Chapter 4 - Rose

Rose Granger Weasley was confused. She failed to understand why she approached Scorpius Malfoy twice in one day. He had always been a pain in her arse; he used to somehow always be around when she was in the library, just sneaking glances at her with his wide, grey eyes or try to get his prefect patrols to coincide with hers just to have an excuse to talk to her. She could swear he wouldn't volunteer to answer questions he clearly knew the answers to in class just to please her, judging from his hopeful stare and a light smile when she was asked instead. She found it all very tiresome.

At first, it didn't particularly bother her, but as years went by, she felt increasingly annoyed and guilty. It's not like at first she completely avoided him, but after a few conversations which went exactly the same way, she was less willing to spend time with Scorpius. Whatever her opinion was, he always agreed or changed his to match hers.

'Do you like Potions?' He asked one time during a patrol he most likely begged the Head Boy to assign him to.

'Not as much as I like other subjects,' she replied.

'Yeah, same.'

Lies. Scorpius Malfoy excelled at Potions and one look at his flushed face and enthusiastic movements could tell anyone he was in his element. He always seemed to want to make them as similar and compatible as possible, and this sort of thing couldn't put her off more than it already has. Rose just couldn't respect someone so spineless, without an opinion and who constantly allowed her to walk all over him like she did.

She felt guilty for not liking him back, which in turn made her dread all their encounters. Polite hints did not work, and the situation reached a boiling point last year where he decided to ask her out in front of the entire Gryffindor house. She was taking twelve OWLS (which is one more subject than her mother has taken) and it was truly the most stressful time of her life. Scorpius' intrusions into her study time left her anxious and irritable and by the time he 'popped the question' she was so frustrated and just exploded. She felt horrible for yelling at him that day, but she couldn't help but feel relief when he finally left her alone.

What compelled her to suddenly start talking to him, she didn't know. Their contact was limited to indirect sentences in lessons when they were competing for the 'top student' spot by trying to give the most thorough answers and earn their respective house more points. She prayed he wouldn't be encouraged by this and start his 'pushover puppy' act again, she preferred their healthy, competition much more.

She entered the dining hall and sat down next to her best friend and cousin, Dominique. Unlike most of the family who were really hell bent on assuming Rose was the exact copy of her mother, Dom was hell bent on assuming Rose was a 'bad girl trying to pull off a good girl act'. She didn't think she was either of those things, but it was a refreshing change from being expected to have her nose in a book all the time.

"I spoke to Malfoy today," Rose groaned quietly with a pleading look on her face. Dom put down her fork.

Rose knew her cousin well enough to know that the annoyance with her came from concern; she found Scorpius' worship of Rose absolutely hilarious, but she also had to put up with too many rants about him.

"You didn't!" She had a wide eyed, stern look on her face.

"Ugh, I don't know what came over me!"

"What did I say to you about speaking to him?" She began her lecture, "you're just giving him hope! I wouldn't be surprised if he restarted his adoration of you straight away, and I can't really be dealing with stressy Rose again right now."

"Why, what's happening right now?" Rose asked, frowning.

"Val's is being a douchebag" she sighed.

Rose just about managed to hold back a "when isn't he being a douchebag?" remark. Valentine Huffbry was Dom's boyfriend, and she honestly couldn't understand what possessed Dominique, a sassy, brutally confident and honest Gryffindor with part veela looks, to go out with Valentine Huffbry, a vile, uncaring oaf who did not have an ounce of warmth or sensitivity in his big, burly body. She didn't waste her breath trying to find out more about their latest drama, they both had a silent agreement not approach the topic in greater detail; that always ended in an argument.

Instead, she glanced at the Slytherin table to check for any signs in Scorpius Malfoy's behaviour that could suggest the return of his obsession, only to find him engaged in a conversation with the new girl, Hayley. To her surprise, seeing him unaffected by their contact earlier didn't bring her as much relief as she thought it would.

"Poor girl," laughed Dom, "looks like he may have found someone else to latch onto."

They continued the rest of their meal exchanging stories about stuff that happened in their lessons, and then they made their way up to the Gryffindor Tower to do their homework. Thursdays were the shortest days, leaving plenty of time to get schoolwork done out of the way for a somewhat free weekend. It was in both of Dom's and Rose's interests to do as much as possible, since there was a Slytherin - Hufflepuff Quidditch game coming up and they were both hoping to join the after party in the Room of Requirement.

Before the weekend could fully start, Rose had Friday's Double Herbology to get through. She found herself slightly more eager to get to the class, just to see whether Scorpius was going to continue trying to ignore her. It was not clear to her why she suddenly cared so much.

Her planned observation was going to go a lot smoother than she anticipated; her subject, along with Albus, Haley and and the other new boy decided to settle at a working station directly opposite her and Dom's that day.

