Chapter 1 – Prologue

"I—" Scorpius looked nervous. "I've not seen anybody exclusively," he explained. "After me and Ebony decided our, err, relationship was probably better to be ended—"

"Because of James?" Rose couldn't help but ask, genuinely curious.

Scorpius looked at her meaningfully. "Not solely because of James."

Rose suddenly felt hot again.

"But, err, after Ebony and I ended things, I've not really been with anybody properly."

What was that supposed to mean? Rose hadn't heard much about Scorpius in the year and a half of separation. She hadn't wanted to know who he was seeing—who he was dating. His personal life had been no concern of hers, but now she was curious, purely because of the cryptic way in which he was speaking.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked gently.

"I never dated anybody," Scorpius clarified.

"Did you… kiss anybody?" Rose looked out at the lake so she couldn't look him in the eye.

"A few," Scorpius admitted sheepishly.

A few?

"Oh," Rose gulped, trying to keep her voice neutral, uninterested. Which girls Scorpius Malfoy had kissed after she and him had broken up was no concern of hers. Her stomach seemed to have dropped, though.

"It never meant anything, though," Scorpius continued sadly. "I didn't really think I'd be a good boyfriend to anybody."

"Tell me about your kisses," Rose ordered.

"My kisses?" Scorpius asked innocently.

"Yeah, by the lake in Rosewood you told me you'd kissed a few girls. Exactly how many is a few?"

"Why—are you jealous?"

"No! I'm just curious…"

"Alright," Scorpius said calmly. "I think the running total was five in the end, excluding Ebony."

"Five?"

"Does that upset you?"

"N-no," Rose stuttered, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "No, it's none of my business who you kiss." Everything in her body screamed in protest, though.

"None of them meant anything to me. I thought I might be able to distract myself from you if I became involved with somebody else. But I always got cold feet. I could never quite see it through…"

"So you left a trail of broken hearts behind you?" Rose asked light-heartedly, instantly easing up. "Kiss 'em and leave 'em."

"Only because they weren't you," Scorpius countered.

Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy dated for little more than seven months—an embarrassingly short period of time when you considered how intense the relationship had been. It hadn't come without its setbacks, though. In fact, the teenage whirlwind of a romance Rose and Scorpius had shared had been riddled with more complications than most couples experienced in a lifetime.

In those seven months, they had experienced: Not one, but two breakups, public humiliation, a daily abundance of arguments (not between themselves but with others), jealous third-parties, subtle manipulation behind the scenes, love triangles, cheating, broken promises, lies, threats, scandal and shame, and a front-cover-worthy article in the Daily Prophet surrounding the now infamous Weasley vs. Malfoy trial.

And yet, at the heart of it, there had been something very real and something very pure.

And that had broken both of their hearts when they eventually separated for good in the November of their fifth year at Hogwarts. And though, on the face of, it appeared as though Rose Weasley was bearing the brunt of the breakup—it was she who had been dumped, it was her fragile heart which had been so cruelly broken—Scorpius Malfoy had never felt more miserable and more lost in his whole life.

For a boy who had been happily single for the first five years of teenage-hood, it felt odd for him to have jumped from one intense relationship into another. Although, really, his relationship with Ebony Darkbrow was far from intense. It was artificial and heavily-scrutinised—a mutual unspoken ploy on both their parts. Nonetheless, it was a blessing and a relief to enter from one relationship straight into another. It didn't give him time to mourn his loss.

But he and Ebony had mutually ended things only a few weeks later, knowing they couldn't keep the charade up for too long. Both had ultimately gotten what they wanted, and yet neither could be happy. Their hearts both belonged to another.

And thus, Scorpius Malfoy found himself single for the first time in eight months. Even during his and Rose's first breakup (which had only lasted a couple of weeks), something deep inside of him had known it wasn't the end. He had known, somehow, their breakup was only a temporary setback—he would win her back for the way he'd wronged her.

But this time, he had ended the relationship; he had put the nail in the coffin. He had made it clear to Rose there would be no reconciliation this time, and even if he'd wanted one, there was no way she was now going to let him back into her life. He had betrayed her, he had humiliated her, he had shattered her heart into a million little pieces. And a girl who would come back to him after all that wasn't the kind of girl Scorpius would even have wanted to be with anyway. Rose was smart, and she was strong, and she was desperately better off without him.

