Folie à Deux

Chapter 12: Don't You Put Me On The Backburner

Chapter 12: On A Steel Horse I Ride or, Don't You Put Me On The Backburner

Rating: M mainly for language, and I can't discount any funny business later on

Disclaimer: I work with only what the infallible J.K. Rowling has given me.

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Hogwarts awoke to find itself victim to a typical January morning; crisp, snowing, and too fucking cold.

Scorpius stamped his feet as he and Toby entered the Entrance Hall, watching as his breath puffed up in a little cloud in front of him. The sound of voices to his right caught his attention, and he angled his head towards the Great Hall, watching as the few students who had remained at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays talked over their lunch.

"Think I'll head down before the surge," Toby said, clapping his hand on Scorpius' shoulder. "I'll come up in a bit."

Scorpius nodded and set off for the stairs, and from behind him he could hear more students as they departed their carriages. He walked up the six floors in record time, anxious to get to his room.

As he turned into the corridor leading to his dormitory, he heard the familiar twanging of an old guitar, the murmurings of a song. He was startled when he realised he had missed the sound, but still he kept his face impassive as he came face to face with the portrait that stood in front of his room's entrance.

"Howdy, tenderfoot."

Scorpius inclined his head, his lips lifting up into not quite a smile, but not quite not a smile either. "Happy New Year, Mr. Wyatt."

"John, if you'd be so kind. Good Christmas?"

Scorpius nodded. "The usual. Glad to be back."

John scrutinised Scorpius closely, scratching the back of his head. "Your hair looks a mite different."

"I had it cut."

"Ah." John sat back on his bench, resting his guitar on his knee. "I suppose you'll be wantin' to go in then?"

"That would be my preference. Leo Anguis," Scorpius said, and then, as if by afterthought, asked, "Is my roommate back yet?"

The cowboy grinned at him. "Sure. She got back just a few minutes 'fore you did, brought a right pretty girl back with her."

Not Conrad, then, Scorpius thought immediately, and then stifled a groan. That stupid Hufflepuff hadn't even been on his radar until a few weeks ago.

The door swung open, and Scorpius walked in. Rose's door was slightly ajar, as it usually was when she wasn't in, but he could hear her voice from inside, and Genevieve was with her. He paused. He could knock, maybe, open the door just a tad, say "Hello" and perhaps "Good Christmas?" like John had asked him, and like a roommate might do, but his hand wouldn't leave his side. Anyway, she wasn't alone in there, so maybe it wasn't a good idea.

He felt like a class idiot as he hovered outside her door, and he heard her friend's laughing voice as she joked, "So, have you seen him yet? Has he recovered from your charms?"

There was a dull thud as a book made contact with a person, and Gen yelped.

"Oh, leave it."

Scorpius stiffened, and suddenly the memory of Rose's hands cupping Conrad's face as she kissed him replayed in his mind, and despite the fact that the image felt as if it had been burned into his brain, it looked slightly different - though no less nauseating - each time he remembered it, until he couldn't be sure what it had looked like at all.