Dear JKR, I'm not making any moolah off of your concept.
September 2022 – June 2023
Naturally, Rose tells Professor McGonagall that she would love to participate in the internship. She will spend two afternoons a week in Finland, at the company headquarters, in the Magical Integration department.
Rose excitedly appears in Espoo on her first day, and meets a wizard in his middle twenties with sad eyes named Kalle, who says that he will be her mentor for this project. They begin a tour of the facility, she meets what seems like a million people, gazes at polished chrome machinery, has stars in her eyes when he shows her the open floor plan workspace. But this is the muggle portion of the facility. Eventually Kalle leads her to a giant warehouse-looking space in the back of the property. The space is very sparse, with a couple of desks clustered together along one wall, but the rest of the space bears evidence of the conflict between electronics and magic that she experienced that day in the Ministry. There are scorch marks on the floor, on the wall, and she thinks she sees at least one on the high ceiling.
"Well, this is our space," says Kalle, "and the team."
He introduces Rose around to the seven other witches and wizards on the team, and they give her a short presentation of what they have worked on so far. Rose finds it somewhat discouraging that their methods are very similar to the methods in the Ministry – they seem to randomly throw spells at devices at various stages of construction and degrees of usage, and the record-keeping is extremely haphazard. Rose doesn't have a chance to ask questions before most of them disperse and go home, but Kalle stays.
"So, what is your impression, Rose? What do you think you will like to do during your time here?"
Rose pauses before she speaks, not wanting to offend.
"I think the team has made good headway in identifying procedures of how not to proceed."
Kalle nods somberly, and indicates for her to go on.
"But I feel this is much like taking a finished product and trying to break it. I think I would like to try a project that approaches from the opposite direction – I would like to make component parts that are magic-compatible, and put them together. In order to do this, I will need to spend some time on the assembly line, learning what hardware goes into this device, and designing a monitor system for each part – so while we manipulate any single phone, each part will report back in a big projection its status as working or not. Once we have this system, or maybe even concurrently with the development of the system, we can try experimenting with the component parts. I think a good starting point would be a basic circuit to light up a lightbulb."
Kalle's expression has changed to one of admiration.
"I think this is a great idea. You may find that some things will not go as you planned, as is normal for experimental science, but this is a strong starting point." He checks his watch and says, "Our time for today is up, you need to return to your school. We'll start immediately on the next day."
As Rose and Kalle walk back to her Portkey, Kalle makes a final comment. "As for our coworkers, many of them have been burned by this field in the past. It seems such a noble idea, but the entrenched ideas of how to approach these questions have a tendency to… ruin dreams. But, Rose, I am glad that you have joined our team. Fresh ideas never go amiss, and maybe they will actually pan out to something. Have a good evening, and I'll see you next time."
Rose leaves with a mixture of apprehension and inspiration, and looks forward to spending more time with this team.
Nothing has changed on the Scorpius front.
This drives Rose up a wall.
Regularly.
Which also means that Alice is accompanying Rose up these walls, because Rose's favorite way to deal with frustration is to share it.
"Rose." Alice has had enough and is getting out of this constant state of being up a wall. "It is clear that he likes you as much as you like him. Oh, don't give me those tortured eyes. I see how he looks at you. I see how you both blush when you 'accidentally' touch hands. No boy stays study buddies with a girl for four years without having an ulterior motive. Just ask him out already!"
"But, why doesn't he?"
"Rose, it is 2022, and you are a strong independent woman. You are changing the paradigm at the interface of muggle and magic technologies. You don't need to adhere to societal structures if you want to ask out a boy who you've liked for eons."
"That doesn't answer my question."
Alice is exasperated. "Maybe he's embarrassed by his name. Maybe he's terrified of yours. Maybe he's terrified of YOU. It's not like there was no drama between your parents and you are certainly a commanding young woman."
"Alice, have I ever mentioned how much I love you? I don't know where I'd be without you and your sanity right now."
"Well, you can thank me by asking Scorpius out."
The next week, Rose and Scorpius are studying for Transfiguration together. Rose has finished her essay about the theory of turning water into wine, with a specific focus on how the age and maturity of the witch or wizard affects the outcome; there is no specific regulation in the wizarding community about how old a young witch or wizard needs to be before they are allowed to start consuming alcohol, but ability to perform this spell has long been used as a metric of readiness, for reasons that Rose has explored in some depth. She considers starting her essay for Potions, but decides that she's tired and will call it a night. So she pulls out the latest novel she's been reading – The Art of Racing in the Rain – and settles into her armchair. She's not waiting up for Scorpius, she tells herself. They do this all the time. They finish up with whatever they were planning to work on that night, and catch up a little bit with each other's lives before going their separate ways. This is normal.
Rose realizes that she's been staring at the same page for several minutes when Scorpius asks her a question about his Transfiguration essay, and they bounce ideas back and forth for a couple minutes, until Scorpius returns to his essay and Rose returns to her book. This time, she actually starts reading, and she hears Scorpius packing up to leave just as she gets to a part which is absolutely going to trigger the waterworks… yep, there they are.
