Scorpius's Guide to Getting the Girl

Chapter 1 - New Friends

ALBUS

The moment he saw Rose Granger-Weasley striding towards him and Scorpius across the Hogwarts grounds, Albus knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that nothing good would come out of it.

He tried to turn away - to pretend he hadn't seen his cousin walking in his direction, staring intently at him and Scorpius. He grabbed his friend's arm and tried to pull him along, but Scorpius stayed glued to the ground.

"Scorpius," Albus hissed. "Let's go. Now."

"But... It's her, Albus. She's looking at me. She's actually looking at me, and she doesn't even seem mad, like she's about to yell at me." Even as he spoke, Scorpius never removed his gaze from Rose, who was now less than 10 yards away from them - and she was walking too fast for Albus's liking.

"That's exactly why we have to go. Come on, Scorpius. If Rose is deliberately trying to talk to us, it can't mean anything good. We have to go-"

"Albus." Rose had officially caught up with them, and she had her eyes fixed on Albus. Though she flicked her eyes once to the boy next to him and said curtly, "Scorpius." While Rose immediately drew her attention back to Albus, Scorpius kept staring open-mouthed at her.

Albus knew there was no getting away from Rose now, so he pressed his lips together in a tight smile and said coldly, "How can I help you, Rose?"

"Actually, I came with the intention of helping you," she said. Then her eyes softened, and Albus hated the look of pity she gave him. "How are you, Al?"

"My name is Albus. And I'm fine, thank you very much."

"Albus, more than half the school hates you. How could anyone be fine with that?" She said, and it was true. After the whole mess last week with him and Scorpius trying to bring back Cedric Diggory using a time turner, and instead bringing back the Dark Lord and helping his daughter, the two of them certainly weren't the most liked kids at school. All of Ravenclaw and Slytherin hated them for their stupidity; but the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors were divided. While some of them agreed with the other houses, others argued that while Scorpius and he had messed up, they had still shown immense courage and bravery to defeat Delphi, and had saved the world.

"Well, I don't mind. I'd even go as far as to say I'm enjoying it. In case you've forgotten, Rose, before everything happened, the entire school hated us, you included." Rose winced as he said it. "This is a step up."

"Albus, please. You should know that I haven't sided with those that are against you. While a lot of the things you did were incredibly stupid, including getting me and yourself killed -" she pointed to herself, then Albus, "you were so brave in the end. Though I really hope you don't have to go through anything like that again."

Albus rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Rose. You've barely spoken to me since we were kids; what do you want now?"

And then she said the words which Albus would never have expected, and which made him feel as though he'd just swallowed a very heavy rock, which was now sitting in the pit of his stomach and weighing him down.

"I want to be your friend, Albus. I want to hang out with you."

"What? Why?" Albus stared at her in a mixture of confusion and shock, and he could've sworn he heard Scorpius make a high pitched squeaking noise. Then it hit him. He knew why Rose was doing this. "Who put you up to this?" He asked.

"What are you talking about? No one asked me to be your friend." Rose said, but the the lie was transparent, and Albus saw right through it. He simply raised an eyebrow, and Rose gave in. "Fine. It was both our mums, and Scorpius's dad. They wanted me to hang out with you two so i could keep an eye on you, make sure you don't get into any trouble."