"Turnabout is Fair Play" - A Gift for The Community
Title: Turnabout is Fair Play
Author: queenb23more
Gift For: The Community
Summary: A surprise move forces Rose and Scorpius together, bringing up old regrets while potentially opening the door for something new.
Rating: R
Warnings: language [cursing, suggestiveness]
Word Count: 3693
A/N: I loved your prompts, but my 'fluff muse' was uncooperative, so I hope you don't mind that I twisted them a bit.
Rose Weasley's day began precisely as every other had for as long as she could remember: she awoke to the sound of her alarm clock's incessant "Get your bloody arse out of bed," courtesy of her brother and the powers that be at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, literally rolled out of bed after the ever-increasing screeching of her clock had sufficiently grated on her nerves, showered and dressed, drank two large mugs of coffee while reading the Daily Prophet and nibbling on a piece of toast, then took the Floo into the Ministry, rode the lift to Level Two, made her way to the third of six offices on the right side of the corridor, and began tackling the massive amount of paperwork littering her desk, in utter disbelief at how much of it piled up over the course of a day and then got left with her to sort through.
Shuffling papers whilst squished into a tiny, windowless office was not at all what she'd envisioned when she'd signed on with the Aurors and certainly not after she'd completed the training months ahead of schedule, for which she had earned high praise from her parents, especially her dad, who had boasted to the point of Rose's eternal embarrassment about her brilliance. And when she had been appointed by Harry as one of the leaders of the rookie squad, Rose had eagerly anticipated going out on missions, looking forward to the pursuits and captures that she had trained for so diligently.
One year later, however, although she had been on several meaningless surveillances, she had yet to see her first real action, unless one could count the seemingly never-ending litany of training exercises she and her squad performed, which she absolutely did not. Sparring against the same group of wizards and witches day in and day out had become tiresome, nearly as tiresome as the stacks of paperwork consistently cluttering her desk, and she often asked herself why the Ministry wasted their training and skills on things that could be done by anyone. Her dad had certainly never mentioned the 'down' side of it all those years she was growing up; instead, he and Harry had regaled them all with stories of stake-outs and close calls and catching Dark wizards without once mentioning that when she joined, she would spend her first post-training rookie year doing little more than sifting through paperwork and performing the same old exercises day in and day out. She had begun to think that she'd been misled into believing that being an Auror was exciting and mysterious by her dad and uncle when, in reality, it had been nothing of the sort to that point.
A dark blue paper airplane flew in through her door and landed on Rose's desk just as she was getting started on the first stack of many, and she happily dropped Alcott Bradley's report detailing his most recent mission back on top of the others and reached for the still fluttering paper. She had received enough inter-office memos of that particular shade to know that it was from her uncle, and she quickly skimmed the contents then glanced at the clock on the wall, crumpling the paper and tossing it into the rubbish bin as she stood and headed to the office at the far end of the corridor, wondering what might have prompted such an early morning meeting.
As she neared his door, she felt fairly confident he was going to spring yet another of his 'weekend warrior workshops' on them, and she sighed heavily. Personally, Rose did not mind the weekend-long training exercises Harry had instituted when he had become head of the Auror Department many years ago. She understood the special significance of the weekends, which began before dawn and finished long after dark, why Harry required mandatory overnight stays both nights in a dingy tent with two other rookies, and why her dad always accompanied them. She had grown up listening to their stories, realizing early on how sacred her uncle held the time he had shared with her parents when searching for ways to defeat Voldemort and had heard his belief that those exercises fostered comradeship in a way he believed every Auror should experience. The same could not be said for any of the others, however, and she was not at all looking forward to having to tell her fellow rookies that whatever plans they might have had for the weekend had been unilaterally cancelled. While no one had ever complained directly to her, she had overheard too often their grumblings that Harry was barking mad for forcing them to go on the weekend trips, not that a single one of them would have ever said it to his face, seeing as it was never a clever idea to openly insult the head of the entire bloody department in which one planned to spend the next eighty or so years working, especially when that superior was Harry Potter.
She knocked as she pushed open the slightly ajar door to her uncle's office, smiling brightly as she quipped, "Don't tell me...it's time for another one of your famous 'weekend warrior workshops' and you're going to make me the bearer of the news again."