So it's with teary eyes and a dribbly nose that Rose accepts Scorpius' handkerchief, and tells him in a choked-up voice that IT'S JUST A REALLY SWEET STORY and Scorpius awkwardly pats her shoulder.
He turns to leave but turns back when Rose says, "Hey, Scorpius?"
"Yes?"
"Um, would you want to go to Hogsmeade this weekend? Er, with me? Ah, if you're, well, if you don't already have plans?" Rose knows her face is aflame and she can't meet his eyes. She wants to repeatedly hit her head on the wall. She sounds pathetic. And why did she ask if she was so sure that he wouldn't say—
"Yes, I'd like that."
Wait. What?
Rose looks up and meets Scorpius' eyes. He's smiling a little. Kindly? Shyly? He doesn't look like he's playing a cruel prank. His mouth is moving. Oh. He's saying something. Rose tunes back in to hear him suggest they meet up in the Great Hall after breakfast on Saturday.
She recovers her senses enough to respond, "Sure, sounds like a plan! See you in class!" Merlin she sounds so high pitched and overeager and what will Alice think?
When Rose gets back to Ravenclaw Tower, she catches Alice's eye in the common room and they head up the stairs together, where they sit on Rose's four-poster bed and draw the blinds around them, like when they were first years and would have sleepovers, but this time Rose knows to cast silencio because she anticipates some screaming…
By this point, Rose is vibrating with her untold secret and it kinda spills out. Garbled. Alice fixes her with her patented you-can-do-better-than-this glare, and Rose tries again.
"He. Said! YES!"
Alice jumps up and starts screaming, "What did I tell you! Am I ever wrong?!" And Rose joins in the screaming and the jumping up and down on her bed until both girls collapse in a giggling heap and Rose finds that she cannot keep her eyes open any longer, the giddiness having been burned off in that bout of jumping.
Alice, seeing this, tells Rose, "You get your beauty rest. We'll figure out a plan of attack for your DAAAATE after you get back from Finland tomorrow."
At 11:03 on Saturday, Rose walks into the Great Hall wearing something "cute, but casual, because you don't want him to think that you're trying too hard," with hair brushed a little longer than usual, and a touch of make-up to hide the fact that she hasn't been able to sleep from nerves. She sees Scorpius waiting for her, and goes over to him, unable to stop her smile from spreading across her face.
She stops two steps away from him, and they face each other, not saying anything for a hot second.
"Hi," she breathes.
"Hi," he says, smiling with his eyes.
They stand like this for a couple more seconds, drinking each other in, until he breaks the trance by lifting a picnic basket.
"I asked the house elves in the kitchens to pack us a lunch. I thought we could poke around in the secondhand bookstore at the edge of town, and then picnic in the little park nearby. Unless you had other things you were dying to do today?"
If Rose hadn't long since stopped judging Scorpius by the reputation his last name carried, she would be surprised that a Malfoy liked to "just poke around" in secondhand bookstores. But since she's past that, she's primarily relieved that his choice of activity is away from the most-frequented sites in the town and thus the prying eyes of their classmates, and secondly giddy at his good taste because this is absolutely a treat yourself kind of afternoon she would plan for herself. So she beams at him and says, "Lead the way, good sir!"
Scorpius shrinks the picnic basket and tucks it into a pocket of his coat, and they take the back way to town. They maintain a proper distance from each other (that Rose constantly wants to reach across to hold his hand but she manages to refrain) while they walk in mostly a comfortable silence, punctuated by brief questions about the state of each other's lives. How was the intervening day from the last time we saw each other? Any progress on that Potions essay? How are your cousins?
Scorpius holds the door for Rose when they arrive at the shop and Rose breathes in the smell of musty old books before arbitrarily running toward a shelf. She has been here before, and loves that she can occasionally find muggle books scattered among the wizarding. She shows Scorpius a collection of photography of wizarding architecture, he shows her a work of non-fiction about the urban ecology of London. She finds a how-to book of enchanted origami, and together they fold a little dragon who opens its mouth to breathe a jet of fire and instead goes up in a puff of flame. Two hours of exploring all the nooks and crannies of the bookshop later, Rose feels that the two of them have done a better job of covering the entire store than she would have alone. And she enjoyed many of the books she would not have picked up on her own. Overall, very diverting, but the entire time, when Scorpius would brush up against her to pull a book, or their fingers would touch as they passed books between them, Rose felt a strange bubbling in her chest accompanied by a desire to blurt to him that she fancies him.
However, the current trouble is the bubbling in Rose's stomach. It's audible. She's mortified. But Scorpius does what he's done this entire time – he turns and smiles at her. This time he reaches into his pocket, pulls out the miniature picnic basket, and suggests they eat.
At first, the only sound after they tuck into lunch is the sound of forks and chewing (the house elves have outdone themselves, as usual), then Scorpius breaks the silence by asking, "So, I noticed that you aren't anywhere to be found at Hogwarts sometimes. What's up with that?"
Rose files this away to tell Alice – Scorpius notices when she's not around! This means that he looks for her!
