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Old 03-21-2016, 11:37 PM   #32 (permalink)
Cassirin

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Join Date: Sep 2003
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Hogwarts RPG Name:
Mercer Branxton
Ravenclaw
Seventh Year

Ministry RPG Name:
Genevieve James
Minister's Office

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Made of Awesome | Ern-la the Best-wa | TZ's Apogee

SPOILER!!: Ze Fans
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
My Slytherin heart is content!

You guys are awesome as always. Good job, and keep em coming!
I promise we'll keep throwing stuff at you to satisfy that Slytherin heart. Thanks for reading and the kind words! Hope you love this chapter as much as I do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by laurange View Post
SCORPIUS. Ugh. I love how his brain works. And how deep his denial is.

Also, I just love you guys. Another brilliant chapter, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

He's not in denial. He's never even been to Egypt.

Okay, sorry, that was awful. THANKS, LAUREN. So glad you're reading and fangirling where I can watch.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimist View Post
Pink haired Malfoys. I would love to see this.
EXPERIMENTAL BREEDING FOR THE WIN.

Now that's over with. I've got a feeling. Shacklebolt (blech) is probably going to show up at the tryouts like "hey look. i'm going to butt in where i'm not wanted"...because its clear he has a total "look...you're hot-i'm-hot" thing for Rose...like she's a trophy to be won.
That 'pink haired Malfoys' was Tegan's nod to fanfiction tropes. I love it, don't you?

I guuuuuuess you'll have to read to see what Yates does next, but he's fun to dislike, isn't he? I'm glad you've got him pegged!



3.3 There Is Squishing

The Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts went much as expected, especially with most of the team returning. The most remarkable thing about them, unfortunately, was the rather shocking appearance of Scorpius Malfoy seated in the stands beside Rose. Much as she tried to ignore the stares and whispers in order to focus on shouting at Al and Jayne during their turns, Rose felt the prickly awareness that she was the center of attention. And not in the good way. Lily and Hugo sat nearby, and while Hugo glanced occasionally at Malfoy while stroking his wand, Lily sent wounded looks at Rose. What, exactly, she was currently sulking about was yet to be discovered, but Rose expected far more trouble from Lily than she did from her own brother. Hugo could tend toward the more doltish qualities of being an overprotective Weasley male, but he acted with moderation. Lily, on the other hand, saw only how other people immediately affected her.

Once the try-outs finished and the players disappeared to change their clothes, Rose didn’t linger with Malfoy. She made a very proper and public good-bye to him, wished him well in his own try-outs later in the week, and then escaped as quickly as possible without making her flight obvious. Now Malfoy was free to go back to his common room and enjoy a rousing Gryffindor-bashing session with his friends, but at least he’d been polite during their time together. Or polite-ish, as they’d both been rather consumed by Quidditch and there hadn’t been any real conversation. It was nice he hadn’t felt the need to entertain her.

When she took any time to look at the events of the past few days, Rose wondered how she'd become the type of person that was never acting but was always reacting. There had been no need to pretend that she and Malfoy were more than slightly acquainted in order to justify sitting beside him in Potions class. Bothering Yates had been a nice side effect, but even after class was finished, she’d kept up the façade. Being berated by her housemates and stared at by younger students in the corridor had become all too common place over the past 24 hours, and Rose was tired of the dramatics. And there had been no need to show up with him today, to continue this game of pretend, except that it was no longer about Yates and was now about Malfoy. She didn’t want to be the first to back down. Rose tried not to think about it too hard.

“What do you think you’re playing at, Rose?” James stalked into the common room, throwing his broom to the floor at her feet. He loomed over her with a sour expression marring his handsome features. The broom was well cherished, a gift from Uncle Harry when James made the reserve team as a second year, and Rose knew he must be livid if he was handling it so carelessly. Livid at her, which was unusual, as James usually reacted to Rose with equal measures of amusement and condescension.

“Wizarding chess, although I think I’m losing,” she responded in what passed as a bored tone. She turned her back on the seething seventh year to direct her pawn, which merrily tripped across the board to kick Rileigh Finnigan's knight out of its square. She'd been expecting James' outburst, actually, and she wondered at the wisdom of not forewarning him that she’d be attending the Gryffindor try-outs with Malfoy. Al and Jayne both knew to expect him there, although she'd had arguments with both of them about the wisdom of playing Malfoy's game. That was Jayne's argument. Al's had been more warning that she not start something she didn't intend to finish, even after Rose assured him that she wasn't starting or finishing or anything with Malfoy. His expression made it clear he hadn't believed her.

James wasn't as easily put off, and he breathed heavily in her direction before she swatted him away. "You stink, Jamie. Go shower, and I'll talk to you about it when you smell like a human again." He lurked over her a moment longer, but the combined influence of being ignored by Rose and Fred shoving him bodily toward the stairs with his foot propelled James out of the room. Fred, however, stayed.

"Oh, Rosie, my little flower." Fred tangled his hand in the end of her plait and tugged her sideways into his arms, somehow managing to heave her out of her chair and onto the sofa, where he immediately seated himself on her back. "I'm all for a lark, and there is nothing so grand as annoying James, but you have to have boundaries. Quidditch, Rosie... you don't touch Quidditch. It's sacred." Boundaries from the massive seventh year currently trying to murder her? That was a laugh.

