"You're being absolutely ridiculous."
"I am not!"
"Lils, Teddy said, rolling his eyes and shoveling another forkful of breakfast in his mouth, "The odds of that many cornish pixies even being in one place at the same time, much less cooperating with you long enough to even learn a dance-"
"I could train them! They'd listen to me!" Lily shouted, earning her several glances from students who promptly looked down after receiving an absolutely scathing glare from her.
Rose threw her head back laughing. "Teddy I'm really glad you decide to grace us with your presence only to have these absolutely riveting conversations at seven o'clock in the morning."
He groaned and shook his head."You're right-maybe I'll just go back over to the professor's table." He said, glancing over. Hugo, Al, Scorpius, Lily, and Roses' heads all turned to look over and started to laugh.
"Honestly Ted, I'd kill for the chance to eat my meals next to Professor Shelton," Hugo said, wagging his eyebrows looking between Teddy and their rather unfortunate-looking History of Magic professor.
Rose nodded sympathetically."Poor Victoire. Should I warn her about the two of you?"
Teddy took his newspaper and started hitting the two of them, groaning. "Lils, I've changed my mind, I'm on your side now. Cornish pixies all the way. Do you think we can train them to attack? Create an army? One that targets Granger-Weasley children?"
"I think they'd end up getting caught in their hair before they can do any real damage." Scorp pointed out, grinning at Rose as her face dropped from a smirk to a scowl.
Rose's hand flew to her hair slightly subconsciously. Her hair was far from her favorite feature about herself and it just stung a little bit when Scorpius made at least one joke daily about it.
"For god sake's Malfoy-six years of jokes about my fucking hair, I think you can do better than that by now."
He glanced at her for a moment and sighed, "You're right, Weasley." He nodded, sounding sincere. Rose paused, her fork in midair as the others looked at him, startled. Was it possible, Rose thought, she actually got through to him? He was done making fun of her hair?
She frowned."I am?"
He nodded."There are a lot of things to make fun of you for. I should be giving all your insufferable qualities more even attention. I will do better to attend to all of them." Teddy and Hugo laughed as Al hit his friend in the back of the head.
"Ugh! You are such a jerk," Rose said, shaking her head as she packed her things up for potions. Scorpius followed suit, smirking.
"No, no, you're right. I think I could make a schedule, Mondays could be hair, Tuesdays could be your height, I'll have to devote at least the weekend to your know it all ness but I really think I could make it work…" He nodded thoughtfully,
She rolled her eyes, tying her hair back."Well, if you want to spend all that time thinking about me, you be my guest."
Xx
Time wasn't on Scorp's side today.
He stood next to Al and across from Rose and her best friend (at least, best friend with no Potter or Weasley relation), Josephine Prosser, flicking his eyes between the professor and the two girls he was facing.
Draught of Living Death.
Really interesting potion. So interesting, that Scorpius had brewed it in his free time last summer.
During the summer, he spent whatever time he ended up at the Manor brewing potions, and this particular potion was usually stocked in the house. His father couldn't really sleep without it.
And that's about all it took. He saw a potion, saw what it did to someone, and suddenly, he needed to recreate it.
So he did. It took a few hours, but he did it flawlessly.
Which is why he spent the lecturing portion of the class staring at Rose.
He watched the way she took notes and twirled a piece of her hair as she glanced back and forth between the board in the front and her notes. He studied her hair the hair he had spent the past six years poking fun at. Bright red, long and frizzy, it was remarkably challenging to lose Rose in a crowd. It's not that it was ugly, really, it was just easy to make fun of, it was so opposite from the dull, and sleek he was used to. And that's what he and Rose made fun of each other for. Their differences.
He noticed how She always looked a little skittish in potions-it wasn't her strong suit, and he knew it bothered her it was the one class he had her beat it without trying.
Whatever, too bad she got to spend her summers playing chess and quidditch with her maybe five hundred family members and not trying to occupy the time in an eerily silent home by playing around with potions.
Boo hoo.
He watched her and Jo half-heartedly argue about who would be going to get the ingredients as if Rose would trust anyone else to go get them, and he followed her to the cabinet, waving off Al's also counterfeit attempt at offering to retrieve them.
