Chapter 5: Well, this is awkward.

'Scorpius, wait!...Scorpius!....MALFOY STOP.' Rose lost it. How could he ignore her? She's done nothing wrong! He froze and turned around, frowning. 'Just leave it Rose, I get it, it doesn't matter how friendly you are to the Slytherin-reject at first, because what your family think will always come first, and they can't stand me. Well guess what? I rejected my family, I told my father I didn't mind not being in Slytherin, and if that wasn't enough for him to hate me, I told him about sitting with you on the train, which, in retrospect, I shouldn't have done, I should've listened to my gut and gone and sat with Kia and Luke Zabini, then I would have gotten into Slytherin, kept what little respect my father had for me, and whats more, I wouldn't have met you or your goddamn, pretentious little family!' He was shouting at her, for something he didn't really believe she'd done, about something he didn't really regret doing. He started to walk away, faster now, to be grabbed by the shoulder and spun around briskly, met by deep chestnut, watery eyes. "Don't you ever talk about my family like that. That letter this morning from Harry was NOT what you think it was about. You want to know what he REALLY said? He defended your father and told me to "go easy on you, you're under a lot of pressure", well tough, Malfoy, I've been nothing but nice to you since I met you, despite your family's past, hell, I thought you were different, I thought maybe you cared about me, but obviously not you foul, evil, loathsome little cockroach!" She punched him in the eye, as she repeated her mothers words, not that her mother had told her them, of course not, it was her father that told her, the evening before she left for Hogwarts, they were sat in the garden of the Burrow, watching Hugo and Al chase gnomes, when he told her that if she ever had a run-in with a Slytherin, those were the words she was to use. He staggered back, shocked at her reaction, then began to follow her, as she stormed off to their next lesson, Potions with Professor Cauldron (real name, ironically), but was stopped by Albus. "Leave her to cool down, talk to her later. And you might want to go get some ice on that, she packs quite the punch, she broke James' nose last summer. Of course, he told everyone it was a rogue quaffle at his try-out for the Junior England Quidditch Team, which he never had. Albus winked. Why was he being nice to Scorpius, who just offended his entire family, including Al himself? Then again, he looks like he has the brains of a sieve. Scorpius smiled faintly, and they walked to the hospital wing together, to see Madame Pomfrey, who, although she must've aged in the last 20 years, hadn't changed a bit since their parents were at school.
     When they finally stumbled into potions, Scorpius with ice over his eye, the only two remaining seats were the one next to Rose, and the one behind. Albus slid into the one behind her, mouthing the words 'Sorry, bro' at Scorpius, who sat down timidly beside her. They didn't speak whilst Professor Cauldron gave out instructions, and the only words Rose said whilst preparing their potions were 'pass me a knife, please.' Scorpius began readying his potion, but his mind kept wandering to thoughts of Rose. How upset was she? Should I apologise now, or wait until later? Does she ever think of me like this? Not anymore, I guess. He glanced over at her briefly, to see a curtain of auburn curls, covering her face. He took a deep breath and swivelled so he was facing her. 'I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't know.' 'It doesn't matter, Scorpius, get back to your work, your potion is about to bubble over.' She didn't even look up at him. She doesn't care, he thought, and that hurts. He felt a pain in his chest, and he knew it was her fault. He spent the rest of the lesson absentmindedly stirring his potion, it's a miracle it didn't explode, and thinking of how to make it up to Rose.
     It took him approximately a day and a half to figure out what to do, in which he was not sent any letters from his father, and only one from his mother, saying that she was disappointed that he had gotten into Gryffindor, and he wasn't friends with any mudbloods, was he? 
     Rose sat down at the Gryffindor table at lunchtime 2 days later, feeling very hungry. She hadn't eaten much that morning, due to rising worries about a homework she wasn't sure she had done correctly, and was ready for a large lunch. In fact, she was so busy piling her plate with food, she didn't notice Scorpius' absence from the table, until he barged in ten minutes later, and sat directly opposite her, next to Al, without saying anything. 'Well, this is awkward..' Al said, cheerfully, like his input might help. They both ignored him, her eating a huge chunk of bread, him nit-picking at a small plate of food.
     As soon as she finished, Rose made her way to Gryffindor tower, to get her gloves and book for her next lesson, Herbology with her Uncle Neville, or Professor Longbottom, here at Hogwarts. She opened the door to the dormitory and spotted something on her bed, which had definitely not been there when she left that morning. A small envelope, with her name on in deep purple, was lying on her pillow. She sat down and opened it carefully, hoping it wasn't one of her Uncle George's 'Fred's Fabulous Fireworks!' in an envelope, her cousins and brother posted her one of them on Valentine's Day last year. She took out a note, written on a crisp, new piece of parchment;
Rose, I'm sorry. I didn't know what awful things your Uncle would have to say about my father, or me, for that matter. My family, we're..different to yours.  I don't have any Uncles or Aunts, I'm the only child in the family, and because of this I'm expected to be the perfect Slytherin, a loyal and honourable pure-blood, and faithful to the family, regardless of what I want. And up until I walked onto the train, I thought that was who I am, and what I wanted to be. That was, until, I bumped into this girl. She wasn't insanely beautiful, and most definitely wasn't graceful, but she gave me the warmest smile I'd ever seen, regardless of the fact our families should be mortal enemies. Since then, I haven't stopped thinking about her, and my eyes haven't left her when we're together. But I screwed up big time, and for that I am truly sorry. If she forgives me, and I'm lucky, she'll meet me outside of the Fat Lady's porthole, so we can talk, after lessons have finished? Until then, (or not,) Scorpius. P.S. If she doesn't forgive me, I'll have to sneak into her room and leave her notes more often.
She sat for a minute, speechless. He'd never even said more than a few sentences to her, let alone let all of his feelings out. She quickly pulled out a spare piece of parchment and scribbled a few lines on it, before hurrying down to the greenhouses, where she sat down next to Scorpius and slipped him the note, which read;
What if she likes getting notes like that?
He smiled, and wrote on the back;
Then I'll break my fingers and never write again!
She read it, grinned widely, and simply wrote;
:( Wait, won't that hurt A LOT? Genius. ;) R
They continued to pass notes all lesson, the last one being from Scorpius, saying; So you'll come later? Rose looked at him wistfully, and replied 'We'll see.', before walking off to their last lesson of the day.