Folie à Deux

by ItsLeviOsa-NotLevioSA

"In truth, if the last six years had been any indication, sharing the Head position with Malfoy was going to be awful; living with him insufferable. Then again, although he was as caustic as ever, nothing outrageous had happened between the two yet. True, it was only Wednesday, but for them, it was almost a record." My best attempts to write a believable high school fic. Enjoy!

18. I Found A Martyr In My Bed Tonight

Chapter 18: I Found A Martyr In My Bed Tonight or, Being Miserable Is Gonna Be Fun

Rating: M mainly for language, and I can't discount any funny business later on

Disclaimer: I work with only what J.K. Rowling has given me.

---

Silver.

That was the first thing Rose noticed. They weren't grey; they were far too bright to be grey.

His silver eyes stared straight ahead — not at anything or anyone, not even at the Hall, which was easily the most wonderful thing Rose had ever seen — and were completely unflinching, just as he had been as he'd resolutely walked forward in the sudden silence, as if he was unaware of every eye on the back of his pale blonde head as he took his place on the stool.

Then, as Rose continued to watch, something in his eyes seemed to flicker, as if nothing had become some kind of something, and the hat opened its brim.

"SLYTHERIN!"

It echoed in the silence, in the excruciating stillness, before slowly, finally, soft, scattered claps began to emerge from the right-most table in the hall, trickling through the lines until polite, restrained applause filled the room. Scorpius Malfoy looked at Professor McGonagall and nodded courteously at her before he turned to face the rest of the Hall, where everyone could see that the corners of his lips had turned up, and then he stepped gracefully from the stool and made his way towards the Slytherin table.

"There's a surprise," Al muttered in a low undertone from beside her.

Rose's eyes still followed him as he sat down. "At least he's brave."

The girls around her seemed to agree; they had dissolved into hushed, excited whispers, the kind of whispers girls reserved for when they had found a boy who interested them.

McGonagall called the next name and a boy with dishwater blonde hair and delicate features made his way up to the platform, and Al inclined his head towards Rose's and whispered, "N."

"Usually no O's," she whispered back.

Something rustled against her sleeve, and she cast her eyes down to see Al's fingers bunched in his robes, the whites of his knuckles standing out against the dark fabric. His gaze was fixed on the boy being Sorted, frowning as he tried to gauge how quickly it would be done, but this boy was taking a while — a longer time than anyone else had so far — and when two full minutes had passed, the Hall began to hum with curiosity.

"C'mon," Al said under his breath, his gaze now drilling into the Hat so hard it was as if he was trying — through sheer willpower — to force its decision himself. "Choose."

And suddenly, as if the old Hat had heard his wishes, the tear along its patched brim opened, and—

"SLYTHERIN!"

The boy's face stretched into a grin as the room came to life again, and he hopped off the stool and headed for the right-most table, seating himself down next to Scorpius Malfoy and immediately extending his hand in greeting. Rose had just shifted her gaze back to the front when Professor McGonagall cleared her throat.

"Potter, Albus!"

Any noise that had been generated by the previous boy's Sorting vanished into awed, reverential silence, and then whispers began to ripple through the Hall as the crowd waited for him to surface. Al had become a statue next to her, and she squeezed his hand in reassurance, clammy as it was, and the pressure seemed to jolt some movement into him. He swallowed, and moved through the space that had opened for him, his hands stuck in his trouser pockets to hide his trembling fingers.

Al kept his gaze on the floor even as he turned back around, only raising his head once he had sat down on the stool, and even then he ignored the sea of students as he immediately sought out his cousin from where he had left her, but she barely had any time to give him a smile before—

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table immediately exploded, overjoyed cheers and claps resounding throughout the room and bouncing off the walls. Most of the table had gotten to its feet, and Rose could see that even Al's brother James was up too, a smile of begrudging respect on his face as he clapped with the rest. Rose could sense some of her fellow first years, hungry for gossip in this new world, turning to where Scorpius had sat down, but when she followed their gazes, she saw that he was clapping along with the other Slytherins. If he felt any malice, he was hiding it extremely well.

Rose looked back at the podium where Al was still sitting, and she saw the Headmistress fighting a little smile of her own, and somehow Rose only just now noticed her Uncle Neville sitting at the staff table behind Al, his hands raised above his head as he applauded, beaming. He caught her eye and grinned, waving. Her heart clenched, and she gave a little wave back.

Al's own smile was radiant — no one had received applause like this — and after he jumped off the stool, he shot her two thumbs up, and Rose grinned weakly back, suddenly guilty after having felt something pang deep within her chest.

It wasn't that she wasn't pleased for Al, of course she was, but how had it all happened so fast and so…easily? She watched as Al joined his brother and a few of their other cousins, braving the myriad of hands thrusted out at him with a surprised but elated grin. With all of Al's nervousness, she had almost forgotten about her own Sorting — well, put-aside would be more accurate. It had been far more preferable to focus her brainpower on being there for Al during the monumental pressure of his impending Sorting than it had been to think about the pressure mounting on hers, which seemed minute in comparison. But now, she thought as she dimly registered Professor McGonagall calling up the next name, that was all she had left.

She had never told anyone this, ever, but even as she'd listened to Al's worries about being Sorted into Slytherin and refuted that he was being shallow and playing into the tribalism between Houses and all of that, she had never quite been able to take her own words to heart. She knew it wasn't really even about the House for Al — it was about what people expected of him and how he would face up to it. Once, he had confided in her that she was lucky that she wasn't so fixed on what other people thought about her, that she was happy to carve out a name for herself no matter what other people expected. But he was wrong.

The room had just seen a Malfoy go to Slytherin and a Potter go to Gryffindor, and she felt like the final piece of the puzzle, the one that would ruin the entire picture if it didn't fit.

"Weasley, Rose!"

Those things mattered to her. They mattered to her more than she wanted to admit.

She looked up, her heart railing in her chest, and she took a deep, steeling breath before she stepped forward.

---

The Sorting and the Welcome Feast had ended, and Scorpius filed down a narrow, winding staircase with the rest of the Slytherins, next to a boy who would not stop talking, and he resisted the urge to rub his arms as cold, dry air began to seep into his skin the further they descended. He had turned around for a brief moment to watch the rest of the students as they headed as one excited horde towards the Grand Staircase, and an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling had settled in at the base of his stomach, and he'd instantly wondered why he'd even looked.

"I'm freezing, are you freezing? God, they could've warned us how cold it is down here, I would've asked the Hat to put me in Ravenclaw instead, I bet their room is warm, don't you?"

Scorpius shrugged. "It is a little cold."

He'd known who the boy was as soon as he'd heard his name — purebloods made it a habit of knowing other purebloods, and their fathers had been friends, besides. Maybe 'alliances' was a better word for it. When Scorpius looked at Tobias Nott, 'alliance' felt like a strange, alien word, impossible to reconcile with this happy, chattering boy who had sat down next to the most despised kid in school and shook his hand without a second thought.

"I think it's nice down here though," Tobias continued as they reached the end of the stairwell, and the crowd of students instinctively spread out as they arrived in a long, much wider corridor lined with marbled, vaguely-shaped statues. "Oh, erm…"

Scorpius had to agree; the corridor was a gloomy, near-empty cavity leading to what looked like a dead end that felt miles away from the warmth and light of the Great Hall. The other students seemed to feel it too — the chatter that had echoed in the stairwell moments ago had died, and even Tobias had finally gone quiet.

The two Slytherin prefects at the front of the crowd motioned them forward, and the first years shuffled down as one uncertain mass, exchanging glances as they approached the blank wall.

"It might not look like much now," the female prefect admitted smoothly when they arrived in front of it, blinking, "but keep watching." She pressed her palm against the stone, and the space where she had touched it glowed a faint silver, fissures spidering out in hair-thin flashes from the point of impact before they disappeared just as quickly, and suddenly, with a low, shuddering rumble, the wall began caving inside itself while something else began to push out from the darkness it had created within, until, inexplicably, they were looking at a glossy, majestic double door set into the wall, the crest of a snake at its centre.

The first years dissolved into excited whispers, and when Tobias — Toby, he had asked Scorpius to call him Toby — turned to look at him with wide, delighted eyes, Scorpius felt the corners of his lips turn up, and that feeling from before ebbed, just a little.

The other prefect cleared his throat. "Epiphany," he announced loudly, and with the barest of creaks, the doors swung open. He turned to look at the astounded first years, smirking. "Shall we have a look inside?"