She expected him to respond in his usual jovial manner. Instead, Harry motioned for her to enter without looking up from what he was writing. “Shut the door and have a seat. We need to talk.”
An hour later, Rose left her uncle's office in an exceptionally bad mood. But rather than return to her own desk and the piles of paperwork waiting for her, she threw open the door to the stairwell and raced up to the seventh floor, thankful to find the training room empty. Her anger and frustration continued building as she stormed into the locker room, where she quickly stripped out of her robes and changed into her workout clothes.
By the time she returned to the training room, she had moved beyond frustration to rage, so much so that her hands were shaking as she took aim with her wand. "Confringo!" Rose said through gritted teeth, unsurprised when she hit the first target on the far wall dead-on, causing it to burst into flames. She shot off several more spells in quick succession as her meeting with Harry replayed in her mind.
She had known by the tone of his voice and the absence of his usual greeting that there had been something serious on his mind, but nothing could have prepared her for his announcement. It was all she could do to maintain her composure at his news that, as an initial implementation of the new Minister for Magic's plans to consolidate into 'a more efficient Ministry,' he was merging the Magical Law Enforcement Squad with the Auror Division, and she was being paired with a hit wizard for training.
She hadn't been nearly as successful at keeping her cool, however, when Harry then proceeded to inform her that in a gesture of good will - and after a bit of persuasive coaxing from the Minister - the responsibility for assigning new partners had been left to the head of the MLES, and Adrian Pucey had insisted on pairing her with not simply any hit wizard but the one she considered to be the world's greatest arse.
After hitting the last target, she pocketed her wand and moved to the punching bag in the corner of the room. Scorpius fucking Malfoy, she thought, angrily attacking the bag as hard as she could, all the while loudly muttering a string of obscenities that would have made her Gran cringe but her uncles - particularly George - extremely proud, landing a blow or a kick with each one.
She jerked around at the sound of slow, mocking applause followed by a low whistle.
"Most impressive, Weasley...both the workout and the swearing."
"I'm so thrilled you approve," she replied sarcastically. "My life is now complete."
Malfoy casually pushed away from the doorframe and began walking towards her, wearing the same haughty smirk he had sported for as long as she'd known him, and she had to fight off the urge to pull out her wand and hex it off of his face. "I see you still possess your charming wit."
Merlin, she hated him...or at least that was what she told herself. She hadn't even seen the bloody bastard for more than two years, and it had taken less than ten seconds being in the same room with him for all of the bitter and hurtful feelings from their disastrous flirtations near the end of seventh year to resurface and reinforce her belief that he was, quite possibly, the most insufferable, most arrogant git ever to walk the face of the earth. Of all the people they could have stuck her with, she couldn't imagine anyone worse.
Rose snickered derisively. "And I see you still possess the ability to bring out the absolute worst in people...how excellent to discover that some things never change."
She had expected him to become angry - she knew she would have been in his place - and she knew that underneath his seemingly smug amusement, he was starting to seethe, so she wasn't at all surprised when he smirked and remarked coolly, "I must say, I initially questioned Pucey's judgement when he paired us, but perhaps you are worthy of being partnered with me after all."
Rose laughed sarcastically. "I'm worthy of being paired with you? You must be mental. I'm the Auror...I'd say they're doing you a favour by pairing you with me."
"Is that so?" Scorpius asked, continuing to display a remarkable calm, despite her snarky retorts. "Do you forget that I've got two years' seniority over you?"
Rose huffed incredulously. "Oh please! While you were gaining your so-called 'seniority,' I was training in Stealth, Tracking, Concealment, as well as -"
"That's right," he interrupted. "You were training. And while you were training, I was out in the field, wasn't I?"
"You really are mental if you think you can beat me in a duel," she replied. Deciding that she'd had enough of his 'witty banter' for one day, she started to turn back to the punching bag to continue her workout, but she stopped mid-turn when he reached up and unfastened the clasp on his robes, revealing a tee and casual trousers underneath.
"Do you care to put your money where your mouth is, Weasley?"
