"Why are you so happy?"
Rose was sitting in the Great Hall, eating lunch, on Monday afternoon. Now she froze, her fork halfway to her mouth, and stared at her cousin and best friend Dominique Weasley.
"What do you mean?" she asked innocently.
Dom gave her a penetrating look. "You've been grinning ever since you woke up."
"No I haven't," said Rose, rearranging her features into a sombre expression.
Dom raised her eyebrows. "We just spent a whole lesson pruning Venomous Tentaculas and you were smiling the whole way through. That's not normal."
Rose blushed. She really didn't think she had been that obvious. "I'm just in a good mood," she said lightly. "Is that a crime?"
"Don't be stupid," snapped Dom, who in contrast was looking positively glum. Rose supposed she should ask what was wrong, but she had a feeling it was probably to do with Calvin Davies, and she wasn't sure she could stand any negative relationship news right now. "You were in an absolutely foul mood last week, and now all of a sudden you're chirpy as pixies. What happened?"
"Nothing," she said hurriedly, taking a bite of her pudding to avoid having to elaborate. When she was sure Dom wasn't looking, she chanced a glance over to the Slytherin table, her eyes quickly picking out Scorpius' shock of blonde hair. He was leaning with his elbows on the table, listening as Albus spoke animatedly about something. As though sensing her gaze, he turned his head infinitesimally so that their eyes met. Rose felt her cheeks heat and her heartbeat quicken in a now familiar response to his expression, and grinned down at her plate again.
She hadn't returned to the Gryffindor Common Room until well past midnight on Saturday night, by which time everybody had gone to bed and she was spared the task of having to explain what she had been doing for over four hours. James had thrown the predictable questions at her when she gave him back his cloak on Sunday, but she persisted with the tale that she had been using it to study in the library and after a while he had simply shrugged and let it drop. Now all she had to endure was Dom's suspicion over her happiness.
She had to admit, she had been acting quite a lot more cheerful than normal all day. As much as she tried to repress her emotions, she couldn't seem to help the smile spreading across her face whenever she thought of Scorpius and the time they had spent together on Saturday night. She had had to stop and pinch herself several times since waking up simply to reassure herself that she wasn't dreaming.
Rose chewed thoughtfully for a few moments, distracted only by the noisy arrival of Lily and Hugo, who were late for lunch and seemed to be in the middle of yelling at each other. She was a little surprised to see them arguing again – they rarely got into fights when they were growing up, in fact she couldn't remember ever seeing them annoyed with each other before this year. Then again, it wasn't unheard of for friends to change and grow apart. She certainly had some experience in that regard, Rose thought sadly, her eyes travelling to the Ravenclaw table and picking out Lorcan, where he sat slightly apart from the other sixth-years, reading The Quibbler. They were very much proof of how friends could drift apart as they got older.
And then, thought Rose, her eyes flicking involuntarily back to the Slytherin table, sometimes the opposite could happen, and someone you thought you hated could turn out to be…well, someone you didn't hate, at any rate. She couldn't really understand just when and how her opinion of Scorpius had changed, but somewhere along the road, it had. And to think that, a few weeks ago, they had been avoiding each other at all costs. Rose's blush increased; she really had been quite stupid about it all.
Next to her, Dom gave a dramatic groan. "You know, Rose, I've been meaning to talk to you."
"Hmm?" said Rose distractedly, now observing surreptitiously as Scorpius got up and made his way out of the Great Hall with Albus at his side. They were no doubt making their way to the dungeons, for double Potions. And after that, they had their 'harmony' lesson. Rose's heart skipped a beat in nervous anticipation.
"Yes," said Dom, a note of irritation obvious in her voice. Rose forced herself to turn back to her cousin and pay attention.
"About what?"
"It's…James told me you borrowed his cloak Saturday night?"
Now she was paying attention. Rose gave Dom a half-smile, which Dom didn't return.
"Yeah," said Rose, her brain working quickly. There was no way she could tell Dom about Scorpius; for starters, her cousin wouldn't be able to keep the secret to herself. She was a notorious blabbermouth and had been since they were small children. Telling Dom was as good as telling the rest of her family, and the thought of that was enough to make the bottom drop out of Rose's stomach. She couldn't begin to imagine what her parents would say if they knew their daughter had snogged the son of their arch nemesis. Her father hadn't even been able to stomach the prospect of them being friends…
"Rose?" Dom was tapping her fork against her plate, looking very annoyed. Bright pink spots had appeared on each of her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," Rose said hurriedly. "I was just – "
"I don't believe for a second that you went to the library on Saturday night," snapped Dom. "There wasn't anything that important that it couldn't wait until Sunday morning. And I know you, Rose, you wouldn't break the rules unless it was important."
