Disclaimer: just playing.
A/N: Don't worry, readers of the last chapter. Rose knows what she's doing. Or she thinks she does, anyway...
And speaking of readers: thank you to everyone who has reviewed! I feel guilty for not having thanked you all earlier - especially when your reviews make me all warm and fuzzy inside. So thank you, times four chapters :)
Bloody hell.
Scorpius surveyed the mess on his bench. White powder glittered over a thin stream of pale silver liquid - a potion which would have taken months, if not years, to brew. A shard of glass pointed viciously upwards from under the melted heap of gold and brass, and he winced.
That was the third Time-Turner he'd broken this week.
That left only six in the trainee budget for the rest of the year! Bletchley was going to kill him. Probably. At least he was working on his stupid project today. His boss could bloody well be grateful that he was actually being productive for once.
Sure, he thought waspishly. If your definition of 'productive' shares a dictionary entry with 'destructive'.
Maybe setting the Time-Turner on fire hadn't been such a good idea.
He'd felt the spell break at the same moment the hourglass had shattered. The silver liquid had hissed sharply, then fallen, immobile, onto his bench - while Time continued its weary path, and Scorpius kicked his booted toe against the wall. So much for that plan.
It was just no bloody use! Three of the damn things destroyed in as many days, and what did he have to show for it? Exactly nothing, except a throbbing toe and an even worse mood, and incontrovertible proof that it was impossible to destroy Time.
He released the Time Containment charms, and stepped out of the warm bubble they'd created. A small, pathetic fizzle came from the silver liquid, and it flopped up half-heartedly before returning to merge, once more, with the white powder.
Better get this cleaned up.
Where were his dragon-hide gloves? Monday's burn still hadn't left his finger - and being more familiar with magical maladies than he liked, he had a feeling it would disappear in its own time, completely uncaring of his own preferred schedule. Injuries incurred in the Time Chamber healed themselves. Eventually. But until then...
He spotted them. On Finch's bench.
His chest tightened immediately, and the familiar swooping sensation low in his stomach made him groan. The feeling didn't pierce him like it had on Friday night, but in many ways he hated this dull, cold ache even more. He'd tried to put it out of his mind by focusing on work, but everywhere he looked there was Finch's pencilcase, Finch's notes, Finch's damn messy desk that he'd have time to clean if he didn't spend his time flirting with his best mate's girlf -
Dammit.
He hadn't seen Finch since That Night. He hadn't been in the office, at least not when Scorpius had been here, and the one time he'd asked if he could come over, Scorpius had pleaded exhaustion and owled back a one-line rejection. Did the bastard seriously think he could waltz into the Leaky Cauldron, watch his awkward attempts at chatting up Rose, and laugh it off with her ten seconds after he left the building - and still be welcome at his flat?
He knew exactly what his mother would say. You have no idea what happened between them, Scorpius, and it's unbecoming to jump to conclusions without giving him a chance to defend himself.
His father would tell him to hex his balls off.
No, he decided, the great Draco Malfoy wouldn't stoop to something so vulgar. There were more subtle ways to take revenge on an enemy, ways that didn't drag the Malfoy family name even further through the mud. He'd probably start a smear campaign against Finch - though when they tried to trace it back to the source, the trail would stop at a pretty blonde secretary in Payroll who'd suddenly and mysteriously remember Finch's attempt to bribe her for valuable Ministry information last month...
Damn, this fantasy was getting way too detailed. Even his father probably wouldn't lower himself to that level. Not with Astoria there to check him, anyway.
Dragon-hide gloves retrieved, Scorpius started scrubbing the desk - probably with more energy than was strictly required. Just because Finch had a pile of papers an inch thick covering his desk didn't mean his own couldn't be spotless. He certainly wasn't going to give him yet another reason to gloat. Finch had the career, the girls, the money - well, to be fair, Scorpius had plenty of that last one, but since most of it was sitting uselessly in a bank vault since he couldn't think of anything to spend it on, what was the point of having it? Maybe he'd donate it all to charity. Some wizened old lady with seven cats could have it. Probably put it to better use than he would.
He wouldn't do it, of course. Because he needed it for his retirement. And to provide for a wife and kids, if he ever managed to get them, anyway. Every month, his salary was deposited dutifully into his vault - only after his rent was paid and the groceries purchased, of course, and he'd read through that week's issue of Magical Journal of Time and Space, which had to be possibly the most boring hobby since knitting socks for house-elves -
This always happened! He'd be going along just fine, and then something would remind him of Rose or Finch and he'd descend into this stupid moodiness and start feeling sorry for himself because he had too much bloody money.
