Two weeks into my seventh and final year of Hogwarts and I was already missing nearly every breakfast the house-elves provided. This wasn’t at all intentional. Having a father who never completed his Magical education and a mother who would have flown through her final year without a worry in the world meant that I was completely unprepared for the trauma I would be facing this year.
I hadn’t been warned that I’d need to skip dinner to tackle essays and stay up half the night in attempt to complete them. I had made the unwelcome habit of sleeping in, which meant I was missing my usual four slices of toast and steaming mug of coffee. And was it just me, or was I the only one feeling this way?
Apparently, yes, I thought as I collected myself after a sprint through the castle to reach the Great Hall. Half my year was already preparing to exit the hall after their morning meal, though most did look slightly troubled and had circles under their eyes “ this was comforting to me.
I took a seat at the nearly empty Gryffindor table and took a well deserved bite of marmalade on toast. I felt my stomach squirm in pleasure.
‘You look like hell,’ said a female voice. I looked up, not noticing the girl who sat across from me until now. Lily Potter, not one of the kindest cousin’s I could have hoped for, but we got along all right.
I rolled my eyes at her. ‘Take my advice; leave Hogwarts while you still have the chance. Seventh year is no walk in the park.’
She laughed at me, showing no signs of sympathy. I gathered a few slices of toast in my hands and set off for my Potions lesson.
Before I had even reached the exit, she was by my side again. ‘You eat like a horse,’ she said.
‘Oh, Lily,’ I said, sarcasm lacing my tone. She certainly wouldn’t be winning my cousin-of-the-year award. She wouldn’t even be nominated.
She trailed after me for a few paces, clearly not bothering to make it in time for her first lesson. ‘Seventh year can’t be that bad,’ she said.
I was about to explain to her that, yes it could, before a cloud of black and green robes flew past us, nearly knocking my precious pile of toast to the floor. I turned to see the culprit walking backwards in the direction he was already headed, staring at Lily with a smirk spread across his ruby lips.
‘Believe me, Potter,’ Scorpius Malfoy said, ‘you won’t be able to handle it.’
Lily feigned offence to his remark. ‘You’re hardly a genius yourself, Malfoy!’ she called out as he turned his back and stalked off in the opposite direction. She grinned at me mischievously before bouncing off after him in the direction of the Great Hall.
It was no more of a surprise to me than it was to anyone in my family that Lily Potter and Scorpius Malfoy had formed somewhat of a friendship. Sure, it wasn’t like Slytherin and Gryffindor were as set apart as they used to be, but the Malfoy’s and the Potter’s were hardly family friends.
But what grabbed my attention most out of that encounter was that Scorpius was clearly heading into the Great Hall to have breakfast. This meant he had slept in later than me, which obviously meant that he too had been up all night writing a Defence essay, which “ to my satisfaction “ meant I was not the only person already struggling through the first few weeks of seventh-year.
When Scorpius finally made an appearance in Potions that morning, he had no choice but to take the only empty seat left in the room. That seat, regrettably, was beside mine.
‘Hey,’ he breathed, as if we were the oldest of friends. I raised my eyebrows and refocused my attention to Professor Slughorn. I figured that the more time I spent paying attention in class, the less I had to waste during meal times. Scorpius Malfoy had different ideas.
‘Your cousin is really cool,’ he said. Was he really trying to make conversation with me?
‘I know,’ I whispered, not taking my eyes off Slughorn, ‘but she could probably make better choices in the friend department.’
He displayed the same amount of mock hurt Lily had shown earlier. ‘Ouch, I hope you didn’t mean me?’
I shrugged my shoulders. I really didn’t have time for this, the others were already preparing their Potions ingredients. This was when I noticed that everybody seemed to be working in pairs “ so much for me paying attention.
‘So, you want to be my partner?’ he asked. As if I had a choice.
‘Sure, if you don’t mind working with the daughter of a blood-traitor and a Mudblood.’ I wasn’t really sure why I was being so rude to him, but I wasn’t in the mood to be polite to a Malfoy.
‘Nope, I don’t mind.’ He actually had the nerve to smile at me.
‘Wow,’ I sighed. ‘That’s really big of you, Scorpius.’
Would you believe he actually looked pleased with himself? It was as if he was helping out at a homeless shelter and the charity of it made him feel like a better person.
Well, I wasn’t about to let myself become a charity case. So I ended up doing most of the potion myself, while he gaped stupidly from the sidelines.
Slughorn did his usual rounds around the class, reaching us last. I looked up at him, it was quite clear that age had not treated this man kindly. I knew I was a favourite of his, though. When I had expressed this to my father, he had been insultingly surprised. I remember him saying something along the lines of: ‘But he still calls me Ross...’ My mother had said the fact that Slughorn had shown a liking to me was because of my exceptional skills in Potion making. Well, at least I was exceptional at something.
Slughorn awarded my potion well-earned full marks. ‘Perfect!’ he smiled.
