Raindrops on Roses

Chapter 37: Seventh Year Part 5: What Friendship Really Means

2024

~*-R-*~

~*-R-*~

By the end of that day, Ravenclaw Tower was in a highly tense mood. The yelling in the common room that morning had been loud and public, and it didn't take long for most of the school to hear about it. If Rose had hoped that perhaps people would not be interested, she had forgotten that she was now the Minister for Magic's daughter, and of course Scorpius had his own kind of macabre infamy.

Scorpius was suspiciously absent all day, and Rose decided to skip dinner both to avoid the stares and whispers and potentially having to face him again. She went to her room instead, closed the curtains around her four-poster and tried to remember all the ways she knew to reverse time. She wondered if her mother could get her a time turner, or if - she amended, after considering the futility of that idea - she could steal one. There were one or two left, she recalled, under extreme security in the Ministry of Magic. Her dad, she thought, might know where, but he was even less likely than Hermione to be sympathetic to her situation.

The curtain was pulled aside, and she buried her face in her pillow against the lamplight, and against anyone seeing her red eyes.

"What's going on?" her cousin's voice broke through the fog of misery, and she looked up, blearily.

"Albus - what- ?"

"Everyone's saying Scorp accused you of snogging Chung," Al said with expressive distaste. "And neither of you were at dinner."

Rose fell back. "Go away, Al. How did you even get in here?"

"What's his problem?" he demanded, ignoring her. "I mean why would he say that? Is he mental?"

"I don't know why he said it," Rose mumbled miserably.

"Dickhead," Albus growled. Rose blinked at him. She couldn't remember any time in the last three months that Albus had said a single bad word against his friend. "I mean, Chung? Is he crazy? Did he take too much of his potion, or what?"

She sighed and sat up, running tired hands through her hair and staring down at the sheets bundled in her lap. "Al..."

"No, really. Look I know he's been through a lot, and I've been doing everything I can to support him, but why would he say - "

"I did it." Rose said quietly.

" - something like that? You - what?" Albus blinked again and made a scrunched up, puzzled face. "What did you say?"

Rose took a deep breath, continuing to stare at her knees. "I said, I did it. After he yelled at me, I went to the library, and Jian was there, and I just..." She shook her head. "I don't know how it happened."

Al's expression twisted even further into a confused grimace. "What d'you mean? When was this?"

"I said, this morning, after he... he yelled at me about seeing Jian, and I told him he was crazy, but he seemed so sure about it and it just made me so angry, and I... I... I don't know, I met Jian and he kissed me, and I... kissed him back. Sort of."

Al looked as though he'd been hit with a Confundus Curse. "You did what?"

"Al, please don't make me feel worse than I already do..."

"It's true??"

"No! Well... I mean, no, it wasn't when he said it, but then..."

"That makes no sense!"

"I know! I know, it's crazy..."

"Why would you do that??" he demanded, his face bright red behind his glasses.