Rose and Sebastian's Baby-Crush

[Rose Weasley]

November, 2018

Rose was sat in the library. To be precise, she was sat very upright in the library, looking almost - not quite, but almost - extremely prim. If it hadn't been for the smudge of mud down one cheek, and the falling-down-knee-socks, she'd have made it.

She was perched on a chair behind a huge pile of books, the size of which only served to make her appear smaller in comparison. Luckily, or unluckily, dependent on your point of view, her bright orange hair made her easy to spot at all times, whether that be across the crowded courtyard, or from the other side of the library.

With a satisfied expression, she very firmly crossed the last 't' of her essay and full-stopped it. Done. Leaning back slightly, she surveyed her work proudly. Professor Binns had asked for twelve inches of parchment upon a goblin rebellion of their choice: she had written twenty inches, including a comparitive section between goblin uprisings and the revolts of the centaurs, a link she was especially pleased with.

[Sebastian Nott]

Seb ambled into the library with a carefully arranged expression of pure innocence on his face. People in the know would immediately come to the conclusion that he had caused trouble recently or was planning to cause trouble soon. The expression of innocence, however, was one Seb had taken to wearing whenever in the presence of an adult, another example of his shocking brown-nosing, and seeing as the librarian was an adult, he'd have to be ready in case she caught sight of him. She'd have to come to the conclusion that he was a completely harmless twelve-year-old with no devious thoughts to ever, ever cross his mind.

He was distracted, however, by a red-head who sat behind a ridiculously large pile of books, a smear of mud on her cheek. Seb looked around for something reflective, found nothing, and made do with simply scuffing his hair as he often did before doing something important. He knew the girl, of course; Rose Weasley, Chloe's friend, quite nice (for one of Chloe's friends) - smart as well, which he didn't approve of very much. How was he supposed to be the smartest pupil in the class if other people got in the way of his title? Despite this offense, he still quite liked her. He always made a point to talk to her when Chloe wasn't around, at least...

Sauntering over to Rose and dropping onto the seat beside her, he squinted at the parchment on the desk. "Oh? Binns' essay? Have you only just finished?" there was more than a touch of gloating in his voice. "I finished ages ago. You have dirt on your cheek, by the way," corners of his mouth twitching, he reached forward to brush it off with the cuff of his sleeve, before realising that it was mud. What was he doing? "Sorry, can't brush it off myself," he said, not sounding in the least apologetic as he retracted his arm.

[Rose Weasley]

Rose regarded him crossly, his slight on her work ethic irritating her immediately. It wasn't that she didn't like Seb - in a funny sort of way, she supposed she did. He was just... vain. Very vain. And fairly intelligent too. More intelligent than Chloe, who she did like, a lot. But, she mentally conceded, he could be mildly entertaining, sometimes.

"Sebastian," she acknowledged his presence, reaching up to wipe the dirt off of her face but missing it completely. "You may have finished ages ago, but that just goes to show that yours is rushed, and not very good," she pointed out, scathingly, more than a little of her mother's tone showing through her words, as she smoothed out her parchment. "Whereas mine is over the length Professor Binns requested, and of a very high quality." She folded it up quickly, putting it in her bag before he could try to copy it - her dad had warned her people might to that, well, he'd said that he used to do it all the time, which was as good as a warning, really.

"Why are you here?"

[Sebastian Nott]

"No, no, you missed -" Seb sniggered, leaning in and deciding to risk the cuff of his shirt sleeve by wiping off the mud with it, somewhat clumsily but as gently as he could manage. "Ew," he wrinkled up his nose at the mud on his sleeve, wiping it off on one of the books in front of Rose. It wasn't that Seb liked staying pristine all the time, or anything, but he didn't care for having dirt on his clothes.

"Oh, really?" Seb's eyebrows shot upwards, an expression one of amusement and slight irritation mingled. "I'll have you know that mine is amazing. And I could do better than you in any lesson with my eyes closed." He made a grab for the essay to see just how good it could possibly be, but she was already packing it up into her bag. "Oh, over the set length? Mine's twenty inches," he shrugged in what would be a casual fashion had it not been for the immense look of pride on his features. "You know, whatever. It's easy when you're as smart as me."

Seb cocked his head to one side, seeming to be stifling laughter. "Because I always have such a good time with you, Rose."

[Rose Weasley]

Rose lips pursed and her eyebrows rose to an almost comical extent, clearly horrified at Seb's disrespect for the book. Being raised by Hermione Weasley had obviously had a lasting affect on her moral outlook on life. "That's a book!" she hissed, blatantly scandalised and aiming a kick at him under the desk. Using her own sleeve - she wasn't so prissy as the boy sitting opposite her - she carefully wiped its cover, before silently moving all literature out of the Nott boy's way.