Scorpius wasn't usually one to be caught off guard, but the mere sight of the Slytherin Common Room was enough to stop him in his tracks.

The other parts of the castle that he had seen all looked the same to him, and just as he had expected from the outside of it — all grey stone set into simple rectangular patterns and rooms filled with understated wooden furnishings, nice but uniformed, and looking just as medieval now as they had the day they'd been built — but this room was like another world.

The first thing Scorpius' eyes fell upon was the floor-to-ceiling window in place of a back wall, casting the entire room in a shimmering, bioluminescent blue as they gazed into the depths of the Hogwarts Lake. Looking at it, Scorpius had the strangest sensation that he had stumbled onto a shipwreck, and the effect was only magnified by the immense fire crackling in the hearth nearby, which, instead of the usual red, was a breathtaking emerald.

But it wasn't the window or the fire that had caused Scorpius to stop. Maybe it was the furniture, all dark and leathered, or the elaborate swirls that had been carved into the walls, up and over the ceilings as if someone had taken the greatest care to make this room look like a piece of art, or maybe it was even the oil lamp chandeliers that hung ornate and beautiful above it all, but whatever it was, Scorpius suddenly felt like he was home.

"Welcome to the Slytherin Common Room," the female prefect said quietly as her eyes skipped over him, a pleased smile on her face.

"I knew the rumours about the snake tank were fake," whispered a girl from behind Scorpius, and her friend giggled.

"The female dorms are to your left; the male dorms to your right," the prefect continued, louder now to command the room's attention. "Girls, stay out of the boys' dorms. Boys, keep to your side."

She and the other prefect continued on with some more orientation information, but the first years' attentions were quickly dwindling as everyone else began to move past them into the room, settling onto the sofas and floors, others heading straight for their dorms.

Scorpius' gaze continued to move around the room, drawing back to wherever the prefects directed, but he couldn't shake the steadily growing feeling that there were eyes on him. The discomfort of it prompted him to investigate, and he turned his gaze firmly on the jumble of students in the centre of the room, where his suspicions were immediately confirmed; many of them hastily looked away, making forced and obvious attempts to restart their conversations, but some others continued to stare with open interest, and it unnerved him.

It was not that the attention surprised him. He'd garnered a few glances at the train station, but the Sorting Ceremony had been something else entirely. His parents had made sure to warn him about the looks people might give him and the whispers that would follow, whispers that held more truth than he might like to believe. He'd heard how the Hall had gone silent the moment his name had been called, and although he'd been prepared for it, he'd still dared to hope it might've been different.

You only get to be in the Great Hall for the first time once, his mother had told him last night, the corners of her eyes crinkling just the tiniest bit as she smiled. Enjoy it. And when you go up, don't look at anyone. Just keep your eyes on the back wall. But you hold your head up high, Scorpius, and never let anyone make you feel less than you are.

Scorpius had lain awake for a long time, her words reeling through his head. But he had come to a decision by the end of it, his resolve firm: if he was going to act like a scared little boy, he would be treated like one. So he would tell them how to treat him, in the only way he knew how.

At the beginning, it seemed as if his approach had worked a little too well. He'd felt the others' furtive, persistent stares as the Welcome Feast began, and he knew his performance earlier had sparked their curiosity, and now they all wanted to know what Scorpius Malfoy was really like.

Toby had been his saving grace. He had continued to chatter animatedly to Scorpius, oblivious to their stares as he casually brought others into their conversations, and although they had been reluctant at first, they were easily persuaded by Toby's friendly nature and easy humour, and soon Scorpius had found himself talking to a group of people who no longer seemed to regard him as especially out of the ordinary. He knew their stares had been out of interest and curiosity, and once people realised that he wasn't all that interesting or curious, they would stop. People were predictable that way.

Scorpius suddenly felt a poke at his side, and he blinked, immediately turning to face the source of it.

Toby was grinning at him sheepishly. "Sorry, you seemed a little out of it."

Scorpius blinked again, staring in confusion as the crowd continued to disperse around him, the prefects making their way towards the couches.

"Anyways, I asked if you wanted to go and check out the dorms. You know, grab the best beds before everyone else gets up there."

Something inside of him relaxed, and he couldn't help but admit to himself that his relief stemmed from the knowledge that even though their dorm held the promise of three other friends for Toby, it was him who Toby wanted to be friends with.

"Yeah, sure, that sounds good."

Toby led the way up, oohing and aahing at the various things he passed, pointing them out to Scorpius as if he couldn't see them too, which might have been annoying under different circumstances, but Scorpius had already come to the understanding that when Toby felt happy, he wanted others to share in it too. Consequently, the noises of interest that he made were, in large part, genuine.

"Oh, snap, our suitcases are already here!" Toby exclaimed after he opened the door to their dormitory. Then, in a more subdued voice, "Aw, man, I guess choosing our own beds are out." When Scorpius followed him inside, he could see too that the boys' trunks had already been placed at the foot of each of the beds.

"At least we're next to each other!" Toby acquiesced, pointing between his and Scorpius' trunks, the silver S.H.M standing out in stark contrast to the black on the latter. Scorpius instinctively crossed over to it, suddenly wanting the feel of something familiar in his hands, but as he snapped open the buckles, Toby made a loud noise of excitement and reached over his bed, and Scorpius immediately looked up to see what had caught his attention.

Toby straightened up, waggling a tie at him, the silk a deep green and silver. Scorpius looked down at his duvet to see his own tie folded on top of a dark grey jumper, and, after hesitating for a moment, he picked it up.

Toby jammed his tie over his head excitedly, upsetting the collar of his shirt, his head whipping around as he searched for a mirror. He soon located one, and grinned widely, turning to get Scorpius' reaction.

"Try yours on," he urged. "Come on, come look with me."

Scorpius couldn't help but roll his eyes at Toby's antics, but his curiosity got the better of him, so he pulled it over his head, tucking it carefully underneath his collar, and moved to stand next to Toby in view of the small mirror on the wall.

He stared at his reflection, and he didn't know whether it was Toby's infectious grin, or the fact that he'd always looked good in green, but he couldn't help but smile a little, too.

---

The Gryffindor Common Room was exactly as Rose had hoped it would be: deep red and patterned walls full of living paintings that became bare stone the higher you looked, carpeted floors where desks and armchairs were spread haphazardly to every corner of the room, and at its centre, a half-ring of couches the colour of wine positioned around a crackling fireplace. Warm lights cast the entire room in a cosy, soft glow.

They walked through to the couches, the first years trailing in behind the fifth year prefects with the rest of the students following close behind as one noisy horde. At the front, the prefects were attempting to explain the layout of the room and where the different dormitories were located, though with the sheer amount of voices clambering on top of each other, it was near impossible to hear a word. Al, who hadn't paused for breath since they had sat down to dinner, let out a sudden laugh from beside her.

"Think I'm gonna send a Howler to mum and dad," he said, grinning wolfishly, "just to tell them I got in. It'll scare the living hell out of them before they realise, it'll be hilarious, I swear-"

Usually Rose would have reprimanded him, but tonight she only laughed along, just happy to be there.

"I can't wait to try on the tie and scarf, I feel like it'll make it all real, you know?" He lowered his voice, leaning in towards her with a bashful grin. "I bought red and gold socks already, hidden at the bottom of my suitcase." He laughed again, shaking his head. "What would I've done with those if I'd been Sorted somewhere else?"

He'd meant it as a joke, but his voice was coloured with a relief that he couldn't hide, and he slung an arm around Rose's shoulders, squeezing her close to his side for a moment as they approached the centre of the room. The prefects had either finished their brief orientation or given up, because when Rose looked to the space they had been in before, they were gone.

The older kids had already bagged the couches, so Rose and Al scooted up to the cushions by the fire along with the other first years. Upon their arrival, Rose immediately noticed that a couple of the girls had lit up as soon as they saw that Al had sat down in close proximity to them, giggling to each other in a manner that Rose didn't think was supposed to be entirely covert. One glance in Al's direction made it obvious that he was perfectly aware of the attention; although he was already chatting away with a group of boys, seemingly oblivious to their glittering eyes, his own held an extra sparkle in them, and the constant grin plastered across his face said that he was feeling especially pleased with himself tonight. No doubt it would find a line in his Howler too.

Rose bit her lip as she turned away from Al and watched the girls whisper to each other, and suddenly a trickle of doubt seeded up inside of her. She'd sat next to Al during dinner, and although she'd been introduced to a couple of other kids, it had mainly been facilitated by him often bringing her into the conversation and keeping it flowing when it had threatened to lull. Al had always been good at things like that.

