Prologue: The Wonderful World of Rose Weasley
Thanks to ArabicLyra - my beta, who made this chapter presentable. And to you - for reading :)
Do you know that kind of voice which is very annoying and alerting in the back of your mind?
This voice, that tells you that you are going to do something really stupid?
Well, I have to admit… although it’s really annoying … it has prevented me from doing something I would have to regret later pretty often.
Do you think that I’m on the edge of reason? Well…That’s quite possibly – it’s a bit difficult to turn out normal with a family like mine … I think sanity is not really the right word to describe the Weasleys.
But where to start?
First, there’s my Mum, who’s probably the most intelligent witch in the world, but who has this obsession with books - she arranges them according to their first letters - and timetables.
Then my Dad. He’s afraid of the tiniest spider and still blushes when someone mentions the name “Lavender Brown”.
My little brother Hugo turned out to be a second George Weasley, but he also inherited my dad’s fear of spiders. Honestly, that’s just ridiculous.
Grandpa is also a very strange individual. He just worships Muggles. He nearly collapsed when he used “Skype” for the first time in his life. Mum decided it would be the best if he never did it again.
Grandma starts crying every time we’re celebrating someone’s birthday, because she thinks it’s so touching. It took my Aunty Ginny two years to ensure Lily – my cousin - that there was no need to cry, because she used to do the same. When I was younger, I really had sympathy for Granny, but now at 17, I think it’s just embarrassing.
Next is my Uncle Percy, who is the biggest nerd in person I’ve ever met in my whole life - even mum can’t hold a candle to him, and his wife Audrey is the worst groupie you’ll ever see. There’s a picture of the Weird Sisters on her bedside locker, right beside the family portrait.
My Uncle Billy married a French, and although I like his daughter Dominique, I think there’s nothing more to say. The French are just…strange. Even Aunty Ginny doesn’t seem to like Billy’s wife Fleur – and she’s the synonym for a open-hearted person.
Oh, and the Potters…. Yes, the Potters. (And yes, my uncle is Harry Potter). Trust me, it would destroy your view of the world if you spent just one day with them. There’s no day without James and Al doing something really stupid, Aunty Ginny’s outbursts and uncle Harry’s attempts to calm her (If you ask me, James and Al just don’t seem to hear that alerting voice, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much tension at Potter’s). And currently, the youngest daughter Lily drives her Mum crazy with her burning ambition to save the world (She’s vegetarian, because she doesn’t want any animal to die for her. Oh, and she doesn’t want the House Elves to tidy up her room. No wonder she’s my Mum’s favourite niece…) .
Don’t get me wrong… I love my family…
It’s just that we’re an interesting clan. Sometimes I think we need an event manager for our family reunions, because there are so damn many of us.
Wow… I think I got a bit distracted… Where was I?
Yeah, that tiny little voice…. Do you know those silly scenes in movies, when there are a little angel and a little devil-thingy sitting on each of your shoulders and trying to tell you what to do?
It reminds me a bit of that. But it’s not really the same…
Like I already said it often keeps me out of trouble.
When James and Al decided to dye Lily’s hair blue while she was sleeping, the voice told me not to join them… even if it had been my idea. Lily was crying, Aunty Ginny was screaming, James and Al were too terrified to leave their rooms, Uncle Harry was pissed, and I was off the hook.
When Al and Dominique asked me to come with them smoking after curfew, the voice told me to stay in the dormitory… although it was me who stole the cigarettes out of James´ pockets. They got caught – and believe me, getting detention for one month wasn’t very nice. Well, the howlers they got two days later weren’t either.
There were plenty of situations like those. I suppose if I hadn’t listened to this annoying little voice I wouldn’t have become Head Girl.
Well, but somehow I realized, that there are moments in your life when you should not listen to your moralizer. Sometimes I regretted not having been part of Al’s and James´ stupid pranks. Sometimes I really felt like missing a lot of fun.
So I decided to ignore my lovely, little voice.
This is the story of me getting rid of it.
It’s the story of how I fell for Scorpius Malfoy.
One Fine Friday
A/N: Thanks for reading - and I´m very sorry for any mistakes I´ve made. I think my beta´s quite busy currently.
So if you have any tips, reviews... I´d be glad to hear what you think about it :)
There are these days on which I´m really asking myself why the heck I even bothered to get up. That Friday in early December was such a day. The whole week was a mess, but on that day just everything seemed to go wrong. And that Friday happened to be the beginning of my story.
Okay, that´s not really the truth. I could start with those precious memories of 1st September (what seems to be) a few years ago, when Dad told me not to get too friendly to Scorpius, the spawn of his former enemy Draco Malfoy.
Or maybe it would be interesting if I told you how we became partners for a project in Potions in our third year and had our first real conversation with each other (without teasing and sticking your tongue out and all that stuff).
Or I could talk about that day in summer two years ago, when I received my Hogwarts letter, which said that Scorpius and I had become Heads.
Maybe that´s all important.
But I´ve never been a fan of this kind of detailed information.
I´m quite sure you know these people who are about to tell you `the story of the millennium`, start to chatter about something and 10 minutes later you´re just thinking…`What are you even talking about? For Merlin´s sake, get to the point!`
So I decided to start with that bloody Friday. The first milestone of my story. Our story.
(And just to let you know: Scorp`s and my ´getting together` … well…our whole relationship has never been very romantic. It´s quite ridiculous actually. So don´t tell me I haven´t warned you.)
I had had to do tons of homework the night before, and after I had been done with my stupid Head Girl duties and after about 4 hours of studying, I just had fallen asleep on my DADA essay. Actually I just had wanted to close my eyes for a few moments, but then I had started to slaver onto my notes.
In retrospect I´d say, that I took the whole Head Girl and N.E.W.T. thing – like everything in life – too bloody seriously. And incidents like these happened many times, when I come to think of it.
So after falling asleep at 2 o´clock in the morning it was bound to happen: Of course I overslept.
But it wasn´t the ´I´ll really have to hurry up if I want to get some breakfast´ - kind of oversleeping. I woke up 5 minutes after my Transfiguration lesson had started.
I stared at my watch incredulously for about 10 seconds. Slavering on my notes – yeah, that totally sounded like me. But being unpunctual? Me? Hermione Weasley´s daughter? Never.
I think I beat some world record in an attempt to collect my things about 5 times faster than usual. I´m sure even Superman couldn´t hold a handle to me. I didn´t want to waste time, so I just picked up every book I could find, pushed the whole stuff into my bag and nearly stumbled over my own feet when I left my dorm.
I regretted my genius idea of taking every book of mine with m a few minutes later. Apparently my bag wasn´t used to such an amount of books, and before I knew was happening, all of them were spread across the floor.
