note: hello, hello! thankyou for taking the time to click the link to ready this story. hopefully, it lives up to your expectations. i haven't written in so, so long and my early work is not much. i'm excited about this story because i really wanted to write something for my own enjoyment, and i have to say, it's been so fun writing it thus far. rose has pretty much written this story for me - i just go where she leads me! anyways, this story is just meant to be a cutesy, cliched fic, and it won't be very long, either, maybe 9 or so chapters. anyways, here's chapter one!

we're up all night to get lucky

Daft Punk

-:-

My personal advice to all the girls out there who want to room with a boy – don't.

If dirty underwear in the kitchen sink doesn't turn you away (I'm not kidding), think of all the painful morning-afters you'll have to endure, when a random girl walks into the kitchen in sloppy socks and an oversize shirt (and then proceeds to freak out when she realizes heaven forbid, a girl lives here). If that still doesn't turn you away, try moldy peanut butter in the back of the fridge, and smelly socks in the entrance. And if that doesn't do it for you, picture this.

My hair had slipped out of the pristine French twist I had put it in this morning. The rag in my hand was disgustingly dirty, heavy with alcohol and water. I wiped at the spills on the counter, trying to block out the loud music that was coming from the speakers.

"Hey, Rosie, want a drink?" Albus sauntered over to me, a Firewhiskey in one hand, and throwing his free arm over my shoulders, "or did I already ask you? I forget." His eyes were glassy, and he was clearly very, very far from sober.

I snorted. "Of course you forget. And no, I don't want a drink, but thanks for asking me three times tonight." I shook his arm off my shoulder and went in pursuit of Max, who was dancing on the table like the whole world was watching – which, in all honestly, they were.

Albus followed me, hot on my heels. "Seriously Rosie, one drink won't hurt, I promise!"

"Max, get off the table, you'll scuff it up! Albus, get your arm off my shoulder!" I whirled around to face my cousin. "Listen mister, drink all you want. I personally, have no desire to get kicked out of this flat for making too much noise or because the ceiling caved in-" at this I gestured wildly to Max – "but next time you throw a party, you're on cleanup duty, because I will be too drunk to remember my own name."

Everytime Albus threw a party (which was often enough) we agreed that one of us would get stay sober to keep an eye on things. We swore we would rotate, but, no surprise here, I was usually the one with the rag cleaning up after everyone.

I arrived at the kitchen just in time to see James throwing up in the sink, and his friend Liam clapping him on the back. To the right of him, Albus had propped some girl on the counter to get proper access to her mouth but was dangerously close to the fish tank that rested there. Before my cousin's roaming hands could knock it over, I grabbed the tank and whisked it into my room.

The music thumped through my head in the worst way, and the whole flat reeked of booze and sweat. I could barely make out any faces throughout all the bodies, and after positively the worst day I'd ever had my internship, all I really wanted to do was grab hot chocolate and watch Hugh Grant films.

But no. I was stuck watching over my flat, making sure it didn't catch on fire and watching all my friends get drunk and have the time of their lives.

And they say the twenties are the best part of your life.

So ladies, take it from me – room with the girls. Or better yet, room alone.

I was doing my best to scrub out the stain in the kitchen chair that looked like Muggle grape soda when I heard the front door open and close.

"Hey, Rosie," Scorpius said, lifting himself up on the countertop. "How's the cleaning going?"

I rubbed my wrist against my eyebrow. "It's going fine. I'm trying to get this bloody stain out of this chair but it's obviously not working."

My best friend sighed in exasperation. "For God's sakes, Rose, use your wand."

I raised my head to look at him sitting on the counter, feet banging in rhythm against the cabinets. "No! I've told you so many times how I don't want to be reliant on that wand for every single little thing. It's just not necessary." I turned my head back to concentrate on the stain, but my stomach was already swirling with butterflies.

How annoying.

I watched as he jumped off the countertop and walked to the other side of the chair, cleaning up with grape stain with a simple flick of his wand. I slapped him on the arm, then stood.

I took his place on the countertop, leaning my head against the cabinets and sighing loudly. Scorpius opened the fridge next to me, and rummaged around, emerging with a plate of last night's pasta. He leaned against the counter next to me as he ate, and I enjoyed the moment of peace.

As peaceful as a flat full of bodies and music can be, that is.

"So," I said, finally breaking the silence between us, "why aren't you dancing and drinking with the rest of them?"

He shrugged. "I had every intention of it when I walked through the door, but you kind of killed my partying vibe, to be honest. With your cleaning and whatnot."

