I don't even know if it'll matter, but just in case: Victoire, Dominique, James and Fred have already finished Hogwarts, and they were all Gryffindors (James and Fred have just finished it); Molly and Louis are Ravenclaws and Roxanne is Gryffindor and they're all on their seventh year; Rose is also Gryffindor and Scorpius and Albus are Slytherins, all sixth year; Lucy is the lovely fifth year Hufflepuff; and Lily and Hugo are both fourth year Gryffindors. Oh, Lorcan and Lysander are fifth year Ravenclaws, and Alice Longbottom is a sixth year Hufflepuff.

Hope you like it! :D

ps: cover art by julvett from deviantart.

one: and that was when I kissed her.

Rose Weasley couldn't remember one single, teeny-tiny moment of her seventeen years in this world in which her monstrous family hasn't been meddling in her life. Most of the time, she didn't mind. She would roll her eyes to Dominique and Roxanne's boy advices and Lily daydreaming about wedding gowns every time Rose went out with a new guy; and she sure would hex James and Fred arses when they decided to have "the talk" (they actually used quotation marks to say that) with her boyfriends. She probably could do without Molly constantly remembering her that she should follow her mother's study schedule for that year because the NEWTs were the most important exams - scratch that, they were the most important thing of the world, and it didn't matter that she was still on her sixth year. She wouldn't mind if Hugo stopped bothering her discussing her performance in every single Quidditch game she had played in her life, including those they had at the back of the Burrow when they were children.

So yeah, they were kind of annoying, and she probably would like to have some time to herself once in awhile, but they were family and really, she wouldn't want it any other way. Except in the crazy possibility of her stupid best friend deciding to just kiss her in the middle of a corridor full of students, including two of her relatives (seriously, couldn't they finish school already?). Louis and Albus gaped at her for a whole five minutes (more like thirty seconds, really) as if Rose was the one who had just gone nuts and kissed Scorpius. But she guessed they had to gape at her since the person who deserved all the gaping had decide to kiss her, then rub his neck awkwardly and walk away.

In this absurd scenario, Rose would rather that her family did not meddle.

Yeah, right.

An hour later about every family member she had in Hogwarts had found her to talk about "the incident" - as in Roxanne shouting, down there from the Great Hall's doors, dinner in full motion and basically the whole school watching, "Rose, come here and tell me everything about the incident." Sure, let's be secretive about the thing you just screamed for the entirety of the United Kingdom to hear. Not that it was really some kind of secret anymore, since about twenty people had seen it first hand and Lily had already described the scene to anyone else who wanted to know (nevermind she wasn't even there when it'd happened). She kept bragging that she totally knew it and calling dibs on being maid of honour.

Louis had gone from gaping, to staring wide-eyed and then to smiling apologetically every time he'd run into Rose after the incident. Hugo had gone from saying 'what' repeatedly, to saying 'no way' repeatedly, to stalk her down and laugh at her face while remembering how dad would love to hear about what had happened, also repeatedly. Molly hadn't seemed to really care about it, but she had started to be even more annoying about studying and to say things like "you can't let frivolous things get in the way of your success, Rose, focus!". Lucy had just wished her luck; Hufflepuffs were too nice for their own good.

The non-family that was considered family took some time to react, too. Lorcan was indignant, but Rose was sure that it was only because he had had a crush on Scorpius for like forever; he hadn't said anything though; when he had passed by her in the entrance hall, by the time she had been going to dinner, he had just made a face she knew meant he'd like to know everything about it later. Lysander seemed to be the one and only person of the castle who didn't know anything. He sat with her for dinner (sometimes he just sat in the first table he put his eyes on) and didn't even notice when Roxie did all the shouting. He had actually asked her what all the fuss was about and before she could answer, he said, "You know what? I bet there are some of those Wrackspurt in here and they're messing with people's brain. I should probably owl mum to tell her about it." Alice Longbottom had smiled at her in the one class they shared and then said she was really happy for them, later at dinner. Merlin, those Hufflepuffs!

At the end of the night, even uncle Neville had said, very awkwardly, that Scorpius was a good, nice guy. In fact, the only relative who hadn't talked to her about it was the one she actually wanted to talk to! Albus was the only person who might have an idea about what the hell had happened other than Scorpius himself, but both of them had disappeared the whole afternoon and didn't make it to dinner. So, of course, Rose was going insane, and leave it to Emily Boot to know what to do when she was in that state. Rose didn't want to talk about it in front of other people, so, like the good best friend she was, Emily hadn't said a thing the whole day - which, Rose had to admit, was a great achievement. She knew how much she must have wanted to say at least one teeny-tiny I told you so. Or shout it at the top of the Astronomy Tower, more like it.

But she didn't do anything until it was only the two of them, a bunch of house-elves and a lot of chocolate ice cream. And then she smiled the most pleased smile Rose had ever seen - and she'd grown with James.

The grunt left Rose's throat even before Emily had time to say, in the most annoying, satisfied tone, "Told ya." Good. One more person to laugh at the expense of her misery.