"I…" she should have known Dom would never accept the pitiful excuse she had given James; they knew each other too well. But she couldn't tell her the truth either. Dom wouldn't understand. To her Scorpius was another no-good Slytherin, the son of Death Eaters, a Malfoy. Rose could see her own attitudes reflected in her, and therefore she knew what Dom's reaction would be: shock, outrage, and then a determined campaign to end it.
And there was another reason she couldn't tell anyone, thought Rose hollowly, as she stared down at her plate to avoid Dom's furious glare. She couldn't risk people knowing the truth because…what if nothing else happened? It was only one night, and she had no idea what any of it really meant. She didn't want to reveal their relationship, and go through all of the drama that would create, only for it to end in nothing. No, much better to keep it secret. That way, if it all did fizzle out, nobody had to know…
The bell rang, loudly, shattering Rose's thoughts. She jerked her head up to see most of her fellow students getting up and making their way leisurely out of the Great Hall. The leftover food on her plate had vanished, leaving it sparkling clean again.
"Rose?" Dom stood and flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder in the way she always did when she was cross. "I don't know why you won't just tell me. Were you out with Charlie?"
She had forgotten about Charlie – she hadn't spoken more than a hurried greeting to him since after the Quidditch match. "No," she shook her head quickly, blushing. "No, I wasn't."
"Then what were you doing?"
"Nothing," said Rose. "Just walking around. Anyway, can we talk about this later? I'm going to be late for class, and you know what Cauldrish is like. "
Dom looked as though she wanted to keep arguing, but Rose turned away before she could say anything else, doing up her bag and slinging it on to her shoulder in one swift motion. She and Dom walked to the Entrance Hall together, but her cousin's expression was frosty and stiff, and she stalked off up the marble stairs to Muggle Studies without bidding Rose goodbye.
"You're late."
Scorpius, who had chosen that moment to appear from behind a bookshelf, shot her a crooked grin.
"Sincerest apologies," he drawled, indulging in a mock bow before sitting down across the table, dropping his schoolbag on the ground beside him.
Her lips twitched. "I should think so. You wouldn't want me to wrongly presume all Slytherins to be incapable of punctuality, would you?"
"Absolutely not."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Rose, and folded her arms. She surveyed him closely, fixing a look of amusement on her face to hide the fluttering in her stomach. "Commiserations on your Sticking Solution, by the way."
Scorpius scowled at her. "That was your fault."
She smirked, feeling pleased with herself. It was true, she had successfully managed to distract Scorpius for long enough during Potions that he had added nearly twice as much Dragon liver as was required. As a result, his Sticking Solution ended up more closely resembling a cauldron full of rubber jelly. The expression on Professor Cauldrish's face as he surveyed their products at the end of the lesson had been utterly priceless, and well worth the effort of sneaking around Albus.
Scorpius leant back in his chair, still glaring at her. "At least my potion didn't need to be vanished before the entire class died of asphyxiation."
"That was different," she snapped, feeling her cheeks heat. "I was sick!"
He didn't say anything, but simply raised his eyebrows.
"Whatever," she said hurriedly, fishing for a different topic. "Shall we start?"
"Start what?" he asked, smirking suggestively. His foot bumped hers underneath the table.
She blushed, understanding his implication. "Our lesson," she said pointedly, folding her hands in her lap and taking a purposeful breath to try and stop her thoughts from wandering. "Tell me about Slytherin."
"What do you want to know?" asked Scorpius lazily. "That we're all blood-sucking Vampires who plot to take over the wizarding world in our spare time? That we torture Muggleborns and House-Elves for fun?"
She glared at him. "Don't be a jerk. I only meant what's it – what's it like down there? What sort of things do you do?"
"Probably exactly the same things as you and your other precious holier-than-thou Gryffindors," he said. "Complain about homework. Play games. Lounge about. We're not Goblins, you know."
"Do you ever think about being in another House?" she asked curiously, ignoring his jibe about Goblins.
He shook his head emphatically. "Not at all. I'm a Malfoy. We belong in Slytherin."
Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh I see." She thought back to their Sorting, six years ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago. "The Sorting Hat certainly took long enough to put you there, for someone so certain that's where they were supposed to end up."
Scorpius' face darkened.
"What?" she asked, catching his reaction.
"Nothing."
"Tell me."
He glared at her, then sighed. "It wanted to put me in Gryffindor," he said, his upper lip curling as though such a suggestion was abhorrent to him. "Or Ravenclaw. Said I didn't belong in Slytherin."
Her eyebrows arched in surprise at this revelation. She had always thought of Scorpius as the quintessential Slytherin – handsome, arrogant, cold, and pureblood. "It didn't want to put you in Slytherin?"
"No."
"But…it put you there anyway?"
He stared at her in silence for a moment as though considering. "I asked it to," he replied at last. "Actually, I ordered it to. I had to be in Slytherin."