Now, she thought as that something inside her continued to shift with unease, she wished she'd tried a little harder.

She sensed movement behind her, and then heard two thumps as two people sat down a few paces away. She thought about turning around and introducing herself to them, or maybe she'd get lucky and they'd be people she'd already met.

They were sitting quite close to her, so glimpses of their conversation pricked her ears, and she paused, listening.

"…so mysterious…"

"…and so good-looking as well…"

As she focused, their voices became clearer.

"What do you think your parents would say if you started dating him?"

"I wouldn't care."

Rose rolled her eyes as she made to turn back, having instantly lost all interest in their conversation. Al was about as mysterious as a glass window.

"I mean, he is a Malfoy of all people."

She stilled, her brow furrowing.

"My parents would freak out if I brought him home, I mean, I know it's all behind us, but still. Hey, you wanna go check out the dorm?"

The carpet rustled as they left, still chatting, leaving Rose frowning to herself as their voices became indiscernible.

Suddenly, someone plopped down next to her, and she looked up in surprise.

"They were like that at dinner too," the girl said matter-of-factly. Rose blinked as she took her in. She looked to be mixed-race, with pretty, almond-shaped eyes, and straight hair that fell just shy of her shoulders. "I don't get why everyone's so obsessed with this guy already," she continued, and her accent struck Rose immediately; it seemed English, but somewhere in there lingered a charisma that was decidedly American.

She saw Rose staring and smiled sheepishly, extending her hand. "I'm Gen."

"Rose," she answered, shaking it. When Gen smiled at her, she felt the dull weight of doubt leave her, and her lips turned up into an easy grin. "Were you sitting next to them?"

"Oh, yeah." She lowered her voice. "The one who was on the left is Elizabeth. The girl with the dark hair is called Leanne. Pretty sure we'll be rooming with them for the next seven years."

They both paused for a long moment, contemplating this, and then burst into laughter. Roused by the noise, Al turned away from his group. He caught sight of Gen, and blinked.

"Hi," he said, looking strangely winded. "I'm Al."

"Gen," she said, smiling.

"It's short for Albus," he continued in that slightly breathless voice, "like Albus Dumbledore. You know, the greatest wizard who ever lived. I mean he was, but then he died. I mean, he still is the greatest wizard who ever — um...I mean, that's why my dad named me after him. Well, it was more that he—" Al hastily broke off, looking very flustered, while Gen simply looked bewildered. "I'm just…named after him," he finished weakly.

It was strange new territory for Rose to see Al like this, and she could see that the tips of his ears were Weasley-red.

"Rose is the name for a kind of flower," she quickly interjected. "Maybe you've come across one?"

Gen immediately began laughing, and it set Rose off again.

"Everyone is very excited about you, Al, named for the greatest wizard who ever lived and died," Gen said in a charmed voice when she had recovered enough to talk. "You and the Malfoy kid were the talk of the town at dinner."

Al seemed to sober slightly at the mention of Scorpius' name. "Well, a Malfoy being Sorted into Slytherin isn't exactly gossip," he said. "It would've been stranger if he'd been put somewhere else."

"The first Malfoy back at Hogwarts since the war is gossip enough," Rose pointed out, remembering Elizabeth and Leanne's conversation. "Sorting aside."

"I didn't hear a word about the war, actually," Gen said easily. "It was weird. I feel like if he'd been different, people would be talking about that." She hitched her shoulders up into a shrug. "Like, did you see his reaction when he was Sorted? Didn't even flinch, though he must've heard how quiet the Hall got — you could've heard a pin drop. People respond to that kind of thing, you know?"

At least he's brave, Rose had said, the memory of him sitting on that stool as he awaited his fate now flickering across her mind.

"Well, that and people who have cheekbones that you could cut a piece of meat with," Gen added thoughtfully. She looked at Rose. "They did kinda have a point with that one."

Rose indulged her with a little grin, but her mind was elsewhere.

From everything she'd read in the books, and everything her dad had — in secret — warned her about, she'd expected Scorpius Malfoy to be a bit of a black sheep; proud, sure, but wary, and reserved to the point of not drawing too much attention to himself.

What she hadn't expected was a Scorpius Malfoy who seemed confident, unfazed, and completely unapologetic — the kind of traits that would make an eleven year old immediately popular. And everything she wasn't.

But, as Rose quickly found out the next morning, whatever she thought she'd known about Scorpius Malfoy, she had been wrong.

He was so much worse.

---

"If you take a look at these wand instructions here," Professor Flitwick said, tapping his wand against the chalkboard ten minutes into their very first Hogwarts class the next day, "can any of you tell me which spell they pertain to?"

Scorpius put up his hand, a fraction of a second slower than the one he saw at the edge of his left-hand peripheral. However, the Charms professor gestured at him to answer. "The Incendio Charm, Professor."

"Entirely correct. Can you demonstrate?"

Scorpius picked up his wand and soundlessly waved it in a bell-shaped curve, looking up at Flitwick for approval after he had finished.

"Precisely! Ten points, Mr…Malfoy, it must be?"

"Yes, sir."

"Most impressive."

From next to him, Toby waggled his eyebrows, then elbowed his side with a dopey grin on his face.

"From its name, can anyone tell me what this spell does?"

Scorpius kept his hand down, and he saw the same hand from before shoot up. "Yes?"

"It's a Fire-Making Spell, from the Latin Incendium."

"Excellent! Very excellent."

Scorpius turned his head a little, just enough to see the face of the girl who had spoken, and he noticed that her cheeks had gone faintly pink with pride, and he raised a curious eyebrow before angling back to the front.

He recognised her. She was the one from the train station, the one standing next to the family in the history books. In the family, he corrected himself. He'd seen her at the Sorting too — the Weasley who had been Sorted into Gryffindor. He'd forgotten her name.

"Although this is a relatively simple spell, it is very important that it is done correctly," Flitwick continued. "Continuing on in our quiz, will someone hazard a guess to the most common mistake made when casting this spell?"

Scorpius barely had time to think before the professor's eyes lit up and he pointed in the same direction as before. "Yes, Miss…Weasley, is it?"

"Yes, Professor. When you flick downwards for the last movement of the spell, it feels like a bigger drop than you expect, so you automatically re-lift your wand to a more middle position, but if you do that, you can cause the flames to jump."

Flitwick was beaming. "Exactly, Miss Weasley, exactly! Ten points."

Scorpius' brow knitted; that information hadn't even been in the book.

"And finally, although we will only be doing the standard spell today, does anyone know the incantation for the more powerful version of this spell?"

Scorpius racked his brains, annoyed with himself for spending all his time studying the Potions textbook when he should've parsed it out more equally between subjects. Flitwick smiled the same smile as before, and Scorpius felt his shoulders sag a little as he waited to hear that voice.

"Come, come now, does anyone else want to give it a go?" He waited for a few more seconds, his gaze passing over Scorpius as he assessed the rest of the class, and then he extended his hand out towards her with an attempted smile of resignation that did little to hide his glee. "Yes, Miss Weasley?"

"Incendio Magnum, Professor."

Scorpius thought she wasn't doing anything to hide the smugness in her voice this time. Suddenly, a memory struck him, and his hand was up before he'd even realised it.

"Correct again, Miss—yes, Mr Malfoy?"

"The Incendio Vita Charm is the most powerful, Professor," he said confidently. "It was only developed-"

"Mere months ago," Professor Flitwick finished, visibly surprised. He lowered his glasses so that he could look directly at Scorpius and fixed him with an interested expression. "Very, very, impressive, Mr Malfoy. How did you come across that knowledge?"

Scorpius felt eyes burning into the side of his head, and he had to contain his self-satisfied smile. "My parents like to stay up to date, sir."

"Indeed. A very good practice!" Flitwick looked positively euphoric, and Scorpius turned his head to his left, ever so slightly, and she instantly snapped back to face the front. His lips turned up into a smirk.

"Well, we can't sit here talking all day — the best way to learn is to do! So, I would like you all to practice the wand movements — without incanting the spell — just as Mr Malfoy demonstrated, and once you feel comfortable with it, you can find a space around the room to practice with your desk partner." He tapped the stack of mats next to him. "As you might have guessed, these are fireproof. Place them around the floor and cast your spells onto them. We don't want the room to go up in flames." He chuckled to himself, and Toby shot Scorpius an alarmed look. "If you would like to douse your spell and try again, you can place one of these over the fire to suffocate it." He pointed to the pile of boxes on his other side. "You may begin!"

