{{QUIDDITCH MATCH QUIDDITCH MATCH QUIDDITCH MATCHHHHHHHHHH}}
{{Also, super sorry for the delay, here. I got ill before I went diving, and then there was no wifi, and I got back this morning at 5am! So it's been a lil busy. Sorry, chaps.}}
Rose was still in bed.
The cotton sheets were pulled into a cocoon around her, and she kept both eyes stubbornly closed. The castle woke up around her, and still she refused to budge. The door creaked open as one of the house-elves deposited the clean laundry, and Rose snuffled into her sheets but stayed obstinately still. She heard the door close. For the first time in years, she heard Amy wake up first and stretch – when Fletcher yawned, all the musicality went out of the girl. All of it. It was loud and it was the kind of decisive "I'm awake" sound that Rose had no intention of making. She heard Amy crack the bones in her back, slide her legs off the bed – and gasp.
"Did you die?!"
"Urgfh"
"Jesus Christ, Rose. Is this the plague? Should I be worried? Do we need a priest to recite the last rites?!"
"You're funny." Rose groaned into her pillow, not sounding the slightest bit amused. "I'm staying here. This is my home, now."
There was the sound of light footsteps in the second before Amy pounced with a delighted squeal.
"Get off me!" Rose whined as she and the mattress sunk under the weight of the other girl. "God, Ames, you are the worst."
"You love me!" Amy said, bouncing up and down on Rose's huddled form to cement her point. "Say it!"
"Never!"
"Say it!"
"Death first!"
"We could sort that!" A pillow clutched in hand, Amy rose it above her head to deliver the death blow. Her stomach cut the action short with an ominous hungry rumble and she paused. It was all Rose needed to roll out from under the blonde girl with the kind of dexterity that proved her well on the pitch.
"Freedom!" She cried, but her victory was disregarded by Amy. The girl was staring at her incredulously.
"Rose, did you miss breakfast?"
"Maybe." Rose waved a non-committal hand. Being turfed out of the safety of her bed wasn't ideal, but she could manage. It was a big castle. Plenty of places to avoid a single overly-tall other student. "It felt like a lie-in day, y'know?"
She felt rather than saw Amy's flat gaze. "Rose. You haven't stayed in bed past eight since last Christmas's do."
Keeping her expression neutral, Rose shrugged and smiled glibly over her shoulder as she reached for her hairbrush. "First time for everything!"
"What is going on?!" Amy sounded exasperated. She was making no effort to get changed, sitting on Rose's bed with a pillow clutched to her stomach. "Rose Weasley, would you sit still and talk to me?"
Heartbeat loud in her ears, Rose pulled open her top drawer and rooted around for a t-shirt. It was Saturday. No need for uniform. "I made out with Scorp last night."
"What?!" It was lucky that there were no flies around at this time of year; Amy's jaw had dropped open. "What?!"
"Yeah," It was difficult to tell with Rose's back to her, but Amy got the feeling that she was a little, tightly wrapped ball of anxiety. "Yeah."
The pillow wheezed as Amy loosened her hold slightly. "Okay." She paused. "Was it good?"
Now Rose looked at her. She opened her mouth, already starting to shake her head, before apparently changing her mind. "Freaking amazing." The girl said instead, impish grin lighting up her features. "But," she resumed her rummaging, because apparently clothes were more important than this bombshell. "it's nothing, right? It's a rebound. He's hurting, I was there, nothing will come of it. Nothing should come of it. I have far more self-respect than to be Scorpius Malfoy's rebound. He's probably spaced and forgotten the whole thing – you know what he's like. So if I just, y'know, avoid him-" Rose was running out of steam. "Then everything will be normal and fine. Just fine."
Words, Amy found, had abandoned her. She was just picturing Scorpius and Rose together and, honestly, it looked right. All of the casual touching and the long glances and the inside jokes and the fact that one was never very far from the other and the fact that Rose and he didn't loathe each other like everyone seemed to think that they should and the instinctive thoughtfulness and the mind-reading and "Oh, my God, Rose."
Defensive, Rose's back stiffened again. "What?!"
