Title: Colours of Us, Rating: K

Oh boy, the more I write about Rose and Scorpius, the more I love them, so much so that I'm making this a collection of one-shots for them! I'll make sure to put the ratings at the beginning of each chapter, as I've done for this one. They'll all be either K, K+, or T.

Written for QFLC (go Tornados!) - Keeper, Finals Round 1, Quote: "You know, I don't think this gown and nail polish really go together."

Hope you enjoy!

-Summer

They meet on the Hogwarts Express just minutes after both their respective fathers have drilled into their brains that The Other Is An Enemy And Will Always Be An Enemy.

"Make sure he never gets to you," says her father passionately, his blue eyes shooting daggers at the huddle of blond and brunette next to the train.

"Try to beat her in every class," says his father grimly, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at the cluster of red and brunette and black. "I could never beat her mum, but I'm sure you can take this one."

But when Scorpius Malfoy enters the only relatively empty compartment which happens to seat Albus Potter and Rose Weasley already, their parents' urgings fly out the window because after all, they are all simply first-years, first-timers, new to the same thing, and the only difference between them, really, is the fact that her red defines her as a Weasley and his blond as a Malfoy.

"Hello," says Scorpius, the blond to the red and the black, the Malfoy to the Weasley and Potter. He offers a smile, something that comes to him far more naturally than it does his father. "Could I sit here?"

Albus and Rose share only a quick glance before nodding. "Of course," Rose says warmly, and stands up to help him lift his trunk.

"Thanks," he says as they heave the trunk up. It ends up next to hers.

His trunk is green. Hers is red. It's an irrevocable sign of the Merging of the Christmas Colours.

His name is called far too quickly for his liking. "Scorpius Malfoy," says Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, and it seems as if the entire Great Hall is holding its breath as he steps out of the bunch of first years - the entire Great Hall, that is, except for bright red Rose Weasley, who gives him a radiant smile as he tremulously puts one foot in front of the other and makes his way to the stage.

"I see you're already wearing green under your robes," says the Hat immediately after McGonagall places it on Scorpius's head. "Confident you will be placed in Slytherin, aren't you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"I'm positive," Scorpius whispers, wondering if the hat can hear him, and if the hat knows that he's only positive because his father and his grandfather are positive.

"I'm not so sure," the Hat replies in his ear, and Scorpius's heart leaps, though it's not an entirely unpleasant feeling. Is the hat - is it reconsidering generations of Malfoy Slytherins? His mind races ahead of time; Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. He'd always liked blue, and badgers are cool, and who knew there were so many possibilities if not Slytherin -

The hat continues blabbering in his ear. "Yes, admittedly shrewd and cunning… And yet you aren't quite like the other Malfoys I've sorted at all. You'd fit well into Ravenclaw. Oh, but you are quite noble and valiant… How would you like a change?" Scorpius barely has time to register the wave of hope he feels at the hat's words before the hat is saying, "Yes, I see, I can see that underneath that green is a spark of courage… yes… a spark of - GRYFFINDOR!"

No one remembers to clap. Scorpius doesn't remember to step off the stool even when the Headmistress takes the hat off of him and says, "Congratulations," very faintly because even she cannot believe it -

He

is

red.

And so is Albus Potter (though after perhaps four minutes of discussing something with the Hat), but when Rose Weasley steps up to the platform, her red hair bobbing as she seats herself on the stool confidently, courageously, bravely - the hat slips onto her head for not five seconds before it's shouting out, "SLYTHERIN!"

And red haired Rose sits on the stool with the exact same bafflement etched upon her face as it had on Scorpius's, her eyes flicking from the left to the right, from her family to her enemy, from red to green, and she looks lost, afraid, isolated from all she has known, because

she

is

green.

"It didn't let me get one word in," Rose tells her cousin Albus furiously. "Not one word! It just went on my head and decided I have Slytherin-like qualities and wouldn't let me change its mind! Not one word!" She moans and places her head in her hands. "Dad's going to kill me."

