It All Happened in September

Chapter One

It started, I suppose, with a cherry. Funny how things start with something so mundane, so unimportant, and yet, from it, stems something so...essential. I remember the picnic quite well now, the picnic which led me to such an interesting encounter with a peculiar little boy.


September 2013: Rose is 6

The Weasley family and the Potter family were enjoying a picnic in the park. It was a regular arrangement; Hermione Weasley loved to spend a few warm September afternoons in the park with her friends and family (in fact, friends and family were practically the same thing these days). And so she and her husband would bring their children and meet up with Harry and Ginny Potter and their children, and the group would spend the afternoon spread out on the grass, chatting and enjoying themselves.

For a six year-old Rose Weasley, it was quite boring. Her brother Hugo, was kicking up a fuss as usual, refusing to eat his tomatoes, and his face was so red that it was beginning to resemble the fruit he didn't want to eat. Her little cousin, Lily was trying to catch a butterfly, her pudgy hands never quite high enough to grab it, much to Rose's relief; she knew that if you caught a butterfly, it would die. Five year-old Albus was no fun; he just wanted to sit with his father and suck on his thumb. The only person who was ever any fun was her older cousin James, but he wasn't even there; he was spending the day with his grandmother.

So, in consequence, Rose Weasley was very, very, bored.

The grown-ups were chatting away, talking about stuff that only grown-ups do, and Rose gave up trying to understand. In the end she tugged her mum's sleeve.

"Mummy?"

Hermione looked down at her daughter and patted her curls. "What is it, Rosie?"

Rose pointed over to the playground down the hill. "Can I go and play?"

Her mum looked at her dad and he grinned. "Course you can, Rosie. Why don't you take Al?" he suggested.

Rosie crinkled her eyebrows. She didn't want to take Albus, he was too boring. Luckily, Albus made that decision for her; he snuggled closer to his dad and shook his head. Rose's Uncle Harry laughed. "Albus might come along later, Rosie."

Rose looked back at her mum. "Mummy?" she asked again, and her mum smiled at her.

"Off you go," she said. "But be careful!"

Rose made to get up and run off, before she turned back. What if she got hungry while she was playing? She scanned the picnic carpet. There were sausage rolls, pumpkin pasties, sandwiches, and all sorts of other foods. Making a decision, Rose grabbed a handful of cherries before scampering off towards the playground.


Rose sat in the sand pit, her diminishing pile of cherries on the ledge next to her. On the other side she carefully lined up the stones from the fruit so they were all touching in a nice, straight line. Just as she was placing another stone in the line, they were all scattered by a blur of a child jumping into the sand pit, spraying grains of sand all over the place.

"Hey!" Rose shouted, indignantly. "Look what you did!"

The offender turned around to look down at her. He was a small boy, with quite pointy features and a mess of white-blonde hair on his head, in complete disarray, bits of it falling into his cold blue eyes, which seemed very grown up for such a young boy. He frowned at Rose.

"What were you doing?" he asked, not unkindly.

Rose opened her mouth to answer, and said, "I can't eat the stones or a cherry tree will grow in my tummy." Then suddenly she snapped her mouth shut again. She mumbled, "Mummy says don't talk to strangers."

The boy sat in the sand and faced her. "I'm Scorpius. Now I'm your friend, not a stranger," he grinned.

Rose crinkled her brow. "Scorpius?" she said slowly, running the name off her lips. "That's a silly name."

Scorpius scowled. "No, it isn't!" he said. "My daddy says my name is a group of stars. Do you know what a star is?"

"Of course I do!" Rose protested. "I am six years old, and I can read. I read about stars once."

"Well, I'm named after them." Scorpius said firmly. "Bet your name isn't stars."

Rose shook her head. "My name is a flower. Rose. Do you want a cherry?" she asked abruptly, holding out the one in her hand.

"But your dirty fingers have touched it!" Scorpius exclaimed. "My daddy says you shouldn't touch food with your hands."

"My hands aren't dirty!" Rose said and held up her palm. Then she licked it. "See?" she said, holding her hand out. "Clean enough to eat."

