3.1 Potions Class

Rose was nearly late to class. She’d never been nearly late before, let alone late; Rose preferred showing up early to guarantee the best seat in each classroom. For Potions, she liked a seat near the front within easy access of the ingredients cupboard. Halfway to the classroom, however, she'd stopped to help a first year with a nasty spellburn find the infirmary, and, even though she'd run the rest of the way, Rose now found herself the next to last to arrive.

"Rosie." Of course, Yates had chosen the best seat in the entire room, the very one Rose would have chosen for herself. And of course, it was next to one of the two empty chairs. Yates gestured to the seat, inviting her to sit beside him. He must have been a glutton for punishment with a side penchant for mental anguish, or else he'd been blind to her signals for the past few years. There was no way in Hades she would subject herself to his company voluntarily. Especially not when he draped an arm casually across the empty stool as if her bum was already planted there. It made the hair on her arms stand up. Gross. Totally gross. Groping ghost butt.

The other empty seat was less ideal in location, and the lab partner was Malfoy, but there wasn't even a contest. Rose marched past Yates with a little shake to the tidy knot holding her copper curls, head up and chin set stubbornly. Without a glance for anyone's reaction, she slid onto the stool beside Malfoy.

"Scorpius." His name felt strange in her mouth, and Rose wondered if she'd ever called him something other than 'Malfoy' even in her own head. It was a bit intimate considering their lack of existing acquaintanceship, but she had already taken the first few dangerous steps down this road. It was too late to turn back now. She could feel Yates staring at the back of her head, at her upswept hair, a style Rose favored because it kept her from looking like a child, although now she wished she had her hair to use as a barrier against all the eyes in the room that were turning in her direction. "I hope you don't mind having me as your partner today. It was the only available seat."

Not precisely true, but she dared him to contradict the claim and send her back to Yates. It was a gamble that Malfoy disliked Yates more than a Weasley, but it was one Rose was willing to take.

Malfoy drew it out, lingering over the sentences in his textbook just long enough to send a mild jolt through Rose. Was she late enough that they'd already been given class work? Her eyes flicked to the front of the room, where Professor Sato had posted an introduction to the lesson: 'Which potions require the use of honeywater as a primary ingredient?' She itched to dive headfirst into her textbook to research the question, in spite of the fact that she still didn't have even a nod from Malfoy that she could stay. If the professor entered the room in the next few seconds and she hadn't had an opportunity to prepare herself...

At last, Malfoy came to a stopping point in the text, and he raised one of his pale eyebrows in her direction. "Why, that's because I saved this seat for you, Rosie." The nickname made her nose wrinkle in disgust, mostly because she didn't even like it from her family, let alone from someone who was less than a passing acquaintance. His expression gave her even greater pause, however, because he seemed sincere. Perhaps too sincere for belief, since Slytherins didn't exactly ooze genuineness. She looked at his long-fingered hands clasped casually across the textbook and measured out the meaning in his words. Malfoy was willing to play along.

Surprised, Rose schooled her features with effort, hoping that none of her classmates noticed her bemusement. The fact that Scorpius Malfoy was willing to lie on her behalf, for whatever reasons he might have, was unexpected. It put Rose in mind of her first lessons in Wizarding chess from her father. Ron Weasley set up all the pieces and told her how they moved, and then he'd beaten her three times in a row. It wasn't until her mother had explained the concept of strategy and looking ahead by several moves that Rose understood the complexities of the game for the first time. This was similar - she was playing a game without really knowing the rules.

Rose unpacked her bag swiftly, each movement purposeful and precise, and gave herself a few moments of silence to determine her next move. It was a delicate dance, saying something friendly and innocuous that might help Malfoy to respond in kind without any forced familiarity. Finally... "Thank you. Are you coming to watch the Gryffindor tryouts tomorrow?"

Quidditch was good. Boys always wanted to discuss the sport, and Malfoy was the Slytherin captain. Odds were good that he'd pick up that conversational Quaffle and run it all the way to the hoop.

