Denial is not just a river in Egypt

First Year

Scorpius Malfoy had never met any of the Weasleys before the first time he stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express, but by the time they reached Hogwarts, he had firmly established an opinion about four of them.

He and his cousin Noah had found an empty compartment and were just starting to relax when the door slid open.

"Oh," said a boy with dark red hair. "Sorry. I didn't realize this compartment was full."

Scorpius looked at the seats. "That's because it's not," he said. "Go on, sit down."

The boy gave a nervous smile. "Thanks," he said as he sat down.

The girl who followed him in had a face that reminded Scorpius of the porcelain dolls his cousin Evelyn used to play with, and it was framed by hair that was much brighter than the boy's. She looked almost angelic, so Scorpius was completely unprepared for it when she said in a tone so confident it verged on being outright bossy, "I'm Rose Weasley."

He was trying to sort out sure how someone could manage to sound bossy just by introducing herself when the boy said, almost shyly, "Albus Potter."

"Noah Nott."

"Scorpius Malfoy."

The girl's eyebrows went up. "Are you really?" she asked. "My father pointed you out on the platform, but I wasn't really paying attention."

"Why?" Scorpius asked, not sure why a Weasley's father would bother to point him out.

"Oh, he and your father hated each other when they were in school," she said casually.

"What were you talking about before we came in?" Albus cut in.

"Just the Kestrals/Tornados game we saw last week," Noah said.

"Are you Kestral or Tornado fans?" Albus asked.

"Noah likes the Kestrals," Scorpius replied. "I go for Portree, but I'll see anyone play, really, I'm not that picky. Who's your team?"

"The Harpies," Albus said proudly. "My mom used to play for them."

"How about you?" Scorpius asked Rose. She had already started to rub him the wrong way, but he was determined to at least try to be polite, especially since she didn't seem to be capable of it.

"The Arrows," she answered. "Of course."

He decided not to ask why it was 'of course,' but before he could say anything else, the door to the compartment slid open. "I've been looking everywhere for you," said the boy standing in the doorway. He had very messy jet-black hair.

"What's up with disappearing like that?" asked the girl standing next to him. She wore her hair in dozens of small braids. "D'you want to pretend we're not family now, or something? Because you're going to find that difficult."

The boy directed his attention at Scorpius and Noah. "I don't know either of you," he said. "First years?" When they both nodded, he stuck out his hand. "James Potter."

The girl mimicked him. "Roxanne Weasley."

They shook.

"Scorpius Malfoy."

"Noah Nott."

The change in their expressions was subtle, but there was a definite shift. "So what house do you want to be in?" James asked.

There was clearly a right answer, but Scorpius didn't know what it was. "Whichever one I get put in," he said.

"Slytherin." Noah stared at him, at if daring him to say something. "That's where my father was."

James laughed. "God, if they'd tried to put me in Slytherin, I think I'd have just left," he said to Roxanne.

She smirked. "Definitely."

"What house are you in, then?" Scorpius asked defensively.

"Gryffindor," James said proudly. "'Where dwell the brave at heart.' Just like my parents."

Roxanne tossed her long braids over her shoulder. "And mine." She leaned against the doorway. "What were you ickle-firsties talking about?"

"'Ickle-firsties?'" Albus asked incredulously. "What does that make you?"

"Wise and experienced second-years," James answered. "Of course."

Scorpius was starting to hope that he wasn't in Gryffindor, just so he could avoid James and Roxanne as much as possible.

"We were talking about Quidditch," Rose said. "They saw the Kestrals play the Tornados last week."

"Nice." James snapped his fingers. "Oh, did we tell you?"

"You know we didn't," Roxanne told him.

"Tell us what?" asked Albus.

Scorpius had not actually thought that James and Roxanne could look more self-satisfied than they had a moment ago, but he saw now that he'd been underestimating them.

"We're the new Gryffindor Beaters," they said at the same time.

"How do you know?" Rose asked, a gleeful smile spreading across her face.

"My brother is the captain," Roxanne said. "And he said so."

Scorpius was now really hoping that he was not put into Gryffindor. "Without tryouts? I suppose family connections make all the difference."