Well, it wasn´t the floor actually. I was standing on one of the moving staircases.
Great. Just perfect.
While I was picking them up, somebody bent down to help me. I raised my head and looked right into the green eyes of David Johnson, a Ravenclaw who was in my year.
“Morning Rose. Why in such a hurry?”
Why in such a hurry?? Jeez, this guy was pissing me off!
Okay. That sounds a bit rude – David´s a great guy. Very nice and polite, smart… But this was just not the right moment for a nice conversation after running over a nice Ravenclaw who happened to have one of his free studying lessons in the morning, while I was rushing through the whole castle.
Although I was just annoyed, something in the back of my mind told me to shut my mouth.
And I decided that this was the right choice. I mean… He was trying to help me and I was pissed off? What heck was wrong with me?
“I overslept. Would you mind….?”
“Oh sure” he replied quickly and handed me over my books. I looked at my bag, spoke a quick ´Reparo´, but I didn´t want to take the risk of ruining it again. So I carried my books with my bare hands. “Thanks David.” I said and rushed away.
“Shall I help you with the books?” I turned around again. “No, thanks, that´s okay.”
“Are you sure?” “Yeah, it´s okay. Really”
“Oh… okay… You´re very welcome.” I disappeared around the corner, but still heard his voice. “See you, Rose.”
Just one minute later I nearly bumped into a First Year – she was crying, because she got lost.
I mean… Seriously, it had been 3 months since her first day in Hogwarts. You´d think after three months a 11-year-old girl would be able to get to her class after 3 months. But no, apparently not…
The nicer part of me reminded me that I had been pretty much the same, so I explained the way to the DADA room very patiently. She beamed at me and rushed away happily.
So after the moving staircase incident, the little conversation with David and after my good deed for the day, I arrived at the Transfiguration classroom exactly 23 minutes too late. My attempts to get into class inconspicuously completely failed when I dropped my books once again. Everybody turned their head to me, and I felt myself blushing. It was utterly silent until my precious Transfiguration teacher exhaled scoffingly.
“Thanks Miss Weasly for joining us today. What a pleasure.”
I´d never known what his fucking problem was, but he always had been teasing me.
“I´m so sorry, I – “
“Spare us your pathetic apologies. Sit down.”
What a prick
I quickly walked to my table back in the room and sat down beside Dominique.
“Where the hell have you been? I´m dying here out of boredom.”
“Well, how awful.” I whispered sarcastically. “I fell asleep over my fucking homework and – “
“Miss Weasley, if I were you, I´d be the last one to disturb the lesson.”
It really wasn’t my day.
---
My annoyance reached its peak around noon at the Gryffindor table. Terry Bleaker – the guy I´d had some kind of thing for in my fourth year – handed me over a book, which I forgot in the Transfiguration classroom.
“Nice choice of literature, Rose”
It really wasn’t a good idea to carry take all my books with me. And the book I managed to forget just happened to be “Unshaken love” – some terribly cheesy novel about… well, trust me, you don´t want to know what it is about. It´s just some random book I was given by Nana. Usually I read too much for my own good, as Dad put it once, but this book is a torture.
Apparently Terry had read a few pages or something. He was grinning at me.
Some years before I would have melted, if he just had looked at me. But that day I shot him an unkind glare and just snapped “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” But Terry was already walking away…
My head spun around quickly. Scorpius Malfoy was standing right behind me. I sighed.
“Malfoy… What do you want?”
He sat down beside me at the Gryffindor table. “I was asking myself if you´d fancy a date tonight.” I quirked an eyebrow and looked at him suspiciously. And then I realized…
“Oh no. Malfoy, please tell me you didn´t.”
He bit his lip. “I´m sorry. That Hufflepuff Prefect, the one with the crooked nose – “
“Tommy Jones.”
“ – yep, him… He asked me if we could change our patrol duty. They have to do some kind of project for Astronomy, and … well, honestly, I didn´t really listen. It had to do something with full moon. And that´s tonight.”
I was frustrated. Honestly, I started banging my head on the table.
“Well… I can tell him no, if you wanted.”, he said half – amusedly.
I lifted my head again. Don´t be such a wimp. You´re Head Girl, for Merlin´s sake!
“No, it´s okay.”
Malfoy looked at me concernedly. “Are you sure? I could to this alone, if you – “
That´s your duty as Head Girl
“No, really. 8 o´clock, in the Entrance Hall?”
He nodded and stood up. “See it positive…. we´ll have a weekend off.” I just sighed as respond. Like I ever had a weekend off…
“And Rose… Go to your room and lie down. You really look like you´d need some sleep.”
I frowned at him. He just grinned and walked away to the Slytherin table.
Another sleepless night. And on top of all, I was going to spend it with Scorpius Malfoy. This day was just becoming better and better.
Stupid Brother, Lovely Sister
At half past 6 I collapsed onto my bed. The day seemed to last an eternity. About 7 people had told me that I looked like I needed a rest. Seriously, I swore to myself that I´d punch the next person who told me to lie down.
In the afternoon I even thought about skipping classes – I was sure that Neville wouldn´t mind. I was interested in nothing but sleeping that day – even a special performance by the Chippendales couldn´t have drawn my attention.
Okay… Actually I guess I never EVER would have been interested in the Chippendales. When the day comes on which I´d love to watch men dancing around in nothing but too tight panties and a bow – tie…. Please go shoot me.
Anyway, I didn´t skip them. I never skipped classes.
But there was still one hour left to relax and collect myself.
One hour without thinking about any duties or about homework or anything.
One hour.
Trust my stupid brother to ruin it.
I just had fallen asleep when somebody woke me up by knocking violently at the door of my dorm.
Well, first I thought I just dreamt it. I had this strange dream where I was sitting in the library, and there was a huge pile of books in front of me. Suddenly the protagonist of “Unshaken Love” appeared out of nowhere, started knocking on the bookshelf impatiently and told me how I would fail my final exams if I didn´t read each and every one of them.
Actually I should have been kind of glad that somebody woke me up (maybe Dad was right… maybe I really read too much for my own good). But still… at least I was asleep.
I stumbled to my door.
“Hey Sis´” My brother was grinning at me.
I frowned. “Hugo! What are you doing here?” Yeah, I know I was being rude, but that guy just had interrupted my precious nap.
“I thought I could pay my lovely sister a visit.”, he said. He walked over to my bed and sat down. I slammed the door and looked at him suspiciously. He never paid me a visit – at least he never did without ulterior motives…Despite the fact that he never called me lovely….
“How are you?”
“What do you want?”
“What?”
I ran my hand through my hair. “Hugo, I don´t have that much time. I know you didn´t walk the whole way through the whole castle just to ask me how I am. So, what do you want?”
