Chapter 9:
The Monday following the Hogsmeade trip, Dominique was still talking about her date with Colin.
"Rosie, you wouldn't believe it! In Madam Pudifoot's, they don't even care if you snog the whole time you're there!" She squealed for what was probably the fifteenth time. I resisted rolling my eyes.
"Dom, I know. I used to go there with Robin." I mumbled.
"Oh, right… sorry." Dominique said, looking guilty. Whenever Robin was brought up, accidentally or not, Dom would get this look on her face as if she was sorry for me. It was becoming quite annoying.
"You know that I'm completely over him, right?" I asked seriously.
"Of course!" She said in a not very convincing tone. I huffed and gave up. We were on our way to Charms and I really didn't want to be annoyed with her when the lesson started.
Once in Charms, we were split into pairs to work on silencing charms. Dominique and I were partners, something I was not altogether pleased with. Not that I didn't love Dom with all of my heart, but she was being really annoying that morning.
As we were practicing silencing charms on birds, Dominique thought it would be an opportune time to start talking about Colin again.
"He got me flowers you know; pink roses! They're my absolute favorite!" She squealed. She waved her wand in such excitement that her bird almost took flight.
"Dominique, I'm sorry, but I know!" I half shouted. She looked confused.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"I'm sorry, I really am." I said, feeling a little bad now. "But you've told me about your date with Colin at least a thousand times. It's just getting a bit… repetitive."
Dominique looked angry for a second, but then relaxed.
"You're right, Rose. I'm done talking about it." I silently cheered in my head.
"We should be talking about your date instead!" She exclaimed. I froze.
"Um… it really wasn't a date…" I trailed off.
"Okay, Rose whatever you want to call it. What was he like? More importantly, who is he?"
I couldn't tell Dominique that I had gone with Scorpius. Even if I swore her to secrecy, she wouldn't be able to resist telling James who would then make Scorpius's life miserable.
"You really don't know him that well, trust me." I said, trying to sound offhand and uninterested.
"Well, maybe I could get to know him if you would just tell me who he is!" She whined. I sighed and turned towards her.
"It's no one special, Dom. Believe me." I said seriously. I felt a little guilty talking about Scorpius that way, but he wasn't here and this was me trying to save his sorry arse from the wrath of James Potter.
"I'll have to find out eventually." She mumbled, turning towards her bird. An uncomfortable silence seemed to stretch across the room. Partly because Dominique wasn't speaking to me now, and partly because everyone else seemed to have mastered the silencing charm while we were talking.
Professor Flitwick bounced over, surprisingly agile and energetic for someone so ancient.
"Miss Weasley; I might want to make it clear to you that you're the only ones in the class who have not yet silenced your birds!" He said in a slightly disapproving tone.
"Sorry Professor Flitwick." I said quickly. I turned towards my bird and with a quick wave of the wand, its squawks were silent. Professor Flitwick looked pleased and then bounced over to Dom. I packed my things silently and dreaded going to Potions today. If Dominique still wasn't talking to me, our potion that we would be making today would be doomed.
"I still say I should've gotten an E on that potion." Scorpius exclaimed, hands in his pockets as he gave the ground a disapproving glare. I almost laughed at him, scowling at the earth as if it had done him a personal wrong.
"You should be proud with the A you have!" I tried to cheer him up. Potions had gone rather well today, considering Dominique had gotten over our little spat and brewed the potion to perfection. Even better, Scorpius (without much help from Hayden) had managed to brew an acceptable potion. Professor McGregor was more than pleased and happy to give Scorpius and Hayden the first A in six years. It wasn't an O, but it was definitely getting somewhere.
After class, Professor McGregor asked Scorpius and I to continue with the tutoring, as it was tremendously improving Scorpius's grade in the class. I pretended to look slightly annoyed, but on the inside I was beaming. I was proud of Scorpius to be honest, and I was even looking forward to further studying sessions in the library every Monday. They had become something of a routine for me.
