Chapter six
Five years earlier
The rush to be done with all the final good byes began as the steam erupted from the train, a sure sign that it wasn't much time until it would be on the way back to Hogwarts. There was a jumble of sounds surrounding their quite large group, the noises of voices and animals.
Victoire made sure yet again that Scorpius had all his things while Teddy tried to convince her that the situation was the same as it had been the last time she had asked. Hermione was scolding Hugo for trying to bring back her copy of Hogwarts- a history.
"But mom, I lost mine and I need it to sleep." He whined and tried to take it back, but his mother was stubbornly holding it out of his reach.
"Hugo, you'll just have to look harder, I'm sure it's somewhere in your dorm. Perhaps you used it to make a chair more stable…"
"Once Hermione, I did it once, nine years ago!" Ron jumped into the argument when he noticed his wife's last statement.
"Well it was one too many times, Ron."
Scorpius and Rose stood together at the side of all this, Rose holding Isabelle's hand to make sure that the little girl wouldn't try to walk away. They had watched the people in front of them in amused silence, with Scorpius arm lazily draped around Rose's shoulders.
"Scorpius say bye to Brian." Isabelle held out her stuffed dog to Scorpius, who for a split of a second took note that some first years were pointing at him and snickering. However he ignored them and said a pleasant good bye to the dog. The little girl beamed up at him and he could see her eyes brighten, which made him suspect that she didn't plan anything he would like.
"Brian wants a kiss too." Scorpius sighed at the smugness in her voice, but swiftly took the dog from its excited owner, gave it a quick peck and then Isabelle was hugging Brian close to her.
"Cheating on my sister right in front of her, and with Brian of all stuffed animals. I always thought he could do so much better." Hugo had come up behind them and laughed at Scorpius annoyance, but Rose smiled at her brother.
"Scorpius and I have an open relationship when it comes to certain dogs."
The light atmosphere around them changed drastically when Ron went quiet and looked at something behind the young pair. The two of them turned around to see Draco Malfoy a few meters away, answering Ron's glare with one of his own.
"I'll be right back." Scorpius mumbled before moving slowly towards his father, who barely acknowledged this.
"Father." Scorpius nodded curtly and took a place beside the older man.
"So you are serious about this, Scorpius." It wasn't a question, only an observation, but Scorpius answered it anyway.
"Yes, I'm serious." A happy squeal came from Isabelle when her mother picked her up and a grimace flickered across Draco's face.
"I'm sure you've heard from your grandfather by now."
"I have, but I didn't care much for what he wanted."
"It isn't just an empty threat Scorpius, he will disown you." Draco turned his gaze away from the Weasleys and turned it to his son. "Don't be foolish about this."
"But I'm not, this is what I want and you should let it be." Scorpius was actually surprised by this, his father almost seemed to be begging him not to do this, or as close as Draco Malfoy would come to begging.
"You want me to just sit back and watch as my son throws away everything."
"I'm not throwing anything away, grandfather threw me away." Draco let out a frustrated huff at this.
"You knew what he would do."
"Yes, and that's why I burned his letter." A defeated sigh came from the older man as he squeezed Scorpius shoulder lightly.
"I should have betrothed you to Lucy Goyle, because then we wouldn't have this conversation." A small smirk played on his face and an almost identical one appeared on Scorpius's.
"I believe we would still have it, but with slightly different circumstances. I would still be with Rose."
"You're too much like Astoria sometimes, you know that?" Someone called for Scorpius and he saw Rose wave her arms in the air and gesturing towards the train. He made a move to go to her but Draco held him back.
"You know that it is most likely that you'll be poorer than a house-elf if you continue like this, I won't take pity on you for something you are responsible for yourself. She is after all a Weasley."
"Then so be it, father you are aware of where I stand, and right now I don't care much about what you think." With that Scorpius made his way towards Rose who stood by one of the doors to the train with both their trunks beside her.
They found an empty compartment in the back of the train and got settled so that they sat across from each other.