"You could beat me in any lesson with your eyes closed?" she repeated disbelievingly, smiling sweetly as she added, "So why don't you? How many marks did I beat you by in Professor Powell's last test again? Was it five? No, my mistake- seven, I believe."

"So's mine," she retorted, smugly. "And my handwriting is smaller than yours." She frowned as he seemed to be laughing at her - sometimes, she just did not understand boys. Other than Hugo, and Dad of course. They were okay, most of the time - "Really?" her tone was scathing, but a little unsure. Only the tiniest bit, but the insecurity was there.

[Sebastian Nott]

Seb, clearly delighted by her horror, widened his own eyes and rocked back in mock-astonishment. "No way!" He gasped, echoing her tone. "I would never have - oh, that's right, Weasley, move it all away," he broke off from his making fun of her, his tone turning slightly sour as he wrinkled up his nose. "And you've got dirt all over your sleeve, now," he added, mentally adding to her list of offences. Why was he sitting with her, again? The only thing he could really conjure up was that she was a bit more challenging than most girls. That was it. She could stick up for herself, even if she was a bit - well. Prim. But he supposed he was, too. Only about his clothing, though. And she was quite good-looking, he noted.

Seb's expression immediately turned sulky. "I wasn't really trying with that one. Just you wait," he added, loftily, settling back into his chair. "Bet I'll beat you by twenty points this time. Then you won't have an excuse to be so high-and-mighty anymore." He nodded righteously. "That's what you are. And you're prim. And you're good," he said the word as though it was filthy. "At least I know how to have fun. I can have fun and be smart. It's a natural talent. I have loads of those," his tone was one which was especially designed to get people's backs up and he used it on everyone for a variety of reasons depending on the person. He used it on Scorpius and Albus in particular, but no-one was spared from his reign of terror, trying to get a rise from people.

"Mine has more panache. Mine has flare. Yours sucks." Seb said dismissively. He almost laughed at her question. He'd been aiming for sounding sarcastic but she'd appeared to have missed it, and he was preparing to snigger and then taunt her for the element of insecurity in her voice when he was suddenly brought up short. He didn't want to make her feel bad. Not really. It was uncomfortable to think about, hurting Rose's feelings, and he couldn't quite bring himself to be as scathing as she always was to him. And so he swallowed the words he'd been meaning to say and managed, an amused expression on his face, "Yeah. Of course. I totally love..." he hesitated, barely concealing his amusement, and finally finished, "...I love spending time with you. Absolutely." It was a weak finish, but it was the best he could come up with, and so he shot her a winning smile, hoping to blind her with his sheer charmingness.

[Rose Weasley]

Sorry I've taken so, so long to get to this!
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"Honestly, Nott," Rose sounded uncannily like a young version of her mother, not that Sebastian would know that of course, but still. "It's dirt, it won't physically hurt you." She paused as a thought occurred to her, and then looked gravely sympathetic, "You don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, do you? It would explain a lot." Potential mental illness or not, Sebastian Not was a pra- twit. Why on earth was he pestering her of all people? It was only by some hitherto unexperienced miracle that for once in her short life Rose Weasley was not blushing.

She grinned as his expression contorted into something bordering on a grimace. "Yes you were," she shot back gleefully, "Chloe told me that you told her that you couldn't go and practise flying when they had the extra practise session because you were too busy revising for that test. So there. You should have gone and practised anyway - that way you might have been good at one thing at least." As Rose's cousin and - before she came to Hogwarts at least - closest friend was James Potter, Seb's attempt at a supercilious tone fell somewhat short of its intended mark, and she merely regarded him once more as if he were a particularly interesting insect. "Maybe, but one day I'll be Prefect. And after that, I want to be Head Girl," she pronounced, outwardly unfussed by his dismissal of her as boring and plain, although that miniscule dart of self-doubt shot lightning quick through her insides once more.

"By 'panache' and 'flare', do you actually mean 'spelling mistakes' and 'poor grammer'?" Rose looked concerned at Sebastian's apparent lack of intelligence, something only compounded when he attempted a charming grin - in all honesty, he just looked a little bit queasy. "Ri-ight," she tapped her fingers on the table, shrugging off her earlier doubts - she was a Weasley, and her Dad said that that was a good thing, whatever people (Sebastian) said - "Well, who wouldn't, I suppose."

