Curiosity Is Not a Sin

Patrolling with Scorpius

"That's fine," Rose said, and they set off.

She wasn't even halfway down her first corridor when she heard a voice behind her. "Fancy meeting you here."

She turned around. "I have to patrol right now, Scorpius."

"Is there any reason I can't keep you company?"

Rose thought about it for a minute. "Provided you don't start snogging me, I guess not."

He blew out a breath and gave her a very exaggerated look of disappointment. "Too bad."

She crossed her arms. "You know, no matter how fun it is, more kissing is not going to convince me that we should - well, you know."

He considered that. "Good point. But regardless, no, your company is not only worth something if I might get a kiss out of it."

Something occurred to her. She wasn't sure if this was the right time to bring it up, but it had been bothering her, so she decided to risk it. "You know that time I was eavesdropping on you?" She winced. "Okay, that was not the best way to start that sentence."

"When I was with Albus, or with Noah?" She glanced at him, and saw a glint in his eye she wasn't sure she liked.

"With Albus, but now that you mention Noah - of course I don't own an invisibility cloak, that's crazy. It was just a disillusionment charm."

"You can cast a disillusionment charm?" he asked skeptically.

Rose saw the danger and quickly avoided it. "No, of course not. I had a friend cast it on me." He opened his mouth, and she added quickly, "I'm not telling you who."

He sighed. "Well, what about the time I was with Albus?" he asked warily.

"You said something about me getting top marks in our year."

Rose wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but judging from the surprise on his face, this wasn't it. "Yeah, I did."

"Well, I don't know if you were just exaggerating or not, but if you weren't, you're wrong." She wasn't sure why it had been bothering her so much, but she'd been dwelling on it more than she liked.

He stopped. "How was I wrong?"

"I really need to be patrolling. You can walk and talk at the same time," she told him, and peeked inside the classroom they were passing. No one was there.

"Why was I wrong?" he repeated, starting to walk again.

Rose opened the door to another classroom and scanned it. For the first time, it occurred to her that prefects were probably very annoying for couples that wanted some alone time - probably because she was starting to want more privacy with Scorpius than she'd ever wanted with Damien or Julian.

"For one thing, you get better marks than I do sometimes."

She looked at him, and saw that he was rolling his eyes. "It doesn't count. Come on, Red—" Her eyebrows rose, and he hurried to amend the statement. "Come on, Rose. I'm marginally better than you in a few subjects. It's not enough to matter. You're much better than me in plenty of them."

"You're a lot better than me in Astronomy," she pointed out, looking into another classroom.

"Am I?" he asked in a tone of surprise.

"Of course you are. I'm terrible in Astronomy. I'll be lucky if I get an A on my O.W.L."

"Really?"

Rose groaned. "Yes, really. The only reason I even pass is because James helps me with it."

"Oh." They walked for a moment without saying anything, and as she was opening another door, he said, "Well, it's still only one class."