Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Thank you catwomannnn1 and Guest for your reviews! Honestly, Uni is insane recently, so I really can't say just how much I love it when I see that someone's liked the chapter enough to leave a review!

I'd just like to apologise for being late with this chapter! I promise it won't happen again :'(

Enjoy!

Chapter 17: Life is (maybe) Hard

Life isn't actually that hard.

Well, that's what Scorpius was feeling at least for the past few days. Nothing makes the spirit buoyant like maybe having a job, and a job you actually like, and no homework, and finally being seventeen!

Ask him again at the end of next week, however, and he might not feel quite the same. Teenage emotions had a tendency to change like that. Why? Scorpius would never know. Joshua insisted with many rolled eyes that it was something to do with science. But Scorpius swore that science was based on the doctrine of rationality - and teenage life was absolutely not rational.

Case in point: Rose Granger-Weasley.

Oh Merlin, she was walking towards him. Scorpius' heart leapt into his throat. She wasn't stopping. His heart beat faster. This might actually be the end of him.

"Scorpius, can I have a word?" She bit her lip, adding a quieter "please?" As an extra afterthought. He'd never seen her look this nervous - not except those first few exams in their first year. She'd almost chewed a hole through her lip out of sheer panic - and then, of course, scored 110%.

Scorpius nodded, gave a wave goodbye to Albus, and lead Rose through the dark tunnels of the dungeons into one of the weird little foyers that only Slytherins seemed to know about.

"Where are we?"

"In the dungeons. It was probably something pretty nefarious once."

Even though as he looked at her, and his heart beat like a hyperactive mermaid's tail, he couldn't quite bring himself to slough off the frosty tone he took. He couldn't forget how she treated his entire family history like it was nothing at all. Because it was something. It was something to him. No; it was everything. And he'd never go back into his family home in the same way again. Rose was part of the reason why.

She took his silence exactly as implied, and simply took a few steps over to one of the ancient-looking crates, perching on it.

"Well."

He looked up at her, leaning against the cool stone wall as he did.

She coughed awkwardly before carrying on. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, is all I wanted to say."

And he'd never heard her sound so awkward before, either. Today, she appeared before him as the Rose Granger-Weasley Albus had described from his childhood. Before he even got a chance to think of a response, she stuffed the silence full of explanations.

"I didn't think about what reading all those things might do to you, and I didn't want to see you hurt or upset. I didn't mean to say anything about your mum because I know now that she didn't do anything. And I think I was wrong about your dad too, but - but I didn't mean to hurt you so much in the process! I just couldn't bear to see you so ignorant and I guess that's really my own fault and my own problem, but I couldn't stand by when I saw that there was something so glaringly obvious that you didn't know!"

She stopped in a panting daze.

"For someone who is so desperate to not be like her mother, you sure do sound like her sometimes."

Rose looked at him questioningly. "You really do pick out the strangest things, Scorpius."

He couldn't resist the slight pull at the edges of his lips. But it was quashed not a second later. "Wait a minute. You - You said that you know now/ that my mother was good."

"Oh, Uh, Yes. I suppose I did." She wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Rose, come on." He resisted grinding his teeth. That was a habbit he hadn't picked up in years.

This was not the reality he imagined when thinking about what life could be if Rose Granger-Weasley would talk to him: sitting in the bowels of the dungeon, discussing the finer points of semantics.

Life is hard.

"Well, after I left you I did some stuff and saw some people, and then the next morning I went to the library. I wanted to know more, since I decided that I couldn't trust all that the newspapers alone nor my family alone told me. So I contacted Teddy's gran, and a few others along the way to find out a bit more..."

Sheepishly, she trailed off, and produced several letters from the inner pocket of her robes.

One was one old looking, slightly yellowed parchment set with deep plum ink. Another was on a crisp white parchment with almost-black crimson ink, and the third was a familiar, heavy envelope.

He narrowed his eyes at the sight before him. Was she serious?

"I know. I'm sorry. I just— I just had to know! And now I do know, and I know that your mother was a wonderful woman, and that perhaps I was wrong, too."

