"You're potion partners with Malfoy?" My cousin James asked the next morning incredulously. He's currently turning all the pumpkin juice on the table in front of us into water to which I'm rather disappointed. I was looking forward to that juice. This irritates me, as many things do, so naturally my response is rather forced.
"Yes James. Funnily enough I've worked with him before and he's perfectly capable. One might go as far as to say he's a wizard with some sort of intelligence."
"Yeah…an intelligent ferret." Mumbles James as he spills a cup of what is now thankfully only water over his sister Lily who starts yelling expletives at him before also yelling a drying charm at her hair and robes. She flushes and sends a death glare James' way before continuing her chat with Cary Finnegan across the bench.
"James, just because they beat us last month doesn't mean you have to hate the guy. Besides I was kind of the one to give him some bad news."
"Pft," James waves his hand as his brother sits down beside him, both of them ruffling their hair simultaneously; it's like I'm looking at different stages of Harry Potter's youth. "He'd have found out eventually, no need for guilt wee cus."
"What're we talking about?" asked Albus, pulling the bacon towards him and piling it on his plate.
"How Rosie dearest here is having to partner with Malfoy," James exclaimed again, now changing the water back to pumpkin juice. I grab a glass before he can transform it back again. I see Albus roll his eyes over my glass as I take a swig.
"James, he ain't that bad you know. He's even a Wasps fan. I mean, that's about the only conversation I've had with the guy before, but he seems decent enough."
"Fine, when he comes wearing his Death Eater get-up to our next victory party don't say I didn't warn you." This is when he got up and raced out of the hall, for what I'm not quite sure. I did happen to see a party of Ravenclaw girls leave a few moments before; it could have been related to that I suppose.
"Why does James have to make such a big deal about it? Your dad doesn't even mention that sort of thing anymore. I mean he's genuinely not a bad guy. There are worse people I could work with and-"
"Rose. It's not your fault" stated Albus matter-of-factly piling another heap of bacon onto his already almost overflowing plate. "Patricia was looking for a reason to get into bed with Will Davies. For some reason she thinks he's going to be Minister one day. Talk about marrying for status. Or shagging around for status."
"Yes, but I didn't need to let it slip to Malfoy."
"It might not have come out on its own you know, you probably did the guy a favour. And ignore James. Malfoy works hard; he'll make a good potions partner."
"Albus Potter, when did you become so wise?" I tease, draining my glass of juice and glancing over at the Slytherin table. Albus hums while tapping his chin as if deep in thought and I can't help but grin. Albus has always been clever with people. Maybe it's a middle child thing, but I think it's because somehow out of all us Weasleys and Potters he actually tries to listen to everyone. And through that he's gained a lot of experience often just watching things unfold; learning from others mistakes.
"I definitely didn't inherit my wisdom. My dad was mental at my age and threw himself into about a thousand deadly situations and my mum is….well she's my mum." We laugh heartily together as the owls swoop down with the Monday morning post and I cast a glance again, still grinning to the Slytherin table. Malfoy has finally appeared and to be frank, he looks terrible. I literally saw him twelve hours ago and he's now got bags under his eyes, and his hair is almost as dishevelled as Albus'. I'm guessing he didn't get much sleep. I honestly do feel bad for the guy. I mean having someone tell you that your girlfriend is cheating and then find her in a rather compromising situation that doesn't exactly prove otherwise has got to be rough. That sort of betrayal. I guess it's kind of selfish I'm hoping he'll bounce back, they weren't together for that long afterall and I really don't want this project to suffer.
It's at this moment I realise I'm still grinning as he lifts his head and sees me looking. I don't drop my gaze but my grin turns into a terrible attempt at a pitying smile. His eyebrows rise beneath his hair, disappearing from view. It's then that this gets odd. He doesn't do anything. He just stares at me with his eyebrows beneath his hair, looking completely exhausted and kind of ridiculous. I can feel the heat on the back of my neck, and I just know the blush has about six seconds before it reaches my cheeks. It's as this precise moment that he stands up, glancing around his table and mutters something to his dark haired friend he was sat beside who I'm almost certain is Jacob Zabini. He then picks up some toast and a mug of something steaming and appears like he's leaving the hall. My eyes follow him and it's at this point that Albus finally leans back patting his belly with satisfaction, realising that I haven't actually been listening to a word he's been saying for the past few minutes.
