Amortentia (a Scorose Fanfiction)

Chapter Five

James was studiously ignoring Rose. She knew she'd hurt him — and his pride, which was never a good thing when it came to the Potters — but Rose was slightly surprised at how dedicated James was to the task of pretending she was never in the same room as him. She had never seen him so dedicated to something in his life.

Rose had thought of countless ways to apologise for her hurtful words and spent measurable amounts of time preparing herself to do it. And yet, every time an opportunity arose, her brain lost the ability to send words out of her mouth.

Maybe it was her stubbornness — or maybe she was still pathetically sore that James and Albus thought she was unworthy of a date with any of the boys at the school. Rose didn't want to be so petty, but she was a girl — a girl with feelings. Those kinds of feelings. She wanted to be liked, and the fact that her own family agreed that no boys liked her was hurtful.

But what she said to James was more so, and she had to be the bigger person.

Which is why, when she planted herself across the table from him in the Great Hall at breakfast on Monday morning, she stared straight at him until he became too uncomfortable to ignore her any longer.

James slowly brought his gaze up to meet hers. "What do you want, Rose?"

"I want to apologise," she stated simply. "What I said was rude, mean and untrue. I said it in the heat of the argument and I regretted it the minute I did. James, I'm so sorry. What you do with your life is no one's business but yours and I had no right to pass such unjust and uncalled for judgement on it. Truth is, I was still sour about your earlier comment but that doesn't even matter anymore. It's still no excuse for what I said to you. I'm so sorry, James. Deep down you know I didn't mean it. Please forgive me."

James stared at her for a minute. She stared back, aware that her expression was pleading for forgiveness. She worried that her speech sounded too rehearsed, but there was nothing she could do to change it now. After a long moment in which Rose's heart was beating in fear that he would tell her to leave him alone forever, James smiled at her. "Thank you, Rosie. I'm sorry too, for what it's worth. I was just trying to tease you, I didn't know it would hurt you as much as it did."

She smiled a relieved grin back at her cousin. "It's okay. I overreacted."

He laughed. "I think it's safe to say we both did."

Rose sighed out the breath she'd been holding. "I hate when we argue."

James shook his head, still chuckling. "We're both too stubborn for our own good, that's the problem."

Rose agreed, though she didn't have the chance to voice it before the two were joined by Lily, who slammed her hands down on the table before sliding onto the bench next to James. Her bright-pink shiny nails were hard to ignore as they glinted up at Rose on the candle-lit table.

Her younger cousin looked at Rose, her eyes wide. "I don't mean to alarm you, but Scorpius Malfoy is staring at you."

Rose's spine stiffened. As though Lily's information had triggered a sensor, Rose swore she could now feel the heat of a certain someone's silvery gaze on the back of her head.

Lily's eyes returned to their normal size. "Act natural, everyone," she said, before flicking her red hair over her shoulder and letting out a peel of high-pitched laughter. She lightly smacked James' arm.

James shook her off, a grumpy look on his face. Rose raised her eyebrows in an attempt to seem nonchalant, but her shoulders were tense and she was on edge. "That is what you call normal?"