Hello! Yes, can you believe it? Chapter One of the LONG awaited tale of Al Potter and Honoria Ridgeton! For the uninitiated, this is a companion piece to my Roses Trilogy (Among Thorns, Fighting Briars, Tending Roses), and it will make a lot more sense if you have read at least Tending Roses first.

Thanks as ever to Maggie for the beta-work. I hope it's worth the wait! I'm going to get the other chapters up as soon as I can, but real life is busy and full of many projects requiring my attention, so I'm not going to commit to a specific time frame. I AM working on it, though, I promise!

Without further ado, please enjoy!

Taking Chances, Chapter One

Al Potter successfully avoided meeting Honoria Ridgeton for a very long time. He had a very good reason for this: he didn't like her. When she was a year old, she'd been betrothed to his best friend Scorpius, and seventeen years later, Scorpius had lied about it, so naturally, Al disliked Honoria. It was all very complicated.

They met at a wedding. They actually met briefly at a wedding before that wedding (both were Scorpius's, but the first one didn't take), but as they didn't do anything more than glimpse each other for the first time, that meeting didn't really count.

So they met at a wedding. It was Scorpius's second wedding, the wedding he actually went through with, to Rose Weasley. And honestly, in the scheme of things, that interaction should have had not much more impact than their first – they had a brief conversation, then shared a dance, spending no more than eight minutes in each other's company, and they spoke mostly of Scorpius. They should have parted ways and forgotten the encounter altogether.

Spoilers: They didn't.

Sometimes the events that alter the direction of your life are huge and monumental and obvious. And sometimes, you have a brief conversation with a stranger, and you have no idea that you will wake in the morning a different person than you were the day before.

Falling in love caught Al off guard. The fact that he fell in love with his best friend's ex-fiance after a single conversation didn't help that in the slightest.

Al had decided a long time ago that love and dating wasn't really something he had time for. Scorpius used to ask him (when he got tired of Al meddling in his love life) when he was going to find a girl to focus on for himself, and Al's response was always the same: when he could find someone more interested in dating Al Potter than Harry Potter's son, and when he could find someone who didn't mind that all his free time was spent in the infirmary studying Healing. "And given that I'm pretty sure the girl I just described is mythological, I'm content to focus on no girls at all."

As he got older, of course, St. Mungo's replaced the Hogwarts's Infirmary in his answer, but the principle of the statement remained the same: dating and love simply took more time and energy and focus than Al had to give, and Al had never found anyone who tempted him to reconsider that.

And then he met Honoria.

At first, he didn't realize exactly what was happening. He thought he was picturing her just before he went to sleep the night of the wedding because she was a piece of the puzzle that had been unexpected, replaying the conversation they'd had at the reception simply because it had been so odd. But then, over the course of the next week, he found himself daydreaming about her. Daydreaming! Al Potter, who was defined by a single-minded-ness that was scary, especially when it came to his work, daydreaming about some random girl he barely knew when he was supposed to be brewing Healing potions and making rounds and treating patients! It was disgraceful, and it was beneath him.

But he couldn't stop. She had taken over his thoughts, his dreams, his every waking moment. It was really incredibly rude, and incredibly inconvenient, but his mind went straight to her given half an opportunity. He replayed their conversation over and over in his mind, fantasized about how it felt to hold her in his arms, tortured himself remembering the gleam in her bright blue eyes and the smile constantly lurking at the corners of her mouth. And when she'd talked about love? The faraway look that had come into her eyes, the conviction in her voice like that was the only real thing they'd spoken of . . .

"Al?"

With a start, Al tore his attention away from the bewitching Honoria who had apparently taken up residence in his subconscious. Will Greer, his fellow Healer-in-Training, was trying to get his attention.

"Sorry," Al said. "What did you need?"

"Our shift ended five minutes ago," Will said with a grin and a laugh. "And you've been staring at that shelf for ten."

"Oh," Al said, blinking "Have I?"

"Yeah, mate," Will said, clapping Al on the shoulder. "C'mon. Time to go."

They made their way down to the locker rooms, Al barely noticing the end-of-shift joking and jostling happening along the way. "You know," Will said conversationally as they gathered their personal items, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were lovestruck."

It took Al half a second too long to laugh, but Will didn't seem to notice. "Lovestruck?" Al repeated. "Me?"

Will shrugged with a grin. "Stranger things have happened, right?"

For a moment, Al considered telling him everything. He almost opened his mouth and asked, What if I was?

He didn't, though. Will Greer was a good guy. Friendly. Amiable. And for all Al knew, he would be perfectly able to offer romantic advice. But though Al knew Will, worked with him, chatted with him from time to time, they weren't close.

No, if Al was going to get advice about this, it needed to be from someone who really knew him, who knew his romantic history without having to be told, and who had a romantic history of his own. Someone who had spent most of his life thinking one way about love, but had been forced unexpectedly to see it in a new light.

