Hope you enjoy it... as always please read and then leave me a review with what you thought!

"I can't believe him, I mean the sheer arrogance!" Rose blustered, as they sat in the Great Hall on their morning break.

She was joined by Lauren and Dominique, who having had two free periods while Transfiguration had been occurring, had proceeded to achieve nothing at all with her time.

"What happened?" Dominique asked, as she absent-mindedly played with a strand of hair.

"Rose is angry because Scorpius Malfoy out-performed her in Transfiguration today, and it's never happened before," Lauren answered quickly.

"That's not true," Rose insisted.

"No it's not," replied Dominique lazily, "he has out-performed you before. One time when me and Angie..."

"Angie and I," Rose interrupted.

"Shut up. When me and angie," she said forcefully, "were kept back for accidentally turning a desk into a flock of chickens when we were supposed to be transfiguring cushions into monkeys, I argued that we were made to look bad because we had you in our class."

"Aw, thanks Dom," Rose said, with a smile.

"Yeah, but McGonagall shot back that 'Scorpius Malfoy' in the other class with the Ravenclaws was the best Transfiguration student in the year level."

Rose did her best not to look annoyed at this particular piece of information, but Lauren smiled at her.

"You can tell that hurt," she said, with a cheeky grin.

"How have I not noticed this before though?" Rose wondered aloud. "And how do you remember that Dom but you can't remember simple things like Gamps Laws of Elemental Transfiguration?"

Dominique shrugged, but Lauren answered her first question.

"Well, we only had Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins last year, and from memory I don't think we've ever had Transfiguration with Slytherin."

Rose glanced up, scrutinizing the Hall to see if the topic of their conversation was present. Indeed he was, seated by himself at the Slytherin table, reading a book, his face shielded as per normal by a curtain of blonde hair.

"It's weird though," Rose began in a confidential tone, "have you two ever really thought about him before he became Head Boy? It's like he didn't exist."

"I only noticed him when he had Albus' wand pointed between his eyes, or James' boot in his stomach," confessed Lauren.

The other two girls conferred with this assessment. It was indeed odd that they had only started noticing his presence once the badge had gone on, it was like he hadn't even been there.

Scorpius was walking out of the Great Hall, into the courtyard, when a familiar voice called his name.

"Malfoy!" cried Albus Potter, walking up behind him.

He cringed at the voice, and turned as slowly as he could to face him.

"You showed me up in Transfiguration today," Albus spat, as the ranks of Albus' minions was swelled by other onlookers. They all knew what was coming.

"Professor McGonagall said that I should learn a lesson from Scorpius Malfoy, and set me extra work. Well, right here, free of charge, I'm going to teach you a lesson, Head Boy or not!"

Albus pulled his wand out, and used a leg-locker curse on Scorpius. If Scorpius hadn't been about to have his head kicked in, he would have pointed out the irony of Albus using a verbal spell to 'teach him a lesson', but as he collapsed sideways to general laughter, he instead considered whether or not to use the counter charm.

Silently, Scorpius prayed that a teacher would walk past and put a stop to it, but in the meantime, he opted to removed the curses effects, and levered himself back to his feet. He was immediately hit from behind with a stunner, knocking him forwards onto his chest. The crowd began to laugh louder and some cheered.

Albus smirked, and sent another curse Scorpius' way, causing his legs to jerk uncontrollably, but given that he was lying down, all it succeeded in doing was smacking his forehead into the masonry.

He could see droplets of blood on the stone as he recovered enough from the stunner to remove the curse from his legs that was causing so much hilarity.

Albus then laughed as he kicked Scorpius in the ribs while he lay prone, and then raised his arms where some of the crowd began to applaud.

"Alright, get to class!" came the cry from an older voice, and students began to scatter. "Come on get a move on! You too Malfoy!"

Scorpius groaned at the sound of Professor Albert Proudfoot, a former ministry Auror who had taken the Defence Against the Dark Arts post after the war had finished. He was notorious for his hatred of Death Eaters, and in his eyes, their offspring were no better.

He struggled to his knees, a hand on the stone as he tried to get to his feet. He glanced up, and his eyes were drawn to one individual in particular.

