I hoping that this isn't like other stories people have read. I'm aiming to be different, slightly anyway. Hope you enjoy, please read and review!
"I can't believe you just did that!"
Lauren and Rose were standing with their hands on their hips, staring at Dominique as if she had sprouted an extra head.
For her part, Dominique collapsed into a sitting position on Rose's bed, looking as mortified as Rose had ever known her to.
"He's actually good looking..." she muttered to herself, as if saying it out loud was helping her to understand it to be true.
"I wasn't lying," Lauren replied, as Rose shook her head in disbelief.
"But... he's like Teddy's better looking sibling, only he has blonde hair and blue eyes..." Dominique said, still sounding distant.
"Alright Dom, you can stop with the crazy. I think this is getting a little much. He's still a Malfoy after all," Lauren replied, patting Dominique on the back gently, as Rose sat down in her desk chair, and folded her legs underneath herself.
"But you're intrigued, no?" Rose asked, absent-mindedly chewing the end of a quill, "because you're right, he is good looking under all that blonde hair, he's obviously smart, so why do we all hate him so much?"
"I honestly don't know," Lauren responded.
"Well, I for one don't like the idea that my hatred is completely misplaced. I think we should make a conscious effort over the next few weeks, to track him, see what he does, see if he acts in a way that warrants my inherent hatred of him,"
"Don't think you can call it hatred anymore," Lauren pointed out, "given what we've just said."
"More importantly," Dominique added, her momentary lapse forgotten, "that sounds a little stalker-ish. And when I say a little, I mean very much like stalking. And that's creepy, and I don't do creepy. Creepy is fifth year boys following me to the girls bathrooms, and that's not something I'm about to take up as a pastime."
"Dom, I'm fairly sure you announced at breakfast that you were going to take a shower, just to see how many boys' ears pricked up at the news," Lauren retorted sharply.
"Beside the point," Dominique replied coolly, "I don't particularly want to be accused of doing the same, no matter what my own methods may be."
"I'm not proposing hiding round corners," Rose said, "but just keeping an eye out. Nothing proactive, just passive observation. I know you're both interested in him, I can see that,"
"Isn't it just a tad shallow to do this after we discover he is bloody attractive?" Lauren asked, looking between her friends.
"Never stopped me before," Dominique answered.
"Yes well, you were never exactly the moral compasses equivalent of true north though, were you?"
Rose ignored this.
"It's not like you get to see it much. His hair is so long it covers half his face, and nobody else is going to expect us to be watching him, they'll all put it down to us criticizing or something."
"I'm so glad everyone automatically assumes that's what we're doing. Really, makes me feel like a wonderful person," Lauren said sarcastically.
"Well, if it turns out I'm right, and Malfoy is about as harmless as your average Pygmy-Puff, then I'm not sure we deserve anything better. But mainly, I think its Dom's fault," added Rose with a smile.
The first two weeks of the school year passed without major occurrence for Scorpius. Naturally, Albus Potter tried to hex him multiple times in the corridors, and succeeded in cornering him in a dead-end corridor at the end of his first week, but all up, things were not awful for him.
The Head's Dormitory served as an excellent refuge, and although Madame Pince had told him that he should spend more time in the library, he found himself isolated more and more, and this was no bad thing.
It meant he had somewhere to escape to if he knew Albus or his followers were after him, somewhere that they were unable to access, along with a comfortable bed and a desk where he could work in peace.
Of course, his schoolwork was his priority, and he worked much harder than even a student desiring the very highest marks would be required to, and using the class time to perfect the incantations. He never made the same mistake as he had in that first Transfiguration lesson, however, and despite Professor McGonagall's best attempts, he refused to perform anything out of the ordinary. Albus' retributions simply weren't worth it.
The first serious problem he encountered during the year came at breakfast on the third Monday of the school year. He was seated quietly, having finished his food before anyone else had arrived, reading a copy of a highly advanced potion making book from the Restricted Section of the library, when Professor Slughorn rose to his feet.
The Great Hall was now at capacity, as students busied themselves preparing for a new school day and the beginning of a new week. Scorpius had Transfiguration to look forward to, and his three foot essay on imagined transfigurations was sitting on his bed in his dormitory, ready to be delivered to Professor McGonagall's desk.
Slughorn's movement in itself was unusual, as the portly Professor normally kept physical exertion to a minimum, but he made his way to the lectern and addressed an interested student body.
"It has been brought to my attention," he began congenially, "by Mr. Thompson, Slytherin's estimable Quidditch captain, that only three students have put their names down to try out for the team this year."
Scorpius didn't have any doubts as to why that was, and he was sure no one else did either. The Slytherin Quidditch team hadn't won the cup for 25 years, since before the war, and several third place finishes were the only high points in a string of last places that littered the record books.
The team was a miserable place to be, and most members of the house avoided it like the plague. It was a popular joke amongst students to ask which of the three houses was going to win this year.
Professor Slughorn continued.
"Therefore, I have gained permission from the Headmistress on the team's behalf to run a compulsory trial to fill the five remaining places on the team."
"We require a beater, a keeper, a seeker and two chasers to fill the void left by last year's departing members, and so on Thursday evening every student from fifth year and above, and any from the younger years who wish to attend, will report to the Quidditch Pitch straight after dinner is concluded to partake in the trial."
"I repeat, participation is not optional. Attendance will be taken. I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday evening."
The laughter from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables could barely be heard over the jeering that erupted from the red and gold house.
Albus Potter had declared in the Gryffindor Common Room midweek that he wanted as many members of the house present as possible for Slytherin's attempt at constructing a Quidditch team.