She looked at him as though he was something on the bottom of her shoe. "I suppose you're just bitter that you don't have any," she said coldly. "But no. He held tryouts at the end of last year."

He knew he probably should feel embarrassed, but he was too annoyed. "My mistake," he said, matching her tone.

She rolled her eyes at James, who looked amused. "Anyway, Al, Rose we have a compartment with Fred and Victoire. We came to find you so you could join us."

Rose got up so quickly that Scorpius was a little offended, despite that he already heartily disliked her. "Help me with my trunk?"

"Oh, that's easy." Roxanne got out her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The trunk rose and she guided it out into the corridor.

"I thought we weren't supposed to use magic outside of school," Noah said.

She laughed. "What are you going to do, report me?"

James reached up to grab his brother's trunk, but Albus said quickly, "No, leave it. Maybe I'll join you later." When James opened his mouth, Albus added, "I can spend time with my family all the time, I'd rather make friends with new people. Maybe later."

James rolled his eyes. "Whatever. See you when you get sorted into Gryffindor." He sauntered out after the two girls.

"Well, she couldn't wait to get away from us," Scorpius said dryly.

Albus grinned. "That's Rose. But she's a good person, honest. She's my best friend."

"If you say so," Noah said. He sounded doubtful. Scorpius agreed with him. Whatever house he got sorted into, he hoped that Rose Weasley wasn't in it. She seemed like a complete nightmare.

"Is everyone in your family in Gryffindor, then?" he asked Albus.

Albus shook his head. "Nah, not even close. Of the eight already here, only Fred, James, and Roxanne are in Gryffindor." He sighed. "No Slytherins yet, though. I'll probably be the first."

"Would that be so terrible?" Noah asked curiously. "Everyone in our family has been in Slytherin. We're cousins," he added, when Albus looked confused.

"Oh." Albus looked at the door. "Sorry about them. They're just…" He shrugged. "They're my family, and I love them?"

Noah and Scorpius laughed. "We have one of those," Scorpius said.

Albus looked a little relieved. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the somewhat tattered book lying facedown next to Noah.

"Prince Caspian," Noah told him. He was clearly surprised when Albus' face lit up. "You know it?"

"Those books were the only good gift my father's muggle relatives ever gave me," he replied.

"The magic's totally off," Noah said. Scorpius knew his cousin well enough to know that he was… well, maybe not exactly testing Albus, but gauging how much he actually cared, and how much he was just trying to make conversation.

Noah had spent far too much time with Scorpius, who didn't especially care about Muggle books and was most interested in what the quickest possible route was to shutting Noah up about them.

"Who cares?" Albus grinned. "So who's your favorite Pevensie?"

"Susan," Noah said. "She's the only sensible one. Who's yours?"

"Edmund. He's the most interesting one."

The rest of the train ride passed pleasantly enough, and by the end, Scorpius was about as sure that he liked Albus Potter as he was that he disliked James, Roxanne, and Rose.

Especially Rose.

Second Year

Like everyone else, Scorpius had been eagerly awaiting summer vacation before it started.

He had not anticipated it being so boring.

Part of the fun of vacation was being able to sleep in. However, because neither of his parents seemed to trust a 12-year old left to his own devices all day, he'd had to get up almost as early as he would have if he'd still been at school so they could drop him off at his grandparents' manor or at Noah's on their way to work. Noah's older brother, who was two years above them, was apparently considered responsible enough to monitor them.

It had been a relief to visit Albus, where he didn't have to get up at any particular time and there was always something exciting going on.

Not that his father had been entirely comfortable with the idea. Apparently he and Al's father hadn't always gotten along very well at school or something—Scorpius wasn't quite clear on the details. It had taken almost half the summer to convince him, and according to Albus (who was usually pretty reliable about these things), his father had ended up talking to Scorpius' father about it all and assuring him that Scorpius really was welcome.

Or something like that.

Even with James being consistently unfriendly and frequent visits from Rose and Roxanne, who were equally nasty, staying with Albus had definitely been the highlight of his summer. It was a lot more exciting than staying with his grandparents all day.

At this point, he could not wait to get back to school.