I shoved his shoulder. "Blame Albus," I said simply. I opened a drawer beside me with my nylon-clad foot, and leaned down to grab a fork. Scorpius set the plate down between us.

"Look who walked in," Scorpius said after a heartbeat, pointing his fork in the direction of the door. I turned my head to the front entrance to see Louis walking in with more alcohol. "You gonna stop him?"

I shook my head. "If this had been about two hours ago, maybe. But I'm tired. And I don't care. And Albus will pay for all the damages. And-"

"-you're never letting him have a party at this flat again as long as you both shall live," Scorpius finished for me.

I sighed and rubbed my nose. "Am I that obvious?" Scorpius speared the last noodle on his fork and handed it to me. I gratefully took it and stuck it in my mouth. Chewing, I said, "I'm serious this time. No more parties. At least, not while he's drunk. If he wants to throw a party, he's the one who's going to be sober next time."

"You said that last month. And the month before that." He crossed the kitchen in two steps and put the plate and two forks in the sink. I hadn't the energy to tell him to wash it and put it away.

"Maybe you should head to bed," Scorpius suggested. "It's past midnight. Don't worry, I promise to keep an eye on things out here."

Somewhat reluctantly, I nodded. "Goodnight, Scor."

"See you, Rosie."

Giving him a last grin, I jumped down from the countertop with as much grace as I could muster and headed to my bedroom towards the back of the flat.

Our flat was a three bedroom. When we first moved in, I desperately wanted to transform the third bedroom into a library slash study, but Albus was firm – the third room was to be a bedroom for Scorpius. Scorpius had his own flat not ten minutes from us, but most days (and evenings) he was here. He said it was because it got boring on his own (and while I'm sure it did) I knew that had it been his choice, he would be living here full time. But I also knew his father would never approve of that. He wanted Scorpius to be making "smart choices" and get a "good head start on his career, without any distractions, thankyou very much."

I tried not to take it too personally.

I don't know how long I had been asleep for when I heard my bedroom door open softly. Turning over, I squinted my eyes at the small beam of artificial light that was streaming in from the hallway. The lack of pulsing music and loud chatter told me the party had finally broken up.

"Al?" I whispered sleepily, bringing my arm to my forehead, "what are you doing in here?"

"Lucy and Lily are staying over. In my bed. Shove over."

"Use Scorpius' room."

"He's here, too."

"Fine. Go around." I hated not sleeping close to the door, and he knew that.

Never one to do things the simple way, Al stood on top of the bed, climbing over me to get to the other side of the bed and stepping on my calf in the process. I felt him climb under the covers next to me, then settle down.

After a few minutes of silence, he whispered. "Y'know, you should really tell Scorpius."

I rolled over onto my side to face him. He was lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"You're drunk," I whispered back.

"Maybe a little," he said, "but whether I'm drunk or not, I still think you should tell him."

Albus was the only person who knew about my feelings for our mutual best friend. To be fair, he sort of figured it out himself. It was two years after Hogwarts that I realized my feelings – by that time, we were all out of (London's College of Wizardry), fresh out of dorm rooms and exams, looking for flats and internships and jobs and starting our lives. And I realized that while I would always have Al, always have Hugo, always have my family, Scorpius was not anchored to me in way beyond friendship. Which scared me. Over time, I realized the reason why it scared me so much was because I had feelings for him. And that almost scared me more.

So, a year after that, there I was. With a flat, a paid internship (that didn't pay much, but it paid) and still harbouring secret feelings for my best friend.

How cliché.

Albus turned his head to face me. "You never know, Rosie."

"I'm scared."

"Yeah, I would be, too. But you're Rose Weasley. You're not scared of anything."

I snuggled deeper into my blankets and did my best to fall back asleep.

The next morning, I woke to rain pattering on the window and Al's soft breathing beside me. I looked at the clock on my nightstand – 10:30- and thanked a higher power that it was Saturday.

"Al," I said, after ten minutes. "Al, wake up." He didn't move.

"Al."

"Albus!"

I sighed. "'I'll tell Harry and Ginny what you were really doing in the Quidditch shed with Francesca Parkinson in our seventh year."

Still no response.

I shook his shoulder, finally rousing him from his sleep. His eyelids fluttered open as he woke, fixing his eyes on me.

"What do you want," he grumbled, turning his face into his pillow.

"It's time to get up," I said, "it's almost eleven."

"It's still morning. Leave me alone," came the muffled reply.

"Get up, you big lump."

"I'm hungover."

"I know that. That's why you need to get up, eat something and take some potion. Then maybe you can sleep it off some more."

He lifted his head from his pillow, his big green eyes staring at me. "You made more hangover potion?"