Amy was staring at her, blue eyes wide. "You love him. Not just like family. You love him. You do."
And Rose suddenly looked a little bit small and a little bit sad, and she nodded. Because she did. She did.
It had been just over seven hours – seven very constructive hours – of Scoprius avoidance when Rose was finally cornered. She had finished her transfiguration essay. She had stripped her bed. She had owled her parents and her aunt and her penpal in Romania and she had played with her cat… It wasn't even avoidance! Not really! It was just being busy.
Or that's what she had been telling herself – and Amy – anyway.
Unfortunately, time and detention wait for no woman. She found herself up to her elbows in flobberworms, picking out the good ones and flicking the bad ones into a bubbling cauldron where they sort of plopped a bit and then exploded. The smell was noxious, the dungeons cold, and Rose was sure that flying around naked did not deserve this kind of punishment. They weren't even naked! They were nude. It was artistic.
Plop. Hiss. Boom.
"This is medieval!" Rose told Nearly-Headless Nick who had drifted out of the next room a few moments before. "Archaic!"
Plop. Hiss. Boom.
"Not at all!" Nick replied cheerfully, adjusting his cape around him as he hovered comfortably above a nearby desk. He had one leg crossed over another, elbows propped on his knee. He was the picture of dandy grace, and though he had offered to help ("Little use, I'm afraid dear. Simply can't hold a thing.") he seemed content to simply watch and offer unhelpful advice. "Why, back in the medieval times there were proper detentions!" A door opened, but it didn't distract the ghost who was reliving the odious evils of a time long past. "The whippings weren't even the worst, child. Not by a long way. And then there were the-"
Plop. Hiss. Boom.
The door closed with a thud and Rose glanced up, fully expecting yet another delivery of flobberworms from a house-elf who couldn't be paid enough for the job. Instead, she saw Scorpius's cheeky, guileless smile.
"Why couldn't you be a flobberworm?" She complained as soon as he got close enough to hear. He crossed the room in easy strides and raised a questioning eyebrow at her.
"Well, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very, very much-" Scorp started, collapsing down onto the flagstones opposite her as she viciously chucked another of the offensive creatures into the cauldron. Plop. Hiss. Boom. "Hey, Nick."
"Good afternoon, Mr Malfoy!" The ghost replied cheerfully, tipping his head in Scorp's direction. The fact that he found it easiest to do this by literally taking hold of his hair and tugging was enough to send first years squealing down the halls. "Do you, too, hold the burden of our potion supplies?"
Scorpius gave a "what-can-you-do" shrug. "Detention is just no fun on your own," he said ruefully. Nick beamed, apparently delighted by the solidarity between his house's students.
"And that is the truth. Well," the ghost shook himself off and stood, head still shaking slightly on an otherwise motionless neck. "I must be off. The Baron is not a patient man, don't you know! Best of luck, best of luck!" And he drifted straight through the wall.
Scorpius stared at the place where he'd disappeared for a moment. "I don't think I will ever get used to that," he said. He turned his attention to Rose, staring at her hard for a minute. "You're avoiding me."
"Am not." Rose muttered mutinously. Plop. Hiss. Boom. "I've been busy."
"Right." Scorpius stuck his hands into the vat of flobberworms she was dealing with. "Busy. Right. I have looked everywhere for you. I'm calling BS."
"Language."
"Oh, are we censoring letters now? I think we should start with 'Z' – No one really uses that one."
"Arse." Rose cracked a smile, before glancing up at Scorpius. He'd thought that she seemed uneasy a moment ago, but it looked like he had been wrong. There was nothing uncertain about her gaze at all. Her face was set in an expression somewhere between determination and… resignation? "Malfoy, about last night,"
"What about it?" Scorp affected nonchalance as he pulled a puce coloured wriggling monstrosity from the vat. "Oh, ew. Gross. What about it?"
There was a moment of dead air as Rose gathered her resources. Clearly, this was not any kind of a discussion she'd been hoping to have today. "I, okay, Merlin – I care about you," Scorp felt something warm and unexpected tug at his chest. He had lost any interest in the mass of fuck-no between the pair of them, and was watching Rose with an expression akin to wonder. "and I meant everything."
