Author's Note: Hey all! So I was reading through this, 'cause I just... DO, sometimes (I'm not egotistical, I'm not!) and I noticed a few inconsistencies if you didn't notice them before, never mind this message :P but in case you did: I wrote Madam Pomfrey instead of Madam Quince for the first few chapters, before realizing that Pomfrey probably wouldn't still be alive, and that, were she, she would probably be retired. Also, it's a little unclear whether Rose and Scorpius are in Fifth or Sixth Year. I'm gonna say Sixth. I'm not going to fix these because I don't want to bother y'all with emails :P, so just pretend lol. Hope you enjoy the next chapter, and thank you all so, SO much for your support!

Chapter Nine

Rose felt his hand in hers on her cheek, heard the audible surcease of his breath, wondered what in hell she'd done. She could see it now, feel him pulled toward her as if she had a magnet embedded in her core. Her fists tightened around her blankets as she realized: oh god, he's attracted to me.

Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, but that wasn't what the chill that ricocheted down her spine told her. It said, Spot on, harlot.

What could she have done to draw the eye of Scorpius Malfoy? Doesn't he have a thing for dumb blondes? She thought desperately, ridiculously. Did she want this? Her brain screamed no, but her gut hesitated. It could never end well, she told herself. But she still heard that tiny part of her that said, so?

She sighed and sank back into her pillows. Things had gotten so much harder since she had "blossomed," as her mother put it, at the end of Fourth Year. She was used to being seen for her parents and for her intellect. But at the end of Fourth Year, her face started looking a little different. She grew into her body. She hadn't really noticed until her family began to say things like, "Well, Rosie, you'll certainly be a heartbreaker." She started feeling eyes on her ass and her legs and her chest and she felt altogether too watched.

Some boys started talking to her, boys who wouldn't give her the time of day a month ago. Some even got up the nerve to ask her out. They were all too young to know that you don't wear your heart on your sleeve like that, that you don't just dangle it in front of someone, roughened and bleeding. She was too young and for once too stupid not to reach out and take them, take the hearts and feel them pumping in her hands, and she took too long to realize that the rush she was feeling as they throbbed was power. The eyes and the hearts of these boys hung on her every word! How could she not notice, how could she not care? So many hearts crushed in her unknowing fingers, how steep this ungodly tally.

She might not even notice for a while, when a boy liked her, heart's-blood dripping onto oblivious hands, but then she would. And then this monster forged by her newfound beauty would bat her eyelashes and take the heart in her spindly fingers.

But this was different. Scorpius Malfoy's eyes, the color of stone parapets, were staring straight back into her own, not down at the floor in deference. He was holding out his heart, dripping blood on her hands, but he was jerking it away, not fully submitting to her, sharp nose defiantly in the air as he vacillated—back, forth, back, forth. And she thought, no, his eyes were not the color of parapets, but of silver daggers ripping through her façade and seeing everything—seeing the truth.

She wrapped her arms around herself. Not yet, Scorpius, please. I'm not ready to feel so exposed, I—you'll have your answers. Just not yet.

Her breathing slowed, eased, and she lay down, whispering "Nox," to quench the wand light she'd been reading by. But she still felt him in her, whispering her name and cracking her veneer, his fingers just touching her heart—or were those her fingers there, ready to rip it out and offer it, against all odds?

God I hate you, she thought fiercely. Why do you always get under my skin? It's not fair! Stop poking, stop prying at me. I might just trust you more than I should.

But she had, hadn't she? "I trust you."

Rose sighed. Just forget about stupid Malfoy and whatever stupid baggage he brings with him.

#

The injunction to forget about Malfoy was a little bit harder to observe when he seemed always to be underfoot and she seemed—well, happier when he was around. It wasn't necessarily because of him, of course—she never got any work done when he visited—but it was better than sitting around in the Hospital Wing.

And now he was going to escort her out. Quince was chattering at him about how Ms. Weasley should be very careful and take this tincture and this pill three times a day. He was nodding solemnly, so Rose figured it was quite all right if she determinedly didn't listen. She simply watched Scorpius's head bobbing as he listened to Quince, and the way his mouth moved to form cultured syllables when he talked. She started to see him, really see him, because before she had always seen the boy she hated and now she saw someone who she'd never really gotten to know, but perhaps should have.