“Well, I´d need your help…”
“Really? That´s news.”
He just ignored my comment and continued. “The thing is, that I didn´t manage to finish my essay for Ancient Runes. I really tried for about an hour – “I quirked my eyebrow.
“… okay, maybe it was just half an hour… but that´s not the point. I´m just crap at that stuff, and I know that I can´t get it until tomorrow. It was already due until today, and Bingley told me to show him the essay tomorrow morning…” He pulled out a scroll of parchment and looked at me expectantly.
“No Hugo, no way! I´ve got absolutely no time!”
“Rose, please…”
“Look, I could help you and explain the complicated stuff, but there´s no chance that I´m going to write that stupid essay for you. You just have to sit down and try again! I´m sure - “
“Look, that´s the problem. I don’t have the time to sit down and try again… Danny and me, we´ve got detention…” Danny was Hugo´s best friend. They were as thick as thieves, and both had nothing on their minds but pranks… And girls maybe….
“Again?!”, I asked amused. Mum would explode. “What did you do this time?”
“Do you know Jessica Hale?”
I nodded. That chick was amazingly gorgeous. And she was as daft as a brush. But all those testosterone – controlled blokes in her year fancied the pants off her. It was almost pathetic.
“Danny asked her out. He had a crush on her for about 4 years.” I would have thought that Danny had much better taste. Apparently not. “She told him, that she didn´t want to date such an immature moron like him.” Well… Danny was immature. He was childish, and he was completely nuts - like my brother.
But calling him a moron was completely ridiculous. Particularly if it was Jessica Hale who had the nerve to expose him like that – that girl had thought that the Thames was a Muggle Rock Band.
“After that we jinxed her perfume. She smelled like a bucket full of dragon dung – I think she nearly had a nervous breakdown.”
I had to suppress a grin. Yeah, of course their behaviour was ludicrous. But you have to admit that it sounds like a lot of fun. I´d have loved to see her face….
“Now Danny and I got Detention for one week… every evening… But it was definitely worthwhile.”
We looked at each other for a few moments.
“Are you going to leave me alone if I say yes?” I didn´t want to waste more time. I knew that I was going to say yes at some point. This boy was a plague, and he wouldn´t give in until I´d say yes.
Hugo jumped up and beamed at me. “Of course I will.”
I sighed. “Fine!”
“I love you, Rose. I have to hurry now. Neville is going to kill me if I´m late.” He rushed out of my dorm.
He just turned around once more and looked at me closely.
“And,... Sis?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should lie down. You really look like you´d need a rest…. “
Late Night Walks
About 4 hours later, Malfoy and I were still walking through the whole castle, doing our rounds.
It had taken me one hour to finish his stupid essay. Actually it hadn´t been difficult, but I just hadn´t managed to concentrate anymore. And because of that stupid essay I had been late. Again. I just hated being unpunctual.
But anyway, he didn´t seem to care.
That was something I´d never have thought: For a Malfoy he was somebody to get along with quite easily.
I mean… I had always been kind of prejudiced. I knew that his family had been a very important “part” of Voldemort´s fellowship.
But Draco Malfoy and his son are quite different from each other. Dad had always told me that Draco Malfoy had been rich, arrogant, sneaky, cunning and deceitful, and he had always wanted to be in the spotlight.
Okay, the Malfoys are still pretty rich. They must have inherited a fortune by their ancestors. And Scorpius has always been a bit arrogant. This runs in the Malfoy bloodline, as being dreamy runs in the Lovegood one. He was quite popular, given he was Head Boy, but he wasn´t one of those, who desperately needed to be the centre of attention.
Actually, I was surprised when I heard that Scorpius Malfoy had become Head Boy. Yes, of course, he was smart and had excellent grades, but everybody had supposed that Al or David Johnson would become Head Boy.
Well, Al had already been Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and David Johnson was too insecure to be Head Boy. Compared to David, Malfoy was ambitious, confident and he knew what he wanted.
He was definitely a Malfoy, but he had never been sneaky, or cunning, or deceitful, or whatever you want to call it.
Scorpius looked at his watch. “Just half an hour left.” I yawned. He looked at me. “Tired?”
“You can say that again.” “I guess we could go back now if we walked slowly.” That was music in my ears.
It was in some corridor in the north wing of the castle, when he froze. He had stopped so abruptly that I bumped into him.
“What the – “, I snapped, but Malfoy silenced me. What the heck was wrong with him?
I looked at him warily.
“Listen!”, he said.
First I wanted to ask him, if he was going crazy, but then I heard it too. Somebody was laughing.
This was something that happened quite often – a bunch of students, who thought that spending Friday night in the Common Room was far too boring, met in one of the deserted classrooms – after curfew.
We walked over to the classroom where the noise came from. He sighed, pulled out his wand and looked at me. “Shall we?” I nodded. And I had thought that that evening had finally gotten to an end….
Malfoy and me mumbled a quick “Lumos” and opened the door rapidly.
The room got completely quite. A couple of dazzled Fifth-Years were looking at us in shock. I recognized my cousin Lily, her friends Coretta Adams and Alice Green, Danny and …
…. Hugo, my stupid jerk of a brother. He was holding a bottle of Firewhiskey, and suddenly his hand started shaking. “Hey Sis.”
Under normal circumstances I would have been disappointed.
But all I felt was anger. Pure, packed anger.
Seriously, I thought that I was going to kill that little bastard.
“HUGO! What the fuck are you doing here?!” This seemed to be a bit familiar, didn´t it?
“Easy Rosie, try to calm down – “
“Don´t >Easy Rosie< me! And I will not calm down!” How dare he? “Please tell me one good reason why I shouldn´t castrate you right now.”
“Look, Rose… Today´s Alice´s birthday, and we wanted to celebrate a bit. You´re just turning 15 once in your life, you know…”
“I don´t care who´s birthday it is! Are you totally nuts? Do you even know what Filch would have done to you, if he had caught you?! For Merlin´s sake, that´s something you could be expelled for! Please tell me how anyone can be that stupid!”
Hugo looked at me angrily. “Now Rose, could you please come down again? Nothing happened, okay? It´s just you.”
“Jeez, you just don´t get it, do you? What do you want me to do now? God damn it, you lied to me, you ungrateful, little idiot!”
Hugo´s face turned red. I was sure I was looking exact the same. That´s some stupid characteristic we´ve inherited by our parents – turning completely red if we´re completely embarrassed or infuriated.
“Yeah, and do you know why? You would have never said you´d help me if I had said that I had wanted to celebrate Alice´s birthday!” What was he thinking? Did he even realize what I had to do and think about the whole day? I had better things to do than doing my brother´s homework so that he could go and amuse himself.
“Of course I would have said no! Mum would explode if she knew about this!”