Scorpius leant back from her outstretched hand. "Yuck!" he said, and Rose stuck her tongue out at him, withdrawing her palm. Scorpius reached forward and grabbed a cherry from beside her instead. He raised it to his lips.

"Careful of the stone," Rose warned. "You don't want a tree in your belly."

Scorpius laughed. "That's not true!" he giggled.

"It is! My mummy said so! And she's really clever," Rose replied huffily. Then she looked from Scorpius to the cherry. "I dare you to eat the stone, then," she said with a smile. "Then we'll see if a tree grows!"

Scorpius examined the fruit closely, thinking it over. Then he grinned at Rose.

"I'll do something better!" he announced. He leaned closer. "D'you want to know a secret?" he whispered.

"What?" Rose whispered back.

Scorpius waited for a second, for effect, then he said grandly, "I can do magic! Wanna see?"

Rose looked at him, unimpressed. "My whole family can do magic, and so can I," she told him, and Scorpius' eyes grew wide.

"Really?" he said. "So can mine! Wanna see my magic?"

And without waiting for an answer, he placed the cherry in the palm of his hand, and screwed his face up tight, looking intently at the cherry. Slowly but surely, the fruit began to rise out of his hand, just by a few centimetres, before Scorpius exhaled in a gust of air and the cherry dropped.

"Ta-da!" he said in a singsong voice.

Rose gasped. "You're not supposed to do magic outside!" she admonished. "People...y'know, Muggles, they might see! Mummy says you have to wait til you get to Hogwarts to do magic."

"You know about Hogwarts too?" Scorpius beamed. "My mummy and daddy went to Hogwarts."

"Everyone in my family went to Hogwarts," Rose told him. "Except my Aunty Flower, she went to Hogwarts in France."

"What's France?" Scorpius frowned, his blonde hair falling further into his eyes.

"It's another country!" Rose said with a grin. "You have to swim across the sea to get there."

"I can't swim," Scorpius said.

"You have to learn! There's a lake at Hogwarts."

"Can you teach me? When we're at Hogwarts?" Scorpius asked excitedly.

"Yes! We'll be best friends when we go to Hogwarts." Rose said with a huge smile.

Scorpius paused before asking, "Can we be best friends now? I don't have a best friend."

Rose thought for a moment, her head tilted on one side so that her strawberry-blonde curls fell over her face a little. Then she nodded. "Okay," she said.

From behind them, Hermione appeared in the distance. "Rosie! Rose! Time to go, sweetheart!" she called.

Rose looked around. Hermione stood at the top of the hill, and was waving Rose over to her. The little girl stood up and brushed the sand off her dress. "Bye, Scorpius!" She said, and ran off, leaving a sand-covered Scorpius and a pile of cherry stones behind her.


I didn't see Scorpius again after that for a long time. Four years is a long time for a little girl. A lot of children that age don't remember something or someone from four hours ago. So when I saw Scorpius on the platform on my first day at Hogwarts, I didn't remember him as the little boy who was so excited to show me magic one day in the sand pit. He was just another unknown face in the crowd at the time.

But I have a feeling he remembered me. Eventually.


A/N: So, I got through to Round Two of the "Writing Your Butt Off and Typing Until Your Fingers Bleed" Challenge, and yeah, my fingers are actually so sore and blistered from writing this story!

If you are interested in what the challenge was for this round, here it is:

"ROUND TWO, involves writing a gritty, romantic, fluffy, love-filled, 3 chaptered story.

Ch. 1- Must involve how they met.

Ch.2 Must include one milestone they overcame together.

Ch.3 is entirely up to the reader's gritty, or fluffy imagination.

Guidelines- they story can border M, but I'd like to keep it T...er, plus lol.

No cussing, please.

Longer than 500 words chapter, but less than 2,000 is a good range.

You must use the word- cherry the song-i was made for loving you, by KISS, and the prompt-brushing hair"

Every week you have to post the next chapter, so you'll see Chapter two sometime next week.

Oh, if you think you would like to do the challenge yourself, the forum is still open, and you can join at any time, just head over to HPFC :)


PLEASE REVIEW! XOXOX