Excited murmurs immediately began to fill the classroom as the students picked up their wands and began to practice. Scorpius, already confident with his ability to cast the spell, stayed to help Toby, since he figured if anybody was going to be accidentally set alight, he was closest in proximity.

"This look right?" Toby asked him, swishing his wand in accordance with the instructions.

"Yeah," Scorpius said, nodding. "Looks good to me."

He waited as Toby tried it out a couple more times before asking, "Ready?" A quick glance around told him that no one else had left their seats yet, and, after his performance with Flitwick earlier, he was itching to be the first.

"Mm-hmm."

"I'll get the mat?"

"I'll get the box."

They pushed their chairs back, but as Scorpius stood, a flash of red crossed his vision; the Weasley girl and her friend passed by their desk, grabbing the materials they needed from the front, and Scorpius thought she threw a significant look in his direction as she left to practice. A spark of annoyance seeded up inside him, but he pushed it back down.

"I'll get the stuff," he told Toby instead. "You grab us a spot."

Toby looked surprised, but he nodded and course-corrected, heading for the back of the room while Scorpius walked up to the front. He had just tucked the mat under his arm and was reaching out for one of the boxes when a soft rushing noise pricked his ears, and when the class gasped as one as he swivelled his neck around to see a small ball of flame dancing on the only mat laid out on the floor. Its caster was smiling bashfully while her partner clapped her hands in excitement, and Scorpius felt the muscles at his jaw contract.

"Excellent, Miss Weasley!" Flitwick cried. "Twenty points!"

Scorpius grabbed the box and whirled around, making to hurry through the space between the desks to get to the back of the room, but the Weasley girl's success had motivated the other students, and Scorpius was forced to grind to a halt as they beelined towards him, clutching his box against his chest to shield himself as they crowded in. He steeled himself, then squeezed through the mass of bodies, pressing his arm down tight to keep the mat steady, and emerged from the other side, scowling.

Toby was making very little effort to hide his laughter as Scorpius approached, so Scorpius tossed the box unceremoniously towards him, though his partner was nonetheless undeterred as he poked his head out from behind and ventured, "Not a people person, huh?"

Scorpius grunted and dislodged the mat from under his arm, laying it out on the floor before retrieving his wand from within his robes. He aimed it at the mat.

"Incendio!" he commanded softly, and a burst of white light exploded from the tip of his wand, and when it faded, there was a ball of fire crackling in front of him.

Triumphant, he automatically looked up at his professor, but the practice space was so crowded that he had no clear of view of him, which meant Flitwick couldn't see him either. He dropped his gaze, and when that same feeling sparked inside him again, he let it.

"Well done!" Toby congratulated him, cocking his head as he studied the flames. "Pretty." He straightened up again, cleared his throat, and shrugged at Scorpius sheepishly. "Oh, well, here goes nothing."

A blaze of white light later, there were two spheres burning in front of them.

Scorpius didn't know whether he or Toby looked more surprised, but he recovered quickly and clapped a hand against his friend's shoulder. "Pretty," he said.

Toby's grin was bewildered. "Should we try again?"

Without waiting for an answer, he knelt down, grabbing the box and flipping it over their twin fires, and the flickering sounds stopped. Almost immediately after, another noise of celebration pealed from somewhere to their right, and it was followed by a squeaked, "Excellent!" from the front of the room.

Scorpius' eye twitched.

Toby lifted up the box, revealing that only two plumes of smoke and the faint smell of ash remained, and Scorpius blinked furiously as he attempted to force his focus onto doing the spell again.

"Incendio," he whispered—

Suddenly, the mat behind Toby ignited, and he yelped and instinctively jumped away from it, crashing hard into Scorpius, who instantly threw up his wand arm in a bid to steady himself—

The light that burst from the tip of his wand went shooting off towards the other end of the room like a firecracker, and all Scorpius could do was watch in horror as it exploded into flames, latching onto the person directly in its flightpath.

The Weasley girl shrieked in startled terror as the flames began to crawl along her shoes, but she pointed her wand at her feet and cried, "Aguamenti!", and a jet of water gushed from her wand, instantly dousing the fire.

Still breathing hard, her head whipped up, her gaze landing directly on Scorpius' horrified expression, and he watched as it travelled to his still-raised wand arm. Her eyes flashed, and before he could even register what was going to happen, a surge of water hit him clean in the face.

It sent him doubled over, coughing water out of his nose and gasping desperately for breath, and through his spotted vision, he saw Toby's footsteps move out from next to him—

"Wait! No-"

Unbridled, he jerked upwards, and his body seemed to shudder as it finally surrendered to the anger that had been building up inside of him, and — dimly noticing that the entire class had gone completely still, agape with shock — he pushed sopping wet hair out of his eyes, and fired a retaliating jet in her direction. Her vest and shirt were instantly drenched, and he fixed her with a look of grim satisfaction as they began to drip a puddle onto the floor.

Suddenly, a section of onlookers broke as a furious Professor Flitwick emerged from their ranks, and the anger inside Scorpius faltered. Cold realisation washed over him, and he lowered his wand, opening his mouth to try to explain—

But the Weasley girl hadn't seen the professor from where he had appeared behind her, and Scorpius turned back to face her just in time to see her raise her wand—

And then all he registered was the sensation of being blown backwards from the power of her spell before a blinding pain seared from behind his eyes, and then the room went dark.

---

When Scorpius came to, he found himself in a white-washed room with Toby's anxious face looming inches above his own. The way it was shadowed by the sun's reign from almost directly above them made him think that it was around midday. Which meant that he had been unconscious for...

"That—that…witch!" he growled through gritted teeth, forcing himself up onto his elbows so quickly that black spots swarmed his vision.

"I'm sorry!" Toby clamoured immediately. "It was all my fault knocking into you, and I was going to explain that to Professor Flitwick but he told me I had to come here straight away and-"

"What happened?" Scorpius interrupted him, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to sit up fully.

Toby moved away to give him room, seating himself into the chair by Scorpius' bedside. "Um…you blacked out."

"After," Scorpius elaborated flatly. His head was throbbing, and the sun in his eyes was not helping. As he held up a hand to shield his face, Toby hastily scooted his chair in front of the window, blocking out some of the light. "Thanks."

"Welcome. Uh...Professor Flitwick went over to check that you were alright, and, you know, not dead or anything, and then he sent a little magic paper plane thing to the nurse here, and magicked up a floating stretcher and Levitated you onto it, and then he asked me to go with you to the Hospital Wing to make sure that you were seen to."

Scorpius paused. "Are you saying that my unconscious body was floating from one side of this floor to the other in plain sight of everyone inside this castle?"

Toby grimaced, nodding, but then said, with some hopefulness, "But, everyone was still in class, so, you know, only the people with free periods saw you."

"Sixth and seventh years," Scorpius said, his voice brittle. "Great." He remembered something, and his expression immediately darkened. "What about her?"

Toby scrunched up his nose, bringing up a hand to rub against the back of his neck. "I didn't hear much before I left, but I heard Flitwick say that she has to serve detention tonight. Oh…and er…that reminds me." He sheepishly gestured to Scorpius' nightstand, and Scorpius' eyes followed, landing on a piece of paper that was tented in half to conceal its contents. He reached for it and opened it up, his jaw setting as he read.

"Detention tonight," Scorpius summarised bitterly a few seconds later. "Eight o'clock. For "abuse of magic"."

"She'll be there too," Toby said. "If that makes you feel better."

"She'll be there too," Scorpius repeated. "Great."

Toby leaned backwards, shaking his head. "She's got a temper, that one."

"She's a maniac," Scorpius corrected him, recalling how she had turned her demonic, venom-filled eyes on him before sending that first jet at his face without giving him a second to explain himself. "I won't be surprised if she decides to go for round two tonight."

"Hey, are you hungry? Because lunch started about ten minutes ago, and I could go get you something-"

"Oh my God." Something terrible had just occurred to Scorpius, and he slumped against his headboard. "I missed Potions."

Toby blinked. "Oh. Were you looking forward to that?"

"Kind of," Scorpius said numbly.

"You didn't miss much," Toby tried to console him. "Professor Xavier just started taking us through the kinds of Potions we would be learning this year, and he made us come look at all the cauldrons he had set up with examples of them andokayIcanseethatI'mmakingitworse."

Scorpius re-opened his eyes, and gave him a strained nod.