She would have been blind not to notice how fit he had become - how snugly his shirt fitted across the shoulders or how low on his hips he wore his trousers - although if she had been honest with herself, 'fit' didn't quite do him justice. He had left Hogwarts skinny and somewhat awkward - not that she hadn't fancied him anyway - but the years had been more than kind to him, and Rose looked appreciatively at the broad-shouldered, well muscled man standing before her, thinking, 'It would be so easy to...'
She shook her head slightly, to clear her mind; she refused to become distracted by his good looks and focused instead on his condescension and smugness.
He needed to be taken down, and she was just the witch to do it.
She took a deep breath, brushed back the sweaty hair from her forehead, and smirked back. "You're on."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"You're on."
Scorpius hung his MLES robe on the punching bag, all the while regarding Rose surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye. As much as it pained him to admit it - and it pained him a great deal - she was better than he had been told. In fact, she was brilliant - not to mention, flustered, angry, sweaty, and sexy - and he was having a difficult time not imagining what she would look like in bed. He had always found her attractive, but now she was not only pretty but extremely fit, and he had rather enjoyed watching her methodically destroy target after target before moving to assault the punching bag in the corner, where his gaze had drifted from her breasts each time she landed a punch to her arse each time she kicked. He hadn't seen her in years, and despite his admitted lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of spending the next two years working with her one-on-one, he was more than slightly aroused.
'Then again, why wouldn't I be?' he thought bitterly, his mind flashing back to that last year of school and he felt that old, familiar sting of rejection as he recalled how she had rebuffed his advances when he'd finally got the courage to make his move. Admittedly, he had wanted to get into her knickers - just as every bloke in school had wanted to get into her knickers once she came back for fourth year with tits - but his interest in her had been much more than simply wanting to fuck her. Rose had intrigued him, although he had never been able to put his finger on exactly why, and he was still resentful that she had questioned his sincerity and his attempts to date her in their seventh year had proved unsuccessful, having decided long ago that he would never allow her to get into his head again.
"Are you sure you're up to this? The reputation of the Aurors rests on your shoulders should I prevail."
She crossed her arms under her chest, and it was all he could do not to stare openly at the beads of sweat slowly snaking down her neck and chest into the fullness of her breasts in that low-cut tank she was wearing. "I can out-duel you with one hand tied behind my back."
"Is that so?" he snickered. "Maybe we'll try that next time."
Rose rolled her eyes in response, and Scorpius continued. "Are you ready then?"
She arched her eyebrow at him challengingly and replied, "I'm always ready."
He bit back a groan at the images of throwing her down on the mat and finding out just how ready she was. "Let's do this then." He raised his wand in front of his face, his eyes locked on hers as she followed suit, and he was pleased when he saw a flicker of something - although he wasn't sure if it was trepidation or anxiety or possibly concern - as each of them bowed before turning. It was all part of his master plan - the sarcasm, the goading, the duelling - to garner the upper hand in their partnership, to let her know from the beginning that he was no longer the geeky, uncertain boy he had been in school.
Scorpius counted off ten paces then spun, yelling, "Stupefy!" at the same time she shrieked, "Expelliarmus!" He ducked out of the way, barely avoiding her spell, before calling out one after the other, both offensive and defensive. Rose was matching him spell for spell, and he was, once again, impressed with her ability as well as her agility, feeling quite certain that he had, in fact, received the best possible assignment of rookie Aurors. But no matter how well-trained she was, he had no intention of allowing her to best him, even if he had to resort to non-traditional means to do so.
He fell to the ground, pretending to have been hit by her "Petrificus Totalus," waiting until she walked towards him, wand still drawn, before he raised his own and said, "Orchideous." When a bouquet of flowers erupted from the end of her wand, Scorpius knocked her feet out from under her and leapt up, his wand pointed at her heart.
"Well, well..." he said haughtily. "How the mighty have fallen."
"And how like you to ignore the established rules in favour of your own. It really iss all about winning for you, isn't it?"
"Of course," he laughed.
Rose closed her eyes as she took a deep breath, opening them slowly, an indifferent look on her face.
"Fine. You win, Malfoy."
Scorpius studied her for a moment, his eyes sweeping over her body before resting once again on hers. He hadn't expected her to concede so quickly, and he was slightly disappointed that she hadn't fought harder, although he knew, without question, that he would be wanking to visions of Rose Weasley sprawled at his feet for weeks.
