Rose and Scorpius Scraps
Title: Maturity and All Its Little Gifts
Rating: G
Pairing: scorpius/rose
Prompts: lots
Summary: scorpius and rose's relationship
AN: written for many, many months ago in hopes to actually finish a drabble table. I did not, but drcjsnider convinced me to post it anyways. For some reason it took me to another three months to go just that, so here it is. I should warn that it is un-beta'd. This is it, warts and all.
Beginnings
Eyes meet from across the cafeteria and just like that, they separate. No longing stare, no surety of a match made in Heaven. Just a casual look and then their eyes part, neither aware of what’s to happen next.
Middles
It’s his friend that initiates the whole thing. A careless wave of his wand and suddenly a bowl of mashed fruit is hurtling through the air and landing with a plop on the head of her House’s prefect, a rather upstanding girl who’d caught his friend out after hours with a girl from Hufflepuff, which had earned him a twenty point deduction from his House as well as two days worth of detention with Hagrid in the woods near the castle. While the prefect was much too shocked to do anything other than stare at the offending stream of mashed fruit making its way over her face and down her neck, her friends weren’t nearly as slow to react. The air was filled with bits of fruit and kidney pie as both Houses began to fight. Some did it for House honor, others did it for fun and some, like him, hid until the affair was over.
Ends
She was absolutely covered in bits of food by the time the teachers had broken up the food fight, but he could see by the fierceness of her eyes and fear that shown on his Housemates’ faces she’d given twice as much as she’d gotten. Though he’d had nothing to do with her victory he felt a surge of pride go through him. He imagined she’d probably used a charm of some sort or a hex not previously thought up by members of his own house. Ravenclaws were smart that way.
First
Dear Scorpius. It was the first line she could think of. Unfortunately her mind went blank after that. “Sometimes,” her mother told her, “it helps to voice your thoughts.”
“Dear-“ That sounded stupid saying it out loud. “Scorpius, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to go.”
‘Because,’ she could hear her Mum saying. ‘The first rule of persuasion, Rose, is to state your case plainly and to always make certain you have the facts to back up your side of things.’
Rose rolled her eyes. “I don’t want you to go because I like going about with you in Hogsmeade and there’s going to be a stupid empty desk next to me for the rest of the year. Someone’s going to try and sit in it and then I’m going to hex them and then I’ll have detention. Forever.”
“I don’t see why you have to go to Bulgaria anyways. We have plenty of plain looking, stupid girls here and cold castles too, thank you.” Scorpius would laugh at that. It would serve as a good start anyways.
Last
She looked at the note, creased and folded. It looked like the simplest piece of parchment with nothing to really make it noteworthy, heh, save what she’d written inside of it. Would Scorpius even care? Would she have the guts to give it him? It was all well and good to sit in one’s room and just write their hearts out on parchment, but it was something else entirely to actually deliver said heart to one’s best friend.
She’d never been brave like her dad or mum or her brother. Could she do this? She folded the note and put it in her pocket. She could, couldn’t she?
Hours
“You’re very slow,” Rose said with a glare as she rushed past him up the moving staircase. This would prove to be a rash decision as she found herself stuck where a step had once been.
“Do you need help, Weasley?” Scorpius asked without malice.
“I’m fine, thank you.” It was partially true. She had learned from past experience that the step often reappeared shortly before the staircases moved, which happened every quarter of an hour. By her watch she only had to wait another four minutes.
“You’re stuck. I’ll help if you like.”
“And what do you want in return?” Rose asked spitefully.
“A thank you will do.”
“Just doing it out of Gryffindor chivalry?”
“If I was being chivalrous I’d help you without asking for your permission.”
She could wait another three minutes. It wouldn’t kill her and besides it was a Saturday. It wasn’t as if she really had anywhere she had to be. Then again it would be rude to simply ignore Malfoy’s honest offer to help her out of the hole she was in. “Fine,” she said and held out her hand to him.
Scorpius took her hand and, gathering his strength, pulled with all his might, only to find that Rose was still stuck.
“It would appear you’re not as strong as you think,” Rose said.
“Yes,” Scorpius replied with no small amount of embarrassment.
“Well, don’t worry about me. I’ll be free in two minutes.”
“I could wait,” Scorpius said hopefully.
Rose sighed. “Fine.”
Days
Dear Rose
Since arriving in Bulgaria two days ago I’ve come to find that the country is a horrid little place. It’s much colder here than it is in England and I’ve had my pack stolen from me twice now. Almost all of the girls here are rather hideous and everyone I’ve tried to talk to only wants to speak English, not Bulgarian. How am I supposed to practice their language if they don’t speak it?
I’ve already packed what I could find and will soon be back in England and, most importantly, with you.
Love
Scorpius
“That’s what you want Scorpius to write you about?” Roxanne asked after she’d finished perusing the letter, “about how he’s having a horrible time and wants to be back with you.”
“It’s not like I’m wishing horrible things on him, Roxanne. I could write the first paragraph differently and it wouldn’t matter what I wrote just so long as the second paragraph came true,” Rose said, irritated by her cousin’s no nonsense approach to the letter.
“Merlin, you’re soppy.”
“Oh shut up, Roxanne.”
Months
“Two weeks,” Scorpius said for the third time that day. “I’m going to go back in two weeks. There’s a friend waiting for me and I sort of promised that I’d be back in time, so no offense to your school of course, Iavor. I’ve enjoyed the last few months here. It’s just…it’s not home. My family’s not here. My friends. Rose.”
Scorpius smiled. “I think you’d like Rose, Iavor. She has a way of sparking things up. You’d never expect it from a Ravenclaw, but she…” Scorpius paused and looked at the non-comprehending boy sitting across from him. “I really wish you could speak English, Iavor. It would make these talks so much more meaningful.”
Years
When he arrived he’d expected to see a rather large party for him. Instead he saw his house elf and Rose talking. “Master Malfoy, you’re needed at the Mansion. Your mother’s just gone into labor.”