"Are you sure you don't want something to—oh, shoot!" The chair legs ground noisily against the floor as Toby scrambled to his feet. "I was supposed to go and get Madam Pomfrey when you woke up!"

He ran down the length of the wing and disappeared past the row of beds, and Scorpius sighed, his eyes on the tangle of sheets covering his lower half. Just as he was turning to check for water on his nightstand, there was a noise at the double doors, and Scorpius looked back to see the left door creak open by a little blonde girl as she made her way inside, supporting a darker-haired girl who was covering her face and groaning. They looked familiar, and from their ties, Scorpius immediately ascertained that they were both Slytherins. The blonde paused when she saw him, straightening up a little with interest as her eyes passed over his face.

The sound of hurried footsteps clacking against the stone floor suddenly became discernible, and a matronly-looking woman bustled into view with a clipboard in her hands and Toby on her heels. She stopped at the sight of the two girls at the doorway. "Oh my," she tsked in resignation, gently prying the girl's hands away from her face, revealing skin that was pocked with bubbling pustules. Scorpius withheld a gag (Toby did not). "You just take a bed over there, my dear, and I'll get round to you."

As the girls shuffled away, she continued her march over to Scorpius' bed, a still-queasy Toby flitting behind her.

"Well," Madam Pomfrey said as she reached him, peering at him from over her clipboard, "I hope we don't make a habit of seeing each other, Mr. Malfoy."

Scorpius grimaced weakly.

---

"Don't be nervous," Gen said in a confident tone as she, Rose and Al walked up the stairs after that evening's dinner. "Apparently half the things the kids say about detentions are only rumours."

"What about the other half?" Rose asked miserably. She gripped the banister beside her as they waited for the staircase to realign itself with another before they continued climbing. "What time is it?"

Gen consulted her watch, dutifully ignoring the fact that Rose was wearing one too. "Five past seven. You have ages."

"We could play a quick game of Quidditch to calm your nerves?" Al offered.

Rose made a face. "No thanks."

"Exploding Snap?" Gen suggested.

"And risk showing up to detention without my eyebrows? That would make his night."

"Whose night?" Al asked blithely.

Rose halted with one foot in the air as she turned her steely eyes on him. "The person whose fault it is that I'm even having to go to this detention in the first place."

"Ohhhhh, Malfoy," Al said in realisation, and then he shrugged. "I don't think he should be saying anything. His eyebrows are so pale you can barely see them."

"True," Gen sniggered.

Rose furrowed her brow. "You said he was good-looking yesterday."

Gen pulled in the side of her mouth, her lips thinning. "Well, that was before he tried to set you on fire, wasn't it?" She sighed and patted her chest. "Beauty comes from within."

"You didn't say that to me when I offered to carry your books this morning," Al immediately pointed out.

"You're not suffering from a lack of attention, Albus," Gen said without looking back. "Damn, I've forgotten the password already."

"Devilled egg," Rose supplied dully, and the Fat Lady's portrait swung open.

"Meet down here in a bit?" Al asked after they'd made their way inside and passed the sofas. "I wanna grab a shower."

"Me too," Gen said, already on her way towards the girls' staircase. "Be down in ten."

"Rose?" Al asked.

Her expression was apologetic. "Sorry, Al, I'm not gonna be much fun tonight. I think I'm just gonna stay in my room and-"

"Keep torturing yourself?"

She grimaced. "However you wanna put it."

"It'll be okay, Rosie," he called after her. She groaned loudly in response, hearing his faint chuckle echo in the stairwell before she reached the entrance to the girls' room.

Gen was slipping out of her shoes. "Do you want to shower first?" she offered.

Rose shook her head. "Better not. Who knows what Professor Flitwick has in store for us. You go ahead, I'll shower when I get back."

Gen gave her another reassuring smile before she disappeared into the bathroom. The moment the door closed, Rose sank onto her bed, her eyes glazing over as the expression dropped off her face. She hadn't been left alone since Charms that morning, and the silence began to press in on her ears, worming its way into her heart.

I can't believe I did that.

To lose her temper like that, to act so rashly without thinking; they were the parts of herself that she hated and therefore controlled, and she was forced to reckon with the fact that something had had the power to reach inside her and twist those parts out, revealing the kind of person she didn't want to be.

And the worst thing was, she knew exactly what that something was.

Even thinking his name filled her with a nauseating mixture of loathing and guilt, and with it came the instant replay of that disastrous Charms lesson, and it only served as a gut-punching reminder that her humiliation wasn't just playing in her own head — it had been shared with an entire classroom full of witnesses, and when the news would inevitably spread throughout the school, she would be known all over as the girl who hexed her classmate during her very first lesson at Hogwarts.

And not just any classmate — a Malfoy, as if even daughter-of-heroes Golden Girl Rose Weasley couldn't stop the poison of prejudice from contaminating her mind. But she didn't send that jet of water at him because he was a Malfoy; she did it because he, without any provocation, had shot a fireball at her.

But would you have given him the chance to explain himself if he had been someone else? her traitorous brain purred with satisfaction, because Rose would never truly be able to answer that question, not now, and the revelation was like looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger.

But that stranger still had a sense of rationality: shooting him back the first time had been an equaliser. If he'd wanted to, he could've taken the moment to explain himself when they were even, but he'd taken the revenge route instead, and so although a large part of her shrivelled with regret at the entire thing, there wasn't an ounce of her that believed he didn't deserve it.

A sharp, abrupt tap at the window jolted her from her brooding. She looked up, and her eyes widened with surprise at the sight of Anne Bonny, the family's tawny owl, staring at her from the other side of the glass. When Rose saw the letter clasped firmly in her beak, her blood went cold.

Her parents.

How was she going to tell her parents about this? How was she going to tell her mother about this?

Suddenly, a terrible thought hit her.

Maybe Professor Flitwick already wrote to them, her brain whispered frantically. And decided that detention wasn't enough, and he and McGonagall…they were going to expel her but wanted her parents to do it to lessen the blow. And she'd only just finished unpacking!

Anne Bonny tapped again, more pointedly this time with her orange eyes trained on the girl still sitting on her bed. Rose's guilt pushed her to her feet, and she made her way towards the window, opening it wide enough for the owl to swoop in. A gust of cold wind blew across her face, but the fresh air helped, a little. Anne Bonny deposited the letter onto the desk, and, after another moment of internal struggle, Rose gingerly picked it up.

Still staring at it, she reached a hand out to stroke the owl's feathers. "I don't have any food for you yet," she murmured, glancing at her. "Go to the Owlery. I'm sure Horus or Archimedes will share with you."

Anne Bonny hooted softly, rubbed her head against Rose's palm, and then took off. Rose reached up to close the window after her, but then hesitated as she drew it in, instead leaving it cracked open. From inside the bathroom, the shower began to run, and soon, Gen's soft, off-key humming joined it. The grip around Rose's heart loosened just a bit, and she broke the envelope's seal.

It was her father's messy, familiar scrawl that greeted her, and Rose's shoulders sagged as she exhaled fully, and she rubbed a relieved hand across her eyes as she began to read:

Dear Rosie,

Your mother told me we weren't supposed to bother you until you'd settled in, you know, to give you a little bit of space, so don't tell her that I've written to you already (though you know how hard it is to get anything past her). How was your first night? How was the Sorting? I'm not really going to disinherit you if you're not in Gryffindor, and your mother keeps telling me you're a Ravenclaw through and through, but I think you've got too much of her in you to be one. But you know I'm rubbish at keeping secrets, and besides, your mother and I should find out together, so don't reply back telling me which one of us was right! Have you made any new friends yet? I was lucky enough to meet Harry straightaway, but don't worry if you haven't found someone special — these things can take time. We actually spent the weekend at Harry's now that Lily's on her own as well. She misses Al. Hopefully he's doing alright, I know he was worried about the Sorting too.

I won't say anymore than that! No doubt we'll write to you — for the first time, of course — later this week, and your mother will be wanting a full debrief, so I'd better not make you write it all down twice. I'm sure you're putting all the other kids to shame already — when you've got two such brilliantly-brained parents, you can't help it, really.

Love,

Dad

P.S. Speaking of putting the other kids to shame, I know I warned you again about Scorpius Malfoy at the train station, but I probably shouldn't have singled him out to you…or brought up the marriage thing now, come to think of it — that's how all these things start, I reckon. Just give your old dad a break and don't get lured in by his pretty blonde hair, alright?