"Here, let me help you," he murmured, leaning down and offering his hand. "I told you it wouldn't take me long -"
Her eyes blazed and before Scorpius knew what was happening, he found himself lying flat on his back, his arms pinned over his head, and Rose straddling his waist.
“I wouldn't proclaim that bit of information too loudly," she retorted, the confident smirk having returned. “It isn't something you really want to broadcast if you ever want to find someone to shag you."
“Sod off," Scorpius sputtered, struggling against invisible bindings on his wrists. "There are plenty of women -"
"I'm sure there are." Rose stared at him appreciatively. "You're a good-looking bloke." She sat back onto his obvious erection. "And quite fit from the feel of it. Is there something you'd like to tell me, Scorpius?"
His cheeks burned with frustration at being unable to touch her. He wanted to free his arms so that he could flip her over and show her how fit he was. In fact, he was 100% certain that he had never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted to fuck this woman.
"No?" she continued. "No witty response? This might be a first."
She reached back to pull the band from her plait, shaking her head to release her hair, which fell in waves over her shoulders. His eyes followed her fingers as she ran them through her hair, down her neck, then slowly across her chest before drifting up his arm, her fingertips barely skimming his skin. With each movement, she brushed against his very hard cock.
His eyes closed unwittingly. If she kept that up, he was going to be in big trouble.
"I always heard you were a bloody tease," Scorpius muttered, slowly opening his eyes when she abruptly stopped moving. She had fixed him with an unreadable glare.
"And I suppose that's the reason you never followed through with me in school? Because you were told I wouldn't shag you?"
'What?!' His mind raced and he met her gaze. "Wait a minute. I'm not sure what you're playing at, but we both know you were the one who didn't follow through -"
"Have you told yourself that so often that you believe it to be true? Because that isn't how I remember it at all." She rotated her hips just enough to convince him that she was doing it purposely, and he was filled with frustration.
"Then your memory is wonky," he replied more harshly than he had intended, but he refused to let her off the hook so easily. "If you'll recall, you were the one who pulled back. You were the one who cancelled on me. You were the one who -"
Without waiting for him to finish, Rose leaned down, pressing her chest into his as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and breathed in his ear. "But you were the one who ended up with Dominique, weren't you? I suppose it's too bad you'll never find out whether what they said about me was, in fact, true or not," she whispered, and he moaned, his body shuddering when the tip of her tongue touched the shell of his ear while at the same time she pressed her body firmly into his.
"Holy shit, Rose."
She raised up slightly, the tip of her nose almost touching his; having never been so close to her, he had never noticed that her eyes weren't simply brown but were almost black or that she had light brown freckles on the sides of her nose or that she had a small scar just below her bottom lip. Their eyes met and held for a moment, and anticipation washed over him as he waited for what seemed like eons.
He could barely contain his desire. If nothing else, he had to feel her lips on his, and he parted his lips slightly, nearly crying out victoriously when she shifted and began leaning in towards him.
But rather than kiss him, Rose licked around his lips with the tip of her tongue before sitting up and grinding invitingly against his crotch.
"You want me, don't you?" she practically purred. She began outlining his now moist lips with her fingertip. "I know you want me."
Scorpius groaned, deciding that she just might be trying to kill him.
"It's all right if you don't admit it; I already know." She ground against his erection once more then winked and pushed herself up onto her knees.
"Wha- Where are you going?" he stammered as she got to her feet and stood, smirking as she stared down at him. "Wait a minute. You can't just leave me here -" he protested, ceasing when she pointed her wand at his face then moving it up to his up-stretched arms.
"Never fear. I have no intention of leaving you here like that," Rose snickered. Relashio.."
Scorpius sat up and rubbed his wrists, glaring at her angrily. She laughed then blew him a kiss and licked her lips. "Until next time..."
"What do you mean 'next time'? You'll not -"
"Of course they'll be a 'next time.' We are partners after all, and seeing as you still have so much to learn, who better to teach you?" She twirled her wand as she turned on her heel and began walking across the mat.
He didn't trust himself to speak; he was confused and frustrated and desperately in need of a good wank, so he watched her in silence, startled when she suddenly stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder.
"Oh, and Scorpius..." she said sweetly, although her smile was what he would call devious, "might I suggest you learn Occulmency before you try to get the better of me again."