He hadn’t known his mother had even been pregnant. He’d only left for four months. How the hell had this- Scratch that. He didn’t have to be a Ravenclaw to have figured out how it happened. Why hadn’t his parents told him though?
“I’ll go with you, Scorpius,” a soft voice said.
He turned to see Rose holding his hand.
“All right.”
“I cannot believe I’ve been made a brother at sixteen years old. I won’t really get to know him now, will I?” Scorpius asked as they sat outside his mother’s bedroom.
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s not like we’ll grow up together really. I don’t plan to stay after I graduate Hogwart’s.”
“where will you go?”
“No, I meant I’ll stay in England . I’m just not moving back in with my parents,” Scorpius corrected himself. “It’ll be odd though, coming to family occasions and seeing this little boy running around and thinking to myself, ‘Who’s he?’”
Rose rolled her eyes. Scorpius could be so overly dramatic sometimes. “He’s your brother. He’s a lot younger than you, but he’s still your brother and that’s all that matters.”
“I could be a good older brother I suppose. I could write him letters and have Mum or Dad read them to him. Pass on my life experiences so he can learn from them. I could be an excellent brother.”
Rose simply sighed.
Red
“I thought you’d call him something else, that’s all,” Scorpius explained.
“Like what?” Rose asked as she fed a cracker to the small bird sitting on her finger.
“I don’t know. A character from a book or something like that.”
Rose looked at the bird and then back at Scorpius. “It’s just a bird, Scorpius. I’m not going go around giving him airs or anything. He’s not going to come when I call him, is he,” she teased.
“But you’re just going to call him Red?”
“What do you want me to call him?”
“It’s not my bird,” Scorpius argued.
“Right, it’s my bird and I want to call him Red, so therefore he’s Red. Argument ended.”
“Fine,” he said sourly.
Grey
“What does that even mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s his name,” Scorpius said as he scratched the kitten’s head. They were sitting in the courtyard of the castle, freshly returned from another trip to Hogsmeade, during which time Scorpius decided he should have a pet as well.
“Jonathan Grey?”
“Yes. What would you call him?” he asked impetuously.
“It’s not my cat.”
“Exactly. Argument ended.”
“We’re not having an argument though,” Rose said smugly.
“You can’t get the last word in then.”
“Our conversation’s over?”
“No, not the entire thing. Just a part of it.”
“What if I didn’t want to end it? Shouldn’t there be a vote?” Rose asked with a placating look.
“No. Look, why is it when you end the conversation its over, but whenever I try to do it you get to keep it going as long as you like.”
“Because I’m in Ravenclaw, Scorpius and you’re just a silly boy.”
“Oh shut up, Rose.”
White
“Merlin, he’s gotten fat,” Rose said as she watched Jonathan Grey sluggishly make his away across the grass toward an unsuspecting white zebra finch.
“He’s not fat. Most of that’s muscle actually.”
“Well his muscle swings left and right when he walks. You’ve got to put him on a diet, Scorpius.”
Scorpius nodded as Jonathan Grey made several unsuccessful swipes at the bird, who seemed to consider the cat more of an annoyance than actual predator. “What do you suggest?”
Rose smiled.
“What?” Scorpius asked. A Rose who smiled to herself was never a safe Rose to be around.
“My dad has this device he runs on. It’s a muggle device, but I’m pretty certain we could make up our own version. We’d just need a set of roller pins and a piece of fabric that won’t rip if Jonathan should claw at it. Do you know the Locomotor charm?”
This could not bode well.
Black
“Red, come down from there,” Rose said from her sitting place on her bed while her bird flew from one side of her room to another. The problem with having a bird for a pet was that you couldn’t just scoop them up like a cat or a kneazle or a puffskein. Birds flew about and if you were lucky you might find it perched. If you were extra lucky if might actually come to you when you came nearby.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t come if you called it,” Scorpius said from the doorway. The very open doorway. If he could have made it more open he would have, just so as not to displease her father. Her father who was a very tall man, a war hero, an auror, had a strong dislike of Scorpius’ father and seemed to be rather suspicious of the frequency of Scorpius’ visits to their house.
“He won’t.”
“Can’t you just summon him to you?”
“How?”
Scorpius tsked at her, though inwardly he gave himself a pat on the back. Finally, he knew something Rose didn’t. “Accio Red,” he said with a practiced swish of his wand, only to find the bird hurtling towards his head at an alarming speed.
Luckily Red regained control of his descent at the last moment and was able to pull himself away from the foolish boy who’d summoned him. The little bird landed on Rose’s dresser and tweeted loudly at the red faced boy for a full minute before tucking its head into its left wing and falling asleep.
As Scorpius was forced to endure Rose’s teasing for the next five minutes he found himself jealous of Red’s ability to simply put his head under his wing and ignore the rest of the world around him. The best he could hope for was a large black hole to suddenly form beneath him.
Blue
“Scorpius, Red died.”
“Oh, should we have a funeral? I have a free period after Transfiguration. We could meet near the Quidditch Pitch and have a se-“ Scorpius suddenly stopped when he saw his friend was beginning to laugh. “Were you just having me on?”
“No, but you got so excited about the funeral,” Rose gasped in between spurts of laughter. “He’s just a bird.”
“Well, what happened,” Scorpius said, nonplussed by Rose’s apathy towards her pet’s death after only three months.
“He was having a go at one of the Owls in the Owlry I think. It ate him.”
“That’s awful, Rose.”
“Scorpius, really, he was just a-“ Rose suddenly paused, as if she couldn’t quite get the words out, the mantra she’d been repeating to herself all day. Before she could stop herself she felt a tear making its way down her cheek. “I don’t even know why I’m crying,” she said as more tears began to make new trails down her cheeks.
Scorpius pulled into her a hug, even as she continued to say, “He was just a bird, just a bird.”