Now, while the sun was starting to set Scorpius and I were walking around the Quidditch pitch. Scorpius had asked me to meet him there and quiz him on the upcoming Potions exam while he simultaneously practiced. I agreed rather reluctantly, not sure if he would really be concentrating if he was in the air on a broomstick, twenty feet above me. However, Scorpius surprised me. He had been doing that a lot lately. He managed to answer most of the questions correctly, all while deflecting enchanted tennis balls with his beater's bat.
On solid ground once again, Scorpius had come down from his moment of success and was starting to feel like his A wasn't good enough.
"I just feel like we've been studying for weeks and I haven't even gotten an E yet." He said rather dejectedly. I had never seen this side of him, so intent on good grades. He was starting to sound like me.
"E's and O's don't just happen overnight." I commented.
"They do for you." He mumbled. I blushed, sometimes hating the fact that I was so engrossed in my studies. It often made people believe I was some freaky genius who barely had to work for my grades.
"Well, like you said I don't do much else than study. It's pretty boring actually." I blew a piece of hair out of my face and tucked it back under my beanie. For whatever reason, this October was becoming colder by the week. At this rate, it would be snowing the first day of November. Scorpius and I were both bundled in respective coats, boots, scarves and hats. I had forgotten gloves of course, my fingers turning numb in my pockets.
"I wish I was more like you sometimes." He said. I was shocked. Scorpius Malfoy, the boy who didn't seem to give a damn about anything wanted to be more like me?
"I wish I was more like you!" I said. He turned to me, surprised.
"Why would you ever wish that?" He smirked. We had stopped walking along the outside of the pitch as it was getting darker. There was no one in the stands.
"I'm tired of being a bookworm. I barely ever do anything else. I wish I was better at Wizard's Chess, or Exploding Snap, or Quidditch—
I was cut off by Scorpius grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the center of the field. His gloved hand spread some warmth to my frozen fingertips.
"What are you doing?" I asked as he stopped to pick up his broom, brushing some dirt off the handle. He had an excellent broom with a long, glossy black handle and perfectly trimmed twigs at the end. I could imagine him sitting in an armchair in his common room, polishing and clipping his broom every night. The thought brought James to my mind and I smiled.
"I'm going to show you how to play Quidditch." He said simply, grabbing his beater's bat. He shoved the broom into my hand and I took it with fumbling fingers.
"W-what?"
"You heard me. Come on, mount the broom." He gestured to his broom in my hand as he picked up a tennis ball, tossing and catching it in his one hand.
"I can't play for the life of me, Scorpius!" I whined. I sounded like a child, but Quidditch both fascinated and scared me.
"That's why I'm going to teach you." He said slowly, as if I really was a small child.
"James and Albus have already tried. You can ask them."
"I'll pass. You haven't learned from me. Now mount the broom, Rose." It felt like more of a command when he said my name, and as if my body was moving without a brain, I found myself swinging my legs over the broom and gripping the handle uncertainly. I felt stupid.
"Alright, first of all, your grip is completely off." Scorpius moved behind me, moving my arms in the "correct" position and showing me how I could hold the broom without feeling like I was going to fall off. Scorpius was really in his element, and while I knew he wanted to be an auror after school ended, this was his passion at the moment. I had never paid full attention to him during a game before, but I knew I would be now.
"Okay, now kick off slowly and you're going to hover for a bit." He sounded like Madam Hooch. I almost laughed at this, but then realized I didn't really know what to do. I stared stupidly at the broom, willing it to rise in the air. My telepathic messages were obviously not working.
"Just give a swift kick off the ground. Like you're playing football." He offered. I was even worse at football than I was at Quidditch. I weakly pawed the ground with my foot. The broom didn't so much as flinch.
"Come on, Rose. You're not trying… pretend you're kicking Robin in the face!" He suggested.