Scorpius found no sense of freedom in being suddenly single. He had come to realise, even though it had come out of nowhere, that he was the kind of guy who liked being in a relationship. Before Rose, he had never even kissed a girl (except for her cousin, Lily—but that had been misleading, and he tried to forget about it as often as he could); he hadn't yet been at that age where he'd particularly noticed girls in that way.

But he was nearly sixteen now, he liked girls, and he was single.

And that terrified him.

Everybody knew the highly public and highly scandalous story of the whole Rose-Scorpius-Ebony affair, and the first time walking through that Hogwarts corridor, fresh from his split with Ebony, Scorpius felt scrutinised. Girls were unsubtly watching him as he passed, and he couldn't be sure why.

Were they mocking him?—he wondered. Idiotic Scorpius Malfoy who'd caused a huge scene by being involved with a girl they'd all known would be a mistake.

Perhaps they pitied him? Poor Scorpius Malfoy who had lost both of the girls most important to him in the space of a few weeks.

Or perhaps, and Scorpius felt both flattered and uncomfortable at the thought, they were… checking him out? Scorpius Malfoy, bad-boy heartbreaker, who had dated two of both the hottest and most unattainable girls in the school. Who now happened to be single…

Scorpius walked by a group of what he thought were fourth-years. They were giggling in that silly way that girls did, whispering behind their hands, hopelessly unsubtle in the way they watched him. Scorpius' heart skipped a beat, and a wild thought popped into his head.

Scorpius thought of James Potter—Rose's arrogant older cousin who had always hated Scorpius and always hated him being with Rose. And yet, despite his arrogance, he had an undeniable charm. James Potter, despite the fact that he'd been 'dating' Evangeline Amberry for almost a year (and was now dating Ebony?—Scorpius didn't really understand what was going on between them), had one too many notches in his belt. For whatever reason, girls found him irresistible, even with his cocky womanising attitude.

Thinking about this, Scorpius turned on his heel, just as he passed the group of giggling girls. Unsure why he was doing it, and too absorbed in it to be embarrassed, he flashed them his most charming smile and winked at them.

Scorpius had turned around again and was too busy casually making his way back down the corridor to see the girls' response. But he certainly heard it.

The giggling had intensified to that of shrieking. A good, flattering, arrogance-boosting sort of shrieking. And as Scorpius sauntered away, knowing they were watching him, probably flustered and red in the face, he couldn't help but smile. He felt powerful; he felt desirable. And he realised that perhaps he'd like being single, after all.

Perhaps getting over Rose Weasley would be easier than he thought.

Author's Note: Welcome back, ScoRose fans! Today (7th July) marks the one-year anniversary of publishing the 200th and final chapter of my huge ScoRose fic 'Rose and Scorpius: A Forbidden Love,' thus completing it after almost a four-year journey, so I thought I'd write something to celebrate. This is just a really brief, light story, which I rather spontaneously decided to write. It's only seven chapters long, and a chapter will be uploaded every day—so the story will be complete in a week, that's all—and it's just a fun little insight into Scorpius' futile attempts to get over Rose during their breakup :')

To newcomers who haven't read the original story, unless you really really want to, I wouldn't recommend reading it in preparation simply in order to read this story (because it's 200 chapters long)—but you can probably read this as a fun little story anyway. There may be some confusion over the context, especially with regards to references about certain events, and the non-canon characters, of course, but I don't think it should be too difficult to understand.

Since uploading A Forbidden Love, if you haven't yet read them, I also have a 10-chapter spin-off about Rose and Scorpius' wedding—'The Delightful (and Disastrous) Wedding of Rose and Scorpius'—and am still in the progress of writing 'Honeymoon Avenue'—a story that focuses on Sam and Janey's relationship (mostly) post-Hogwarts. But you don't need to have read them in order to read this! (They actually occur after this story would take place, anyway).

The italicised passages at the start of the chapter are both extracts from A Forbidden Love (to remind you of the context and set the scene)

And that's all I really have to say! I hope you enjoy this short little story—and a shout-out to my Forbidden Love readers! Thanks for sticking with me, guys, I can't believe it's been a year already!?

~ Ever xx