A/N: This is for round 1 of Fire The Canon's December Fanfiction Tournament; the 100 Characters Competition using prompt #90, shiver and the Holiday Spirit Christmas Boot Camp using prompt #29, poinsettia. It's also my first ever (gasp!) Scorrose, and I'd love to know what you think of it.

Disclaimer: As always, everything belongs to JK Rowling, who, last time I checked, was not a freezing cold History undergraduate with an impending assignment deadline...

"Rose, don't you have Prefect patrols now?" Rani Patil asked, nodding towards the clock on the wall behind them.

Rose Weasley turned, noticed the time, and swore under her breath. She slammed her textbooks shut with such force that a nearby second year jumped in fright, and stormed out of the Gryffindor Common Room, leaving her best friend to help clean up the ink the second year had spilled all over the rug.

("Don't worry," Rani told the boy, "she's just in a bad mood because she's had a realisation recently. Our Rose gets like this when she doesn't notice something others have known for years...". She smiled enigmatically at the puzzled second year, and turned back to her own homework. Yes, Rose would cheer up soon enough, once she realised that Scorpius was just as in love with her as she was with him...)

If Rose, now halfway to the Entrance Hall and twice as angry (as a result of stopping to break apart yet another couple kissing under the mistletoe), had been able to hear Rani's thoughts, she would have taken issue with them. Not because Rani had accused her of being in love with Scorpius – for all that she had only admitted aloud to her friends the previous week that yes, she harboured a small crush on a certain blond haired sixth year, she had known in her heart of hearts that she had fallen for Scorpius since the middle of their fifth year – but instead, because Rani had implied that Scorpius had feelings for her.

She may have inherited her father's aptitude for Divination, but Rose did not need to be psychic to know that Scorpius most certainly did not have feelings for her. The sight of him kissing Megan Hamblecote under the mistletoe after Charms that afternoon had been enough to explain that to her.

And oh, Merlin, did it hurt.

She couldn't even hate Megan, not really. She was pretty (enough) and clever (enough) and funny (enough). A Muggleborn Ravenclaw, with plenty of friends and a keen interest in Quidditch, she and Scorpius would make a cute couple, the logical part of her brain had surmised.

That thought hadn't stopped her feeling sick to her stomach upon seeing the two of them together, though. Her heart felt physically mangled, and her throat seized up so much she couldn't even cry. It just wasn't fair.

Whilst she couldn't hate Megan (was it her fault that she'd fallen for the same good looks and charm that she, Rose, had?), she could, however, hate Scorpius. And more than this – she could be very, very angry at him for leading her on like he had been. They'd been flirting more and more, over the past term, and she'd definitely thought that he liked her as more than a friend. She'd always spent time with him and Albus – the three of them had been pretty much inseparable since their first train ride from King's Cross (a fact that her father blamed himself and his overdramatic warnings for), despite the fact that she was a Gryffindor whilst her cousin and Scorpius were Slytherins – but lately, he'd been seeking her out more and more when it was just the two of them.

They'd laugh and joke together, and he'd find ways to touch her arm with his hand or her knee with his leg when they were working on homework. They'd have snowball fights in the grounds like first years, and he'd run round pretending to throw snow at her only to let her catch him at the last minute. When she shivered in the cold weather, he'd offer her his cloak without a second thought – and she was only half ashamed to admit that she'd started deliberately leaving her own cloak in the dormitory so he would just have to lend her his. She'd catch him staring at her when she thought he wasn't looking, and there'd been a strange moment last Hogsmeade weekend when she'd sworn he was going to kiss her. If Al hadn't appeared when he had...

Rose shook herself. Yes, she'd thought that all this had meant something, but clearly, it hadn't. Yes, she was angry at Scorpius for leading her on – but she had the entire Christmas holiday (not to mention the full arsenal of her Uncle's joke shop available) to plot her revenge. Tonight, she had to concentrate on Prefect Patrols with Becky Carmichael.

Becky was a good partner to have, Rose reasoned. The fifth year could hardly bear to be separated from her boyfriend for longer than ten minutes at a time, and so often cut corners, sometimes quite literally, to ensure patrols were over and done with in no time at all. Tonight, that could work to Rose's advantage – if she and Becky got done as quickly as possible, she'd still have time to head down to the Slytherin Common Room to visit Al. It was better to be prepared in these sorts of situations, and he would be able to tell her the exact nature of the relationship between Megan and—

"Scorpius!"

Rose stopped so suddenly it was almost as though she'd run into a brick wall.

"Oh, hi Rose!" Scorpius responded, quickly crossing the Entrance Hall to meet her. "Cold night, isn't it? Becky asked me to switch patrols with her, which was quite handy for me because I was due to work tomorrow, but now I can use the time to study for our Ancient Runes test on Thursday. How're you finding that translation essay, by the way? Rose?!"

