i.
everybody talks
They make their agreement at the start of their first year, when they're both eleven and anxious and unwilling to have an enemy before they've even set foot in the school.
It's not that they've been instructed to avoid or even dislike each other (at least, not in so many words. Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy might be trying to put the past behind them, but one can never be completely rid of a grudge). It's just that he's a Malfoy, the son and heir and only of his generation, and she's a Weasley, the daughter of two of the most famous war heroes, and the social expectations that they've both been raised not to care about but do nonetheless dictate that they only speak to each other out of necessity. And so when they make their agreement, it's not with an exchange of words or a shake of hands or even a nod of heads. It's with a moment in which their eyes lock.
It's quick, a fleeting glance the two of them exchange as she passes by his compartment, Albus in tow. But in the split second that their eyes meet, Rose Weasley sees in the grey of Scorpius Malfoy's eyes what he sees in the blue of hers - an offer of a truce, a peace treaty, an end to a rivalry that hasn't even properly begun.
And a moment later, when they break eye contact and she walks past his door without a second glance and he lets her go without the patented Malfoy sneer, they've both signed the contract and the agreement is made.
They never speak about it. In fact, during their first four years at Hogwarts, they barely speak at all. It's one of their unspoken-yet-instantly-understood conditions: they're not going to carry on with the enmity between the Malfoys and the Weasleys, but that doesn't mean they have to actually be friends. That would only make things complicated, and honestly, life is complicated enough as it is, being the children of who their parents are.
Accordingly, another one of their implicit terms is that their families don't have to know anything about the agreement. When asked about "Scorpius Malfoy - Merlin, what a terrible name" or "that Weasley girl in your year" by their respective families, both shrug and say, vaguely, "We don't run into each other that often." It's true, really: he's in Slytherin, she's in Ravenclaw, and although House enmity isn't what it used to be, people from different Houses still run in different circles. Especially Malfoy-Weasley-people.
When they do pass by each other in the halls, or on the rare occasion that they are seated next to each other in class, they treat each other with what many see as a studied indifference (although anyone who chooses to observe them past what they expect to see would note the exchanged nods, or even the faint smiles; the quiet acknowledgements of their agreement). For four years, they treat each other as they would any other student unconnected to them.
Sometimes, though, when he picks out her fiery curls in the middle of the courtyard, or when she spies him flying out on the Quidditch pitch alone at night, they wonder about each other. He wonders if she wishes she was in Gryffindor, if she can play Quidditch as well as most of her family can, if she's as uptight as the rumours say she is. She wonders if he's anything like how her family describes his father, if he signed up for Muggle Studies for the easy marks as most people did or for a deeper reason, if he's disturbed by all of the whispers that surround him about his family's Dark past. It's this strange reel of their own version of might-have-beens that runs through their heads in empty moments and on sleepless nights.
They keep these questions secret. No matter how much they might want to know the answers, he's still a Malfoy and she's still a Weasley, and life's complicated enough, yeah?
ii.
i just think that we'd get on
