the weight of living ⁂ scorpius malfoy

fourteen ⁂ anger & surprise

December 27, 2021

Scarlett knew she shouldn't expect anything more from Scorpius. But what discouraged her the most is he just left her. Not knowing what to do with herself, Scarlett sat in the courtyard until her feet became numb in her thick boots. She then retreated back to the common room, making sure a certain blonde boy wasn't in sight. Scarlett was officially angry. She popped in her headphones and slowly got dressed, taking her time because lunch was a while away and she had no where to go. She thought about the bathrooms, but she wanted to save her bath for the nighttime.

Scarlett turned around quickly to hear a small hoot emerging from the loud music in her ears. She saw Daer, fluffing his feathers as if he was ready to fly.

"I know you wanna take the cards to mom and dad, but I want you to rest a little bit, buddy." Scarlett opened the cage, slowly moving her hand in to stroke his feathers. Daer embraced her in the only way he could, then quickly leaped out of the cage, then began to swoop around the room.

"Daer!" Scarlett yelled, then huffed in annoyance because she didn't want to just grab the little owl out of the air. Or admit he was to fast for her to do so. She laid down on her bed, waiting for Daer to exhaust himself. When he wouldn't stop taunting her, Scarlett became inpatient. She then opened the drawer under Daer's cage and held out a small brown treat. "I'll give you a treat and one more day of rest, then you can go to mom and dad's, okay?"

Daer immediately turned and descended into his cage. Scarlett gave him the treat, and the devious little bird gobbled it up. "I'm sorry, Daer. I'm just lonely."

Scarlett glanced around the empty beds around her, realizing the only positive thing about being alone in her dorm. When she picked up her book to read, she heard paper scraping against the floor to see a small brown package being slipped under her door. Scarlett immediately got up and dashed to the door. She ripped up the package to reveal the book Scorpius had taken from her. Scarlett threw the book on her bed and frantically opened her dormitory door and bolted into the common room. As she swung open the dungeon door to the vacant common room, Scarlett questioned why she wanted to even see Scorpius.

She took a deep breath and opened the book on her bed to see a small note attached to the front page.

brilliant.

- s.m.

In anger, Scarlett crumpled the small note and threw it across her room. It bounced off the glass window and bounced next to the bottom of her dresser. She opened up the book and dove into its words, totally forgetting about lunch.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

December 27, 2021-
a lot of hours of reading later

Scarlett's stomach began to violently grumble. It was after dinner, and she didn't even realize. Scarlett carefully fished through Ella's candy stash, making sure to eat regular candy in hopes not to recreate the events of a few days ago.

After popping a few butterscotch candies into her mouth, Scarlett declared herself bored. She felt as if she had the whole castle to herself, so she slipped on her bathing suit and grabbed her bag before heading down to the prefect bathroom. Scarlett turned the orange flavored tap and slipped into the warm bath, ready to be there until she was a prune. Scorpius gave her all the time in the world to think, so she concluded he was ignoring her. She didn't know why, but he was. Scarlett melted into the sweet smelling water and turned back on her music.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

December 31, 2021

The Christmas break was near its end, and Scarlett had not seen Scorpius for the past few days. Scarlett proceeded to talk to the teachers that stayed during the break, requesting for any extra credit she could complete. She then went on and buried herself in work once again in the common room.

Scarlett studied on in the common room, knowing she would not see Scorpius. She had not seen him for days anyway, and sometimes wondered where he was, though she didn't want to admit it. Scarlett wanted to say her anger at Scorpius had simmered down, but really it had not. She went on a hiatus from reading The Iron Trial because she was determined to finish her work, but mostly because Scorpius had read and liked it.

Currently, Scarlett was walking in the corridors on her way back from dinner. She had almost missed it, and she barely ate. You would think with all this free time you'd be on time for these kind of things, but that was not Scarlett's case. Scarlett had been listening to music for a few days straight, but was starting to worry because there was no outlets in Hogwarts and her portable charger was finally running out of battery. Scarlett thought she had heard someone call her name, but she just assumed it was her music. Scarlett jumped in horror as a hand clutched her shoulder.

"Scarlett." A familiar voice gasped behind her. Scarlett pulled off her head phones and turned around to Scorpius, who was out of breath. Had he been running?

Her voice became hard. "What do you want?"

Scorpius walked beside her, suddenly looking taken aback by her harsh tone. "Whoah. I just wanted to know if you wanted to..uh, hang out."

"Hang out?!" Scarlett's hands balled into fists, almost crushing the the fragile paper in her hand.

"Yeah, I'm just bored so—" Scarlett could of sworn if this was a cartoon steam would be blowing out of her ears.

"No!" She cut him off. "I have done nothing these past days and you tell me you're bored?! I'm angry, if you can't tell!"

"At me? I haven't done anything!" Scorpius put his hands up jokingly, but only received a scowl from Scarlett.

"Hmm, lets see! One, you insult my parents. Two, you ignore me for days! Three, you now want to hang out! You're so confusing!"

"I confuse you?" Scorpius started to argue back, but kept his cool unlike Scarlett. "Don't even get me started on how much you confuse me."

"How much then?"

"Never mind." Scarlett huffed and turned away, but Scorpius seemed desperate. "Just relax. Let's hang out, okay? Forget this and lets just enjoy New Years Eve."

She hesitantly nodded. Scarlett had forgotten it was New Years Eve. The break had flown by more quickly than the years before. "Okay. Let's meet in the prefect bathroom in a few minutes."

Scorpius smirked and went to his room. Scarlett held the mail she had received at dinner in her hands. She let Daer go up to where the school's owls stay, for he had created a bond with them, leaving Scarlett even more alone. What puzzled Scarlett was not only Daer had delivered a letter to her, but a barn owl did so as well. Scarlett returned to her room and shifted through the letters in her hands. One from her parents, one from her grandparents, and one from Clary and Olivia.