"Oh, come on, Rose! Don't act like you didn't like it!"

Rose's mouth opened, outraged. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Emily rolled her eyes and stared at her with a face that said she wasn't buying it. Okay, so Rose knew what that was supposed to mean. Since they've had a similar conversation about a million times before, it would be hard to believe she didn't have a clue on what Emily was suggesting. But she would evoke her friendship-earned right to respectfully pretend she didn't know something she actually didn't want to discuss. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Em."

Emily threw her hands in the air, scoffing. "So you're going to tell me Scorpius just kissed you, out of nowhere, and you didn't like it not even a bit?"

"Yes."

"And you were just talking, like every common day? Nothing different? Scorpius simply lost his mind and decided to kiss you and then run away?"

"Exactly."

"I don't buy it."

Rose raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing, deciding to shrug and eat a big spoon of ice cream instead. She couldn't really blame Emily for not believing her since she wasn't telling exactly the truth. Sure, Scorpius and her had been heading to lunch like any other day, with Albus and Louis just a few steps behind. And they had been talking about the most common subject ever: Quidditch.

He had said Slytherin would so smash Gryffindor down in the next game.

She had said they had as much a chance on doing that as Albus had a chance on finding a girlfriend.

Albus had "Oy!"'d them from back there and proceeded on being solemnly ignored.

Scorpius had said that while he agreed with the Albus part of her affirmation ("Shut it, you two!"), she was insane if she thought they had a chance against the current Hogwarts champion team.

Rose had said they had luck, that's all.

Scorpius had rolled his eyes and nudged her lightly in the arm, saying "Shut up, Weasley."

She had grinned at him and said, "Make me, Malfoy." Then he had leaned in and kissed her.

So she may or may not have been flirting a little bit, but Emily and her crazy ideas about Rose fancying Scorpius didn't have to know that; she was annoying enough as it was.

"What the bloody hell was that?"

Scorpius groaned loudly and took the pillow he was using as a shield from the world off of his face. He thought he would have at least a bit more than five minutes to suffer alone before Albus could find him. Not that he had made a great job on hiding, since he was on their dormitory - but still.

"Could you not be so loud, or british?" He put the pillow back on his face, the place where it would lie for the rest of Scorpius' time on Earth.

"I am british. And so are you," Albus snorted.

"Yeah, we had that established the last time you went all Ron Weasley on me."

"Well, talking about uncle Ron..."

He loved Albus, he really, really did - but sometimes Scorpius just wanted to punch him until he wasn't able to talk anymore. Right now he decided to ignore him, though. He was feeling too sorry for himself to act on it.

"Are you going to tell me why did you kiss her or not?"

"Not," he said, rolling on his stomach and away from Albus; even though he couldn't see him, Scorpius knew he was smiling diabolically and starting to think about the most inconvenient way to make him talk.

"Scorpius. Scorpius, why did you kiss her? Scorpius? Scorpius, tell me why. Why did you? Do you like her? Do you looove her? Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, why did-"

"Because I fancy her, genius!"

Oh. Well, he fought bravely for as long he could. Besides, Albus had had a Muggle girlfriend once that used to call him Annoying Orange. His own girlfriend thought he was unbearable. Scorpius have never understood the orange part (Albus was the only Potter kid who weren't ginger - James says it's because he couldn't pull it off), but the annoying bit? Most accurate.

"Duh." Again, Scorpius couldn't see it, but he knew Albus was rolling his eyes. He was starting to think they should spend some time apart from each other; that was getting creepy. "Everybody knows that. Even uncle Ron knows that. He actually asked me to keep an eye on you last Christmas after you spent about half an hour at the Burrow and couldn't stop staring at Rose, smiling like an idiot."

Scorpius turned around and raised an stunned eyebrow to that. Albus' mum had always talked about how her brother was the most oblivious person in the world and laughed about how much time he'd taken to realise he was in love with Rose's mother. "You're lying."

"Am not. James has a bet going on for like two years now. Everybody bet on when one of you would do something about it, who would do it first, where would you do it..."

"Okay, I get it."

"You actually lost me five galleons by not kissing her last summer when we went to that beach."

"Albus, I'm totally obvious, I get it." Even while he was saying it, Scorpius knew that it was useless to try to interrupt Albus when he turned his monologue mode on.

"But I guess it was my fault, really, I should've gone with the Gryffindor, after all, not the Slytherin chicken."

"Hey, I did kiss her!"

But that was when the Knut dropped and Scorpius realised Albus wasn't talking exclusively about him. The bet was about him and Rose. 'Who would do something first' implied that two would have to want to do something.

Now, even though that was Rose's favorite pet name for him, Scorpius wasn't stupid. The moment he'd realised he fancied her, he'd started to ask himself if she could fancy him back. And suddenly all their relationship and dynamics were analyzed and overanalyzed and there was a bit of obsession there, and sometimes he thought she might like him too (a lot of times, to be honest - he had the Malfoy arrogance, after all). But it was one thing to think by yourself that maybe you have a shot with the girl you fancy, and another entirely to know her own family seems to think that too. If it was just Albus he would be suspicious about it, but the whole Weasley-Potter clan? There were some bright minds there!