The first thing she noticed was that he wasn't as sharp as his father was. She did not see Draco Malfoy often, but when she did she was always struck by the sheer angles and bony points of his face. He had given his sharp nose to his son, but Scorpius wore it better. He had inherited his father's lines and angles, too, but softer, less defined. He hadn't received his father's mouth at all. Draco's mouth was a thin, hard edge, the corner of a hardcover book. Scorpius's mouth was slightly pouty, the lower lip being fuller than the upper, but was saved from being over-effeminate by virtue of its being a shade wide. Draco looked like a walking skeleton, but Scorpius was living, breathing. He exuded life, she realized, she saw it in every gesture and every curve muscled from Quidditch. While his father—his father might as well be an Inferi, he so resembled the walking dead. Looking at Draco Malfoy was like looking at an old photograph that was clearly staring back at you.

He looked at her, amusement in his eyes, and she stuck her tongue out at him. "So can I go?" she asked Quince.

The nurse smiled. "You may. You heard all my instructions?"

"Yes," she lied, "Thank you, Mrs. Quince!" She got up quickly with an energetic little wave, then dragged a snickering Scorpius out of the Hospital Wing.

"Where are we going?" he asked, still laughing. His eyes looked less like blades when he laughed, she noticed.

"The Room of Requirement, where you're going to tell me what you did last night, and then we're going to make some plans."

"Oh, Rose, I don't think you want to know what I did last night," he said, voice laced with faux licentiousness.

She rolled her eyes. "You're not funny, you know."

"Only sometimes." He winked, grinning.

She smiled back, briefly, then remembered that she couldn't encourage him. Her father—but really, she could get around him if she tried. He loved her enough, she thought, that he would eventually come around whoever she decided she wanted for the rest of her life. Not that it would be Scorpius. Nothing was going to happen with Scorpius; it couldn't. She wasn't sure his father was the same way as hers—but that still wasn't it. She didn't like how invaded she felt sometimes, when he would look at her and seem like he was seeing everything. Every detestable mistake she had ever made, every flaw, all privy to his sharp gaze. She preferred when he looked angry or annoyed with her, because then he wasn't really seeing. Or when he laughed.

They reached the Room all too soon, and opened the door to find the same comfortable room that it had come up with when she had asked Scorpius to help her with the case so long ago. It had barely been a month since that time, but it felt as though it had been a year. Things have changed so much, Rose thought, placing a hand on her chest. It still hurt sometimes, although the wounds the spell had created were sealed, and the weight of her palm eased the pain. She thought she'd heard Quince say something about a painkiller potion, but she hadn't given any to Rose or Scorpius, so Rose had decided not to bother asking. She could make some herself, or make use of Scorpius's potions abilities.

"You all right?" He was watching her with that piercing, slicing gaze again. This time, though, she saw clouds of worry in the gray eyes. Those were clearly his father's, she thought absently.

"Fine." She sat. "All right. Did you do anything with the names?"

"I thought about them." He took the list out of his pocket and unfolded it, resting it between them on the table. He didn't need to do that; she had already memorized the names. She had deliberated a great deal before putting them down.

Dana Carrow

Lila Crowley

Lawrence Boot

David Greengrass

Jay Bishop

Katerina Edgecombe

Jeannine la Coeur

Jean la Coeur

Lucy Winston

Aliana Parkinson-Moreau

"So some of these make sense. What I don't get is why Boot is on here, why Annabeth isn't and her sister is, and why the la Coeur twins are on here."

Rose sighed. "Well, I told you, I've had a lot of time to pick over memories. Pick up on things I didn't notice then. Even if I've not been totally lucid the whole time, I've checked and checked again, and I'm pretty sure about these." She took a breath. "As to Lucy—she looks an awful lot like Annabeth, don't you think?"

Scorpius frowned. "Well, yeah, but you can tell them apart pretty easily if they're both facing you. Annabeth is prettier."

"Because Lucy's got that scar on her chin, right?"

Scorpius shrugged. "That's probably part of it."

"And they sound pretty alike too."

Scorpius caught on. "You think I heard Lucy that night."

Rose nodded. "It would make more sense. Lucy is in Ravenclaw, but you wouldn't know it by talking to her. She's obsessed with blood purity. She says she's interested in genetics, but I've heard tell the Winstons were pretty pure before her mother married a half-blood. It might be Lucy was indoctrinated with pureblood values and not her sister. If so, well, we know from experience that nobody hates Muggleborns like a half-blood."

Scorpius made a face. "It would make sense. But I'm pretty sure I heard Annabeth."

"Yeah, but if you heard a voice that sounded like one of the Winston sisters, which one are you more likely to think of first?"

"What?"

Rose sighed. "You see Annabeth at least once a week. She would probably come to mind before Lucy, no? And you'd be so shocked by the fact that you heard Annabeth saying something so heinous that it wouldn't occur to you that it might not be Annabeth, but someone who sounds almost exactly like her."

Scorpius bit the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. "I don't know. Maybe." He eyed the list again and said, "What about the la Coeurs?"