He did. "Of course." His voice was quietly amused, subtle enough perhaps that no one else in the room would realize that he recognized the ridiculous in their circumstances. The fact that every eye was on them and every ear was straining to listen to their conversation just seemed to highlight the disparity of the scene. One table up and seated next to Dane Pitney, Al sat with his back to them, his shoulders shaking from what Rose suspected was repressed laughter. So that made two people in the room who were amused by the turn of events - Al and Malfoy. Yates, on the other hand, sat stiffly at his bench, hands clenched in his lap. Rose couldn't be sure if it was because she'd snubbed him coming into the room or because she was sitting with Malfoy. Maybe both.

Malfoy noticed Yates as well, and he turned a genuine smile in Rose's direction, almost as if they were sharing in the pleasure of Yates' disapproval. Malfoy probably didn't know it, but he was a bit breathtaking when he smiled like that. Rose hadn't realized he could do more than smirk at a girl, like she was lucky to get attention at all, and she preferred this expression. Or she did until he opened his stupid mouth, adding in a disarmingly earnest tone, "You're still going to sit with me during tryouts, right? Like you said you would? I'd just feel better about it if you were there."

Rose set her quill down too hard, and the nib snapped off. She [i]hadn't]/i] asked him to sit with her. Watching James lord his captaincy over other students was unpleasant under normal circumstances, and Rose had hoped to avoid a potentially excruciating experience. Al and Jayne would forgive her.

After too long a pause, she sighed softly, hearing in that sigh the sound of a trap closing in around her. "Of course. I like having company in the stands." She didn't suppose Al would fret much, but James was going to be livid. To him, it wouldn't just be that Malfoy was there, but it would look as if she had invited him.

The death of her quill amused Malfoy, and he slid one of his across the table as Professor Sato strode into the classroom, making any retort from her or response from Malfoy impossible. Sato ran his classes at a grueling pace, leading them quickly through the various potions they might be attempting that day based upon his prompt. His gaze lingered on Rose for a moment as other students threw up their hands around her, although she liked to believe it was out of shock that she didn't offer up an answer rather than at seeing her seated beside Malfoy. Surely Sato was above petty house feuds, even if he was the Ravenclaw Head of House. When the professor finally announced they'd be working on the Volubilis Potion in class, Malfoy shoved his book into the gap between them and tapped the potion in question. Great big show-off already had it open to the correct page.

Rose ignored his book and flipped open her own, her gestures exaggerated. Even as she knew she was being childish, considering Malfoy was saving her from sitting with Yates, she was put out with the Slytherin boy. Rose needed the time to unpack her cauldron and began gathering the supplies for their potion to relax into the routine of the class. Professor Sato was demanding, and she would do badly if she was distracted by thoughts of the wrath of James, the machinations of Malfoy, or really anything other than the task at hand.

"I'll chop, if you prepare the honeywater," Rose directed without sparing him a glance. She had no clue how proficient Malfoy was at potions, but experience taught her that doing the hard bits herself was the surest way to succeed. His eyes lingered on her briefly, but Malfoy went to work carefully measuring and re-measuring the honeywater into a graduated cylinder. From there, he moved on to measuring out the stewed mandrake and syrup of hellebore, each ingredient checked multiple times. The way his long fingered hands moved gracefully through each task caught and held Rose, and her chopping slowed over time, especially when he fussed over the cleanliness of the cauldron and opted to scour it again before putting it on the heat. She'd never had a more meticulous lab partner. In truth, she wasn't that meticulous herself.

"You know, you'll get it finer if you use a better knife." She tried not to jump at his words, although Rose had been entire unaware that he'd been watching her at work, or that he'd noticed how long it was taking. At his suggestion, Rose lifted her knife and examined the edge. She'd sharpened it in preparation for the school year, but apparently it wasn't sharp enough for Malfoy standards.

"It's the only knife I've got. Maybe you should give me yours." Rose turned her honey brown eyes on him, letting her words drip with saccharine sweetness. There was nothing overt for him to object to in her tone, but the mockery was clear. Malfoy slid his own blade across the table with an amused expression. The blade was well made, with an ornate hilt that had been shaped into a serpent coiled to strike.