"You could call that an interesting conversation." He said lightly as he leant back and closed his eyes.
"What did he say?" Rose tried to sound casual but it was hard, instead she decided to put her feet up on the seat in front of her, beside Scorpius. He opened his eyes to see her feet and smiled slightly at them.
"I guess he wanted to tell me that grandfather Malfoy has officially disowned me now, and he wanted to know if I wanted to change my mind about this."
"Oh." A cold, sinking feeling settled inside her and she didn't know where to look. Of course Scorpius noticed and for a moment she cursed him inwardly for it.
"Rose, don't be silly." He moved and sat down beside her to bring her closer to him. "I'd choose you anytime."
"I know that." She sighed in annoyance and moved away from him, but his hands were on her sides in no time and pulled her back to him. It was useless to try to fight him, she knew that, but she didn't want to give in just like that. Instead she gripped the seat and held onto it, trying to bring her closer to it. Scorpius moved his fingers from her sides to her stomach, that's when she did a stupid thing; she squirmed and let out a small squeal. Smirking he tickled her without mercy until she let go and he could bring her to him again, but not without getting a few hits from her desperate attempts to get away from his hands.
It was a wonder that no one came to see what was going on in their compartment, with all screams and thumps.
Rose tried to catch her breath again as Scorpius was once again leaning back with closed eyes.
"Rough night, Malfoy?" A smile played on his lips but he didn't open his eyes.
"Yeah, this girl… wouldn't let me sleep, she was up all night."
"So it's not only Brian the dog, but another woman too. Shame on you, Scorpius."
"What can I say, it took almost an hour for Teddy and Vicky to get Izzy to sleep again, some nightmare about being abducted by gnomes and forced to be in grandma Weasley's backyard were her Uncle James and Uncle Fred tried to throw her as far away as they could."
"They never where good with children." Rose shook her head and sighed, she could picture it in her mind, James and Fred telling the small Isabelle how to catch and get rid of gnomes.
"It took a while just to stop her from screaming out of sheer panic, she wasn't fully awake but not asleep as she tried to get away from an armchair." He yawned and slumped a little in his seat. "I'm in no rush for kids…"
Rose squirmed a little beside him and cleared her throat. "Then this would be a bad timing to tell you that I'm pregnant, right?" She wasn't even finished before Scorpius sat straight up, stiff as a board.
"You are what!?" The bright, mischievous smile betrayed her when she tried to stay serious and he groaned and slapped her lightly on the upper arm. "Rose."
"Ok, no baby Scorpius who'll run around your ankles and call you 'daddy' or try to steal your broom when you're not looking…"
"Good… wait, steal my broom? Rose, it would be a baby…"
"Well James did it when he was around one and a half, and Roxanne was even younger than that. After she managed to get it out and almost up in the air all the parents in the family decided to be safe and lock their brooms inside closets." They were silent a moment, before Scorpius felt that he had to ask the question which were nagging at him in the back of his mind.
"And you, you want a baby?" She didn't answer right away, but got a far away kind of look and a small smile grazed her lips.
"It would be nice, sometime in the future, but not now. However there are things I want to do before I get children, such as travel and I would want to have a job."
Their conversation slowly drifted away from the baby topic and they continue to talk until the train began to slow down as they got closer to Hogsmeade.
"Ah… is that the sound of the oh so very sweet love between Rose and Scorpius just outside the portrait hole?" Charlie remarked sarcastically as he joined Albus and Jenny by the fire in Gryffindor's common room. "How long have they been out there now?"
"Close to fifteen minuets now, but it all began in the Great Hall." Albus answered as Rose walked in to the room, looking furious when she turned around and shouted through the hole.
"And stay outside!"
"I can't go inside, I'm a Slytherin!" Came the equally infuriated reply before the portrait swung back and closed the entry. Rose stomped over to the couch and squeezed herself in between Albus and Charlie, ignoring their mild protests as she glared into the fire.
