Breakfast the next morning was fairly uneventful, other than a short reply from Dominique and a long letter from her parents. Once she'd finished, she sped off to a double period of Ancient Runes.

After a full morning stuck in a classroom – she'd had Arithmancy after Ancient Runes – Rose was glad to escape outdoors for a Care of Magical Creatures Lesson. When she got there, she found Albus, Scorpius, and Damien lazing on the grass.

"Hey," she said, joining them. "Any idea what we're doing today?"

Albus shook his head. "Dunno. Woodmore didn't say."

As it transpired, they were doing hippogriffs that day. Rose found this very exciting; she'd been waiting to get to the interesting animals, especially now that she was a fifth year and felt fairly confident in her ability to deal with them.

Halfway through the lesson, as she and Albus were socializing cautiously with a brown and white hippogriff named Pelfeather, she noticed that while Damien seemed to be doing fine, Scorpius was giving the hippogriff the two of them were working with a very wide berth.

As Woodmore approached him, clearly intent on lecturing him about the importance of portraying confidence, Rose asked Albus, "What's his problem?"

"Who?" Her cousin followed her gaze. When he saw Scorpius, he let out a quiet chuckle. "Oh, Merlin." She cocked her head to one side, and he said, "Scorpius's father is really afraid of hippogriffs. He had a bad run-in with one when he was at Hogwarts, and I think he still thinks that they hold a grudge."

Rose stared at him incredulously. "What, all of them?"

Albus's grin widened. "Apparently. I think Scorpius has internalized his dad's warnings about this class a little too much, to be honest."

She glanced over at Scorpius again. With Woodmore's coaxing and Damien's encouragement, Scorpius was hesitantly stroking the feather of their hippogriff. It sneezed, and he leapt back as though it had tried to bite him. "Looks like it," she commented. Scorpius looked over at them, and she could see a faint tinge appear on his cheeks. She turned back to Pelfeather. "I like hippogriffs," she said. "Especially you. You're my favorite hippogriff."

Pelfeather turned its head and bumped her gently, and she giggled.

"Looks like the feeling is mutual," Albus said.

After class, they headed back up to the castle for lunch. Scorpius didn't bother to try and catch up with them; when Rose asked Albus about it, he said that his friend was probably more than a little embarrassed that she'd seen him being a little bit of a wimp.

That seemed to make a great deal of sense, and she made a mental note to say something vaguely reassuring to Scorpius about it later.

As usual, Rose and the rest of the Gryffindors enjoyed Charms, which on Wednesdays came right after lunch. Professor Harding could definitely be strict, but she was also a very good teacher, and by the end of the period, Rose was feeling fairly confident about her ability to perform an illusioning charm. When the bell rang, she and Albus exchanged a look of dread: up next was a double period of History of Magic.

The Slytherins had to make their way up to classroom from Herbology, so she and Albus had already settled in and were in the middle of debating whether or not he should use a snackbox when the door opened and the Slytherins started to file in. Scorpius was one of the last to enter the room; his left sleeve was dirty, and he was looking distinctly downtrodden.

He slid into the seat on the other side of Albus without looking at her. "I hate that class," he muttered, putting his head down on his desk.

"Are you okay?" Albus asked. Scorpius turned his head a little to look up at his friend, seemed to consider saying something, and closed his mouth again.

"I'll tell you later," he muttered.

Rose and Albus exchanged a mystified look, and she heard an outbreak of muffled laughs break out on the other side of the room. Several of the other Slytherins were huddled around desks in the back of the room, and from their glances, Scorpius was clearly the target of their joke. His shoulders stiffened slightly as the laughter continued, and she caught both Noah and Claire tossing dirty looks toward the back of the room.

"What on earth?" Rose muttered in her cousin's ear, but he looked as lost as she was.

"I have no idea."

"I said, I'll tell you later," Scorpius said testily. They apparently hadn't been whispering quietly enough. "Just drop it."

Albus clapped his friend on the shoulder. "All right."

Rose leaned over Albus and poked Scorpius on the shoulder. He turned his head and sighed. "Not now, Rose. I really don't need to deal with your nonsense right now."

She buried the part of her that bristled at the statement; she knew what it was like to have a bad day. Instead, she said, "I was just going to say that it's okay to be scared of hippogriffs. I'm a little afraid of my cousin when she gets into a temper, she kind of reminds of a hippogriff then."

Scorpius let out a snort of laughter, but he still looked rather morose. She was about to say something else when Binns floated through the board and began the lesson.

After an exceedingly painful hour and a half, the bell rang. Scorpius began to gather his things up, and Albus said quickly, "Meet me in the library after class?"

Scorpius nodded without looking at him and began to slump toward the door. Albus hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed his bag off the floor. "Tell Dorny I might be a little late," he muttered to Rose and headed after his best friend.

She watched them go, feeling very curious.

As it transpired, Albus was a few minutes late to Potions. He arrived out of breath and muttered an apology to the professor as he slid into the empty seat next to Rose.

"What's wrong with him?" she whispered.

Albus opened his mouth to answer, but Professor Dorny turned her gaze on them and raised his eyebrows. Albus closed his mouth quickly and turned toward the board, and Rose followed suit. The last thing she needed was a detention, and Dorny was one of the stricter professors at the school - she would give it to them.