"Careful, Weasley." His own turned to condescension, as Malfoy tapped the hilt of his knife with careful fingers, lingering as if he was loathe to part with it. "It's sharp."

His hand still covered the hilt when Rose turned back to him, expression thoughtful and her own knife gesturing lazily in his direction. "You really should have said."

"I should have said what? That you need a better knife? I believe I did say." Malfoy inched out of her personal space, giving both Rose and her gesticulating knife some room. With concentrated effort, he returned to his work station, although Malfoy's eyes drifted back to the knife. Rose didn't think anything of it; she was preoccupied with her own thoughts.

At his work station, Al made a stabbing gesture, grinned, and shook his head at her. What did... Oh. With a flash of realization, she dropped her knife onto the bench beside Malfoy's, hoping Sato hadn't noticed. Nothing like detention for drawing a blade on someone in the first week to ruin her chances at Head Girl. "You should have said that you're good at Potions. And that I was being pushy," she edged over until her shoulder touched his, close enough so no one would hear their hushed discussion. "I'm usually partnered with some idiot that doesn't even know which end of the knife to hold. I tend to have to take charge."

Their exchange was obviously loud enough for Al to catch the meaning, and his face reflected mock outrage. More often than not, Al was her preferred lab partner, and while he wasn't an idiot, Rose assigned him to manageable tasks as they worked so that she could oversee the potion as a whole. It was simply easier to ensure quality by taking responsibility, especially as Potions wasn't a class that came easily to Rose, and she needed extreme focus in order to earn top marks. Laziness in a lab partner simply wasn't acceptable. Just from their brief interaction in class, however, Malfoy wasn't someone that required her management, and she looked like a little fool for bossing around someone that very well might be more capable than she was.

"I'm good at a lot of things." Malfoy lowered his voice and searched her face with grey eyes that glinted like the broken shards of a mirror. "So, you're bossy, then, and apparently not all that observant." It was hard to be angry at his words when he was smiling that strange, affecting smile again.

"Spotted you, didn't I?" Rose tossed over her shoulder as she returned to her chopping. To her chagrin, the balance of the knife was much better and the blade noticeably sharper, and Rose found she was able to get a much finer final product. It was also hard to be mad at Malfoy when she'd actually learned something new. The 'I'm good at a lot of things' wasn't going to get any consideration, though, since it made her feel like she was back in the game with shifting rules. Just... not touching it. He had a reputation for being good at any number of things that had nothing to do with Potions class.

"Only took you, oh, going on six years," the comment was muttered under his breath, but Rose heard Malfoy plainly. Rose couldn't help but glance at him, her expression clearly one of disbelief. Why should she notice his skill level in Potions when they'd never been partnered before? Why would she even be paying attention to him today if they weren't partners? Bold, wasn't he? Louder, he added, "Of course, I don't blame you. It's hard to spot real talent when you're distracted by how very good looking I am."

Good looking? Granted, Malfoy was easy on the eyes, but Rose wasn't driven entirely by hormones the way some people were. Surely she was capable of finishing a potion without swooning into the cauldron. She felt herself blush at his words, although the terrible dungeon lighting helped to hide it. The flame from the cauldron made her freckles dance a bit, but it did nothing to give away her confusion.

Her silence stretched between them before Rose added a fierce, "Regardless, I like things to be done right. If that makes me bossy, well... I'd rather be right and bossy than wrong."

It was the wrong tact, and Malfoy took Rose's intended end to the discussion as an invitation to continue speaking. Rose wished he'd stop, not because he was flustering her or anything so silly, but because she needed to concentrate. Malfoy had no trouble chatting and working; he let the standard ingredient base warm and watched for colour changes as he spoke to her. Under his supervision, the contents of the cauldron turned red and then green, and Malfoy carefully added the pre-measured honeywater until the liquid turned pink. "Being bossy doesn't immediately equal being right."