When he and his parents got to Platform 9¾, Noah and Albus were already on the train. He hauled his trunk on and found them in an otherwise-empty compartment. They had already stowed their trunks above the seats, and Noah's book was laying on the seat next to him.

"It's 10:30," he said, feeling confused. "Any reason you're on the train so early?"

"So we could find an empty compartment," Albus said cheerfully.

Scorpius sat down. "Am I the only one who had a very boring summer?" he asked.

"No," Noah said heartily. "You know, you had to stay with me." Albus cocked his head to the side, and Noah added, "Andrew had his nose in a book for the entire summer and didn't understand why we wanted to do something other than read. Even I get tired of reading sometimes. Visiting you was definitely the best part of the summer. At least it was interesting." He sighed. "I wish I could've just stayed with you all summer."

Albus shrugged. "I don't see how you both think my house is so exciting."

Scorpius and Noah exchanged incredulous looks.

"You're in the middle of London," Noah pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but it's not like we can just go wander around on our own. I mean, when we're older, we can just go explore every day, but now it's only when Mum has the time to take us to do things."

"Which is still about once a week."

"And," Scorpius chimed in, "you can go to your grandparents' any day you want to play Quidditch any day you want, because they're in the middle of nowhere."

"Afterwards, your grandmother gives you cookies," Noah said wistfully. "I love my parents, but neither of them make very good cookies."

"We went to go see that Quidditch game, too," Scorpius added. "We had such good seats. I don't think I've ever had seats that good."

Albus held up his hands. "Okay, okay. I can see how you might think it was more exciting. So come and stay more often. Nobody minds, my family likes you both."

Scorpius let out an involuntary laugh. "Except your brother."

"Yeah, well." Albus rolled his eyes. "That's James. Don't take it personally."

"You're lucky you didn't end up in Slytherin," Scorpius said. "He'd probably hate you, too."

"Nah." Albus put his feet up on the seat. "He'd love me even if I wasn't in Gryffindor. I'm his brother."

Scorpius thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the morning, but by early afternoon, his stomach was starting to growl.

"I think I'm going to go get some chocolate frogs," he said, standing up.

"Yeah, I'm in the mood for some, too," Albus said. "Want anything, Noah?"

Noah glanced up from Holes and shook his head.

Albus followed Scorpius out of the compartment. They made their way to the front of the train. On the way, Scorpius couldn't help but notice Rose sitting in a compartment with what looked like most of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and several members of the Hufflepuff team.

Leave it to them to feel the need to have so many people in the compartment that several were sprawled on the floor.

On their way back, they were hailed by a large group of fourth and fifth year girls. Wondering what they could possibly want, Scorpius and Albus stuck their heads in.

"Hey, Al!" Dominique Weasley called. "I feel like I didn't see you at all this summer."

"Probably because you were in France for most of it," Albus countered, grinning.

Somebody pulled on Scorpius' pant leg. He looked down. His cousin Evelyn Greengrass was sitting on the floor. "Do you think you have enough people crammed in here?" he asked her.

She grinned. "Welcome to Dominique."

He shook his head. "I'll catch up with you later. I'm hungry. I'll meet you back there, Al," he said. Albus and Evelyn waved to him as he left.

It occurred to him that there were about as many people in that compartment as there had been in Rose's. For some reason, it irritated him much less.

He bumped into someone. Stepping back and rubbing his shoulder, he realized that it was Rose Weasley.

She glared at him. "Do you mind?" she snapped.

He sneered. "Same to you. Oh wait. I'm sorry. I forgot. We're all just supposed to get out of your way, because you're much more important than the rest of us."

"Pretty much," Rose said, crossing her arms.

"So tell me." He smirked at her. "How does it feel to be the only one in that compartment who isn't on a Quidditch team? What are you, the mascot?"

She laughed. "Oh, but I am. I'm one of the new Gryffindor Chasers."

Scorpius groaned inwardly. Of course she was. "I'll be hoping you fall off your broomstick in the first five minutes," he said nastily.

"It's going to hurt when you lose the Cup again, isn't it?" she asked.

He really wanted to punch her. Or hex her. Or something. Could a person really be quite this insufferable?

"I'd really love to wipe that obnoxious smirk off your face," he told her.

