This was originally going to be posted with the "Look at What a Mess We've Made" collection. It got a bit away from me, however, and I figured I'd post it as a oneshot, because that's really what it is. For the prompt "Wishes."

ETA: Apparently I'd left out a small chunk of the fic, so if you'd read this previously and there was a jump in conversation you didn't understand, hopefully that's fixed now!

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Eighteen. As she sat on her bed before the birthday party her parents were having for her, she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she was an adult. Yes, she'd been of age, but she'd still been in school, still been living at home. Now…

Done with Hogwarts. Moved out. Eighteen.

Her hands tightened on the palm-sized pink notebook with the words "Birthday Wishes" written in her mother's crisp, clear handwriting. When she'd arrived at home—her parents' home now, not quite hers anymore—she did what she'd done every year on her birthday. She'd taken the notebook out of its hiding place and scribbled a wish. This time, instead of putting it away immediately, she sat down on her bed and flipped through it.

She grinned when she read her first birthday wish. How silly she'd been. How silly she still was. A brief knock sounded on her door and she looked up, startled. Al's best friend, Scorpius, came striding in a moment later. "Lily, your mum is looking for you."

Lily ignored the jump in her heartbeat and arched a brow. "You know, it's customary to wait for permission before you enter a bedroom."

"Why bother, when you always let me in?" He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on her bed, resting his hands behind his back. He was as comfortable in her room as he'd been in Al's, as comfortable entering her room as her brothers were. At least he bothered to knock. "Hello to you, too, by the way, and happy birthday. So nice to see you. I'm well, how are you doing?"

"Oh stop," she said, rolling her eyes. "You know I'm happy to see you. Did you just get in, then?"

"Yeah. Your mum sent me to tell you that the family should be arriving soon." He nodded towards the notebook in her hand. "What's that?"

Lily blushed. She hadn't expected anyone to see the notebook in her hand. "It's nothing."

"Right, because hiding it like I haven't already seen it is the best way to convince me it's nothing. Come on, Lily love," he coaxed, and she tried to suppress the fluttering of her heart at the old nickname. "You can trust me."

"You'll think it's silly."

"Possibly," he said, giving her a winning smile when she swatted his arm. "But I promise I won't laugh."

She relented, settling next to him. "They're birthday wishes. My mum gave this to me when I turned five, and she said it might be fun to write down the thing I wanted most in the world for the year. I've done it ever since."

"And since you're now dreadfully old, you were feeling nostalgic." His tone was teasing, but she could see by the look in his eyes that he understood. After all, he'd been through it all, too.

"Something like that. It's kind of fun, to see how I've grown up from five to eighteen." She looked at her little notebook again.

"What did you wish for this year?"

"The courage and strength to face the future." She looked at him, smiling wryly. "Silly, right?"

"Not silly at all. But you don't need it. You, Lily love, have both. In spades."

She ducked her head so that he wouldn't see the flush creeping up her cheeks. "At least it's a far cry from what I wished for when I was five."

"And that was?"

"A unicorn." She turned to the first page in the book, and pointed out where she'd painstakingly written, I'd really really like a unicorn please.

"And so polite, too." He laughed so hard the bed shook, and she laughed along with him. "Of course you wished for a unicorn."

"I waited all year, sure that I'd get it because I wished it."

"And when you didn't get one?"

"I cried." He laughed again, and Lily was struck by just how much she liked that sound. "It was just before my sixth birthday and I told mum I'd wished for one for my birthday, and hoped it would come soon. James overheard and said it was a stupid wish, because no one could own a unicorn. I promptly burst into tears. Apparently I could not be consoled for the rest of the day."

"Poor James," Scorpius said with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

"Poor James? Poor me! I'd just had my dreams dashed. But he felt bad enough about it, because dad says James and Albus forced him to take them to a Muggle toy store to find a stuffed one for me. Two, actually." She gestured to the pair of now-faded purple and pink unicorns sitting on the dresser. She flipped the page over, and pointed out the note she'd written. James and Al are the best big brothers in the world.

