In the Previous Chapter…

"Why would you protect me?" Rose whispered. "We've never really spoken to each other until yesterday and now over the course of less than 24 hours you're sat here comforting me as I cry. It's no wonder people are suspicious…" she drifted off.

"You're at your weakest, Rose. The one you thought you should be able to trust throughout everything just hit you and slammed you against a wall and no offense, but you're not really in the right state to be left alone. I just thought you'd need someone else to talk to, someone who might understand more" he mumbled in her ear.

"You've been really good to me Scorpius" Rose muttered, before sitting up and swivelling round in her seat so that she was facing Scorpius. "Well, considering you're stuck up to your elbows in my mess, we may as well get to know each other better...fancy a game of 20 Questions?"

Scorpius turned to Rose with an amused smirk on his face. "20 Questions? How old are you exactly? 12?" he smirked.

"Mentally, maybe" Rose giggled. "Alright….favourite colour?"

"Blue… like, the colour of the sky on a sunny day blue" said Scorpius, slightly embarrassed. "Yours?"

"Well I like that type of blue too, but my family lives on the south coast, we have so much rain its mostly clouds in the sky" she joked, "but my favourite colour's green."

"Oooooh I sense house betrayal here….a Weasley loving the Slytherin colours… well here's a twist in the story!" Scorpius said dramatically.

"Stop being a douche, Scorp" Rose smiled, before asking her next question, "favourite subject?"

"Potions. Yours?"

"Charms. I know it can be considered a soft subject but Charms is cool" said Rose.

"My turn" said Scorpius eagerly. "Here's one for you….favourite relative"

"Uncle George definitely, but don't tell anyone" she laughed. "Only reason he's my favourite is that last Christmas he gave my dad a toilet seat as a present and then charmed the turkey to tap dance on my dad's dinner plate" she chuckled at the memory. "Who's your favourite relative?"

"I don't really have any relatives, but my favourite would probably be my Grandma – she's always been really nice to me and she used to tell me loads of stories as a kid" Scorpius shrugged. "Another one: Have you ever got in trouble for something that didn't involve me in any way?"

"Remember when everyone woke up and found every surface wrapped in bubble wrap?" Rose smirked.

"That was YOU?" Scorpius gasped.

"The one and only" Rose laughed, "But I had help from Uncle George, James and Fred. What about you?"

"You might not have been there – I think you were in the Hospital Wing after one of our duels, but I may have bribed the house elves to spike all of the drinks at dinner one night with a batch of polyjuice potion" he said.

"I was in the hospital wing, but I got told that McGonagall was less than pleased to look up from her dinner and see a sea of McGonagalls blinking back at her" Rose laughed.

"That was so funny." Scorpius reminisced.

15 questions later, Rose was showing signs of exhaustion. Scorpius, knowing Rose had had a long day and needed a pillow, wrapped his arms around Rose and brought her closer.

"You look like you need a pillow" he muttered when Rose looked at him confused, "And we still have one more question" he asked with a cunning glint in his eyes.

"Oh no…" Rose muttered, knowing what was coming next. It was traditionally the last question ever asked when playing 20Q in Hogwarts. It was the same with Truth or Dare. "Not that question" she begged.

"Oh yes" teased Scorpius, "it's time for the question" he finished dramatically, before whispering in her ear "Are you ticklish?"

Before Rose had time to answer, Scorpius had followed tradition and had now bundled Rose playfully onto the floor and was tickling her mercilessly.

"Scorpius!" Rose squealed, "STOP! Please, I beg you" she cried. Scorpius grinned in such a way that said that he was not about to stop tickling her any time soon, so Rose did the first thing she could think of. Rose sat up and pushed Scorpius backwards before sitting on top of his, straddling his waist.

"Rose" Scorpius panted, slightly surprised, "would you kindly like to get off of me?" he asked, still panting from their energetic tickle fight. Rose noticed that by straddling Scorpius, she was at a very big advantage over her male pillow, and she very much planned to use this advantage.

When Rose was being Sorted, the Hat had stalled when it came to her. The hat had been very close to putting Rose in with the Slytherins, but had eventually decided that Rose was far to brave and noble to be a Snake, so sent her over to the Lions. Rose, however, still contained many Slytherin traits, and her cunningness, ruthlessness and ability to make others squirm became very useful when she needed those abilities, just like she did right now.

