation into the night until they fell asleep; and in the mornings, they'd have breakfast together, quietly trading sections of The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and The Quibbler. They'd gossip about the headlines on their way to work, always with a playful competition to name the most interesting one. They kept things mostly professional while in the office, but they weren't subtle with their flirtatious glances and tendency to end up perched on one another's desks throughout the day.
This peace was the default state of being for them, but it wasn't their entire routine. Every few weeks - months if they were lucky - something would happen. Anything could set it off: a long day at the office, an accidental insult; sometimes one of them would fall asleep in the middle of an important conversation, or the other would show up late to dinner. Regardless of the trigger, one of them would be in a bad mood for a few days, and eventually the other would get tired of it.
They never fought. Not exactly.
It was more of a cold war - a tension that stuck to them like static and thickened the air of any room they entered. Their late night chats would get less pleasant, more passive-aggressive. They'd cuddle less. They'd stop doing the small things for each other - Scorpius would neglect to put sugar and cream in her coffee, Elspeth would make his bacon not how she knew he liked it - and then, inevitably, one of them would walk out.
It was not an unbalanced problem. Scorpius and Elspeth were equally likely to disappear in the night, only to reappear two days later as if nothing had happened. The one who pressed pause was always the one to press play. They kept things fair.
Fair, habitual silent treatment.
It was driving her mad.
Albus knew what kind of day he was going to have the second he smelt burnt bacon.
He shuffled down the hall to find Scorpius and Avery, predictably, sitting on opposite sides of his counter pointedly avoiding eye contact, and greeted them with a grunt. Scorpius lifted his cup at him, while Avery chimed a too-cheery "Good morning!"
Al frowned into his coffee and sniffed. "Look, whatever argument you two are pretending not to have-"
"We're not-" they started in unison, but he cut them off.
"I don't care. But do you have to take it out on my breakfast?" he implored, huffing as he cleared the burnt remains with a wave of his wand.
"I didn't do it on purpose," Avery mumbled with a pout.
Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Right."
"I didn't, dear. You forgot to put the filter in-"
Al had learned to tune out their falsely saccharine bickering after the first six months. So, he ignored them and set about preparing himself something edible. By the time he sat down at the table, they were back to a delicate silence. He'd only taken one bite of toast when Hugo came bounding out of the floo looking crazed. Knew today was gonna be an upsetting one.
"Mornin, mate. To what do we owe the pleasure of your unannounced company?"
Hugo frowned at each of them in turn. "Why do you look so calm?"
The group exchanged glances. "Do we have reason not to?" Avery asked, gently.
With a scowl, Hugo closed the distance to the table and yanked the Prophet from Scorpius's hands. "My puzzles," he pouted. Hugo only glared, unfolded it, and tossed the newspaper back onto the table with a slap. There, on the first page, in big letters read:
ROSE GRANGER-WEASLEY TO WED AMERICAN AUROR THOMAS GRAVES
Albus choked on his toast.