"You owelled my father?"

She silently nodded.

"And he replied?"

She nodded with marginally more enthusiasm.

He paused, and the silence stretched between them. "Maybe next time, be okay with not knowing immediately."

She bit her lips and her eyebrows drew into a tight frown. She nodded, wordlessly and slipped the letters back into the pocket of her robes. "I know. I'm terrible."

He cocked a sly smile for the first time in a while. "Not terrible. Incouragable? Endless thirst for knowledge? More curious than a Niffler?"

"They're all the same way of saying one thing."

"No they're not - they're nicer/."

She smiled, too, and fiddled with her hair again, bringing it all over her left shoulder in a fiery cascade.

"Can you forgive me?"

Scorpius deliberated aloud. "I'll think about it," his opportunistic mind yelled at him, "if you help me with Transfiguration."

She nodded before it looked like she'd even registered what had just happened.

"Okay."

—

Scorpius didn't often lie to his friends. In fact, if he had to give you a list of times he'd lied to them about something remotely substantial, he could probably give you just three examples. That one time when he lied to Albus about exactly how much he'd told Alfie about his incident with the Unicorn dung, then the time when he lied to Joshua that Max wasn't getting off with Sylvia Alliyev in the top floor of the West Tower, and the time he lied to Max on Alfie's behalf about Alfie absolutely having slept with Sabrina.

So when he lied to his friends and left them before the common room fire in the evening, Scorpius's stomach fizzled uncomfortably. It fizzled all the way to the Owlery where, upon seeing Rose sitting there in a jumper that slid slightly off her shoulder, it plummeted to the ground.

"Oh, hi Scorpius." She tucked a luck of hair over her ear.

"Oh- Uh yeah."

And there was his stomach again, rising up through his throat at a disastrously rapid pace.

"Are you just going to stand there?"

"N-no." He exhaled a deep breath. "No. Sorry."

She frowned at him curiously. "Alright. Come over here, let's begin."

And so the pair of them spent the next hour or so going over and over transfiguration spells until finally, thankfully, Scorpius could correctly turn a candle into a mouse and back again.

"You know, it would be almost funny if it weren't so depressing." Scorpius rapped his wand on the little purple, waxy mouse scurrying around the top of the cardboard box between them.

Rose gave a little smile. "Yeah. I know. They really do teach us all the weird spells in Transfiguration. Not like Potions, for example, where we learn about actually useful potions to make."

"Oh yes, I can always find a use for my Veritaserum," Scorpius said with a dry smile.

They had recently begun preparation for their first Potions test of the year - to make a batch of Veritaserum. How Slughorn proposed to test it, Scorpius had no idea, but it took three weeks to mature and that was the exact length of their Christmas holidays so he supposed that it was a perfect fit. The only downside was that it took four weeks to mature - and that meant four weeks of tending to the potion at odd hours.

"Well, I suppose it can be helpful sometimes."

"How nefarious, Granger-Weasley." He smirked over the box at her, and was glad to see his work rewarded with a slight blush.

"Whatever."

"Did you want to practice potions in here?"

She considered it for a moment, before giving a consenting nod.

"But what should we make?"

"Well," Scorpius tapped the scurrying mouse and watched it solidify back into a satisfactory candle, "the next two tests are on Polyjuice potion and the new Amortentia method. We could do either one of them - although Polyjuice potion might be a bit more difficult."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the ingredients are harder to get. And it's not exactly like we can just steal* from Slughorn."

She gave him a confused look. "Why not?"

"Because that'd be stealing*."

"But stealing for good."

"Nope. Pretty sure he wouldn't take kindly to it. And he's done a lot for me, too."

She rolled her eyes and muttered 'Slytherin'.

He refrained from pointing out that she sounded like a dumb Gryffindor. No one needed that argument right now.

"Anyway, do you want to practice Amortentia or something else?"

She chewed on her bottom lip. "It's not like full-blown Amortentia in the state we'd be making it to, is it?"

"No, it's much weaker."

She hummed. "Okay then. Let's make that one."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "Positive. And then I can kick your arse on the next Potions exam with the knowledge you inadvertently imparted on me."

