AN: An absurdly fluffy Scorose meet-cute. Not going for realism here, I assure you. Enjoy!

xxxxx

"Would you please shut up?" Rose shouted, pressing her hands against her ears.

It was already seven o'clock at night, and she still wasn't finished with her essay. Normally she was pretty good at writing- essays were rarely a problem.

But on that day, her upstairs neighbor was playing music at a distractingly high volume. Rose had no idea who the neighbor was, although Lily and Dominique, who shared her apartment, had seen him once before and reported that he was extremely attractive. Rose didn't particularly care. He could be a Michelangelo statue brought to life, and it wouldn't excuse the absurd volume of his music.

Rose twisted the end of her fishtail braid and stared at the computer screen, willing words to appear there. In the apartment above hers, the music faded away.

Thank God, she thought. Finally.

Then the next song started.

Rose slammed her laptop shut, probably harder than she should have, and got to her feet. "That's it," she said.

"That's what?" said Dominique, who was lying on the couch, reading a magazine.

"Operation Murder the Upstairs Neighbor has begun," said Rose, stepping into her flip-flops.

"Rose, what did I tell you about murdering our neighbors?" said Lily, emerging from her bedroom.

"He's been blasting music for the past two hours, and this paper is due at midnight," said Rose, opening the apartment door. "I'll be back in ten."

"Have fun with Hot Neighbor!" Lily called after her, accompanied by Dominique's whistles.

Rose slammed the door shut behind her. "My cousins are the most irritating people on the planet," she muttered. Deciding to take the stairs instead of the creaky old elevator, she hurried up to the third landing, the music getting louder and louder as she grew closer to door number five.

With hesitating, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door.

There was no response, save for the sound of Katy Perry singing at an absurdly high volume. Rose knocked again, louder this time, and then waited for a minute.

Nothing.

The music must be too loud, she thought. She thought about kicking the door, decided she didn't want to break her toes, and tried the door handle.

To her surprise, the door swung open.

The apartment beyond had the same layout as her own, but that was the only similarity. While Lily, Dominique, and Rose kept their apartment brightly lit and tidy, the room beyond the door was dark and messy. Heavy blankets hung over the windows, and the floor was covered in stacks of books and what appeared to be a box of donuts.

Strangest of all, lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, was a boy of around nineteen, Rose's own age. His head was just a few inches away from the CD player, which was probably doing serious damage to his ears.

"Hello!" said Rose loudly. "Would you mind?"

The boy sat bolt upright, something like hope flickering across his face, only to be replaced by complete confusion. Somewhat belatedly, Rose realized that barging into a stranger's apartment probably wasn't the best idea she'd ever had. Oh, well.

"Would you please turn that down?" she said.

The boy stared at her for a second, then turned and pressed the power button on the CD player. The music came to an abrupt stop. Silence, blessed silence, thought Rose.

"Do I know you?" said the boy, not making any move to get up off the floor. Rose couldn't help but feel somewhat awkward standing over him, but she plowed on.

"No, you don't know me," she said, "but I am starting to get unreasonably acquainted with your CD collection."

The boy blinked. "What?"

"Your music," said Rose, rolling her eyes. "You may not have noticed this, but it's loud. Very loud. Also, it kind of sucks. And I honestly wouldn't mind, but I live in the apartment below yours and I have this essay about Aristotle due at midnight, so would you mind keeping it down for the next four and a half hours?"

He blinked. "Oh," he said. "Oh god, I'm really sorry." He ran his fingers through his blond hair. "I guess I just didn't notice. It's been kind of a crappy day."

Rose noticed for the first time that his clothes were wrinkled and his eyes red-rimmed. Other than that, however, Domi and Lily hadn't been lying: with his blond hair and gray eyes, he certainly wasn't hard to look at.

But he really did look miserable.

"Um," she said, feeling even more awkward than before. "Are you sure… I mean, are you okay?"

He bit his lip. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, I guess. I don't know." He sighed. "Not really. I just found out that my girlfriend's been cheating on me for the past five months."

"Ah," said Rose. "Hence the whole lying-on-the-floor-in-misery thing." She was familiar with the routine, mostly because of Dominique

"Yeah," he said. She thought he might have smiled, just a little bit. "It's her music, actually. Stupid of me to listen to it."

"A little bit, yeah," said Rose. "But if it makes you feel any better, your girlfriend has really terrible taste in music."

"Ex-girlfriend," he said, but he definitely smiled this time. "I should probably throw out the CDs. And the pictures, come to think of it."

"Probably," said Rose.

"Hey," he said. "You said you're writing an essay on Aristotle, right?"

She nodded.

He got to his feet and headed across the room. "Hang on just a second," he said, rummaging through one of his many stacks of books. Rose stood and waited.

"Here," he said, a minute later, handing her a slim volume. "This might help."

"Thank you," she said. She found herself smiling at him.

He smiled back. "No problem. I'll keep the music down."

"Thanks," she said. "Sorry for barging in on you."

"No problem," he said.

"Although you probably shouldn't leave your door unlocked like that," she said, raising her eyebrows. "Someone might rob you."

"Probably true," he said. "I was just hoping she would… I don't know, come back and apologize, or something." He ran his fingers through his hair again.

Rose shook her head. "If someone cheats on you for five months, even the best apology doesn't mean anything. That's inexcusable. If it was once, maybe, but five months? No way."

"You give pretty good advice, Neighbor Girl," he said.

Something in her chest fluttered and took flight.

"Rose," she said. "I'm Rose."

"Scorpius," he said. They shook hands. Rose felt a blush rise to her cheeks as his fingers tightened against hers.

"Well," she said, when he withdrew his hand. "It was nice to meet you, Scorpius."

"You too, Rose."

"I should probably go," she said, gesturing at the door. "You know, essay to write and all."

Scorpius nodded. "Good luck with that."

"Thank you," she said. "Well, I'll… see you around, I guess."

He nodded again. "Hopefully." He smiled, blushing a little bit, and the fluttery feeling intensified.

Feeling somewhat reluctant, she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "Bye!" The door swung shut behind her.

Releasing a quiet breath of air, she headed for the staircase. Dominique and Lily are going to have a field day with this, she thought, but her mind was mostly on other things: Scorpius's smile and messy hair and the way his voice had sounded when he'd said her name.

Distantly, she heard the sound of clattering footsteps, and then a voice said "Rose!"

She stopped and turned to see Scorpius standing at the top of the stairs, clothes and hair rumpled, messy and utterly endearing.

"Yes?" she said, looking up at him.

"It was really nice to meet you," he said, grinning. And with that, he turned and vanished.

Rose shook her head and hurried back down the stairs, book tucked under her arm, still smiling.

He was, without a doubt, going to be a very annoying neighbor… just not in the way she'd first expected.