Purple
“You’re staring again,” Rose whispered, jabbing Scorpius with the nib of her quill.
“What do you think I’d look like with purple hair?” Scorpius asked absentmindedly as he continued to stare at Rose’s older cousin.
“Ridiculous,” Rose said pointedly as she turned back to the books she‘d laid out on the table for their tutor session. “She’s five years older than you anyways, Scorpius. Better to let it go now.”
“She won’t always be five years older than me.”
“Yes she will.”
Scorpius finally turned to Rose with a sigh of great effort, as if he’d broken out of a Body Bind by sheer force of will. “You know what I mean though. Five years isn’t that much of a difference.”
“You’ve never even spoken to Victoire before, Scorpius.”
“I will.”
“Then do it,” Rose challenged him, wishing those same words back a moment later as she saw him push his chair in and begin to make his way over to her. She’d broken Ravenclaw Rule #3: Never challenge a Gryffindor.
Brown
Scorpius came walking back with a grin on his face that said it all. He’d talked to Victoire Weasley and she’d talked back. It was a smile Rose had seen grace quite a few boys’ faces in her last two years here. Sometimes they smiled because they had gotten to pass Victoire the butter at breakfast. Other times because they thought she might have looked at them for just a moment. Victoire never led them on, never even hinted at anything beyond general politeness, but all the boys seemed to think they were special to her if she paid them any mind at all.
“What did she say?” Rose asked as her friend sat down at the table.
“Brown,” Scorpius replied, his mind still half on his conversation with Victoire.
“Pardon?”
“She said, ’brown’,” Scorpius repeated.
“What did you talk to her about?”
“I said that you and I were doing a survey of student’s favorite colors and I wanted to know what hers was. She said it was brown.”
“Why would anyone be doing a survey on that?”
“I don’t know why. I just know that her favorite color is brown,” Scorpius said impatiently. “Now tell me, do you think I’d look good with brown hair?”
“No.”
Green
“Jealous,” Rose asked him quietly as they watched Victoire reciting her nuptials aloud before the large crowd on a crisp autumn day.
Scorpius shook his head slightly, his eyes still focused on the bride and groom. Rose had invited him as Victoire had teased her for the last month about having a proper date for the wedding despite her only being thirteen years old. Still, Rose decided if she had to go with anyone she thought it might be nice bring Scorpius along.
“Perhaps you can take me to Madame Puddifoot‘s instead?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him just as her cousin had jokingly taught her. Rose knew full well that her cousin never had flutter her eyelashes at any boy to get their attention.
Scorpius nodded, then leaned in and said, “Is there something in your eye?”
“N-”
“-o,” he whispered, cutting her sentence off with a satisfied smirk.
Rose enjoyed the look of surprise on his face when she grabbed his thumb and gave it a slight twist.
Pink
“You would take her to Madame Pudditfoot’s, wouldn’t you,” Rose said as she effortlessly trimmed the tiny Rothschire Hedge she’d been growing for extra credit in Herbology. While the plant had few real magical qualities, it was extremely difficult to keep alive and required quite a bit of its owner if it was to kept fruitful.
“That is where most girls tend to want to go, isn’t it?” Scorpius asked rhetorically as he casually flipped through Rose’s battered copy of Quidditch Weekly, the January issue with Euan McDonald on the cover of it.
“Simple minded girls,” Rose.
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is,” Rose said adamantly without looking at him.
“Well, where do the complicated minded girls go then?”
Rose shrugged her shoulders as she continued to study her plant. There seemed to be something missing, another cut that needed to be made somewhere. “I can’t speak for all girls, Scorpius, but- Aha!” Rose made a quick cut along the left corner of the plant. “I can tell you where I would want a boy to take me on my first date.”
“Where?” Scorpius asked, his curiosity piqued.
“The Shrieking Shack.”
“The museum?”
“Well there’s history to it, but I wouldn’t call it a museum. It’s just very private and away from everything else. Madame Puddifoot’s just seems so showy and overdone. I’d like a nice quiet place to get to know my date.” Rose turned away from the hedge and put the set of clippers down on the small workbench, seeing that Scorpius seemed lost in thought as she did so.
“That’s not a half-bad idea,” Scorpius said after a moment. “Any other ideas?”
“Tons.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Dinner first,” Rose said as she made her way out of the Greenhouse with Scorpius running to catch up.
Colourless
Scorpius stared down at his plate. The food looked bland, tasteless and colorless. It would be rude not to eat it though. He took his first bite and immediately wished the food had been tasteless. Still he swallowed it down without so much as a sputter. He’d had bad cooking before. His father was a particularly awful cook, but this was far worse.
He looked across the table at Rose and watched as she practically shoveled the food into her mouth, raving about the food in between bites as if it were manna sent from Heaven itself. Later, after they’d left her cousin’s house, while they were getting ready for bed, he’d ask how she’d been able to handle Victoire’s cooking.
She’d press a small wrapped package into his hand, no bigger than a lozenge. The wrapper bore the familiar mark of her uncle’s shop. “Uncle George designed these to deaden a person’s taste buds. He’s never said it out loud, but I think he created them just so he wouldn’t have to turn always claim stomach cramps whenever he ate Aunt Fleur’s cooking.”
“That bad, eh?”
“Worse than Victoire’s, but she makes a fine omelet. Still, can you imagine if you had somehow actually hit it off with Victoire and married her. You’d have to put up with her cooking almost every day of your life,” Rose said with a knowing grin.
“I was a twelve year old boy,” Scorpius argued. “Twelve year old boys aren’t thinking of a girl’s homemaking skills. Besides I do most of the cooking for us anyways. If I were married to her then I’d do the cooking for she and I, wouldn’t I?”
Later, as Scorpius tried to fall asleep on the much too small couch, he would recite the same line again and again in an attempt to figure out at what point he’d messed up.