"I could say the same about you for the next Transfiguration test, too!"

—

Days went by and, as Scorpius came up with more and more ludicrous ways to excuse himself in the evening and Rose turned up either way too late or way too early, he found himself looking forward to it more and more. Because in Rose, he found a different kind of friend. She wasn't like Albus or Max or Alfie or Joshua, she was just... different. She could say one word and he would understand the whole sentence; do one half of an action and he would do the pair. It was, quite frankly, weird. He didn't want to sound soppy, but it wasn't like anything he'd ever experienced before. And, he wasn't entirely sure it was romantic.

The thought scared him a little bit. Rose was treating him just like she treated all her other friends. He was terrified that he was going to end up just like any other boy she was 'mates' with. He didn't want to be a mate. He didn't even like that word.

He watched her over the steam of the Amortentia one night.

The potion inside the pot was brewing midnight purple at this stage - staying dark before increments of pearl were added and then the additions from Plantastrode to thin the potion to a higher degree of liquidity.

"Hey, Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"Am I your friend?"

She looked up from the potion suddenly.

"What?"

"Are we friends?"

He didn't even know what was coming over him to ask this so out of the blue, so insistently.

"Yeah. Even my cousins all accept you."

He couldn't help but be touched. "And that's it?"

She broke off eye contact. "I couldn't possibly know what you're talking about."

And so the thought hung with him.

—

Breakfast the next morning had Scorpius with a funny kind of hangover. Except, obviously, it wasn't a hangover. He hadn't even been drinking.

"Letter for you, Scorpius."

Alfie dangled a letter encased in heavy white parchment in front of his face.

He grabbed it out of the air with a nod of thanks to Alfie, his mouth full of cereal.

"Does your dad hand-make these enveloped or what?"

Scorpius nodded. "Yeah, I think he does y'know."

It was a strange conclusion he'd come to in his fourth year. He'd been to his dad's office when he was young; he remembered there being oddly pristine, thick parchment on his desk. He'd never seen any parchment like it - mundane a thing to notice as it was.

He slit open the top with his wand and pulled the letter out. It was only short, and written in more harried handwriting than usual.

Scorpius,

I'm afraid I must be brief, but I wanted to tell you the good news, anyway.

My bill has been successful! The Minister has deemed it acceptable to put before the Wizengamott, and this may be done just after Christmas.

Soon, we may finally see the fruition of what we've been waiting for! The burial of the past, once and for all, with the Astoria Law.

Love,

Your father.

"What is it?" Joshua noticed his vacant grin with a keen eye. It was rare he even noticed them at all these days, What with being so smitten with Amelie.

"My father's bill is going before the Wizengamott soon. It's the one he's been working on for years."

"Which one's that again?"

"The Astoria Law." A row of blank faces met him. "The one with the mandatory Muggle Studies."

"Oh, right, yeah. I remember that." Max swirled the pumpkin juice around in his goblet. "I'm not a fan of Muggle Studies, but I get it."

"I think it's great, Scorpius. Pass on your congratulations to your father for me."

Scorpius' smile faltered for a moment. Perhaps it wasn't Muggle Studies they needed - perhaps they needed to learn about the war.

He pushed the thought aside. There was no use thinking about all that, not now. Not when so much good was happening if he only pushed the past aside.

"Sure." Scorpius folded up the letter and tucked it neatly into an inner pocket of his robes.

Just then, they heard a loud voice echoing from the entrance hall. "Fine! I didn't like you that much anyway!"

And lo and behold, Poppy Creevey came stomping into the Great Hall, utterly unashamed at her outburst almost silencing the hall, and promptly sat down amidst her friends at the Slytherin table, where she burst into tears.

"Well. That'll be James." Albus rolled his eyes.

"Took him bloody ages to break up with her," Max said, darting his eyes down the table to her.

"Oh calm down, you can't go out with this crying girl, too."

Max rolled his eyes at Joshua and said through gritted teeth, "wasn't planning it."

"At least he finally did it," Alfie said with a small sigh.

