Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way to the Harry Potter franchise.

"I must say, the Daily Prophet front page looks good today."

"Hmm? What are you talking about? Let me see-"

"…"

"You can't be serious."

"Well…"

"He's a convicted murderer, Rose."

"I know that! And he's a despicable person who should rot in Azkaban forever but you have to admit, Millie…he looks rather fit."

"Oh my god, you're impossible…but then again, you never could resist a man in glasses."

Rose was having a surprisingly good day. For once, she'd made it to work on time because her insomniac brain had finally decided that she needed some sleep.

She was well-rested, well-fed and in a quite chipper mood. She would have a productive day, go home and do some long due self-care with a bottle of wine or two. It felt like nothing could bring her down.

Until, of course, Janet Griffiths burst into her office carrying a bunch of thick files and unceremoniously dumped them on Rose's already cluttered desk. Her boss, a rather arrogant albeit highly skilled witch, almost never graced Rose with her presence in her dingy Ministry office but whenever she did, it was rarely ever good news.

It turned out Rose's predictions were correct.

"Right," said Griffiths with her usual tone of self-importance. "I know this is short notice Weasley, but we have to owl these reports out first thing tomorrow morning."

Rose dubiously eyed the large stack and said, "No, I believe these are supposed to go out next week."

The older woman huffed in annoyance. "Well, we all thought so but Matthew, the blithering idiot, misread the date and it turns out these have to be owled tomorrow, not next week."

"But they haven't been reviewed yet!" Rose exclaimed, a deep sense of panic setting into her bones.

"Honestly Weasley, why else do you think I came here?" asked Griffiths, "I'd give Matthew the job if he were nearly qualified enough but alas. Anyway, you take half and give Malfoy the rest. I need these to go out tomorrow before noon positively, you understand?"

Rose's debilitating worry about this new impossible deadline almost went out the window at the mention of that name.

"Err, who-who now?" she sputtered, silently praying that she'd heard her wrong.

"Malfoy. Scorpius Malfoy," her boss repeated irritably. "You two are my best workers. I'm counting on you. Don't disappoint me."

Ending the conversation on that warning note, Janet Griffiths turned around and strode out of the office, the clicking of her heels echoing hollowly in Rose's ears.

After a good fifteen minutes of cursing her luck, Rose was finally able to pluck up the courage to take the files to Malfoy's office and get this thing over with.

She stomped down the corridor and stopped outside the door bearing the plaque of 'S. Malfoy'. She took a deep, calming breath and knocked.

"Come in," said the voice belonging to her best dreams and worst nightmares.

This was it.

Rose turned the knob and stepped inside.

"Listen, Malfoy. We have to-" she started but her words died in her throat as she took his appearance in.

She stared at him slack-jawed for a few moments before she hurriedly backtracked and shut the door loudly, blocking out the sinful vision she'd just witnessed. She nearly ran back to her office but her feet refused to do anything other than stay firmly rooted on the spot.

Oh Merlin…oh, dear Merlin. What had she just seen? What had that been? She pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. It was really true then…

Well…sitting behind the large mahogany desk had been Scorpius Malfoy in his all his usual glory but… he was also wearing glasses. These rectangular, full-framed black things that completely changed his look and made him even more delectable, if that were possible.

Rose gulped nervously. She had two weaknesses. One was men in glasses and the second was Scorpius Malfoy. The combination of both was something out of the deep, dark recesses of her mind and was honestly more than she could handle. It seemed as though she'd scorned some ancient deities and now they were playing a sick, cruel joke on her!

As Rose was having this meltdown, she didn't notice a very peeved-looking Janet Griffiths walking past her.

"Weasley!" she barked. "Why are you dawdling? Get a move on!"

Startled, Rose snapped out of her ridiculous reverie and shot her boss a sheepish smile.

She straightened up and steeled herself. She was here on a job and she was nothing if not professional. She would allow no distractions, not even blond ones that made her life much harder that it had to be.

A second knock sounded on his office door in the last ten minutes.

Rather than asking the visitor to come in, Scorpius merely waved his wand and the door opened to reveal a very determined-looking Rose Weasley, a stack of files hovering beside her. She was looking divine obviously, and considerably brightened up his drab and dull office with her fiery presence.

"Rose!" he said pleasantly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She didn't respond and instead just walked in with a slight frown on her face, while the files made themselves at home on the table he was leaning against. The door shut with a bang behind her.

It seemed like something was troubling her deeply but Scorpius knew better than to ask. Her eyebrows were knitted and her pink lips were shaped into an adorable pout. Scorpius had to physically restrain himself from reaching out and running his thumb over them, to see if they were really as soft as they looked.