While all but his most ardent fans and followers had ignored this suggestion of an evening's Slytherin-baiting, Rose found herself following Lauren and Dominique down to the Quidditch pitch, wrapped up snugly in her winter cloak and a Gryffindor scarf tied around her neck.
The pitch was floodlit, and probably 50 Slytherin students stood, shivering in a motley array of outfits, waiting for instructions.
Rose took her seat between Dominique and Lauren in the stand, as her ever-respectful cousin started a chant amongst those who were decked out in the red and gold.
The grass was moist with condensation, and the light punctured the fog as Flynn Thomas, captain of Slytherin's Quidditch team, and his sole remaining team member, the beater Benjamin Peake, addressed those who were assembled in front of him.
"Alright Slytherin house, to warm up, I want you to jog a lap of the pitch!" he declared loudly, which was met with groans from the assembled prisoners.
"No arguing!" boomed Professor Slughorn, who sat comfortably in the front row on the opposite side of the pitch, his voice magically magnified. He had also brought his own bewitched brazier, and had transfigured one of the benches into a plush armchair.
The Gryffindors heckled as the bunch slowly made their way past, and Rose spotted the unmistakeable bobbing blonde hair go past towards the back of the pack. She smiled despite herself; even the Head Boy hadn't escaped this one.
Flynn Thomas immediately dismissed any of the students who had been left behind by the main group, declaring them not fit enough to make it worth their while getting on a broom. Several students looked like they wished they'd done the same thing.
There were probably 40 students remaining, and laid out on the grass waiting for them was the schools entire collection of brooms, used for flying lessons for the first years. They were ratty old things, ruined by years of misuse, but Thomas commanded his charges to position themselves next to a broom.
Much like in first year, the initial test was broom control. Each student summoned their brooms with a sharp "up!"
The results were mixed, much to the dismay of the elderly Madame Hooch, who had remained as the first years Flying Instructor, but was too long in the tooth to continue refereeing Quidditch matches. She had joined Professor Slughorn on the sidelines, to observe the process, and showed little sign of being impressed by what she saw.
Another five students were shed based on their inability to perform this rudimentary task, and the remaining 35 students were told to mount their brooms, and hover with their toes still touching the grass.
"Be careful though, the school brooms have a tendency to lean to the left, and if you lose control and gain to much altitude, they will begin to vibrate," Flynn Thomas informed them.
After roughly 10 students had failed to maintain their height satisfactorily, and another two had completely lost it and either crashed, in the fifth year's case, or simply let go and fallen off in the seventh year girl's case, they were down to about 20 candidates.
"Alright, do a lap of the pitch, around the back of either set of goalposts, and then back to me," Flynn Thomas instructed.
Rose watched as Scorpius Malfoy, who had managed all the tasks thus far, remounted his broom looking slightly ginger about it, and kicked off.
Scorpius kicked off, and while his newly acquired blue hooded jumper and tracksuit pants kept the worst of the chill off, it couldn't save him from the burning of the icy wind in his face.
He hadn't flown a broom since he was in first year, when compulsory flying lessons had been held, but he remembered that he'd been not bad for someone who'd never flown before. He even remembered Madam Hooch saying that he was a bit like his father on a broom, and he assumed it was a compliment. In fact she'd encouraged him to try out for his house team, as he recalled.
Of course, he'd done nothing of the sort, not wanting to draw undue attention to himself, but his heart swelled with a pride similar to that he'd felt on the day it happened when he recalled that event.
The first length of the pitch he spent getting to grips with his broom, and the uncanny feeling of sitting with your feet dangling thirty feet off the grass, but as he gently controlled his ancient Cleansweep around the back of the hoops, his confidence grew.
It was something you never forgot, Madam Hooch had said, and she was right. Once the initial shock had passed, everything started to come back to him.
His hair was flowing in the wind, and despite the cold, and forced nature of the situation, a smile spread across his face. This was how he remembered it, flying was fun, and it was something one did for pleasure.
He leaned low against the handle of his broom, urging it forward, and he zoomed past most of the other students, pushing down on the handle of the broom to fly below them, his toes skimming the surface of the pitch, and then pulling up on it to rise back up to the height of the hoops.
By the time he landed, the third in the group to do so, his exhilarated grin had help him forget that a large proportion of Gryffindor house were chanting and name calling, despite both Professor's attempts at quietening them.
As another ten or so students who had failed to demonstrate satisfactory control of their broomsticks trudged from the field with a range of emotions from relief to unadulterated joy lining their faces, the real Quidditch equipment was brought out.
"Did you see that?" Lauren asked, leaning in.
"See what?" Dominique asked.
"Yeah, I did see it, he was grinning like..."
"Like the Cheshire Cat," Lauren finished for her, before answering the unasked question simply with "reference from a muggle book."
"Are you two discussing bloody Malfoy again?" Dominique asked.
"Didn't you notice his smile? It looked like his face was about to split in half," Rose replied.
"Alright, alright, so I confessed he's really good looking, but no need for you two to wax lyrical about the sexiness of his smile," Dominique said moodily.
"No, it wasn't sexy," Rose answered, watching the Slytherin's, or a Slytherin, take the brooms back into the sky, "it was more pure joy. It was weird, it looked almost like he'd forgotten what that felt like."
I dunno about you guys, but I'm a sucker for a good game of Quidditch. Fictionally of course, not actually. I've heard about those college students who run around looking stupid, doesn't appeal really. Guess you don't know unless you've tried it. Anyway, don't dismiss it as a plot point, because it's important. Don't worry though, it won't be that ridiculous situation where the new player single handedly wins them the trophy. That aint gonna be happening...
Anyway, please leave your thoughts in the form of a review, I read and take into account all your thoughts, good and bad.