Reconnecting - Albus/Rose
Set during the winter of 2017
Written for Round Four of the Quidditch League - must start and end with the same adjective - and I used the prompts Swollen and Ground.
Warm air greets Albus as he walks into the Great Hall alone – for once without the constant addition of his best friend, one Scorpius Malfoy – and makes his way towards the Hufflepuff table where his fellow housemates are talking and laughing as they eat.
Taking a quick look around before he sits, it's only by chance that he notices his cousin sitting alone at the Gryffindor table, clearly not enjoying the festive cheer with the rest of her housemates. He glances her way every few minutes, but nothing changes – still she sat with her head down, ignoring everyone around her.
"Hey, Al, what're you staring at?" a tall boy with curly blonde hair calls from across the table.
"Oh, er... nothing."
"Really? 'Cause it looks like there must be something awful interesting going on at the Gryffindor table if you need to look over there that much."
"No, it's just –" he begins to explain, but he gets interrupted with the continuous chatter of his fellow first years.
"And where's Malfoy, anyway?"
"Aren't you two always together?"
"Yeah, it's a little weird dude."
"It's that Weasley girl, isn't it?"
"You mean his cousin?"
"What?"
"Could be his brother."
"The Weasley girl's his brother?"
"No. Don't be stupid."
"You're stupid."
"Guys! Shut up! What about his cousin?"
"Slash brother."
"Stop it!"
"Who he was staring at."
"Why would he be staring at his cousin?"
"Why wouldn't he?"
"Because it's weird."
"So?"
"You stare at your cousins a lot, then?"
"No. But I'd stare at his cousin any day."
"Really?"
"Yeah! Have you not seen the Veela girl?"
"She's not a Gryffindor."
"Oh, yeah."
"What about –"
"Guys! Stop!" Albus finally gives up trying to make sense of the conversation happening around him, and pushes himself away from the table. "I'm going over to talk to Rose." And he leaves, head still spinning from the jumbled mass of words that had been thrown around only seconds earlier.
He makes his way over to the curly haired girl sitting alone at the Gryffindor table, and as he draws nearer her swollen eyes and red nose became more apparent.
He's standing behind her before he's figured out what to say – they weren't as close as they used to be before they'd started Hogwarts and it's been months since they've had a proper conversation – but she speaks before he has the chance.
"Where's Malfoy?" she asks, sounding bitter and hurt and like she's trying to hide it.
"Not here," he says with as much cheerfulness as he can manage, taking the empty seat beside her despite her glare.
"What do you want, Albus?" He suppresses a wince. She's never called him by his full name before.
"Can't I just want to talk to my cousin?"
"Why start now?"
"C'mon, Rosie. Meet me half way here."
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" It hasn't escaped his attention that she has yet to look up at him, but he decides to ignore that for the time being.
"Okay. What have you been up to?"
"School. We're in a lot of the same classes, in case you'd forgotten."
"Made any new friends?"
"No."
"Bought you're Christmas presents yet?"
"Yes."
"What did you get?"
"Presents."
"That's not what I meant."
"I-"
"I know!" He interrupts, practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. "Meet me in the Entrance Hall in twenty minutes. Dress warm. We're going out."
"Where?" He grins at her, pleased that she's finally looking at him and actually seems interested in the conversation now.
"It's a surprise."
Twenty minutes later, he's waiting nervously in the Entrance Hall watching nervously as the seconds tick by.
Twenty two minutes. He was starting to think that she might not be coming, after all.
Twenty four. His fingers are beginning to bleed slightly from where he's bitten his nails down too far.
Twenty five. It was a long shot, anyway. He didn't know why he'd been so sure she'd come.
After waiting for half an hour, he finally gives up and straightens up from his position leaning against the hard stone wall.
"Leaving already?" He jumps at the sudden sound of her voice breaking the silence.
"You were late," he attempts to slow his heartbeat down to a normal speed.
"I don't know where you think the Gryffindor Tower is, but it's pretty far away. You know what a tower is, right?"
"Yes, I know what a tower is," he says with false irritation, still too happy that she actually turned up to be annoyed. "C'mon, let's go!"
"Are you gonna tell me where we're going yet?" but she follows him with only a slight roll of her eyes.
"No. You'll see when we get there."
He can tell the exact moment she figures out where it is that he's taking her. She looks confused for all of ten seconds, before irritation wins over and she can't keep her annoyance silent any longer.
"You're taking me to the Forbidden Forest?" She glares over at him, managing to look outraged and disappointed all at once, but she doesn't break step from him and he counts that as a win.
"Yep," he sounds annoyingly cheerful to himself, so the angry huff and hard shove don't come as much of a surprise.
"It's called the Forbidden Forest for a reason."
"You sound like your mum."
"I do not!"
"Yeah. You do," he laughs, pulling her past the first line of trees. "We're not even going that far," he says as he pulls her to a stop in a small clearing.
They're not very far into the forest – they can still see Hogwarts through the tree-line – but it feels a lot more remote than it is. Like they're the only two people a world of glittering snow that covers the ground and weighs heavily on the limbs of trees.
They end up staying out for hours; talking, laughing, playing in the snow. It was like the last few months had never happened. And Albus hopes that it stays that way as Rose falls on top of him, heavy and safe and warm.