Friends
“I don’t believe your cousin likes me,” Scorpius said as Rose tried to tutor him in Astronomy. He was absolutely horrible at the subject according to Professor Sinistra and after reading over a few of his essays, Rose had to agree with the Professor. He seemed to regularly get Saturn mixed up with Jupiter and often times his star charts looked more like children’s doodles.
Her current theory as to why he might be having such a problem would be that he had a hard time keeping his mind on the subject at hand. Twice now he’d gone completely off topic, once to ask her about her cousin, Victoire, and once to go to the loo. “Victoire doesn’t even know you, Scorpius. Now please pay attention,” she pleaded, despite her best efforts to show little weakness in her voice.
Scorpius gave her an odd look and shook his head. “No, I’m talking about your other cousin, Albus.”
“Why do you care?” Rose asked, giving up on getting anymore study time out of the boy. They’d been working together for the last hour and only spent half an hour of it properly studying.
“We’re dormmates.”
“That doesn’t make you best friends.”
“I know that,” Scorpius said, aggravated by his tutor’s lack of understanding. “I just don’t want him to dislike me because of who my father is. My father’s not a bad man. I know he did bad things, but he’s not a monster.”
Rose sighed, she’d rather not bat at that particular nest of hornets this evening, so she sidestepped the issue. “I don’t think Albus dislikes you. If he did he would have told me. You’ve only roomed with him for a few weeks. Give him a chance.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Scorpius smiled. “Thanks, Rose.”
Enemies
“You knew and you didn’t tell me,” Scorpius said, the ink still drying into his pale blonde hair.
Rose had been on her way to the library when she saw Scorpius dripping ink everywhere as he hurriedly tried to what she assumed would be the Gryffindor bathrooms.
“Did you and Albus work it out together?” he asked her.
“I-I didn’t think he’d actually go through with it. He said he was just going to use water. Dear Merlin, he must have dumped five whole bottles on you, Scorpius.”
“The pranks are to be kept equal. Those were rules amongst us, remember?”
“Yes.”
“How is this equal to my stealing Albus’ stuffed turtle from his trunk?”
“You did sort of parade it around the Gryffindor Common Room.”
“I did no such thing,” Scorpius shouted. “I hid it in my trunk. It never left until I gave it back to him.”
“Well that’s what Albus told me,” Rose said.
Scorpius’ eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re both going to get it. You’ll never know when. You’ll never know how, but I swear to you it will happen,” Scorpius said, then turned and continued on his way.
It would do no good to argue. Once Scorpius had his mind set he would follow through to the very end.
Lovers
“You couldn’t talk him out of it?” Albus asked his cousin.
“No. Are you afraid?” Rose asked.
“Of course I’m afraid. Scorpius knows our schedules and where we keep our things.”
“Plus we’re not allowed to get revenge till the act’s already taken place,” Rose reminded her cousin of the rule in the contract that the three had signed.
“Couldn’t you have flirted with him?”
“We’re not dating, Albus.”
“You don’t have to date someone to flirt with them. Clara Smith does it all the time.”
“Why are you whining so much, Albus?”
“Because I know what he’s capable of and I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every time I leave class.”
“Well you’re just going to have to get used to it,” Rose said firmly. Dating or not, flirting with a boy without really being interested just seemed so demeaning to her.
Family
Rose was writing an essay for Transfiguration in her favorite spot in the entire courtyard when she heard it. A step, then a shuffling sound, then another step, as if someone was dragging something along the grass toward her tree.
Rose looked up from her writing, cautiously pulling out her wand as she did so. It had been two months since Scorpius’ declaration of revenge. Unlike Albus, Rose had taken his promise with a grain of salt. She had no doubt he would do it, but he always went lighter on her. There was a chance he might just take it out on Albus, it had been his idea after all. Then again, it had been Rose who’d helped come up with the means for such a prank.
The noise was closer now, faster. “Rose,” a voice moaned. “Rose, you’ve got to help me.”
Rose walked towards the voice, recognizing it as her cousin’s almost immediately. She paused to duck under a few of the branches that blocked her line of sight and then finally saw what had happened to her cousin. His earlobes were dragging the ground.
“How long ago did this happen?” Rose exclaimed as she made her way over to her rather miserable looking cousin.
“Ten minutes ago. You don’t know how to undo it, do you?”
“I have a few ideas, but…”
Albus shook his head, his earlobes lightly sifting the grass as he did so. “That’s all right. I just came to warn you in case you thought he’d forgotten.”
“Right, well thanks, Albus.”
“We’re family, Rose,” Albus said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have to warn you.”
Strangers
Rose approached her friend following dinner later that night. He was by himself finally after having been the center of attention at his table.
“Scorpius, I’d like to speak with you.”
Scorpius turned around with a small grin on his face. “Why? Come to beg for leniency?”
“No, I was actually coming to ask if you could just get it over with,” Rose said.
“Why would I want to do that? The waiting’s all part of the fun for me.”
“Oh come now, Scorpius. How long are you going to keep this up? I’m sorry that Albus took our prank farther than he should have, all right?”
“Why do you want me to just get it over with?” Scorpius asked curiously.
“Because I would rather have a conversation without half my mind wondering when you’re going to play a prank on me and the other half focusing on the conv-“
“Aguamenti”
A stream of water burst out of Scorpius’ wand, effectively soaking her and her robes.
Scorpius looked at the sputtering Rose and laughed, as did several other Gryffindors. She looked like she’d been dunked in a lake. Her hair was formless, her robes dark from the soaking wet that seemed to permeate her being. “Now we’re even, Rose,” he said before muttering a drying charm.
She gave him a cold look, but couldn’t help feeling a just a bit happier that he’d dried her off so quickly.
“Fine, we’re even and just to let you know, I’m taking my name off that contract. I don’t want to be a part of you and Albus’ games anymore.”
“Fine,” Scorpius said.
“Good, now escort me to my dorm. I’m cold,” Rose said.
Scorpius raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say another word as he tucked her arm in his and walked her along the stone hallway.