Author: queenb23more
Gift For: The Community
Summary: A surprise move forces Rose and Scorpius together, bringing up old regrets while potentially opening the door for something new.
Rating: R
Warnings: language [cursing, suggestiveness]
Word Count: 3693
A/N: I loved your prompts, but my 'fluff muse' was uncooperative, so I hope you don't mind that I twisted them a bit.
Rose Weasley's day began precisely as every other had for as long as she could remember: she awoke to the sound of her alarm clock's incessant "Get your bloody arse out of bed," courtesy of her brother and the powers that be at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, literally rolled out of bed after the ever-increasing screeching of her clock had sufficiently grated on her nerves, showered and dressed, drank two large mugs of coffee while reading the Daily Prophet and nibbling on a piece of toast, then took the Floo into the Ministry, rode the lift to Level Two, made her way to the third of six offices on the right side of the corridor, and began tackling the massive amount of paperwork littering her desk, in utter disbelief at how much of it piled up over the course of a day and then got left with her to sort through.
Shuffling papers whilst squished into a tiny, windowless office was not at all what she'd envisioned when she'd signed on with the Aurors and certainly not after she'd completed the training months ahead of schedule, for which she had earned high praise from her parents, especially her dad, who had boasted to the point of Rose's eternal embarrassment about her brilliance. And when she had been appointed by Harry as one of the leaders of the rookie squad, Rose had eagerly anticipated going out on missions, looking forward to the pursuits and captures that she had trained for so diligently.
One year later, however, although she had been on several meaningless surveillances, she had yet to see her first real action, unless one could count the seemingly never-ending litany of training exercises she and her squad performed, which she absolutely did not. Sparring against the same group of wizards and witches day in and day out had become tiresome, nearly as tiresome as the stacks of paperwork consistently cluttering her desk, and she often asked herself why the Ministry wasted their training and skills on things that could be done by anyone. Her dad had certainly never mentioned the 'down' side of it all those years she was growing up; instead, he and Harry had regaled them all with stories of stake-outs and close calls and catching Dark wizards without once mentioning that when she joined, she would spend her first post-training rookie year doing little more than sifting through paperwork and performing the same old exercises day in and day out. She had begun to think that she'd been misled into believing that being an Auror was exciting and mysterious by her dad and uncle when, in reality, it had been nothing of the sort to that point.
A dark blue paper airplane flew in through her door and landed on Rose's desk just as she was getting started on the first stack of many, and she happily dropped Alcott Bradley's report detailing his most recent mission back on top of the others and reached for the still fluttering paper. She had received enough inter-office memos of that particular shade to know that it was from her uncle, and she quickly skimmed the contents then glanced at the clock on the wall, crumpling the paper and tossing it into the rubbish bin as she stood and headed to the office at the far end of the corridor, wondering what might have prompted such an early morning meeting.
As she neared his door, she felt fairly confident he was going to spring yet another of his 'weekend warrior workshops' on them, and she sighed heavily. Personally, Rose did not mind the weekend-long training exercises Harry had instituted when he had become head of the Auror Department many years ago. She understood the special significance of the weekends, which began before dawn and finished long after dark, why Harry required mandatory overnight stays both nights in a dingy tent with two other rookies, and why her dad always accompanied them. She had grown up listening to their stories, realizing early on how sacred her uncle held the time he had shared with her parents when searching for ways to defeat Voldemort and had heard his belief that those exercises fostered comradeship in a way he believed every Auror should experience. The same could not be said for any of the others, however, and she was not at all looking forward to having to tell her fellow rookies that whatever plans they might have had for the weekend had been unilaterally cancelled. While no one had ever complained directly to her, she had overheard too often their grumblings that Harry was barking mad for forcing them to go on the weekend trips, not that a single one of them would have ever said it to his face, seeing as it was never a clever idea to openly insult the head of the entire bloody department in which one planned to spend the next eighty or so years working, especially when that superior was Harry Potter.
She knocked as she pushed open the slightly ajar door to her uncle's office, smiling brightly as she quipped, "Don't tell me...it's time for another one of your famous 'weekend warrior workshops' and you're going to make me the bearer of the news again."
