Disclaimer : Not JK…

Chapter 8: The Ball that should feature in every story

Fact #8: Rose Weasley hates doing the run away Cinderella Act

The decorations were beautiful that day. It showed that Rose had slaved over every detail to give the students a night to enjoy. But all that work did nothing to help her own happiness. They had left the castle a few minutes ago and if there had been any indication of an emotion on Scorpius' face, she'd surely have found a way to confront him about where they were going. As she was thinking, his hand came to take a hold of hers, entwining his fingers through hers. She didn't know what to make of it, but she assumed it was a good sign. Not to mention how comfortable her hand felt in his, as if a few of her missing fingers had gotten back to her. At last, he came to a stop beside what must have once been a beautiful natural fountain. The Hogwarts founders had built a small pond around it, giving the entire place a serenity that was profoundly lacking in the rest of the castle. If ever she needed some place to think, this would be it, Rose thought as she looked at the crystalline water which the silvery moon tried futilely to penetrate. Satisfying itself with lighting the surface up, the moon winked at her through its reflection. Rose sighed longingly. The night was beautiful, now if only she could find someway to enjoy it.

Hearing the crunch of grass, she looked up to her sole company. He had been looking at her all this time, she knew to sense his looks. And when their eyes met, she could see the pain that Al had mentioned blazing in them. Accompanying it were the hurt and anger that clouded over his perpetually amused expression. The light heartedness that had been so natural a part of him was gone, replacing it with this new dreariness that she could feel seep into her. It was almost funny; the way one single kiss had changed absolutely everything between them. If she had heard of this anywhere else, read it in some book, she'd have laughed to her heart's content and classified the book as a parody. As it was, she couldn't help chuckle wryly whenever she thought of her misfortune.

"Something funny?" she could picture the expression on his face, with the raised eyebrow, the ever lounging smirk on his lips, that amused glint in his grey eyes, that light that seemed to light his face whenever he seemed to look at her. They should have been enough to tell her how he felt, but all his actions belied his expressions, leaving her confused and frustrated.

"It's just that my situation is so hilarious. I mean, look at this place, it's perfect. Perfectly romantic and I would have been enjoying it to the fullest, but I can't even bring myself to look at it all without feeling melancholic" she laughed humorlessly, leveling him with a sorrowful stare.

"Because I'm here"

"Yes, precisely." Only when she saw the struck expression on his face that she realized that her words could have a completely different connotation.

"Scorpius…"

"No, it's alright. Afterall, it was my entire fault" he moved to a bench beside the fountain, seating himself on it. Standing beside the fountain, she could see him clearly in the moonlight. He was dejected, his whole posture was screaming out his confusion and his eyes, when he lifted them from the ground, were pools of indecision. It strengthened her resolve and she walked to the bench he was seated at purposefully. It was time to put both of them out of their miseries.

"Move over" he seemed to be incapable of understanding her words for a second before he moved to make space for her on the bench. He refused to face her eyes this close, afraid of the revulsion and pity he was sure he would find in them. He wanted to apologise, but he was afraid she'd forgive him and that would be that. He knew she wasn't the kind of person to hold a grudge, but what if she didn't feel the same way and was only trying to let him down easily? Even after weeks, he couldn't get the single incident out of his mind. The glow in her eyes, the smile that had lit up her face, and how all that had been replaced with shock, followed by hurt and an attempt at impassiveness. It had been plaguing him for sometime. For a few days he had convinced himself that it had been the fact that he had hurt someone that had him feeling guilty and angry with himself. But as the days passed and he saw her acting, or trying to act normal, the very fact the he was the reason for it ate at him.

It had been her pain that had him feeling grouchy and acting positively rude. His days seemed too lonely without her to taunt or as had been the case recently, have a friendly banter with and laugh with. Some where in between the spats, Scorpius realized that he had come to like her. Rose Weasley with her untamable temper and indomitable spirit had caught his fancy. He found himself trying to think up ways to apologise to her, and was irritably reminded how each of his imaginations ended with him asking her out. It had taken him almost a week to cook up a simple apology and even that had gone awry, from what he had heard her tell Al.

"Scorpius, look at me, or are you too much of a coward to do even that?" her voice challenged him; he knew she was trying to get a reaction out of him and he smiled at her effort and complied. She wasn't annoyed with him anymore, that much was apparent from her expression.

"I'm angry with you" she stated so somberly that if the circumstances had been any different, he'd have been more inclined to laugh. Even now, he couldn't stem the light chuckle. What amazed him was that she grinned back at him.

"Um…I don't think angry people smile, Rose" she burst out laughing at his cautious expression.