"You know," he said, reaching up to grab the valerian sprigs from the top shelf for them both," If you need help in potions, I can tutor you." He said, smirking
She rolled her eyes, grabbing the sprig out of his hands."Oh, yeah, then I can tutor you in every other subject?" She raised an eyebrow at him mockingly.
He matched her look."What, like how you tutored Tommy Mills?" He moved to whisper in her ear, his mouth twitching" If you want me that bad, you can just tell me, no need to keep up this facade."
She groaned and pushed him off of her, blushing."Right, I think I need an anti-nausea potion now. Actually, no, too late, mind holding my hair back? Or would that make you sick too?" The last part slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it, and if she could have maybe it would've sounded a little less hurt.
He looked at her for a long moment, then gathered the rest of his ingredients."Grab an extra leaf of wormwood."
She frowned."It only calls for one." She said, looking back down at her list and at his empty hands.
He rolled his eyes, sighing."The extra leaf makes it more potent without adding any danger to it. You can not believe me if you want, but you can ask Albus how well not listening to me about potions can go."
She stared at him and slowly grabbed the extra piece, biting her lip."If you're fucking with me-"
"I'm going to stop you right there-watch me do the potion, maybe you'll learn a thing or two," He said, smirking."That is, if you can manage to focus on that and not how I'd look doing this shirtless."
She sat down, rolling her eyes at him. How he could be so confident when she had never shown the slightest interest in him was beyond her.
Nevertheless, she watched him do the potion. He put the extra wormwood in it. So did she.
They both received praise from Professor Braun.
Scorpius tried not to smirk too big at the awkward 'thank you' he received from Rose later in the day.
He also tried to pretend he didn't think the whole ordeal was sort of cute.
Lily, Jo, and Rose made their way out onto the grass by the Great lake, carrying their studying materials and a blanket to lay out on.
"Hmmm," Lily paused," Okay, okay. Braun, Shelton, and Carter."
Jo grinned."Easy! Eff Braun, marry Carter, kill Shelton!"
Lily nodded in agreement as Rose laid out the blanket and the three girls sat down."You two sound a little hot for teacher." Rose said, laughing.
"Oh, like you'd answer any differently." Lily teased and Rose glared at her for a minute, before giving in, laughing slightly as she nodded."Yeah, whatever. It's your turn, Jo."
"Right! Okay... Hmm...Albus, James, and Fred!"
The laughing stopped.
There was silence.
"J-Jo, you do realize that me and Lily...We're related to them, you do know that, right?"
She sighed."I know. Playing with you guys isn't fun, you're related to half the hot guys at this school." She pouted before her eyes lit up."Wait, okay! Zacharia Bright, Evan Bourne, and...Oh! Scorpius Malfoy." She turned over to lay on her stomach, facing them and grinning at Rose/
She groaned."Well, I know who I'm killing-"
"Oh come on, you'd rather screw or marry Evan? Really? I saw him purposely falling off of his broom last year to see how many times he could fall before he got so dizzy he puked. True story."
Rose laughed."I don't think you guys realize just how gross I think Malfoy is," She said, shaking her head.
"Come on, I know you guys are like mortal enemies or whatever," Jo mocked, "But you can't tell me you don't think he's hot. There's a reason hooking up with him is like, a rite of passage."
Rose scrunched up her nose, shaking her head and pointedly brought out her book in an obvious attempt to end the conversation. Scorpius Malfoy? Hot? As if.
I mean, sure, maybe she had thought once or twice that maybe, under the right lighting, she could understand why some (read: all) girls at Hogwarts may have found him to be attractive.
Maybe.
But last time she checked, tall blondes who she couldn't stand were not her type.
And that was for sure.
Rose skimmed her notes, taking note of what she hadn't studied about a thousand times before, and making special notes of what she knew she needed to start mapping away for her entry-level healing exams.
It was only two years away, after all!
"So," Lily interrupted the silence."I got asked out on a date to Hogsmeade."
Rose looked up at her, raising an eyebrow."Who's the unfortunate guy?" She asked, feigning interest, mentally groaning, and wanting to get back to her reading
It wasn't that she wasn't happy for Lily, per se, it's just... Lily had a tendency to fall hard and fast, but she also got over it just as the guy started to get attached, and it was sort of a waste of time to remember names. One week she swore she was absolutely head over heels for Brady Dalby, a sixth-year Hufflepuff, and then dumped him the following week because she found out he preferred the lemon cake from Madam Puddifoot's as opposed to the chocolate strawberry cake and Lily considered that to be 'completely sociopathic and 'a clear indicator of a lack of any possible future'.