The smile that had blossomed over Rose's face as she had read her father's letter dissolved as she reached the end of it, and she childishly folded the bottom of it upwards, just so she wouldn't have to look at that horrible name for another second. She put the letter onto her bedside table for her to reply to later and, deciding that the dorm was now too chilly, reached towards the window latch again.

The sun had begun to set, and outside stretched a cloudless, golden world, holding onto the last vestiges of day before night rose to claim it. Her gaze travelled to the watch around her wrist, its hands displaying that it was only seven-thirty. Too early to leave.

Seven thirty-one.

Far too early, Rose thought as she continued to stare outside.

---

He wasn't going to apologise.

On the contrary, Scorpius was perfectly aware that he had nothing to apologise for — the phantom hand pressed tight against his skull that clenched with every step reminded him of this, and he had to focus extra hard to remember his plan.

Although she was, as he had told Toby, a raging maniac with a serious and possibly clinically-severe temper problem, and someone whose opinion of him meant less than nothing, it still irked him to think that he was being blamed for something he hadn't done. Scorpius had never been anyone's scapegoat, and he wasn't about to start now.

So he would simply explain to her exactly what had happened in there, just so that there were no misunderstandings between them, and if she didn't accept that, well, then—

He turned into the doorway of the Charms classroom and then immediately froze, his attention fixed on what lay inside, and that hand squeezed hard.

The Weasley girl looked up at the abrupt stop of his footsteps, and he saw her eyes drawn to the fading bruise just above his brow bone before they skittered away just as quickly and met his own. And narrowed.

The sight of her already sitting there annoyed him beyond all reason (and she looked ridiculous, still in her robes), and any thought of civil conversation flew out of his head. She broke their eye contact first, curling her lips slightly and shifting her gaze to the board in front of them, not that there was anything on it to look at. Scorpius was tempted to force himself back into her line of vision, just so she could see for sure that he was absolutely fine, and that, despite her best efforts, there was hardly a mark on him...while at the same time inexplicably wishing that Madam Pomfrey had been slightly less thorough in her work.

Instead, he moved past her into the classroom, choosing the row of chairs closest to the window, the tops of the hardwood bathed in light and dust from the sinking sun. He sat, the white of his shirt gleaming, and looked out towards the world below, students still milling around in the courtyard, enjoying the remains of this balmy September day while he was stuck inside a stuffy Charms classroom with a stupid bruise on his head and a sudden realisation that he had forgotten to use the bathroom before he'd arrived.

He crossed his arms stiffly, turning his attention towards the board in front, the appeal of staring at the empty expanse of black sweeter than continuing to stare at what could've been his Monday evening outside if he'd had the choice. The sound of incoming footsteps suddenly pricked his ears, and in his periphery, he saw her perk up slightly too, but as he angled his head towards the door, the footsteps came and went, and the shared sense of disappointment briefly hung in the air.

His ears, re-awoken, began to search for something else to fix on, but there was nothing to hear except the quietly ticking clock on the wall, and Scorpius felt his left eye begin to twitch when, instead of dwindling away into the background, that ticking began to get louder. Tick tick tick tick. His eyes naturally pulled towards the source of the irritation, and he watched the clock's hands as they made their endless rounds.

Their detention wasn't even supposed to start for another ten minutes.

Just outside of his line of sight, he heard the soft rustle of fabric being disturbed as it brushed against itself — the giveaway sound of a leg being jiggled. But then it stopped just as abruptly, as if she had realised it too. Good. He wanted her to squirm.

She had not only ruined his first Hogwarts class but now his first Hogwarts detention as well, and he really did need to use the bathroom, and if she hadn't been sitting here already he could've just gotten up and gone to find one but now he couldn't go anywhere without it looking like he was trying to escape, and he wouldn't even be in this situation fighting the urge to smash a stupid clock into pieces for doing its damn job if not for this stupid girl in her stupid robes with her stupid temper who had shot him in the face with water and shown up at least fifteen minutes early for the detention she had earned because of it. Tick tick tick tick.

And what exactly had become of his plan now? How was he going to explain this whole thing to her? Not that he even wanted to anymore.

They could just sit here in silence — Scorpius had always been good at silences — and wait for Professor Flitwick to arrive. Scorpius thought from her fidgeting that she was feeling even more awkward than he was, and that made him content for a little while. He wondered if she was still staring at the board, and instinctively glanced over his shoulder towards her to check, and it was then that he realised he had never seen red hair in the sunlight before, and for a moment he forgot about the board. He furrowed his brow and blinked, and then immediately decided that her hair was stupid too.

A muffled bark of a laugh suddenly cut through the thick glass of the window, and he looked out again, curious. A group of first years had formed a loose circle around two fifth year boys — or sixth year, or seventh year, they all just looked old to him — one of whom was clutching a smoking black ball and noticeably missing both of his eyebrows. The other boy had doubled over with laughter, slapping his knee and wiping the tears from his eyes. The first years were in a similar state of hysterics, and as Scorpius watched them from the other side of the glass, that same hollow, uncomfortable feeling crept into his stomach again.

It was an accident.

The news of his detention wouldn't surprise anyone. He knew they would be talking about it: Scorpius Malfoy makes an enemy and lands himself in detention on his first day of school, and everyone would think they had gotten him figured out. They thought they knew him, but they didn't know a thing about him, not a single thing at all.

He set his jaw, his teeth grinding as he turned away from the window. His mouth was getting drier the longer it was clamped shut, and it wanted to speak, to do something.

I didn't mean to start anything.

He wet his lips, taking in a slow, measured breath of air before exhaling.

He would show them. He would show all of them.

She suddenly coughed, immediately covering her hand across her mouth to stifle the sound, and the dam broke.

Scorpius cleared his throat. "Listen, I-"

"Well. This is a promising start."

Both of their heads snapped towards the classroom door to see their Headmistress stood just outside of it, the piece of parchment that she was keeping unfurled in her hands momentarily disregarded as she continued to appraise them. With the touch of a satisfied smile still on her face, she stepped inside and seated herself at the Charms professor's desk, adjusting her glasses before continuing to read. After a moment, she lifted her gaze back towards them. "If you'll just give me a few minutes to finishing reading this letter. It is quite urgent."

From the corner of his vision, Scorpius saw his detention partner turn her head slightly to look at him, her brow knit, and he met her gaze for the briefest second before his eyes flicked back to the front of the room.

After a moment, the sound of rustling fabric again. It stopped again.

Scorpius looked out of the window, the last of the day's light glinting off the surface of the fountain, dancing behind his eyes as the students slowly began to trickle back inside. He watched as each one disappeared underneath the old stone archway, and then he was staring at an empty courtyard. He turned back, his eyes seeking out the clock again. Three minutes.

The murmur of dim voices began to swell as the students from the courtyard started to make their way up the stairs, punctuated by the sharp, echoing taps on the stone as they climbed, and the Weasley girl jostled her leg again, and underneath it all, that clock kept on ticking, and Scorpius wondered how Professor McGonagall could stand to read with that noise in the background.

As if in response to his silent question, she suddenly straightened, rolling up the parchment with an air of finality and tucking it back into her robes. She reached among Flitwick's stack of papers and extracted a blank little slip and a quill. A few soft scratching sounds later, she folded it in half, and with a flick of her wrist, it rose into the air, bending over itself until it took the shape of a delicate paper bird, and then it flapped its paper wings and disappeared elegantly from the room.

"Now," McGonagall said, and they both turned to look at her, "the two of you were probably expecting Professor Flitwick, but it's rare that we get two students in detention on their first day of school, even rarer from their first class, so I thought perhaps you two might be a more specialised breed of troublemaker." From the outer edge of his periphery, Scorpius had seen Rose straighten up the second the word 'troublemaker' had left McGonagall's lips. "I'm sure you are both aware that the abuse of magic is taken very seriously here at Hogwarts, and, as you can see, any transgressions will be immediately penalised."

It was an ACCIDENT, Scorpius thought vehemently again when his Headmistress turned her beady gaze on him. He would've been perfectly happy to convey this to Professor Flitwick at the time, except for the small fact that, thanks to the now constipated-looking girl to his right, he had been unconscious. But he kept his mouth shut, unwilling to get into an argument with his Headmistress. She would never forget it if he did.

"Hopefully this detention will dissuade you from any similar foray into rule-breaking in future. How is your head, Mr Malfoy?"

He blinked.

"Fine," he said, while his head throbbed.

"Madam Pomfrey saw to it relatively quickly, I'd imagine."

"She did."

"Good. Now, I hope you have both eaten a hearty dinner; you have a busy few hours ahead."