Rose stood a safe distance away from him, scowling with her hands crossed. She seemed to be warring internally, like she was deciding whether she should say something that was on her mind. Scorpius waited patiently.

"What is that?" she asked finally, pointing in the general area of his face.

"Excuse me?"

"Glasses. Those glasses. That you are wearing. Why are you wearing them?" she demanded.

Scorpius stifled a laugh and raised his eyebrows at her. "You tell me. Why does one wear glasses?"

Rose huffed in frustration and stepped closer. "Your eyesight seemed fine till yesterday, Malfoy." Her scrutinizing gaze was meant to be intimidating, he supposed, but he was far too distracted by the distance she'd just unknowingly reduced between them.

"Paying close attention to me, Rose?" he teased, smiling in the most insufferable way he knew. "But no, not really. I've been having trouble seeing pretty girls such as yourself for days now. Something had to be done."

"Oh shut up, Malfoy!" Rose snapped, her face blooming with colour. Her annoyed expression paired with her trademark Weasley blush was a very amusing sight. "It just seems strange, is all."

Maintaining somewhat intense eye-contact, she took another step closer to him. Suddenly, instead of feeling delighted, Scorpius found himself feeling nervous because she didn't look like a woman gravitating towards him because of her deep attraction to him but rather like one on a mission.

He tried to move away but the table blocked his path and he found himself pressed against it. He was utterly trapped, literally and figuratively.

Before he knew what was happening, Rose had snatched the spectacles off his nose and was now inspecting them closely. She brought them up to the level of her eyes and tried to see through them.

Scorpius felt his throat get dry. Oh, shit.

He could do nothing but stare as Rose realised what was wrong with them and her eyes narrowed furiously.

"These are not real!" she accused, tossing the glasses on his desk.

Scorpius flinched at the movement.

"Your eyesight is fine, isn't it?" she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest.

Well ouch, but at least she was touching him.

"What are you playing at, Malfoy?" she continued. "Planning to add 'liar' to your resume?"

"Perhaps I am," he drawled. "What I don't understand is why you care so much. It's not like I've done anything to personally offend you."

Rose opened her mouth to retort but then closed it abruptly.

"I- I don't!" she said at last, her chest heaving. "I just don't want to be stuck with someone like you in a closed space for the next twelve hours."

"And why would you have to do that, pray tell?"

"Because," said Rose through clenched teeth, "we have to review and send out all these reports by tomorrow morning."

Scorpius glanced at the sad-looking files. "I see. Don't you think we should stop arguing then and get to work instea-"

But Rose wasn't listening to a word that came out of his mouth. "Honestly, why were you wearing fake glasses?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "We're still on that?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed.

"You know, I don't understand why you have such a problem with them anyway. Don't you have a thing for men who wear glasses?" he asked boldly, realising only a moment later what he'd said. Oh, no.

Rose gasped and turned a brilliant shade of red.

"WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT?" she cried, her eyes wild.

"Nowhere!" he said quickly but when her eyes flashed at him dangerously, he sighed defeatedly and confessed, "Fine, I overheard you talking to Millie about it a couple of days ago."

Rose gaped at him. "You were eavesdropping on my private conversations?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping on anything! Do you have any idea how loud you two are-"

"The sheer audacity, I can't believe it. I really hate you, Malfoy!"

"Oh, do you?" Scorpius challenged, leaning close. "Certainly didn't seem like that the way you kissed me on New Years' Eve". He waited anxiously to see her reaction to the mention of the incident that had started all this in the first place.

Rose seemed thoroughly taken aback by what he'd said. "Why are you bringing that up? I- I was drunk!" she sputtered.

"Don't lie. You'd only had one drink, you said so yourself. I know how high your alcohol tolerance is, love," Scorpius informed her, his grey eyes bright.

Rose swallowed nervously but refused to back down. "I was drunk," she insisted, "and there was no one else around."

"Your date was right there!"

Under the heat of his gaze, Rose couldn't even remember who that had been.

"Oh for God's sake Malfoy, it was just a quick kiss for a dumb game. That's all," Rose said, rather unconvincingly in Scorpius's opinion.

Scorpius raised an amused eyebrow. "We went at it for a good half an hour, Rose."

It seemed like she'd exhausted her defence by then so she just stared at him wordlessly, her lovely face set in a stubborn scowl.

Scorpius smirked. "Any more excuses?"