There was a heavy moment as the pair looked at each other. "Everything?" Scorp questioned, hands still submerged. Only too happy to end this – God, whatever this was – Rose plunged her hands back to work, stomach tensing. Amy's advice was so stupid and she would tell the girl as much. Oh, just tell him, Rose! Nothing can go wrong, Rose! He obviously feels the same way, "Rose! Rosie." There he was, grabbing her hands and forcing her to look at him. "Merlin's beard, Weasley. You ran off!"
"I did not." Rose's bottom lip jutted out like a petulant toddler.
"Yes, yes you did. You ran off and there I was thinking – ew, ew, wait, flobberworm – there I was thinking that I'd totally fucked things up. If I read it wrong – if I shouldn't have kissed you – can you just say and then we can both obliviate each other and not tell Albus?"
"You didn't kiss me."
"I-" Scop was flummoxed. Rose had set her jaw. "I did. I'm pretty sure I did. Unless you have a twin? Is that a thing? Because tell her to hit me up, Merlin."
"I kissed you."
"You didn't. It was my idea. Don't take this away from me. I kissed you."
"I kissed you."
"Excuse me, I-"
"I kissed you, Malfoy. Shut up and deal with-"
Scorpius lurched forwards over the bucket, and, just to clear matters up, kissed her. Her hands were fists, resting on the cold metal lip of the bucket of ew, and he uncurled them, finger by finger, until he could lace their hands together. He was kissing her, and she had melded herself to him, meeting Scorpius's soft movements with her own – they were rougher, more demanding, and like everything about this girl, they were so alive. One, two, and Scorpius realised that every other kiss paled in comparison to this. Three, four, and he realised that he could feel her smiling against his lips. He kissed her and tried to forget that he might never get the chance again. He kissed her, and held onto her and onto that sliver of forever, with everything that he had left. He kissed her, and kissed her; And Rose kept kissing him back.
She pulled away with a brush of her lips against his cheek – soft, burning, kind – and so gentle that it could have been a ghost and not a girl. Scorpius opened his eyes, head swimming, and met her own. They were dark, in this light, and full of such tenderness that Scorpius had never known.
"Oh God, Rosie." He rasped as she eased her hands from his, letting them fall.
"Oh shit." Rose moaned, and would have faceplanted the flobberworms if Scorp hadn't been there to catch her. "We can't do this."
If Scorpius hadn't been majorly invested in ensuring that Rose didn't fall any further, he might have done something other than widen his eyes. "But why?"
"People will talk." Rose said, sitting up. The nearby cauldron-of-death plopped melodramatically, as if it agreed. "They already think that I am the reason that Naya is sleeping with Frobisher."
"Let them."
"Malfoy," Rose looked resolute, "no."
"Malfoy, yes."
Rose scowled at him and, very slowly, very carefully, picked up a gruesome looking worm and flicked it. Straight at his head. This conversation – if that's what it could be called – was over.
"And then?"
"Oh, she threw flobberworms at me and called me all sorts of names before telling me to go away and leave her to repent for our last training practice in peace."
Albus tipped his head to one side, looking thoughtful. "Not bad." He allowed. "That could have gone worse."
Scorpius's face always looked like something out of Witch Weekly, with soaring cheekbones and a jawline that might have been chiselled by the Gods but was probably the result of good genetics. His only saving grace, as Albus liked to point out, was his nose which had been broken one too many times to even be considered rugged or manly. It was really a bit of a mess. Now, that face of his just looked openly delighted. "Albus Potter, I am going to sweep your cousin off of her feet."
Albus Potter briefly considered homicide.
Gryffindor always felt as though they had, over the years, gathered a completely unfair and inaccurate reputation. They were thought to be bull-headed, arrogant, competitive – They had a reputation as being loud, over-dramatic, a little too invested in sports. The jokers, the clowns, the kiss-me-quicks. Usually, the house lived down this reputation with a quiet dignity and grace.
But not on match day.
On match day, unfortunately, they embraced that reputation with heady glee.