He stared at her in concern, and, belatedly, she remembered to breathe. She felt the tips of her ears going red, and cursed her Weasley genes. "Let's get going," she said in clipped tones. So much for avoiding him, for the rest of term...

She marched down the corridor at double speed, leaving Scorpius racing to catch up, despite him having nearly half a foot on her. Too late, she noticed that she'd led him towards the same Charms classroom she'd seen him kissing Megan outside of earlier...no. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.

She still had her pride, if nothing else.

"Are you okay?" she heard Scorpius ask from some way down the corridor. The fact that he still sounded genuinely concerned about her wellbeing brought tears to her eyes – though she had no idea if they were tears of sadness, anger, irony or a mixture of all three.

"I'm fine," she responded through gritted teeth, contenting herself with blasting the offending sprig of mistletoe off the stone ceiling.

"Woah, Rose, what was that for?! What had the poor plant ever done to you?" Scorpius asked, half-alarmed and half-amused.

"Mistletoe is ridiculous," she replied, marching along the corridor. "And silly boys are using it to harass girls and make them kiss people they don't want to and the Prefects' Handbook specifically states that harassment of any kind is banned on school grounds and so—"

"Rose!" Scorpius cried, finally catching up with her. He reached out and caught her by the waist, swinging her body round so they were standing face to face, but quickly dropped his hands away. Rose tried not to notice the tingling she felt where his fingers had touched her... "Has someone been harassing you? You seem a bit..." he paused, clearly searching for the right words, "...off colour tonight, and I just thought... No one's been making you do things you don't want to, have they?"

Rose let out a single, slightly hysterical 'Ha!' of laughter, causing Scorpius to look at her with even more alarm. "No, Scorpius," she said, turning away from him. "No one's been making me do things I don't want to..."

"Good!" he replied fervently. "I mean, not that you couldn't handle any creeps yourself, or anything, but just so you know, I'll be first in line to punch the lights out of anyone who hurts you!"

She whirled around and hit him in the chest, thanking Merlin her Dad had taught her how to throw a proper punch when she was thirteen as she did so. ("You never know when it might come in useful – just ask your mother!" he'd said, though her mother had only laughed when Rose had questioned her.)

"Rose! What was that for?" he gasped, staggering backwards. "I swear, you've lost it tonight!"

"That was because you're not able to hurt yourself – at least, not more than you've hurt me!" she snapped, blinking back tears. Scorpius was staring at her with a genuinely confused expression on his face. How could he not know how much he'd hurt her?

"What did I do to—" he began, but she cut across him.

"Oh for Merlin's sake! Megan sodding Hamblecote!" she cried.

"Megan—?"

"Kissing her! Under the mistletoe!"

"Oh, that!" Scorpius said, sounding immensely relieved. "That was because Al trapped us under there!" Rose made a mental note to add Al to the list of people who needed to be punched in the gut. "It was just a joke – I don't have feelings for Meg, and she certainly doesn't have feelings for me! Al was just kidding around with us because I'd yelled at the Ravenclaw team to get off the Quidditch pitch when we'd booked it for practise the other day – he said we needed to kiss and make up, and charmed us under the mistletoe until I planted one on her. But Meg – she bats for the other team, and I don't mean that she Seeks for Ravenclaw. She won't have enjoyed it at all..."

"Oh," Rose managed. She cast around in her mind for something else to say in response, but couldn't come up with anything. A small flicker of hope started to stir in her chest, and she worked on keeping her face neutral.

"Anyway," Scorpius said, taking a deep breath and staring intensely at Rose, "what would it matter to you if I was kissing Megan?"

"Because I...because...because you can't lead me on for months and then go round kissing other girls!" Rose replied.

"Me lead you on?! What about you leading me on?" asked Scorpius, annoyance flashing across his face. "I flirt with you all the time and all you do is treat me like a friend – like you always do!"

"Well, you weren't exactly being obvious about it!" Rose cried. "I couldn't tell if you really were flirting, or if I was just imagining it all!"

"What do you want me to do, just walk up to you and kiss you?" he replied, exasperated.

"Yes!" Rose exclaimed, without thinking. She blushed a fiery red. "I mean..."

"Well, there hasn't been mistletoe around before this week – I haven't exactly had the excuse to," Scorpius said, giving her a small grin.

Shyly, she took a step closer to him. "Pfft, kissing under the mistletoe is overrated. I much prefer kissing under other plants. Like..." She cast her eyes around, and her gaze fell on a poinsettia, placed on a nearby windowsill by someone clearly feeling an overabundance of Christmas spirit. "I'd much rather kiss under a poinsettia," she giggled.

"I think we'd have to lie on the floor for that," Scorpius murmured, placing his hands on the small of her back and pulling her towards him.

"I'm not exactly adverse to that idea," she replied, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"Rose Weasley!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, shut up and kiss me," she laughed.

"Underneath the poinsettia? Alright then," he said. And he did.

A/N: Santa gives extra Christmas presents to people who review!