She expected him to respond in his usual jovial manner. Instead, Harry motioned for her to enter without looking up from what he was writing. “Shut the door and have a seat. We need to talk.”
An hour later, Rose left her uncle's office in an exceptionally bad mood. But rather than return to her own desk and the piles of paperwork waiting for her, she threw open the door to the stairwell and raced up to the seventh floor, thankful to find the training room empty. Her anger and frustration continued building as she stormed into the locker room, where she quickly stripped out of her robes and changed into her workout clothes.
By the time she returned to the training room, she had moved beyond frustration to rage, so much so that her hands were shaking as she took aim with her wand. "Confringo!" Rose said through gritted teeth, unsurprised when she hit the first target on the far wall dead-on, causing it to burst into flames. She shot off several more spells in quick succession as her meeting with Harry replayed in her mind.
She had known by the tone of his voice and the absence of his usual greeting that there had been something serious on his mind, but nothing could have prepared her for his announcement. It was all she could do to maintain her composure at his news that, as an initial implementation of the new Minister for Magic's plans to consolidate into 'a more efficient Ministry,' he was merging the Magical Law Enforcement Squad with the Auror Division, and she was being paired with a hit wizard for training.
She hadn't been nearly as successful at keeping her cool, however, when Harry then proceeded to inform her that in a gesture of good will - and after a bit of persuasive coaxing from the Minister - the responsibility for assigning new partners had been left to the head of the MLES, and Adrian Pucey had insisted on pairing her with not simply any hit wizard but the one she considered to be the world's greatest arse.
After hitting the last target, she pocketed her wand and moved to the punching bag in the corner of the room. Scorpius fucking Malfoy, she thought, angrily attacking the bag as hard as she could, all the while loudly muttering a string of obscenities that would have made her Gran cringe but her uncles - particularly George - extremely proud, landing a blow or a kick with each one.
She jerked around at the sound of slow, mocking applause followed by a low whistle.
"Most impressive, Weasley...both the workout and the swearing."
"I'm so thrilled you approve," she replied sarcastically. "My life is now complete."
Malfoy casually pushed away from the doorframe and began walking towards her, wearing the same haughty smirk he had sported for as long as she'd known him, and she had to fight off the urge to pull out her wand and hex it off of his face. "I see you still possess your charming wit."
Merlin, she hated him...or at least that was what she told herself. She hadn't even seen the bloody bastard for more than two years, and it had taken less than ten seconds being in the same room with him for all of the bitter and hurtful feelings from their disastrous flirtations near the end of seventh year to resurface and reinforce her belief that he was, quite possibly, the most insufferable, most arrogant git ever to walk the face of the earth. Of all the people they could have stuck her with, she couldn't imagine anyone worse.
Rose snickered derisively. "And I see you still possess the ability to bring out the absolute worst in people...how excellent to discover that some things never change."
She had expected him to become angry - she knew she would have been in his place - and she knew that underneath his seemingly smug amusement, he was starting to seethe, so she wasn't at all surprised when he smirked and remarked coolly, "I must say, I initially questioned Pucey's judgement when he paired us, but perhaps you are worthy of being partnered with me after all."
Rose laughed sarcastically. "I'm worthy of being paired with you? You must be mental. I'm the Auror...I'd say they're doing you a favour by pairing you with me."
"Is that so?" Scorpius asked, continuing to display a remarkable calm, despite her snarky retorts. "Do you forget that I've got two years' seniority over you?"
Rose huffed incredulously. "Oh please! While you were gaining your so-called 'seniority,' I was training in Stealth, Tracking, Concealment, as well as -"
"That's right," he interrupted. "You were training. And while you were training, I was out in the field, wasn't I?"
"You really are mental if you think you can beat me in a duel," she replied. Deciding that she'd had enough of his 'witty banter' for one day, she started to turn back to the punching bag to continue her workout, but she stopped mid-turn when he reached up and unfastened the clasp on his robes, revealing a tee and casual trousers underneath.
"Do you care to put your money where your mouth is, Weasley?"
She would have been blind not to notice how fit he had become - how snugly his shirt fitted across the shoulders or how low on his hips he wore his trousers - although if she had been honest with herself, 'fit' didn't quite do him justice. He had left Hogwarts skinny and somewhat awkward - not that she hadn't fancied him anyway - but the years had been more than kind to him, and Rose looked appreciatively at the broad-shouldered, well muscled man standing before her, thinking, 'It would be so easy to...'