"I do. Helps stop me from lunging at the person I'm angry with" her eyes gleamed with mirth and mischief and he couldn't help the smirk that came onto his face. Or the mocking tone of his voice when he replied.

"And that would happen to be me?"

"If you hadn't noticed, I have been avoiding you for almost three weeks now"

"Two weeks, six days and…twenty one hours" he muttered but her gasp told him that she had heard it clearly.

"You kept count?" he just shrugged, not willing to tell her why he had done so. It was one thing for her to think him a bastard, completely another for her to call him a sap.

"What did that tell you?" she asked adamantly, turning to face him. A soft breeze was blowing and her scent was dizzying his brain.

"That we were having a row?" he suggested and she nodded her head.

"And, pray tell, who was in the wrong?"

"Me, obviously. I know all this, Rose. You don't need to make me relive my mistake"

"If you know that, why in hell haven't you tried to say sorry?" she was acting bossy, and he was sure if she had been standing, her hands would have gone to rest on her hips.

"I tried, I really did. But, …I don't know how, Rose. I've never apologized before, never had to. People just assumed I wouldn't anyway and I was glad to save myself what I considered an embarrassment"

"So you're telling me that that day back in the commonroom…that was the first time you ever tried a sincere apology?" her tone was incredulous and he could see her already large eyes widen in surprise.

"For anything that mattered, yes. And I seem to have messed it up, too. I mean, I thought we were okay and if I didn't sound sincere to you…" she placed a finger to his mouth and shook her head.

"I was being adamant. I know that now. I wanted to hurt you, the way it hurt me to…that day. I'm sorry about that. I really didn't mean any of it. It was the easier way, you know? Blame you for everything rather than accept that I had become vulnerable" she moved her eyes away to the spring. She was beating herself up about it, he could see that clearly. His hand went to hold her chin and only then did she turn to him.

"It wasn't your fault, Rose. I messed things up. I mean, you were content being my rival and I offered a truce…"

"I don't regret that, Scor. You know this"

"May be I do. But somewhere out there I went and…I dunno what to do anymore. How to act around you, how to talk to you, everything's changed. All I know is that I don't want to hurt you. And look what I went and did."

"People make mistakes, Scor. Didn't I have a slot of my own? I had this superiority complex. I thought I was better than anyone else."

"No you did not. You were better than most anyway"

"That's just you trying to make me feel better. I thought I was some kind of princess or something. But then, you never looked at me that way. You didn't even seem to care that much. I was pissed"

"I did that just to rile you up. Al wouldn't shut up about how I was doing it only to get your attention. I thought he was being stupid, but now…I think he was right, you know?"

"I'm afraid that's going to go to my head" she was smiling easily now. The tensed atmosphere that had reigned between them seemed to have dissolved entirely, leaving both of them feeling oddly exposed and nervous. Scorpius tried to speak, since that seemed the only way to push away his thoughts which were steadily going astray. But she placed a hand on his lips, silencing him. When he turned to look at her, she shook her head subtly, mouthing, "Don't. Let's just sit here for a while, okay?"

She laid her head on his shoulder, a move that should have startled him, but didn't. He didn't know how but he found his hand encircling her shoulders. Somehow that gesture made him feel complete, like he had brought together a masterpiece all by himself.

"Scorpius…" her gentle voice interrupted his musings. He had never heard that tone before. It had always been flash and fire between them. But that voice, that soft tone pulled strings in his heart. Strings he hadn't even known existed.

"Huh?"

"Where do we stand now?" the question was almost lost to him in the wind because she spoke so low, but it brought a kind of dread in him. The kind he hadn't felt since his first year during his sorting.

"I don't know, Rose. I'd think we were friends but then that would mean I should know a lot about you, that I should understand you, and stuff. Which I don't. But we are not enemies anymore either. And acquaintances sounds too formal and…distant." She sighed once, before lifting her head to look up at him. Her cerulean blue eyes shone in the silver light, but the disappointment in them was palpable and something to add to his list of things he couldn't understand about Rose Weasley. She stood up slowly, looking down at him with those peaceful orbs.

"I should be in the castle regulating the crowd"

"I should be too" he made a move to stand up but she placed a restraining hand on his shoulders.

"No it's fine, I'll manage on my own" without waiting for a reply, she walked away. He could see her trip in the distance but before he could go to her help, she righted herself. He could see her silhouette bend down to take away her slipper and throw it away before she disappeared into the castle.

She cursed anything and everything she saw and could think of, from the warm castle walls to her damned slipper that had gotten stuck under a rock. But she held herself together until she was safely behind the doors of her Heads Dorm before she let her disappointment and fury slide down her cheeks in hot wet drops.

She had forgiven him, but may be it was time she forgot too.

A/n: review, if only to tell me how clichéd and stupid that was!