In the Previous Chapter…
"Get dressed, Scorp!" she called through their bathroom, "You're coming too!"
"Do I have to?!" he whinged, coming into her room with trackies and a vest top on, pulling up the zip on his hoodie.
"Yes. Now come on, Mister, we have a Weasley Christmas to get to" Rose grinned before pulling Scorpius out of the door towards the Great Hall.
At home, Scorpius' Christmases were usually quite quiet and uneventful. He would open presents with his parents before having Christmas lunch with his parents, both sets of grandparents and his Aunt Daphne, Uncle Blaize and their son Gregg (named after their old school friend who died in the war), who was in his 5th year at Hogwarts. After lunch, Leo, Lorcan and Lysander and two of Gregg's friends and their parents would floo over to the Manor and the adults would spend the afternoon getting drunk whilst Scorpius and the other boys would fly over to the Quidditch pitch at the end of the Malfoy estate and have a Quidditch marathon.
He was completely overwhelmed by the Weasley Christmas.
Scorpius expected to go down to the Great Hall, have a bit of breakfast and then be dragged up to Gryffindor tower to open presents. How wrong he was.
The Weasley and Potter children at Hogwarts were waiting by the door to the Great Hall. They turned to face the couple as Rose dragged her bewildered boyfriend down the corridor.
"You're late, Rosie" Al grinned. "Not like you" he grinned wickedly.
"We were just a bit late waking up. We had quite a late night" Rose said, blushing.
Al could see right through her. "Well, I think we'll have to talk about your late night later, Rosie" he smirked, "but right now, we're all late and I'm gonna leave it up to you to tell the parentals why we're late."
"Parents?" Rose raised her eyebrow. Apparently Scorpius wasn't the only one surprised.
"Dad owled McGonagall last night after everyone went home. He wants us to spend today at The Burrow like we normally would. He thinks we need some time away from the castle…" Hugo butted in, drifting at the end as his eyes clashed with his sister's. They both knew that Ron wanted to talk to Rose about the events of the previous night.
"Fine" she sighed, "how long are we staying there for?"
"McGonagall said we were going until the end of the holidays, so you may want to go grab some spare clothes and stuff. Oh, and Dad apparently said to bring Scorp as well."
Scorpius stared blankly at Hugo. Ron Weasley had invited him, a Malfoy, to spend Christmas with his family.
"We'll just run back and grab some stuff then" Rose said, taking Scorpius' hand in her own, pulling him out of his state of shock. "Meet back here in 10. I'm guessing presents are over there already" she asked.
"Yeah, they are. Be quick, Rosie, we're already late because of your late night escapades" Al smirked as Rose and Scorpius turned to leave.
"Shush Albus, I'll get you later, and you know it" Rose grinned before turning to run down the corridor, Scorpius running alongside her.
"We're going to the Burrow?" Scorpius asked as he ran beside Rose.
"Apparently" she replied, slightly breathless as they rounded the corner and reached their common room. She waved her wand and a selection of each of their clothes, toiletries and other essentials flew to her feet, folding themselves into a suitcase which she had also summoned. She cast several more silent spells on the case as Scorpius watched in awe at his girlfriend. The case shrunk to the size of a muggle mobile phone (one of which Rose owned and had shown him) and she slipped it into her pocket. "Let's go then" she grinned.
"You should be a charms professor, you know" Scorpius praised as they walked back to the Great Hall hand in hand. "That little display was brilliant."
"You think so? I've always wanted to work with charms. It's my-"
"-favourite subject. You said so at the beginning of the year" Scorpius grinned.
"You remember too much" Rose smirked as they approached her family at the door again. "Are we flooing from McGonagall's office?" she asked Al.
"Yup. We better get moving really, otherwise your dad will throw a hissy fit at you being late" Al nodded, leading the group up some stairs and into the Headmistress' office.
"Good morning, everyone. It's nice to see you recovered after last night" McGonagall said, smiling at the group as they entered. "Mr Malfoy, it's nice to see you up here again. Let's hope we don't have a repeat of last night's events."
Scorpius bowed his head, a smirk creeping onto his face. The Weasleys glanced at Rose inquisitively.
"Oh, Scorp was the one who broke McLaggen's nose" she grinned.
"No time for telling tales, hun, we're meant to be at your family Christmas celebrations" Scorpius said, looking down to smirk at his girlfriend.
"That's true. Come on then" Rose said, grabbing Scorpius's hand and pulling into the fireplace with her. "To The Burrow!" The pair vanished in a puff of green, and landed in a heap on the rug in the Burrow.
"Scorpius, please get off my daughter" the couple heard Ron say politely, but yet in a restrained voice. They untangled themselves to find Ron looking anywhere but them, a Weasley blush creeping onto his face.
