In the previous chapter…
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.
Rose. He was going to play his girlfriend.
"It could be worse, mate, you could be playing Hugo or Uncle Ron" Al said over his shoulder.
"If I beat Rosie, I'll be playing one of them, so don't say that" Scorpius smiled before sitting down opposite Rose.
"You're going down, Malfoy" she smirked.
"Using surnames are we, Weasley?" he grinned, winking.
"Stop flirting and play, you're making me sick" Hugo yelled at them from his seat opposite Ron.
Scorpius and Rose then drove into a fast-paced game, and soon reached a point where they were going in circles. In the time their game was taking, Hugo suffered defeat from Ron, and soon enough, everyone's eyes were on Rose and Scorpius' game. It was soon realised that it was going to be a very close game, and while they were playing, the adults of the family started betting money on their favourite to win. Ron, Percy, Bill and George had their money on Rose, while Harry and Charlie had their money on Scorpius. Eventually, Scorpius saw one fatal flaw that Rose had missed; he could move into checkmate.
"Knight to E4" Scorpius smirked as the realisation dawned on Rose's face. He missed the realisation on Ron and Harry's faces, but didn't miss the loss in Ron's eyes when he realised his daughter was beaten.
"Shit, I missed that" Rose muttered. She wasn't the only one complaining. Grumbles were heard from George, Bill, Percy and Ron as they regretfully handed over several galleons each to Harry and Charlie, who were both sporting ear-to-ear grins.
"Thanks to Scorp, I'm 6 galleons richer!" Charlie grinned.
Scorpius stood from the table and walked around it to wrap his arms around his girlfriend, who was staring at his knight, as if she wanted to set the piece on fire with her eyes. "You were tough to beat, hun" he grinned as she leant back into his embrace.
"Can't believe I missed that" she scowled. Scorpius leant down and claimed her lips with his own, hoping that Ron was focused enough on his firewhiskey not to notice. He smiled as he felt Rose smiled against his lips.
"I knew you wouldn't stay mad at me for long" he smirked.
"Well, you won't beat dad, he's a literal chess genius" she grinned back, slipping her hand into his. Scorpius sat down at the chess table in the middle. Rose pulled up a seat next to him and kept her hand linked in his. Ron quickly sat down, glanced at Rose, and pointed his wand at her face. "Silencio. Can't have her giving you help, can we?" he grinned.
Rose shrugged before saying out loud "Dad, I can do wordless magic, you know. I can easily counter anything you do"
"Fine, but don't help him, I want to beat him"
"I wouldn't want help, sir. I either lose fair and square, or I can claim all the credit for wiping the floor with you" Scorpius smirked.
"Game on, Malfoy" Ron smirked back, and the game begun. A little while later, both Ron and Scorpius were only playing with a handful of counters, and were struggling to progress any further. Eventually, the game reached a stalemate, so it was announced a draw.
"Jammy git" Ron muttered under his breath.
"It would've been Ron's 25th Christmas Championship Win this year" Harry explained to Scorpius as Ron starting filling up a glass of Firewhiskey.
"I think that's the first time we've had a stalemate on Christmas day" Rose commented as the game was packed away. "And it's the first time anyone has officially not lost to dad" she grinned. "Well Done"
"Thanks, Rosie. So, what happens now?" Scorpius beamed, wondering what the Weasley christms had in store next.
"What happens now is that everyone is left to do what they want. I've already planned what we're doing" Rose smirked, tapping her nose with her finger. "I just need to go and tell mum where we're going and then we can go." She quickly found her mum and started whispering in her ear.
"Just be careful, okay" Hermione sighed as she heard Rose's plans. Rose swiftly grabbed Scorpius hand, grinned and apparated them away.
They landed in a forest. More accurately, they landed halfway up a steep hill in a forest. Scorpius stumbled from the unexpected slope, and pulled Rose down with him onto the floor. They rolled down the hill uncontrollably in a ball of tangled limbs and they finally landed in a bit of a heap at the bottom, with Rose landing on top of Scorpius, who was face down on the ground.
"owwwww" he moaned, the sound muffled from where his face was buried in the grass.
"Sorry. I'm always a bit off with side-along. We were meant to land at the top of the hill, not halfway up." Rose apologised as she gently climbed off of her boyfriend and helped him sit up.