The knife slowed, and Rose concentrated on making sure the mint sprigs were tiny and consistently perfect. "Being right gives license to being bossy, though. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by not paying attention to you in class before. I didn't realize how much validation from a Weasley meant to you." And now if they could stop with all the chatting? She'd humbled herself in the concession that she had misjudged him, she'd called herself bossy, and he was intent on rubbing it in her face. Supposing that was a Malfoy in action, it was no wonder she hadn't bothered to spend time with him before.

Malfoy laughed without malice, untying some of the knots working their way through her stomach. He didn't press on with the discussion, either, and when their potion turned orange, Malfoy simply said, "Mint sprigs."

With exaggerated precision, Rose measured out a portion of the chopped mint and slid it across the table to him. Malfoy's expression had a momentary flicker of annoyance, and Rose realized she had misjudged him again. If Rose was in charge, she'd want to personally add all the ingredients. Malfoy, however, had no interest in doing the lion's share of the work. They clearly were not suited as partners personality-wise.

Not that she cared, really. Not when they were unlikely to be paired again by choice. Rose's attention returned to the knife in her hands, not because Malfoy wasn't worth her time or attention, although she wasn't particularly generous with either, but because she, unlike some people, had her priorities in order and cared about doing well in class. Rose already worked so hard in Potions just to keep up her grade. Imagine if having better equipment would reduce that effort.

The knife balanced across her fingertips, and she ignored the fact that Malfoy re-measured her mint twice before putting it into the cauldron. "Where did you get this?"

His attention flitted very briefly to her before he turned back to the cauldron in time for the potion to turn green. "Family heirloom. But you can find similar knives at Borgin and Burkes. That's where I got my spare." As in, he had more than one of these knives? Rose flipped it back and forth, weighing the balance against her hands and knowing that she was going to have to be content with a lesser knife. Her parents would never let her visit Knockturn Alley, especially not to buy a knife that costs more than she'd ever received in birthday money. Ever, in all her birthdays put together.

"More mint sprigs, Weasley." This time, after Rose carefully measured out the chopped mint and held it up for Malfoy's approval, she leaned over to check the temperature and color of the potion, although she had just seen Malfoy do it. No reason not to be over-zealous just because he happened to be that way too. She could be just as obnoxious and fastidious if necessary. Without waiting for Malfoy's nod, she carefully added the mint to the cauldron. The potion simmered for a long, agonizing moment, and Rose chewed at her lip until the concoction turned pink.

"Stewed mandrake. Malfoy." His glance in her direction was withering, but Malfoy added the mandrake without additional comment. They both paused, watching for changes, and then Malfoy indicated she should continue. With the Syrup of Hellebore. Ugh. It wasn't a hard material to work with under most circumstances, but the quantity was measured out in viscous droplets and adding too much could have pretty dramatic effects.

"Maybe I can find a better sharpening charm for my knife," Rose mused as she returned the pretty little knife to Malfoy and reached across the bench for the syrup. Her hand shook slightly, some stupid reaction to the stress of a new partner and a new potion in their first week of NEWT level work, probably, but Rose immediately put aside the idea of simply dripping the syrup into the cauldron. Especially not with Malfoy watching every move with his pale-as-water eyes.

"Maybe, but it isn't just about being sharp is it?" Malfoy put the knife carefully aside and pretended to ignore her actions. It didn't work. She could feel his attention on her, like an extra pair of robes adding weight to her every movement.

Impatiently, Rose shoved an errant curl out of her eyes as she leaned over the cauldron. The potion was still pink now, although it was slowly darkening and would soon be orange. Just as soon as it changed color, she should add the syrup. In preparation, she dripped several careful drops into another phial. It was a clumsy way to add an ingredient that tended to cling to surfaces, and Rose burned bright with embarrassment, but it was far better to look a little inept than to blow up the dungeons and look incredibly inept. The potion turned orange, and Rose watched the syrup ooze from the phial into the cauldron.

It turned blue again almost immediately, and Rose gave Malfoy a delighted look before she could catch herself. Well. Since when was it so uncool to care about academics, hmm? "We may want to lower the heat. It's progressing quickly." Her voice was steadier than she felt, and Rose resolved to ensure that she always had a non-Malfoy lab partner for the rest of the term, even if she had to pay a Hufflepuff to hold her seat. The boy might be better, but he made her worse.

