I'm not here to take JKR's $$$.
September 2019 - June 2021
Third year. Care of Magical Creatures. Unlike the core classes in their first two years, all four Houses are combined together for these elective classes. As such, this is the first class that Rose has with Scorpius. More relevantly, this is the first class that Rose has with Scorpius's friend, Pascal Zabini.
"He's so tall," she sighs to her best friend, Alice Longbottom, when the two girls catch sight of him and Scorpius walking to class.
Alice rolls her eyes, used to this by now. Rose has been going on about Pascal since about April of second year, and she's learned that 1, Rose will do nothing about this blatant crush, and 2, once Rose gets started on him, she won't stop until she's said all that she has to say.
"His hair is so dark and floppy and doesn't it just make you want to touch it?" Rose gushes.
Sometimes Alice wonders how Rose stays at the top of their class when such idiotic things come out of her mouth with alarming frequency. His hair is clearly greasy and unwashed, but Alice has learned better than to contradict Rose when she gets started on Pascal.
"And I heard…" Rose drops her voice to a stage whisper. "I heard that he's got abs!"
Alice nods distractedly. She has heard this also. And it makes sense: he is, after all, the Seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Very few thirteen-year-olds can boast having more than just one ab.
Overall, the boy has quite an inspiring set of features, Alice muses. (Note heavy sarcasm.) Given these, Alice wonders how in the world she has not also fallen for him. More pressingly, Alice thinks, on occasions like this, that she deserves an award for Most Patient Friend. But then, she supposes, her friendship with Rose is more complex than this.
"I heard from my dad that Professor Brunet will usually pair us up when we're actually working with the creatures, why don't you try to be project partners with him?" Alice makes this suggestion knowing full well that Rose will definitely not want to do this, and is not disappointed.
"I-I couldn't possibly…" Rose stammers, turning bright Weasley red. "Besides, I want to be your partner! That is, if you also want to be my partner…"
Alice laughs and also feels a tiny wave of relief. "Of course I want to be your partner! But what kind of supportive friend would I be if I didn't encourage you to chase your dreams?"
When the first creature care assignment comes, Professor Brunet has other ideas than to let these third years choose their partners.
"As part of the effort to promote inter-House unity, we'll be drawing names randomly from a hat to determine your partners for the first half of the term." This announcement is met with groans from everyone.
Rose somehow ends up partnered with Scorpius, Alice partners with a quiet girl from Hufflepuff, Anya Clearwater, and it is Albus who ends up with Pascal.
Today's task is easy: the groups need only to set up small crates for their bowtruckles, who will take up residence in the next lesson. When presented with a heap of possible linings for their little box, Scorpius chooses the textures that are most favored by the creatures, according to the text. This surprises Rose, but then she remembers what her mother said about judging a person by their actions, and she looks a little more favorably upon this partnership. She wishes a little that Scorpius had spoken to her before lining the box the way he wanted, but she supposes that she'll have the chance to show her knowledge later.
When Scorpius finishes, he steps back and indicates for Rose to have a look. This is strange, she thinks, does he not know how to speak? Rose pokes her nose into the box and quietly speaks out loud the checklist of textures, and yep, everything is there. She looks up and meets Scorpius's eyes.
"Looks good to me," she confirms with a smile.
"Great," Scorpius responds, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a half-smile.
When class is dismissed, Rose, Alice and Albus walk back to the castle together.
"Ugh," Albus moans. "Zabini spent the entire class playing with a stupid Snitch and didn't help at all with making the box. I hope the rest of the term isn't like this, or I'm gonna poke my eyes out. Or maybe rat him out to Brunet for not contributing."
Alice and Rose make conciliatory noises, and Rose thinks maybe she actually lucked out not being partnered with Pascal, because that kind of freeloader would drive her bonkers.
"Say," Albus continues, "how's Malfoy?"
"Surprisingly not the worst," Rose says to the surprise of her audience. "He kinda just took charge and didn't talk to me but it was obvious that he had done the reading. Which is okay for now but I hope this noncommunication doesn't continue."
"And Anya?" Albus asks Alice.
"I think we'll get on well this term. She seems pretty interested in the class, and we might even be friends by the end of the term."
Rose finds, with each progressive unit, that Scorpius continues to keep up with the reading, and is prepared for their group work periods. They become more equitable as partners as the class progresses: it becomes evident that Scorpius cares more about the creatures' environments and feeding, while Rose is far more proficient, and dare she say, less queasy, when she interacts with the creatures, both in play, cleaning, and taking care of their injuries.
And with every time that Albus complains about how lazy, or how uninvested, or how useless Pascal is as a partner, Rose's crush on him goes away a little bit more, to the point where she is in a crush void. The perfect setup for the first time that she really notices Scorpius Malfoy.
Hippogriffs.
During the summer, at one of the many family picnics, Rose's parents and her Uncle Harry had reminisced about their first day of Care of Magical Creatures, when Scorpius' father Draco had, in a fit of arrogance, provoked a hippogriff and suffered minor injuries and major embarrassment.