He wanted to say he needed Scorpius, but Scorpius was on his honeymoon, and besides, this was about Honoria, the woman Scorpius had almost married. Al couldn't get advice from Scorpius. He'd have to go somewhere else.

He Apparated to his brother's flat and knocked on the door before he could talk himself out of this particular act of insanity.

When James Potter opened the door and saw Al standing on the landing, looking hesitant but determined, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Little brother," he said cheerfully, bracing his weight with his fingertips against the top of the doorframe and leaning out over the threshold. "To what do I owe this unexpected honor?"

Al took a deep breath. "I need your help," he said, and James's face broke into a slow, delighted grin, his eyes twinkling. "Don't make me regret coming here," Al warned immediately. The smile never left James's face.

"Of course not," he said. "Come in, come in." And he led the way into his flat.

James Potter's flat did not look the way much of the world might have expected it to. James had signed on with the Wigtown Wanderers fresh out of Hogwarts and had taken the Quidditch world by storm. But despite being a famous Quidditch star, he lived simply. His flat was small, cozy and welcoming, and looked no different than any flat belonging to any bloke in his late twenties, save for the matching furniture and dishware. He poured Al a drink, and they sat on a leather couch.

"So, little bro," James said, stretching and propping his feet up on the coffee table. "What can I help you with?"

Al sighed and stared into his glass, working up the courage to speak, trying to figure out how to phrase his question in a way that would result in the smallest possible amount of brotherly ridicule. Finally, he looked up. "How did you know Sylvie was the one?"

Sylvie Watford was James's fiancé, a Seeker from a rival Quidditch team, the Kenmare Kestrels. Two years ago, James had stunned everyone by settling down into a long-term, committed relationship, despite years of protestations that he would never be caught in that trap. Five months ago, he'd proposed, and they were getting married in December, much to the dismay of James's female fans.

The question threw James for only a moment, then his eyes lit up in delight. "Is this about a girl?" he demanded gleefully, sitting up. "Is my little brother really here asking me for advice about a girl?"

"Yeah, okay," Al said, deciding then and there that this had been a bad idea. He set his drink on the table and stood. "See ya, James."

"No, no, no, no," James said, standing and heading Al off, stifling his laughter as best he could. "I'm sorry. Sit down. I want to help, I do." Al locked eyes with his brother and held him in a steely gaze for a moment or two, trying to determine whether or not he was serious. And James did sober, and even looked a little chagrined for laughing in the first place. "Seriously," he said after a moment. "I'm sorry, Al. I shouldn't have laughed. Sit back down, please?"

"Okay," Al said with a nod, heading back for the sofa. When they were seated again, James invited him with a gesture to continue. "You always said," he started carefully, "when we were in school, and even after, you always said that you would never settle down with anyone. You said that no woman would ever be worth it. And here you are getting married. So I guess I just want to know . . . what happened?"

"Well," James said, nodding, "first of all, it's easy to be an expert on something when you know nothing about it. And back then, I knew nothing about love, okay, Al? I was just running my mouth. And I thought, how on earth could anyone ever be satisfied with one person? I couldn't think of anything more boring then spending the rest of your life with one person, the same person, day after day after day. But then . . ." He trailed off, and his eyes went soft and he smiled with a faraway look that Al had never really seen on his brother before. "Then I met Sylvie," he finished. "And she changed everything. I can't explain it, Al, I really can't, but . . ." He laughed a little, shaking his head, and Al couldn't help but smile.

"There was always something there," James went on. "On the pitch. Something electric. But it wasn't until I spent a day with her off the pitch . . . I was a goner. Suddenly, I couldn't imagine a life, a future, that didn't have her in it, day after day after day, and I honestly can't understand how I ever thought this could be boring. I know it's not the most helpful answer, but I just knew."

Al nodded, lost in thought. He just knew, he'd said. And he'd said there was something electric between them. He couldn't help but think of Honoria, of the dance they'd shared, the way the air between them had lit up and the rest of the dancers on the floor had seemed to disappear. He remembered the way he'd lost himself in those bright blue eyes, not even minding that she constantly seemed to be laughing at him, like she'd figured out something he had yet to learn. Sitting on a couch in his brother's apartment, Al's breath caught in his throat in echo of that night, that last moment when her eyes had caught his at the end of the dance and something had passed between them. She'd sounded breathless as she'd bid him goodnight. He could still hear her words.

Well, Al Potter. I . . . I'm glad I came tonight. I . . . I won't soon forget it.

She'd kissed him on the cheek, and before he could collect his thoughts enough to say anything, she'd disappeared. He could still feel her lips, warm and soft against his skin.

"Al?"

With a start, Al jerked back to the present. James was watching him with . . . Merlin, was that sympathy in his eyes? What was his world coming to? Al closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face.

"I have a problem," he said.

"Talk to me."