"Do you remember when I asked you to get me some books on French wizarding lineage?"

"Um… yeah, I thought that was a bit weird," Scorpius said noncommittally.

"Yeah, well, I could've sworn I heard some of our neo-Death Eaters speaking French. And they're transfer students we know nothing about. If they had a connection to Voldemort or one of his followers, we wouldn't know about it. Anyway, I followed this hunch and looked them up in that book, and they're traditionally a Dark family."

"It's a bit thin."

She sighed. "Oh, so's this whole thing, Scorpius. If we don't investigate and weed out the thin stuff as we go, we're not even going to have anywhere to start."

Scorpius made a point conceded gesture. "All right, so—Boot?"

"Is a bad egg. I dated him for about six months—"

"I'm noticing a trend here," he said with a smirk.

"Shut up. Really."

"Sorry." The eyes again, which Rose pointedly ignored.

"Anyway, Boot is mental. He got drunk one night—"

"Were you drunk too?"

"What's it to you?" she grinned—and met blades. She looked down at her hands. "I wasn't. That's why I remember. I don't do stuff like that."

"I figured you didn't." He was smiling a bit, and though it seemed colored with relief she couldn't help but respond tetchily.

"Oh, so now I'm the blushing virgin because I didn't get wasted with my boyfriend. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, anyone ever tell you that?"

He stared at her for a second. "What was that? I didn't say anything."

"No, but you looked it. I forgot how insensitive you can be."

"I forgot how touchy you can be. What's your issue? I didn't say anything!"

"I told you, you didn't have to! You know, you're always judging me! I thought we were past that!"

"Judging—for Christ's sake, just tell me what I said!"

"I fucking told you. 'I figured you didn't.' You don't know."

He sighed and said, "Oh honey. I didn't mean it like—oh, fuck's sake. I wasn't trying to imply anything. You're—I mean, how would I even say anything like that to you? You're—"

Her blood was too cold, or too hot, or something like that. "What? What am I?"

He threw up his hands. "I was going to say wonderful. However stupid and cliché that sounds."

Rose looked down at her hands. "You're full of shit, Scorpius Malfoy, I'll tell you."

"Just did," he said softly, and she didn't have to look at his face to know he was smiling.

"Do you really think that?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't." He paused. "Shit, Rose, I—" he sighed. "Never mind."

She took his hand.

"You drive me crazy."

"I know." She drew circles on the back of his hand with her thumb. "So you want me to tell you about Boot?"

"No. Yes." She stood, still holding his hand, and walked over to his side of the table, sitting on it so she was facing him.

"Which?" she asked, amusement in her voice.

"Shit. Yeah."

She laughed. "You don't have to listen to appease me."

"No, c'mon. Tell me about Larry Boot getting wasted," he laughed.

"Well, Larry was drinking, right, getting really wasted, and I felt uncomfortable, so I told him we should get back to school. He wouldn't leave. I told him I would leave without him, and he said I was an impure bitch whelped from a Mudblood and a blood traitor not worth the air I breathed, so I should submit to him."

Scorpius whistled. "What did you do?"

"I left. Came back next day to apologize, and I hit him and told him we were done." She ran a hand through her hair. "So he's a closet blood freak. Any more questions?"

He shook his head. "I could see Bishop and Crowley doing something like this."

"Careful, though. I put them on the list because the voices sounded similar and I thought I saw Crowley's face. If it was her that I saw, it stands to reason that when she got hurt, Bishop yelled and ran over."

"Mm. So what are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Find out more about what happened from the recent victim. I would have said try to tail the suspects, but that's not plausible, and we'd have to do it each night. We'd never sleep."

"That's only a problem for me in the first place," Scorpius joked.

"Hush." She sighed. "We could wait till the victim wakes up."

"Or I could ask around a bit. Most of these guys are in Slytherin House. I could just ask if anyone's been acting funny lately."

Rose frowned. "You think you'd get anything?"

"You forget just whom you're dealing with here, darling." He flashed a crocodile grin.

"All right. Do that, then. We'll see what comes of it. In the interim, I'll speak to the other kid."

"Fine. Be careful."

"You too." She got up to leave and was yanked into a hug.

"Really. I expect no more of this cooped-up-in-the-Hospital-Wing-for-a-week business." He said it into her neck, and the feeling of his breath there was uncomfortable but comfortable at the same time, and altogether disconcerting in general. For a moment she thought about what it would be like if she gave in and pulled him closer, pulled his face up to hers, kissed him like there wouldn't be consequences. She forgot about eyes that pried into her soul.

She stepped out of his embrace. "So when do we meet back?"

He sighed, rubbing the side of his face tiredly. "Um, I'll need time, so—what day is it today?"