"Rose?" he waves a hand in front of my face. "Earth to Rose?"
"Sorry, I think Malfoy is coming over here right now. And I have absolutely no idea why. We agreed to meet tomorrow for potions- and Hi!" Malfoy indeed had made his way around via the staff table to where me and Albus were sat. The few Gryffindors left at our table cast Malfoy some dubious glances before getting up and heading off towards their lessons. He nods in my direction while chewing the last of his toast then addresses Al, "Potter."
"Hi." There is currently this awkward air that is filled when two individuals who are clearly unfamiliar with the other person's version of small talk, and are forced to quite literally cut to the chase.
"Any chance you could swap my Thursday night patrol?" He doesn't look back at me again but gives Albus a rather unusual look. It's somewhere between pleading and pained. Or perhaps Malfoy has just created an expression that means he can convey both at once. He takes a sip of coffee and waits for Albus' answer. The only reason I know it's coffee is because I can smell it from the other side of the table. It smells industrial strength. Albus' responds, sounding a little dubious.
"Erm, sure. I guess. You know I patrol with Rose right? You'll be seeing a lot of her already what with this new potions project, so not sure if that's ideal for you."
"Hey! Are you suggesting my company isn't amazing?" I exclaim, completely indignant to the insinuation that it might be dull to spend excessive time with me.
"Yes, I'm aware Potter. I don't see it being a problem. It might actually give us some added time to discuss how we'll handle the project aforementioned." He says all this without so much as glancing at me. I'm starting to get frustrated by this. It's me he's going to have as a patrol partner.
"I guess that's ok then. So long as, well…you don't mind right Rose?"
"Well, not really I guess but-"
"That's alright then, I might actually get a chance to finish that letter to mum I started last week. Thanks Rose. We should go to Defence you know."
"Cheers Potter. I'll see you later Weasley." He finally looks at me before departing and I feel a jolt in my navel somewhere. Our eyes meet and I see the bags this time, dark ringed circles around his eyes. It looks like he's been up for hours. They also look a little puffy from lack of sleep. But there is somehow an unmistakable mischievous twinkle there somewhere. Faint though it may be, the corner of his mouth twitches but instead of grinning he turns to leave. I would have felt a lot better about patrolling with him if I wasn't sure he had something planned to get back at me for breaking him and Patricia up, or whether he wanted to berate me for something else, but I didn't have time to dwell on it as Albus dragged me up the marble staircase to class.
XXXX
I'm currently waiting for Malfoy in the small prefect's office on the third floor. It's a tiny little room with very little space to actually get behind the desk to sit at it. There is a tall cabinet, filled with old boxes of parchment; a lot of these are previous prefect schedules that must go back a hundred years. There is a tiny glassless window and a solitary torch on the wall by the door, flickering with the wind whistling through the hole in the wall. All in all it's not the most pleasant place to have to wait for someone to turn up, least of all when I myself am always too punctual for my own good.
I'm about the get up from the seat at the desk when the door swings open and Malfoy trudges in. He nods but doesn't say a word taking the parchment I push across the table for him to sign. He doesn't look at me but flicks his head towards the door, which I'm assuming means "let's go Rose. Don't want to take all night about it do we?"
We walk in silence for the entire third floor of the castle and instinctively head down the stairs to the second. It's getting a little unbearable, and Malfoy is currently a few paces ahead and seems to want this done and dusted as quickly as possible. With this pressing silence I'm actually quite inclined to agree, but as usual I can't just keep my mouth shut.
"Well you're a bundle of laughs this evening aren't you?" Again already realising my mistake I inwardly cringe at my tactless comment. The guy who's recently become single is on the list of people that are very much allowed to avoid being "A bundle of laughs". He doesn't even glance at me when he responds.
"How astute of you Weasley." His voice is cold, but it sounds forced. I don't really have anything to reply with accept a mumbled apology.
"Weasley don't apologise. My silence and pain are very much self-inflicted today." He finally looks at me and I see those bags under his eyes are just as prominent as this morning. I raise an eyebrow questioningly.
