Chapter 10- Guilty

At first Rose tried to forget about what had happened. It would be as if it were just a silly dream she'd had after eating too many every flavour beans late at night. But this was proving difficult.

It was all she could think about in Muggle Studies class, even with Fabian fiddling with his quill next to her while the Professor prattled on about some famous Muggle journalists. Usually she would watch with great enthusiasm how he delicately turned the soft feather between his fingers, but today her mind was elsewhere, in the middle of a corridor with an infuriatingly good looking blonde haired boy to be exact.

She peeked a look sideways at Fabian's face. He looked like he was concentrating hard on his notes, but Rose could see a few doodles on his parchment. He turned to look at her with a smile and she gave a small one in return. She felt very guilty about not staying loyal to Fabian and pledged not to do anything so stupid again.

But as much as she hated to admit it, she liked kissing Scorpius, maybe even more than she did Fabian. But that was just so wrong. He was her closest friend; a very annoying and arrogant friend whom she happened to have a petty little crush on in the past. But not anymore. No, she was definitely over him now. No more Scorpius daydreams for her. She turned her attention back to the blank parchment in front of her.

His soft lips… his hands caressing her face… his silky soft hair…

"Oh Merlin, I'm starting to sound like Caitlyn and Leila," she muttered to herself.

"Earth to Rose? Lesson's over," said Fabian, waving his hands madly in front of her face. "You've been day dreaming all lesson and your eyes are all glazed over."

"Oh, just got some stuff on my mind," she said vaguely, rearranging her face into a neutral expression and casually wiping a hand over her mouth to get rid of any drool. "Plus, it's getting a bit boring, hearing about all these Muggles. Life must be so dull without magic."

"People cope," he shrugged as he followed her out of the classroom, lacing his fingers through hers. "I have cousins who are Muggles and they seem to get on okay."

"Still, I feel bad for all those people who don't get the chance to live here at Hogwarts; to explore the beautiful grounds and learn all the magic spells. We forget how lucky we are to be here sometimes. The homework, though- I wouldn't mind getting less of that."

Fabian smiled at her fondly and leaned forward to kiss her when someone passing by coughed loudly and caught her eye. They locked eyes for a few seconds before his face scrunched up in disgust and he carried on his way.

"One sec, Fabian."

Leaving Fabian, she ran up the staircase to chase after him.

"Scorpius."

"Leave me alone, Weasley." He carried on walking and Rose trotted along after him.

She narrowed her eyes. "Weasley now, am I?"

Scorpius swivelled round to glare at her. "Only when you're pissing me off, like right now."

She gave a dark chuckle. "Look, I want to talk about what happened earlier."

He raised his eyebrows in what he thought looked like polite interest. "What happened earlier?"

"Don't play dumb, Scorp. I just wanted to say that I, er, think we should forget about it. Let's pretend it never happened, yeah? Neither of us were thinking properly; we'd just spent hours studying after all. So don't worry, I don't blame you."

"You don't blame me? Oh, well thank you so very much!" he exclaimed incredulously. "You kissed me back if I do remember correctly. You make it sound like I did it against your will or something."

"It was against my will!"

"If you say so," he rolled his eyes.

"It really was! Why would I want to kiss you?"

Hurt flashed across his eyes but his sneer remained intact. She was too angry to care at the moment.

"You're right- I wasn't thinking properly. Merlin knows why I felt the impulse to kiss you. Disgusting." He ran a hand through his hair. His soft, silky hair. She watched as it got even more messed up than usual.

She cleared her throat. "You hypocrite! Look, Malfoy, I've had just about enough of your mood swings."

"Malfoy now, am I?" a smirk teased his lips.

"Only when you're being an annoying jerk, like right now."

"I'm not being annoying. I'm being truthful."

"No, you're doubting my kissing abilities. I happen to be an extremely good kisser and you're just jealous."

"Right."

"It's true –"

"Scorpy!" a girlish voice squealed from behind them, latching onto Scorpius' shoulder.

"Hey Scar," he smiled when he saw her, pulling her into a hug.

"Ahem, I'm still here you know," muttered Rose as she stared at the back of Scarlett's head. Her hair was so perfectly curled and shiny that it made Rose's self-esteem stoop right down. Why couldn't she be more like her?

"Rosie!" she shrieked, causing them to go temporarily deaf. She pulled away from Scorpius and threw herself at Rose, who clumsily patted her on the back.

"Hi," she replied awkwardly.

"So good to see you! You look so pretty today! Were you two talking? What were you talking about?"

"Er… we were talking about… fish," invented Rose lamely.

"There's a rumour going round that there'll be fish for dinner tonight," added Scorpius.

