Professor Zosimus had announced their new project on Monday: for a week, everyone would be paired with someone that they didn’t necessarily know so that they could get used to working with different people. The idea had come to him in a moment of epiphany, or so he said.
"I have noticed," he announced gravely, "that you have become - there is no other word for it - slack workers." His hooded eyes swept the classroom, settling on Rose just long enough to make her uncomfortable. "Because you are taking your O.W.L.s next year, I feel that a little motivation is in order."
Rose, settled in her new cool state, simply pushed her heavy ponytail over her shoulder and waited for the verdict.
"Your new partners will be decided by me. No arguments," Professor Zosimus added warningly, cutting short the groans that had filled the classroom. "Perhaps, after a week, you will rethink your work ethic."
Drew turned to Rose with a despairing moan.
"I can't believe this," he whispered. Rose organised her face into an understanding expression, trying not to be smug about how, for once, Drew was being the melodramatic one. "There are Slytherins in our class. What does Zosimus want, a massacre?"
"We'll be fine," Rose told him soothingly. "You never know - there are Gryffindors in here, too."
"No one is that lucky," he replied miserably, sinking lower in his seat.
By now, Professor Zosimus had started to divide up the class, mercilessly shearing apart the existing pairs.
"I'm actually nervous," Drew said, under his breath. "How ridiculous is that?"
Rose didn't reply. The professor had reached their table now and was regarding them thoughtfully.
"Mr Fitzgerald, you are partnered with" - he glanced around the classroom - "Mr Thomas. Off you go."
Drew's expression cleared. "Jack?" he asked, apparently unable to believe his good fortune. "Cool. I mean...yes, sir."
Professor Zosimus waved him away and consulted his register. Rose waited patiently for him to finish, wondering at Drew's luck.
"Ah, there we go. Miss Weasley, you will be partnered with..."
For a moment, time seemed to slow down. Rose followed her teacher's gaze, preparing to be refreshed - maybe she would make a new friend in the bargain - and felt her breath catch as she took in blonde hair, grey eyes, alabaster skin-
"... Mr Malfoy."
Rose's despair must have showed on her face (what were the chances?) because Professor Zosimus raised his thick eyebrows at her. "Remember, Miss Weasley - no objections, unless you want a detention."
With that, he swept away, leaving Rose to sadly remember how she technically couldn't even wallow in self-pity because that breached the terms of her 'no-melodrama' pact. Instead, she pulled her ponytail tighter, gathered up her equipment, and strode over to Malfoy's desk.
"We're working together," she muttered, seating herself next to him and edging as far along the bench as possible.
"Are we?" Rose didn't even have to look at Scorpius to see his smirk.
"Apparently," she said, slamming her books down with a little more force than necessary.
"Well." She heard the bench creak as Scorpius leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. "This should be interesting."
It was now Tuesday, and, already, Rose was nearing the end of her tether. To everything Rose said, Scorpius responded with a snide remark or a sneer; it was becoming clear that everything bad she had ever heard about Draco Malfoy had been handed down to his son.
"You're supposed to be stirring anti-clockwise," Scorpius was pointing out, lazily chopping up salamander skin. They were supposed to be brewing a Deflating Draught, but, so far, the only thing the two of them had done was argue.
Steeling herself against the urge to tip the contents of her cauldron onto Scorpius' head, Rose started to stir in the opposite direction.
"So," he drawled, ceasing to chop and beginning to flick some fish eyes around the tabletop, "are you really a clone of your mother, or is that just for show?"
Rose continued to stir, breathing deeply through her nose and trying to think of happier things.
"You don't even know my mother," she replied, in as calm a voice as she could muster.
"Right." Scorpius paused in his flicking and looked up at her. "Yet you still judge me by what you've heard about my father."
Stunned, Rose let her ladle fall from her hands with a clatter. Did Scorpius Malfoy actually have a human side after all?
"It might help," she said slowly, turning to face him, "if you didn't act like a complete idiot all the time."
He raised his pale eyebrows, and Rose blushed.