"Try it. I'd love to see that." She cocked her head to the side. "Is someone bitter because he didn't manage to get top marks in pretty much anything?"

Scorpius sucked in his breath sharply. "We'll see how that goes this year," he snapped. "And Slughorn likes me better than you."

"Congratulations," she said dryly. "Your head of house likes you better. There's a real shock." She glanced out the window. "Sorry. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. But I have better people to talk to." She frowned for a moment. "For example, pretty much everyone." She waved and walked away.

She was such an infuriating person.

He couldn't put his finger on why she bothered him so much more than anyone else. The marks would be a good reason, but it wasn't about them.

When he reached his compartment, he put Rose Weasley out of his mind.

She wasn't worth thinking about.

Not matter how irritating she was.

Third year

Scorpius had spent the last month of his second year dreading summer break, but it had turned out to be much more enjoyable that the one after first year. His parents had deemed him responsible to take care of himself, so he was able to sleep in any day he wanted, and the three of them had gone to Greece for two weeks at the end of July. He and Noah had also visited Albus, and one day Andrew had taken his nose out of his books for long enough to meet them and take them around London one day.

He was happy to be going back, of course, but there was a certain regret to leaving the summer behind that he had certainly not had the year before.

He knew that Noah was already on the train, and as he was hauling his trunk down the corridor trying to find the compartment he was in, a door opened and a girl fell over his trunk. She looked up, clearly annoyed, and he groaned inwardly. Of course it was her.

"Sorry," he said. He knew his tone was conveying that he was really not sorry at all.

Rose smiled. It was clearly just as fake as his apology. "Oh, it's no problem. I like bruising my shins."

"I hope it doesn't affect your playing," Scorpius said with mock concern. "I know how much you need to win Quidditch games to feel good about yourself."

"I do." She was still smiling. "But I wouldn't expect you to understand. You don't have the skill to even make it onto your team. Not that they can beat us, anyway."

He really hated Rose Weasley.

"We'll see about that," he said.

"Oh, will we?"

Scorpius had a deep desire to wipe that smug little smile off her face. "You lost half your team," he reminded her. "And your captain won't know what he's doing. We're going to clean the floor with you this year."

"I'm sure we'll find suitable replacements," she said in a tone that implied that they'd already found at least one of them. "And while I'm sure that James would appreciate your concern, he's well up for the job."

So James was the new captain. Scorpius supposed that it wasn't surprising, but he was very sure that this would only make them all even more irritating and full of themselves. "If you say so," he said doubtfully.

"I know a bit more than you do. Being a player and all."

He took hold of his trunk again. "Well, as much as I love talking to you, I have better people to spend my time with."

"So do I." Rose stepped over his trunk and continued on down the hall.

She seemed a little different, but it took him a moment to put his finger on how. Then, as he watched her walk away, it clicked.

She was almost fourteen, and she looked it. None of the changes were very exaggerated, but they were definitely there.

He did not need to be thinking about Rose Weasley like this. She was not remotely attractive.

The fact that he did not entirely believe that made him feel sick to his stomach.

When he found the compartment that Noah had claimed, he slammed the door behind him. Noah looked up from his book. "What's wrong with you?"

Scorpius flung himself back into his seat, scowling. "Are you going to spend the entire train ride reading?" He squinted at the cover. "What's a Sabriel?"

Noah marked his place and set the book aside. "Who, not what, but you don't actually care. What happened?"

"I bumped into Rose Weasley," Scorpius muttered.

Noah sighed. "I don't understand how you can spend so much time fighting with her."

"Because she's—" Scorpius started, feeling outraged.

"I don't like her, either," Noah said. "But I never talk to her. Usually, I forget she exists."

Scorpius stared out the window morosely. "I don't see how you manage that. We have classes with them, and she's so always such a know-it-all."

"Look who's talking," Noah said mildly. "You're a horrible know-it-all in potions, and Albus is just as bad as she is in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Yes, but she's more annoying about it." Scorpius stared out the window for a minute, and then said in what he hoped was an offhand voice, "Did she get prettier over the summer?"

When Noah didn't answer, Scorpius looked over at him. He was raising his eyebrows. "She's always been pretty. I thought you'd noticed. You've complained about it at least twice."