[Sebastian Nott]

ooc. i realise that this is ages since your last reply but i just had quite a lot of baby!seb muse and i really love baby seb and rose so i felt like replying because i had nowhere to put my baby!seb muse - and i also rather felt like looking at rose's graphics because karen gillan asdfghjkl. you needn't feel obliged to reply anyways but yes
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"It's dirt," Seb said, clearly scandalised that this Rose Weasley was even suggesting that there was anything remotely not horrific about dirt. As a rule, Seb did not get dirty, especially not on his clothes, which were a point of pride for him as they were all terribly expensive and tailored to fit him perfectly. As for getting dirt in his hair - well, Seb could barely think of that without shuddering. He liked to have the immaculate, glowing appearance of an angelic youth rather than a dirty lout, thank you very much. "What?" Seb blinked at the girl, mouth slightly agape. "Are you making up words? Stop that," he said reprovingly.

"No, you've got it wrong," Seb said airily, despite the fact that what Chloe had told Rose was entirely true (he made a mental note to convince Chloe only to tell him things about Rose that couldn't be used as blackmail and yet also showed him in the best light), leaning back even further in his chair and bringing his shoulders up into a lazy shrug, appearing rather strikingly laid-back, and bordering on insolent, a blatant contrast to his previous prissiness in regards to dirt. "I didn't even bother revising for the test. I just skipped the extra practice because I have better things to do with my time, that's all," he lied easily, always being one who lied rather naturally, having years of practice at it. "And I'm good at everything," he tacked on quickly - this part was not on a lie, at least not in Seb's opinion. He was in the firm opinion that he was good at absolutely everything. Producing a small bag of Jelly Slugs from his pocket, he plopped them down on the table and pulled a jelly from the bag. "Sounds sort of boring," Seb said, biting viciously down on the Jelly Slug. "Well, I'm going to be Minister of Magic someday," he told her through the mouthful of jelly, before swallowing and adding, thoughtfully, "And I'm going to shag most of the girls in Hogwarts. Well," he relented, "The good-looking ones, at least."

Seb puffed up considerably at her jibe at his spelling and grammar. "My spelling and grammar are amazing," he informed her importantly, hair automatically jumping to his hair and fixing it subconsciously, something he often did when someone pointed out a fault and something that made him look even more vain and cocky than he already did. "Honestly, I think I'm half of the reason most of the Professors get up in the morning," he told her, eyes widening sincerely, pushing the fact that he had spent most of the first class that morning winding the Professor up to the back of his mind and the fact that he had spent most of the second class trying to chat Dominique Weasley up to no avail (she pulled his hair and received detention) to the back of his mind. "Oh, I can think of quite a lot of people," Seb said conversationally, still in the process of fixing his hair (he liked it to look perfectly disheveled - messy, but styled that way) and not taking into account Rose's feelings whatsoever, "I mean, after all, you're in the library during free-time. And you have dirt on your sleeve," Seb added the last sentence all in one breath, refusing to let go this latest offence.

[Rose Weasley]

"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," Rose repeated for the hard-of-understanding. "It's a medical condition, I read about it." She snapped her History of Magic textbook shut, and pulled it towards her as she recited primly, "Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions. Friedrich Eisenhoff's Compendium of Common Mental Ailments and Their Magical Roots, page 142. A common symptom is obsessive cleanliness."

"I have not got it wrong, Sebastian," she informed said boy, snippily, unconvinced by his lie, although she was slightly unnerved by the drastic change in demeanour he had wrought upon himself in a matter of seconds. It was almost enough to make her want to reach over and smear dust down one of his cheeks, purely in the interest of scientific discovery, of course. "You did so revise, and I still beat you. And I'm still a better flier than you, so whilst you think that may be 'good' at everything, in reality, I'd deem you more to be 'passable'. At best." She actually considered Sebastian Nott to be at least a worthy opponent to her ambition to be top of every class and so on, but she'd never tell him that. Not even if - stranger things had happened- they ended up being proper friends or something.

Rose's lips pursed, and she removed a piece of parchment that was covered in her neat, rounded handwriting from underneath Seb's sweets, stowing it safely in her bag. Although in principle she disapproved of food in the library, she did really like Jelly Slugs, and she did want to prove to Sebastian that she wasn't completely sissy... She reached out and, uninvited, helped herself to a red one. Take that, Nott. "That's disgusting, you'll get a disease," she informed him, regarding his latter ambition. The former she decided was so outrageous as to be ignored for now. "Besides, no girl is even going to want to kiss you. Ever. Especially not the good-looking ones." She kind of wanted to know who he'd deem to be good looking. She wasn't vain enough to assume it would be her - red-headed, spikily mannered and freckled, Rose was under no illusions about her attractiveness to the opposite sex - but she did wonder if it would be Dominique, or perhaps Roxanne. She hoped not, she liked her cousins.