He screwed up his eyes. “You know what? Even Mum broke plenty of rules – you´re the only one who makes such a fuss over things like this, just because you´re a boring, prude and uptight bitch!”
I was utterly thunderstruck.
We often argued, and we often insulted each other. But I had never raged like this, and he had never ever called me something like that. Even he looked totally shocked, as if he just perceived what he had said.
“Erm, it would be the best if you´d just go back to your dorms. 100 points from Gryffindor – 20 for each one of you.”
Wow, I had totally forgotten about the six other people in the room. I even had forgotten about Lily… I was used to the fact that my brother is constantly up to something stupid, but Lily had never been into something like that. Apparently she was far less mature than I gave her credit for.
Malfoy had been the first who found his tongue. Lily and her friends looked as if they were going to cry. Danny stood motionless, but then seemed to decide that getting lost probably would be the best idea. He dragged Hugo out of the room and just mumbled a quick “´night.” when he passed Malfoy, who was leaning at the doorframe. The girls stormed after them. Lily turned around and shot me an apologetic glance. She seemed as if she wanted to say something, but her one of the girls called after her, and so she left the room.
And then we were alone.
I sat onto one of the chairs. I was on the edge of crying – not because I was sad. I was angry, I was frustrated, and I felt the strange urge to smash something. What was wrong with that little prat? What did he expect me to do when I caught them? Join the party?
Scorpius looked at me. He seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable. That´s something that hasn´t changed over all the years. He had never been good at dealing with people who´re on the verge of crying or at expressing his own feelings. Yeah, it sounds totally like a cliché. But trust me: He really has no clue when it comes to things like that.
Suddenly he started smirking.
“What are you grinning about?”, I snapped.
He chuckled and shook his head slightly. “I just never saw you that upset.”
I just shot him an angry glance.
He sat down in front of me. “Rose… They´re just 15. Don´t take it that seriously.”
“That seriously? Malfoy, what do you want me to do now? What the heck am I going to do with that stupid Firewhiskey?”
He shrugged, longed after the bottle, which was still on the table, and observed it. I continued complaining about my predicament. “What the hell am I going to do now? I can´t just go to Nev… to Longbottom … What should I say, >Sorry, Professor… I caught my stupid brother, my cousin and their friends with a bottle of Firewhiskey… Would it be possible not to mention that to my parents? They´d kill him, and after that, he would kill me for telling you…<”
But Malfoy interrupted my monologue. “Weasley? Where the hell did your brother get this stuff?”
“How the fuck should I know? Do I look like a psychic? I´m not even interested where he got it. I´m the one, who has to get rid of it!”
“No, you don´t understand. That´s one of the finest Firewehiskey in whole Scotland! It costs a fortune.” He looked at me. “It would be a pity just to ´get rid of it´ …”
“So? What do you want to do now? Having a party on your own?”
“For instance…”
“Very funny, I die of laughter.”
“I´m not kidding.”
“Oh please, be serious.”
He was still looking at me expectantly.
“Merlin… You are serious.”
He nodded.
“Are you going nuts?”
“Rose, what are you planning to do? If you bring it to Longbottom he´ll want to know, where you found it.”
“Well, I´m going to lie.”
He looked amused. “Yeah, … of course… you could lie… but still… Trust me, this would be a total waste….”
We looked at each other for a few moments. Then I sighed.
“Okay… you know what? Just take it… without ever wasting any words on it…”
He smirked. “Thanks, Weasley”. Malfoy stood up. Then he looked at me again.
“Do you wanna join me? You really look like you´d need … some distraction.”
I stared at him, but I didn´t say anything. When the silence became awkward, he just said, “Thanks, again… Good night, Rose.”
Malfoy walked over to the door. His hand was already on the doorknob.
“Wait….” He turned around again.
“I´m coming with you.”
Anything but ´good´
This chapter took me ages. I´ve started it a while ago, but I had some things on my mind that kind of queered my pitch. For all those who already graduated.... Be thankful! My final exams are driving me crazy right now.
I had quite a few problems with that chapter, and I´m not really happy with it. (I´m a bit of a weirdo, I know...).
On top of that, I´m still in need of a beta... So once again: I´m very sorry for any mistake!
Well, I hope you enjoy it more than I do... Let me know what you think about it!
Oh, and speaking of Firewhiskey... If you are looking for a good story: I´ve read that one, just after finishing the chapter - http://community.livejournal.com/scorpius_rose/96386.html ... Whim of fate ;)
Cheers :]
Maybe I really needed some distraction.
Maybe I was just pissed off by all these things I had on my mind.
Maybe it was because of that stupid fight with Hugo.
Maybe I was just looking for fun on a bloody Friday night after a week that turned out to become one of the worst in my whole Hogwarts career – apart from the weeks when we took our N.E.W.T. exams about 6 months later.
Maybe I only wanted to prove Hugo wrong and convince myself, that I wasn´t being boring, prude and uptight.
Probably it was every bloody thing of that nice list of possible things which could have led me to approve to that crazy idea.
But as soon as I said, that I was joining him and followed him to his dorm, I started to regret my decision.
Why in Merlin´s name did I have to yes? This was the question I was asking myself over and over again while we were walking to the east wing of the castle, where his dorm was located.
And it was the question which my inner voice was practically screaming at me.
It was the craziest cloak-and-dagger operation I´ve ever done, it was plain lunatic, and yes – I do know that I was a complete hypocrite. I mean, first I condemned Hugo and his irresponsible behaviour, and after that I went on and got drunk myself.
Okay, actually I didn´t plan to get drunk. I really didn´t. But I could have guessed that drinking Firewhiskey when you were absolutely not used to alcohol was basically a kamikaze operation. And, believe me: A boy, a girl and a bottle of Firewhiskey are just the recipe for disaster.
Well… at least I know that now.
But at some point I decided, that I didn´t care. I shut myself and my inner voice up.
And seriously… How much harm could be done by having fun?
My inner dialogue between my moralizer and me continued until we reached his dorm. Malfoy opened the door and let me in.
“So here we are.”
I looked around. Apparently the Head Boy´s dorm was built exactly like mine. It looked quite similar, despite the fact that all the curtains and covers were green, and it was messy.
Then again, “messy” is a relative conception. Compared to my room, every room looks messy – I was brought up by the most orderly mother you could find. Compared to James´ or Al´s room… Well, let´s not go there…
Malfoy tilted his head. “Erm… Are you going to sit down or do you prefer standing around?”
I sighed and collapsed onto his bed. I felt kind of helpless. Why did everything have to go so terribly wrong that day? Why was everything just so … chaotic?
Malfoy sat beside me and handed over a glass of Firewhiskey. I sat up and took it.