"Yeah. I feel bad for her though." Scorpius couldn't help but watch as a series of friends gathered around her, and tissues flying here and there.

"I'll go and have a word later," Alfie commented.

"You really do know everyone, don't you?"

"Well, looks like as one potter loses a girlfriend, another potter gains one."

Scorpius regretted it almost immediately. His stomach clutched tightly.

"What?" Lydia's friend, Evie Lee looked over.

"What?" Scorpius replied just as quickly, pretending as though really, Evie has heard it all in her mind.

Evie went back to patting Poppy's back. Albus, however, had his death glare remained quite firmly on Scorpius for quite some time to come.

"Albus, please stop giving me the hump. I said I'm sorry already - and she probably doesn't even know!"

"Know what?" Rose asked, her voice floating before her to announce her presence.

"Oh-Uh.. nothing. Nothing." He spluttered, and he could almost feel Albus' fiery eyes rolling a perfect circle behind his back.

"Tell me later." She declared, before wandering off to stand in support with her friends.

Albus raised his eyebrows in a way that could only beckon an exchange of information.

Scorpius huffed. "You forgive me, I'll tell you what that was about."

"Fine. You are forgiven."

"I can almost feel the warmth."

The got up and left for their next class - Alchemy. "Rose and I have been meeting up in the evenings to practice together."

"That's the worst euphemism I think I've ever heard."

"No! Well, that's kind of the problem..."

"Oh?"

"I think I might be just her friend."

"Yeah, no."

"Oh, c'mon!"

"I'm not telling. That's not how it's supposed to go." Albus said sniffily.

"Are you still angry with me?"

"Nah."

Scorpius wasn't convinced, but let it go as they traipsed further into the dungeons, side by side.

Absoltely shattered, the five boys trudged back to the common room that evening after a nice roast dinner.

"Have you got a plan, Albus?"

"I was planning on just asking the question..." he divulged, suddenly shrinking back with the realisation that there might actually be planning involved in asking someone out.

"Oh, Albus! You've always got to have a plan with these things!" Joshua gave him a slap on the back before stepping ahead to claim his place lounging across the longest of their usual sofas.

"How come you two don't?"

"Sure we do," Max said, kicking Joshua's legs away so he could sit down. "We just have one plan that we reuse. Not like we use it often, though."

"Do tell."

"So, first thing's first you make sure you've got to at least first base with them."

Alfie gave a badly concealed sigh of derision.

"Then," Joshua took over as Max gave Alfie a pointed stare, "you take them either somewhere meaningful to the two of you, or just to the Yesult Tower. Well, as long as no one else is occupying it."

"And that it isn't bloody freezing. That usually happens in December though - you should be fine for now."

Joshua nodded in agreement. "True. Anyway, after that, you say something meaningful and voila, you've just asked them to be your girlfriend."

"Oh. Okay. That's not too bad."

"Yeah, how's your 'meaningful speech' coming along?"

"Fine, actually."

Scorpius had no doubts. Albus was actually good at being meaningful when he really meant it - if a little rough around the edges sometimes.

"I have full faith in you, Albus."

Albus smiled warmly at Alfie.

"Yeah, I do as well." Albus eyes Max suspiciously. "Seriously. You obviously like Lydia a lot."

"And you have done for years."

Scorpius nodded along wordlessly. Albus already knew he had Scorpius' full backing and faith all the way - he didn't need to reiterate it now.

"And, I'm pretty sure she really likes you." Joshua declared. They looked at him suspiciously. "Amelie maybe let it slip... one time..."

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"I was busy with..."

"Amelie?" Alfie supplied, helpfully,

"Chill out, Al, it's not like it makes a difference!"

"Only to my entire nervous system!"

"It's fine, Al. We all know that she likes you as much as you like her, we just didn't want to ruin it for you."

"Touché."

"What?" Scorpius frowned at the now smirking Albus. A smirking Potter was never a good sign. "Anyway, I've got to head over to the—"

"—library." He and Albus chorused together.

"Actually Scorpius, I might go with you." Joshua declared.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Right."

