Rose was rather surprised to find a bird knocking on the girls' dormitory late at night.
She didn't expect any letters, although she loved getting ones from all of her relatives. Carefully she opened the window only to allow the rain to be blown straight into her face.
"Oh no… poor little birdie!" She quickly took the bird inside and wiped away the drops on her small nose and her long, black eyelashes.
"How come I don't know who you are? Or who you belong to? Oh! Roxy might have gotten a new one. You know, her old owl died a few weeks ago. But you aren't an owl. You are an eagle. So not a birdie. A huge, very huge bird. Never mind. Cracker?"
Rose held out one of her own crackers for the bird which eagerly nipped it and flew out of the window again, leaving a wet trail on the floor. And a letter. Or better, a note.
'Fancy meeting me tomorrow night upon the Astronomy Tower at eight? I am sure you find a way to get there even though you should not be around the castle at that point in time. – Scorpius'
He hadn't talked to her the last week, despite Rose's thought that both of them would get along quite nicely. It somehow hurt her. She opened up to him and he let her down by ignoring her once more. That wasn't particularly nice, Rose decided.
It took her a while to figure out whether she wanted to meet him or not. It took her the whole night, the next morning, all time during class the next day, even during lunch she was still unsure about what to do.
To give in to her feeling they could become friends or to be hurt by his actions.
"You are late, Rose Weasley."
"How do you know it's me?"
"Your shoes have a remarkable sound. An hour, Rose."
Until now, the blonde stood at the edge of the tower, face turned towards the world beneath him, his arms behind his back. Even Rose couldn't deny the disappointed sound of his voice as he spoke to her. She immediately felt sorry for letting him wait until nine o'clock. As he turned around, her feelings of guilt grew by every step he made towards her.
"You know, you haven't talked to me the whole week but you expect me to jump when you say so? That's not how I work, Scorpius", she snapped at him.
"I did not talk to you, this is true." He stopped about three steps before Rose, ran his fingers through his incredibly blond hair. She wondered if he was using a special shampoo to keep it so perfectly light.
"I did not talk to you, because I want our friendship to grow between us. I want you to be friends with be before people start giving you weird looks. And, for the record, you asked me not to tell anybody about our meeting."
"People already shoot me weird looks."
"But not because you are friends with a Malfoy but because you are a Weasley and because you sometimes dress a bit… let us say, you sometimes dress eccentric." Scorpius grinned at her. "I cannot be mad at you, sorry. I did not realize that I should have talked to you. And you look way too adorable to tell you something about not letting friends wait on an Astronomy Tower, where it is windy, cold and rainy."
"I'm sorry…", Rose muttered and dropped her eyes, "won't happen again, promise!"
"It is alright, Rosie."
"Rosie?" She looked up at him again, a puzzled look on her face.
"Yeah. I know your cousins call you Rosie and I thought, if I want to be your friend and you want to be mine, I might as well call you by your nickname. Was it wrong?"
"No, it's fine." Rose smiled at him softly and looked around in discomfort.
"So… why are we here?"
"Well, the last time you showed me your favorite place so I thought I show you mine."
"Oh."
"Oh? All you have to say is 'oh'? Really, Rosie?"
"I am sorry", she chuckled. He looked just so amusing with his eyes full of disbelieve for what she's just said.
"It is just… I am not very keen on the Astronomy Tower."
"Why so?"
"Iamafraidofheights", Rose quickly mumbled, causing Scorpius to raise one eyebrow.
"I am sorry, I did not catch that. Could you repeat it, please?"
Rose took a deep breath. This really wasn't easy for her!
"I am afraid of heights and hardly anyone besides my closest cousins know it", she then finally admitted to him.
"But… you are the keeper of Gryffindor's Quidditch team, are you not?"
"Yes, but that doesn't count. When I am on the broom, I feel safe. I don't feel safe here. It is so… open and if you trip you fall and die and there will be a lot of blood and scared kids!"
Silence.
"Scared kids? Oh Rosie!" Scorpius burst out laughing, shaking his head slightly.
"You really are adorable, you know that? Look, we can always go somewhere else. To the lake? Or back in the … what was it? The Room of Requirement?"
"Yes, Room of Requirement", she nodded, slightly irritated. His laugh is nice, no doubt! But it was the first time she ever heard him laughing. Maybe she just needed to get used to it.
"I would love to go to the Room of Requirement, please."
"Alright then, the room it is. But under one condition."
She looked up at him. How come she only now realizes how much taller he is than her? Nearly a head taller!
"Which will be?"
"I get to choose the scenery."