"I don't know" Rose whispered seductively, making Scorpius stare at her in confusion. "I could just stay here" she said, lying down gently on top of Scorpius, still straddling him, "And somehow" she said, grinding her hips down against Scorpius', "I don't think you want me to get up yet" she whispered tantalisingly slowly, practically nose-to-nose with Scorpius as she once again ground her hips against his.

Scorpius moaned involuntarily, and this was the reaction Rose had been waiting for. She lowered herself down towards his face, and was almost about to lay her lips on Scorpius' when she moved her hands to his waist and begun to ferociously tickle him. Scorpius was so surprised that he jumped up with a shout and Rose fell off of him. After Scorpius had recovered, he glared down at Rose, who was curled up in a ball on the floor by his feet, crying from laughter. He crouched down and poked Rose in the back to catch her attention. Rose looked up and with a satisfied grin giggled "I take it you're ticklish then, Mr Malfoy" before laughing again. At this Scorpius joined laughing. He abruptly stopped laughing when he realised that Rose was no longer laughing with him, but crying hysterically in a ball on the floor. He crouched down and picked her light body off of the floor and carried her back to the sofa before sitting down himself and lifting Rose into his lap, where she buried herself into his chest.

"Rose, what's wrong" he whispered gently.

"I'm sorry" Rose sniffed, "We were having such a laugh, and I went and ruined it" she sniffed again.

"You didn't ruin it Rose" he said gently, "that's the most fun I've had in ages, but I still want to know what's wrong" he asked, unsure as to whether or not Rose would answer him.

"I was just thinking about how much fun we were having, and how I've never had that much fun with a guy before, and when thinking of guys my mind leapt to Daniel and you know" she cried.

"You were reminded of how badly he treated you" he finished for her. Rose simply nodded, yawning.

"Rose, you must be knackered" said Scorpius concerned. "You've had a really long day and it hasn't been very nice. You should really go to bed" he said. But Scorpius looked down and found that Rose was already half asleep in his arms, so he carefully sat up, picked Rose up and carried her up the stairs to her bed. He carried Rose right to her bed, and laid her gently down. Rose was still in uniform, so before he pulled the covers over her tiny frame, he removed her shoes and tie. He then retreated to his bedroom. Too tired to do much else, Scorpius removed his own shoes and tie, as well as his socks, shirt and trousers before slipping into some comfy trackie bottoms. He then collapsed onto his own bed, falling asleep instantly.

Scorpius was rudely woken after a few hours at 2.34am with a loud, high pitched scream. It only took him a second to realise that it must be Rose. At this, he darted out of bed, through the bathroom and into Rose's bedroom. Rose was sat upright in bed crying her eyes out. Scorpius climbed onto the bed beside her and let her cry against him.

"What happened?" he asked softly, "Do I need to go find a teacher?"

"No, I just had a nightmare" Rose stuttered, "but it scared the fucking life out of me."

"What happened in it?" Scorpius asked, curiously.

"It was more a memory than a nightmare" Rose whispered, "but I can tell you that it involved Daniel."

"A memory? What did that bastard do to you" Scorpius seethed.

"I don't want to say" muttered Rose.

"Rose, please" urged Scorpius.

"Promise you won't tell anyone, Scorp, please don't tell a soul. He'll kill me if he found out I'd told you" she whispered. "His parents went away for a week in the summer, so he invited me to stay round" she shuddered.

"Rose, what did he do to you" Scorpius asked, afraid of what he was about to hear.

"He had strict apparation wards on his house, so no one but his family could apparate in and out, and his floo had been shut down whilst his parents were away" Rose said, shaking. "I couldn't get away, Scorp. I was terrified!" sobbed Rose.

"How did he hurt you?" he asked quietly.

"At first he was all loving and kind, but then he started taking things too far, and I yelled at him to back off, so he hit me and hurt me all over" Rose whispered.

"He hit you!" Scorpius raged, vowing that he'd punch the guy the second he showed his face.

"That's not all, Scorp" Rose muttered. "He said that unless I did what he wanted by the end of that day, he'd bring Lily here and do the same thing to her" she said. "I couldn't let him do that to Lils" Rose sobbed, "so I did as he wanted" Rose cried harder.

"Shh Rose, calm down and tell me what he did to you" Scorpius begged.

"He… he…."

"He what?"

Rose gulped, before bursting into fresh waves of tears as she whispered miserably "He r-r-raped me."