It was then that Scorpius remembered that despite the twenty torturous minutes he had already sat through, his real punishment was yet to begin. He slumped a little back into his seat.

McGonagall regarded him with dry amusement. "Let's not get too comfortable. Follow me."

Without looking at him, his detention partner got to her feet, immediately falling into step behind the Headmistress. Scorpius raised himself up and wound between the rows of chairs to follow, taking one last glance at the window as he got to the doorway, but the darkness had swallowed up the world outside, and only the dim image of his reflection stared back at him.

Professor McGonagall kept up a brisk pace — the old Headmistress was more sprightly than she looked — as they descended the stairs to the ground floor, and as Scorpius looked out into the blackness, he remembered stories about detentions held in the Forbidden Forest, where students were left to fend for themselves for hours on end, and for a moment he thought that maybe this Weasley girl wasn't the worst person to have around in a time of crisis. But McGonagall led them to another flight of stairs, this time one that coiled like the body of a seashell, and suddenly a different sort of dread burrowed in at the base of his stomach as they made their way into the Potions corridor.

Potions was to have been his second class of the day, but Scorpius had spent his second period unconscious in the Hospital Wing, and now it felt like the most spiteful sort of ironic that he had to spend his detention here instead. With her.

Still, his eyes widened as he took in the classroom, rows of filled jars lining all four walls, with glass cupboards to his left and right packed full of even more ingredients, and at the front of the room behind the Potions professor's desk was the statue of a gargoyle with water spilling from its stone mouth into a connected basin, just as his father had told him.

A soft cough attracted his attention, and he tore his gaze away from the carving and looked to the Headmistress, who was standing with the girl by the entrance to what he assumed was the storeroom. He hastily joined them.

"This is the storeroom," McGonagall confirmed, gesturing to it. "In it, you will find four moveable racks filled with ingredient jars. If you would go in and fetch one each."

Sick of trailing behind her, Scorpius immediately went inside, grabbing the rack furthest away and wheeling it back outside.

"Nothing like a good, clean store cupboard to start the year," McGonagall said, the tiniest gleam behind her spectacles when the girl had returned with hers as well. "As you can see, these jars are all at different stages of life. Some are still clean, but some" — she pointed to a particularly mottled one on Scorpius' rack — "are in desperate need of some rehabilitation. Your task will be to go through the shelves and clean the jars that need cleaning, and transfer the ingredients to new receptacles where the damage is too great. You can keep the ingredients on the cutting boards on the desks while you clean; they are enchanted to clean themselves so you will not need to worry about washing them between ingredients."

Why not just enchant the jars to do the same? Scorpius thought grimly, and then he remembered why he was here.

"The jars' labels are looking quite unfortunate as well, so they will need to be rewritten. Miss Weasley, the second drawer in the glass cupboard behind you contains adhesive parchment and quills." The Weasley girl turned and opened the drawer, retrieving a sleeve of parchment and two quills, and handed one of each to Scorpius. He mumbled a "Thanks."

"Now, do either of you have any questions?"

They shook their heads.

"Good. All cleaning will need to be done by hand, so if you would surrender your wands to me now, I will return them to you at the end of your detention."

Reluctantly, the two students reached into their robes and recovered their respective wands, laying them into her waiting palm.

"Thank you. Try to get through as many as you can in the next two hours. No doubt tomorrow someone will be here to continue your work." She pocketed their wands. "I will return at ten."

She left the door open, and they listened as her footsteps faded away, and then they were alone again.

His detention partner got to work straightaway. She shrugged out of her robes and folded them onto her desk, rolled up her sleeves and began wordlessly pulling jars from the top level of her rack, setting them onto the worktop. Scorpius, although taken aback, paused only for a second before doing the same.

They worked in silence, though the near-constant sound of the taps running and the cloths scrubbing and the quills scratching filled the room with a different sort of energy. Scorpius was happy to see that he recognised a lot of the ingredients from his perusal of the Potions textbook, and it wasn't exactly like he'd imagined it, but he was getting a pretty good introduction to the subject. This wasn't all so bad, he had to admit. And, in a strange way, he was glad he wasn't down here by himself.

With his mood now lifted, he decided to change course.

"So which one are you?"

She stopped scrubbing and looked at him for a second before saying, semi-disbelievingly, "What?"

"Well, you're a Weasley, aren't you." She didn't answer, which would've been pointless anyway since he hadn't meant it as a question. "Which one?" Offhandedly, he noticed that, at some point since they'd been working, she'd tied her hair up into a braid.

She gaped at him. "'Which one?' Are you for—? Is that how you choose to introduce yourself to other people?"

"Actually, I was asking who you are, which is kind of the opposite-"

"And you think, "Which one are you?" is a good way to do that?"

Scorpius raised his palms in defence. "Fine, we'll just go with 'Weasley'."

She huffed, using the inside of her forearm to push away the strands of hair that had come free of her braid, and went back to scrubbing, far more vigorously than before. She seemed very decidedly against speaking to him now, so he picked up another jar and began to empty its contents onto his cutting board.

Well, this is way better than before, he thought sardonically. The previously static air was now rife with tension, but he didn't have to suffer in it for too long before he managed to lose himself in his work, getting used to scents and the feel and weight of each ingredient, enjoying the way they felt in his hands, making mental notes of the ones he would be working with this year and saving the important ones for later—

"What are you doing?"

He looked up from his parchment, midway through writing. He frowned when he caught sight of her expression. "What's it look like?"

She narrowed her eyes and pointed at the cluster of jars he had finished rehabilitating. "You should put the label in the middle so that it's easy for people to see. Like this." She gestured to one of the jars in her own pile.

Scorpius studied it, and then cocked his head. "I don't see how moving a label down four inches suddenly makes it so difficult to see."

She exhaled in annoyance. "People would naturally look at the middle of the jar, why not make it easy for them?"

"Well, good, if they're looking at the middle of the jar then they can see what's inside, and if they have half a brain they should be able to tell what's inside just by looking at it, but they won't be able to with your stupid label blocking the way-"

"Don't call my labels stupid! This is the first time you've even been in a Potions classroom-"

"Wonder whose fault that is-"

"I bet you've never even seen these ingredients before and already you want to stand here and show off like you know better than me-"

"Everything you're saying makes me feel like I'm right about that-"

"Our jars need to look the same, just give yours to me and I'll move the labels up, here—" She reached over—

"Keep your hands off them," he snarled, curling his arms protectively around the entire bunch.

She made a strangled noise of frustration. "Rrghh! Just change it!"

"You change yours."

"No, you change YOURS."

"NO. YOU change YOURS!"

She set her jar down on the table with a violent bang. "It's because of you that I'm in here in the first place. YOU change YOURS."

Scorpius' mouth fell open, and he jabbed his quill roughly in her direction. "You are the one who propelled me into a wall! It's your fault we're in here!"

"I only did that because you set me on FIRE!"

"BY ACCIDENT!" Scorpius bellowed. "AND IT WAS JUST YOUR SHOES!"

"MY BRAND NEW SHOES!"

"IT WASN'T EVEN MY FAULT!"

"YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!"

"I TOLD YOU, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

---

It was well over an hour later that Rose stomped back up to the Gryffindor Common Room, and the fact that she smelled like a dirty storage cupboard and was sporting a very suspicious stain on her shirt that she didn't know if she'd be able to get off was by far the least worst part of it.

They had spent the rest of their detention locked in an on-and-off screaming match, finding new and progressively pettier things to disagree about — not that Rose could call to mind a single example of what those things were — and by the end of it, her voice was chafing painfully against her vocal cords, the beginnings of a very stress-induced headache swelling behind her eyes. Not to mention the fact that she had been holding in her pee for over two hours now and was near bursting — she'd realised her mistake as soon as she'd sat down inside the Charms classroom, but just as she'd been about to dip into the bathroom just on the other end of the corridor to her, he'd had the nerve to show up at the door fifteen minutes early, and then there was no way she could've left.

All she wanted now was a shower and the promise of sleep so that this awful day could be behind her as soon as possible.

"Oh dear, detention already?"

The Fat Lady's painted face was pinched with disapproval, but Rose, too exhausted to play nice, simply recited the password to her and trudged through the portrait hole. She prayed that she would find an empty room, but any hope of that was instantly shot down when the dim murmur of voices greeted her, growing louder and more intelligible as she moved deeper inside.

