AN: Thank you for all your encouraging reviews!
"Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."
Rose looked up from the book she was perusing, her brows drawn together into a small frown. Scorpius pulled a seat in front of her table. The wood scraped across the floor noisily and Madam Pince paused in her book sorting to glower in their direction.
"What?"
"That's what your father said to you that day at the station, isn't it? Just before our first year started?"
Rose shrugged.
"So why didn't you?" he persisted. "While you're well above average you're not at the top of our year, nor do you compete with me."
"I'm not my mother."
"Explain." He leaned back, rocking his chair.
"Why do you want to know?"
Scorpius gave her a look that she couldn't quite decipher. "I just do."
Rose kept her book down carefully, inserting a bright purple bookmark into it. Scorpius watched her impatiently. "Well?"
"I suppose I just don't have Mum's ambition. I like learning more than receiving full marks. For me, memorising the concept is never enough. I don't just want to turn the teapot into a gerbil; I want to know precisely how I did it, why that particular movement of my wand generated that particular result. And I'm not particularly worried about what job I'll do. I get my relaxed attitude from my father, I guess. He never worried much about stuff like this either. Then again, he was a little busy when he was around our age, trying to hunt down a Dark Lord."
A shadow fell across the table. "Mr. Malfoy," said Madam Pince nastily, looming over their table like an overgrown vulture. "Sit still."
Scorpius quickly bought all the four legs of his chair back on the ground. After glaring at him for a full minute, the librarian left.
He crushed something in his hand and said, "I didn't know that, Rose."
"Why did you want to?"
He laughed. "The dangers of becoming friends with a Ravenclaw."
Rose blinked. That was news to her. "We're friends?"
"Aren't we?" asked Scorpius quizzically.
"I suppose we could be."
"Fine then. Rose Weasley, will you please be my mate?"
"Don't be absurd," she replied, smiling faintly. "But why did you want to know?"
"Isn't persistence more of a Gryffindor trait?"
"Stop dodging my question."
"My father wrote to me," he said, showing the slight crumpled piece of paper lying on his palm. "He doesn't do that often."
"What did he say?"
"He wanted to know if Hermione Granger's daughter got more OWLs than I did." Scorpius began to tap his foot against the floor.
"How many did you get?"
"Eight."
"All but one," Rose commented. "Which one did you miss?"
"Astronomy. I try but all of them look like Cassiopeia to me."
"Why Cassiopeia?"
"Because it's the one that's supposed to be just a weirdly shaped cluster of stars," he said flatly. He started tapping his fingers on the table.
"So what are you planning to do after Hogwarts?"
"Family business," he said, as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He stopped fidgeting and looked at her coolly. Rose realised that she had taken the conversation somewhere he didn't want it to go and wondered if he regretted starting it.
Scorpius began to rise from his chair and before she could help herself Rose said, "Don't go." She knew she sounded like a love-sick third year, but her instincts told her that it was what he needed to hear.
He sat down again, slowly. A slow smile spread across his face. "You're a very strange mate."
"Strange?" she questioned, a little offended.
"Yeah, you talk about studies and careers and yet you say you aren't interested in them. You make me say shit I don't normally talk about because you're so easy to talk to but you stutter around every seventh word. So how many OWLs did you get anyway?"
She accepted his swift change of topic without a blink. "Six."
"What did you miss?"
"Nothing. I enjoyed every subject."
"Even History of Magic?"
"Alright, maybe Binns wasn't all that fun," admitted Rose, "but some of the historical books in the library can be fascinating. You should give them a try."
He gave a loud, theatrical yawn and said, "Maybe while rolling over in my grave."
Elise Nott entered the library, holding a copy of Transfiguration Today. Scorpius raked a hand through his already dishevelled blonde hair. "Hey, Elise."
She seemed surprised by his company but said, "Scorpius. You missed dinner today."
"Detention," he said, with a proud grin.
Elise and Rose shared a long-suffering look. Boys. Rose nodded towards the magazine. "Preparing for McGonagall's test?"
"I've crammed so much that my head feels like it's about to burst. I'm turning this in so that I don't drive myself batty," she declared.
Rose beckoned her forward and said whispered conspiringly, "You know, she always makes fifth years transfigure clocks for their first test."
Elise's mouth fell open. "No!"
"It's true," Scorpius interrupted. "Been there, done that."
She banged the magazine on his head. "And you couldn't have told me that yesterday, I suppose?" Before Scorpius could reply, Elise stormed off. She went up to Madam Pince and started arguing with her.
"Sorry," said Rose.
Scorpius snorted. "What for? You gave me a very good reason for a make-up snog. It might even turn into a make-out snog."
Rose rolled her eyes and stood up. "I think I should get going too." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost time for curfew."
"And Agrippa forbid you be caught out of bed after-hours," he said in mock-horror. Rose laughed; something she didn't do very often. She was a naturally serious person and while she was mostly content, loud laughter wasn't really her thing.
Scorpius felt extremely pleased with himself, although he couldn't quite figure out why. She gathered her books and turned to walk away. Suddenly, she stopped and said softly, "Scorpius?"
"Yeah, Rose?"
"I'm not Hermione Granger and you're not Draco Malfoy."
Usually he would have made a witty remark like, "Having an identity crisis?" but today he was speechless. Maybe it was because his throat suddenly seemed to have a massive boulder stuck in it.
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