A red headed girl with a badge that read 'Head Girl' was clutching her book bag tightly as she stood there watching him, ignoring the commotion around her as students rushed away from the scene. Scorpius momentarily broke eye contact as he reached for the edge of the fountain as leverage, and she turned, and strode away through the crowd.

Rose sat cross-legged at the back of Divination, muttering none too subtly about her opinion on the subject as Professor Firenze wandered into the classroom. The entire class looked enthralled simply by his entrance, as his hooves padded gently on the moss-floored classroom.

Classroom Eleven was completely unique in Hogwarts, in so much that it had not a stone floor, but one that was moss and lichen covered, and had trees that grew to the ceiling. It was, however, unique also because the entire population of the class since OWLs was female.

Dominique had convinced Rose it was worthwhile continuing with Divination, and Rose had agreed in a moment of weakness, despite her cousin's argument having the fundamental flaw that its main proponent didn't actually believe any of it. Still, her options had been Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures or this, and the prospect of spending most of a class lying down staring at the ceiling which was bewitched to replicate the night sky wasn't too horrible.

"So where did you disappear off to before?" Dominique whispered, as they stared absent-mindedly at the stars.

"To see if I could bust Albus for breaking a rule," Rose chuckled.

"Oho, I wish I was there to see that. So what did you give him, detention? Please don't say you docked points, Rosie, I mean, he is in Gryffindor."

Rose paused, and an inexplicable guilty sensation took hold.

"Nothing."

"I thought I heard something about a fight, surely a sassy 'what's going on here' wouldn't have gone amiss."

"He was fighting Scorpius Malfoy."

"Oh."

There was a pause, as they both let the silence fester a little.

"So what did you do?" Dominique asked, sounding intrigued.

"Nothing," Rose replied shortly. "Albus is family, Malfoy is not."

"Do you think Malfoy will tell anyone? Do you think he'll go to McGonagall?" Dominique asked, rolling onto her side to face her cousin.

Rose had been thinking about this for some time, and wondered whether she should advocate on Albus' behalf or not at some point or other.

"I can't remember him ever having said anything before though," Dominique added, voicing Rose's thoughts.

It was another strange phenomenon that she couldn't quite comprehend. Albus, and James before him, certainly had given Scorpius Malfoy more than his fair share of public beatings, and she was sure there were many she hadn't been privy to, but not once could she remember Scorpius saying anything that might have caused problems for either of the Potter boys, even when it ended in him receiving a punishment for being presumed to have instigated or at least been involved in the dispute.

If Rose was honest, she could remember several occasions where Albus or James had gleefully accused Scorpius of being the only guilty party.

She consoled herself with the idea he must have caused at least some of the ugly brawls she'd witnessed, otherwise Albus and James wouldn't have detested him so much, because they weren't those kind of people. Her confidence in this resolution wasn't solid, however, but the entire event intrigued her.

Scorpius lay casually across the couch, spreading himself in comfortably so his feet rested on one of the arms as he reread the notes he taken in potions after lunch. As a seventh year, he was blessed with several free periods, one of which had fallen in what would have been his final lesson of the day.

Instead of retreating to the library as he normally would, and enduring cold glares and colder shoulders, he took advantage of his new surrounds, and moved himself into the Heads Dormitory.

He heard the entrance portrait creak open, and he kept his eyes on his book, away from the latest arrival. She, however, had other ideas, and walked over to the couches, depositing her bag on the small coffee table next to Scorpius' stack of books.

He glanced at her, a surprised expression on his face, but resolved to ignore her, or at least appear to. She too positioned herself across the couch; sitting with her back against the inside of the arm, opposite to the one Scorpius was resting upon, on the other side of the fire.

She was gently nibbling on the end of her quill, before scratching out something in the book she was holding.

"Good first day back?" came the polite question.

Scorpius did a double take, and the silence became uncomfortable. Had she really just enquired how his day had been?

"Ah, fine thank you," he replied quietly, wondering whether this was an invitation for open conversation. "Y...your day?" he managed to tack onto the end of his sentence with a slight stutter.

"Good, good. Well, apart from... you know. That little misunderstanding in the courtyard," the red-haired girl replied.

Scorpius looked up finally, and met her inquisitive gaze with his own cold one. Rose was struck by how much his eyes looked like those childhood photos she'd seen of his father. He slammed his books shut, and collected all his belongings off the coffee table, then stood up.