Rating: G
Pairing: scorpius/rose
Prompts: lots
Summary: scorpius and rose's relationship
AN: written for many, many months ago in hopes to actually finish a drabble table. I did not, but drcjsnider convinced me to post it anyways. For some reason it took me to another three months to go just that, so here it is. I should warn that it is un-beta'd. This is it, warts and all.
Beginnings
Eyes meet from across the cafeteria and just like that, they separate. No longing stare, no surety of a match made in Heaven. Just a casual look and then their eyes part, neither aware of what’s to happen next.
Middles
It’s his friend that initiates the whole thing. A careless wave of his wand and suddenly a bowl of mashed fruit is hurtling through the air and landing with a plop on the head of her House’s prefect, a rather upstanding girl who’d caught his friend out after hours with a girl from Hufflepuff, which had earned him a twenty point deduction from his House as well as two days worth of detention with Hagrid in the woods near the castle. While the prefect was much too shocked to do anything other than stare at the offending stream of mashed fruit making its way over her face and down her neck, her friends weren’t nearly as slow to react. The air was filled with bits of fruit and kidney pie as both Houses began to fight. Some did it for House honor, others did it for fun and some, like him, hid until the affair was over.
Ends
She was absolutely covered in bits of food by the time the teachers had broken up the food fight, but he could see by the fierceness of her eyes and fear that shown on his Housemates’ faces she’d given twice as much as she’d gotten. Though he’d had nothing to do with her victory he felt a surge of pride go through him. He imagined she’d probably used a charm of some sort or a hex not previously thought up by members of his own house. Ravenclaws were smart that way.
First
Dear Scorpius. It was the first line she could think of. Unfortunately her mind went blank after that. “Sometimes,” her mother told her, “it helps to voice your thoughts.”
“Dear-“ That sounded stupid saying it out loud. “Scorpius, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to go.”
‘Because,’ she could hear her Mum saying. ‘The first rule of persuasion, Rose, is to state your case plainly and to always make certain you have the facts to back up your side of things.’
Rose rolled her eyes. “I don’t want you to go because I like going about with you in Hogsmeade and there’s going to be a stupid empty desk next to me for the rest of the year. Someone’s going to try and sit in it and then I’m going to hex them and then I’ll have detention. Forever.”
“I don’t see why you have to go to Bulgaria anyways. We have plenty of plain looking, stupid girls here and cold castles too, thank you.” Scorpius would laugh at that. It would serve as a good start anyways.
Last
She looked at the note, creased and folded. It looked like the simplest piece of parchment with nothing to really make it noteworthy, heh, save what she’d written inside of it. Would Scorpius even care? Would she have the guts to give it him? It was all well and good to sit in one’s room and just write their hearts out on parchment, but it was something else entirely to actually deliver said heart to one’s best friend.
She’d never been brave like her dad or mum or her brother. Could she do this? She folded the note and put it in her pocket. She could, couldn’t she?
Hours
“You’re very slow,” Rose said with a glare as she rushed past him up the moving staircase. This would prove to be a rash decision as she found herself stuck where a step had once been.
“Do you need help, Weasley?” Scorpius asked without malice.
“I’m fine, thank you.” It was partially true. She had learned from past experience that the step often reappeared shortly before the staircases moved, which happened every quarter of an hour. By her watch she only had to wait another four minutes.
“You’re stuck. I’ll help if you like.”
“And what do you want in return?” Rose asked spitefully.
“A thank you will do.”
“Just doing it out of Gryffindor chivalry?”
“If I was being chivalrous I’d help you without asking for your permission.”
She could wait another three minutes. It wouldn’t kill her and besides it was a Saturday. It wasn’t as if she really had anywhere she had to be. Then again it would be rude to simply ignore Malfoy’s honest offer to help her out of the hole she was in. “Fine,” she said and held out her hand to him.
Scorpius took her hand and, gathering his strength, pulled with all his might, only to find that Rose was still stuck.
“It would appear you’re not as strong as you think,” Rose said.
“Yes,” Scorpius replied with no small amount of embarrassment.
“Well, don’t worry about me. I’ll be free in two minutes.”
“I could wait,” Scorpius said hopefully.
Rose sighed. “Fine.”
Days
Dear Rose
Since arriving in Bulgaria two days ago I’ve come to find that the country is a horrid little place. It’s much colder here than it is in England and I’ve had my pack stolen from me twice now. Almost all of the girls here are rather hideous and everyone I’ve tried to talk to only wants to speak English, not Bulgarian. How am I supposed to practice their language if they don’t speak it?
I’ve already packed what I could find and will soon be back in England and, most importantly, with you.
Love
Scorpius
“That’s what you want Scorpius to write you about?” Roxanne asked after she’d finished perusing the letter, “about how he’s having a horrible time and wants to be back with you.”
“It’s not like I’m wishing horrible things on him, Roxanne. I could write the first paragraph differently and it wouldn’t matter what I wrote just so long as the second paragraph came true,” Rose said, irritated by her cousin’s no nonsense approach to the letter.
“Merlin, you’re soppy.”
“Oh shut up, Roxanne.”
Months
“Two weeks,” Scorpius said for the third time that day. “I’m going to go back in two weeks. There’s a friend waiting for me and I sort of promised that I’d be back in time, so no offense to your school of course, Iavor. I’ve enjoyed the last few months here. It’s just…it’s not home. My family’s not here. My friends. Rose.”
Scorpius smiled. “I think you’d like Rose, Iavor. She has a way of sparking things up. You’d never expect it from a Ravenclaw, but she…” Scorpius paused and looked at the non-comprehending boy sitting across from him. “I really wish you could speak English, Iavor. It would make these talks so much more meaningful.”
Years
When he arrived he’d expected to see a rather large party for him. Instead he saw his house elf and Rose talking. “Master Malfoy, you’re needed at the Mansion. Your mother’s just gone into labor.”