“You really shouldn´t think about it that much, you know.”, he said all of a sudden.
I sighed again. “Maybe.”
I looked at my glass. I hoped that this stuff wasn´t that strong. I still could remember Al´s birthday party the summer before… Dominique had way too much of the Firewhiskey and had to throw up in her own bedroom. I had never seen my Uncle Bill that infuriated.
But I wasn´t that naïve and careless as Dominique, was I?
Malfoy raised his glass, and so did I. “Cheers, Weasley.” He grinned at me.
“Cheers.”, I murmured and downed the whiskey. It was strong, and it burnt down my throat, but he had been absolutely right: This stuff was amazing. It tasted much better than I had expected.
“Woah… Easy, girl!”
I shot him a glare. “Don´t >Easy, girl< me, Malfoy! I´ve heard that before.” Really, I had enough of everybody soothing me.
He grinned. “Okay, I´m sorry.” He poured me another glass.
This was definitely going to be interesting.
Actually I had expected that the evening would be a bit awkward. I had expected that neither of us would know what to talk about. But we seemed to get along with each other pretty easily. Apparently we had more in common then I had thought.
First of all, he didn´t like Quidditch very much. He loved watching games, but he was absolutely untalented. The same goes for me. I´ve been afraid of flying since I´d fallen off a broom when I had been 6.
“Even my uncle Percy´s daughters are suckers for Quidditch – and I think Percy hadn´t touched a broom since he had been in Hogwarts. But apart from him every member of my family is playing Quidditch.”, I babbled.
Yes, I know… I talk a bit too much when I´m tipsy.
But Scorpius didn´t seem to be bothered at all. Au contraire, he actually listened to me.
I can´t tell about what exactly we were talking all the time. Alcohol does very strange things to people. I told him many things which I wouldn´t even have considered telling him if I hadn´t been drunk. About six glasses of whiskey later I was complaining about my fight with Hugo. Again.
“Just forget it. Believe me, puberty is an awful phase for boys at his age.”, he said, took another sip of his Firewhiskey and looked at me contemplatively. “Maybe he was just that angry because he´s got a crush on one of those chicks who were with him.”
“Or maybe it´s just because he´s an asshole.”, I replied.
Scorpius raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Oh, you´d never think what a bloke would do to impress a girl, Rosie.”
“Enlighten me. And don´t you dare to call me Rosie ever again.” I hated that nickname, although I didn´t tell anyone. Everyone else seemed to adore it.
He reminisced. “When I was 14, I was totally into that girl living in the apartment next door.”
I frowned. “You´re living in an apartment?”, I asked.
“No, but my parents own a flat near Diagon Alley; and … well… our neighbour was absolutely gorgeous. She was my first crush since I had been in Primary School.”
I had to grin. Scorpius Malfoy told me about his personal love – life. Yep, that guy was definitely intoxicated.
“There´s a park near the building, and she always used to sit there and read. She was a sucker for Muggle literature, and at that time she preferred Paulo Coelho. I didn´t have the guts to talk to her, so I went into a Muggle shop and bought one of his books. But unfortunately that was the first time I bought anything in a Muggle shop. It was totally embarrassing.”
My grin became wider.
“Two days after I had bought the book I saw her walking through Diagon Alley with a boy… hand in hand.” He sighed dramatically. I laughed.
“So, tell me, poor Scorpius, how did you manage to handle it?”
“I came over it… eventually. But those Coelho books have become my favourite ones. “
Apparently he didn´t lie.… There was an exemplar of “Eleven minutes” on his bed locker. Very interesting.
“Scorpius Malfoy is reading Muggle books. You learn something new everyday.”, I murmured.
“Well… What did you expect? Witch Weekly?”
“No… You just don´t seem to be… a reading guy.”
“What kind of guy do I seem to be?”
“The kind of >Let´s-go-and-get-drunk-with-the-bottle-of-Firewhiskey-we´ve-just-confiscated< guy”
He grinned. “Yep, that totally sounds like me.”
I took another sip of his whiskey. He watched me.
“You know, Weasley…. I honestly have to say…. You do surprise me.”
“Why is that?”
“Don´t get me wrong… I don´t consider you to be boring… or prude…. or uptight….”
I frowned at him. “I don´t need you to repeat my brother´s lovely description, thank you very much.”
He simply passed over my comment. Why did everybody ignore my comments?
“Look, I´ve kind of supposed that you are more than just the nice, little, smart Head Girl. I´ve known your temper too well… But having an outburst like this and going off to have some private time with the Head Boy – that´s something I´d never expected.”
“That´s something no one would ever expect, I guess.”, I answered. “Good girls don´t do that, do they?”
Malfoy grinned. “Rose, I don´t know you quite well, but I could definitely tell: You´re anything, but a good girl.”
“Well, that´s what everyone expecting from me… Being a good example for anybody. Behaving well. Being the nice little flagship daughter of Ronald and Hermione Weasley.”, I just blurred out.
Like I said… I wouldn´t have told him any of this if I hadn´t been that tipsy.
Well… I guess tipsy is a bit of an understatement here.
“Who expects you to be like that? Your parents?”
“I don´t know… I guess….”
See, the thing is… Being the daughter of such famous parents definitely pressure on you.
My entire life I had that feeling that there was just no way that I was allowed to fail. In anything. People just seemed to expect me to get anything right. Believe me, that does put a lot of pressure on you.
Actually my family had always told me just to be myself. Especially Uncle Harry has encouraged me not to give a damn what people are thinking.
But still… It took me about 17 years to figure that out.
“Funny thing…”, Malfoy murmured.
I looked at him questioningly.
“Everywhere I´m going people are practically waiting for me to screw up. Seriously, everybody is looking at me as if to say…. >Hey Death Eater Spawn… When are you going to take over the world?<”
He was right – that was funny. But his scowling stopped me from laughing.
I began to feel a little uncomfortable.
Like I´ve said… Scorpius was not that much of a talker at that time. But alcohol definitely started loosing his tongue.
“You shouldn´t care what people think about you…”
He looked at me for a few seconds. Then he smiled weakly. “You shouldn´t either.”
This was it… Although the initial situation was completely different, this was the first thing that really bonded us – having an infamous family and trying to live up to some stupid standard to prove others that there was more behind us than our parents´ history.
Malfoy refilled our glasses and raised his one.
“To our famous families.”, he mumbled bitterly.
“Cheers.”
And that was the moment I realized that I had drunk a bit too much. A huge bit too much.
I dropped my glass and spilled that stupid whiskey onto my Hogwarts uniform. Malfoy seemed to be quite amused. He started chuckling.
“Oh, shut up, Malfoy.” I tried to take my pull off my sweater, but apparently my co – ordination was already quite out of hand. “Make yourself useful and help me out of my fucking clothes.”