Scorpius opened his mouth to speak, but gasped in pain as he felt a trickle of blood running down his face, over his lips and dripping down his chin.
"Fuck, I think I re-broke your nose" Rose groaned, reaching for a pack of tissues in her bag. She gently started mopping up Scorpius' face, shying away when he winced at the pain. While she cleaned his face with one hand while fishing around in her bag again with her other hand. She found what she was looking for and pulled out a vial of potion. "Drink, then be prepared for a bit of pain" she warned as she passed the vial to Scorpius. He tipped the potion down his throat, then braced himself. He wasn't prepared for Rose to take hold of his once again shattered nose and click it back into place.
"FUCKING HELL, ROSE" he yelled as the pain hit him. "You said pain, not agony!" He saw the shock on Rose's face, and then felt his face fall as she turned away from him and once again started looking into her bag. "I'm sorry" he sighed, putting one hand on her shoulder, gently turning her around, "That just hurt quite a lot." He held a tissue carefully to his nose, which was still bleeding.
"What did the potion taste like?" Rose whispered, tears forming in her eyes. Scorpius was suddenly worried.
"Mint. Why?"
"Ah shit" Rose complained, crying more as she dropped her head into her hands. "I gave you the wrong one. It's this bloody bag; it has too much stuff in it. And now I've made your nose worse" she moaned as Scorpius hugged her, ignoring his bleeding nose and letting the blood trickle slowly down his face as he wrapped his arms comfortingly around her.
"Which one did you give me and which one was I meant to have?" he asked softly, wiping her tears away.
"Meant to give you a pain-numbing one, gave you a breath freshener" she whispered, groaning slightly. "So instead of repositioning your nose and you not feeling most of it, you felt every single bit of pain as I moved it" she said mournfully. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I really didn't. I never would have done it if I didn't think you couldn't feel most of it."
"It's alright, hun. I know you didn't mean to hurt me. But I'll take that pain killer now, if you don't mind" he grimaced as he spoke as the movement moved his nose as well, sending a wave of pain over his face.
Rose handed over an identical vial to the first one. The only difference was that this one had a blue cork in the top, compared to the normal brown in the other. "I was too concerned to get it into you before your nose set in the wrong position to notice the coloured top" she explained.
A wave of heat hit Scorpius, quickly followed by absolutely no feeling in his face.
"Ah caahnt feewl ahnafig" he muttered, his voice muffled.
"If you can't feel anything, it's a good sign" Rose said, trying to hide her grin at Scorpius' attempts to speak clearly.
"Ohn't augh. S'not fuhneh" he groaned.
"Actually, it's very funny" Rose laughed, unable to hold in her laughter anymore.
"ets ust et oo op ov iss body ill" he groaned, taking Rose's hand.
"I take it that you meant to say 'Let's just get to the top of the hill'" she grinned, following Scorpius up the hill. "Don't trip" she smirked. Scorpius just groaned in return, not bothering to attempt to speak. As they neared the top of the hill, Rose stared to see a beam of orange, and smiled to herself. As they reached the top of the hill, Scorpius gasped.
"ose…" he said, completely bewildered.
The couple were stood looking over the sea, where a beautiful orange and pink sun was setting in the distance. Rose led him down a path onto the beach. The sunset looked somewhat more beautiful from down there, the colours bouncing off the water. You could make out every colour; there was oranges, yellows, pinks, tints of blue and red and even streaks of gold splayed across the horizon.
"it's 'eautiful" Scorpius said, his diction becoming a bit clearer. He brought Rose in for a tight hug, looking down at her with loving eyes. He gently leant down and slowly kissed her, trying very hard not to brush his nose against her face and move it around again. Although the pain was numbed for now, he didn't want to risk moving the fragile bones around anymore.
A/N: Hello, my lovely readers! I'm feeling very proud of myself, an update! In the middle of my exams! This may be the only update during exam time, I'm afraid, as i still have 16 lovely exams to pass. I have to admit, this chapter has been laying forgotten about for quite a while, but anyway, you have it now! I wasn't sure about this chapter, so feedback would be lovely. Remember that reviews literally make my day, which isn't hard with all of this boring revision going on...thanks for waiting, and i'll hopefully update again soon! -Rxx