He hadn’t known his mother had even been pregnant. He’d only left for four months. How the hell had this- Scratch that. He didn’t have to be a Ravenclaw to have figured out how it happened. Why hadn’t his parents told him though?
“I’ll go with you, Scorpius,” a soft voice said.
He turned to see Rose holding his hand.
“All right.”
“I cannot believe I’ve been made a brother at sixteen years old. I won’t really get to know him now, will I?” Scorpius asked as they sat outside his mother’s bedroom.
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s not like we’ll grow up together really. I don’t plan to stay after I graduate Hogwart’s.”
“where will you go?”
“No, I meant I’ll stay in England . I’m just not moving back in with my parents,” Scorpius corrected himself. “It’ll be odd though, coming to family occasions and seeing this little boy running around and thinking to myself, ‘Who’s he?’”
Rose rolled her eyes. Scorpius could be so overly dramatic sometimes. “He’s your brother. He’s a lot younger than you, but he’s still your brother and that’s all that matters.”
“I could be a good older brother I suppose. I could write him letters and have Mum or Dad read them to him. Pass on my life experiences so he can learn from them. I could be an excellent brother.”
Rose simply sighed.
Red
“I thought you’d call him something else, that’s all,” Scorpius explained.
“Like what?” Rose asked as she fed a cracker to the small bird sitting on her finger.
“I don’t know. A character from a book or something like that.”
Rose looked at the bird and then back at Scorpius. “It’s just a bird, Scorpius. I’m not going go around giving him airs or anything. He’s not going to come when I call him, is he,” she teased.
“But you’re just going to call him Red?”
“What do you want me to call him?”
“It’s not my bird,” Scorpius argued.
“Right, it’s my bird and I want to call him Red, so therefore he’s Red. Argument ended.”
“Fine,” he said sourly.
Grey
“What does that even mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s his name,” Scorpius said as he scratched the kitten’s head. They were sitting in the courtyard of the castle, freshly returned from another trip to Hogsmeade, during which time Scorpius decided he should have a pet as well.
“Jonathan Grey?”
“Yes. What would you call him?” he asked impetuously.
“It’s not my cat.”
“Exactly. Argument ended.”
“We’re not having an argument though,” Rose said smugly.
“You can’t get the last word in then.”
“Our conversation’s over?”
“No, not the entire thing. Just a part of it.”
“What if I didn’t want to end it? Shouldn’t there be a vote?” Rose asked with a placating look.
“No. Look, why is it when you end the conversation its over, but whenever I try to do it you get to keep it going as long as you like.”
“Because I’m in Ravenclaw, Scorpius and you’re just a silly boy.”
“Oh shut up, Rose.”
White
“Merlin, he’s gotten fat,” Rose said as she watched Jonathan Grey sluggishly make his away across the grass toward an unsuspecting white zebra finch.
“He’s not fat. Most of that’s muscle actually.”
“Well his muscle swings left and right when he walks. You’ve got to put him on a diet, Scorpius.”
Scorpius nodded as Jonathan Grey made several unsuccessful swipes at the bird, who seemed to consider the cat more of an annoyance than actual predator. “What do you suggest?”
Rose smiled.
“What?” Scorpius asked. A Rose who smiled to herself was never a safe Rose to be around.
“My dad has this device he runs on. It’s a muggle device, but I’m pretty certain we could make up our own version. We’d just need a set of roller pins and a piece of fabric that won’t rip if Jonathan should claw at it. Do you know the Locomotor charm?”
This could not bode well.
Black
“Red, come down from there,” Rose said from her sitting place on her bed while her bird flew from one side of her room to another. The problem with having a bird for a pet was that you couldn’t just scoop them up like a cat or a kneazle or a puffskein. Birds flew about and if you were lucky you might find it perched. If you were extra lucky if might actually come to you when you came nearby.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t come if you called it,” Scorpius said from the doorway. The very open doorway. If he could have made it more open he would have, just so as not to displease her father. Her father who was a very tall man, a war hero, an auror, had a strong dislike of Scorpius’ father and seemed to be rather suspicious of the frequency of Scorpius’ visits to their house.
“He won’t.”
“Can’t you just summon him to you?”
“How?”
Scorpius tsked at her, though inwardly he gave himself a pat on the back. Finally, he knew something Rose didn’t. “Accio Red,” he said with a practiced swish of his wand, only to find the bird hurtling towards his head at an alarming speed.
Luckily Red regained control of his descent at the last moment and was able to pull himself away from the foolish boy who’d summoned him. The little bird landed on Rose’s dresser and tweeted loudly at the red faced boy for a full minute before tucking its head into its left wing and falling asleep.
As Scorpius was forced to endure Rose’s teasing for the next five minutes he found himself jealous of Red’s ability to simply put his head under his wing and ignore the rest of the world around him. The best he could hope for was a large black hole to suddenly form beneath him.
Blue
“Scorpius, Red died.”
“Oh, should we have a funeral? I have a free period after Transfiguration. We could meet near the Quidditch Pitch and have a se-“ Scorpius suddenly stopped when he saw his friend was beginning to laugh. “Were you just having me on?”
“No, but you got so excited about the funeral,” Rose gasped in between spurts of laughter. “He’s just a bird.”
“Well, what happened,” Scorpius said, nonplussed by Rose’s apathy towards her pet’s death after only three months.
“He was having a go at one of the Owls in the Owlry I think. It ate him.”
“That’s awful, Rose.”
“Scorpius, really, he was just a-“ Rose suddenly paused, as if she couldn’t quite get the words out, the mantra she’d been repeating to herself all day. Before she could stop herself she felt a tear making its way down her cheek. “I don’t even know why I’m crying,” she said as more tears began to make new trails down her cheeks.
Scorpius pulled into her a hug, even as she continued to say, “He was just a bird, just a bird.”
Purple
“You’re staring again,” Rose whispered, jabbing Scorpius with the nib of her quill.