Scarlett scrunched up her freckled nose. "I hate fish. It smells weird."

Rose couldn't hold back a laugh. "Yeah. It smells kinda like Al's feet." Scorpius joined in the laughter. Scarlett, however, just looked plain confused.

"Who's Al?"

"Albus Potter, my cousin."

"Oh, Harry Potter's kid. I don't think I've ever spoken to him; you'll have to introduce us sometime! Oh my gosh, I'm gonna meet someone famous! This is SO exciting!"

"He's coming down the corridor right now."

"W- where? Oh no! How do I look? I look disgusting, don't I?" She bit her lip.

"You look fine, Scarlett," said Scorpius soothingly.

"Hey Al! Over here!"

He turned at the sound of his cousin's voice and started walking towards her, until he saw who she was accompanied by. His emerald eyes widened in shock and he took slow steps backwards.

Rose wasn't having any of this. She dragged him over and dropped him by Scarlett's feet like the lovely cousin she was.

"You? You are the famous Albus Potter?"

"Yeah…" Al replied feebly.

Scarlett's eyes flashed in anger and she put her hands on her hips, towering over him.

"You're the one that follows me everywhere. Never approaching me, but always following from afar. Don't think I haven't noticed!" She gave him a calculating look. "WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?" she bellowed finally.

"I – I didn't realise it was bothering you –"

"No one likes a creeper!"

"I'm sorry, Scarlett!" he squeaked. "It won't happen again!"

She suddenly smiled widely and leant down to help him up. He took her outstretched hand in shock. "Don't worry about it. It's actually kinda cute – I've never had a stalker before!"

"Al, you can let go of her hand now," said Scorpius, rolling his eyes.

"Meep," he replied. He took a step back but still gazed at her adoringly.

"We were just talking about how your feet smell of fish, Al," said Rose, grinning.

He glared at Rose but still couldn't make any words come out of his mouth.

"Well it's been fun catching up with you guys, but I really gotta finish my Potions essay. See you!" Scarlett grinned and skipped away down the corridor.

"Thank Merlin she's gone! How do you put up with her?" Rose asked. "She's the most annoying person I've met in my entire life. And I've met James Potter. Honestly, she's so stuck up her own arse, it's pitiful."

"What's your problem?" said Scorpius, shaking his head in exasperation. "Scarlett's lovely. One of the nicest girls I've ever met."

She snorted. "She makes me want to jump off the Astronomy Tower."

"Merlin, there's no need to be such a cow, Rose."

"She's the cow, not me –"

"Rose, you can stop now," added Al, looking uneasily over her shoulder.

She turned around and yelped in surprise; her heart sank. Scarlett was standing a few metres from her looking so betrayed and grieved that Rose couldn't meet her eyes. Tears were flooding down her face like the Niagara Falls.

She slid down against the wall onto the floor and hugged her knees against her chest, burying her face in her legs.

"Scarlett, are you okay?" asked Al worriedly. She replied with a particularly loud sob.

"Happy now?" hissed Scorpius. Rose looked down at her feet. He crouched down beside Scarlett and put his arm around her comfortingly. "Don't worry, Scar, Rose didn't mean anything by it. You're a wonderful person."

"I'm not," she finally spoke. "She's right. I'm a horrible, horrible person. No wonder everybody hates me. I never realised how annoying I was." She sobbed harder as she spoke.

If looks could kill, Rose would have been in St Mungo's by now. Al was also extremely annoyed that she was upsetting his 'future wife'.

"Maybe…maybe you should leave now, Rose," Scorpius said quietly, pausing from fussing over Scarlett like a mother for a second to look at Rose disappointedly. There was a slight tone of anger to his voice. She felt like a naughty little girl caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

"Sorry," she mumbled before turning around and hurriedly walking away. It felt like hours had passed till she got to the common room. Her feet were heavy and sluggish and she felt like the worst person in the world.

Potions was dragging on.

She checked her wristwatch for the time. After about an eternity had passed, she checked again. Only a minute had passed.

"Grrghhurrrg," she mumbled as she leant her face into her hand.

She decided to pass the time by staring at everyone around her. On her right was Anjali, who was picking Flobberworm Mucus out of her nails. On the other side of Anjali was Elie Martin, braiding her hair, and a Hufflepuff named Collin. On the table to her left sat Thomas Harper and Winifred Havisham- the skinniest girl in the school, also known as Skinny Winnie. They were both staring idly at the wall behind Professor Totternhoe. In front of them were Scorpius and some Ravenclaw girl. She was scooting her stool closer to his but he didn't notice, or at least pretended not to.

Why did she always have to mess everything up? She still felt horrible for the whole Scarlett fiasco. What made it worse was that she'd really meant what she said. She was worse than the seventh year Slytherin girls.