Rose exhaled and looked away sulkily. "God, I really hate you," she mumbled.

Scorpius had good reason to be smug. "I find that hard to believe," he said haughtily, "Because as I said before, it definitely didn't seem like that when-"

However, he never got to finish his sentence because Rose had suddenly let out a frustrated sound and tugged him down by his tie to firmly plant her lips on his.

Well, he certainly hadn't been expecting that. What was happening?

While his sluggish brain struggled to make sense, his body was acting on its own accord and he found himself kissing her back just as fervently, registering that her lips were indeed as soft as they looked. Vague memories of them from another day flitted in the back of his mind as fireworks exploded in the front.

"You…are…a…manipulative…scheming…shameless……bastard," Rose managed to tell him in between heated kisses, the intended effect of her words fizzling out by the way she was clinging to his neck.

Scorpius just hummed in agreement as a response and pulled her even closer.

Neither seemed to be aware that they were in their workplace, before Scorpius's elbow accidentally knocked over the files to the floor and they snapped back into reality.

Rose drew away, eliciting a petulant whine from Scorpius. Rose regarded him through her thick lashes. He looked positively drugged, the grey in his eyes hardly visible.

And then the next thing she knew, he was burying his face into the crook of her neck, his lips seeking out her skin. Rose's stomach gave an excited jolt.

At the same time however, an urgent sense of worry was starting to niggle away at her as the events of the day resurfaced in her mind.

They were supposed to have started working an hour ago!

"Malfoy," she whispered weakly, her voice giving away her panic. "The reports- we have to review-"

"We don't," Scorpius murmured against her skin. He sighed wearily and made to pull back, dropping a small kiss on her collarbone.

Rose blinked up at him in confusion. "What do you mean, we don't?"

Scorpius flashed her a small, boyish grin. "I may have changed the submission date."

Rose gaped at him, processing the meaning of his words. "Wait…so Matthew didn't misread them?"

"No," he admitted sheepishly. "He didn't. In fact, the date should be changing back to the original any minute now, i.e. the one next week."

"But- but Matthew could get fired for this!" Rose countered, feeling shocked.

"He could…" Scorpius agreed, "…as he wants to. Come on Rose, you really think he wants to stay under Janet Griffiths as her assistant forever? He tried to resign but she isn't letting him go. So we devised this plan to hit two birds with one stone."

"Two birds with one stone- what?" asked Rose, looking utterly puzzled.

Scorpius shook his head at her, smiling. "It really couldn't be more obvious, Rose. Do you want me to spell it out for you?"

Realisation finally dawned and her cheeks tinged pink.

"Wait...what are you saying? Do you like, um, fancy me or something?" she asked, biting her lower lip to suppress a silly grin. Her hands curled into the front of his shirt.

Scorpius snorted. "If by 'fancy' you mean, have I been coming up with pathetic ways to get your attention since the night you snogged my brains out, then yes Rose, I fancy you. I bought fake glasses to wear, for Merlin's sake!"

Rose laughed and leaned into him, her mouth mere inches from his.

"In your defence," she said in a low voice, "it worked quite spectacularly."

Before things could escalate though, a crash sounded outside the office, causing her to hurriedly extricate herself from his arms and glance at the door in alarm.

She flushed when no one came in and smoothed her rumpled clothes. Scorpius watched her with an amused smile.

"So, what now?" he enquired at last, addressing the elephant in the room.

"Now," she answered, "I'm going back to my office and finishing my work."

Immediately, Scorpius's face fell. She bit back a smile and added, "At 6 o'clock though, you're going to meet me at Floo Station number 12. Does that sound okay?"

Scorpius nodded slowly, looking quite pleased.

"And Scorpius?" she called, her hands on the knob of his office door.

His heart leapt at the use of his first name. Their eyes met.

"Yes?"

"Bring the glasses along," she said, smirking slightly. "I'm sure we'll find a use for them."

As it turned out, they did find a use for them and it had absolutely nothing to do with the improvement of one's eyesight.

A/N: A short, fluffy one-shot yay! I was itching to write something and this is what resulted from it.

(Don't ask me what Rose and Scorpius's jobs are, I have no idea.)

I wrote this in the span of a couple of hours last night in a pretty sleep-deprived state, so it isn't terribly well-thought-out. Don't blame me if it turned out horrible.

If this somehow gets a good response, I think I may add another chapter about how the NYE kiss happened! Fun stuff.

Hope you enjoyed it! Please, please review. They're my singular source of validation. And do let me know if there are any corrections to be made, I do an awful job of proofreading.

Till next time!