"When I told the guys in the common room last night about my new found singledom, Zabini thought it was a good idea for me to drown my sorrows and celebrate said singledom with almost a full bottle of firewhiskey to myself. Safe to say I've felt like death warmed up a little all day. And I was using the silence to plot my revenge on him." I can see him trying not to grin at his own joke. I'm also rather surprised he confessed this. To me of all people.
"Oh." I personally think this response is about the wittiest thing I've ever said.
"I don't expect you to understand the pain Weasley, just accept it and the patrol will be over quick. Quick and painless." I'm rather taken aback by this comment. Just because I work hard and spend an above average time in the library, does not mean I've never had at least a small share of Fire Whiskey.
"Actually, you're wrong. I do understand the pain of a self-inflicted Fire Whiskey hangover."
"Oh really, Weasley?" He stops to lean on a wall at this point looking at me sceptically.
I stop too, leaning on the wall opposite wondering how much to tell Scorpius Malfoy to shut him up from insinuating that I'm some sort of prude. I try to avoid this sort of conversation with people. Mostly because I don't like the masses of Hogwarts to know all the nitty gritty details of my private life. It's bad enough having a family that think it's their right to know everything!
"I have a big family. You don't think we'd have got our hands on some at a family party or two the past few years? There are a lot of us-"
"I noticed." I glare at him for his interruption but continue.
"As I was saying, there are a lot of us so it was a lot easier to create a diversion to get the booze or cover for someone who'd gotten a little too drunk. I made the mistake of drunkenly kissing Lorcan at a large family gathering over the summer. This has put me off the idea of drinking Fire Whiskey again. I'll probably just stick to elderflower wine next time."
He looks at me for a long moment, and I'm suddenly very aware of my arms hanging awkwardly at my sides. I cross them in front of my chest still just looking at him. I can't tell if it's becoming creepy or not. He then breaks out in a grin. And I have to admit it is a rather wonderful sight. It's toothy and charming, giving him small wrinkles around his eyes. I can't help but grin back.
"What?" I ask, pushing myself off the wall and uncrossing my arms again.
"Well Weasley, it's just you always struck me as being sort of vanilla." This comment doesn't sting like you'd expect. I'm actually quite ok for people to think I'm this innocent although rather outspoken witch. I don't need the whole school knowing that I lost my virginity to a muggle this summer; in a barn no less. I'm not exactly proud of this, but that's another Fire Whiskey story that is filled with regret. Not due to the sex, although it did seem a little short, and unfulfilling. But by just how long it took the next day to remove all the hay from my hair. I really don't want the whole school knowing that little nugget of gossip.
"But now I'm getting a more butterscotch vibe."
"Oh ha bloody ha. Butterscotch, you're a genius Malfoy. Now we really should carry on these patrols." I'm still grinning as I grab his robes and drag him down the corridor.
"What happened to discussing the potions anyway?" I ask as the air settles again.
"We said we'd do that tomorrow," he shrugged, "Figured you'd still be able to. Plus I'm more interested to hear stories about how much Rose Weasley is not in fact this mild vanilla, I've been informed to expect." I look at him and he's still grinning stupidly. I have to wonder who's been talking to him about me. If it's Patricia, she, to put it nicely, knows absolutely bugger all about my private life. So she's drawing some pretty big conclusions from my evenings spent solo in my four poster.
"Fine. We can still do potions work tomorrow. But I'm not telling you anymore personal stories. That was your taste for the evening; come back next week and I might decide to tell you something else." I say this in the most nonchalant way, but I'm very aware it could be constituted as flirting. The whole phrasing sounded that way. I'm suddenly horrified at myself.
"You know what Weasley I might just take you up on that." He stops suddenly and pulls back a tapestry, pointing down the steep steps that are now flooded with light. "Passage down to the dungeons. Short-cut. We can go down there, back up to the first, cut up to the seventh and then back down to the third. We still do our expected amount but this is by far the quickest way of getting it done." He walks behind me and gives me a nudge.
"I'm actually quite impressed Malfoy," I admit.
"Stranger things have been known to happen than me having a good idea Weasley." He says this good naturedly and I light my wand and descend the steps. It's bloody freezing down in the dungeons. I'm not the biggest fan of being down here. It's rather damn and I can already see my breath in front of me. We come out a solid wooden door at the bottom of the passage and I extinguish my wand now we have the lights of the torches to guide us. We are met with the eerie green glow that seems to ooze from the walls themselves down here.