But that's for later. For now, she starts to tell Scorpius about muggle cell phones. He asks the appropriate questions at the right times: How is this different from a Protean Charm? Why didn't the cell phone that your grandfather give you combust when you tried to turn it on at home? How did the original people who generated the spider illusion do so without causing a combustion? She speaks about her internship and how this work has been challenging and frustrating and fulfilling in equal proportions, but mostly how disappointed she is when she has to take time away from working with Hagrid in their separate lessons to go to Finland. "It's not even like it's a chore," she says about going to Finland. "It's so starkly beautiful and different there, but some days I just want to sink my fingers into some musty fur and give the animal it's attached to a good rub down."
Talk turns to Rose's love for magical creatures, then to post-Hogwarts plans, then to Scorpius' interest in understanding ecoscapes – how is one different from another, and how does that affect the way that life and magic spring forth?
Before they know it, shadows are longer and they need to pack up and return to Hogwarts before the light is entirely gone. Upon returning to the Great Hall and going their separate ways, they pause a moment and resume the same positions as the beginning of the day. Standing squarely facing each other, two paces separating them.
"I had a really nice time today, Scorpius."
"Me too. See you in class?"
"Yes, see you later."
Rose feels that she is floating on a cloud when she meets up with Alice again at dinner, and over the course of the night, they hash out the meanings of every single detail, and also take time to do Alice things.
At the end of their next study session, Rose tugs on Scorpius' sleeve to get his attention as he is about to leave.
"I wanted you to know, um, I fancy you."
His face breaks into one of the first full smiles that Rose has seen on him.
"I fancy you too."
Rose feels her heart swell as they again hold their tableau positions, smiling at each other.
"Um, can I have a hug?"
It's the first time they touch each other in a full body contact, and it's awkward but electrifying and far too brief before Scorpius turns away to leave again.
Rose feels that something should have changed after they discovered their mutual attraction, but still, nothing has. They meet up once a week and study on opposite sides of the table, not touching each other. Rose wishes that they could go to Hogsmeade again, this time on a proper, official date, but he never asks, and neither does she.
Alice is the unfortunate frequent recipient of Rose's panicked self-doubt: "What are we doing, Alice?! What should I be doing?! Why isn't he like the other boys who are just all over their girlfriends? Are we boyfriend and girlfriend now? He said he fancied me too and then he just left!"
"I wish we'd do more than just hang out in class and in the library. I wish he'd ask me out."
"Well why don't you, Rose? After all, you had to ask the first time."
"I asked the first time! Shouldn't this mean that it's his turn now?"
"It's 2023, Rose, I think you know what I'm going to say."
"Yes, but sometimes I just want to feel coddled. I spend so much time being a star student who's so independent and a good role model for young witches, can't I want to feel feminine and taken care of sometimes too?"
"Does he know that you want this?"
Rose has nothing to say to this at first, then, "If he wants to be with me, shouldn't he be making some sort of effort also?"
It's during one of their regular library sessions where everything falls apart. Rose doesn't even know how she's gotten into this argument with Scorpius, but it absolutely isn't going well. She never did ask him out again, and he has been similarly mute on the matter. As a result of this, she's been kind of grumpy with him, and has bailed on a couple of study sessions. But just now, they were talking about their Care of Magical Creatures assignment, and trying to decide the best way to set up an enclosure for Occamys.
"Why does everything have to have a reason?" Scorpius demands. "Why can't you just feel things out sometimes, just go with your feelings?"
Rose feels like they've stopped talking about Occamys. She isn't quite sure what to say to this, and they both return to their respective work. However, Rose abruptly packs up to leave much earlier than usual, not offering an explanation, and Scorpius sits in stony silence, not stopping her.
After that night, Rose and Scorpius no longer speak quite as much, no longer study together. Alice has been trying to respect Rose's request to not speak about the matter after the first night, when Alice declared that it was a preposterous reason to not speak to each other, and she should just kiss and make up with him. Unfortunately, Rose's stubbornness makes a reappearance, so she replaces their usual study evening with another afternoon each week in Finland. Kalle tells her that she could honestly be reducing her hours; the monitoring system that she built seems to be working on the simple circuits that they built the system on, and on the ever more complex phone chassis as the team works to insulate individual components to magic. Kalle has written her a phenomenal letter of recommendation for her summer internship in California, and her role in Finland has effectively been reduced to writing a report detailing her work during her internship as the school year winds down, and the team becomes more adept at manipulating and further developing the system that she helped to develop. But if Rose is being honest, which she only is with Alice after all their dorm-mates have gone to sleep, she's just avoiding Scorpius.
The school year draws to a close. Rose spends more time with Alice's circle of girlfriends, who include Anya Clearwater. This study circle is not nearly as productive and invigorating as studying with Scorpius was, but since that's no longer an option ("For a stupid reason!" Alice exclaimed. "Go fix this!"), Rose supplements with a little more time on her own, and everybody passes. Soon enough, sixth year is over, the Scottish landscape is flying by on the Hogwarts Express, Rose catches up on sleep at home, no owl comes from Scorpius on the third day of vacation, and then her entire family take a Portkey to California.
A/N: I extremely recommend The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. It's a very cute story about a loyal doggo and a very trying time in the life of his human.