That got some motivation in me. I kicked the ground with more force than I thought and suddenly, I was airborne. Not very far off the ground, but it was high enough to startle me. I was maybe a few inches above Scorpius's head. He was laughing and smiling, but in a good way. Like he was proud of me.
"Good, okay try flying forward. Don't go too fast, just lean and don't think about it. The broom knows what you want to do." I highly doubted a piece of wood could read my thoughts, but I leaned slightly and the broom glided a few inches forward. Scorpius kept up with me on the ground.
"Rose, you're doing great!" I looked down at him to see a smile on his face. I smiled back, it was almost infectious.
"Wanna practice being a Chaser?" He asked. I strained to remember which one was the chaser. The one who guarded the hoops? No, that was the keeper. I knew it wasn't the one that used the bats.
"It's the one who handles the balls and throws it through the hoops." Scorpius supplied from below. It's like he could read my thoughts as well as the broom could.
"I knew that, Malfoy." I said; trying to sound normal but my voice came out higher than usual. I was still pretty nervous.
"Yeah, you sound very sure of yourself." He rattled from below. I rolled my eyes but smiled. "I'm going to toss you a ball and you just try to catch it, okay?"
I wasn't sure this would be a good idea. I could barely fly with two hands on the broom, but one? Still Scorpius didn't give me much time to think about it. He tossed the ball in my direction. I gingerly took my hand off the broom and made a weak grab for the ball, but I was too late. It landed and rolled away. Scorpius went after it as my cheeks flooded with red.
"I told you I'm no good at this." I muttered.
"Bullshit, you're just psyching yourself out. You need to relax and trust yourself and the broom." He sounded so sure of himself and I wondered how Scorpius had felt flying his broom for the first time. Probably not much different from me. I somehow couldn't imagine a younger Scorpius sitting on a broom and almost paralyzed from fear.
I let out a breath of air I didn't know I was holding, and said "Okay."
Scorpius tossed the ball again, and this time, my hand worked with my brain and I caught the ball. I was in shock. Scorpius whooped from the ground and clapped. It was a bit dramatic, but this was pretty big for me. A wide beam spread across my face.
"Can I come down now?" I asked. I wanted to end the night with success. Scorpius laughed and nodded. I wasn't really sure how to get down however.
"Tilt down and slowly move forward, but don't crash-dive into the ground." He said unhelpfully. I nervously made my way to the ground, but I managed to make it without falling off. I never appreciated the grass so much as when I was firmly back on it. Scorpius's broom fell to the ground with a mighty sort of drop.
He rushed over and put an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me to his side. We had never been this close before without hugging, but I welcomed the warmth his body supplied and the good feeling inside my chest that wasn't coming from his heat.
"Merlin, you're cold woman!" He exclaimed again, pulling me closer. I didn't know what I was expecting to happen next. My face was pressed into his shoulder, his arms wrapped around my waist. My fingers were inches from his hair, and for some reason I wanted to touch it, but I thought that might be strange. He was so warm. He started to pull back, and I thought I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. A sort of intense look, not unlike the one he had given me the first time we had met on the train before our first years. Although, that look was cruel, and this one was— different.
My breath seemed shallow inside of me, like I just couldn't get enough. My heart was pounding; surely Scorpius could feel it through the thick wool of my red and gold scarf.
His gaze flickered down to my mouth very briefly, and I thought he might be leaning in. I was paralyzed, not with fear, but with the thought that I would be defying my family if I allowed this to happen. I realized I didn't care—
"Scorpius, What the fuck?" Hayden's voice rang out from across the pitch. Scorpius and I separated as if we had been stupefied. I tucked my hair behind my ears and turned away; hoping Hayden hadn't yet seen my face well enough. I could do without a good taunting tonight.
"Nice job on the potion tonight, my man." Hayden said, it sounded like he had clapped Scorpius on the shoulder. "We did pretty well, eh?" Hate swelled in my chest. Hayden hadn't done anything while Scorpius did all the work in class.