She shook her head slightly, to clear her mind; she refused to become distracted by his good looks and focused instead on his condescension and smugness.
He needed to be taken down, and she was just the witch to do it.
She took a deep breath, brushed back the sweaty hair from her forehead, and smirked back. "You're on."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"You're on."
Scorpius hung his MLES robe on the punching bag, all the while regarding Rose surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye. As much as it pained him to admit it - and it pained him a great deal - she was better than he had been told. In fact, she was brilliant - not to mention, flustered, angry, sweaty, and sexy - and he was having a difficult time not imagining what she would look like in bed. He had always found her attractive, but now she was not only pretty but extremely fit, and he had rather enjoyed watching her methodically destroy target after target before moving to assault the punching bag in the corner, where his gaze had drifted from her breasts each time she landed a punch to her arse each time she kicked. He hadn't seen her in years, and despite his admitted lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of spending the next two years working with her one-on-one, he was more than slightly aroused.
'Then again, why wouldn't I be?' he thought bitterly, his mind flashing back to that last year of school and he felt that old, familiar sting of rejection as he recalled how she had rebuffed his advances when he'd finally got the courage to make his move. Admittedly, he had wanted to get into her knickers - just as every bloke in school had wanted to get into her knickers once she came back for fourth year with tits - but his interest in her had been much more than simply wanting to fuck her. Rose had intrigued him, although he had never been able to put his finger on exactly why, and he was still resentful that she had questioned his sincerity and his attempts to date her in their seventh year had proved unsuccessful, having decided long ago that he would never allow her to get into his head again.
"Are you sure you're up to this? The reputation of the Aurors rests on your shoulders should I prevail."
She crossed her arms under her chest, and it was all he could do not to stare openly at the beads of sweat slowly snaking down her neck and chest into the fullness of her breasts in that low-cut tank she was wearing. "I can out-duel you with one hand tied behind my back."
"Is that so?" he snickered. "Maybe we'll try that next time."
Rose rolled her eyes in response, and Scorpius continued. "Are you ready then?"
She arched her eyebrow at him challengingly and replied, "I'm always ready."
He bit back a groan at the images of throwing her down on the mat and finding out just how ready she was. "Let's do this then." He raised his wand in front of his face, his eyes locked on hers as she followed suit, and he was pleased when he saw a flicker of something - although he wasn't sure if it was trepidation or anxiety or possibly concern - as each of them bowed before turning. It was all part of his master plan - the sarcasm, the goading, the duelling - to garner the upper hand in their partnership, to let her know from the beginning that he was no longer the geeky, uncertain boy he had been in school.
Scorpius counted off ten paces then spun, yelling, "Stupefy!" at the same time she shrieked, "Expelliarmus!" He ducked out of the way, barely avoiding her spell, before calling out one after the other, both offensive and defensive. Rose was matching him spell for spell, and he was, once again, impressed with her ability as well as her agility, feeling quite certain that he had, in fact, received the best possible assignment of rookie Aurors. But no matter how well-trained she was, he had no intention of allowing her to best him, even if he had to resort to non-traditional means to do so.
He fell to the ground, pretending to have been hit by her "Petrificus Totalus," waiting until she walked towards him, wand still drawn, before he raised his own and said, "Orchideous." When a bouquet of flowers erupted from the end of her wand, Scorpius knocked her feet out from under her and leapt up, his wand pointed at her heart.
"Well, well..." he said haughtily. "How the mighty have fallen."
"And how like you to ignore the established rules in favour of your own. It really iss all about winning for you, isn't it?"
"Of course," he laughed.
Rose closed her eyes as she took a deep breath, opening them slowly, an indifferent look on her face.
"Fine. You win, Malfoy."
Scorpius studied her for a moment, his eyes sweeping over her body before resting once again on hers. He hadn't expected her to concede so quickly, and he was slightly disappointed that she hadn't fought harder, although he knew, without question, that he would be wanking to visions of Rose Weasley sprawled at his feet for weeks.
