The clock had not rung six, and Scorpius was already in a bad mood.

He could have been working on his Charms essay, which he had forgotten about completely until about thirty seconds ago. Charms was his first class.

He could have been catching up on his letters home. He hadn't written to his parents in a month.

He could have been trying to figure out what the bloody monster in the forest was. A search party of professors had been sent into the immediate area, but nothing had been discovered apart from crushed foliage and some burned patches of wood.

Instead, though, he was caught up thinking of Rose Weasley.

Of all the girls in the entire school, he was daydreaming of Rose Weasley?

She had freckles all across her nose and cheeks.

Her eyebrows were on the bushy side.

Her nose took up too much of her face.

Her teeth were too big.

But her face was a perfect little heart-shape, her eyes were wide and blue, her hair looked soft as well as a natural shade of auburn he'd never seen, and her lips—

No.

That was enough of that.

All they ever did was insult each other, and even aside from their families' history, he'd decided last year that she was one of the most irritating people he'd met. She was an unbearable know-it-all and an uptight prude. She one-upped him in everything and was one of a very select cluster of girls who was completely uninterested in the sport of Trying to Get in Malfoy's Pants. He hated the breathy raspiness of her voice, and her habit of always touching her hair, and how she was clumsy and always got in the way of everything.

But he had to face the fact: he felt some weird, unfamiliar draw to her, and did not know how to end it.

At 6:04 in the morning, he sank his fair head into the puffy Hogwarts pillow and hopelessly pushed away thoughts of the only girl he should not have been thinking about.

Had Defense Against the Dark Arts always been such a nightmare?

First of all, Rose had been paired to work with Dean Crowe, one of Malfoy's Slytherin friends. Now, as a general rule Rose Weasley loved everything and everyone. Most people knew her to be a wonderfully mild, loving and gentle person. Furthermore, she had nothing against Slytherins at all; in fact, she was fairly good friends with one or two of them. It was this particular one, however, who happened to be one of the few people (apart from Scorpius himself) for whom she reserved her distaste. Though he rarely spoke, the only words that ever did escape his lips were negative ones. He spent the rest of his time sneering. It was the most unpleasant thing, to have someone sitting next to her, leering like she was some kind of disgusting grub.

Secondly, Scorpius was in this class. That was a nightmare in itself.

Third, the teacher hated her for an unknown and most likely unfair or illogical reason. Last year she had never noticed any difference in the way Professor Tendernudle treated Rose as opposed to the other students. However, this year he had scolded her for the most bizarre reasons. In the beginning of class she had dropped her quill, and he took a point from Gryffindor on the premise that she had "thrown" it purposely. He picked on her three times when she hadn't raised her hand. When she tripped on the way out of class, he told her to be less careless when walking. What did that even mean?

Perhaps he was having some severe PMS.

A sound theory, except that Professor Tendernudle was a male.

As a result of this disastrous class, Rose was already in a horrible mood as she nipped down the hall to Transfiguration.

This was before Malfoy spooked her by coming up from behind and whispering "tapir farm" in her ear. He often did this. Among his favorite things to whisper creepily down her neck were obscure animals (like the tapir), random strange words (glockenspiel), and sexual innuendos (she did not wish to recall previous examples).

After jumping about six feet in the air, Rose slapped him on the arm. "God, you're annoying!"

"You like it," he smirked.

"You wish," she rolled her eyes. "Now scurry off."

"I would, but you have Transfiguration and I have Ancient Runes, and they are right next to each other."

"How do you know my schedule?" she asked crossly. "Whatever, please just leave, I'm in a bad mood."

"Aren't you always?"

"Whenever you're around."

"Oh, you've wounded my feelings, Weasley," Scorpius put a hand on his heart. "How shall I recover?"

"Wait, do you hear that?" Rose stopped. The hallway was nearly empty, as they had taken a shortcut through the lower levels without as many classrooms.

"Yeah," Malfoy said thoughtfully. "It's coming from that room." He pointed to a heavy door on the left side of the hall that Rose had never paid attention to before. She hadn't the faintest idea as to what was behind it.

"I think it's just some teachers having a discussion," she concluded.

"Want to listen?" he asked mischievously.

"Eavesdropping isn't really my style."

"Oh, loosen your knickers. I have one of the Weasley ear eavesdropping thingers from the joke store; we can take turns."

Reluctant but vaguely curious, Rose followed him to the mahogany door and bent down near the floor crack.

"Ladies first," Malfoy offered. He handed over the ear.

At first Rose couldn't make out the different voices, but she quickly realized a group of professors had congregated.

"—must do something about it—"

"We have to keep the students safe, after all."

"Care of Magical Creatures should be moved to the castle."

"That is a definite. Should we send out a larger investigation, however?"

"Absolutely. Whatever's in there has to be big, we can't take any risks with unknown monsters."

Rose passed the ear to Malfoy. "They're talking about the thing in the woods!" she informed him in a whisper. He furrowed his brow and listened intently. Concentrating looked good on him, she noticed. She immediately rebuked herself for thinking it.

"Yeah, they're just talking about who they should send to look around in the woods," he said finally when she showed him her watch to signal that they would probably be late.

"Anyone specific?"

"Well, Hagrid, but they were conflicted due to his age. Tendernudle as well, and Noyes."

"Noyes? He's not very imposing!" Rose laughed. Professor Noyes was a hulking five foot two, and probably weighed about a hundred pounds. "And Tendernudle is a bit of a prat."

"Yeah, he was picking on you quite a bit today," Malfoy said thoughtfully. "They certainly didn't name any good choices. I suppose we could do a better job ourselves."

She looked at him sideways. "Is that a suggestion?"

"Well, we could look around the outskirts a tad. See if we can find anything that might hint at what exactly's in there. Obviously it's bigger than they let on at the announcements this morning."

"Couldn't hurt to look," Rose met his eyes.

"Tomorrow, then. Saturday. After breakfast."

"Seems as good a time as there can be."

He smiled at her. "As ridiculous as it is, I'm looking forward to working with you, Weasley."

A/N: This chapter is a bit shorter than I'd like, but I have heaps of summer work and this story is basically just me procrastinating... and also it's not very good. Ah well.

Recommended listening: Two Fingers by Jake Bugg. #kindatheonlymusicianilikewhosundertheageof50 #yoloswagforjesus #whatamidoing