Scorpius adjusted the heat and watched the color progression of the potion, first red, then yellow, and the potion was complete. It was a nice deep mustard-color, without a hint of murkiness to it, sparks chasing across the surface. Rose fished for a phial to fill at Professor Sato's instruction, although the phial nearly slipped from her fingers to disappear into the cauldron forever when Malfoy leaned in, his smooth voice brushing against her ear like a brush of doxy wings. "Poor Shacklebolt seems to be struggling on his own."

Rose finished decanting their potion and waited until it was fully stoppered before peeking at Yates. There was nothing poor about him, really, although his posture was oddly stiff and he seemed distracted. Perhaps by the sight of a Malfoy head and a Weasley head tipped in close over a shared cauldron? It made every awkward, embarrassing moment of this class period worth it.

She couldn't look for long, though, not if she hoped to maintain any semblance of control over her expression, and Rose flipped open her notebook to jot notes about the lesson. "Good." The stubborn chin came out again, and she tilted her head away from Malfoy to give him a sidelong peek. "Tell me if he sets himself on fire. I don't want to miss that."

"Violence, Weasley?" Scorpius was amused, and he returned to her side so they wouldn't be overheard. "You two have a lovers' tiff?"

She gave Malfoy a brief, heated look before continuing with her notes. "Nothing of the sort. Just my standard Gryffindor love for unwarranted violence and bloody mayhem."

"And yet somehow, we got the Baron. Go figure." Malfoy was doing that thing where he talked to himself again.

Without a pause, she changed the subject to one that was more comfortable. "I think the issue was with the hellebore, although I tried to compensate for the loss in the initial pour. The potion is likely functional, but if he wants us to test it, I'll do it. The mistake was mine."

He didn't seem to mind the subject change. To the contrary, there was mild approval in his tone. "Oh, you caught that? I hadn't thought you noticed. It's a consistency thing. You lose around half a drop with a syrup like that one, and when you're talking only a few drops in the first place, it counts for a lot. You can charm it out of course, but sometimes Tergeo can mess with the potion, especially with one like this where its a no-stir philtre." Pedantic, condescending approval.

Rose was determined not to get agitated that he was speaking to her like a second year Potions novice, although her expression was bland when she finally raised her face to look at him. Fortunately, Sato's instructions for submitting their phials prevented any desire for a snippy response, and Rose labelled theirs before scurrying off to hand it in at the Potions Master's desk.

Yates opened his mouth to address her when she passed his table on the way back, but Rose ducked her head and slid back onto her stool. Malfoy had his things packed already, looking nearly as ready to bolt for the door as Rose did. "Mal... Scorpius. Thanks." For all of it, but mostly for playing along.

He glanced thoughtfully at Yates as Sato dismissed them but spared her a scornful response. "I'll see you at tryouts."

"I think everyone will," Rose responded, a bit weakly. Her bag was quickly packed and shouldered, and Rose stood. It took a bit of ducking and weaving to get to the door, but she wanted to catch Al in order to nag his ears off over not saving her a seat. Clearly, his priorities were lacking, if he preferred to sit with Dane instead of his own cousin and best friend. Dane wasn't even very good at Potions, and Rose didn't know how he'd made it into NEWT levels.

She hadn't been watching for Yates, however, and he caught up with her right outside the door. "We need to talk."

He stepped and Rose shifted, again and again, until Yates finally grabbed hold of Rose's arm at the elbow. "I'm very busy," she tried to shake him off. "I have to go."

"Don't be stupid, Rosie," Yates had on a very big smile for the benefit of those passing them in the corridor, and Rose desperately wanted to smack it off his face. Why was this happening here? In front of people? In front of people who assumed that Yates had a right to grab her simply because his smile was so-very-charming?

"Rose. It's just... Rose." She jerked her arm free and swung her heavy satchel in his direction, forcing Yates back a few steps. "I don't want to talk. I don't want you to touch me. I'm leaving." She shouldered the bag again and stepped between people to where Al waited for her at end of the corridor.