springsmutfairy (springsmutfairy) wrote in hp_springsmut, @ 2009-03-01 08:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic, het, scorpius/rose |
Happy Springsmut, heather11483!
Author: tudorrose1533
Recipient: heather11483
Title: Happy New Year
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Rose/Scorpius
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: A series of December thirty-firsts and January firsts featuring Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley.
Warnings: None
Word Count: 7,845
Author's Notes: I hope you enjoy it, and that your requests were well-fulfilled! Thanks to my beta, K.—any errors found are my own!
He just didn't see why she had to sit there working as she was, with the rest of the school celebrating the New Year, and her silly little arse curled up in an armchair, lap stacked high with parchment and quill tucked behind her ear dripping ink onto her red curls, and just who did she think she was, her mother? Working on New Year's Eve? Scorpius couldn't believe it, and he said as much to the Scamander twins, one of whom—Lysander—belonged to Ravenclaw, and both of whom were friendly towards him most of the time.
Scorpius had not inherited his father's charisma (for all that he had his mother's bookishness in spades), but what skills he had with people he used for alliances, where his dad had favored forming armies; as a result Scorpius got on fairly well with a variety of students from all Houses; it had perhaps to do with the underlying sense of fairness and goodness that he possessed, buried beneath a scholar's uppity cleverness and the dry wit his father must have bottle-fed him as a babe.
"It's just that—we all decided to stay on for the hols to run about—and there she is, working." Scorpius sighed, scowling and uncorking another bottle of champagne. The first-years tittered at the noise, and Scorpius, who was a little drunk perhaps, raised the bottle high and grinned, his glasses slipping down his nose with the gesture. Dorcas Bones, eleven and besotted with the blond boy of seventeen (nearly a man, though his shoulders still wanted of broadening), turned a furious shade of crimson, and Lorcan nudged Lysander knowingly.
Despite belonging to another house, Lorcan knew Scorpius well—Rose and Albus were Ravenclaws, and the common room had become the locus of the Potter and Weasley and Scamander families (the Scamanders were as good as family, what with their parents Auntie Luna and Uncle Rolf to the Weasley and Potter children). Usually, Scorpius was shy around girls; circumspect might be the word; but the champagne had apparently gone to his head. It remained to be seen how his current topic of conversation—Rose Weasley—mixed with alcohol; Rose Weasley was often on his mind, but, as her brother and cousins made clear, he was rarely on hers. Seventeen and not half as clever a witch as her mother (though twice the Quidditch player her father had been), Rose was a hard worker—she had to be, to make the marks Dr. Hermione Granger expected of her offspring. Hugo laughed it off, made Fs, and spent weekends at his father's flat to avoid the scolding, but Rose took her mother's expectations to heart, and slaved over her schoolwork.
Scorpius, the sort of student who learned everything without trying and therefore took school to be a sort of game, could not understand her work ethic, and teased her mercilessly. Tonight, however, with champagne bubbling in his insides and the boys all around him—Scorpius was always painfully aware of his audience, and painfully aware of whom he had to impress—Scorpius felt slighted, ignored. Rose had promised to celebrate with them, and while she had dutifully counted ten-down-to-one for midnight, she had then returned to her sodding essay and left them all to their own devices. Lily Potter, with enough makeup slathered on her face to send her mother into spasms, had had too much to drink and fallen asleep on the sofa, and Albus and his girlfriend had vanished back to the Gryffindor common room, and the twins were only half paying him mind, and Hugo had defected to a group of younger Slytherins in a corner that included his cousin Roxanne, and Scorpius felt deprived of friends.
"Let's go shake the old girl up, eh?" he said, and suddenly he had everyone's attention again, for everyone loved Scorpius's practical jokes. They couldn't have known that the alcohol he'd imbibed had leant him a strange, mean edge this evening, and the Scamander twins, little Renny Longbottom who followed Albus like a shadow but had been told to stay out of the way for the night, if-you-know-what-I-mean, Renny, mate, and Dorcas Bones and her cohorts all perked up excitedly. Only Hugo, who had plenty of opportunities as Rose's brother to torment her day in and day out, remained uninterested.