So, it is with this backstory that Rose attends class on the first day of the hippogriffs unit. She doesn't know what she expected – maybe apprehension on his part? A refusal to approach or to participate in this lesson? But it certainly wasn't his quiet confidence in answering Professor Brunet's question about how to approach a hippogriff, and his subsequent volunteering to be the first to demonstrate proper form (which he had previously articulated perfectly). When Rose watched him slowly approach Buckbeak's grandson, Winterstorm, maintaining eye contact with the golden catlike eyes, and make a deep bow, and have that bow returned, Rose felt something open in her chest. She saw, for the first time, his high, aristocratic cheekbones, his clear, piercing silver-blue eyes, and the soft sweep of his hair. She saw his long, graceful fingers, and imagined what it would be like to lace her own with his. Most of all, she saw that he carried the name Malfoy and made conscious decisions to be a better man than his father at the same age. She wonders if it is his father's influence in the post-war era that shaped him like this, but whatever the cause, she likes what she sees.
It is this crush that leads Rose to ask Alice if it would be okay if she stayed partners with Scorpius for the second half of the year, when Professor Brunet says it is okay for them to choose their own partners.
When she asks, Alice fixes her with a weird stare. "What brought this on?"
Rose tries to temper her emotions, but ends up looking like a tomato anyways. She refuses to meet Alice's eyes.
"You fancy him!"
Rose hurriedly shushes her friend and says in hushed tones, "Well okay, yes, now that you mention it, I guess you could call it that."
"Don't you suppo-ose, Rose. I know you fancy him, I can see it in your face." After a beat, Alice asks, surprised, "What is different about this crush that you are making an effort to spend time with him?"
"I don't really know… But it might be because I started liking him for who he was, the person who he showed to me in this class. Not like, say, Pascal, who I liked from a distance without any idea of what he was like as a person."
Alice wraps her arms around her friend. "You sound like you're growing up, Rose!"
"I don't even know if he wants to keep being partners with me!"
"Of course he will, Rose, you guys are like the best team in the entire class!"
Rose never finds out if Scorpius would have asked her to be partners again, because she takes the initiative and asks him during their next class. Scorpius doesn't hesitate before smiling the broadest smile that Rose has ever seen on him, and saying, "Yes, of course."
Rose and Scorpius' tentative friendship is somehow limited to just their Care of Magical Creatures class. The class rapidly becomes Rose's favorite, and she looks forward to it, and the casual hand-touches that she and Scorpius share when they are working together over a creature. Their classmates gossip about them, but when no friendship outside of the class, or vaguest hints of a romance appear, their classmates turn to other more promising topics. Which is perfectly fine by Rose, because she was starting to feel extremely awkward with all the whispers.
This partnership, and Rose's intense (one sided?) crush continue through fourth year. Alice (who changed to partner with Albus after the first half of the term – he asked, because he was fed up with Pascal) stages an intervention toward the end of fourth year.
"Rose. This is getting ridiculous. He clearly likes spending time with you, otherwise he would not have agreed to be your partner again for ONE AND A HALF BLOODY YEARS. Will you just get your shit together and make friends with him outside of class!"
"Um. How?"
"Ask him to Hogsmeade. Ask him about his pants. Talk about the weather. Ask him to owl you, for all I care!"
Rose hides her face so Alice doesn't see the blush that steals over it when she thinks about a date with Scorpius to Hogsmeade… Or his pants… But maybe the owl idea will work.
It's the next-to-last day of the term, and she still hasn't figured out how to ask him. She's gone to the Owlery to send a note to her parents (She got her exam results back today, and she's passed with flying colors. The high note was definitely the special note from Professor Brunet, saying that if Rose ever wants to visit her over the summer, she has all sorts of magical creatures in her menagerie that haven't been covered in the third and fourth year curricula who would love to meet someone as talented as Rose. She further suggests that maybe Rose would like to take on an additional period of Independent Study with Gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid in the next year, because Rose is the most talented and passionate student in this class who she has taught in many years.) and when she exits the tower, she runs into Scorpius walking up to the Owelry.
"Oh! Hi!"
"Hi, Rose."
And without preamble, Rose blurts, "Will you owl me?"
Scorpius stares at her confusedly. "What?"
Rose conjures a piece of parchment, scrawls her address on it, and shoves it at Scorpius.
"Owl me, please? That's my address."
"Um, alright?"
"Okay! Great!" Mortified, Rose skedaddles.
Later that night, Rose and Alice sit on the roof outside their dormitory and Rose recounts what happened. When Alice finishes laughing, she promises to never let Rose live this down.
"What does it mean if he doesn't owl me? That would be terrible! And what if he does actually owl me! That might be worse! What will I do?"
"Oh Rose, you're going to have a brilliant summer, regardless of whether a silly boy wants to owl you or not."
And of course, with that positive outlook, Scorpius' first owl comes only three days into vacation. After that, Scorpius and Rose become pen pals, exchanging notes about their lives every once in a while.