Well… That made him laugh even harder. I guess I can´t blame him.
Anyway, he did help me out of my sweater.
Yes, just out of the sweater. And yes, I had been wearing something else underneath my wet sweater. My Hogwarts blouse, if you must know. Any more questions?
“We seem to be a bit out of control, aren´t we?”, Malfoy said huskily.
Suddenly I realized that I´ve never been that close to Scorpius Malfoy. We were just about a dozen inches apart. His hair was falling right into his left eye.
“I like your hair.”, I babbled.
Malfoy quirked an eyebrow and smirked at me mischievously.
Sometimes I really want to kill myself.
“Erm… I´m sorry. Actually I didn´t want to say that aloud.”, I quickly added. This was just getting worse and worse.
But Malfoy didn´t reply.
Not at all.
He just pressed his lips on mine.
"If this wasn´t embarassing... I don´t know what it was"
A/N: So I was looking for an excuse not to study for my final exams, which are going to take place in about two weeks now - and writing a new chapter seemed to be the best idea.
I hope you enjoy it...
Okay, just let me get a few things straight, before anyone of you starts drawing the wrong conclusions.
First of all: I did not sleep with him that night.
I mean, I´m not one of those girls who dream of their fuzzy, blissfully perfect first time with the big love of their life and being happy until the end of time.
I don´t believe in the perfect guy who´s going to deflower you at the perfect moment at the perfect place… because those cheesy love stories don´t exist, but stupid stories like “Unshaken Love” have blurred our vision of reality. That´s a fact. Deal with it.
But I´m not one of those girls who lose their virginity while being totally drunk to some random guy either
Then again I had always thought that I´m not one of those girls who go and get drunk with Scorpius Malfoy of all people… So imaging one thing just leading to the other wouldn´t be that bizarre. But still… That´s not the point.
The point is that I didn´t sleep with Scorpius Malfoy.
Therefore you can put your ideas right out of your dirty mind.
Just let me repeat it to make sure you really get it. I. Did. Not. Sleep. With. Scorpius. Malfoy.
At least not that night…
Secondly… I really, really hadn´t expected this. When I had said that I was going to join him I hadn´t had any idea that we would end up snogging on his bed.
When his lips first touched mine I was totally stunned. Seriously, I was like some frozen statue, and my heart seemed to have skipped some beats.
I came back to life when I felt him deepening the kiss. And then my heart started beating about three or four times faster.
I hadn´t been kissing for quite a while (Of course I had been dating from time to time, but my last boyfriend and I had broken up ages before). So basically I felt as if hadn´t done it before.
But as soon as I stopped thinking, and every rational thought was simply wiped from my mind, I started enjoying.
And then… everything faded to black….
Honestly, I don´t remember what happened next. I guess we just fell asleep somewhere along the line.
But I do remember the next morning. Way too clearly actually….
I woke up quite early because I wasn´t used to the amount of sunlight that illuminated his dorm. My dorm was located in the western part of the castle, which basically meant that it was relatively dark most of the time.
So when I opened my eyes I looked right into bright sunlight. Usually it takes me ages to get fully awake… but that time it was almost as if you emptied a bucket of ice-cold water right above my head.
Speaking of which… There was this horrible pain torturing my head, and this weird feeling that my stomach was turned upside down.
I sat up slowly – partly because my head was killing me, partly because I was afraid I was going to throw up – and looked around.
It took me a while to realize where I was, but when I spotted the green curtains, Scorpius Malfoy right beside me on his bed, his dishevelled clothes, his messy hair and my half-opened blouse, the amount of everything crashed right down on me.
“Oh Fuck”, I muttered under my breath.
This had to be a nightmare.
Could have anybody, anybody told me that I hadn´t gotten drunk with Scorpius Malfoy? Could have anybody told me that we hadn´t been snogging?
Bloody hell…. I had kissed Scorpius Malfoy! And he had kissed me back. Or the other way round… Not the point… But still… Merlin…. If my head hadn´t already hurting that much, I would have banged it against a wall.
I had to get up. I desperately needed to get away from there.
I stood up quickly, but as soon as I was on my feet, I regretted it – I had problems with standing steadily.
I picked up my sweater which had been lying on the floor and stumbled towards the door.
Before I walked outside, I turned around to see if he was still asleep.
He was.
I held my breath and stared at him for a few moments.
Then I left the room.
*
Somehow I managed to get to my dorm unseen. It was already time for breakfast, so I guess everyone was there right then.
Although usually nothing can stop me from eating I didn´t care missing breakfast, because, honestly, … If I had eaten just one bite, … I guess it wouldn´t have stayed where it should have.
I felt terrible. My clothes were reeking, I was tired as hell, and I looked like a zombie.
You may think I´m joking, but believe me: I´m not.
If you ever get up after a night of heavy drinking … Don´t look into the mirror before having a shower – you will regret it. I was almost scared of myself.
All I wanted to do was sleeping, but I didn´t fall asleep for about an hour. Instead, the memories of the previous night were racing through my head. And the more I thought about it, the more I recalled of our little session.
What the hell had I been thinking?
Okay, I guess I just hadn´t been thinking at all.
You know… It wasn´t as if I regretted kissing him because he was unattractive or anything. He wasn´t. Scorpius looked quite good actually (well… he still does…). Even when he had been asleep he had looked kind of cute.
I just felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable, because I had never kissed a guy just on a whim.
Actually I hadn´t kissed him… I mean… He had kissed me!
And you kissed him back, duh!
“Oh, shut up!”, I muttered to myself. Merlin knows how much I hated my inner voice.
After one hour of thinking and rethinking the happenings of the night before, I dropped off.
My nap lasted for a few hours until somebody was knocking at my door. Again.
“Jeez, you look like the living dead!”, Dominique exclaimed when I opened the door.
I winced. “For Fuck´s sake, Weasley! Keep your voice down! I´m not that into loud noises right now….”
Dominique walked into my room, sat onto my bed and looked at me suspiciously. I´m sure I still must have looked terrible.
“What are you doing here?”, I asked her.
“Well, basically I just wanted to make sure if you´re still alive… I didn´t see you at breakfast, and when you didn´t show up at lunch either, I decided to look after you.”
I sighed and sat down beside her.
“Are you alright? You look like shit.”
“You´ve got such a nice choice of words, Dominique.”
“Yeah… whatever… So, what´s wrong?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but then I hesitated. I wasn´t sure if I wanted to tell her.
A part of me wanted to “pour my heart out”, another part just wanted to hide the truth.
The second one was much bigger. So I lied.
“I don´t know… I guess I just caught the flu…”
“Oh…” Dominique looked at me sympathetically. “Is there anything I could do for you?”
