Work Text:
Something hard hits Rose’s back, right in between her shoulder blades. Annoyance flares up in her chest and she forces it down. She inhales a deep breath, holds it and lets it out.
The hard thing is a little piece of parchment, now lying on the ground next to her feet. With it lay a small piece of mulch, a broken pencil, and some sort of wooden block. She knows Scorpius tossed them at her – he’s been trying to get her attention for quite a while.
She ignores him pointedly, returning to her small Dittany plant. She can only focus on trimming the little leaves for a moment before something else hits her – this time, it clips the top of her left shoulder.
“Rose!” Scorpius hisses a row away. She rolls her eyes, but Albus prods her with his elbow.
“What?” She whispers angrily at Albus, who gestures towards Scorpius. She sighs, but turns and finally grants Scorpius an annoyed glare.
“What do you want?” She hisses. Scorpius smiles brightly at her.
“Meet me at the fourth-floor library at seven, okay?” He whispers.
“Why?” She whispers back, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“I’ll tell you later,” Scorpius assures her as Professor Longbottom makes his rounds, excitedly helping students with their little plants. “Just show up.”
“But –” She tries to argue, but he has already turned around. Professor Longbottom rushes past her to help a student who somehow managed to set their plant’s leaves on fire.
“Alright…” She concedes to his back, a little confused, but mostly irritated. Albus opens his mouth – most likely to tease her or ask stupid questions – but she raises an annoyed eyebrow at him. He raises his hands in a placating gesture, a shit-eating grin on his face. She picks up her tiny scissors and focuses on trimming the dead leaves off of the Dittany.
At six fifty-five, she makes her way to the fourth-floor library. The hallways are mostly empty – with the exception of a ghost or two – so it doesn’t take long for her to arrive. The big doors creak when she opens them, alerting the waiting Scorpius to her arrival. He rushes to her, all wide smiles and a vaguely smug expression.
“Hi!” He grabs her wrist and tugs her further into the library. “C’mon! I got you something.” She resists the urge to stubbornly rip her arm away from him and allows herself to be taken to a small corner of the library not too far away.
“Ok,” she mutters as soon as he lets her go. “What did you want to show me?”
He makes a ‘hold on’ gesture with his hand and rummages around in a large pile of books on the table by the window. She crosses her arms over her chest impatiently. Within moments, he turns to her with a book held victoriously in his hand. A wide, proud smile graces his face, and he holds it out to her. “I found this. I thought you might like it – it’s about Gordon Horton –”
“The Chudley Cannons Keeper,” Rose finishes, quickly taking the book from his hands. She looks at it, examining the cover. “Where did you…?”
“I bought it awhile ago,” Scorpius admits sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. A light coat of pink dusts his cheeks. “I thought it would make a…er, a nice present. For Christmas, you know.”
Rose blinks at him, holding the book close to her chest. Heat curls around her ears and slides onto her cheeks. “Oh.” She squints at him suspiciously. “Gifts – they won’t…they won’t make me like you, or anything.”
“I know,” Scorpius states, clasping his hands behind his back. “I just…I saw it in the store, and I thought of you, so I bought it. I was going to save it for, you know, actual Christmas Day, but I got excited and I couldn’t wait.”
Rose looks up at him, at his flushed cheeks and barely contained excitement and it feels like her chest is doing weird things. Somersaults. Acrobatics, or whatever. She looks down and finds herself staring at the safe center of his chest. “Thanks.”
Scorpius smiles and nods. He leans down and plants a kiss onto Rose’s cheek. Rose lights up like a Christmas tree, turning various shades of red and pink. “I hope you like it. I’ll see you later.” With that, he turns around and starts walking off.
Unbidden, Rose’s mouth opens. “Wait,” she commands. Scorpius obediently stops walking and turns around. He retraces the three steps he managed to take and ends up standing in front of her.
Quick decisions were never her good suit, but she makes them, anyway. With her cheeks burning and her heart in her chest, she leans up on her tippy-toes and pecks Scorpius on the lips. She pulls away, starts to walk to the library door, but Scorpius catches her hand and pulls her back to him. His hand finds the small of her back, the other one tilting her chin up with the knuckle of his finger. His lips hover above hers for a small, infinite moment in time before descending.
Rose’s heart has adopted an odd rhythm of skipping beats and rapid-fire pumping. His lips are soft and malleable on hers. He slides his arms around her waist and she drops the book onto the table so she can reach up and put her hands in his soft hair. It slides through her fingers like silk, and she latches onto a few locks. She swears she would float up to the ceiling, if his arms weren’t trapping her against his chest.
It takes a slow moment before the kiss deepens into something more than innocent. Neither one of them have kissed, much, and so it’s a slightly messy process – though not an unpleasant one in the slightest. Scorpius is a little overeager, but a quick learner -- within moments, he’s figured out that running his tongue along the top of hers makes her shiver, but he has to be careful not to bite too hard on her lip, or she’ll retract.
Rose almost feels dizzy – probably from her elevated heart rate and erratic breathing – so as she pulls away from him, she clutches onto the front of his shirt. When she can finally open her eyes, the first thing they see is Scorpius, who is looking at her with such happiness and awe she has to blink several times.
“I guess that means you’re willing to give us a shot?” Scorpius smiles. Rose rolls her eyes and punches him in the shoulder, but she does it with an amused grin.
“Yes.”