She grinned as she turned to look at Scorpius. "On my birthday, James even played unicorn games with me."

Scorpius winced. "Definitely poor James. What about your sixth?"

"I wanted to ride a dragon."

"Never one to do things in small measure, are you?"

"What can I say, mum said to ask for what I most wanted in the world. Aunt Luna had just come back from visiting with Uncle Charlie and had been telling us stories about dragons, so of course I wanted to ride one."

"I can picture your parents' reaction to that one. Did you cry when they said no?"

"As it happens, no." She showed him the page with the wish, which had been hastily scribbled out and a small never mind was written underneath. "A few months after my birthday, was about the time Uncle Charlie came home for a visit with a dragon burn that made his arm look like…well, let's just say it cured me of my dragon riding ambitions."

"Was your seventh birthday wish to find the crumple horned snorkack with your Aunt Luna?"

"No, it was for a baby sister. I was tired of being surrounded by boys."

Scorpius looked at the note she'd written on the back of the page. "You wanted to name her Sunflower?"

"Well there was Rose, and I'm Lily, and sunflowers are my favorite, so…"

He snorted. "When you have kids, you are not allowed to have naming privileges."

"I was a kid!"

She turned his attention to the next wish—for James to stop being mean, and he laughed at her again. "You had a better chance with the unicorn. Did you make any wishes that did come true?" And she swatted his arm for that one.

"As a matter of fact, for my ninth it was for Al to get the house he wanted at Hogwarts. And that one did happen."

"Thank Merlin for that one," Scorpius said with a sigh. "Can't imagine surviving Hogwarts without him in the same house. Did you really want James to get a new girlfriend for your tenth? Aren't you just the nicest little sister."

"Ulterior motives," Lily said sheepishly. "He was moping all over the place, and biting everyone's heads off. I just wanted a little peace."

He brushed an errant lock of hair out of her face, and she hoped he couldn't feel her pulse accelerate. "You wanted your brothers to be happy. There's no shame in that." He took the notebook out of her hands and read eleven.

That one was to make friends at school, and when he was looking at the list of new friends she'd written on the back of that page, he let out an affronted "Hey!" when he didn't see his name anywhere.

"You were Al's friend," she said dismissively. "You didn't count. Besides, you weren't someone new. I knew I could count on you, even then." He looked entirely too pleased by that.

He smiled when he saw her twelfth birthday wish—to be as smart as Rose. "No one's as smart as Rose," he pointed out. "But you're definitely a close second."

He grinned again when he saw thirteen — to find out what she was good at. "School made you quite insecure, didn't it?"

"Isn't everybody at that age? I wasn't good at Quidditch like mum and dad, I wasn't smart like Rose, or funny like Uncle George, I wasn't even pretty like Victoire."

"I would argue with you on the last one." Lily blushed. "And for the record, pretty isn't some kind of accomplishment. It just…is. You're more than that."

Lily didn't know what to say to that, so she brushed it off. "Well, in any case, thank goodness Aunt Hermione turned me on to Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."

"And a curse breaker was born."

"I haven't started yet."

"But when you do, you'll be brilliant." He moved on the next wish, fourteen, and his brow furrowed as he read it, then flipped the page over and laughed. She remembered fourteen well, and she winced.

"Fourteen—that was the year you went out with Smith, yeah?"

"I'd rather not relive that, thanks."

"Well, after wishing to finally get a boyfriend—and a first kiss—I can see why he'd be a bit of a let down."

Lily sighed. "On both counts."

"Don't know what you saw in him, really."

"I was fourteen!" And she remembered thinking that Nathaniel Smith was so handsome. Too bad the good looks came with such a terrible ego.

"I'd credited you with better taste." He moved to avoid her hand as she tried to slap him on the arm again. "At least you came to your senses." He pointed to the note in her now neat and prim handwriting. Boyfriends are overrated.

"Yes, and it's proven true ever since. Boyfriends are overrated."