It took Rose a while to understand what Scorpius had just admitted. When she did, she gaped at him in astonishment "I…" she wasn't sure what to say. For a moment she tried to imagine how different life would have been had he been put into another House. Perhaps Gryffindor? Perhaps they would have grown up together, been…friends? Rose blinked rapidly. "Why was it so important?"
Scorpius looked at her, his expression grave. "I already told you. It's tradition."
"Well, yeah," said Rose patiently, "but I'm sure your parents would have accepted it if you belonged in another House. I mean, my family's totally okay with Al being in Slytherin."
He gave her a sceptical look.
"Alright, maybe not totally okay," she amended. "But they've embraced it, and that's all that matters."
"That's because they've got dozens of other children to carry on their Gryffindor heritage," answered Scorpius. "Weasleys breed like rabbits, and they're almost all in Gryffindor. I'm the only Malfoy. You think Al's parents would have been so accepting if he was their only son?"
"Al's a Potter, not a Weasley," she pointed out.
Scorpius smirked. "The Potters are honorary Weasleys."
She rolled her eyes.
"Besides, I like being in Slytherin."
"Oh yeah?" said Rose, irritated by his typical arrogance. "And why is that?"
"Because Slytherin's don't mess around." He leaned towards her, resting his elbows on the table. A lock of blonde hair fell across his eyes. "They know what they want, and they don't mind admitting it. Unlike Gryffindors, who want something but are too afraid to do anything about it, because of some misguided sense of honour."
She blushed, but didn't break eye contact with him. "And what is it that you want?"
He smirked again as his foot began to travel up her leg, underneath her robe.
"Stop it!" she hissed, yanking her leg away and diving for her bag so that he wouldn't see how beet red she had become. Her fingers wrapped around a heavy Arithmancy book, and she seized on it, hauling it out and slamming it on the table with purpose.
He took one look at the large tomb between them and clicked his tongue. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" she said, opening it at random and running her finger down the page.
"It looks like you're engaging in self-torture rather than enjoying my company."
"Prat," she scoffed, pointing her wand at her bag and summoning her water bottle without speaking the charm.
Scorpius gave a chuckle. "Show-off," he retaliated. "But it's alright, I'm impressed. To think of a Weasley mastering nonverbal spells at all is really quite incredible."
Rose glared at him. "Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Take ridiculous digs at my family like that," she said, blotting her quill with too much force and nearly puncturing the scroll of parchment.
"It's my responsibility to act in a way befitting of a Malfoy, and a Slytherin," said Scorpius coolly.
"Oh, and it's befitting to act like you're better than everybody else is it?" She lowered her voice as Madam Beauvoir floated past and shot them a disapproving glare.
Scorpius waited until the librarian was gone before nodding. "Yes."
She wasn't sure whether she wanted to hit him or kiss him. She settled for rolling her eyes again. "You sound like your father."
Now it was his turn to scowl. "How do you know what my father sounds like?"
"I've heard enough from my parents," she said snidely, then regretted it, because his expression had clouded and he was looking less than pleased with her. She didn't know why she always said such harsh things to him – except that he seemed to have a knack for pushing her buttons. She had clearly inherited her father's lack of tact.
There was a long, awkward silence before she decided to make peace. "Anyway…how about we, um, get started on Arithmancy."
He ignored her for a while until it seemed he couldn't help himself. "We?"
"I believe you take Arithmancy as well," she said sarcastically. "Or have you decided to drop it? I know how difficult it must be for you, trying to – "
"How do you know I haven't already done it?"
She glared at him. "We only got it on Friday."
"And I believe today is Monday."
"So you've already done it?" she asked incredulously. They had been given three feet of complicated equations to work through, without the aid of magical calculators. To think that Scorpius had already completed it only made her feel worse. She had spent her Sunday reminiscing about Saturday night.
It looked as though he was trying not to laugh at her.
"What's so funny?" she snapped.
He shook his head. "No."
"No what?"
"No, I haven't done it." He shot her a broad grin.
Rose blushed. "Oh." She fiddled with her quill for a moment. "Very funny."
"Why thank you."
"Let's get started then," she said briskly. "Since Malfoys are so superior, you shouldn't need my help at all." She ignored the fact that he had never asked for her assistance in their entire time at school. Prat.
"But you can't do it now."
"Why not?" she asked, not liking the gleam in his eyes.
"We're supposed to be talking about House rivalries and harmony, aren't we?" Scorpius said. "Isn't that the whole idea?"
"Yes, but…"
"But what?"
"I just thought," she chewed her lip, "that perhaps…we shouldn't."
"Shouldn't what?"
"Shouldn't talk about our Houses."
He blinked at her for a moment. "I'm not sure I follow."