Scorpius was not a miserable person by nature. He preferred practicality and experiments and doing things, and emotions weren't exactly his strong suit, though he seemed to be brimming over with them at the moment. The way he'd seen it at the beginning, he had two problems. One, he had a crush on Rose Weasley. And two, he had no idea how to tell her. Obviously a practice run - or five - was the solution to both.
Feeling somewhat calmer, Scorpius considered his next move. He surveyed his desk. It was clearer than Finch's.
That was that battle won.
The end-of-day bells had chimed about half an hour earlier. Scorpius decided that was probably a natural point to stop, and after a few minutes to collect his bags and sign out, he was ready to go.
And as he left the Ministry, he was struck by a sudden urge to do something he hadn't done voluntarily in months: visit his mother for tea.
"How much do you want?"
"I come to visit my darling mother and this is the greeting I get?"
"You haven't stepped foot in this house without being dragged in by your ears in the last six months," Astoria said drily. "Forgive me if I'm suspicious of your motives."
Scorpius made an exaggerated show of stepping over the threshold. "Well, here I am, Mother, with no greater motive than to have a slice of that blueberry tart I smell baking in the kitchen - and to have a nice mother-son catch-up in your sitting room."
"Ah." Astoria tapped two long, manicured fingernails together. "Woman troubles."
Scorpius had always wondered how mothers got to be so perceptive.
His own was currently ushering him out of the entry hall of the Malfoys' London town house. Taking off his coat, he followed her to the kitchen, where a blueberry tart was indeed sitting on the counter.
She waved her wand, and the dishes in the sink began to scrub themselves. Astoria's baking was one of the many reasons Scorpius preferred their smaller London house to Malfoy Manor - he greatly enjoyed watching his mother play at being a housewife. Without the Muggle inconveniences like broken fingernails that came with having to clean up after yourself.
"So how have you been?" Scorpius asked. "I love the apron, by the way."
Astoria Malfoy did not blush. Though anyone would have been excused, after being caught in that rainbows-and-unicorns contraption. Instead, she regally cut him a slice of tart and directed him to her sitting room. She followed a moment later - sans apron.
"I've been languishing away since October, dear son, as you'd know if you ever bothered to Floo. It's Rose, isn't it?"
Scorpius sighed. "It's always Rose."
She tapped her finger against the wall. "Last time I saw you you said you had a plan. What happened?"
"Finch happened."
"Ruined the plan or stole the girl?"
"Why do you always have to jump straight into the hard conversations?" Scorpius complained, rubbing his head. "This is a sitting room. It's not designed for anything more mentally straining than comparing notes on dress robes. Haven't you ever heard of small talk?"
She shrugged. "When it comes to finding you a wife, no."
"You want me to marry Rose?" Scorpius asked, suddenly interested. He'd never dreamed of thinking that far ahead before - to propose to a girl she generally had to think of you as something more than just a butterbeer buddy... "Mother, I'm barely twenty-one."
"I was engaged to your father when I was twenty-one. Don't listen to all this modern nonsense about waiting until your thirties, like the Muggles do. It's awfully vulgar."
Scorpius shook his head firmly. "I'm afraid I'm not here to give you the happy news. I came here for a bit of Slytherin advice, actually."
He could have sworn he saw her ears sharpen. "Slytherins do have... unique... methods of finding a mate. I take it your Ravenclaw daydreaming was completely useless, as usual?"
"Don't discriminate against other houses, it's unbecoming."
"Stop stalling."
"I've been pretending to be a dragon-tamer called Roland Knightley for the last week."
Astoria's teacup shattered down onto her saucer. "Good gracious, a dragon-tamer? Are you quite alright in the head?"
"Slytherin advice, not sarcasm, thank you, Mother."
She reached for a piece of blueberry tart.
"It was a whim, but it makes perfect sense when you think about it. I've been brewing Polyjuice Potion for a few weeks now, and using it to trial certain dating strategies with Rose."
"Certain dating strategies...?"
"Turns out telling her 'I just got lost in your eyes' is not an effective one."
"Scorpius! Didn't I teach you anything?"
He rolled his eyes - while she wasn't watching, of course. "Knightley was actually getting somewhere, though. He met Rose at one of the Ministry cafes, and she even agreed to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron the next night. And they really -"
Astoria put down her fork. "Wait a minute, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. He? Him? They? Is Roland Knightland you or someone else?"
"Didn't I tell you ten seconds ago about the Polyjuice? And it's Knightley."
