"No."

"Please, Rose?"

"I said no."

"You know you want to!"

"Actually I think that the whole point of this conversation was how much I don't want to go to the stupid Slytherin party tonight."

Scorpius sighs and looks at me with puppy dog eyes. We're sitting in the library and studying. Well, I'm studying. Scorp is trying to convince me to go to the Slytherin party tonight despite my not being in Slytherin (I'm in Ravenclaw) and the fact that I hate parties.

"Please? Al is going to with Layla and I don't want to go alone!"

"Go with one of The Slags."

The Slags are what I have so lovingly nicknamed Scorp's legion of followers. To be a member of The Slags one must: have big breasts, be incredibly stupid, and know Scorp's entire schedule by heart.

"I want to go with my best mate."

"I thought Al was your best mate."

"He is; you're my second choice." Scorp says, smirking.

"Great, thanks for that vote of confidence."

"Hey, you're higher on my list than any of the girls!"

The Girls is what Scorp affectionately calls his legion of followers. He's not as annoyed by them as I am but that probably has something to do with the fact that he always has someone to shag when he wants to.

"Again, thanks, that means so much to me." I say, turning back to my potions essay.

Scorp sighs "Alright, I didn't think it would come down to this."

"What are you-?"

He grabs my essay from me. "I won't give you back the essay until you agree to go to the party with me!"

I smirk at him and pull out a copy of my essay, "I learned from last time, Scorp. Now, I always keep an extra copy."

He swears.

I continue writing but feel his gaze on me the whole time, which of course makes it difficult to concentrate. Why, why, why is he still staring at me?

I clear my throat, "Is there something else you wanted?"

He leans in close to me and I can feel his warm breath on my ear, "If you don't come with me I'll tell Al what really happened between you and Ethan Wright."

"You wouldn't!" I whisper yell at him.

He just smirks at me. He would.

I consider this for a few seconds. Al cannot know what happened between me and Ethan…

"I hate you" I say

"We're best mates!"

"Best mates don't blackmail each other."I say primly, closing up my textbooks.

"Best mates don't make other best mates go to a party alone."

I roll my eyes at him, "Give me 10 minutes."

He smiles triumphantly at me and I have to stop for a few seconds to catch my breath. For a second I can see why he has so many girls following him. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still think it's ridiculous that so many girls follow after him blindly but I can sort of understand why. Scorpius Malfoy is gorgeous.

Not that I like him as any more than a mate, but, still, I can't deny his extreme attractiveness. Blond hair, blue-grey eyes, and those hands! They're all the glory of man hands, knuckly and strong and a little bit calloused from Quidditch.

"Come on, I have to stop by the Ravenclaw tower," I say to him.

"Ok, I'll meet you outside the tower in 10?" he asks.

I nod at him, and pack up my things.

Why oh why did I tell him 10 minutes? 10 minutes is nothing in let's-get-ready-to-go-to-a-party time! I rush into my dormitory and shrug off my school robes. I run a brush quickly through my hair and spray on a little perfume. I write a quick note to Em hoping that maybe she'll be able to save me later.

I shrink my favorite book and put it in my pocket. The book will come in handy when I'm the only sober person at the party. It happens often and while extremely pissed people can be amusing, I'm not really in the mood tonight.

I quickly throw on a sweater and climb down the stairs to the Ravenclaw common room. I pass my favorite arm chair (unfortunately) and look at it wistfully before exiting the tower.

I see Scorp waiting for me, leaning against the wall casually.

"I realized as soon as you walked out of the library that I didn't have anywhere to go, so I came here," he says, then looks at his watch, "you're early."

"Yeah, well,"

I pat my pocket to make sure my book is still there.

"Ready to go?" I ask.

His blue-grey eyes scan over me, looking suspiciously at my pocket.

"What's in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

He quirks and eyebrow at me "I don't believe you."

"You don't have to- I'm going to this stupid party with you. You should just be glad I'm going with you and not worry about what may or may not be in my pocket."

"It's a book, isn't it?"

I ignore him and look at the portraits on the wall.

Suddenly, his hand is reaching into my pocket, and pulling out the book. His hand was on my thigh! Well, not really my thigh, in my pocket but still! There was only a thin fabric between my thigh and his lovely boyish hand! His hand was in my skirt!

Focus, Rose!

"Pride and Prejudice?" Scorp asks scornfully.

I roll my eyes at him. "It's such a good story! And you know me I'm not really into the whole romance novel thing, but this is such a revolutionary writing and-"

"And you decided the best place for a revolutionary writing was the Slytherin party?"

"It's what I do when everyone around me is completely pissed and unable to hold an actual conversation."

"Right, I'm confiscating this for the entire night."

"Scorpius!"

"Oh no! My whole name! You really mean it!"

"Give it back!"

"No, I don't think so. C'mon Rose, the party will be in full swing by now!"

He grabs my hand and begins winding through the corridors. Dickhead. He stole my book and thinks he has the right to drag me along to a party I don't even want to go to in the first place!

I pull my hand out of his.

"I don't want to go to this stupid party."

He spins around and looks at me.

"If you don't go to this party…" he waves the book in front of my face, "you might not ever get this back."

"That's….That's….unfair!"

He smirks at me. "All's fair in love and war!"

"I wasn't aware this was either."

"My love for parties and the war to get you to one!"

I roll my eyes at him.

"Now you know you want to get this book back and all you have to do is go to one party!"

I sigh again, stupid attractive, smart bastard.

"That's the sigh of helplessness I was looking for!" he exclaims taking my hand and dragging me to the party.

