A/N: Okay, I give up on trying to fix my school slip-ups. Every time I think I've corrected something, a new problem pops out of nowhere and it just gets me frustrated, so I won't bother from this point on. Sorry. Anyways, on with the show.

Hmm...do I sense plot development?

Duty Calls

"Ow! Bloody hell-"

It was close to curfew, and the two Heads were seated in the redecorated common room, working on the Veritaserum assignment they were forced to do together. Rose had been running her fingers through her thick hair and she caught onto a tight knot, yanking on her hair a little too hard. Scorpius snorted but did not dare to look up from his textbook but out of the corner of his eye he could see his Gryffindor partner giving him a pointed sapphire stare.

She looks kind of cute when she's all worked up like that.

...What did I just say?

He mentally slapped himself and shook his head violently, as if doing so would make the weird thoughts go away. Rose raised an eyebrow at his odd behaviour.

"Are you actually reading over there, or are you too busy having a conversation with yourself?" She asked contemptuously, and he shook his head no, though he was a little shocked at the fact that she somehow knew he was kind of having a conversation with himself. He peered at the seething cauldron sitting in between them, which was emitting a greenish vapour. It was bubbling a muddy grey colour, similar to bad Polyjuice Potion. He scrunched his nose and leaned back in his chair.

"Is it supposed to look like that?" He asked, jerking his messy blond head towards the cauldron. Rose rolled her brilliant eyes and pointed towards a paragraph in the textbook.

"We still haven't added a few of the ingredients yet, so of course it's going to look unattractive. You need to chop up those spider legs into a fine dust-" She nodded towards a pile of bottles beside the cauldron, looking a little repulsed at her own mention of the word 'spider'. "-While I get to work with the newt eyes."

Scorpius reached to grab the small bottle full of what looked like bent black pipe cleaners. He unstoppered it and turned it upside down so that the spindly dismembered legs slid out and onto his cutting board. Rose looked as if she were going to kneel over and vomit at any moment. Slightly amused, Scorpius plucked his silver knife out of his bag of Potions equipment and immediately began to chop the spider legs. His hands were moving so quickly they almost looked blurred.

"Spiders. Urgh." He heard her grumble, and she reached for the bottle of newt eyes. A moment of silence elapsed over them, and before Scorpius knew it he was staring at a reasonable pile of black dust, neatly piled on the centre of the cutting board. He reached for his textbook, ready to do what it instructed him to, but then he came across something else.

He expected to feel the worn, hard cover of his Potions textbook, but his fingers were brushing against something soft, warm, alive. He blinked twice and his eyes shot over to where his hand was, and at that moment he knew he stopped breathing because his chest felt like it was going to cave inwards. Rose had finished separating the good eyes from the bad ones, and she was going to reach for his textbook to read up on what to do next. They probably finished at the same time because there was no other reason to explain why they were touching hands, their fingers almost laced together. Rose's eyes were wide and her jaw was slack. Scorpius immediately drew his hand away, as if he were burned by her touch.

"Erm-" She started nervously, her eyes towards his textbook, but they seemed to be quivering, as if she was trying to restrain herself from looking directly at him. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her ears were coloured to match. The blush on her face made the very faint, very small group of freckles on the bridge of her nose slightly prominent. He cleared his throat loudly, hoping to somehow drain the awkwardness away, and he lightly pushed his textbook in her direction, careful not to topple over the bottles or the cauldron.

"Right, so, um, now that we're done doing what we're supposed to be doing-" For some reason that sounded all wrong and he regretted saying it the moment it came out of his mouth. "-Uh, why don't you read what we're supposed to do next, since you finished first-I mean, finished at the same time as me but you were gonna get the book anyway..."

He swore he saw the faintest trail of a smile at the corner of her lips as she opened his textbook. His throat no longer felt constricted and he eased up a little, slouching against the back of his chair. He waited until she was finished reading.

You're an idiot, a complete idiot-

It's not like I intended to reach for her-

"U-um, it says we put in the newt eyes before the spider leg dust." She said in an unnaturally high voice, breaking him free of his disdainful conscience. He nodded and waited for her to scoop up the bad newt eyes back into the bottle. She then proceeded to dump the good ones into the cauldron. She nodded towards his cutting board, and he raised it over the cauldron and tipped it a little so that the dust would fall in. The instant the last speck of spider leg dust hit the boiling, thick liquid, the immature Veritaserum changed colour, and thankfully, the odour changed as well. It morphed from its murky grey to a brilliant blue (but of course, it wasn't as brilliant as a certain Gryffindor girl's eyes, he couldn't help but take notice), as blue as the colours of Ravenclaw, and there was a silvery vapour emitting from it. The smoke was twisting and twirling high into the ceiling, forming all sorts of intricate, eye-catching little patterns. It smelled a little like pine trees and evergreen.

"There, much better." Rose said, her voice back to its normal pitch. "It's curfew now, which means that you and I have to go on duty. Pack up."

As much as he wanted to retort at her for ordering him around, he kept his mouth shut and did as he was told. Rose rapped her wand against her cauldron once; it disappeared. Scorpius plucked his Head Boy badge from his bag and pinned it to the front of his robes; he hated wearing the dratty thing around the school. It made him feel like a typical snobbish, fat-headed Malfoy, the very thing he was trying to avoid.

"Why do you always take that thing off whenever we're not on duty? You know you're supposed to keep it on-" Rose started exasperatingly, as if it were not the first time she had to bring this up, and it certainly was not. He cut in before she had the chance to complete her sentence.

