For the Duct Tape Competition: Color – Pink (Write your OTP)

Beginnings

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Rose clearly wanted the words to come out strong and confident, but her voice trembled, making them sound kind of pathetic instead.

Scorpius opted for ignoring the fact that the Weasley girl was clearly crying and said with as much sarcasm as he could, "Oh, I thought I'd go hunting for a Crumple Horned Snorkack. Can't imagine what else I'd be doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night."

"Shut it," Rose mumbled, turning back to the pint of ice cream she'd been eating.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Okay. What gives?"

"Pardon?"

"You. Here. Trying to feel better about yourself by overloading on calories that you know you're only going to regret in the morning."

That was mostly a lie. Rose was incredibly fit and anyone who wasn't blind knew it. But sometimes insults just flew out of Scorpius's mouth before he could stop them.

Rose glared at him. He took the opportunity to flag down a passing house-elf and gesture at Rose's ice cream. The elf raced into the back room and returned moments later with a second carton.

"Really, though," he said, taking the seat next to her, "Why are you upset?"

"Go away, Malfoy," Rose tried, but he ignored it. "It's nothing to do with you."

"Actually, seeing as your cousin, Al, is one of my best mates I'm pretty sure it will end up 'having to do with me' if you keep moping about it."

She was going to call him on his faulty logic, he was sure, because Al kept his Slytherin life and his family life about as separate as humanly possible and almost never talked to him about Rose.

"I always forget you two are friends," Rose mused.

"Well, we are." Lame. You should've given her a witty response, not a statement of fact. What's with you?

No, he knew what was with him. He didn't want to know, because his father – or, more likely, Rose's – would murder him for this line of thinking, but he knew.

Because, current swollen eyes and tear-streaked face aside, he'd always thought Rose Weasley was kind of hot. And smart. And kind. And…

He'd never discussed that with Al, either. He could imagine perfectly well how that conversation would go. Hey, you know your cousin? The one who absolutely can't stand the thought of me and gets into screaming matches with me every time we have a class together? You wouldn't mind if I took her out to Hogsmeade and then, y'know, screwed her senseless, would you mate?

Yeah. No possible way that one wouldn't work out.

Rose startled him by interrupting his reverie to admit, "James said that unless we beat Ravenclaw by more than 60 points at the next game, he can't justify picking me over Niamh Finnigan to be captain next year. That everyone would think it was nepotism."

They wouldn't, because Rose was brilliant at Quidditch, but Scorpius wasn't about to admit that.

"So beat Ravenclaw by more than 60 points," he shrugged. "Or you could run up the score so you're up by 140 points and then keep Finnigan from catching the snitch. Actually, go with the second one. If Ravenclaw wins Slytherin moves up to second for the Cup."

That merited another glare. "It's not that I don't think Niamh would be a good captain, it's just—" she paused. "I don't have to justify myself to you!"

"It's just that Niamh has been going out with your ex-boyfriend Lysander Salamander or whatever," Scorpius finished for her.

"It's Scamander," Rose corrected, "Not that that's any of your business!"

"But he cheated on you with Finnigan and then dumped you to be with her."

"I am going to kill Al," Rose muttered.

Al didn't tell me, Scorpius almost said. But he didn't. That would have sounded stalkerish.

"I can work with you on Quidditch," he found himself saying. What are you doing? Stop talking. Stop talking now. Before— "If you want to get in some more practice."

Rose met his gaze, considering. "You'd do that?"

"Well," he said, "Yeah."

"Okay then," Rose said.

"Okay."

Pause.

"I'll see you tomorrow night, then, I guess," he said. "At the Quidditch Pitch."

"Right. Tomorrow." She sounded almost breathless, and if he'd had the nerve he might have reached over to kiss her.

His hand reached out almost of its own accord to brush a stray strand of red hair out of Rose's face.

He felt Rose freeze under his fingers. Play it cool play it cool playitcool.

"I guess Witch Weekly was right," he felt himself saying.

"What?" Rose's voice was barely a whisper. Scorpius smirked despite himself.

"Gingers really shouldn't wear red," he gave her a once-over that he hoped was disguised as a look of derision at her Gryffindor robes.

Rose glared at him (again). "I'll have you know—"

But he still hadn't moved his hand from the side of her face, so Rose's sudden movement to yell at him catapulted her forward. Towards him.

Their faces were barely two inches apart.

"Sorry," Scorpius felt himself mumbling. He wasn't sure if it was an apology for his comment or the fact that he and Rose were currently sitting much closer together than they should have been, but he didn't give apologies easily.

"Maybe if you didn't have a five-minute-limit before getting mean—" she started.

Scorpius took the opportunity to close the gap between them. Rose was cut off from whatever she was saying with a "Mmmph!"

And then she was kissing him back.

Scorpius didn't want to, but he forced himself to pull away first. "See you tomorrow."

Then he smirked at her, stood from his chair, and left the kitchens. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw Rose slump against the counter, almost with a sigh.

But he couldn't be sure.

Oh yes, his father was going to kill him.