When they were all in their seats Uncle Neville, or 'Professor Longbottom' during term time, began:

"You'll be sad to know we are moving away from Angel Vines today." Disappointed groans spread throughout the greenhouse. Everyone loved working with Angelus Vitis because unlike anything else in Hogwarts, it didn't try to kill the students. It seemed that this blissful period was about to come to an end.

"The new plants we'll be taking care of, are a tad more more temperamental. Who can tell me anything about Hell-Nettles?"

Rose, Scorpius and Haley raised their hands immediately.

"Yes, miss Granger?"

Rose knew that Neville meant her. She was used to most people randomly picking and swapping between her two last names.

"Hell-Nettles are-" both her and Hayley Garwell began at the same time. Rose paused and looked at the girl who has turned wide eyed and bright red.

"S-sorry, I didn't hear right..." muttered Hayley still looking mortified. The new boy scowled at her which made Rose feel bad for the girl.

"Go on?" Neville nodded at Rose encouragingly.

"They are extremely vicious weeds; unyielding and ill tempered, if allowed to grow in the wild they become uncontrollable and take the life out of any other plants nearby. They don't have many uses or magical properties and wizards believe that it is better to risk injury to contain them in charmed ecospheres than to allow them to spread destruction. They also hate to be touched or looked after in any way, and will spit a blinding nectar in the eye of anyone who handles them." She recited proudly, remembering the definition word by word from the book.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the professor. "Ten points to Gryffindor!" She smiled and then before she could stop herself looked challengingly at Scorpius. It was becoming tradition that they both answer as best as they can, but she was never did so much as to even turn in his direction before.

"Can anyone else tell me which sort of habitat they favour the most?"

Once again, all three of them raised their hands.

"Mister Malfoy?"

"They're often seen in the rainier regions. England is particularly prone to Hell-Nettle infestations."

"Excellent, Ten points to Slytherin!" Scorpius smiled lightly at the praise. He didn't look at Rose at all.

After this short quiz, Neville explained the lesson plan to the class.

"We're going to head to the edge of forbidden forest where a Hell-Nettles are starting to take over. The infestation is in the early stages, so no one will lose sight for more than a week should an unlikely injury occur. You can find goggles and all the other equipment you need on the table."

Everyone gathered their shovels, glass spheres and goggles with a sense of dread.

"Yes," hissed Dom sarcastically under her breath, "being blinded by devil plants which have no business being moved is exactly what I had in mind when taking Herbology."

Rose laughed, but was equally anxious about this prospect. She now understood why the class had such peaceful and lovely plants to take care of up until now.

As they were all getting themselves organised to leave, she heard Haley and Scorpius engrossed in a deep conversation. This caused her to frown slightly.

"The curriculum is so much different!" said Hayley with a surprised blush. "We were dealing with Snargalufs in Herbology at my school!"

"We covered them last year, Al nearly lost an arm!" he sniggered a little bit whilst Al winced.

"You also got to deal with Angel Vine? That must have been fantastic!"

"Yes, they were great! I got mine to grow five flowers!"

"Five?" She exclaimed in shock.

"Yeah," he replied. "It's all to do with how much attention they want. Mine turned out to be very needy, which I realised early on so I was able to look after it how it wanted me to. I could show you..."

Rose was growing strangely fed up of their excited chatter. It bothered her how thrilled Malfoy looked when listening to Hayley, how fast they were speaking and how engrossed they were with each other. Before she could mentally slap herself, zip her lips shut and move on with her life, the words were from coming out of her mouth;

"Wow," she smirked. "Now I can see exactly why you managed to get five flowers, Malfoy. It takes one to know one."

A faint blush appeared on Scorpius' cheeks. He stared at her for the moment and then his usually gentle face twisted into a scowl.

"Applying this logic, I am confident you will have no trouble with Hell-Nettles today, Weasley." He said through gritted teeth. "They match your personality almost exactly," he added in a cold drawl before leaving the greenhouse along with everyone else.

"What the hell was that?" Dom exclaimed in a state of shock. "What possessed you to say this to him?"

Rose just slammed her head on the desk and groaned.

"What is wrong with me?" She moaned.

Dom just sighed and dragged her out to the Forbidden Forest where the lesson was taking place. She even did most of the work, since Rose was too busy being embarrassed and considering taking a plunge into the Great Lake and never resurfacing again. She was beyond confused as to why exactly she felt it was necessary to be annoyed at Malfoy for being friendly with Haley, why she even bothered being so rude and unpleasant to him, and why him leaving her alone was suddenly a little bit more of a problem than ever before.

AN: Thank you for the lovely reviews! This is my first story, so apologies if the first few chapters are all kinda different, I guess I'm still figuring out how to tackle writing this thing! As usual, I welcome any sort of comments and critique - it's all helpful stuff so let me know how you found the characters in this chapter!

I was asked whether this is a Dramione story - the answer for the most part is no. It's a story about the kids, witnessed by Draco and Hermione, which will hopefully make sense much later on.

Love,

K.