"Here—you—Dorcas—come here," said Scorpius, and the little girl lit up as Scorpius whispered his orders, doling out tasks to everyone, until the whole of the room besides Rosie, who was caught up in the scratching of her quill scribbling on the parchment, was watching the clock, and then—
BOOM! Everyone stomped their feet and waved their wands and sent off little explosions, and the room shook with sound, and little Dorcas clapped her hands over Rosie's eyes, and Scorpius snatched away the essay, ink blotting the carefully written words in his haste, and Rose shrieked, and Scorpius grinned.
"Don't you think you ought to have some fun, Rosie-love?" he drawled, his heart pounding when her brown eyes met his.
However, she was not smiling.
"You bloody bastard!" Rose shouted, snapping to fury as quickly as a match struck to flame, the Weasley temper bringing a flush to her cheeks.
Scorpius felt dizzy. "Now, Rosie, don't talk to me that way," he said. "Or I'll—I'll just tear this in half and have you start over on a proper school day."
"And I'll tear you in half—give it back this instant!"
"I shan't," said Scorpius boldly, knowing he ought to stop but unable, with the eyes of the common room on him and his eyes fixed on Rose's chest, heaving with anger.
"You shall."
"Oh no I shan't," said Scorpius, almost stuttering but recovering himself. Dorcas was looking at him with fear and passion; the Scamander twins were shaking their heads, mouthing, Go on, Malfoy, give it back, and Hugo glowered from the corner threateningly; never mind that he was two years younger, he was twice Scorpius's size already—
"Give it here, Malfoy!" Rose demanded, reaching out her hand.
"No," said Scorpius; he felt the pressure of everyone around watching him, the buzzing of the champagne in the back of his brain, and the heat of adrenaline coursing through his veins—and he lost his head entirely. "Incendio!" he shouted…and the parchment went up in flames. As soon as he had done it he regretted it, for Rose suddenly looked less angry and more as though she might cry, and the Scamander twins lost their smiles, and little Dorcas let out a startled cry, and Hugo jerked himself out of the armchair, with his fierce little cousin Roxanne behind him, but it was too late, and Scorpius felt his face twisting into a grimace of its own accord, and heard himself say, "See that you don't work yourself to death on the holidays anymore, Rose. Maybe you ought to find yourself some friends to celebrate with, hmm?" Of course that was ridiculous, for Rose had dozens of friends—Scorpius had numbered himself amongst them, had tried so hard to get her to notice him, and she had so many cousins and siblings and make-believe family members that she could barely find time to add to her circle—but Rose looked even more hurt than before at his comment.
"You're nothing but a bully, Scorpius Malfoy," she said. "You're no better than your father."
The silence in the common room was heavy and hollow, and Scorpius could not only feel but hear his heart thudding in his chest like a cannon ball rolling down dungeon steps, thump-thump-thump, each stair carrying the weight further and further into a dark abyss he had tried so hard and so long to avoid. He loved his father but even he had heard the stories of what his father had been like at school and it was so easy to laugh it off and chalk it up to the tenor of the times—those were dark days—but here he was with the same smirk on the same pale, skinny face, and Scorpius suddenly saw a tiny reflection of his father in Rose's enormous pupils dilated with tears, and felt guilt wash through him tsunami-like.
In an instant seven years of casual friendship and a desperate crush—shared classes, dinners at the same house table, the commonality of the same group of boys (Rose's brother and cousins, Scorpius's best mates and favorite acquaintances), even the occasional laugh shared on late nights when they were both awake in the common room, Rose at work and Scorpius hell-bent on constructing a house of Exploding Snap cards, knowing no other way to impress her—were wiped clean, erased, by two scowls and a slowly smoldering piece of ink-splattered parchment, and from January until May when their seventh year ended Rose and Scorpius did not speak.