"Don't even bother," he said, fighting to keep his tone even. "If you're worried that I'll report you for not intervening or your dear cousin for hexing me, you can rest easy tonight."

Rose clearly realised that she hadn't been quite as subtle as she might have hoped.

"No, Malfoy, that's not..."

"Save it, don't say anything else you don't mean. I'm not going to say anything; you don't have to worry about your precious Head Girl badge. No one is going to stop you from punishing those dastardly rule breakers."

If the situation had been different, Rose would have marvelled at his use of irony when referring to rule breaking, but it was as he walked away and slammed the door to his bedroom that Rose realised that was the closest she had come to a proper conversation with Scorpius Malfoy.

She stared at the door for some time, thinking on the implications of this realisation. It was strange to think that they'd shared classes, she'd even been forced to sit next to him a couple of times when she'd been late, yet she had never engaged him in a conversation as long as that had been.

It took the shock of remembering that Dominique and Lauren had been waiting outside the portrait hole for probably ten minutes to raise her out of her reverie.

"You bitch!" came the protest from her cousin, as the long blonde hair appeared, followed by a body.

Dominique straightened up, and then repeated her insult with more vigour.

"Alright, I'm sorry for leaving you two outside in the cold, but calling me a bitch twice? Really necessary?"

"I'd say that the second one would be warranted due to the fact that you have your own common room and bedroom while I have to exist with this princess who leaves her clothing everywhere and steals my stuff from the bathroom," Lauren guessed, taking in the sight.

"I didn't steal it!" Dominique said loudly, "I assumed it was mine!"

"Of course you did, Dom," Rose laughed, "you assume everything you see is yours."

Her two friends proceeded to tour the establishment in infinite detail, taking in all elements of her new residence.

"You even have your own cupboards, what I would give for my own cupboards!" Dominique shouted from the bedroom.

"Have you heard of an inside voice, Dom?" hissed Lauren, as she stuck her head around the door, "We aren't the only people here!"

Rose wandered into her bedroom behind them, and Dominique turned on her instead.

"Speaking of which, how did your appeal for clemency go down with your housemate?"

"What are you two on about?" Lauren asked.

Dominique began to give a blow by blow account of what had transpired that day that Lauren had missed.

"Yes I heard Malfoy got beat up, so what? It's not like it's the first time it's happened, nor the last I imagine," Lauren interrupted, but Dominique waved her down.

"No, but you don't understand. Rosie here suddenly had a panic attack because she was terrified Malfoy would go to McGonagall and tell her that Rose wasn't doing her job. So... did you ask Malfoy about it?"

"This is going to have ended badly," Lauren suggested astutely, and Rose nodded.

"Yes I mentioned, and yes it ended badly. I tried to be subtle, but he called me out straight away and stormed off," Rose announced, to which Lauren shook her head.

"I surprised Malfoy has enough spine to physically storm anywhere," Dominique said, as the three of them arranged themselves comfortably around the room, "whenever I see him he's busy taking a beating from someone."

"Do you guys notice him otherwise?" Rose asked, looking intrigued, "I mean apart from when he's getting beaten up?" It was bugging her, why was it that she hadn't even given him the time of day until he became Head Boy?

"Sorry babe, but I have better things to do than consider what Malfoy spends his day doing. My minds not vile enough to even get close I'd think," Dominique replied, fiddling with her blood red fingernails.

"A little bit," Lauren confessed, and Dominique turned to her.

"Why the hell would you want to do a thing like that?"

Lauren sat quietly, and picked embarrassedly at the quilt on Rose's bed.

"I don't know. He's weird, I know, but I mean, how can someone who is that smart, with that heritage simply go unnoticed? It doesn't make any sense."

Rose nodded her head in agreement.

"There's definitely something different about him. He's not like anyone else here," she said, and Dominique threw her hands up in frustration.

"What is this, the Malfoy Watching Society? Don't you two have better things to do than worry about our year levels pet punching bag?"

"Why though?" Rose replied, getting to the crux of her problem, "why is he hated by everyone? Why do I hate him? Why does Albus, and James before him, insist on beating the living daylights out of him and tormenting him at every turn? I mean, he's smart," she began, ticking off qualities on her hand.

"He's polite," Lauren added.