"Well, more than before."

Noah shrugged. "I saw her for about five seconds when we were getting on the train, I don't know. And we both saw her less than a month ago. I doubt she's changed much. Not that I'd notice if she had," he added. "She's just not that important to me. We mostly just ignore each other. I don't know why you can't do the same."

"I really don't understand how." Scorpius kicked the bench. "She's insufferable."

"Just stop thinking about her, it's really not that hard. You spend way too much energy being annoyed with her," Noah said as Albus opened the door to join them. "That's my advice."

"Advice for what?" Albus asked.

"How to deal with your obnoxious cousin." Scorpius slumped down in his seat.

Albus sighed. "I really wish you two could get along."

"Good luck with that," Noah told him. "You need it."

Fourth year

Scorpius was finding that summer vacation seemed to get exponentially better as he got older. His grandparents had taken him, Noah, Andrew, and Evelyn to Australia in late July, which had turned out to be a lot more fun than he'd expected. Even Andrew had loosened up enough to have a good time, which Scorpius felt was nothing short of a miracle.

He and Noah had also spent a week and a half in mid-July visiting Albus, and for the first time, they'd been permitted to wander around London on their own. London was quite a lot of fun when you were just wandering around with your friends, and it had the added benefit of reducing the time he had to spend with James Potter to a minimum and eliminating all interaction with Rose or Roxanne.

This year, Scorpius was actually sad to see the summer end and to know that he needed to return to school.

He was wandering around the train looking for Albus and Damien Bell when he heard a loud chorus of laughter, and then a girl shriek, "James Potter, I'm going to—"

"Silencio!"

A girl backed out of a compartment, brandishing her wand uselessly.

Roxanne and James followed her. "Oh, I'm sorry," James said. His voice was completely insincere. "Can you not do nonverbal spells yet?"

Another girl stumbled out of the compartment laughing hysterically. After throwing James and Roxanne looks of disgust, they entered another compartment.

Roxanne looked around. "Oh, hello, Malfoy."

"Fancy seeing you here," James added, smirking.

Scorpius pulled his wand out. "Protego!"

James leaned against the glass. "Do you not trust us?"

"Let me think about it." Scorpius mocked. "No. I don't."

"That hurts my feelings." Roxanne mimed a tear falling down her face.

"They had it coming," James added. "And—whoops!"

Someone had grabbed Scorpius' wand out of his hand from behind him. He turned, and found himself face-to-face with Rose Weasley.

"I know you weren't thinking of cursing my cousins," she said.

He was so taken aback by the accusation that for a moment, he forgot he was mad. Jinxing or hexing, sure, but cursing? "No, I wasn't."

She smiled sweetly. "Whatever you say." Keeping her wand on him, she examined his. "Your wand is rather thin, isn't it?"

Scorpius could hear James and Roxanne cracking up behind him. When he glanced back, he saw that several of their friends had joined them, presumably from inside the compartment.

Rose was holding his wand just out of reach. She appeared focused on it, but he knew that if he made a grab for it, he'd be jinxed more quickly than a firebolt. "Give it back," he snapped.

"Don't you think your wand could use a woman's touch?" one of the girls behind him called before bursting into giggles again. He thought it had been Roxanne, but he wasn't sure.

He was sure that his face was burning. "What, Weasley, are you going to jinx me?"

Rose pretended to think about it. "It's so tempting," she said regretfully, "but I actually like Albus, and he'll be annoyed with me for days if I do."

After a moment, he asked, "So can I have my wand back?"

"I suppose," she told him, smiling devilishly. "I don't have much use for it."

He snatched it. "I really hate you," he muttered.

"I know," she said. "Don't worry. I'm not all that fond of you, either." He could hear her friends making their way back into the compartment, and expected her to join them. When she didn't move, he made to brush past her. "You know, we're not just bullies. They did deserve it."

He ignored her and moved on, trying to ignore the part of him that persisted in noticing far too much about her and had observed that over the course of the summer, she'd filled out in areas that the same part of him found very interesting.

He tried harder to pretend that interesting was the right word for it, even though he knew that it wasn't.