“What do you think I’d look like with purple hair?” Scorpius asked absentmindedly as he continued to stare at Rose’s older cousin.
“Ridiculous,” Rose said pointedly as she turned back to the books she‘d laid out on the table for their tutor session. “She’s five years older than you anyways, Scorpius. Better to let it go now.”
“She won’t always be five years older than me.”
“Yes she will.”
Scorpius finally turned to Rose with a sigh of great effort, as if he’d broken out of a Body Bind by sheer force of will. “You know what I mean though. Five years isn’t that much of a difference.”
“You’ve never even spoken to Victoire before, Scorpius.”
“I will.”
“Then do it,” Rose challenged him, wishing those same words back a moment later as she saw him push his chair in and begin to make his way over to her. She’d broken Ravenclaw Rule #3: Never challenge a Gryffindor.
Brown
Scorpius came walking back with a grin on his face that said it all. He’d talked to Victoire Weasley and she’d talked back. It was a smile Rose had seen grace quite a few boys’ faces in her last two years here. Sometimes they smiled because they had gotten to pass Victoire the butter at breakfast. Other times because they thought she might have looked at them for just a moment. Victoire never led them on, never even hinted at anything beyond general politeness, but all the boys seemed to think they were special to her if she paid them any mind at all.
“What did she say?” Rose asked as her friend sat down at the table.
“Brown,” Scorpius replied, his mind still half on his conversation with Victoire.
“Pardon?”
“She said, ’brown’,” Scorpius repeated.
“What did you talk to her about?”
“I said that you and I were doing a survey of student’s favorite colors and I wanted to know what hers was. She said it was brown.”
“Why would anyone be doing a survey on that?”
“I don’t know why. I just know that her favorite color is brown,” Scorpius said impatiently. “Now tell me, do you think I’d look good with brown hair?”
“No.”
Green
“Jealous,” Rose asked him quietly as they watched Victoire reciting her nuptials aloud before the large crowd on a crisp autumn day.
Scorpius shook his head slightly, his eyes still focused on the bride and groom. Rose had invited him as Victoire had teased her for the last month about having a proper date for the wedding despite her only being thirteen years old. Still, Rose decided if she had to go with anyone she thought it might be nice bring Scorpius along.
“Perhaps you can take me to Madame Puddifoot‘s instead?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him just as her cousin had jokingly taught her. Rose knew full well that her cousin never had flutter her eyelashes at any boy to get their attention.
Scorpius nodded, then leaned in and said, “Is there something in your eye?”
“N-”
“-o,” he whispered, cutting her sentence off with a satisfied smirk.
Rose enjoyed the look of surprise on his face when she grabbed his thumb and gave it a slight twist.
Pink
“You would take her to Madame Pudditfoot’s, wouldn’t you,” Rose said as she effortlessly trimmed the tiny Rothschire Hedge she’d been growing for extra credit in Herbology. While the plant had few real magical qualities, it was extremely difficult to keep alive and required quite a bit of its owner if it was to kept fruitful.
“That is where most girls tend to want to go, isn’t it?” Scorpius asked rhetorically as he casually flipped through Rose’s battered copy of Quidditch Weekly, the January issue with Euan McDonald on the cover of it.
“Simple minded girls,” Rose.
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is,” Rose said adamantly without looking at him.
“Well, where do the complicated minded girls go then?”
Rose shrugged her shoulders as she continued to study her plant. There seemed to be something missing, another cut that needed to be made somewhere. “I can’t speak for all girls, Scorpius, but- Aha!” Rose made a quick cut along the left corner of the plant. “I can tell you where I would want a boy to take me on my first date.”
“Where?” Scorpius asked, his curiosity piqued.
“The Shrieking Shack.”
“The museum?”
“Well there’s history to it, but I wouldn’t call it a museum. It’s just very private and away from everything else. Madame Puddifoot’s just seems so showy and overdone. I’d like a nice quiet place to get to know my date.” Rose turned away from the hedge and put the set of clippers down on the small workbench, seeing that Scorpius seemed lost in thought as she did so.
“That’s not a half-bad idea,” Scorpius said after a moment. “Any other ideas?”
“Tons.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Dinner first,” Rose said as she made her way out of the Greenhouse with Scorpius running to catch up.
Colourless
Scorpius stared down at his plate. The food looked bland, tasteless and colorless. It would be rude not to eat it though. He took his first bite and immediately wished the food had been tasteless. Still he swallowed it down without so much as a sputter. He’d had bad cooking before. His father was a particularly awful cook, but this was far worse.
He looked across the table at Rose and watched as she practically shoveled the food into her mouth, raving about the food in between bites as if it were manna sent from Heaven itself. Later, after they’d left her cousin’s house, while they were getting ready for bed, he’d ask how she’d been able to handle Victoire’s cooking.
She’d press a small wrapped package into his hand, no bigger than a lozenge. The wrapper bore the familiar mark of her uncle’s shop. “Uncle George designed these to deaden a person’s taste buds. He’s never said it out loud, but I think he created them just so he wouldn’t have to turn always claim stomach cramps whenever he ate Aunt Fleur’s cooking.”
“That bad, eh?”
“Worse than Victoire’s, but she makes a fine omelet. Still, can you imagine if you had somehow actually hit it off with Victoire and married her. You’d have to put up with her cooking almost every day of your life,” Rose said with a knowing grin.
“I was a twelve year old boy,” Scorpius argued. “Twelve year old boys aren’t thinking of a girl’s homemaking skills. Besides I do most of the cooking for us anyways. If I were married to her then I’d do the cooking for she and I, wouldn’t I?”
Later, as Scorpius tried to fall asleep on the much too small couch, he would recite the same line again and again in an attempt to figure out at what point he’d messed up.