"Thanks mate." Scorpius said, though he sounded as annoyed as I felt. Was he annoyed because of the potion, or the fact that Hayden had just interrupted what might have been our very first… kiss? Merlin! I had almost kissed Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius Malfoy had almost kissed me. Voluntarily.
"Who's the bird" Hayden asked. I could almost feel his gaze burning a hole through my jacket. Luckily, he couldn't see my trademark red hair underneath my beanie as I had brushed it to the front.
"No one, a friend." Scorpius answered shortly.
"Looked like more than a friend to me." Hayden muttered sneakily. I pretended to be very interested in a hole in the sleeve of my jacket, picking at a loose thread.
"Piss off, Hayden." Scorpius said, almost angrily.
"Well fuck you too, mate. Meet me back in the common room, it's late." Hayden said, barely fazed by Scorpius's tone. It sounded like he was leaving now. I felt Scorpius's hand on my shoulder, turning me towards him. Hayden was gone.
"I'm sorry." He gulped. "Hayden's a prick… he doesn't know he's an arse." I nodded, I already knew that. Was Scorpius also sorry he never kissed me? Or sorry because he almost did? There was definitely a double meaning behind it.
"We should probably get going." He said awkwardly. I cleared my throat and agreed. It felt like I hadn't said anything for years. We walked silently back up to the castle, Scorpius taking a moment to put his equipment away while I silently freaked out. There were far too many thoughts and questions buzzing through my brain. I was starting to consider Aunt Luna's idea of Nargles going in through your ear and making your brain fuzzy. That's exactly how I felt now.
Once we were back in front of my common room portrait we stood a fair distance apart, not saying a word. I didn't like the silence and was about to say something when Scorpius opened his mouth to speak.
"Er— I'll see you tomorrow, Rose." He said, patting me on the shoulder. That was it? A pat on the shoulder? Lately we had been parting with a hug, something I had grown to look forward to. Had we lost that already? All because of some stupid almost-kiss? I felt like crying as he walked away, hands in his pockets again. Once he was out of sight, I snapped back to reality. I gave the password and entered the common room.
James, Albus, Roxanne, Fred, and Hugo were all sitting around the fire, laughing and talking. What I wouldn't give to have no problems at all right now and join them. I wished I could tell James about my Quidditch triumph, but I knew he would ask who had been helping me, and I wouldn't be able to answer him.
"Rosie!" Albus said happily upon seeing me. I waved with a half-smile, feeling exhausted.
"You look buggered. Everything okay?" James asked from his position in his armchair. He looked like the father of a large, loving family and in a way he was. He was the oldest and someone we all looked up to. Usually, I could tell James when something was wrong, but knowing I couldn't this time was killing me.
"I'm just cold and tired. I think I need a shower and then to go to bed." I answered, trying to sound more upbeat than I was. Albus looked at me suspiciously. As one of my best friends and favorite cousins, he could always tell when I wasn't being truthful.
"You sure?" He asked, concern evident on his face. I was almost frustrated to tears.
"Yeah, I'm going to go to bed. Night, love you all." I said. And I turned on my heel and walked up to the dormitories. Upon seeing Dominique sitting on her bed, drying her long golden hair with her wand and reading Witch's Weekly, I burst into tears.
She looked up, startled. I was done with hiding everything from everyone, and Dominique and I hadn't felt the same in a long time.
"Rose! What on earth is wrong?" She asked, coming over to me and pulling me into a tight embrace.
"Everything!" I croaked. Dominique smoothed my hair, which was tangled from being under my beanie and ushered me into a hot shower. After I was out, she braided my dripping, red hair and I told her absolutely everything.
My secret was out.
A/N: Wow, it's been a looooong time since I last updated and I feel really terrible... I forgot how much I loved writing this story and I got really caught up in school work and everything. I promise I will be updating more! If you're still reading this story or just seeing it for the first time, then please review and thank you so much! I love you all! :*
~yours in eternity