He opened his eyes blearily, instantly blinded by the bright sunshine coming through the leaves of the tree by his room.
Wait, what?
He looked around the room, and then everything came back to him in an instant – he was at the Burrow, visiting Al and Rose. They had been playing Quidditch, just for fun – James and Fred's idea…and he had fallen from what seemed like a hundred feet above the ground. Fun, indeed.
"Scorp, you're okay! You have no idea how scared I was…" Rose's worried voice came from across the room. Where did she come from? He shook his head to clear it and swung his legs over the bed, wincing at the soreness.
She came over in all her cow-patterned pajama-ed glory, with a Healer-esque look on her face. Frankly, she looked adorable. No, gorgeous. Maybe both.
She gave him a small smile. "Right, so I'm just going to check your reflexes, and your eyes…" She tapped his leg with some weird muggle device. His leg jerked of its own accord. "Do you have any pain?"
"Er, not much…does muscle soreness count?"
"Nah, that's normal. Now I'll just check your eyes…"
He was fairly sure his face flared as red as her hair when she came close to his face, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Well, you seem perfectly fine!" she said happily, sounding extremely relieved. "I'll just call Gran and ask her if anything else needs to be done. And then I'll call Al. Okay?"
"Right," he said. He felt strangely upset as she left him alone, walking as gracefully as ever out of the room.
As he waited for what seemed like a lifetime, he pondered his feelings for Rose. He always felt like he was on cloud nine whenever she complimented him, but surely that was normal. That's what it felt like to have friends, right? He always looked for her in a room full of people…because her hair was so bright, you could practically see it from space! Unless said room was full of Weasleys.
And sure, he found her pretty. Who wouldn't? He loved her vivid hair, her round face, the little freckles sprinkled across her nose, her unique heterochromatic eyes, and the way they sparkled when she teased him, the way she walked—
Well, he thought. So maybe he did have feelings for her. Great. He wondered how Al would react, not to mention Rose's dad.
Merlin.
Whatever was he going to do about it?