Rose smiled widely and nodded. "That won't be a problem. I am curious to see your room."
"Just do not expect too much. After all, it will be my first time and I cannot promise that the room will end up even close to what you did with it."
"I am sure it will be lovely", she reassured him, giving Scorpius an encouraging smile.
"I try my best." He smiled, shyly, before following her back to her secret little place.
"It's bloody lovely, Scorpius! Especially for your first time!"
Rose turned around herself to soak in the beautiful scenery he had created.
There was a small river floating through perfectly green grass. You could see right to the bottom of it, where white rocks were laying. Smiling, she sat down next to Scorpius on the bench close to the river, taking the cup of tea he offered her.
"I'm very proud of you."
"Proud of me?" He frowned, but decided to drop the topic. "So, you are afraid of heights, yet you are a very talented young keeper. How long have you been playing for Gryffindor?"
"My second year this year. They didn't need a keeper, my cousin Roxy did the job quite nicely but then she left two years ago and I took the opportunity to try out. And it worked! You don't play, do you? Well, at least not in Slytherin's team."
"I play at home, with my dad. He has been a seeker and so am I. It is rather easy, I think. I like it. Your cousin Albus is a very talented seeker."
"Oh, tell me about it." Rose rolled her eyes and took a sip from her tea. "He's brilliant and knows it! It is the only thing he is proud of about him. And I am very glad for him, I really am! But sometimes he talks about it way too much."
"Really? To me, he always seemed to be the shy kind of guy, very talented at seeking and spells."
"He is, yes. But after a game… oh well. Everyone has something which is annoying, I guess. And I am fine with his showing-off. James is worse. But I guess, being named James Potter doesn't help keeping his feet on the ground. Whereas Al… Well. Albus Severus isn't a name you want to have", she chuckled, "it sounds stupid. But I love him nevertheless. He is my favorite cousin. Male cousin."
"So who is your favorite female cousin then?"
"You really wanna know? I am sorry, Scorp, I started babbling about my family again, it always happens to me! That's why people who aren't part of my family hardly talk to me, because I always start talking about them and I do have friends, or course, who are not part of my family, but then know them all so well, so if someone doesn't know them and I still start talking about my family, ti really annoys them, so I am very sorry and I…"
"It is fine, Rosie", he interrupted her, smiling lightly, "it is fine."
"Alright then. I guess I have to say… hm… that is hard! I love Lily, she is so much fun! Roxy is really cool and I always looked up to her. Vic is so much older than I am. I think Dominique. By the way, did you know that children who play with puzzles in their childhood develop better spatial and math skills later on? Well, anyway…"
Scorpius just looked at her, rather confused. He really didn't understand why she just threw random thought into their conversation which had nothing to do with what they were talking about.
"Dominique is… she is flawless."
"She has Veela-blood, after all."
"I know, but beside the Veela, she still is flawless. I can talk to her about everything. She is in year seven now. I am really sad she will be leaving soon but well… maybe she can teach me how to be flawless."
"I do not think you need that sort of teaching. Maybe you are flawless but you have not discovered it yet."
"But that would mean I am not flawless because my flaw is, that I don't discover my flawlessness."
"You have got a point there", he said thoughtfully.
"Anyway, Scorp, you are a seeker at home? Never wanted to try out for the team?"
Rose turned her head to look at him, surprised by the sudden change of mood in his eyes and his voice, when he began to speak.
"I tried. More than once. But I was never good enough. I practiced a lot over the summer. Maybe I will try to get on the team after Christmas break. Some of our seventh-year-players want to focus on studying rather than Quidditch, so I might get a chance."
"Oh, I hope you do! Fingers crossed!" She smiled at him with that bright smile usually reserved for her family. Scorpius began to feel warm inside, welcome. As if she really liked him for who he was.
"You know, Rosie…" He lightly nudged her side, "I think we need to keep it even. You told me a secret and in return, I will tell you one, too. So, if you are ever using mine against me, I can use yours against you."
"You're a bit paranoid from time to time, Scorp. You really are… but I am fine with it. Go ahead, tell me your secret."
"I am afraid of seas or rivers or lakes where I cannot see the bottom. Never know what might attack you or on what sort of creature you might step."
Rose giggled. "That's a nice secret. We should do it every time we meet up to talk. Tell each other one secret about ourselves. That would be nice. So we get to know each other quickly. And I don't have to meet you on the Astronomy Tower again!" She laughed her gorgeous bright laugh, which made her hazel eyes shine like amber. Did he just notice a small blue spot right in her left eye? He could have sworn it wasn't there before.