Albus was now badly concealing snorts of laughter.

"What?"

"No. Nothing." Albus could barely get the words out.

"He's.." Scorpius couldn't resist the smile that came to his lips. "Fine, I'm not really going to the library."

Max gave a loud gasp. "I knew you were the Hogsmeade dealer!"

"What? No." Sheepishly, he peered at the plush rug on the deep, dark floorboards beneath them. "I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to make a big deal, but, Rose and I have been practising spells together in the evenings."

"Oh, Merlin. We have to teach this boy the proper vernacular." Max ran his fingertips down the bridge of his nose.

"No. Seriously. We are practising spells together."

Max and Joshua looked at each other in despair. Even Alfie winced a bit.

"I can't tell which is more tragic."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Either way, I'm off. I'll be back later."

"Alright. Stay safe - don't let your spells go off too early!"

—-

When he reached the Owlery, Rose wasn't there yet. And so he was left to wonder the tall, circular room alone. It reminded him of the Yesult Tower - but enlarged, taller, and with much more dust. And this room had probably seen far fewer tears, swearing, and laughter throughout the years - not to mention much less clandestine behaviour.

He ambled over to the cauldron full of Amortentia, bubbling away on the top of a wooden crate they'd rolled a length of this weird muggle stuff Rose declared was called 'linoleum' across. It'd been sitting rolled up behind a few of the other crates - Scorpius reckoned it was probably a leftover from Dumbledore's mad days at the castle.

He lifted off the lid. It smelt a lot more powerful today. As though it were mid-June, and the plump red roses, grown obese on water and nutrisious soil, were growing inside the very cauldron itself. And there was the grass, the green, green grass the grew alongside the dangerous, beautiful flowers. And for some reason, as though he were walking down a sunny, Parisian street, he could smell fresh loaves of bread.

Catching himself falling towards the deep purple liquid, he clamped the lid back on. No good ever came of drinking under-brewed Amortentia, that much he knew. If you were lucky, it might cause short-lived delusions, but at its worst, it could do some serious, lasting damage. Love was a powerful emotion, and playing with it was even more dangerous.

The door opened behind him.

It was Rose, notebook in one hand, wand in the other.

"Sorry - Quidditch. I barely had time to shower," he pointed to her hair, still wet from the water and all tied up in a cascade of ruby red curls behind her head, "were you looking at the potion?"

He found himself unable to speak, and so settled for a simple nod instead.

"Okay." She cast a suspicious look his way, but came to stand next to the crate with him nonetheless. Pulling the lid off, she unleashed the powerful fragrance again, and Scorpius stepped back from the potion before it got him a second time. He watched as her face grew into a look of surprise, then filled to vacancy, and then she started to be pulled as though by some invisible ropes towards the cauldron.

"Let's not do that." He quickly intervened, taking the lid from her hands and slipping it between her face and the cauldron rim.

"Why?" She asked, breathlessly, "it smelt so nice. Like, like shoe polish and..."

"Yeah, I'm sure. But bad things have happened to people who do what you were about to, so maybe don't, okay?"

He walked her away from the potion-topped crate and sat her down on one of the two chairs they'd recovered from the jumble of items with the help of Alys.

"Why don't we talk about something totally un-romantic instead. Get your mind off—" he paused with an ungainly expression and pressed out the word, "whoever."

"Oh."

"My father."

Character returned to Rose's eyes. "Oh." She wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, that'll do it."

"Great!" Scorpius was glad - people had said some crazy shit about his dad to him over the years. "That letter he sent you - what was in it."

"Oh. Yes, well it's been a while. Let me think."

"It's been four days."

"Four days? Gosh, sixth year really does trail by."

He could tell she was stalling, but he let it slide.

She pulled out a white slip of parchment from her robes, reluctantly. "Here." She showed him the few neat rows of writing, crammed together on the little slip of paper. His father never wrote a letter like that to him - it was always elegantly organised and immaculately spaced. "It wasn't much, really. I just thought that I needed to contact him after all..." she paused, desperately searching for the right word, "that."