Albus was still on full mode, talking about chances and love and war and some bloke named Shakespeare (whatever he meant with all that), when Scorpius, smiling like an idiot (Albus had described that quite right), finally managed to interrupt him. "So you reckon she likes me?"

"And they say you're the smart one. Keep up, mate: everybody knows she likes you and you like her, so go do something about it because we're getting tired of waiting to see uncle Ron and your father's reaction to that. Oh, that will be good."

Scorpius chuckled, but threw a pillow at Albus just for good measure.

He had spent the rest of the day yesterday coming up with a plan of action. Scorpius knew Rose all too well to know she was freaking out about the kiss. She would freak out if he said he fancied her and she would freak out if he said it was all a huge mistake. Basically, she would freak out at everything he could possibly say or do right now, so Scorpius had decided to do nothing at all. He would walk into the Great Hall, sit beside Albus and eat his breakfast like every other morning. Like nothing had happened. And Rose could do whatever she liked about it.

As Albus had put it, to Scorpius distaste, it was the Chicken Plan. But well, she was the Gryffindor - she may as well play her role.

(It happened like that:

"Maybe nobody will even know about it," Scorpius said, pacing around the room.

Albus laughed, spread in his own bed. "Sure, mate. Because Hogwarts is known for its ability to maintain a secret, yeah?"

Scorpius sighed, then threw himself at his bed, then groaned. Of course he knew it was a very bad idea; he just didn't know what to do anymore. They were locked inside the dorm for about three hours and the best thing he had came up with involved a getaway to Spain.

"I don't know what to do. Merlin, this is the most humiliating moment of my life!"

The snort that came out of Albus' throat wasn't human. "Dude, that wasn't even your most humiliating moment of the month!" Then, laughing, he added, "The prank Roxanne pulled on you last week was certainly worse."

Scorpius wasn't ready to talk about it. He dismissed the topic with another groan.

"So, genius, why don't you tell me what I should do? Pretend nothing happened?"

Albus shrugged and said, "I don't know, it's at least better than running off to Spain. Do you even know how to speak Spanish? And no, knowing how to order drinks doesn't count." But Scorpius wasn't listening anymore. He was too busy contemplating his realization.

"I should pretend that nothing happened!"

Albus stopped the list of Spanish words he knew (el snitch de oro, cazadora, su madre es muy caliente - it turned out Ginny Potter had had a lot of Spanish fans when she had played for the Harpies) and stared at Scorpius for a minute before rolling his eyes.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"It's brilliant!"

"It's Rose."

"If I act like there's nothing going on, she will have to do something about it!"

"Yeah, like rip your head out."

"The next move is hers."

"She will freak out!"

"She will freak out anyway!"

"You're such a chicken, Malfoy."

Tell him something he doesn't know.)

Easier said than done, though, he found out. He was standing just outside the Great Hall for about ten minutes, thinking and rethinking about everything and channeling his best nonchalant air. But that was hard, what with all the talking going on. On the rather small trip from the dungeons to there, none less than thirteen students had commented on last afternoon events. Most of them had only smirked knowingly or nodded approvingly, but one guy had gone as far as to actually ask him if they were dating and if that meant Rose was off of the market. Scorpius had been so taken aback at that (he didn't even know that person!), he had only stared and blinked until the bloke went away. Then he had considered going after the git and hex him a little bit later.

He was starting to think that it was all a terrible idea and maybe he should just go back to his dorm and simply never leave again. That could work, right? Albus could bring him food and notes from all the classes, and it was a nice room, all green and silver - he could make a home out of it!

It was then, in the middle of all his mental ramblings, that Scorpius saw her red hair turning around the other corner. He knew it was her red hair because it was just so Rose. It wasn't as plain or bright as Lily's, or as curly and dark as Roxie's, but it wasn't that. Even if the whole school had the same hair type as her, he would have recognized that messy bun anywhere. Scorpius knew it never started the day like this; she usually came to breakfast with her hair down, but at some point it would annoy her too much - because her long fringe was always on her eyes, or her purse strap kept pulling on it, or Scorpius kept pulling on it, or it was too distracting tickling on her arms while she tried to study. And then she would just fasten it with the first thing she put her hands on. It could be her wand, or somebody else's wand, and once she even used a branch that was lying around in the courtyard. Scorpius was always teasing her for not conjuring something appropriate to do it, but she would just glare at him and tell him to shut up.

The fact that she was wearing a bun at that time in the morning, though, could only mean she was grumpy, and Scorpius, who was cowering even before noticing that, sure couldn't face a foul mood Rose Weasley. And right then and there he decided to go along with his plan and slipped inside the Great Hall before Rose could spot him, hurrying to reach the Slytherin table. When he sat down, with a relieved sigh, Albus just rolled his eyes at him and said, for the thousandth time, that his plan was bollocks.

Again: tell him something he doesn't know.