Scorpius stepped into the compartment and slammed the door behind him. The glass shattered. Before he could react, Noah repaired it and went back to his book. When Noah didn't look back up, Scorpius snapped, "Who are you, your brother? Can't you put your damn book down for a minute?"

Noah glanced up. "No, I'm definitely not my brother. However, until you broke the door on your way in, I was alone, and this is a very good book." He put it down. "There. I'm laying The Hunger Games aside, which is actually very difficult. This had better be good." Scorpius opened his mouth, and Noah added, "Let me guess. It's about Rose Weasley. And how much you don't like her."

"I just bumped into her."

Noah shook his head. "God, other than visiting Albus and the classes we have together, I think I managed to cross paths with her twice last year. We ignored each other. I don't understand how you manage to bump into her so often."

"You're not in Care of Magical Creatures with us," Scorpius pointed out—quite reasonably, he thought.

Apparently, Noah did not agree. "Yes. It's the Care of Magical Creatures that tipped the balance from my never seeing her and you having some nasty exchange with her every two weeks."

"Fair enough," Scorpius muttered. "But I don't understand how you ignore her. She's so—"

Noah groaned. "Because I'm pragmatic. Arguing with her won't make me anything but annoyed. I don't want that, so I avoid it."

"It's the principle."

"What do you care about the principle? It's never mattered before. You're a Slytherin. The principle isn't as important as what gets you what you want, and you do want to avoid her, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"Scorpius," Noah said patiently, "it's really not that difficult. Ignore her." He gave his cousin an assessing look. "Unless there's something you haven't told me."

"Like what?" Scorpius resisted the urge to squirm or break eye contact.

"Oh, I don't know." Noah shrugged. "You're a lot more curious about her than you are about Vera Zabini, who I think you actually hate more."

Scorpius considered that. "Yeah, probably."

"You're also a lot more curious about her than you are about James Potter, who I think you hate slightly less."

"Probably," Scorpius agreed again. He was uncomfortable with the point he knew that Noah was about to make.

"So…" Noah spread his arms. "Why is that you're a lot more curious about her than all of the other people in this school that you hate combined?"

Scorpius decided on a half-truth. "She's gotten prettier lately. That's all."

He was just starting to think that he'd gotten away with it when Noah said flatly, "Nice try, except that I'm not the Gryffindor, so I don't trust you to be truthful when you don't want to. If you don't want to talk about it, fine, just say that. Or be a better liar."

"Well, what do you want me to say?" Scorpius snapped. "That my hormones are making me overlook her personality?"

Noah snorted. "That was a better try, but I still don't buy it." He picked his book back up. "Have it your way, then."

Fifth year

For the first time since starting second year, Scorpius could not wait to get back to Hogwarts.

He had been looking forward to staying with Albus and wandering around London again, especially since they were given more freedom than the year before. He hadn't thought twice about accepting Al's invitation to come and stay for the first two weeks in August.

It should have been terrific. Scorpius had only been there for three days when James left to vacation with Roxanne's family and didn't come back until two days before Scorpius left. Scorpius had gone to sleep after his first James-free day with the Potters feeling quite cheerful.

Then he and Albus had gotten up shortly before noon, gone downstairs, and discovered Rose and her brother Hugo playing exploding snap in the living room with Lily. Apparently, the beginning of August was a popular vacation time, because Rose's parents had left Rose and Hugo with Albus' family while they went to South America.

Scorpius had tried to be optimistic, but after the third day, the optimism had completely evaporated.

Rose had visited the Potters during the day when he'd been staying with Albus before. She'd probably even slept over before.

This was different.

Every other time he'd seen her over summer vacation, she had been mostly hanging out with James and, sometimes, Roxanne. Even when they did sleep in, they didn't tend to hang around the house for very long. Sometimes they went to their grandparents' to play Quidditch. Sometimes they visited Roxanne's brother Fred. Sometimes they wandered around London. He didn't know what else they got up to. He didn't care. The important thing was that he typically didn't have to deal with them during the day.

However, with James gone, Rose didn't seem to be her usual manic self. She'd disappeared once or twice with friends, and sometimes she went to play Quidditch with Lily and Hugo at their grandparents in the afternoon, but mostly, she was hanging around the house.