"Well, you do. It's as if everything I say or do merits a smart comeback. It's exhausting."
Scorpius laid down his knife and rested his chin on his palms, elegant fingers splayed.
"Isn't it funny how often people see what they expect to see rather than what's right in front of their eyes?" He pursed his lips and looked up at Rose in mock thoughtfulness. She met his eyes, lifting her chin a little. She wasn't about to get sucked into Scorpius' mind games.
"Funny," she agreed, turning away and sprinkling some pepper-red scales into the potion.
"Mmm." Scorpius shrugged, dropped his hands, and stood up, stretching. He was at least a head taller than Rose, and she found herself wondering how he fitted his long legs under the comparatively small desks. She shook this thought away - she had no business contemplating Scorpius Malfoy’s exterior - and moved around the table, collecting up the scattered fish eyes.
Professor Zosimus chose this moment to walk past, peering into their cauldron over his monocle.
"Hurry up, you two, you're lagging behind." He gave Rose a stern look and moved on, tapping his ornate pocket watch as he did so. She sighed and ducked her head, waiting for his footsteps to fade away before glaring at Scorpius.
"You could help, you know," she said crossly, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Fine," Scorpius replied, reaching for a pot of powdered bat claws. Rose was uncomfortably aware of his shoulder against hers as he poured them into their potion. Up close, the resemblance to his father faded a little - his features were softer, the colour of his eyes a little warmer - and she noticed that there was a tiny scar buried in one of his eyebrows.
"Why are you staring at me?" Rose jumped, but Scorpius was bent over a book, not looking at her. Obviously, he had sensed her gaze rather than seen it.
"I'm not," she lied smoothly, hoping that her cheeks weren't turning pink.
For the rest of the lesson, Rose made a point of focusing on the potion, not allowing herself even a fleeting glance in Scorpius' direction. By the time an hour was up, they had concocted a passable Deflating Draught.
"Very nice," Professor Zosimus remarked, watching his hand - bloated from a sample of Drew and Jack's Swelling Solution - return to its normal state. "Although you might have wanted to thin it a little; the potion is supposed to be about the consistency of pumpkin juice, not soup."
Rose and Scorpius nodded in unison as the bell rang and a wave of chatter ensued from their classmates. Hurriedly, Rose stuffed her books into her bag and heaved it over her shoulder.
"See you tomorrow," she muttered, beginning to weave through the cluster of students to where Drew was standing with Jack and Albus. Only when she reached the door did she look back at Scorpius, who, to her shock, offered her a half-smile before turning away.
"How was it?" Drew asked her sympathetically as they navigated the corridors to their next lesson. Much to her surprise, Rose didn’t have an answer for him.
The rest of the week’s Potions lessons were full of the same banter as before - only, now, it was a little less heated and marginally friendlier. Of course, this didn’t mean that they were friends; Scorpius had simply been promoted to ‘tolerable’ in Rose’s mind. It was only when she made the mistake of mentioning the drama club that their situation “ ‘relationship’ didn't seem like the right word, somehow - transcended the 'acquaintance-only' boundary.
"I think you should go for it," Scorpius told her, having forced the entire story out of her. Rose glared at him.
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" she asked, moodily adding a pinch of thyme to Friday's brew.
"I'm not telling you to do anything." He looked up from his textbook, his upper lip twitching. "Just... suggesting. And, you know, it would take real strength of character to go back and prove yourself wrong."
Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "You're shameless."
Scorpius just shrugged. "I do what I can."
Shaking her head incredulously, Rose returned to their cauldron. She tried to dislodge the feeling that Scorpius was right, not succeeding very well.
"In what way would it show strength of character?" she asked finally, unable to help herself. Scorpius smirked his habitual smirk.
"Oh, overcoming your fears, and such..."
"I do not have a fear of acting!"
"Then why not go back?"
"Because… Because I don't like acting. There's a difference."
"Liar."
Rose glowered at him, stirring their potion viciously. "I'm not going back. And I do have strength of character."
