Chapter Text
Eleven years prior
Rose found him at his usual table in the library, practically hugging the book he was reading. His cheek was resting on his hand and he was blissfully unaware of his surroundings - devastating in a quiet way, beautiful as no bloke had a right to be.
She strode directly to him, back straight, tits up, wearing her grin as a shield. “Got a minute for me?”
“Always.” He marked the book with his finger and looked up at her. “If this is about the Divination assignment, I told you we needed to get on with it a million times.”
“No, of course it’s not that,” Rose said, snorting. “Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know me.”
It certainly was not about the blasted Divination assignment - though now that he mentioned it, they probably should get on with that hogwash as well.
The facts of the matter were simple: she fancied him and he’d finally broken up with the succubus. And fine, Kate Towler wasn’t really a succubus, she was the most delightful, precious soul that had ever been shot out of a birth canal. She was kind and sweet and pretty and Rose had spent six months hating her with every single molecule of her jealous little being.
The Arithmancy, however, was sound: Scorp was single, she was single. Asking him to Hogsmeade on a date wasn’t going to wreck the fabric of space and time.
“You see…” Rose choked on her own words, her stomach curling in on itself as her brain caught up with her brawn. “Well…”
“What?” Scorp had snapped the book shut and was looking at her intently. "You alright, Red?"
“I--”
I fancy you.
That was it. Simple right? She fancied the pants out of him. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that, given enough time and consistent snogging, she might actually love him.
This was her and Scorp. Scorp and her.
Scorp, her accidental study companion for every single assignment since First Year, who always carried her kicking and screaming to a passing, sometimes even respectable grade.
Scorp, who would send books to her by owl along with extensive handwritten reviews instead of just handing them to her because he knew she enjoyed getting letters in the morning post.
Scorp, who would always go to Hogsmeade and stop by Honeydukes to buy her a pack of pepper imps. She’d gone off pepper imps about nine months ago, but she’d gladly eat the entirety of Honeydukes’ supply if he--
“You...?”
Scorp, who was now throwing her a mildly amused look.
“I. Me. I mean—”
I like you.
It felt right. It was right. This was the right time, she knew it in her bones - she just needed to get it out.
It was just like Flooing - all she had to do was enunciate the words clearly and picture the destination... except in this case, the words were ‘I fancy you’ and the destination was Snog Town.
“If you don’t start saying something soon I’m going to have to assume the worst.” There was a hint of humour to his quiet words, the sentence punctuated by a curl of his mouth. “Have you finally killed someone? Is this a help-me-hide-the-body situation? I’ve got to tell you, my corpse Levitating game is super strong today, but I draw the line at digging.”
His smile was a discreet thing, restrained, a tug of the lips at best. It was the sort of smile that you would entirely miss if you weren’t looking, if you weren’t properly looking… but Rose was, she always properly was.
That smile was devastating in its smallness, as silent and deadly as a trained assassin.
It was like the universe had custom-made that smile just for her.
“Your twig arms couldn’t handle it anyway. No dead bodies tonight,” she said, taking a calculated seat on the edge of the table - she might feel confident, but her legs apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about this whole confessing affair and they were threatening to give out on her. “Good to know that you’re ready for the possibility, though.”
“Have been actively preparing myself since the day I met you, Red. Bought a shovel and everything.” He gave a faint shrug and rested his cheek against his hand, the shadow of a smile lingering. “I consider it one of life’s inevitabilities, you know, that one day you’ll knock on my door in the wee hours of the morning for murder related reasons.”
He was trying to help her, to keep the conversation flowing.
Ah, sod it. Sod it all.
“Bear with me,” she said, throwing him a tight-lipped smile. “Look… I—”
I fancy you, go with me to Hogsmeade or, I don’t know, just kiss me right now, I’d be fine with that .
Yeah, that was it.
“I fan--”
At that exact moment, a nearby bookshelf chose to collapse under its own weight and her words were buried under the scattered books and debris.
The pair of them were left staring blankly at the shattered remains, not daring to move a muscle. A few seconds later, Pince showed up, a horrified look on her face. “What did you do ?”
She was staring directly at Rose, which came as no surprise. Any adult in their right mind would always choose to blame her and not Scorpius. She couldn’t even find it in her heart to resent them: Scorp was quiet and polite and he didn’t have a track record of being found anywhere near spontaneously exploding cauldrons whereas Rose--
“Nothing, Madam Pince,” Scorp said, metaphorically stepping out of his preferred spot on the sidelines and directly into the librarian's line of fire. “We were just talking - very quietly, mind you - when--”
“I was just trying to tell him that I lik—”
Rose watched with horror as a second set of bookshelves broke down to their right. Once again her words died under the cacophony and she exchanged a helpless look with the object of her affection. He shrugged back, distinctly unruffled by the insanity around them.
“What day is it?” All the colour drained from Madam Pince’s face and she let out a curse under her breath. “What day— Get out.” A third bookshelf collapsed nearby. “Now!”
(Turns out that the specific day back in Fifth Year when Scorpius Malfoy had dumped Kate Towler and her perfect bum, was also the specific day that the Hogwarts Library was due its bicentennial spell reinforcement and maintenance.)
They were ushered out, along with several other students by a frantic Madam Pince, who kept swearing under her breath and throwing panicked looks over her shoulder as bookshelf after bookshelf crumpled behind them.
Still, Rose was nothing if not determined. Her first and second declarations of intent thwarted by improper timing, she decided to get it out the moment they stepped out of the library and into the hallway.
“That was… odd.” Scorp leaned against a nearby wall and let himself slide down to sit on the stone floor, opening his book to the page marked with his finger. “Educational, too. Couldn’t believe some of the words that were coming out of Pincey.”
She slumped down right next to him, a slight pout at the unfairness of it all. “And right in the middle of me telling you that I like—”
Boom.
Metal, candles and glass shattered barely a meter away from her - a nearby chandelier fell to the ground and would’ve crushed her legs if Scorp hadn’t snatched her out of the way at the very last second.
(You see, apparently, it was also the day of the bicentennial chandelier spell reinforcement and maintenance.)
The first two she could chalk up to coincidence. This one had felt like a warning.
“Are you alright?” He pulled her up to her feet and scanned her. “Merlin, what is going on today?”
His hands were gripping her arms and she suddenly realised that under his unflappable veneer, he was... well, flapped. Scared. Maybe… angry? She couldn’t really tell, but his book lay forgotten on the floor. How on earth had he even reacted that fast?
“I’m fine.” She touched a hand to his and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Really, I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. Not really.
Years later, Rose would retell the story at dinner parties as a curious coincidence, an anecdotal account of her first, failed attempts at pouring her heart out to the boy that she’d fancied at the time.
What she always failed to mention was that those three attempts weren’t the last or even the most memorable. There were eight in total before she gave up, each and every one of them interrupted by exploding objects, intruding cousins and, on the very last one, yet again the detested Kate Towler, who would then proceed to date him on and off again until their graduation.
After all, once was bad timing, twice was an uncanny coincidence, three times might be a cosmic fluke of sorts… but eight times?
Eight times was a pattern.