"I don't particularly care about Knightley right now. What did you say the purpose of this experiment was?"
"To determine the optimum approach to approaching Rose Weasley with a view to engaging in a physical and romantic relationship," Scorpius answered promptly, then felt his cheeks heat up. "Not that that was suspiciously specific, or anything."
"What a deliciously Ravenclaw answer. Now what was the purpose of creating Knightley? I assume he's an original creation?"
"To try out someone more confident? With a bit more style? Because I was jea- " He stopped. "Because Rose deserves someone on that level?"
Astoria straightened immediately. "Gracious, Scorpius, she hasn't gone and fallen in love with Knightley, has she?"
He smiled wryly. "I wish that were my problem."
"No, my idiot son, you're very grateful that it's not, because that would mean pretending to be stylish and confident for the rest of her life if she decides that's what she wants. I hope you have a steady supply of Boomslang skin..."
"Mother! I'm not planning to live forever as Roland Knightley. It's probably illegal, anyway."
She muttered something he couldn't hear from across the table. Something that probably went along the lines of 'there are ways around the law' and ended with 'you can ask your dear grandfather about that'.
"And regardless of its legal status, I have no intention of abandoning my comfortable and intellectually stimulating Ministry job to muck out dragon stalls in Wales."
Another one of those sharply perceptive looks. "Don't tell me your job's in trouble, too?"
Merlin's beard, how did she always know what was bothering him? Scorpius immediately resolved to start taking Occlumency lessons. You could never quite trust anyone in this household.
He decided to make a start on his neglected piece of tart. It wasn't bad. Better than her first efforts at baking had been - though that wasn't hard, considering there'd been a line of green faces outside each of their two bathrooms on the night of that particular dinner party. Scorpius privately suspected some magical manipulation had come into play this time - not that Astoria would ever admit that, of course.
Whatever. The tart was delicious.
"My job's fine, Mother. It's not why I wanted to talk to you today."
"Then why don't you get to the point about Rose, and I can start actually helping you with your problems?"
Scorpius resisted the urge to snort. Astoria might not be as interested in bending the law as his father, but in her own way she was even less subtle than Draco. Her solution would probably involve locking Rose and Scorpius in a room together for three hours - only after telling Rose, in great detail, that Scorpius had been madly in love with her for eight years.
But he had to admit, she did get results.
"She's in some sort of relationship with Finch."
"Define 'some sort of relationship'."
"I saw them together. Less than a minute after I left the pub she was tangled up in his arms and they were laughing together. I hardly think I could be mistaken about what I saw."
Astoria's arm reached out instinctively. "Oh, Scorpius..."
"What am I supposed to do now?" he asked bitterly. "He's my best friend. Or he was, anyway. You'd think he'd have had the bloo- the decency to have informed me that he's flirting with the girl I've been in love with since fifth year!"
His mother looked faintly alarmed. "Honestly, Scorpius, this is a respectable sitting room, not a brothel. Keep your voice down."
He could feel that stupid, useless moodiness coming on, and tried desperately to suppress it. "It's just -" He tried again. "It's just that - I'm Finch's best friend. If she starts seeing him, she's basically never going to be interested in seeing me. No matter what happens between me and Finch."
"You're absolutely right."
He stared at her. "Well, that's depressing."
"Be quiet and listen to your mother. You're absolutely right that if she's seeing Finch, she's never going to be interested in you. It's nothing against you - although if it's seriously been eight years and you haven't done anything, I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks you're an absolute coward, but -"
"Mother!"
"- I'm afraid it's just a rule. Best friends are in a special zone. After the couple breaks it off, it is social disaster to start going out with your boyfriend's best friend. Can you imagine the awkwardness?"
Now she was just bloody rubbing it in! "Are you quite finished?"
"The solution is quite simple. Don't let them get together in the first place."
"Don't you understand? They already are!"
She waved her hand. "Don't be ridiculous. A few flirtatious hugs does not a relationship make. Tell me exactly what you saw."
He scowled. He'd only just managed to get the image to stop popping into his head every time he saw one of Finch's quills, and now she wanted him to voluntarily remember every detail? "They talked for a bit. Then she touched his chest and hugged him, and they were whispering and laughing together."
Astoria laughed out loud.
"It isn't funny!"
"That's the reason for all this depression? She hugged him and laughed with him? Oh, the scandal!"
"What was I supposed to think?"
"That she was greeting an old friend?"