"You couldn't control it, he can't blame you," Albus says matter-of-factly, but Rose glares at him because there's only one reason why he would spend four minutes with the hat on his head, and that's because he was convincing the hat to let him choose Gryffindor.

"Father's going to kill me, too," Scorpius says grimly, waving the letter in his hand. "He and Grandfather were… well, expecting" - he says this very delicately - "Slytherin."

The three of them are loitering in the Owlery the first morning of classes, each with a letter in their hand to send off to their parents. Albus is the only one who doesn't fear the reply.

"And I was expecting Gryffindor," Rose says more venomously than she realizes.

She subconsciously tugs on her green tie as she stares at Albus's and Scorpius's red ones. They fit disturbingly well on them (and she won't admit it, but she knows the green tie fits disturbingly well on her) and she wants nothing more than to reach out and pull the red free and tie it around her own neck.

"So we've switched," says Scorpius with a smirk on his face, and Albus laughs as he beckons his older brother's owl to come to him.

Rose doesn't find it as amusing as they do, and purses her lips as she walks over to one of the school barn owls, all the while quite aware of her green tie burning into her chest. She strokes its wings and fingers the rolled-up parchment in her hand. It's tied with ribbon. The ribbon is red.

"Dad's going to be furious," she informs the owl sadly. "I advise you make it out of there as quick as possible."

Her letter - riddled with apologies every two words, apologies that she is not Gryffindor enough, that she got into the very House her dad had despised as a teenager - is two pages long, and Rose had nearly spent all night miserably penning the inevitable truth to her parents.

She ties the letter to the owl's outstretched foot with a heavy heart, and carries it to the window.

"There's a very large chance I'm going to die," she declares to the owl with half-hearted dramaticism. "So thank you for sending this for me."

The owl squawks and soars out the window. She watches it until it's a speck in the horizon, and still watches it when it's long gone.

She feels a tap on her shoulder, and turns to see Scorpius holding a beautiful snowy owl of his own, ready to launch off to deliver the news to Draco and Astoria Malfoy. He looks miserable, but offers a small smile when she glances at him.

"Help me send it?" he asks, and Rose somehow obliges, and maybe it's because he's just so much more normal than her dad had made him out to be; maybe it's because he's so much more humble than she thought; maybe it's because he's so much like her in the sense that he was torn from his house, the one that he should belong in.

"Father's going to kill me," Scorpius says nonchalantly. "If it were Ravenclaw, it might be a bit better."

"Yeah," Rose agrees.

Slytherin is supposed to be off limits. Slytherin is for people like Scorpius Malfoy. Slytherin is no place for a girl with red hair, for a girl with the family name of Weasley.

Scorpius has let his owl fly out the window, and Rose feels the sudden desire to just switch places with him. You have my spot in Gryffindor, she wants to scream. Take Slytherin - take it, just take it away -

She grabs the tip of her green tie, reaches over and picks up the end of his red tie, and hold the two next to each other.

He looks at her questioningly, then lets his gaze fall back down to the ties.

"If we could switch," she explains desperately, "it would make it so much easier."

And though Scorpius nods fervently, Rose gets the feeling that he's perhaps not on the same boat as her after all, because he pulls his tie away from her and presses it back into his chest, looking positively torn before he walks away and joins Albus by another window.

He likes the red, she realizes as she looks down at her green tie. He likes it.

She wonders if she could learn to like the green.

It's their fifth year, and Hogsmeade is alight with Christmas decorations. Rose and Scorpius are in a Honeyduke's, and Albus is not with them. Neither of them point this out, that one of their trio is missing. Neither of them really mind the solitude.

"Oh, look at this!" Rose dances through the crowd and stops at a jar of blue powdered gummies in the shape of frogs. "How pretty."

"'Frosty Frozen Frogs'," Scorpius reads from the sign. "Want some?"

But Rose, whose single weakness is candy (that is, her single weakness right after a certain someone), is already hopping away to another display of lollipops that change from red to green ever so often.

"Oh, eurgh, these aren't the blood vampire ones, are they?" She makes a face and peers up at the sign. "I can't see it - not tall enough - Scor, come here and read it!"