Some of the older kids still hanging out in the common area looked up at her curiously as she passed them, and she felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment and shame, dutifully keeping her eyes down as she hurried to the staircase leading to her room. Her dormitory door was closed; a single shaft of light shone on one of the beds when Rose cracked it ajar, and the beam grew, carving through the darkness as Rose opened the door wide enough for her to slip through.

As she got closer, she could see it was Gen's bed that was illuminated; her friend's dark hair fanned out over the pillow as she slept, and though one of the other girls — Leanne, she thought — shifted a little in her sleep as Rose passed her, she didn't wake.

Rose tiptoed soundlessly over to her bed, stepping out of her shoes and folding her robes over the end of its frame, and she grabbed her pyjamas off her duvet cover before heading for the adjoining bathroom.

She showered quickly and brushed her teeth, creeping back into the bedroom within ten minutes, but as she reached for her wand to dry her hair, she caught sight of the letter she had left from earlier, and, after deliberating for a long moment, grabbed it and her rucksack, and left the room.

She was still far too fired up to sleep — and she knew she would just be laying in bed fuming if she tried — plus there would be no point making herself angry all over again if she waited to write her reply, so now felt as good a time as ever.

The common area had cleared out noticeably since she'd last come through — only the students who were working still remained — but she sat herself down at one of the desks closest to the girls' staircase, digging around in her rucksack for some clean parchment and a quill. Once she'd extracted them, she opened her father's letter to have next to her for reference, and began to write:

Dear Dad,

Don't worry, I won't tell Mum about the letter. And I won't write much, just as you asked (I've made a really nice friend called Gen, and Al's fine too, but I'll tell you all about them when I write to you both).

You'll never guess where I've just got back from. I know you won't freak out, but still. Detention. I just got back from DETENTION. Don't tell Mum yet, though, I don't know how she'll take it. Okay, fine, I'm sure you won't be able to keep it from her, but just do it gently, please?

Dad, it was so horrible, and it wasn't even really my fault that I got it in the first place! Scorpius Malfoy, the awful boy that you warned me about, shot his Incendio spell at me during Charms class — our first class of the day, so there was no way I'd done anything to make him mad at me — so I lost my temper a little and shot some water at him after I'd used it to put out my shoes, but instead of just calling it even, he shot a jet of water BACK at me and DRENCHED all of my clothes, so I sent another one back at him, but I was even angrier this time so I accidentally sort of knocked him into the wall and he kind of collapsed for a little while. But he was fine! Well, as "fine" as he was before. But because of that whole thing, Professor Flitwick gave us both detention that we had to sit TOGETHER, and we had to go down to the Potions classroom and clean and relabel all of these dirty jars (so I couldn't even accidentally "lose" him in the Forbidden Forest) and I decided that I would just ignore him so that we wouldn't get into any more trouble, but he was SO rude to me and went about labelling his jars all wrong and didn't listen when I tried to help him, so we just ended up shouting at each other about different things for the rest of the hour that we were in there. I don't even know how we found so much to argue about, but I think it has something to do with the fact that he's the most awful person I've ever met. He's so arrogant and condescending and downright mean, like he thinks he's doing the world a favour just by existing in it, and I never want to speak to him ever again. Now I don't feel bad at all for sending him to the Hospital Wing, and I'm not even sorry for it.

(Maybe don't mention any of this to Mum, either.)

Anyway, I am sorry that I got detention, so if you get a letter from Professor McGonagall, you'll know why. I'm going to start fresh tomorrow and just try and forget about the whole thing, but I know what he's like now, Dad, and you were right the whole time.

I love you,

Rose

P.S. If it wasn't obvious, you don't have to worry about that, Dad. Ever.

---

A/N:

First things first, I wanted to thank you all for your infinite patience ❤❤ It was my intention that this be a fun little chapter that would be uploaded quite quickly after the last, and then we could get back on track to the present story, but then, out of nowhere, RL hit me hard and writing had to take a major backseat for a couple of months. But RL has finally settled, so onwards and upwards we go! Secondly, thank you so much for all of your feedback on the last chapter! It was murder to write, but I'm really happy with how it turned out, so it's nice to hear that you all liked it as well :) OH and thank you for all of your Quidditch-related comments! It was definitely the hardest and densest part to execute and I was pulling those plays out of my ass, so thank you for reassuring me that it turned out okay! In the spirit of complete transparency, I went full-on Rowling and was forced to do some minimal retconning (in my defense, it was because I was an idiot and forgot about the contents of this chapter, not because this chapter was planned last minute). In Chp. 14's Valentine's Day party, Rose tells Scorpius that she met Nate after her first detention, but she actually meets him after her second detention in fourth year, her first detention since that first day of school. So I went back and tweaked it. I am merely an idiot sandwich and will take any and all disparaging comments thrown my way. Chapter titles come from Fun's Some Nights and My Defenses Are Down from the movie musical Annie Get Your Gun.

P.S. Ron has that letter framed in his and Hermione's bedroom somewhere. He likes to look at it when he needs to feel uplifted.

Now, I thought since this is sort of an interim chapter, I'd add something a little extra. You guys know that I don't respond to reviews since this site doesn't have a feature that allows you to respond to guest reviews, but some of y'all have written legit questions/comments over the years that I would be remiss not to clear up (and have been itching to do so for ages), so I thought I'd just answer a bunch of them here! I can never say it enough: you guys are the absolute sweetest and all of your wonderful comments mean the world to me, so thank you so much ❤❤❤

Q: What the hell are you talking about? Scorpius is SURELY a son of Hades? Dark, brooding, solitary, holier-than-thou, intelligent fella?

A: Scorpius is a dramatic loser whose goal aesthetic is dark, brooding and solitary, when in reality he is actually just very lame and full!of!emotions! And let me tell you, Athena is a genius who thinks she is the shit, and she is correct.

Q: Will the fic carry on after Hogwarts?

A: Nope!

Q: Well, I'm glad they're finally not hating each other anymore (like they ever truly were, though...)

A: Nah, they totally did (pls accept this as it is the premise of my story lmao).

Q: jealously fumming over her and Nate and le crème- whatever the hell he told Liv. God, to want to know so bad D;

A: Haha, I know this is terribly late, but in case you see this, what he said to her was in the continuation of the scene following their chat: "Force of habit". (Side note: I got a few questions/comments regarding this, so obvious!author!fail)

Q: I don't know what your aspirations are in life, but damn I really hope you end up publishing something, because I would looove to read anything written by you!

A: That is so incredibly sweet, thank you so much ❤❤ It's actually a huge ambition of mine to get published — if I do, I'll be sure to post a little note about it on here (so don't unfollow this story just yet!).

Q: Is this fic already finished or are you writing it as you go?

A: Writing it as I go. I promise I'm not sitting here hoarding fully completed chapters and cackling to myself as I read your pleas for updates.

Q: Sorry but I don't care what Scorpius did. If [Liv] was unhappy then she should have just broken up with him. Why cheat? And purposely so he would see it?

A: Liv was feeling a mounting lack of commitment (and possibly love) from Scorpius, and she was letting it fester and build up while also having moments where she was really trying to make it work, until she realised that she was giving way more than she was getting. Basic psychology tells us that people generally don't like feeling this way. So Liv cheated on him because some part of her wanted to make Scorpius hurt the way she was hurting. Something in Liv understood that if she simply broke up with Scorpius, the only one who'd be getting any satisfaction out of that would be him. She probably knew that some part of Scorpius even wanted her to do it. So she took a different route — a rash, spiteful route that she deliberately took because she wanted to hurt him. So yeah, that's why Liv cheated on Scorpius. (Another side note: got a fair amount of questions/comments along this vein so hopefully this answers all of them!)

Q: Is this finally where we see the title come into play? Has this all been a shared (ridiculously long) psychosis from a spell/potion/detention gone wrong and they're about to wake up from it; likely in the hospital wing.

A: Man, that's waaaaaay better than my idea.

Q: If I had one criticism I'd say I'd like to see more of the family. Lily and Hugo are noticeably absent.

A: Honestly, I just don't think there's any need for them (or the others) in this story. They're not relevant to any storyline and I'm trying to trim as much fat off this story as possible. Plus, I feel like if I included family members in any random scene, it would just make it glaringly obvious that I all but omitted them from the story, and then I'd feel obligated to include them in some more. Sigh. It's a tangled web we weave.

(However, there is a scene coming up that I believe delivers on what you ask :P)

Q: meme that makes you think of Scorpius lol

A: What's that one where Person A is like "just be yourself. be nice" and Person B is like "which one i can't do both".