"They get up in the morning to tell you off for being atrocious before breakfast-time," Rose shot back without missing a beat, "Not because they like you." She stopped talking, and looked at him with her head on one side for a moment, "Your hair still looks terrible. There's a bit sticking up at the back." She screwed the lid onto her ink pot, rolling her eyes wearily in Seb's direction. "Well no-one's making you stay here, I shan't object if you leave, don't worry. I like to make sure my homework is done on time and to the best of my ability, and I like working when the library's quite. That shows dedication to my studies. And, for the last time, a bit of dirt won't hurt you. I promise."

[Sebastian Nott]

Seb continued to survey Rose Weasley with his mouth half-open as she insisted on lecturing him about Something-Or-Other Disorder, sounding very much like a rather stern Professor. Once she appeared to have finished with her mini-lecture, Seb snapped his mouth shut for half-a-second before opening it again and informing her matter-of-factly, "I didn't listen to that, but I assure you that I don't have it." More for lack of anything to do than really wanting it, Seb reached out and snatched the History of Magic textbook from under Rose Weasley's nose, holding it aloft and flicking through the pages with a snooty expression gracing his face. "I know all of this," he announced as he flicked, far too quickly to read anything, "Read this book back in first year," he, like she had only moments previously, snapped the book shut, but instead of returning it to its owner, he dangled it from the hand furthest from Rose and, surveying her and looking half-interested, said, "So what electives are you taking next year, then?"

Seb, sensing the snippy-ness in Rose's tone and demeanour, came to the conclusion that the only manner in which he could possibly get himself out of a conversation with Rose Weasley without feeling wrong-footed was if he wound her up. And so he arranged his face into a rather mocking expression, raising his voice into an uncanny impression of Rose and saying, "Oooh-ooh. I haven't got it wrong, because I am Rose Cornelia Hermione Ronald Weasley the fourth and I can't be wrong at anything -" (He had made up her middle names - he copied her parents' names and 'Cornelia' was just something Seb had thrown in, a personal touch of sorts.) " - Really, Rose, you're inspirational," Seb said, sounding truly sincere, blue eyes widening meaningfully (he hoped that across the library, a girl was swooning). "Sitting in class all solemn, studying in the library - never a toe out of line. Inspirational," he patted her hand (her skin was quite soft, actually, he noted, before becoming alarmed by this and cancelling it out of his mind) in a feigned show of kindness. "And I'd like to add," Seb said, with much dignity, "That if I put my mind to it, I could beat you at anything, Rose Weasley," he leaned in closer to her, nodding righteously.

Seb noted Rose's lips pursing and her tweaking of the parchment from under his bag of Jelly Slugs, which was why, perhaps, he did not see her blatantly stealing a Jelly Slug right under his nose coming. "Really, Weasley?" Seb said, arching his eyebrows. "And reds are my favourites..." he looked slightly cross before flicking his gaze up to her, pouting. "Don't you know how to say 'please'?" He demanded, before grinning widely. "Hang on, you're not supposed to be eating in the library! Do I detect the future Head Girl breaking rules?" His eyes glittered, before he said suddenly, banging on the table with his fist in order to signal that he had an idea, "So you can be Head Girl, then, and make sure I never get detention again? Excellent. I see the beginning, Rose," Seb said solemnly, pushing the Jelly Slugs towards her, "Of a very good friendship. And good-looking ones already have kissed me, thanks very much," Seb said smugly, leaning back in his chair once again, draping his arm over the back of the chair and inspecting his nails, the picture of casual. "You can't blame them, of course. I mean, I am gorgeous."

Seb, being the mature sort, stuck his tongue out at Rose, nose screwing up ever so slightly. "Sod off. I'm an angel in the mornings. Well," he said, brought up short when he remembered that Tuesday morning last week when he'd gotten in terrible trouble for something or other, and the Friday morning before that when he'd caused a ruckus of some sort at the Gryffindor table (Gryffindors sort of asked for it, though, didn't they? It was the red and gold, he had decided - they were so much less elegant than the green and silver and he couldn't help but cause trouble at a table with the colours red and gold) but he stuck to his guns, deciding that he would just have to hope that Rose Weasley couldn't remember either of those times. Or previous times when he had caused trouble prior to breakfast (but none of those had been truly his fault, of course). "Whatever. The Professors adore me." He nodded importantly. When Rose insulted his hair, however, he automatically went to fix it, eyes widening in sudden terror, eyes flicking about wildly for something reflective. Seeing as there was nothing reflective in the library (stupid places, libraries) Seb simply had to make do with patting it and re-styling it (messily) before he frowned at Rose, saying, "It can't look stupid. I washed it this morning. And last night. New shampoo and everything," Rose Weasley, Seb decided, was a bit barmy. But he wasn't going to leave her; no, he decided that he'd stick around. And so he rested his head on his crossed arms, and responded, "I'll stick around and watch you. Get inspired. You're fabulous, Rose, really," Seb told her, sounding utterly heartfelt. "And I do enjoy our little chats..."