Rose ate pillow as she tried to answer him. "It's not about James. Not... okay. Breathing is an issue."

With a chuckle, Fred slid backwards off Rose until only his thick legs kept her pinned to the sofa. He wasn't quite as tall as James and Al, but Fred was broad across his shoulders and all hard muscle from Quidditch. She wasn't going anywhere. If he wanted her to stay put, then the much smaller Rose was going to stay. "It's about Malfoy, then? Weasley girls are supposed to have taste. Look at Vic and Teddy."

Fred had inherited his mother's dark skin and curls, although the smattering of darker freckles were pure Weasley, as was the mischievous expression ever-present in his dark eyes. Everything was a joke to Fred, including this conversation. Where James would seethe and bark, Fred would tease a response, and his good nature and easy smile made it hard to stay mad at him for any length of time. Even as she was slowly being smothered, Rose found the situation completely ridiculous. Laughable.

"Look at Molly and her old man fiancee," Al offered helpfully from his vantage point on the arm of the couch. He wasn't actually helping, simply overseeing things with that silly crooked grin of his. There was small comfort in the fact that Al probably wouldn't actually let Fred smother her if it came down to it. "I'm just saying... they don't all have taste. Dom dated Ryuu Haneda for a while."

"And Dom was half Fizzing Whizzbee. She was, and is, completely insane." Fred jerked the rubber band from Rose's hair and ruffled out her plait over her face. "But we aren't talking about other Weasley girls, are we? We're talking about this very naughty Weasley girl. And a Haneda pales in comparison to a Malfoy. Plus, he never came to Quidditch tryouts with her."

"That's because Dom would have bounced a Quaffle off his face for showing up." Al wasn't far wrong. The second eldest Weasley cousin may have had the same veela-influenced good looks as her siblings, but Dominique was tough as dragon hide and mean as a chimaera. The rumors about Dom and Haneda were unsubstantiated, although a good number of boys had made the mistake of approaching the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain only to find themselves hexed, bloody, and unconscious.

Rose shoved up on one elbow to give Al a grateful look. His intervention, while completely ineffectual, was very sweet. Her gratitude was short-lived, marred by James' reemergence into the common room. He was still seething, obviously, although the shower had cooled him enough that there was no lurking or looming. He ruffled his dark hair into wet waves and sat down on Rose's legs. "What did you get from her?"

"Eh. She's really sorry, mate." Fred gave her bum a vicious slap, and Rose shrieked in outrage, although mostly she just ate pillow again. "She promises that she won't ever see him again. He isn't actually her type. Someone paid her to do it. Erm... he gave her a love potion?"

"Shut up." Rose pressed her cheek against the couch cushion. Her view of the room was limited to the few students scattered between the sofa and stairs, but it was obvious they had an enraptured audience. Weasley antics in the common room were to be expected, but this was extra special drama that drew negative attention to Rose at a time when she couldn't afford it. Across the way, Rose saw Lily looking displeased, her cloak still clutched to her chest as she had just entered the common room. "Just... I just asked him to sit with me because he said he was coming to try-outs. You're making a big thing out of nothing."

It pained her to admit it, like she was letting go of the only interesting story of which she'd ever taken part, but it was worth it to salvage her reputation and to keep the peace. James gave her a vicious pinch as he slid off her legs. "That's right. I don't want to even see you talking to him, Rosie."

"Boring. I expect better from you. Only not at Quidditch." Fred gave her a last squish before climbing over her, landing on the floor beside the sofa. Both boys meandered across the room, ready to soak in accolades from their fans now that their recalcitrant cousin had been handled. James had a swagger to his walk, and Fred raised his arms in victory, eliciting a cheer from the other students.

Al pulled Rose up before spreading out on the sofa beside her. "You're so easy. A little squishing, and you roll right over. Pathetic. You call yourself a Gryffindor."

"I couldn't breathe," Rose complained. It was nice to curl up beside her Al, and she tucked her feet under his thigh for warmth. Even better, he let her. "Besides, there wasn't any reason not to tell them the truth. It was nothing."

"You keep saying," Al responded mildly. His eyes searched the students still returning from the pitch and those leaving early for dinner. Despite the fact that he seemed distracted, Rose felt like there was something significant he was leaving unsaid, the sort of hole that takes a shape and meaning all its own. Her cousin didn't always put forth the same tireless effort in class as Rose, but he was clever in other ways. Al could be disarmingly charming, but it wasn't a practiced effort used to get people to act in a certain way. He just liked people, and if he didn't, there was probably a good reason for it. Part of that sense for people included an uncanny intuition into the people around him. Rose sometimes suspected he was part Seer, although she'd never suggest such a ridiculous thing around her mother. So whatever it was that Al thought he saw, Rose couldn't discount.

"Is it really nothing?" Lily moved as if she was dancing, crossing the room silently on the balls of her feet. "You and Scorpius Malfoy?"

Al and Rose glanced at each other briefly before Rose responded. "Not a thing. Why?"

Lily's chocolate brown eyes were large and limpid, and her heavy lashes swept against her cheeks. Somehow, she was all heavy sighs and unspoken desire, just in that one practiced gesture. "I think I love him."

Al groaned. "Merlin."
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