"Who does he think he is?" She suddenly exclaimed into the air while the others patiently waited for her to explain the situation, which she began to do the moment after. "I'll tell you who he think he is, he think he is together with a loon who belongs in the loony bin."
"Did he say that?" Jenny seemed to doubt it while Albus began to glare at the fire too.
"No, but he didn't have to. It was so obvious."
"Why don't you just tell me what happened?" Jenny pulled her up and then lead her away towards their dormitory, holding onto her, just to be sure that she wouldn't run away and giving Albus a warning look.
"So we were just talking about nothing in particular, and then this really big spider, huge spider attacked me. The thing just wouldn't get off of me, and you know what the git does?" Jenny had no time to answer before Rose continues. "He laughs; he laughed when I had a huge, probably lethal spider on me!"
A smile threatened to show on Jenny's face, but she fought it and tried to muster up some irritation at man responsible for her friend's anger. "Yes, he deserves a punishment; spider's are no laughing matter."
"I know! Wait, you are not serious… Jenny!" She aimed a kick at her friend but missed.
"Rose, you didn't get killed by the spider…"
"Only because he found some sense before it could have been too late." Jenny smiled and gave Rose a pat on the upper arm.
"See, he 'saved' you."
"No, no, no, he mocked me. It was 'look at this little thing, it can't hurt you' and 'It's more scared of you' or my personal favourite 'Rose! I'm being attacked by a gigantic monster spider!'."
"Argh!" The sound escaping his lips was close to a growl as he entered the Slytherin common room and took his usual place in an armchair by the fire next to Avery and Michaels.
"Look out, Malfoy is on a roll." Avery pretended to take cover, and it was close that he needed to stay down if he didn't want to get his by a spell.
"Who's ridiculously afraid of spiders, they can't even do anything to harm you."
"Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I gues that Weasley is the one afraid of said creature."
"She is furious because I didn't come to her aid right away, but really… the way she jumped and waved her arms around, you couldn't get closer to her than a meter." The two others looked at each other and then at Scorpius.
"So, she's mad at you for not helping her with the spider."
"I did help her." Scorpius interrupted, but Avery held up his hands to stop him.
"You didn't take her seriously, since you are ok with those nasty little buggers." Avery repressed a shudder as Scorpius sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"I should apologise."
"Yes, you should." Scorpius got up and left, ignoring the longing look he received from Lucy from where she was seated with one of her friends.
He knew that he wouldn't be able to talk to her just like that, the problem was to get to her, and as he said before, he was a Slytherin and couldn't get into her common room. Flying up to the tower on his broom was also an idea which was shot down quickly, he didn't want to look through every window and have curious students look back at him and the weather wasn't very favourable. He walked around aimlessly until he found himself standing beside a painting with fruit, that's when the idea hit him.
The house-elves were bustling about when Scorpius entered the kitchen, some of them waved at him with friendly smiles on their faces and then one of them came up to him.
"Would you want some food or anything else?" Scorpius crouched down a bit to get closer to the house-elf's level.
"Since you can move around the castle more easily than I, perhaps you could do me a favour and at least try to bring Rose Weasley here, I would be very grateful." The house-elf seemed to consider it very seriously before replying.
"Moppy will try, sir." With that he was gone and Scorpius was lead to a chair where he sat down. The remaining house-elves moved around, chatting and giggling about ordinary things and then Moppy returned with a sour Rose.
"Well, what is so important that it makes you send a poor house-elf to get me."
"I wanted to apologise, it was wrong of me to laugh at you and the spider, I'm sorry." Rose looked at him, waiting for him to say something more. "And I'm sorry about the comments afterwards."
"Thank you." She made her way to where he sat and sat down on the chair next to his.
"So, we are alright."
"You won't get rid of me that easily, if that is what you mean." She put her elbows on the small table and rested her chin on her hands. "But next time there is a spider…"
"Then I'll be there to get it off of you, no matter how small it is." She slapped his arm and looked at him sternly.
"There are no small spiders."