There was no point explaining any further. It was more than that, he knew - the looks in his direction all night, the slowly seductive way she'd pressed herself against him and trailed her fingers down his chest, how close they'd been standing in the dark. He knew he wasn't misinterpreting things.
But maybe - just maybe - he was exaggerating their importance. He'd never known Rose and Finch to be interested in each other. Maybe it was just a one-off thing, maybe it was just the atmosphere and the music and the Slippery Pumpkins or whatever the hell Rose had been drinking that night. It didn't have to mean anything. It probably hadn't even gone much further than that, because neither Rose nor Finch - sober or not - were the type to have one-night stands.
Scorpius allowed himself to hope.
"So," he began carefully, "if we act under the assumption that Rose and Finch are not - yet - together... what is our current plan of action?"
Astoria eyed him intently, and Scorpius got the distinct impression he was being weighed up. "That depends on you, Scorpius."
"What do you mean?"
"What would happen if, as soon as you left this house, you went to Rose's flat and told her how you felt?"
Scorpius stared at her, his heart beating quickly. What would happen? In his mind's eye he saw Rose again, sprawled across his couch, fingertips grazing his shoulder. What if he'd said something then, what if she hadn't started going on about Knightley...
Bloody useless prick of a man. He hadn't even been able to get the girl.
"I couldn't do it," he blurted. Last week he could have. Last week he'd been on the brink of saying something - and he'd been almost certain Rose would have given him the answer he wanted. But now there was Finch, and there was no way he could compete with someone like that. No matter what his mother's opinion on the matter. He'd go to her house - and just freeze up.
"Then it's back to the drawing board. You did say you were using Polyjuice Potion, didn't you? We'll make a Slytherin out of you yet."
"I'm using it for the best of reasons, don't give me that look."
"Well, since you won't be a man and ask her out yourself, you need to take control of the situation. Get one of your original creations to take her back and start seeing her on the side. As a holding measure, if you will."
"Knightley?"
"Goodness, no, Scorpius, I thought I'd taught you better than that. You're quite right when you said a Ministry job is better than mucking out dragon stalls. Though I do wish you'd get a job in one of the real Departments - it's hard to compete with your friends when you can't even boast about what your own son is doing for a living."
"I'll let you know when I'm ready for a career change, thank you. As it is I'm quite happy with my job, and the only reason I'm here is because I need advice about my love life from a woman who isn't, you know, the object of my desires."
"No, you're not. You're here because I'm a Slytherin and a Malfoy and you're all out of cunning plans."
"Why don't you continue with yours?"
"Making Knightley confident and successful was nonsensical," she said bluntly. "You need someone exactly like you - except with one fatal flaw. One chosen very specifically. The idea, Scorpius, is that Rose should really quite like this man - but she'll always be thinking in the back of her mind something like 'wouldn't it be nice if he had more money?'"
"Rose isn't interested in money, don't be ridiculous."
Astoria raised an eyebrow. "Sweetie, every girl is interested in money. But it doesn't matter what the particular example is. As long as you have whatever he's missing in spades."
The entry hall of the Ministry of Magic was almost empty. No-one was leaving early - at a quarter to five, most witches and wizards figured they might as well stay fifteen minutes and finish the full day - and it was far too late for anyone to be arriving or dropping off deliveries. In less than twenty minutes, though, it would be crowded again.
And crowded meant witnesses.
Scorpius knew he had to act fast. He'd already had to wait two weeks for his second batch of Potion to finish brewing - if he missed this chance today, he'd have to wait until after the weekend to try again. He ducked into the closest men's bathroom.
Finch had been back in the office this week, acting like absolutely nothing was wrong. Bastard, Scorpius thought, but there wasn't any venom to the thought. He'd seemed suitably casual whenever Rose had come up in conversation, and Scorpius had gathered enough to work out that they weren't yet in a proper relationship...
...Which was a relief, but there still seemed to be signs that their friendship was developing faster than he'd like. They'd never really been friends in their own right before - Finch had been Scorpius' friend, and Rose had been Scorpius' friend, and they'd seemed to enjoy each other's company. But over the last couple of weeks, they'd been talking together, without him, and every conversation made him more and more anxious.
Like on Tuesday. Rose had come to meet him at the elevator after work, like she sometimes did, and he'd relished the chance to talk to her alone for a while - until she'd suggested, with studied casualness, that they wait for Finch and go have a coffee together in Diagon Alley.
Dammit.
"He can't be that far behind you. Come on, Scorp, I haven't seen Finch in - ages," she'd said, and he'd noticed the way she deliberately hadn't put a timeframe on their last meeting.