"At all times, I know, but…" He hesitated for a moment, and then opened the wooden door. "You take the left, I'll take right. We'll meet at the entrance to the Great Hall, and we'll figure out where to go from there."

He heard her sigh in defeat and she walked off, disappearing around the corner. He wanted to tell her why, but he was sure she would not understand. He had too much going against him, since the day he was born. He could not stand up against the rest of the wizarding world and say that he did not want to follow in his father's, or grandfather's footsteps; nobody would believe him. In the beginning he thought he wanted to, he thought it was something he was destined to become, but now he realized that he was in control of his own fate, his own future, and he did not want to be what everyone else thought he was. He did not want to be known as the son of a man who caused Harry Potter grief in their school days, or the grandson of a loyal Death Eater.

"This is your last year, boy. You better make this count." Draco's words were burned into his brain.

"Stand proud, Scorpius. You are a Malfoy, and Malfoys do not show weakness or vulnerability. Do not let that Potter boy or that Weasley girl get in your way of achieving greatness." Lucius' drawling voice filled Scorpius' ears, and he clamped his grey eyes shut.

No more, I have nothing to do with the lot of you. He thought acidly. His father and grandfather's voices suddenly became muffled, as if he put on a set of earmuffs. In due time, they faded away. He opened his eyes again, relieved at the fact that he won today's inner quarrel.

He quietly closed the door behind him and set out on his long walk down the stairs to the Great Hall.

--

Scorpius Malfoy surely was a mystery to Rose, as irritating as he was.

He was the son of a coward, the grandson of one of Voldemort's most loyal servants. There was nothing but filth to his name, another infected branch added to the twisted plant that was the Malfoy family tree. Everyone had a disdain for him, for his family. She was not surprised when she found out from her mother that it was Scorpius' father, Draco Malfoy, who gave her parents and her uncle much grief during their school days.

"Mudblood." Rose spat as she thundered down the corridors, her grip on her wand so tight it seemed almost capable of snapping in two. The foul word ripped itself out of her mouth, scathing her tongue. It was the very word Draco used on her mother back in their school days, the simple but hurtful derogatory term for Muggle-born wizards and witches. She brightened up at the image of her mother slapping Draco full on the face. At least he got what he deserved. And then there was that ferret story Hermione told her about. Rose stifled a giggle as she made her way down the stairs. If only she had the chance to do something like that to Scorpius…

She felt a little remorse for him sometimes, even though she hated to admit it. The minute he was born everyone expected him to be like his father and his grandfather; head held up a little too high, self-absorbed, keen on picking on Muggle-borns and blood traitors. When the time came for him to start school, everyone's assumptions proved to be true. In the beginning she saw all of those attributes in him, even going as far as looking nearly exactly like Draco and Lucius, with his white-blond hair slicked back and his cold grey eyes intimidating and alluring at the same time. He ridiculed her and her family for years, poking in the softest of places, raising points about her mother and her Muggle lineage, her father and his known title as the blundering, overshadowed sidekick to the famous Harry Potter…

But in the recent years, she could not help but notice a slight, subtle change in him, as if he was hit in the head and it erased most, if not all, of the Malfoy-esque thoughts away. He hated being compared to his father and grandfather, which was unfortunately something he had to face nearly everyday at school, and probably outside of school too. He no longer raised points about Mudbloods or blood traitors; in fact she noticed that he kind of bristled whenever someone mentioned them. His hair was now that out of control mess she slowly became accustomed to, and had actually grown to like, but his eyes were still piercing, intriguing. She figured it was a trait he would never be able to stray away from, and secretly she wished he would never do so.

She was confused as to what might have caused him to change his point of view, from a calloused, vindictive, stereotypical Malfoy, to...someone different. She could not put a finger on a good enough description.

Rose rounded another corner and it suddenly felt warmer; the air near the Great Hall always felt inviting, comforting. She rested her back against one of the tall doors and waited patiently for him, basking in the warmth. The arrival of October only dropped the castle at least ten more degrees, which did not make patrol any more enjoyable.

Out of the darkness, a figure was stirring, moving towards her. A little worried, she raised her vinewood wand just in case, but when Scorpius Malfoy stepped out from the shadows she relaxed and dropped her arm. He looked tired and disappointed; he was frowning and his eyes were flashing with unreadable emotion. His hair looked like it was flickering, but it was just the fire from the torches that lined the walls. He looked up and noticed her by the doors to the Great Hall, and his expression changed.

"How did you get here sooner? I swear I had the shorter way." He spluttered, evidently surprised. Rose rolled her eyes and stood up straight. As different as he seemed from when they first met nearly seven years ago, his boyish obliviousness to most things still rang clear.

"Giving me the longer way so you can do less work? Very noble of you, Malfoy." She snorted. His slate grey eyes were shifting around them, probably mapping out the rest of their patrol route.

"Fine. You take this floor, I'll do the dungeons. Is that noble enough for you? Bloody Gryffindors and their nobility emphasis. Rubbish." He muttered angrily. Not wanting to argue in case McGonagall came storming around the corner to lecture them, Rose nodded and began to walk towards one of the corridors.

"As if cunning and...whatever else Slytherins have are any better than nobility. Besides, I don't think you're very cunning at all. If you truly were, then you would have thought of a better decorating idea for the prefects' common room." She said casually before striding off into the night. In the faint distance she could hear Scorpius' protesting voice, but she did not bother to hear him. A victorious smile stretched over her pretty features as she walked down the corridor, feeling a little tired but satisfied with herself nonetheless. She kind of liked it when he was all worked up like that.