Albus shoved his way to the front of the Gryffindor stands. Hugo's red hair stood out like a beacon, and the spot that he had saved for Al was an oasis in a sea of foot stomping, heckling teenagers.
"Dear Lord, this place is a madhouse." Al said as he shunted a stray leg from his spot and sat down next to Hu. "Don't make that face at me – you have your own spot. Merlin. Calm down, leggy."
Hugo's attention was fixated on the pitch. "What time is it?" He asked, not dragging his eyes from the space in the panelling where the teams would appear.
"Five to two." Al replied, glancing at his watch. "Handshake should be?"
"Any minute." Hugo still didn't glance away. He was an avid quidditch fan, but this level of avid… ness was a little concerning.
"Hugo," Albus hazarded, pulling his binoculars from his cloak. "You know that it doesn't matter what happens, right? It's just a match?"
Hugo turned and smiled at Albus, patting his knee. It was a vaguely patronising smile, Albus thought, but said nothing. "Potter, it stopped being just a match weeks ago."
Oh Merlin, Albus thought, resigned, Please let Gryffindor win.
At precisely two o'clock, the golden afternoon sunlight glinted dully off of the quaffle, clutched under Madam Hooch's arm.
"Captains, shake hands." The witch called. The tension was palpable as Rose met Howe's handshake. "To your brooms," Hooch continued, "And – play!"
The bludgers snapped into the air with the usual sickening whistle, and the snitch disappeared within seconds. Hooch tossed the quaffle straight upwards, and there was a flurry off red and cerulean capes as the players shot for up into the fray. Albus watched from the stands as Scorpius streaked for Gryffindor's hoops, Ravenclaw in possession of the quaffle. Weasley, Fletcher, and Spinnet were crimson blurs as they whirled around the opposition's chasers – this was ballet at over one hundred miles an hour, fifty foot in the air.
"And that's Jorgenson from Ravenclaw with the quaffle! He passed it to Spencer, who tries to leg it down the pitch towards the hoops – intercepted! Spencer has been intercepted! Fletcher takes a tight turn; She's dropped it! One hell of a bludger from Ravenclaw there, straight between the ball and Fletcher of Gryffindor! Weasley has the quaffle, playing out a Cambridge manoeuvre there – Owens has lost the snitch! That's a blow for Ravenclaw – Davies in the hoops looking anxious as the Gryffindor beaters line up on them, Merlin – look at them go! Look at them go! Spinnet lining up – look at that forearm rotation, that's perfect – Yes! Yes! Straight in! Ravenclaw didn't stand a chance on that one – Ten points to Gryffindor!"
Rose's heartbeat was a monster in her ears. It was pounding and pounding – She could imagine the blood thrumming through her veins, through her temples. Behind her googles, the scene in front of her was magnified slightly.
"Finnegan!" She yelled, voice turned hoarse by the wind. "Take that left!"
The nearby twin pulled his broom around and hurtled off down the pitch, wooden bat held high.
Crack.
The bludger soared off and clipped the front of Owens' broom. The Ravenclaw seeker spun in crazy circles, his view of the snitch disrupted again.
The Gryffindor stands roared.
Meanwhile, Scorpius was covering the Gryffindor hoops with aplomb.
"Come on, then!" He screamed into the wind as the Ravenclaw chasers came steaming towards him. They hadn't taken the blow to their seeker well, and they had murder in their eyes. Well educated murder, Scorpius supposed, but still – murder. It was exciting. It really was. "Grow some balls!" He hollered, and was about to congratulate himself on his own pun when the smallish one (Green? Grey? Greys? Fifty Shades Of.) took the shot. Outraged, Scorp swung around and smacked the ball away with the tail of his broom.
"That's rude!" He cried. Fifty Shades stuck his middle finger up at him. "That's even ruder, Merlin!"
"Hanks of Ravenclaw takes a swing at that bludger and sends it straight at – Weasley! Gryffindor's captain avoids that one by a whisker, holy shit."
"Language!"