"He's humble," Rose ticked off.

"He's compassionate," Lauren submitted.

"And," Rose added with a blush, "he is outrageously attractive."

Lauren turned to her with her eyes open, and mouth in a wide grin, while Dominique spluttered indignantly.

"Yes! I thought I was the only one who noticed, but behind that curtain of hair, Mr. Malfoy is like an ethereal being, he's almost beautiful!" She exclaimed, clearly happy that she wasn't delusional.

"No... No way!" shouted Dominique loudly over their excited chatter. "There is no way in heaven or hell that Malfoy is anything approaching handsome. Take it from me, if he was, I would know wouldn't you think?"

But Rose and Lauren were smiling smugly and sharing sidelong looks at each other, enjoying their shared revelation.

"No! I won't have it!" Dominique announced, "Smart, polite, humble and whatever other bullshit you listed may be true, but there is no way some male model material would have escaped my eyes... or hands."

"You can't see it normally," explained Lauren gently, "he has his face covered by his hair normally, so people don't notice,"

"What are you, his stalker?" Dominique exclaimed.

"It's true," Rose explained, "I only noticed today when Albus was attacking him, and I thought it was a trick of the light, but then I saw him again just now,"

"This is an absolute joke," announced Dominique, getting to her feet. "I am going to settle this for myself."

Dominique marched from Rose's bedroom, pushing the door open with a loud bang, and stormed across the common room. She reached Scorpius' bedroom door, and without knocking, barged into the room.

Scorpius was sitting on the ledge seat by the open window, reading over his completed potions essay with some pride, when he heard the thud of footsteps, and his door was wrenched open with a bang.

If he hadn't heard the footsteps, he thought he may have fallen out of the open window, but as it was he tilted slightly, and his hand slipped on the wet slate tiling of the tower outside. To his horror, he watched as two of his pieces of parchment swirled away into the stormy night, quickly ruined beyond rescue. This loss momentarily distracted him from the fact he was no longer alone.

"Malfoy!"

He turned to find himself uncomfortably close to one Dominique Weasley, the blonde half-Veela that he knew was one of the Head Girl's best friends, as well as cousin.

"Don't look away!" came a commanding voice as Malfoy sought to raise himself to his feet, completely shocked by the intrusion. His mind wasn't functioning properly; he couldn't formulate a single plausible explanation for what was occurring.

"Stay still!" were his next instructions, as he lowered himself back down, but it was the warm hand that swept his unkept blonde hair from his eyes that really scared him. The blonde haired Weasley stared for a minute, her mouth open.

"Well, what do you know..." she breathed quietly, removing her hand and the warm touch with it.

Like she was only half awake, she backed away, and stumbled from his room. Scorpius stood in the doorway, and watched as Rose and her other friend, Lauren, grabbed her and dragged her back into Rose's room, with a few choice swear words muttered under their breaths.

Scorpius had been spending a lot of time being confused in his seventh year, more than any other time of his life combined.

He shrugged slightly to himself, and shut his door. It beat having his butt kicked, that was for sure, regardless of the fact he'd have to go back and rewrite those two sheets of parchment all over. He could deal with the weirdly ambivalent, if it meant he wasn't on the receiving end of the other kind of attention.

I can see all of you, you are jumping up and down pointing at Scorpius shouting, "he's a male Mary Sue! Look, look, it's another one, I found another one!"

I'm sorry. Truly I am. I hate myself a little for making it so. But you can't deny that it makes the plot work. I mean, given how superficial and narcissistic we already know Rose and friends are, would it make sense if she noticed Scorpius if he was ugly and stupid? No, she'd continue thinking of him as she always had. I'm trying to exaggerate the ridiculous yet appalling nature of his treatment, and by making him the apparently ideal model from which to cast your boy, it enhances this sense. Well that's my justification, anyway. Maybe I just don't want hideously ugly, stupid characters. It makes them harder to connect with... or maybe that's a deficiency of my writing.

On another note, my friend had a chat with Tom Felton in a pub in London the other day... apparently he's a really nice guy.

Anyway, please take a second to leave me a review; you can't imagine how great they are when I'm trying to motivate myself to keep writing, I legitimately read them all for your thoughts and opinions :)

Ps. Sorry for the ridiculously long A/N... guess this probably isn't helping.