A/N: Okay. I feel horribly pathetic. I am so out of practice of posting a story that I forgot what to do when publishing! *facepalm* This is very bad.

Anywho, this is my first ever Harry Potter fic! I hope it's good... I absolutely revere some of the work that I've found on here, and would LOVE to be able to write as well as those authors who have written some amazing HP fics :)

And, thanks to SongOfTheMidnightWolf for reminding me about FanFiction, and telling me to publish something!

Here it is...

"I thought I'd find you down here." Albus' voice reverberated off the high stone ceiling of the kitchens, and Rose nearly jumped off of her stool.

Face flushing immediately, she replied, "Hey, Al." Without so much as a glance towards her cousin, she returned her attention to the pudding in front of her.

"Master Albus, is you be wanting a bowl of jiggly, too?" a rather tiny house-elf cried, rushing up to the boy just as Albus set foot in the kitchens and almost tripping over himself in excitement.

"No, thank you, Woffy," Al replied kindly, a warm smile on his face. Woffy nodded rapidly, then scurried off behind a large counter, which, Rose was amused to find, was just tall enough to cower over Woffy's entire body except for his large ears.

"You're sure you don't want some pudding? It's absolutely excellent," Rose insisted miserably. A sharp pang of guilt erupted in her stomach when she realized that those last three words were used constantly by the person who led her to scarfing down pudding in the castle kitchens.

"I'm sure it is, Rose, but, erm," Albus started, glancing warily at the amount of pudding gone from the serving bowl, "I'm not sure I want to end up like Melissa Midgen-Proctor," he admitted, referring to a rather portly girl in their class. Sighing, he pulled the bowl away from Rose's grasp.

"Hey! I'm not done with that!" Rose protested, banging her spoon on Albus' arm as he gave the bowl to a passing house-elf. "Don't be such a –"

"Rose." Albus said sternly. "Get a hold of yourself."

Rose stared into her cousin's green eyes. She felt like slapping him for a split second, but she knew he only had her best interests in mind. However, at that moment, everything came crashing into the wrong places, like a puzzle put together wrong. Her life was falling to pieces. She was lying to everyone about something extremely trivial. Her best friend had abandoned her for the last person Rose would have expected. She couldn't even bring herself to think about that certain tow-headed person, whom she had cried more tears over in one week than she had over anything in her entire life. Albus, her very own blood relation, was telling her to get a grip, and she couldn't even bring herself to take his advice.

Dropping her gaze quickly, she mumbled, "Don't worry, I'm not going mental, Al. If you were a girl in the same situations as I am at the moment, you'd be eating pudding down here as well." Rose began fiddling with her fingernails, a nervous habit she'd picked up from her older cousin Lucy.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Albus was completely flabbergasted. Hadn't she already told him why she was upset?

Rose stared hard at the floor as Albus pulled up another stool. "I, erm, may have lied a bit to you this morning," she admitted sheepishly. She tried with all her might not to look up at Albus, who was most likely fuming.

"What do you mean, 'a bit'?"

"I didn't come to the Common Room crying because I did badly on my Ancient Runes exam. Really, Al, I'm not that prudish," she added quietly. Tears began to well up in her eyes as Rose remembered the true reason for why she'd been weeping this morning. Damn these tears and these stupid emotions! she thought.

"Well then, why were you crying? I think I have a right to know." At this, Rose's head snapped up in disbelief.

"Says who?"

"Says me. Now, tell me, Rose. I don't think I can take much more of this constant bad attitude," Albus added softly, seeing how close his cousin was to crying.

Rose furrowed her eyebrows. "Well, it has to do with a few, erm, select people you and I both know. One of them is, erm, similar in gender to me, and the other is similar in gender to –"

"Oh, Rose, just get on with it!"

"Fine!" Rose yelled. The usual din of house-elf voices and pots and pans clattering ceased instantaneously, and Rose could feel many, many pairs of tennis ball-sized eyes staring at her.

"Sorry," she whispered. "Are you sure you want to know? It's a rather long story." She hoped with all her might that Albus would say no, and that he would let her just, well, forget.

"Of course. I wouldn't be down here at 2 o'clock in the morning, taking away your pudding and scaring away all the house-elves if I didn't want to know."

"Okay," Rose reluctantly replied. "Here goes." Shakily, she took a deep breath and began.

-~:~-

Scorpius lay in his four-poster bed, staring up at the canopy, searching his mind and wondering where things could have ever gone so wrong. Yes, he could have handled things with Rose and Lauren a bit more carefully, but he most certainly was no Merlin. Even then, Scorpius was sure Merlin couldn't have done any better than he did.