Friends
“I don’t believe your cousin likes me,” Scorpius said as Rose tried to tutor him in Astronomy. He was absolutely horrible at the subject according to Professor Sinistra and after reading over a few of his essays, Rose had to agree with the Professor. He seemed to regularly get Saturn mixed up with Jupiter and often times his star charts looked more like children’s doodles.
Her current theory as to why he might be having such a problem would be that he had a hard time keeping his mind on the subject at hand. Twice now he’d gone completely off topic, once to ask her about her cousin, Victoire, and once to go to the loo. “Victoire doesn’t even know you, Scorpius. Now please pay attention,” she pleaded, despite her best efforts to show little weakness in her voice.
Scorpius gave her an odd look and shook his head. “No, I’m talking about your other cousin, Albus.”
“Why do you care?” Rose asked, giving up on getting anymore study time out of the boy. They’d been working together for the last hour and only spent half an hour of it properly studying.
“We’re dormmates.”
“That doesn’t make you best friends.”
“I know that,” Scorpius said, aggravated by his tutor’s lack of understanding. “I just don’t want him to dislike me because of who my father is. My father’s not a bad man. I know he did bad things, but he’s not a monster.”
Rose sighed, she’d rather not bat at that particular nest of hornets this evening, so she sidestepped the issue. “I don’t think Albus dislikes you. If he did he would have told me. You’ve only roomed with him for a few weeks. Give him a chance.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Scorpius smiled. “Thanks, Rose.”
Enemies
“You knew and you didn’t tell me,” Scorpius said, the ink still drying into his pale blonde hair.
Rose had been on her way to the library when she saw Scorpius dripping ink everywhere as he hurriedly tried to what she assumed would be the Gryffindor bathrooms.
“Did you and Albus work it out together?” he asked her.
“I-I didn’t think he’d actually go through with it. He said he was just going to use water. Dear Merlin, he must have dumped five whole bottles on you, Scorpius.”
“The pranks are to be kept equal. Those were rules amongst us, remember?”
“Yes.”
“How is this equal to my stealing Albus’ stuffed turtle from his trunk?”
“You did sort of parade it around the Gryffindor Common Room.”
“I did no such thing,” Scorpius shouted. “I hid it in my trunk. It never left until I gave it back to him.”
“Well that’s what Albus told me,” Rose said.
Scorpius’ eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re both going to get it. You’ll never know when. You’ll never know how, but I swear to you it will happen,” Scorpius said, then turned and continued on his way.
It would do no good to argue. Once Scorpius had his mind set he would follow through to the very end.
Lovers
“You couldn’t talk him out of it?” Albus asked his cousin.
“No. Are you afraid?” Rose asked.
“Of course I’m afraid. Scorpius knows our schedules and where we keep our things.”
“Plus we’re not allowed to get revenge till the act’s already taken place,” Rose reminded her cousin of the rule in the contract that the three had signed.
“Couldn’t you have flirted with him?”
“We’re not dating, Albus.”
“You don’t have to date someone to flirt with them. Clara Smith does it all the time.”
“Why are you whining so much, Albus?”
“Because I know what he’s capable of and I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every time I leave class.”
“Well you’re just going to have to get used to it,” Rose said firmly. Dating or not, flirting with a boy without really being interested just seemed so demeaning to her.
Family
Rose was writing an essay for Transfiguration in her favorite spot in the entire courtyard when she heard it. A step, then a shuffling sound, then another step, as if someone was dragging something along the grass toward her tree.
Rose looked up from her writing, cautiously pulling out her wand as she did so. It had been two months since Scorpius’ declaration of revenge. Unlike Albus, Rose had taken his promise with a grain of salt. She had no doubt he would do it, but he always went lighter on her. There was a chance he might just take it out on Albus, it had been his idea after all. Then again, it had been Rose who’d helped come up with the means for such a prank.
The noise was closer now, faster. “Rose,” a voice moaned. “Rose, you’ve got to help me.”
Rose walked towards the voice, recognizing it as her cousin’s almost immediately. She paused to duck under a few of the branches that blocked her line of sight and then finally saw what had happened to her cousin. His earlobes were dragging the ground.
“How long ago did this happen?” Rose exclaimed as she made her way over to her rather miserable looking cousin.
“Ten minutes ago. You don’t know how to undo it, do you?”
“I have a few ideas, but…”
Albus shook his head, his earlobes lightly sifting the grass as he did so. “That’s all right. I just came to warn you in case you thought he’d forgotten.”
“Right, well thanks, Albus.”
“We’re family, Rose,” Albus said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have to warn you.”
Strangers
Rose approached her friend following dinner later that night. He was by himself finally after having been the center of attention at his table.
“Scorpius, I’d like to speak with you.”
Scorpius turned around with a small grin on his face. “Why? Come to beg for leniency?”
“No, I was actually coming to ask if you could just get it over with,” Rose said.
“Why would I want to do that? The waiting’s all part of the fun for me.”
“Oh come now, Scorpius. How long are you going to keep this up? I’m sorry that Albus took our prank farther than he should have, all right?”
“Why do you want me to just get it over with?” Scorpius asked curiously.
“Because I would rather have a conversation without half my mind wondering when you’re going to play a prank on me and the other half focusing on the conv-“
“Aguamenti”
A stream of water burst out of Scorpius’ wand, effectively soaking her and her robes.
Scorpius looked at the sputtering Rose and laughed, as did several other Gryffindors. She looked like she’d been dunked in a lake. Her hair was formless, her robes dark from the soaking wet that seemed to permeate her being. “Now we’re even, Rose,” he said before muttering a drying charm.
She gave him a cold look, but couldn’t help feeling a just a bit happier that he’d dried her off so quickly.
“Fine, we’re even and just to let you know, I’m taking my name off that contract. I don’t want to be a part of you and Albus’ games anymore.”
“Fine,” Scorpius said.
“Good, now escort me to my dorm. I’m cold,” Rose said.
Scorpius raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say another word as he tucked her arm in his and walked her along the stone hallway.