I began to feel miserable.
“No thanks, it´s okay.”
“Okay… So go back to bed, I´m going to leave you alone…. You really look like you´d need some sleep.”
Wow, now I really felt miserable for lying to her. Dominique told me almost everything. Every mistaken step, every wrong movement, everything she had ever screwed up. And believe me… She had done a lot of screwing up.
I just nodded. Then she stood up.
“If I didn´t know you better I´d say you´re utterly hungover.”, suddenly she said.
Oh shit…
Thank Merlin she didn´t notice me blushing.
*
Since this weird feeling in my stomach refused to go away, and because I wanted to avoid Malfoy more than anyone else in the world, I decided to skip dinner too. Nobody would have missed me, and I was sure that Dominique had told everyone I was sick – but I really needed to get away from my dorm. I didn´t want to lie to any other of my relatives who would come to look after me, or scream at those who would want me to do their homework.
And then it slowly dawned on me….
Hugo…
None of that would have ever happened, if Hugo hadn´t been such a jerk.
So avoiding Hugo was another good reason to skip dinner.
And last but not the least… I feared that Malfoy decided to pay me a visit, and I really, really didn´t know how I would have dealt with that.
Basically I was avoiding each and everyone of Hogwart´s population.
I thought about going for a walk, but the pouring rain upset my plans.
Now tell me… Which is the only place in Hogwarts where nobody wants to spend his Saturday evening?
Right: The library.
Here I was - sitting in a library, staring out the window rather than doing my Charms essay.
“Why am I not surprised to find you here?”, someone said and broke the silence.
I gasped and spun around.
“For Fuck´s sake, Malfoy… You just scared me to death!”
“I´m sorry…” He grinned and slid into the chair right in front of me.
After the “surprise effect” of his appearance was gone, my heart started beating furiously, because those vivid memories came back into my mind.... I felt my face turning red.
Stupid Weasley blush.
“What are you doing here?”, I said a bit angrily – I really didn´t like that effect that his showing-up had on me.
“Erm… well… Actually I just wanted to talk to you….”, he seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable, but I guess that was nothing compared to the awkwardness I was experiencing.
“And since you haven´t been in your dorm, I came looking for you here… given you spend here most of your spare time.”
“Why would you know?”, I asked.
“Because I´m very observant.” He smirked.
“There other people in that library too, you know. I do my homework here basically every day. You´re just too distracted to notice other people when you´re here, mysterious, little girl.”, he added when I looked at him suspiciously.
I have to say… He did have a point. Being in the library meant being in my own world, where no-one else existed.
Silence befell us. That turned out to become more than awkward. Oh come on, Malfoy… Make it short and painless!
“Look, Rose…”, he began, “I´m sorry.”
Well… I didn´t expect that.
“I didn´t intend ... that to happen…” Yeah, that was for sure...
But I did feel sort of relieved. This hadn´t been that bad. Short and painless, indeed.
I even managed to smile at him.
“It´s okay… Really… In the end, it´s not even your fault. I just took a few steps too far.”
Malfoy seemed to be relieved too. “Okay… I just wanted to make sure that this is going to make us suffering for the rest of the year.”
I had to grin.
“So, you´re alright?”, he asked.
“The headache has become better, but my stomach´s still killing me.”
Malfoy smiled. “Yeah… No wonder after puking your guts out….”
“I did what?!” I almost yelled at him. All my nervousness was blown away.
He looked quite frightened, as if he didn´t mean to say that.
“You… you don´t remember?”
“No, I don´t.”, I spluttered in panic.
“Erm… We had already been dozing, and suddenly you mumbled something about … well… throwing up…”
“No … No way! Please tell me, you´re just kidding!”
Malfoy started grinning. “No, I´m not.”
Then I started remembering – me sitting on the floor of his bathroom. Fuck…
I must have looked kind of terrified, because he said, “Come on, Rose. It´s not even a big deal. You drank a bit too much, you ran to my bathroom… and that´s it. I´m not going to tell anyone.”
“Yeah, thanks.”, I murmured completely mortified.
Malfoy stood up. “I´ll leave you alone then – I´m going to have dinner. See you,… Rose”
When he was gone I started banging my head on my table.
If this wasn´t embarrassing, I don´t know what it was.
A/N: So, what do you think about it? Are the dialogues too short? Too unrealistic? Is there too much of Rose´s monologue? Too much of her complaining?
Too few other characters?
Too much/too little of anything?
Any kind of review is highly appreciated!
Thanks to those of you who review almost each and every one of my chapters, and to those who have favourited.
Have a nice day!
Nice little library
A/N: I finally managed to finish this chapter - and I´m very sorry for the delay... There was a lot going on - taking my final exams, finishing school,... plus I wasn´t keen on spending my time indoors (the weather was amazing :] )
Anyway, here´s the new chapter - I really hope you like it, because it was a bit of a pain in my neck.
So please leave a comment and tell me, what you think about it :]
And now... enjoy the chapter ^^
Cheers
„Rose, I can´t do this! I just don´t get it …”, Dominique cried and clapped her book shut.
“Sh!”, I silenced her. The librarian glared at us. “Could you at least try to shut up?”, I hissed angrily. I had known it had been a bad idea to agree to help her with her homework.
“This Runes stuff drives me totally crazy. I´m going to fail – I won´t pass my final exams because of this fucking subject.”, she complained.
“You won´t fail. The exams won´t take place until June, and now it´s December…”, I retaliated. “Maybe you should do some revision of the last year, but ….”
“A revision of the last year?! … That´s it. I quit Hogwarts. I´m going to become a cleaner.”
I really don´t know why everyone was making such a big deal out of that subject. Yeah, it was not exactly the most interesting one, but then again it was not that difficult at all.
I had been sitting in the library with Dominique for about an hour, and still we hadn´t got a step forward. Seriously, this was totally ridiculous, and I started to lose my temper.
“Okay, this is leading us to absolutely nowhere. If you really want to learn that stuff you´ll have to make an effort. You haven´t even tried to understand it yet.”, I argued.
“Well, can you blame me? This subject hates me!”
Wow, this was the most absurd conversation ever.
“Actually, you are the one who can´t stand Ancient Runes - that’s why it hates you.”, I replied sardonically.
“Then it´s a mutual hate-relationship, so what? You can´t get along with everybody!”
I couldn´t believe she was actually saying that.
“Okay, first of all: You´re completely paranoid. A school subject doesn´t hate anyone. That´s just you being to lazy to get off your arse and do some work.
Secondly: You could have dropped Ancient Runes two years ago and you just didn´t do it – so you were the one who got herself into that mess.
Thirdly: You´ve just spent one hour complaining about your homework. You could be finished for at least half an hour. It´s not my fucking fault that we´re still sitting here!”