Scorpius straightened up in his seat. ‘Well, Rose and I make a good team, sir.’
‘Kiss-arse,’ I muttered as Slughorn left us to clear up.
‘What?’ he asked sceptically, emptying my cauldron with a wave of his wand. ‘I was hardly going to tell him you wouldn’t let me help, you might have gotten in trouble.’
Right, so now he was being gallant. Any more of this and I’d be sick.
Once we’d successfully cleaned up our area, I realised we shared our next class “ Defence Against the Dark Arts. I grudgingly slung my bag over my shoulder and left the classroom with Scorpius at my side.
I shook my head at him. ‘I don’t understand you, Malfoy.’
He smirked. ‘You don’t have to.’
This was true so I discontinued that path of conversation “ this lead to silence. It was amazing how awkward it felt to walk with Scorpius, when really I shouldn’t let it affect me at all. But the fact that neither of us had said anything in awhile made me want to blurt something ridiculous out or simply run for it.
He broke the silence for me. ‘So, why do you even take Defence? It’s not like there’s much out there we’d need to defend ourselves against anymore.’
‘Yeah,’ I scoffed, ‘No thanks to your father.’
I glanced up at him, noticing his face fall. ‘You don’t know anything about that,’ he muttered.
‘I’m sorry,’ I forced out immediately. ‘I was out of line.’
He chuckled, as if he knew how hard it must have been for me to apologise. It seemed he enjoyed seeing me suffer.
‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ he finally said.
‘Oh. I’m taking it because...’ I paused; discussing my future with him was embarrassing. ‘Well, I sort-of want to be an Auror.’
I expected him to laugh at this, too. But Scorpius simply nodded. I found this intriguing; how he could switch from resentment, to amusement, and then to consideration in a matter of minutes.
I felt a strange need to keep this conversation with him moving, not wanting to face awkward silences.
‘Because, well, soon the world will need protecting against the new generation of Malfoy,’ I blurted out, poorly portraying my sarcasm.
He stopped walking. I was afraid to see his reaction.
He glared down at me threateningly. ‘You know,’ he hissed, ‘I was going to ask you...’ he paused for a moment to think. ‘Never mind.’
As he stormed off through the crowd of students fighting their way to get to class, I realised how slow we had been walking. But it wasn’t my lateness for class that made me race after Scorpius, it was my dying need to know what he had wanted to ask me.
I darted in and out of students. ‘Scorpius!’ I called out weakly, searching for his sandy blonde hair. A friend of mine, Andrea Cole, passed and gave me a quizzical look. I didn’t have time to explain to her why I was calling out after the closest thing I had to an enemy, I didn’t think I could even explain it to myself.
When I finally caught up to him, he was waiting outside our Defence classroom “ I clearly wasn’t at late as I’d thought. I breathed a sigh of relief, opening my mouth to apologise. But before I knew it, Professor Branstone “ the longest lasting DADA teacher in ages “ had opened the door and Scorpius was already inside.
Knowing it would be impossible to have a proper conversation with Scorpius while Branstone was listening in, I had no other choice but to take the empty seat beside him and wait until the class filled with talkative students.
He didn’t look at me once as we waited for the rest of the class to enter, he simply stared blankly at the black-board at the front of the room. I almost found it amusing that my words had seemed to affect him this way when we had hardly spoken to each other at all before today. But instead of being amused, I was strangely distressed. You would think that upsetting a Malfoy would lead to happiness on my part, but it didn’t... at all.
‘Scorpius,’ I said, feeling that the room was sufficiently noisy. ‘I’m sorry for being so rude. Sometimes I can’t control my mouth... or my brain, and well...’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, still not looking at me.
The tables had completely turned since Potions; I was now the irritating one. Although I didn’t feel he was quite as bothered by me as I had been by him, despite the fact that I had been obnoxious and hurtful toward him, and he had only tried to be kind.
I decided to wait out the entire duration of the Defence class before I spoke to him again, giving him plenty of time to forgive me. I received a few looks of bemusement from my friends during the lesson. Clearly they had no idea why I had chosen to sit with Scorpius while there were available seats beside them. I returned their looks with an apologetic one, praying that they wouldn’t read too much into the situation.
I was thankful for the school bell that finally rang; I hadn’t had any luck concentrating on the lesson anyway. I collected my things slowly, matching my movements with Scorpius’. I didn’t want to make my motive obvious, but he clearly had no intention of starting up a conversation with me himself.
‘So,’ I said, as we exited the classroom together. ‘Why do you take Defence?’
To my pleasant “ slightly too pleasant “ surprise, Scorpius smiled.
‘I want to be a Healer,’ he said. ‘It’s one of the required subjects.’
I had to admit: I was mildly surprised by this. Although, I did love the way he sounded so sure of himself; he knew what he wanted and he was going to get it. I wished I had the same confidence, my career decisions lasted about a month before I changed my mind.
‘Scorpius,’ I started timidly. ‘What were you... what did you want to ask me before?’