As soon as the bell rang, however, Rose turned on Albus. "What happened?" she demanded.

He sighed and made a face as he put his books in his bag. "Apparently he was already feeling annoyed about Care of Magical Creatures, and then Flint and Soebly had a go at him in Herbology when he dropped a pot with a Citonia in it and got lectured by Neville. Then they started teasing him again on their way to History of Magic."

"About dropping the Citonia?" Rose asked, slinging her bag onto her shoulder and following the crowd of Gryffindors making their way toward the door.

Albus hesitated. "Well, no. About you."

"What?"

"You heard me." They got to the end of the corridor, and Albus looked at her. "I'm meeting him in the library. Do you want to come?"

"Sure," she agreed. On their way, they talked briefly about the Quidditch practice she had scheduled for after dinner and the assignments that they had to do, but Rose's mind was somewhere else.

When they got to the library, Rose dropped her bag on the table Albus claimed and headed toward the Magical Creature section of the library to try and find a book about quintapeds, which Goldstein had mentioned in class the day before. She had a lot of work that she knew she ought to be doing, but she was intrigued – she'd heard of them before, but didn't know much about them.

As she was looking through the books on the subject, she heard a voice above her. "Hey."

She looked up. "Hey, Scorpius."

He looked slightly better than he had in History of Magic, but he still had a rather unhappy look about him. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better in History of Magic today. I'm sorry I mostly ignored you."

She grabbed the book she'd decided on and stood up. "It's all right," she said. "I'm sorry your housemates are jerks."

He snorted. "Yeah, well. What else is new?"

She surveyed him carefully. "So are you here to say you don't want me to be your girlfriend after all?"

"What?" he asked incredulously. "Are you serious?" She shrugged, trying not to let the insecurity she was feeling show. "Merlin, no."

The idea had occurred to her on the way to the library. She certainly believed that Scorpius liked her, but she wasn't at all sure that he would judge her to be worth a substantial increase in the unpleasantness in his interactions with half of the boys he shared a dormitory with.

The thought had really, really bothered her - and not just because she'd be missing out on his kisses.

"I just wondered…" She trailed off.

"No," he said again. "I just had a rough day. What, did Albus tell you what happened?"

Rose nodded. "Why do they dislike me so much? They're not on the Quidditch team or anything, and I don't remember doing anything to them, really."

"Because you're a Muggleborn's kid," Scorpius said simply. "And your last name is Weasley. Half Mudblood, half blood traitor."

"That's all?" she asked, and he looked up at the ceiling.

"Yes, Rose," he said in a very tired voice. "That's all. That's all they need. They're pureblood lunatics, remember?" After a moment, he looked back at her. "Those are words, not mine, by the way. Obviously."

"I figured." She frowned at him. "I hate to ask this, but am I really worth it?"

Scorpius sighed. "No." She felt her heart skip a beat. "And yes," he continued. "Look, Flint and Soebly don't run my life, okay? I'm not going to let them intimidate me into not going out with who I want to go out with. I'm not ignoring them for you, I'm ignoring them for me." He let his eyes roam down from her face for a few moments and then grinned, recovering some of his good humor. "Well, maybe a little for you, too."

She considered that. "I'm not sure whether that's incredibly mature or incredibly shallow," she said after a moment. "Maybe it's both."

"Probably. Jokes aside, it's not just - well - you know that, right?" She nodded and stepped closer to him. He licked his lips. "Really, Rose," he said. "I'm fine."

"I don't judge you for being afraid of hippogriffs," she told him softly.

"Thanks," he breathed.

She leaned up to kiss his cheek and whispered in his ear, "Do you want to meet me when I'm done with Quidditch practice tonight?"

She pulled back in time to see his eyes widen a little. "Sure," he croaked. "That'd go a long way toward improving today."

"Good." She lightly brushed her lips against his, and his face got redder. "I'm sorry they're making your life difficult," she said as she started to pull back.

"Don't be," he said, leaning in for another kiss. "You're making it worth my while." She snorted, and he added, "And you have a pretty good profile."

She groaned and buried her face in his chest. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

He put his arms around her and breathed in deeply. "Probably not."

By the time she'd finished with Quidditch practice that night, Rose was more than a little exhausted, and she still had a pile of schoolwork to do. However, when Scorpius suggested that she just go back to the Gryffindor Common Room and call it an early night, she brushed the suggestion off. She suspected that she wouldn't have much time to spend with him the following day, and she was coming to regard that as a loss.

It was after ten by the time they parted ways and she headed back to Gryffindor tower. Just before she reached the Fat Lady's portrait, she stopped in front of a suit of armour and tried to make her hair look a little less tangled.

She thought she'd done a fairly decent job of it, but from the look Albus shot her after she'd climbed in through the portrait hole, she'd been too optimistic. When she slid into the seat across from him, however, he only asked, "Have a good time?" in a tone that was just a little too innocent before dropping it.

Rose liked to think that Albus was just being nice, but in reality, she knew that his show of restraint probably had more to do with the large pile of schoolwork next to him than anything else.

A/N: Well, I guess we've all had days like that, right? Sort of? If you squint and look sideways?

As always, I would really appreciate it if you took a moment to leave me a review, but most importantly, I really hope you enjoyed the chapter!

- Branwen