She began to tell her about how Teagan Bentley-really, that was the poor bloke's name-asked her out after Quidditch practice which made the extra half an hour she spent doing her braids beforehand totally worth it because he's an absolute dreamboat and she thinks they'll really get along.
Rose began to brainstorm what ridiculous reason she would have to end it with him.
"I want to go on a date," Jo pouted, crossing her arms.
Rose glanced up at her, abandoning her book and her hopes of getting to study the anti potion for the sleeping draught she had done earlier."I thought things were going okay between you and Alexa?"
She shook her head, sighing."No, she got back with her ex. I'm whatever about it, though. How is that it feels like even though I date boys and girls, my love life is still completely garbage?" She whined, not sounding unlike a child.
Rose gave her a mock sympathetic look and placed her hand on her arm."I guess that means you're the issue."
Jo knocked her over the head with her book, laughing."You're a dick!"
She grinned back at her."I know, right? Can I go back to studying now?"
"You just don't want to talk about this because you know your love life is obsolete."
Rose gaped at her as Lily burst out laughing."Oh, I'm the dick? Besides, I have a love life, I went out with that Ravenclaw not that long ago!" She said proudly.
Jo and Lily exchanged a look and Lily sighed."Erm, Rose. That was two years ago."
"No way! Jo, tell her she's wrong.'
Jo looked at her friend sympathetically."No, she's right. Remember, it was third-year because you tried to get out of it by saying Ron and Hermione wouldn't let you go? But then you bumped into each other and Scorpius happily told him that you were free to go? You ended up turning Scorpius's hair green for a week."
Rose smirked at the memory before frowning slightly. Had it been that long? She began to feel slightly subconscious- she hadn't really been crushing on anyone but it still hurt that no one at Hogwarts had asked her out since before she had to start wearing a freaking bra.
"What about James's friend that you were seeing for a little bit? Dean? Do you guys ever talk still?" Lily said, smirking a little. Rose's face warmed at the thought- Dean was two years older than her and they had only met because he came over to the burrow to play Quidditch with the boys quite often, and they had ended up sneaking all over the place to snog last summer. It was probably one of the only things that Lily knew about and Al didn't, as they both agreed it was better to keep it as far away from James 'I'll just make this uncomfortable' Potter, something Aunt Ginny says he must've inherited from Ron. So it was kept secret.
"No, he, um, still writes to me sometimes, but I don't really respond." She said, biting her lip. The last thing she needed was to get feelings for someone who was best friends with one of her cousins. Now that was a recipe for disaster.
"Wow, Rose Weasley. Who knew you'd be the type to snog someone and then dump them?' Jo laughed as footsteps approached them
"Who is Rose snogging?" Al's voice scared Rose and she shrieked, turning to look back at the faces of Al, Scorpius, and Hugo. She glared at them
"No one." She mumbled, shifting so the boys could join them.
Scorp laughed."Well, that's not a surprise." He said, sitting down next to her as Al handed her an envelope.
"Right, anyways. This came for you."
Rose frowned, studying it."Who is this from?"
Al shrugged."I don't know, last time I checked me and Hugo were under pretty strict orders, from you, to not open your mail."
Rose chuckled and nodded, opening the letter.
As she read the words, her heart immediately dropped to her stomach and she struggled to maintain a poker face as everyone stared at her expectedly.
"Rosie, you okay?" Al said, frowning. She nodded slowly, trying to blink back tears.
"Yeah...I, um, I gotta go. I will check in with you guys later, though, okay?" She said, giving a reassuring smile before quickly packing up her bags and hurrying off in search of Teddy, quickly pawing off the tears which were now freely streaming down her face.
There you guys go, I'm gifting you with a cliffhanger. Now that I've got you guys on the edge of your seats, it sounds like a good time to mention that writing reviews REALLY give me the motivation to write and update faster so do with that what you will ;)
Also, I hope you guys are in this for the long haul because I've just finished mapping out this story and i plan on making it loooong.