"Here, let me help you," he murmured, leaning down and offering his hand. "I told you it wouldn't take me long -"
Her eyes blazed and before Scorpius knew what was happening, he found himself lying flat on his back, his arms pinned over his head, and Rose straddling his waist.
“I wouldn't proclaim that bit of information too loudly," she retorted, the confident smirk having returned. “It isn't something you really want to broadcast if you ever want to find someone to shag you."
“Sod off," Scorpius sputtered, struggling against invisible bindings on his wrists. "There are plenty of women -"
"I'm sure there are." Rose stared at him appreciatively. "You're a good-looking bloke." She sat back onto his obvious erection. "And quite fit from the feel of it. Is there something you'd like to tell me, Scorpius?"
His cheeks burned with frustration at being unable to touch her. He wanted to free his arms so that he could flip her over and show her how fit he was. In fact, he was 100% certain that he had never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted to fuck this woman.
"No?" she continued. "No witty response? This might be a first."
She reached back to pull the band from her plait, shaking her head to release her hair, which fell in waves over her shoulders. His eyes followed her fingers as she ran them through her hair, down her neck, then slowly across her chest before drifting up his arm, her fingertips barely skimming his skin. With each movement, she brushed against his very hard cock.
His eyes closed unwittingly. If she kept that up, he was going to be in big trouble.
"I always heard you were a bloody tease," Scorpius muttered, slowly opening his eyes when she abruptly stopped moving. She had fixed him with an unreadable glare.
"And I suppose that's the reason you never followed through with me in school? Because you were told I wouldn't shag you?"
'What?!' His mind raced and he met her gaze. "Wait a minute. I'm not sure what you're playing at, but we both know you were the one who didn't follow through -"
"Have you told yourself that so often that you believe it to be true? Because that isn't how I remember it at all." She rotated her hips just enough to convince him that she was doing it purposely, and he was filled with frustration.
"Then your memory is wonky," he replied more harshly than he had intended, but he refused to let her off the hook so easily. "If you'll recall, you were the one who pulled back. You were the one who cancelled on me. You were the one who -"
Without waiting for him to finish, Rose leaned down, pressing her chest into his as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and breathed in his ear. "But you were the one who ended up with Dominique, weren't you? I suppose it's too bad you'll never find out whether what they said about me was, in fact, true or not," she whispered, and he moaned, his body shuddering when the tip of her tongue touched the shell of his ear while at the same time she pressed her body firmly into his.
"Holy shit, Rose."
She raised up slightly, the tip of her nose almost touching his; having never been so close to her, he had never noticed that her eyes weren't simply brown but were almost black or that she had light brown freckles on the sides of her nose or that she had a small scar just below her bottom lip. Their eyes met and held for a moment, and anticipation washed over him as he waited for what seemed like eons.
He could barely contain his desire. If nothing else, he had to feel her lips on his, and he parted his lips slightly, nearly crying out victoriously when she shifted and began leaning in towards him.
But rather than kiss him, Rose licked around his lips with the tip of her tongue before sitting up and grinding invitingly against his crotch.
"You want me, don't you?" she practically purred. She began outlining his now moist lips with her fingertip. "I know you want me."
Scorpius groaned, deciding that she just might be trying to kill him.
"It's all right if you don't admit it; I already know." She ground against his erection once more then winked and pushed herself up onto her knees.
"Wha- Where are you going?" he stammered as she got to her feet and stood, smirking as she stared down at him. "Wait a minute. You can't just leave me here -" he protested, ceasing when she pointed her wand at his face then moving it up to his up-stretched arms.
"Never fear. I have no intention of leaving you here like that," Rose snickered. Relashio.."
Scorpius sat up and rubbed his wrists, glaring at her angrily. She laughed then blew him a kiss and licked her lips. "Until next time..."
"What do you mean 'next time'? You'll not -"
"Of course they'll be a 'next time.' We are partners after all, and seeing as you still have so much to learn, who better to teach you?" She twirled her wand as she turned on her heel and began walking across the mat.
He didn't trust himself to speak; he was confused and frustrated and desperately in need of a good wank, so he watched her in silence, startled when she suddenly stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder.
"Oh, and Scorpius..." she said sweetly, although her smile was what he would call devious, "might I suggest you learn Occulmency before you try to get the better of me again."