"Don't worry about him, he just wasn't quite ready to see his little girl being straddled by her boyfriend" Hermione grinned, looking with amusement at her husband.
"Didn't intend to land like that, Mr Weasley, sir" Scorpius said, holding back a laugh. "We just seemed to barrel through the grate and I landed on top of Rosie" he smirked.
The rest of the Weasley and Potter children slowly arrived at the Burrow in pairs, each landing in heaps on the floor.
"Nana, I think your floo needs tweaking. No one is arriving upright" Al shook his head as Lily climbed off of him gently.
"Sorry, dear, it hasn't been working properly since your granddad tried to 'fix it'" she frowned at Arthur, who was currently sat in an armchair. "Oh well, everyone's here now, so you lot should head through to the kitchen. I've made breakfast" she smiled, herding her grandchildren and Scorpius into her kitchen.
After stuffing themselves with bacon, sausages, eggs and basically everything from a traditional English breakfast, Scorpius and Rose sat down with the rest of her family to open presents. Scorpius sat in an armchair, while Rose perched on his lap. The entire Weasley family sat down in the enlarged living room and exchanged gifts. Scorpius was surprised to see that he was handed a fair amount of gifts too.
From the Weasleys, Scorpius received many gifts including a wizard chess set from Al ("It's enchanted to tell you what your opponent if going to do next" Al smirked. "Just don't tell Uncle Ron when you match him later"), a collection of WWW products from Hugo and a Weasley jumper from Molly and Arthur. There was only one person's present he had not yet unwrapped by lunchtime, and it was coming from the red-haired girl sat on his lap.
"I accidentally left part of your present at Hogwarts" Rose explained to him after their Christmas dinner, "but the other part I can give to you a bit later when we have some privacy" she said, winking to her boyfriend before turning back to her conversation with Lily.
Scorpius gently lifted Rose off of his lap, quickly explaining "I just need to talk to your cousin" and approached Al, who was sat with Hugo playing exploding snap. "Al, you said I would have to play Rose's dad later at chess…you weren't serious, were you?"
"Oh, hi Scorp. Yeah I was serious actually. But don't worry, you might not have to face him – we draw names out of a hat and everyone has to play someone. The winners go back into the hat and you keep playing until there are two people left. They play and the winner is declared the Christmas Chess Champion. You might be lucky and get to play someone like Aunt Audrey, who can't play chess for their life, or you could be very unlucky and have to play Uncle Ron. Oh look, they're pulling the pairs now" he said, pointing to Arthur, who was stood in the middle of the living room pointing his wand at a hat.
"Right, Weasleys, Potters and Scorpius!" Arthur announced, grinning at Scorpius, "It's time to find out who will be playing who for the Chess Tournament this year. When I tap my wand, a piece of paper will fly towards you. This will have your opponent's name written on it. Find your opponent, and may the chess begin!" he smiled, flicking his wand at the hat. A scrap of paper flew into the hands of each person in the room.
Al groaned as he saw his partner. "Hugh, can we just say you win?" he frowned. Hugo jumped up eagerly.
"No chance, I want to wipe the floor with you. You're going down, Potter!" he cried delightfully, resetting their chess game.
"Scorp!" someone cried from across the room. Scorpius turned to face Rose, who was making his way towards her. "Who did you get?"
Scorpius glanced at the paper in his hand for the first time. "Your Uncle Harry" he said, shocked. He was going to play Harry Potter at chess.
"Oh, you'll be fine. Uncle Harry isn't the best" his girlfriend grinned, "but I never said that" she winked. "I have James, so I'm just gonna have to keep my wits about me. Have fun playing Uncle Harry!" she smiled, before turning to find her red-headed uncle.
"Wait!" Scorpius said softly, grabbing her arm and turning her to face him. "Don't I get a good luck kiss" he grinned.
"I suppose" Rose smirked, standing up on her tiptoes and giving him a small peck on the lips. "But that's all you're getting. I don't want you to have too much luck for the next round, I might have to play you" she grinned, before kissing him again and sitting down next to her Uncle George.
Scorpius looked around and spotted Harry setting up the chess set with his wand. "Hello Scorpius" he smiled, looking up from the board. "How good are you at chess?"
"Well, I can play chess if that's what you mean" Scorpius shrugged.
"No, I mean, I'm absolutely rubbish and will you be able to beat me so I don't have to face Ron next round? He rubs it in for weeks when he beats me" Harry explained with a grin.
"Well, we'll have to see, won't we?" Scorpius grinned.
20 minutes later, the first round was over. Harry shook Scorpius' hand, saying "Well played. Good luck if you have to face Ron."
Several rounds later, there were only 4 people left in the competition. These four people were Hugo, Ron, Scorpius and Rose.
As the papers flew out of the hat for the final time, Scorpius groaned.