Which meant that nearly every morning during his stay, he and Albus went downstairs for breakfast, and either Rose was already there or she sauntered in shortly after they did. And she was always wearing a goddamned tank top and short cotton shorts.

Logically, Scorpius knew that a tank top and shorts were perfectly reasonable clothes to wear around the house, particularly in the summer. Hell, he knew that he didn't think anything of wandering around shirtless at home, or even when he was staying with his grandparents. It was completely and totally reasonable for Rose to wear them around what he'd gathered was essentially a second home for her.

However, the fact that it was completely and totally reasonable did not mean that it was not also completely and totally distracting to him.

He found Rose attractive. There wasn't really any way around that. He didn't find her attractive in a removed theoretical way; his friend Claire was pretty enough, but while he could see it, he was not remotely attracted to Claire.

He was attracted to Rose. In an explicit and highly disturbing way.

It did not help that she was significantly less insufferable when she was chatting with her aunt or spending time helping her brother or Lily with some summer assignment. He knew that she was a deeply irritating, incredibly arrogant, and highly judgmental person. She had all the worst qualities of Gryffindor and then some. That was true, whether or not she was friendly and helpful with her family.

Telling himself that did not stop him from being more attracted to her.

Scorpius strongly believed that denial in situations like this was not only warranted but advisable. After the fourth or fifth day or seeing what he couldn't decide was far more or far less of Rose Weasley than he really wanted to, he was so distracted and frustrated that he'd considered fabricating an excuse to leave.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a good way to put 'I'm so attracted to your cousin who I also kind of hate that I need to go home, take a cold shower, and scrub my mind out with soap.'

Even more unfortunately, there was a sizable part of him that was all too willing to deal with the frustration.

As he made his way down the train, looking for an empty compartment, he heard what was at this point a very familiar laugh.

He did not need to deal with this right now.

Abandoning his trunk, he ducked into the nearest compartment, which mercifully only held a couple Slytherin fourth years.

"I'm avoiding someone," he said.

They were still giggling when he stepped back into the corridor. He didn't see the bright orange curls anywhere, so he assumed that it was safe to keep walking. He found an empty compartment, and was just starting to settle in when the door slid open.

Scorpius looked up and barely managed to avoid groaning out loud. "What do you want?" he asked coldly.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Right, like I want to socialize with you. I was just wondering if Albus was here yet."

"Well, he's not here."

"Yeah, I'd gathered." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Look, when he gets here, can you tell him I need that charms book I lent him? I'm at the end of the car."

"I'm not an owl."

Her eyes flashed. "Fine," she snapped. "I'll just come back later."

"You do that," Scorpius said, matching her tone.

She crossed her arms, and he tried to ignore what part of her body that emphasized. "You know, Malfoy, you're a real git."

"I'm a git?" he asked incredulously. "You're the one that goes around jinxing people just because you can, and I'm the git?"

"Yes," she said. "You can't even give him a simple message."

"You know—" Scorpius started, but a voice at the door cut him off.

"I'll tell him," Noah said. "What's the message?"

Rose stared at him for a moment, and then smiled. "Just that I need my book back. Thank you."

"No problem." She left, and Noah sat down across from Scorpius. "What was that about?"

Scorpius shrugged.

Yeah, the fact that he wanted to sleep with her was definitely making him feel more hostile toward her.

Well, maybe he didn't exactly want to sleep with her. She was an extremely frustrating person, whether or not he was irrationally attracted to her. Even if he didn't want to, though, his body certainly did. Apparently, so did his subconscious. He'd had more than one dream about her that he'd found deeply disturbing.

And not all of them had been while he was asleep.

All right. Maybe he did want to sleep with her.

He had no idea why he found Rose Weasley attractive. She was a pain. But at this point, he had to admit that it wasn't even just her appearance making him react like this.

This fucking sucked.

He resolved to get better at denial once they got to Hogwarts, because the very last thing he wanted was to give them more ammunition against him.

This is actually a prequel to Curiosity is not a sin, which is set in their fifth year and is written from Rose's perspective. (Hence this fic ending after their fifth year.) I hope you enjoyed it.

Beeezie