Scorpius remained silent. He was fine with Rose, but this was still a bit of a tender spot for him.

"He just told me in brief about where to find the correct records about his imprisonment and his family's crimes."

Scorpius frowned. They were his family, too, not just his father's.

"He mostly talked about your mother, though. The majority of it was praising her, actually."

"That's because she was amazing,"

Rose looked at him, and said nothing. Scorpius knew exactly why. What could you say? How did you address the dead whom you've never met? And how do you properly qualify how amazing such a woman like that was?

"I'm grateful to your father, anyway."

Scorpius nodded, and looked away. He just knew that lingering on this topic of conversation was a terrible idea. There was so much past, it was so fraught with emotion, it was bound to tear them apart again soon.

Besides, it was painful, and that nightmare had been haunting Scorpius more viciously than usual.

—

Scorpius and Albus lined up next to each other again for apparition lessons. Alfie was with them, this time. And although late, Joshua also decided to grace the four with his presence.

"Amelie says we should spend time apart sometimes."

So lessons began, with Mildred Spans giving them reedy instructions from the front of the hall. But it's not like it was instruction they needed, now. It was just practice, practice, practice. Although, when she brought up the possibility of splinching, that was slightly terrifying.

"What if you left your dick behind?" Max whispered concernedly, And was roundly left with a series of strained winces.

Scorpius knuckled back down into practising. He knew that he could do this - of course he could. Well, in theory that was. Doing it in practice was proving remarkably difficult. Besides, he thought, as he heard a sharp pop next to him and a woozy Albus reappeared, if Albus could do it, so could he.

He closed his eyes, focusing only on the hoop before him. He cleared his mind of anything but that hoop. Then, he knuckled down, got into position, and span.

Pop!

He opened his eyes in alarm. Joshua was on his arse, in Scorpius's hoop. Clearly, he'd overshot and gone two hoops forwards, not just one.

"Oh my god." He drawled, letting the Muggle-speak he so rarely used come free. "Oh my god. I feel terrible."

Max gave him a hand up and Scorpius watched it all, confused. Joshua was basically a muggle born - how could he do this, and Scorpius couldn't?!

"Alright there?"

Joshua nodded delicately. "Feels like my intestines are looped round my lungs.

"I have no idea what that means, but it sounds gross."

"They should really teach you all basic skills here." Joshua sighed, and Scorpius turned back around.

He spent the rest of the hour trying, and trying, and trying. Alfie managed to make it into the back of his hoop, and Max, irritatingly, popped perfectly into the middle of his. But Scorpius was just standing and twirling there, not even able to move an inch.

He saw the clock at the front of the hall. Just five minutes of class left. He was so frustrated with himself - he could do everything - why couldn't he do this!?

Trying again just for the sake of trying, he got into position and span

Pop!

He felt like he was being crammed into a Quidditch broom case, and he couldn't breathe. His eyes burned and his stomach growled and then, finally—

Fresh air.

Taking a heaving breath, he leant over on his knees and took a look around.

He'd done it! He was in the other hoop!

Albus and Alfie made cheering noises, and Scorpius looked down at the ground.

"Well done Scorpius and all, but—"

Scorpius looked up to see Joshua pointing at the air. There, floating nonchalantly, was a tiny little fingernail. From his left little finger, to be precise.

"Oh fuck," Scorpius swore under his breath, and went to retrieve it.

Max called over Madame Spans, and she was greeted with the sight of Scorpius trying to fix his fingernail back on.

"Off to the Hospital Wing - Madam Clair will know what to do with you."

Grinning sheepishly, Scorpius walked off out of the hall, fingernail cradled in his hand. Oh, Merlin, that felt weird.

He pushed open the doors to the Great Hall, and the midday winter sunshine bathed his face.

Yeah, so maybe life isn't really that hard, after all.

So this one time, my friend dropped a shot-put (it's a really heavy ball people throw in the UK for sport... I don't know why...) on his finger, and it cut the edge of his finger off and the nail never grew back on that part. Honestly, it looks slightly strange and it's was also pretty gross at the time. Blood - everywhere. Ewww

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