Consolation

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“It was a good game.” Scorpius is the only person who dares to approach whenever she’s in a mood. Rose takes a moment to consider whether she wants to hex him or not because she made it clear that she didn’t want to be disturbed. Trust him to ignore her wishes.

“We lost.” No hexing wins, mostly because he’d just hex her back, and she’d have to hex him again and it would result in a lot of hexing as they tried to outdo each other. Then, Flitwick would find out and send letters home about her poor sportsmanship over a Quidditch match, which her mum wouldn’t understand at all.

“It was still a good game.” Scorpius shrugs a shoulder and sits down next to her. He makes a face, and she figures that means he feels the damp grass seeping into his trousers.

“Grass is wet,” she tells him sweetly, unable to resist a slight smile when he glares at her.

“Thanks, Weasley.” He scowls at the ground before he tilts his head back against the tree so he can look at the sky.

“Anytime.” She watches the wind ruffle his pale hair before she frowns and looks at the clouds. “I can’t believe we lost.”

“We haven’t been able to beat Gryffindor since we started school.” He reaches down and picks a blade of grass that he starts to play with while watching the sky.

“Don’t remind me.” She is distracted from her cloud watching by his fiddling with the grass. “We’ve been on the team for two years now, though. I thought this would finally be our year to win.”

“Third time’s the charm and all?” He glances at her and smiles wryly. “We did better than we have the last two years. Next year might be our year.”

It isn’t what she wants to hear. Next year seems ages away. She’ll be a fifth year, and her cousins will be in sixth or seventh. She’s going to have another summer of hearing about how bloody great Gryffindor’s team is and how Ravenclaw is just second best. She hates being second best.

When she feels something brush against her nose, she frowns and looks to her left. Scorpius is brushing the tip of her nose with the blade of grass he’s holding. “Stop that,” she mutters. Infuriating prat. She doesn’t know why she puts up with him, though Ted would say that she’s lucky Scorpius puts up with her. Course, Teddy’s his cousin, so there’s family loyalty there. Scorpius is lucky that she’s his greatest rival and best friend.

“We’ll practice more over the summer,” he tells her before he brushes the grass across her cheek. “And we’ll make Hugo be all your annoying cousins.”

“Hugo won’t agree to that,” she says, swatting at the grass and then at his shoulder when he moves it out of her reach.

“He’s a Slytherin. We’ll figure out how to get him to agree,” he decides.

She snorts. “Yeah, but he’s not a typical Slytherin.” She considers it as she keeps trying to steal the grass from Scorpius. “Maybe he’d do it just to help us beat Gryffindor. Teach Dad something for acting like Slytherin’s some evil place.”

“Your dad should talk to my dad since mine was glad I didn’t get sorted there because he thought it was some evil place.” Scorpius smirks when he holds the grass to high above her head for her to reach easily. She elbows his side suddenly, which makes him drop his arm.

She takes the grass from him and looks at it as she moves her fingers over the blade. “James is going to be insufferable during Christmas hols. The others aren’t too bad, but he loves to prance around acting like Gryffindor is the best thing ever. Maybe Al will help me hex him if he gets too annoying.”

“I think insufferable just runs in your family,” he says before he moves his fingers along her ribs. She starts to laugh and tries to hit him because he knows she’s ticklish, but he catches her wrist before she can make contact.

When he gets the blade of grass from her, he stops tickling her and looks smug. “Prat,” she mutters, staring at him as he smiles and moves his fingers through his hair.

“It was a good game, Weasley,” he murmurs as he reaches up to brush a lock of hair out of her eyes. “You’re bloody brilliant, as you well know. Besides, we might not have defeated them in our match, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t finally get the House Cup from them.”

She frowns when he pulls his hand back suddenly and looks at the sky. His pale cheeks are flushed, and she wonders if he’s cold. If he is, then he can perform a warming charm. He knows how. She looks back at the clouds and moves just a little closer to him. “The House Cup would be even better than just winning one match,” she says thoughtfully. She glances at him and smiles slightly, glad that he never seemed bothered by her moods. “You’re right. It was a good game.”

End