Scorpius turned around and caught her eye. Rose quickly looked down at her desk, blushing.

"Malfoy's looking at you," whispered Anjali into her ear.

"I know," she hissed back.

She peeked up again through her hair and was relieved to see he was facing the front once again.

Maybe she ought to do a grand apology, like write a heartfelt song full of regret and confusing metaphors and play it to Scarlett on the piano or violin. But it was a free country; she was allowed to speak her mind. Perhaps she had been a bit too blunt. Either way, she hated having Scorpius mad at her, and knowing she had made a younger student cry was not such a great feeling either.

"Weasley!"

Rose immediately sat up straight and looked around to see where the sneering voice had come from.

"While you were busy ogling Mr Malfoy, the rest of the class have started their essays. Do start it soon, won't you? We don't have forever," Professor Totternhoe said condescendingly. A few people around the class snickered. Too disconcerted to argue, Rose quickly dove into her bag and whipped out a plain piece of parchment. Her ears felt hot and she didn't want to look up in case she met his eyes again.

At last the bell went, and everyone filed out of the dungeon. She scurried after them, desperate to get some food in her system. She'd had a hard day, and after all food was always the best medicine. But Scorpius managed to catch up with her.

"Rose, we need to talk," he said as he matched her stride.

Uh oh. Those words were never fun to hear. They usually meant she was in deep Hippogriff dung.

She could almost see the cogs turning in his brain as he carefully planned out his words. "Scarlett's very… sensitive. You really upset her. You need to be more careful around her, okay?"

She was so relieved he wasn't too angry. "Yeah. I was stupid. It was uncalled for. And I really am sorry," she said sincerely. She pouted slightly and widened her eyes a bit, as taught by Dom. Worked like a charm every time.

He smiled widely and she beamed in response, knowing all was forgiven, for now.

She suddenly pounced on him and gave him the biggest, tightest, breath-draining hug ever. "Love you, Scorp."

He pulled back and looked at her as if she'd just… well, told him she loved him. "Eh?"

Oops.

"I, er…"

"You what?"

"Love… you… like… a brother! Love you like a dude! Yeah, erm…"

"You think of me as a brother?" He looked kind of confused and upset, which made Rose confused, but not so much upset.

"Yeah… no… I don't know! Argh!"

He frowned. "I guess I love you too, then. Like a sister."

"How sweet," she mumbled, sulkily. "I can be the sister you've always wanted."

"Yeah." He didn't sound very enthusiastic.

They'd reached the Great Hall and were about to split up to their respective tables.

"See you," he called.

"Bye," she replied half-heartedly.

She trudged over to where Dom was sitting, picking at some pasta.

"Hey, Rosie. I wondered where you'd got to."

She grunted in response and went straight for the apple pie.

"Bad day?" asked Dom sympathetically.

Rose nodded once.

"Ah, the emotional rollercoaster that is life. Kinda sucks."

"Where's Lizzie got to?"

"Over there." Dom motioned with her head over to the Ravenclaw Table. Lizzie was standing by it talking to Fabian, giggling at something he had said.

"What's she doing over there?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

Dom gave Rose a look. "This is Lizzie we're talking about, dear. Put your jealousy aside."

"I s'pose you're right." She looked over again. Fabian was now laughing at something Lizzie said.

"Psst."

"Huh?" Rose turned to Dom, who shrugged.

"Rose. Psssst."

"Where is that coming from?"

"Down here!"

Hugo was crouching under the table by her feet, big brown eyes darting around nervously.

"I need your help with something."

"Oh. What do you need, little bro?"

"This is why I don't associate myself with you in public," he said, eyes narrowing. "I'm not little."

"Aw, maybe not, but you'll always be little Hugh to me," she bent down to pinch his cheeks.

"Geroff," he muttered. "Mum said you're not allowed to annoy me in public, remember?"

"I do not recall her saying that."

"Listen, I need –" he gulped, "girl help."

Dom snorted. "Run out of lippie, have you? Don't worry; I've got plenty you can borrow up in the dormitory. I'll even give you a makeover if you want."

"Who's the girl?" asked Rose, ignoring her cousin.

"She's an older girl," he whispered back.

"What year?"

"Sixth."

"Ooh, a whole year older. That's pushing your luck."

"I know."

"What house?"

"Slytherin."

Rose almost choked on her pumpkin juice. "Who?"

"Erm… err…" Hugo's cheeks reddened. He looked like he really didn't want to admit it. "She's on the quidditch team."

"Oh, please don't tell me it's –"

"Scarlett Bell," he said nervously.

Rose blinked rapidly before she banged her head on the wooden table.

"Ah, hell."