Which of course gives me a great view of his arse. Which of course is extremely distracting.

When we enter the Slytherin Common Room, the party is in full swing.

"I'll go get us drinks!" Scor yells at me.

I nod, knowing very well that I won't ever see him again for the rest of the night.

I glance around; everyone seems to be pissed already. Al is dancing with Layla. By dancing I mean practically shagging on the dance floor.

This is why I hate parties. I would much rather be upstairs in my dormitory with my good friend Emily Faye. Em is good company. We would probably be laughing about all the stupid things the people at this particular party would be doing. Em would probably be swooning over whatever famous Quidditch player stole her heart for the moment (I think right now it's Eduardo Martinez from Spain).

I sigh and sit down on a couch that has been pushed to the side of the room to make way for the dance floor.

"Roseee Weasley!"

I turn my head instinctively and then wish immediately I hadn't.

"I didn't think you'd show up to the party!" the Gryffindor golden boy, Hank Lutfy.

Hank has the swishy hair that girls just loved to run their hands through. He's at a decent height (1.8 meters) and he tells decently funny stories. He gets decent grades and he as an outrageous amount of courage and bravery. Pretty much all of these things allow him the honor of the affections of most girls around Hogwarts.

"Really, Hank?"

"Yeah! But I was hoping you'd show up! I have this great story to tell you about potions class!" he says, winking at me.

"Sorry, Lutfy, but Rose is busy now."

I glance up to see that Scorp has returned with my drink (that I probably won't drink anyway) and is coming to my rescue. What a brilliant mate.

I smile at him quickly.

"Well, Malfoy, I don't hear her complaining about talking to me." Hank says looking angry.

"Oh, Hank, I would love to hear that really funny story about your potions class, but I really did promise that I'd hang out with Scorpius tonight."

Hank checks me out. Usually I don't notice when boys check me out (though Scorp swears they do) but it appears that Hank is less reserved when he's drunk.

"Well, then, how about I at least get you a drink?" he asks helpfully.

Scorp clears his throat and holds up the extra drink.

"Well then, I see Malfoy has already beaten me to it. But next time, Rose!"

"Sure, Hank."

Hank leaves but not before exchanging a few words with Scorp. Unfortunately for me they were whispered, so I couldn't hear them.

Scorp collapses on the couch next to me, handing me my drink. I take it timidly.

"What did Hank say to you?"

"Nothing."

"Sure," I say sarcastically.

Scorp downs his whole drink in a few gulps.

"Are you going to drink that?"

"No."

"Roseee! You can't go to party and not drink!"

"Yes, I can. I do it all the time."

"Just one drink."

"No."

"I'll tell Al about you and-"

"Merlin, Scorp, you're already blackmailing me to be here and now you're blackmailing me to drink!"

"You're fun when you're drunk"

"That's only happened once."

"One drink."

"Fine."

I swear, beautiful boys are bad influences. I sip my drink a little more daintily than Scorp gulped his.

I start to feel the effects right away. The lights seem brighter and the music sounds louder. But even my drunk self doesn't want to be here. (I was just getting to the good part in my book!)

"Scorp?" I ask. And I can tell that he's a little tipsy too.

"Rosie?"

"Can I have my book back? Pwease?"

He chuckles, "Noo…I want to dance with you!"

An idea flickers in my head.

Scorp's sitting next to me on the couch and I straddle him.

"Wha-?"

"Please, Scorp." I whisper seductively, trailing a hand down his chest, "can I please have my book back?"

"I…" he trails off.

I decide to kick it up a notch. My head moves closer and my lips are almost touching his as my hands slide down, down, down toward his pelvis. "I really want that book, Scorp."

He pulls it out of his pocket. "Here, Rosie."

I take the book but stay in my position for a moment longer. He leans forward….

"Alright, Rose time to get back to the common room!" I look to my right and see Em standing there.

She shakes a finger at Scorp, "I knew you did this to her against her will! Dragged her to a party…idiot. You have no shame!"

"Em!" I smile.

"Let's go Rose, before you do something else you regret." She pulls me up.

"I want to finish reading my book!"

"You can do that in the common room."

Then she's dragging me through the halls.

"You don't have as good of an arse as Scorp does" I giggle.

"I'm not even going to respond to that."

She drags me up into the dormitory and hands me a potion. "Drink it, Rose."

"Eww it smells gross! No!"

"Take it before I shove it down your throat."

I quickly gulp down the disgusting potion. Within a few moments my drunkenness is cured. Unfortunately that means that everything that happened after I drank is a bit of a blur.

"What happened, Em?"

"By the time I got your note and went into the Slytherin Common room, you were straddling a certain Mister Malfoy. Your lips were almost touching and your hands were almost in his crotch. He didn't seem to mind much."

"I DID WHAT?"

"Relax, Rose, apparently you wanted your book back. And your drunk self decided that that would be the best way to get it."

I glance over at Em, "Do you think he'll remember?"

"No, he seemed pretty gone."

"Em?"

"Yeah?"

"This. Night. Never. Happened."

I did not straddle my best mate, touch him seductively, or almost snog him just to get a book back while being drunk. I refuse to admit this ever happened.

Good thing Scorp will never remember it.

A/N: Wow! First chapter! This will be a short multichap. Hopefully. Much much shorter than These Bonds of Friendship or Chasing Shadows. This just came to me now and I had to write it down! Apparently I really like the whole best friends angle to romance...I haven't yet decided if I should alternate points of view or do this whole story in Rose's POV...any suggesetions?

I don't know how quicky this story will be updated (my top priority right now is Chasing Shadows). But I hope you enjoyed it!

~wwccd