"Well, by talking about our Houses aren't we merely emphasising the differences between us," she explained, looking at the page in front of her to avoid eye contact. "Seeing as every time I bring up Slytherin you seem keen to remind me that you're not all that different, which is what McGonagall wants us to believe anyway, wouldn't it be better to get to know ourselves without bringing Houses into it?"
There was a pause, while she thumbed idly through the book, aware of Scorpius' eyes on her. "I guess…that makes sense," he said at last. "So you want to do homework instead?"
She nodded again. "Arithmancy, to be precise. I thought that was something we both have in common. It'll be like we were…study buddies, or something."
"Study buddies…" Scorpius made a face. "Sounds like something a Weasley would suggest."
She kicked him under the table, drawing satisfaction when she heard him hiss. "Now I am going to study," she said haughtily, lowering her eyes to distract herself from thinking of other things they could be doing together. "I suggest you do the same."
Scorpius sighed, but rummaged through his bag nevertheless, eventually extracting a quill and parchment. Rose focused on the book in front of her, even though nothing of what she was reading was actually registering at all. In truth she'd never felt less like studying, but it seemed better than the alternative, which was arguing and a whole lot of sexual tension. It was a pity, she thought idly, that they couldn't arrange to have these lessons in private. But there wasn't anywhere they could go that wouldn't look suspicious, and she didn't think the Headmistress would appreciate the sentiment.
So involved was she in her daydreams of hidden classrooms and activities that didn't involve talking or studying that it took her several seconds for her to realise Scorpius' foot was sliding slowly up her leg.
"Stop it," she hissed again, giving him a glare but unable to prevent the small grin which belied her anger. "We're supposed to be studying." Never mind the fact that she hadn't turned a page or made a note at all since they began.
"My mistake," drawled Scorpius, leaning back in his chair and stretching luxuriously. Rose forced her rather unruly thoughts away from how gorgeous he looked; instead, she reached out and kicked him once more underneath the table.
"Ow," he said lazily. "I thought you said to stop?"
"That one was retribution."
He grinned at her, before ducking his head and scratching something on his piece of parchment. She craned her neck rather unsubtly to see what it was, but he shifted the position of his arm so that it was blocking her view.
"What's that?" she asked curiously.
"Nothing much."
"Let me see."
"No."
She frowned at him, annoyed at his secretive behaviour. "Be like that then," she huffed, folding her arms and staring resentfully off to the side, where a young Hufflepuff student happened to be walking past with an armful of books. A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she bit her lip.
"You remember that animation?"
Scorpius stopped writing and looked up at her.
"The one you made…of me," she continued, when he said nothing. "With the books."
"Yes."
"Why did you do it?"
He shrugged. "You were bugging me."
"It wasn't very nice," she persisted stubbornly.
"Do you want me to apologise?"
Something about this question irritated her. "Not if you don't mean it."
He shot her a crooked smile and bent his head again, returning his attention back to the parchment. Rose stared at the top of his blonde head for a moment, her eyes narrowed.
"So you're not going to apologise then?"
He ignored her.
"You know even if someone annoys you, you shouldn't make fun of them like that."
"I wasn't making fun of you."
"Yes, you were." She wasn't sure why she couldn't let the subject drop, except that his responses were not satisfying her. The corners of Scorpius' mouth were pulled down in a frown now. Good.
He sighed and put his quill back in its inkwell. "Is this about Saturday night?" he asked.
Grand, now he just had to go and bring that up. He certainly knew how to make her blush, thought Rose bitterly.
"No."
"Really?" he lifted one eyebrow sceptically. "Because I think it is. I think you're regretting yourself."
She stared at him. "What makes you think that?"
"You tell me?" he said, returning once more to his parchment, adding a few more strokes with his quill, and then leaning back with a satisfied expression. "You want to know why I drew it?"
"Yes."
"Because you wouldn't let me draw you how I really want to."
She could feel her heart rate quicken in response to his loaded words. "I don't…what do you mean?"
Scorpius opened his mouth, but then looked sideways at the large clock adorning the library wall and closed it again. He rolled up the scroll of parchment tightly and tucked it into his bag, before standing up.
She followed his gaze and saw to her surprise that nearly three quarters of an hour had passed since they had been sitting there. "Are you leaving?" she asked, trying to ignore the surge of disappointment she felt. "We've still got fifteen minutes to go."
He smiled at her with genuine warmth, and she felt her heart flutter. "Warrington wants a team debriefing before practise starts. Can't argue with the Captain."
"Okay, well…see you next Monday then."
He leant towards her under the pretext of doing up his bag. "Saturday night?"
She blushed, and gave him a tremulous smile. A sudden lightness swept through her, and she felt as though she might simply float away. "Okay," she said, in a voice so soft she barely heard it.
Scorpius nodded once, and straightened. "See you then, Rose," he said, before turning and walking away.