So Al did. He told his brother everything that had happened the night of Scorpius's wedding and everything that had happened in the days since. He described Honoria in all her bewitching beauty, and how she'd turned his life upside down in the space of eight minutes and one meeting.

And James, to his credit, didn't laugh once, or even look like he wanted to. He actually listened, treating the situation with all the weight it merited. Al was tempted to wonder who this man was and what he'd done with his brother, but, well . . . if he hadn't seen this side of James before from time to time, he wouldn't have come here in the first place.

"Well, Al, it sounds like you're a victim of love at first sight," James said when he had finished, and Al reacted violently against that statement.

"No!" he said forcefully, standing and pacing behind the couch.

"Why not?" James asked, entirely serious, turning to follow Al's progress around the room.

"Because that isn't real! Love at first sight? It doesn't exist. I – I firmly believe that."

"First sight, maybe not," James conceded. "But first conversation? First encounter? Al, that happens. Sometimes, you do just know!"

Al shook his head forcefully. "No," he said, still clinging to his flat-out dismissal of the very idea. "It's . . . infatuation. Fixation. But love? No."

"Why not?" James challenged again, standing as well. "All love grows out of something. Why not this?"

"Because!" The word exploded out of him, and Al couldn't remember the last time something had him this worked up. "I don't know her! And she doesn't know me, and you can't fall in love with someone you don't know!"

"But the story starts somewhere, Al," James insisted. "On a train platform when you're eleven, or on a Quidditch pitch when you're twenty. Or at a wedding, when you're almost twenty-two."

Al was still shaking his head, but the gesture felt less like a dismissal and more like a denial the longer it went on. "No," he said again, trying to make the word sound final. "I just, I just have to push past this. If I ignore it, the feelings will go away."

"How's that working for you so far?" Al turned to glare at his brother, but James was unfazed. "Will the feelings go away if you ignore them long enough? Probably, yes. But you can't run away from everything, Al! What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not – I'm not afraid of anything!" Al insisted, but the words sounded weak even to him. "It doesn't just happen like this!" he said then, voice desperate. "Not to people like me."

Finally, something won a laugh out of James. "People like you?" James repeated. "What, you mean Ravenclaws? People guided by reason and logic?"

"That's not what I meant," Al said quietly, trying to hide his blush.

"Of course it is," James countered with another good-natured laugh. "But here's the thing, Al. If you're waiting for love to make sense before you commit to it? You're gonna be alone for the rest of your life. If that's what you want, then fine. But if there was any part of you, however small, standing at the side of that dance floor, watching Rose and Scorpius and wanting what they found? Then it's time to take a leap, little brother." He was in front of Al by then, and had him gently by the shoulders. "For once in your life, take a risk. Act without having the next twelve steps planned out. Lead with your heart instead of your head and see what happens. Find this girl. Tell her how you feel. See if she's been affected by it, too. What's the worst that could happen? If it all goes to shit, you have my permission to come back here and say 'I told you so.'"

Al closed his eyes, warring with himself and everything that James was telling him to do. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "I'll think about it."

James gave a short laugh and shook his head, dropping his hands from Al's shoulder and running one through his hair. "Of course you will."

"Hey," Al said wryly. "Agreeing to think about not thinking is a pretty big concession for me."

"Yeah, I know," James said with a grin. "As long as you really will think about it."

"I will," Al promised. "I should go, though. I'm sure Sylvie's on her way over."

"You should stay and have dinner with us," James said then. Al shook his head.

"I'm not great company right now. Rain check?"

James looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end all he said was, "Sure." Then he stopped Al at the door. "Al? That was a great speech you gave at Scorpius's wedding. I hope I can count on you to give just as good a one at mine."

Al froze, staring at his brother. "What?" James gave him a genuine smile.

"You heard me," was all he said.

"I'm not your best man," Al said. "Fred is."

"Fred is a lot of things," James said. "He is my best friend, and I love him, and I trust him with my life. But he's not my brother. You are."

For a long moment, Al didn't know what to say. Eventually, he settled on, "Thank you."

"Get outta here," James said with a smile and a wave of his hand.

Al Apparated back home. He'd promised James he'd think about not thinking, and he did, sitting at the desk in his flat, composing letter after letter to Honoria Ridgeton. Every one of them ended up crumpled into a ball and thrown on the floor. What could he even say? Hi there, it's Al Potter, who you have no reason to remember. There's a possibility that I've fallen in love with you, and my only hope is that you feel the same, because otherwise this letter is uncomfortably awkward at best and downright creepy at worst? Yeah. That would go over real well.

Eventually, he gave it up, going to bed in a fit of frustration, doomed to another night of dreams of sweet-smelling hair and laughing eyes and the ghost of lips on his own that would only fuel his distraction at work the next day. Something had to give, and it had to give soon, because he couldn't keep on like this much longer.

To be continued. Please consider leaving a review!