Dominique glared at me. Then she sighed and opened her book again. “Why do you always have to be so… so… reasonable?”
Here we go again with that nonsense. “Okay, look, I´m not that reasonable.”, I mumbled.
“Rose, you are reason itself.”, she replied, yawned and began to go through the chapter for her homework once again.
You are reason itself. ´Oh Dominique, what you don´t know´, I thought and shot Scorpius Malfoy, who sitting a few desks away, a quick glance.
Malfoy and me, we had been … let´s say…. quite professional the previous two weeks. It seemed as if he really didn´t find that whole “snogging incident” to be that much of a big deal, and that did lift a huge burden of my shoulders. I tend to get worked up about things like these easily….
But still… That drinking fiasco led me to think once more that even my closest friends were far away from knowing what was really going on.
Or maybe I was just overreacting. It doesn´t matter anyway.
So, Malfoy and I had this kind of silent agreement just not to talk about that evening – neither one of us had mentioned our nice little session even once. You´d expect that simply “ignoring” what had happened would cause some kind of awkwardness between the two of us, but apparently the exact contrary was the case. And although I should have known better, I really grew to think that this incident didn´t have any bad consequences at all. Of course fate should prove me wrong.
But during the first few weeks after said Friday I didn´t have any reason to think of any complications that could occur.
The only change that attracted my attention was the fact that Malfoy and I sort of became friends, if you want to call it like that, and I started to look forward to doing rounds with him. It was quite nice actually.
Dominique was still going through her text, so I watched Malfoy reading. I´ve always liked people watching – I could do that for hours. If I had the time, I´d probably sit there for ages…
I had to admit that Malfoy looked quite handsome. Scorpius has got this silky hair through which you´d love to run your hands all the time.
I began to recall the previous afternoon that we had happened to spend together at the exact same table I was sitting right then…
~
“Hey Weasley!”
I raised my head. Malfoy was standing in front of the desk where I was doing my homework for DADA. I smiled at him.
“Hi… “
“Erm… I just wanted to ask… Would you mind me sitting here?”, he asked pointing at the chair right on the opposite side, “If I had known that this place was going to be that crowded today I would have come earlier… That´s quite uncommon if you ask me…”
He was absolutely right. It was odd that so many students were in the library – especially because the exams were still months away.
“Yeah, sure…”, I replied.
He sat down, pulled some books out of his bag and started doing his own homework. I don´t know how long we sat there in silence until I sighed and shut my book closed.
Malfoy looked up. “Have you already finished?”, he asked.
I glared at my books and shook my head angrily. “I wish I was...”, I mumbled.
He nodded understandingly. “Just one more week to go… It´s about time.” He was talking about Christmas break.
“You´re telling me… I´ve got this annoying feeling that I couldn´t stand another fucking day.”
Scorpius chuckled. “Me either.”
I decided to change the subject because my homework annoyed me to hell. “So what are you going to during Christmas break? Are you staying at Hogwarts?”
“I´d love to, but… well, my parents want me to spend Christmas with them… And you?” He didn´t look very excited about it.
“I´m going to be home too… We´ve got this huge reunion every year….”, I replied.
“Don´t you want to go?”, he asked. Apparently I looked very excited neither.
“Yes, I do, but … It´s just going to be quite busy, and this kind of bustling is the last thing I need right now. That´s all. And...”, I trailed off and shook my head angrily.
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “And what?”
“Nothing….”
“Are you still not speaking to him?”, he asked.
How the hell did he know that? He was dead on target – Hugo and I still weren´t speaking to each other.
“No, we aren´t.”, I replied indignantly. “And I don´t fucking care.”
Well… This was a downright lie… I did care. Actually the fact that my brother was neither speaking – although he was the one who should have apologized – nor looking at me bothered me like nothing else.
Yes, Hugo is an idiot, and yes, sometimes I really want to kill him. But I love him after all, and I couldn´t stand the fact that we hadn´t talked in 2 whole weeks. The last time that had happened was when I had accidentally lost his favourite teddy bear (I had hidden it somewhere in the garden around the Burrow and couldn´t find it anymore…) – and this had been about 12 years before.
But there was no freaking way that I was going to admit that I kind of missed my nag of a brother.
“Sibling love”, Malfoy said and smirked. “Don´t worry about it, it´s going to be fine.”, he added when I didn´t answer.
I still didn´t reply, I just continued staring at some pamphlet I was spotting between his books.
“What´s that?”, I asked and reached for it.
“Mhm?”, Malfoy who had carried on his essay looked up once again. “Oh, that….”, he said reluctantly.
I began to read the piece of parchment that was attached to it.
“Dear Mr. Malfoy,
we are delighted that you are interested in our programme.
You should receive the application forms in a few days.
We are looking forward to hearing from you again,
The St. Mungo´s Healers Association”
I looked at him. I honestly have to say that I was quite surprised. “You want to become a Healer?” I really didn´t expect that.
“I´m thinking about it.”, he mumbled.
“Wow.”, I just said. The selection procedure of St. Mungo´s was said to be one of the toughest in the whole country.
“I don´t even know yet if I´m actually going to apply.”, he said and started to scribble on his parchment again.
“Why not?”
He didn´t answer immediately. “It´s… complicated…” It wasn´t until a few months later he told me the reason why he wasn´t sure about this. His father wanted him to get a job at the Ministry.
“You should try. You´re one of the best students Hogwarts has right now.”, I told him.
He seemed to be a bit taken aback by my compliment. “Well… Thanks, Weasley.”, he said grinningly. I smiled back.
“What about you? Do you have any plans yet?”
I shook my head. “No, that´s my problem… I´m studying like a maniac for all those stupid exams, but I don´t even know what I want to do with my life.” I looked at him contemplatively. “I´d love to do something completely different after school, just for a while…. Like… I don´t know… Going to America and working in a diner.”
“Well… Go for it!”
I started laughing. “Nah, I wouldn´t have the guts to do that – apart from the fact that it would be totally nuts …
Malfoy just shrugged. “I think it´s a great idea.”
“We´ll see…”, I muttered. Then I started collecting my things. “So, I guess I´ve gotta go…”, I said and stood up.
“Okay… Nice talking to you, Weasley.”
“Yes, you too. Bye, Malfoy.”
“Bye, Rose…”
~
Malfoy raised his head and looked around absent - mindedly. When he caught my eye he smiled at me. I smiled back.
“Rose, what does this crap here mean?”, Dominique asked.
Scorpius stood up to return a book, and I turned towards my distressed cousin.
See? This stupid, drunken kiss between us had changed absolutely nothing. Malfoy and I got along just fine.
At least that´s what I had thought …