He stopped walking again, we had almost reached the Great Hall. He stared down at me, without any of the hurt or fury in his eyes from before. His eyes were locked with mine, and I found myself completely oblivious to everything else around me.
‘Well,’ he began slowly. ‘I was going to ask if you had any plans to visit Hogsmeade this weekend.’
‘Oh,’ I said, taken aback.
‘So, do you?’ he pressed.
I felt the pace of my heartbeat increase slightly. ‘No, I don’t have any plans,’ I said honestly.
Scorpius stared at me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ he eventually said. Then he turned around and walked away, and I suddenly found myself wishing for so much more.
I was late to enter the Great Hall for the second time that day, this time during lunch. To my disappointment, my friends seemed to have already departed, leaving me to eat alone.
I started to feel pretty lonely, considering the only people I had had a conversation with that day were my cousin and Scorpius Malfoy. But I refused to think about him, and I would not let my eyes travel over to the Slytherin table just to see if he was there.
But avoiding the thought of Scorpius was proving itself to be impossible as my other cousin decided to join me.
‘Rose,’ Albus said, his emerald eyes watching me sternly from across the table.
I vaguely wondered what I had done to deserve this expression but, deciding I didn’t really care, concentrated my attention on the delicious pile of food before me.
‘Why have you been spending so much time with Scorpius Malfoy?’
This forced me to look up. ‘I haven’t.’
‘You sat with him during Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts!’ he said incredulously.
‘How did you know that?’ I said automatically. This really wasn’t a good time for Albus to become an over-protective cousin. I didn’t even know cousins came in the form of ‘over-protective’.
‘I’m in both of those classes, I watched you from the back of the class.’
I almost laughed at his seriousness. I really didn’t see what the big deal was. It wasn’t like Scorpius and I would be spending any more time together.
‘Did you also notice that in Potions, I wasn’t talking to him? And in Defence, he wasn’t talking to me?’ Albus shrugged. ‘How can you say that we’ve been “spending so much time together” when we’ve barely spoken to each other at all?’ Albus looked slightly affronted. I had proven my point.
Until now, I had not let the fact that Scorpius did not ask me to Hogsmeade get to me. I knew I was being ridiculous, it really shouldn’t have upset me at all. I wondered if, had he asked me, would I even have said yes?
I noticed Albus looking over my shoulder. ‘If nothing’s going on between you two... why is he heading this way, staring right at you?’
I purposefully did not turn my head as my heartbeat quickened again. A million thoughts flew through my mind but the one that stood out the most was: is he going to actually ask me this time?
‘Rose,’ I heard Scorpius say calmly from behind me. I turned to face him. ‘Could I have a word?’
I nodded. He didn’t speak, but instead glared at Albus.
‘Oh, right,’ Albus said, eyeing Scorpius suspiciously before standing up and leaving.
Scorpius took the vacant seat beside me, his shoulder grazing mine. I found that I liked having his body so close to me, far more than I should.
‘Albus was starting to like me,’ he sighed, ‘until he noticed me sitting next to you.’
I couldn’t help but laugh, which calmed me slightly. ‘Just ignore him,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I will.’
Having Scorpius’ face so close to mine allowed me to fully appreciate how good looking he was. I wasn’t one for swooning over boys, but the intensity in his light eyes left me breathless.
‘Rose,’ he said. His eyes finally left mine and he stared instead at his hands. He looked nervous, which only increased my own anxiety. ‘Would you come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?’
Wow, I thought. I immediately wanted to scream ‘Yes!’ but at the same time I had doubts. What if this was some sort of dare and I was being made a fool of?
He looked up at me, appearing to be hopeful. Looking at the odds, there was a good chance this was a hoax. But the look in Scorpius’ eyes made me believe his sincerity. Plus; I really wanted to say yes.
‘All right,’ I said, against all my better judgement. I hoped I had managed to conceal my insanity with a calm tone, but by the looks of things, he had seen through my charade.
‘Excellent,’ he said with a grin. He looked so pleased with himself that I had to pray my initial suspicions were wrong and that he was only happy because I had agreed to go with him.
‘So,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll find you at the breakfast table on Saturday?
I nodded. ‘See you then.’ I knew I would see him every day during class before then, so this was rather immature. I stood up, preparing to exit when I felt his hand grab for mine.
It felt like an electric shock, only an enjoyable one. I was confused as to why he stood up next to me and began to walk towards the doors, pulling me along with him.
‘We’re late for Charms,’ he said. Oh, another class with Scorpius. On any other day, I would dread having to sit next to him three lessons in a row, but now, the idea excited me.
This feeling was soon crushed, though, as we entered the Charms classroom. Albus sat in the front row, looking from me, to the hand that held mine, to Scorpius. There wasn’t a chance in the world that Al wouldn’t tell his Uncle that I was seeing Scorpius. This could only mean one thing: I would soon be receiving a long letter from my father.