"Sunday."

"All right. Wednesday? Here? After classes?"

She nodded. "I'm proud of us. We actually planned for once," she grinned.

"You up for a celebratory Butterbeer?"

The daggers were dulled. He was looking at her that way, how was she to refuse? "Sure."

#

They were sitting at a table in the back of the Hog's Head, two glasses of the golden liquid that was the fuel of the average Hogwarts student in front of them. The waiter did not appear to recognize either of them, but they got a few weird looks as they came in. Rose had looked back at a girl wearing Ravenclaw colors who was staring at them for the fifth time when Scorpius said, "Hey, if we really wanted to shock them, we could go into Madam Puddifoot's."

"Oh god. That would be a sight." Rose laughed, distracted from the nosy Ravenclaw.

"Mm. I propose a toast." He picked up his glass, and she did the same.

"To what?"

He stared her straight in the eyes. "To this whole batshit venture that somehow made us friends."

She smiled. "I'll drink to that." She downed half the glass in one go.

He laughed, surprised. "You can really chug it, can't you? I'm not surprised you don't drink. You'd pass out in seconds."

"Shut up." She whacked his arm.

"But seriously," he continued, knocking back more Butterbeer, "I bet it would be really amusing to get you drunk."

She raised her eyebrows. "Is that supposed to be a roundabout way of hitting on me?"

"And if I said it was?"

She could have sworn she felt his eyes poking through to her spine. "Then it would be in bad taste."

"Ah." He sighed, flashed her a charming smile. "It was worth a try, wasn't it?"

"God, you're terrible."

He arched a brow. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Rose shook her head.

He sighed. "Funny, I used to think I understood women—"

"One of the few bastards cocky enough to presume, yes," she added, "go on."

"I used to think I understood women, and then I met you."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

They talked for about an hour and a half, sucking down another Butterbeer each. Finally it was almost time for rounds, which they hadn't done in forever due to the Ella thing and Rose's injuries. They paid and left, but they lagged and dawdled on their way back to school.

They arrived a little before the prefects' meeting being held in the Library was supposed to start, and decided to wait outside for a bit. They were quiet for a while. Then Scorpius said, "I had fun tonight."

Rose bit the inside of her cheek. "You're hitting on me again." She looked up, and he was in front of her, face dangerously close to hers.

"It'd be a lot easier if you weren't so perceptive."

"How so?"

He cupped her jaw in his hand. "You wouldn't know what's coming."

Almost of their own accord, her hands made their way onto his chest.

"Oh, don't do the chest thing," he whispered huskily, "I hate it when girls do the chest thing. I never know whether they're dissuading or… encouraging." Eyes like knives, prodding at her again.

Rose swallowed. "Well, it's—neutral, you know? Like, the girl isn't really sure what she should be doing herself."

"I see. So she wouldn't mind if—the boy decided for her, then?"

Rose smiled. "Not this time."

His lips were hot and pressed tightly against hers, and he tasted like the merest hint of Butterbeer. He flicked his tongue out and she opened her mouth obligingly, getting the rest of the Butterbeer flavor and of course the overriding taste of the son of her father's enemy. She thought it tasted vaguely of apples.

They had each dragged a moan out of the other's throat by the time they needed air. Their eyes did not leave each other's as they panted, bodies trying to catch up with them.

"That was probably a really bad idea," Scorpius said. "I'm sorry, I—"

"It's fine. I would have thought that you'd figured out that I—didn't exactly mind."

He took a few gulps of air before saying, "Our dads would kill us."

Rose nodded. "My cousins would kill us. Actually, more likely just you, but possibly me too."

He nodded as well. "Right. So we should forget this ever happened, correct?"

"Correct."

Scorpius sighed and leaned next to her on the wall. He looked down the corridor. "Funny no one's here yet."

"Yeah."

He cleared his throat. "So, um, before we forget about this entirely—want to have another go?"

She laughed. "You're such a bastard."

"I'll have you know—" but by that time she had grabbed his chin and crushed their lips together.

They kissed fervently until Scorpius jumped away with an "Oh shit oh shit, someone's coming."

Annabeth Winston peered at them from the darkness, raising her wand so that the light emanating from its tip was cast about a larger area. "Hey there. Are you all right, Scorpius? You look a bit—freaked out." She frowned. "Come to think of it, Rose, you look a bit red. Are you still sick?"

Rose and Scorpius erupted into coughing fits. "Um—we—"

"I'm fine, Annabeth, I just—"

"Yeah, I'm fine too, don't worry about us."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Okay. Everyone else should be along in a minute." She went into the Library.

"That settles it," Scorpius said to Rose under his breath as they walked inside, "That girl is definitely a closet Slytherin."