"Sorry, Proffesor. By a whisker, holy sugarcake! The two seekers are going hell for leather around the edge of the pitch – Franks of Gryffindor (a new addition to the team just this year, wasn't it? And a very nice player he is) apparently in the lead, if that jostle was anything to go by… Merlin's Beard, what a bludger! What a hit! Hanks again!"
Scorp was going to be having words with his mate about all of this smacking bludgers at innocent lil Gryffindors. Seriously.
Half-time was called at 50:30, with Gryffindor in the lead and several close shaves under their belt. Gathering under the shadow of the stands, Rose pulled off her flight googles. "You guys good?" She asked, and nodded in response to the various pumped up "Yeah's!" and "Bloody fabulous. Did you not see me." ("Merlin's beard, Finnegan.") ("Come on, Cap!") ("Come on, Finnegan.")
"Alright, let's talk Holyhead."
Up in the stands, the spectators were besides themselves. No-one was too certain who was organising the main gambling ring, but several first year lackies had been sent skittering through the older students.
"Any revished betsh, gentsh?" A tiny, floppy haired eleven year old lisped at Hu and Albus. Hugo instantly started digging in his pockets, rolling out who he was and wasn't putting money on, and who would be catching the snitch, and whether it would be on points from the quaffle or on the snitch. Albus just watched with a faint sense of bemusement.
"Your Mum flew for the Harpies, Potter." Hugo said as he sent the small lad scampering off. "How can you care so little about this game?! It's honestly a bit disappointing."
"Your Mum basically runs the Ministry, mate. How do you feel about a long discussion on linancy for goblin laws?"
Hugo grimaced. "Fair. Very fair. Your parents here today?"
"Nah, Dad's been sent to Bulgaria and Mum went out with him. Yours?"
"Duh. Dad never misses Rose's games. Think the Malfoys are here?"
Albus picked up his binoculars and cast them over the stand reserved for parents. With the game being the final of the House Cup, there was standing room only – but Draco Malfoy's startling pale hair shone starkly. "Right there – I wonder if Scorp knows?"
Hugo only shrugged, attention back on the pitch. "Shut up, they're back!"
The Gryffindor team streamed onto the pitch, red cloaks snapping in the breeze behind them. Ravenclaw met them in the middle, and the captains exchanged a nod.
"Mount!" Hooch barked at the fourteen players. "And – play!" And once more, the quaffle was shot into the sky.
The Holyhead formation is a winning tactic that is very rarely played because of the sheer level of dumb luck that a team needs to pull it off. And as the players formed a loose formation in the sky, there wasn't a smile in sight. Watching from the stands, Hugo Weasley gaped. "Oh Christ, Rose."
In the commentator's stand, Ieuan Price watched the Gryffindor team curiously. "Looks like Gryffindor have got something up their sleeves," he hazarded, but at this point it was impossible to tell just what. And then all hell broke loose.
The two Finnegan beaters streamed down opposite edges of the pitch, smacking bludgers between the pair of them with the kind of high-powered accuracy that grew and grew as the power compounded. Watching aghast, spectators could almost hear the wood of the bats shuddering after each lightning fast hit. In between each shot, the chasers flew between the streaking bludgers. They had possession of the quaffle, and with the bludgers covering each and every one of their movements – Ravenclaw couldn't get close. Scorpius was a flash of scarlet by the Gryffindor hoops, and on the few occasions when one of the chasers muffed the ball and the chasers in blue got hold of it, he smacked it back to the Gryffindor players with a violent kind of grace.
"That's a Holyhead formation!" Price hollered into the microphone. "Oh my God, Gryffindor are playing the Holyhead formation!"
Hanks went in to intercept a bludger, bravely holding out his bat, only to have it yanked from his hand. The lad bellowed in pain, the sound of his wrist bones cracking sending a sickening grey cast over his face.
"That's another ten to Gryffindor!" Price was commentating, his Welsh accent getting ever more pronounced as the tension around the pitch doubled, tripled. Despairing cries and disbelieving, joyful screams split the air from all sides.
"Shit, shit, Franks has the snitch! He has the snitch! Gryffindor takes the House Cup!"
Braced on her broom by the Ravenclaw posts, Rose covered her face, and cried.