Scorpius leaned forwards, a conniving quirk on his lips.
"Prove it," he said. His grin glinted like a knife in the dim dungeon light.
“No!” Once again, Rose was reaching the end of her tether. She pictured it in her mind as a burning rope, fraying and curling as flames licked more and more of it away. “Why should I listen to you? Why do you even care?”
Scorpius shrugged, nonchalant to a T. “Typical Gryffindor; never able to stick things out…”
“Typical Slytherin; never able to mind his own business!” Rose cried, finally at her breaking point. Without thinking, she seized a pot of newt tongues and poured its entire contents into the cauldron, quite apart from the three specimens that were called for in the recipe. Immediately, their desk was engulfed in pungent orange smoke “ and, when it dissipated, both she and Scorpius were covered in great globs of a treacle-like substance that, until moments ago, had been their assignment.
Their eyes met and, before she knew it, Rose was laughing. Laughing until her ribs ached - with none other than Scorpius Malfoy. His white-blonde hair was plastered to his forehead, and one of his eyes was gummed together with the stuff, but he was roaring with mirth; Rose caught sight of her distorted reflection in their cauldron and laughed even more because she looked so ridiculous…
“What is the meaning of this?”
Their laughter ceased as abruptly as if Professor Zosimus, ploughing over to their desk, had switched them off. His monocle trembling with fury, he drew himself up to his not-inconsiderable height and surveyed the mess around him. All around the room, their classmates were staring, some with pity, some with fear, and some with outright glee at the thought of someone else getting into trouble (the most eminent of which was the eel-like Ursula Goyle). And who better to be punished than the infamous teacher’s pet, Rose Weasley, and the always-unfriendly Scorpius Malfoy?
“Well?” Zosimus glared down at them. “Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”
“It was my fault,” Rose blurted, not pausing to wonder why she was standing up for Scorpius (who, in her mind, was as much to blame as she was). “I made a mistake with the potion.”
Behind her, Scorpius muttered something that sounded very much like “such a Gryffindor.”
“Well, then, Miss Weasley,” Professor Zosimus said with a frown, “detention tomorrow. Four o’ clock sharp. Perhaps some filing will teach you to pay attention to the recipe.”
Rose was left torn between shock - she had seldom had a detention before - and a secret relief, as she now had a bona fide excuse for not going to drama club (which, incidentally, had been the cause of all this drama) the next day. Just as Professor Zosimus was turning away, however, Scorpius’ all-too-familiar drawl resounded from behind her.
“Actually, Professor, it was my fault.” He sauntered forwards, elbowing Rose in the ribs as he went. “Weasley here was just being…” He wrinkled his nose, looking for the right word, “chivalrous. Besides, she has a prior appointment tomorrow at four.”
Rose glared furiously at Scorpius’ blonde head whilst Professor Zosimus squinted at him, unconvinced. “And what, pray tell, is this prior appointment?”
Oblivious to Rose’s silent admonitions - or maybe just pretending to be - Scorpius barrelled on. “Professor Cassio’s drama club,” he sneered, raising an eyebrow at his rat-faced friend Lucian Nott. Rose could barely restrain herself from hitting him over the head with her ladle.
“Ah. I suppose that Miss Weasley can testify that this was entirely your fault?” Professor Zosimus asked, peering over at Rose. She opened her mouth to disagree, but found that she couldn’t. After all, Scorpius was prepared to take her detention so that she could go to the club - what sort of gratitude would she be showing if she refused?
Scorpius gave her a meaningful look and, almost at once, Rose nodded her agreement.
“Fine. Malfoy, I want you here at four o’ clock tomorrow afternoon!” With that, Professor Zosimus swept away across the classroom, robes a-billow. “All of you, back to work! I want that mess cleaned up, by the way.”
Rose shook her head, speechless and torn between anger and thankfulness. “I-”
“Don’t mention it,” Scorpius said, smirking once more. “It’s only detention. If you ask me, you’re being a little melodramatic.”
And Rose, once again, found herself wanting to kill Scorpius Malfoy.