Scorpius sighed, turning over in his bed to face the window, watching the drizzling rain roll down the windows in the light of the candles left glowing. He knew that was a ridiculous assumption. Even Wesley Thompson, the most immature, selfish, prattiest boy in 4th year, would never have done what Scorpius had done.

Why did he ever think he could have gotten away with treating Rose like she was dirt? How did he ever get Lauren's attention? And how was it possible that Albus, his very best friend, knew nothing about this? Scorpius had assumed that Rose would have told him by now, in which case, Albus would have broken down the dungeon door that led to the Slytherin Common Room and wrung Scorpius' neck.

Of course Scorpius felt a bit of remorse for what he had caused. He'd be hardly human if he felt no guilt or sympathy. Though he tried not to notice Rose's gaze drop to her books whenever he entered a room, her feelings about the situation were painfully obvious. He'd also heard sobs coming from the back of the library more than once since he'd gotten together with Lauren.

Normally, this sort of reaction from a girl wouldn't faze Scorpius. But this wasn't just any old girl – this was Rose. A good friend. The one he'd always copy Potions homework from during breakfast. The only girl who scoffed at his ridiculous jokes with Albus, or his attempts at pranking. He'd always figured she'd never cared much about the fact that students teased her for her family or distinctly Weasley features. He'd also noticed her humility whenever she did well in class, which was most of the time. And even though she was a generally nice person, she had a tendency to get very upset about certain topics, like the prejudices against magical creatures and other issues, which Scorpius couldn't help but be amused at. It didn't hurt anything that she was mildly attractive, with her smattering of freckles across her face and wavy auburn hair, and the way her blue eyes sparkled when she was really happy.

Scorpius squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out these thoughts of Rose. It wasn't right for him to be thinking of her as more than a friend when he could hardly ask of that from her. Especially not in the near future. Everything between us now will be absolutely excellent, he thought bitterly.

He'd really screwed things up with her.

Frustrated, Scorpius punched his pillow. "Damn it all!" he whispered.

"So," Rose concluded, "basically, the person who used to be my best friend is currently, erm, having relations with… your best friend." The pudding bowl sat on the counter, nearly empty, with two spoons at the bottom waiting to be retrieved.

Albus finished licking the pudding off his fingers and waited. He could tell by the faraway look in Rose's eyes that she wasn't finished.

"I mean, why would Lauren do this to me?" Rose asked in earnest. It broke Rose's heart to realize that Lauren truly wasn't the friend Rose had always thought she was. "Were the last three years between us totally fake?"

"Rose, you know they weren't. And, by the way, you would say 'faked' instead of 'fake'," Albus corrected.

"Honestly, Al, I'm not in the mood for a grammar lesson! It just completely escapes me how anyone could be so completely oblivious to their best friend's feelings. I mean, is it so hard to think of others before yourself? Ergh! She's horrible! And I don't understand why anyone would fancy her!" Rose could feel the tears start to well up in her eyes again, and she turned away from Albus in shame.

"She's not really –"

"Albus Severus Potter," Rose began with venom in her words, "don't you dare defend Lauren James. I don't care if you think she'll go for a nerd like you when she could go for any other boy above us all, okay? She's become quite a… horrible person." Rose caught herself from saying something she didn't really want to say.

"All I was going to say," Albus retorted, "was that she's not really that great. I don't know what Scorpius sees in her, either."

A few moments of silence passed before Rose uttered an "Oh." Looking down at the floor, Rose realized that she had neglected to put on slippers, and that her socks were mismatched, again. She smiled a small, sad smile at the Weasley-ness of her feet and rested her head on the countertop, emotionally exhausted.

"Al, I just can't take it anymore. I feel so invisible! Especially in comparison to Lauren. I mean, take one good look at her and you're under her spell. She must be part Veela." Rose's hands creeped up to cover her face as the damn tears threatened to spill over once again, but before she could completely shield her eyes, Albus grabbed her wrists gently.

"Rose, do you know how special you are?"

"No," Rose replied quietly, sniffling softly.

"Well, ask around. I know at least five people who'll tell you without hesitation. Come on, we've got double Potions in the morning."

"But, Al, the pudding…" Rose stared at the pudding dish longingly as Albus dragged her to the staircase.

"Rose…" Albus said sternly.

"Fine."

A/N: Oh man. I feel like a giddy school girl who just talked to her crush in the hallway! Wow, deja vu... But, I digress. I really hope you liked it! And thank you so much for reading! I'm getting goosebumps from hoping that people will like this fic :) Please review if you want, but I won't get down on my knees and beg for a review, or charm you into reviewing, or get all huffy and puffy if the fic gets a billion hits and only one review... that's not how I roll! :) Thanks again!