He comes. He always does, for her. "Aw, this one's boring. 'Courageous Colour Changers'," he says, and smirks down at her. "You think this would make you Gryffindor?"

Since first year, they've played a game of teasing each other about getting into the other's house. It's always been good fun. It's always helped them deal with the pinprick of nagging that they've been sorted into the wrong house - even though, of course, both know that they haven't.

"Come on. You need courage more than I do," Rose shoots back with a winning smile, but some part of her is screaming to herself, Yes, please, I need courage, I need it to deal with this crazy feeling inside my chestarmslegsbraineverywhere whenever you're around -

She stretches her arms and legs and fingers and picks out two lollipops. Bringing one close to her nose, she attempts to sniff it through the wrapper.

"Good luck with that," snorts Scorpius. Rose glares at him and peels the bottom of the wrapper just enough to get the sweet smell of cherry - no, lime - no, cherry -

"We're getting these," says Rose immediately, pinching the wrapper shut. She's always been a fan of cherry and even more so of lime. "Do you want to - Hey!"

"Oops," says Scorpius, looking down at the wrapper-free lollipop clutched in his hand. The wrapper is crumpled in Rose's fist, where he had pulled the stick out of her hand.

"Idiot," Rose says exasperatedly, and panics when even she can hear the fondness in her tone. "Er, what do we do now?"

Scorpius suddenly grins and leans in very close to her ear and Rose is thinking that Honeydukes is very stuffy and it's making her face red like a cherry, and she's becoming very warm as he says in his playful voice, "We eat it."

And he sticks the red lollipop into his mouth, and Rose really cannot resist anymore - she takes the lollipop in her hand, and soon there's a second wrapper crumpled in her fist, and the flavor of lime bursting in her mouth, and -

"We're going to get in trouble," she says, savoring the taste as she pulls the lolly out of her mouth.

Scorpius shrugs, taking out his own lollipop. "Yeah."

"How come mine isn't turning red?" She frowns at her lollipop and glances at Scorpius's red-then-green-then-red-then-green one.

"Maybe it's a defect?"

She scrunches up her face. "Darn. I like cherry."

He twirls the stick in his hand almost nervously. "Want to taste it?" He raises his eyebrows.

"Sure, if you don't mind." She puts a hand out to reach for his lollipop, ignoring the brush of his fingers against hers -

"I didn't mean that," says Scorpius, and before she can express her confusion, his lips are on hers and the taste of cherry and lime swirl on their lips and in their mouth, and Rose is thinking that maybe the Courageous Colour Changers can make her Gryffindor for just one moment, and that just-one-moment is enough.

Rose stands in front of the mirror, putting the final touches on her hair that falls in sweet curls not unlike her mother's (that is, her mother's when tamed) onto her dress for the Halloween ball. The dress is the colour of her house - ever the loyal Slytherin, she thinks wryly to herself as she fingers the green hem.

"I still can't believe you're going with Malfoy," sighs Lucy Nott. "I'm so jealous."

"You've told me," says Rose with a roll of her eyes to disguise the beatbeatbeating of her heart, "as has every other girl in the school."

Lucy grins. "I know, but that doesn't make you any less lucky!"

"You've got to tell us every single detail later," commands Jenna McKinnon from her position in front of the mirror.

"Nothing's going to happen."

Lucy snorts. "Oh, come on. Scorpius is crazy for you. You're just too much of a blunthead to see it." She is surprisingly nimble in her tight dress and avoids the cushion Rose tosses at her.

"Shut up," the redhead blushes. "He just asked me because Al's going with someone."

"Either way, you're going to knock his socks right off his feet," says Arya Zabini proudly. She cocks her head to the side and says slowly, "But you know, I don't think this gown and nail polish really go together." She pauses and turns back to the mirror, presumably worried she's offended the resident hothead of Slytherin.

Instead of feeling offended, Rose smiles brilliantly and looks down at her carefully painted nails against the evergreen of her dress. "Really? I think it goes quite well."

The red polish gleams in the subtle green light of the Slytherin dungeons, and still gleams as she dances the night away in Scorpius Malfoy's arms.