"You know, as much as you're wanting to rush through patrol, having this time to wander the halls can actually be put to good use." Before he can jump to conclusions that I'm inappropriately offering myself to him I add "practical spellwork and the like without anyone reprimanding you in the corridors." I can feel myself blushing a little, and thank Merlin that the dungeons are so poorly lit.
"You might have to elaborate that one." He says taking a sharp right turn down the potions corridor.
"Well, when me and Al patrol, we practise charms and transfiguration stuff. It's actually really useful. We've been practising a lot of non-verbal spells recently. There was only one time where it got a little bit out of control. Al bewitched a suit of armour and it wouldn't stop following us. Neither of us could remember the counter spell so we both tried a super-adhesive spell our grandmother told us about when we managed to get it more or less back to its original position. It still sometimes reached out and grabs at students, but thankfully we don't think a professor has ever seen it do that."
"That's rather resourceful." His brow is furrowed as we make the final sweep of the dungeons and ascend into the entrance hall. "It probably would be rather useful to keep my mind off things." He says, brow still furrowed. I can't help but send him a pitying look which he catches. He rolls his eyes.
"Weasley, please don't look at me like that. I'm not about to break down or something." He sounds a little agitated. "I need a better nights sleep, that's all. Also I've decided after my nice chat with the guys, it's definitely Trish's loss and not mine."
I can't help a rather bark like laugh escape me.
"I believe you. I do." I nod at him grinning. He grins back which I'm glad of. He's a rather nice looking man to look at. I wouldn't lie to you. We stand there in the entrance hall for a few moments just grinning at each other like a couple of idiots and I wonder what the hell someone would think if they saw me and Malfoy just stood in the hall smiling toothily at each other. Probably that we accidentally ingested some tainted Essence of Euphoria by accident and have reached the "limbs become rigid" stage.
Finally he breaks my gaze and starts up the marble staircase. "What do you fancy practising then Weasley?"
"Non-verbal. Definitely."
And so we spend about another hour of our patrol doing various incantations non-verbally with a range of success. I manage to charm Malfoy's hair bright green and he retaliates with a mild curse that makes me grow a full white beard. I have to hand it to him, he knew the counter curse so I didn't have the heart to tell him it's a bit riskier to practice curses in the corridors in case you can't fix what you've done.
He's still tittering over the image of me with a beard when we get back to the prefect's office. We sign out and I tap the door with my wand to lock it as we exit.
"Well Weasley, that wasn't at all unpleasant." He says putting his hands in his pockets and looking down at me.
"Glad to hear it."
"Maybe we should move the potions chat down to the dungeons tomorrow. We could always start work on it. Get ahead of the curve?" I do like his suggestion. I weigh up the options.
"Well I guess if we start it tomorrow, it takes two and a half weeks to brew then we could test the effects compared to what's stated in the literature. That way we're bound to get extra credit."
"Always aiming high Weasley."
"It's a sin, I'm made very aware of that by my hordes of lazy cousins. But yeah, why not. We'll start the brew tomorrow."
"Alright then." He nods and turns to leave.
"I hope you feel a bit better tomorrow, Malfoy." I state honestly.
"Cheers Weasley. And seriously, thanks for not blowing my head off when I grew you a beard." I watch his retreating back as he heads towards his dungeon dorm.
"Oh and you can tell Potter he can keep the Thursday patrols if he wants." He speaks over his shoulder not turning round. I crack a grin at this.
I watch his retreating back for the second evening in succession. I can't help but feel surprised at how pleasant an evening I actually had. And with Malfoy no less. I turn and walk towards Gryffindor tower crossing my fingers in my pockets and willing the universe to let everything work out alright for the remainder of this project. I'm wondering why mine and Malfoy's previous encounters have seemed a lot more clipped and formal. I guess I can sleep on that and worry about it another time. I'm also happy to acknowledge that if I can make him laugh a time or two during this project I'd be happy just grinning there like an idiot with him.
Thoughts? Feelings? It's becoming a much slower burn than I expected to write. But it'll pick up soon. I don't get much time to write so you can thank the British Bank Holiday for this update.