His gaze locked with hers. "Not if it's the right boy." His voice was quiet now, soft and serious, and she wondered…no, she was definitely reading too much into that.

"Doesn't matter. The next year, boys were the last thing on my mind."

"That's right. O.W.L. year. And bless your heart, you dedicated your wish for the whole year to it."

"Dad says I was almost as bad as Aunt Hermione."

"And you got nearly as many outstandings," he reminded her, his voice full of pride for her.

"I did, didn't I?" She took the book back, smiling. Her eyes widened when she remembered what she'd wished for in the last two years. She snapped the book shut. "Well, that's that. I suppose we should head down…"

As she moved to get off the bed, his hand around her wrist stopped her. "What about the last few years?"

She smiled sunnily as she tried to pull away. "I told you what I wished for this year."

"You missed sixteen and seventeen." Yeah, there was no way she was going to share those with him.

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I'm sure I mentioned them, but we've got to go—Scorpius, no!" He lunged for the notebook in her hand, and Lily let out a shrieking laugh as he pulled it from her fingers. "Oh no you don't!" she shouted as she pounced on him and tried to wrestle the book away. She knew, of course, that there was no way she'd get it back if he really wanted to keep it from her, but she was still going to do her best.

She went for his weak spot—poking at his sides, tickling him until was trying to fend her off rather than hold onto her notebook and she snatched it from him. Before she could escape, he grabbed her around the waist and before she had a chance to blink, he'd pinned her to the bed. Lily was giggling too hard to protest.

"Surrender," he demanded with a grin. Her breath caught, and she was fully aware that he was on top of her, that his face was inches away. If he'd wanted to, he could have plucked her wish notebook from her hand right then and there as she tried not to blush.

"Never." The word came out low and breathless. And then it happened. What she'd been waiting for since she was sixteen. Softly, he brushed his lips against hers. Before she had a chance to think or respond, they heard someone stomping down the hall. They sprang apart as they heard Al shouting their names.

"Scor, Lil, get your arses downstairs—am I interrupting something?" He stood in the doorway, blinking at the pair of them.

"No, we were just—Scorpius was just—"

"I was just wishing Lily a happy birthday."

"Of course you were," Albus said with a smirk. He took in the guilty looks, the rumpled bed, the blushes staining cheeks, and Lily knew that he knew. What surprised her was that he did not seem at all surprised. "Mum sent me up to get you. Said she sent you up earlier, Scor, but you were dilly dallying, and she wanted me to hurry you up."

Scorpius cleared his throat. "Yes, well, you go ahead, Lily and I—"

Albus snorted, interrupting.

"Lily will meet us downstairs. You can have your little heart to heart later. The Scamanders and Longbottoms are here, grandmum and grandad are coming any second, and you're about to be inundated with Weasleys, so there really isn't time." He ushered a bemused Scorpius out the door. "Five minutes, Lil!"

"Yeah, thanks." Her mind was reeling as she watched Al drag Scorpius out. "Wait, Scor. Sixteen and seventeen. We can talk about them later, yeah?"

He smiled shyly. "Yeah."

Al rolled his eyes at the pair of them. "Let's go." She could hear her brother's voice as he lead his best friend down the hall. "You know, you're lucky it was me and not dad or James who found you…"

Lily took a deep breath and tried to think about what had just happened. Had he really kissed her? Had he meant to? Had it meant anything to him? She rather thought that it had, and she smiled.

She opened up the birthday wishes notebook and flipped to the wish she'd written on her sixteenth birthday. I wish Scorpius would finally notice that I'm a girl.

Well, mission accomplished on that front, apparently.

She flipped over to seventeen, where she'd wished to get over stupid Scorpius Malfoy once and for all. She picked up her pen and scribbled, Maybe not quite yet underneath.

"Lily!" she heard Al and Lucy shouting for her. Quickly, she put the notebook away, and took one last look around her room.

Done with Hogwarts. Moved out. Eighteen.

She was ready.