Slumping against a wall, Scorpius had nodded. "Fine. But if he's not here in five minutes we're leaving. I'm absolutely starving."
Closing the door of the stall behind him, he took a deep breath. This was it. The pick-up line guys had been a warm-up. Knightley had been a trial run, a way of seeing if he could handle developing a character. But Edgar Spore, the man he was about to become, had to be the long-distance marathon. Scorpius was already nervous about being discovered - he had a feeling Edgar would have to be the last one, because a whole stream of guys chatting her up in the space of a month where none had before was bound to make Rose suspicious. It was only the two-week break that gave Scorpius any relief whatsoever.
He'd used the two weeks productively, of course. He'd realised his mistake with Knightley - rashly choosing characteristics at random, hoping at least one of them would appeal to Rose. This time, he focused on his ultimate goal: getting Rose for himself, when (if?) he finally worked up the courage to ask her out.
Edgar's flaw, he'd decided, would be lack of ambition. He'd debated that one for a while - given his current precarious job situation, did he really qualify as having it in spades? - but he'd ultimately decided that it was good enough for his purposes. He did, after all, have a job, and he worked hard on everything except his trainee project.
Besides, Rose didn't care about the ladder-climbing sort of ambition. Rose was climbing her own ladder fast enough that she didn't need a rich man to support her - but she would want someone who really cared about his job, worked hard, and wanted to improve himself. She'd been a Ravenclaw, too, after all - and improvement of the mind counted for ten times as much as improvement of the salary package.
He'd even made notes on Edgar's character. Knightley had been easy - be confident, be flirtatious, and add a beaming smile onto the end of every sentence. Edgar, Scorpius liked to think, was a much more nuanced character. He'd filled two feet of parchment on his background, parentage, education and motivations - until Bletchley had come into the Chamber and berated him for not doing any work, and Scorpius had shoved the parchment under some other notes on his desk. He hadn't seen the paper since...
Scorpius took off his shirt and slacks, with a quick glance at his pocket-watch. Ten minutes to go. Edgar - well, his Muggle counterpart, anyway - was a brawny fellow, and Scorpius had the distinct feeling his upper arms and other parts would end up fatally constricted if he left his clothes on. Suddenly shy, he put on his more spacious robes to cover himself. It just wasn't right standing practically naked in a public bathroom, even if he was in his own stall!
Finally ready, he took a swig from his vial.
He felt the familiar swelling and moulding, and resisted the urge to gag. This was the sixth time he'd done this, after all - he should be used to it by now. Transformation complete, he put on Edgar's shabbier robes, and shoved his own clothes into his shapeless, patched-up bag. It was time.
He stepped out of the bathroom, and the first thing he saw was Tuesday's elevator. Unlike now, the entry hall had been filled with people leaving and talking and bumping into each other. Finch had arrived, dammit, and the three of them had pushed their way through the crowd of witches and wizards and made their way to Diagon Alley. Coffee had been short, but otherwise fine - Finch had had an event at his grandparents' place to go to, and Scorpius had never been more grateful to the Finch-Fletchleys as he had in that moment.
"I guess we all might as well leave, then," Scorpius had said. Normally he would have invited Rose over for drinks, but tonight he didn't. He really did have a lot of work to do, now that he was focusing properly on his project, and all the time he spent daydreaming about Edgar Spore and how much of a dragon Astoria would be as a mother-in-law was taking time away from essential research time.
But when he'd looked over at Rose, he fancied a hurt look in her eyes at the lack of invitation. His spirits lifted slightly, but she turned to Finch before he could say anything.
"Wait, Rose," he'd said, and they'd shared a look Scorpius couldn't interpret. Rose's eyes sharpened, and Finch pressed something into her hands. "See you around, okay?"
They were giving each other gifts? In front of him? He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but before he could say anything Finch had Disapparated, with a quick wave to Scorpius.
It was just him and Rose, now. She looked over at him, her eyes softening, and Scorpius couldn't help but smile back at her. "Me and Finch -" she began, "- we... we're -"
His breath hitched in his throat. "Yes?"
Her eyes twinkled. "I'll tell you later." Hugging him quickly, she Disapparated.
Scorpius - well, Edgar, now - allowed himself a small smile of his own at the memory of that hug. It almost made up for the present - and the mysterious comment about Finch. He made his way out of the Ministry building. Just in time, it seemed, because behind him he could hear elevators clanking into position and green fires springing to life. He had to remind himself to be subtle - he didn't have to make his big move right now, after all.
Time to bump into a Weasley.