I nodded.

"Rosie, have I ever told you how you're the best cousin in the whole wide world?"

"Once or twice. Now get up, before Lily and Lucy take it all."

With that, I threw the duvet off me and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The two of us padded into the kitchen to find Lily nursing a cup of tea.

"Their Highnesses the King and Queen have finally arose," she exclaimed. Albus moaned and groaned dramatically, whining about his hangover.

"Where'd you put the hangover potion, Lily?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I didn't touch it this time. Didn't need it, I hardly had anything to drink."

"What?" Albus and I exclaimed at the same time in mock horror. "Lily Luna Potter, didn't drink?"

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up. No, I did not. I wasn't in the mood."

To say that Lily wasn't in the mood for alcohol was like saying a dog wasn't in the mood for peanut butter. It just didn't happen. Something was bothering her, but I didn't press it. Maybe she was just finally maturing.

Ha-ha. Right.

Locating the hangover potion, I poured some in a glass for Albus, who took it gratefully and drank it all in one shot.

I turned back into the kitchen, starting on a pot of coffee, and sticking two pieces of bread in the toaster. "Lucy still sleeping?"

Lily shook her head. "No, she didn't stay the night, actually."

"What do you mean?" Al asked. "You all said you were staying over."

Lily shrugged. "I know. I went to bed at the same time as you, but Lucy never came." Her eyes glinted with mischief. "Do you think she left with Scorpius?"

My insides felt like they were being doused with icy water. I gripped the edge of the countertop and busied myself with spreading butter and jam on the two slices of toast.

Albus stood. "I'll go see if Scorpius is in his room."

I spread the jam all the way to the corners of the toast, so harshly that I squished one of them.

Coming to take his seat again at the table, he said "Nope. No sign of him."

I poured the coffee into two mugs, one with milk, one with two sugars, and busied myself with stirring them. Grabbing the two plates and two mugs, I carried them over to the table, refusing to meet Albus' eyes. I slid one plate in front of him, along with the coffee containing two sugars.

Lily grinned. "Maybe they did go home together. Can you imagine?"

"Lily. Enough." Albus glared at his sister. "Don't you have a job to get to, or something?" Lily worked as a sales assistant at Madame Malkins. She had opted to take a gap year after graduation.

Lily rolled her eyes, not picking up on his frustration or on my silence. "Yeah. I start in ten minutes." Standing up, she deposited her mug in the sink. She gave me a kiss goodbye, and Dispparated.

We ate in mostly silence, and I could feel Albus giving me sideways glances the whole time. After we had nearly finished, he spoke up.

"Rosie, you don't know he left with her," he said. "They could have just left at the same time. He's probably at home right now, alone, reading or something."

I finally met his eyes, green and searching mine. "Yeah," I said with a forced half-smile, "you're probably right. Besides, I have nothing to be upset over, right? It's none of my business. If he wants to sleep with random whores, he can sleep with random whores."

"Rose,"Albus warned, "Lucy is not a random whore. She's our cousin, don't be mean."

The use of my proper first name on his tongue felt funny to my ears, and I knew he was serious.

"I know, I had no right to call her that," I apologized looking into the bottom of my empty coffee mug. I stared at the sticky grinds. "So you think they did sleep together, don't you." It was statement that meant to come out as a question, and somehow having it come out a statement made it seem more official.

"I never said that!" Albus defended.

"Well, you implied it."

"When?!"

"When you said 'Rose, Lucy isn't a random whore, she's our cousin'. Which means you think he probably slept with her, and saying that since she did sleep with him, that didn't make her a random whore."

Albus rolled his eyes. "Rosie, you seriously have to stop looking so deep into these things. I only meant that in the hypothetical sense."

I remained silent. I was getting nauseous, and I couldn't even blame it on a hangover. Albus gathered our breakfast things, and put them in the sink. "Wash them, please," I said listlessly. His back was to me as he washed at the sink, and I stared at his jet black hair for a few minutes, trying not to think of Scorpius in boxer shorts and Lucy in an oversize t-shirt, drinking tea at the kitchen table.

Benedick, our all-black cat, jumped into my lap, and I stroked him absent-mindedly. Statistically speaking, the percentage that Scorpius and Lucy had hooked up was maybe only forty percent, considering the amount of attention he paid to her on daily basis (hardly anything, they barely even saw each other) and how well they knew each other (not well. Lucy was Lily's age, and they weren't exactly the greatest of friends). However, as much as I tried, I could not get the sixty percent out of my head.

"Hey," I said, "whatever happened to that girl you were making out with last night?"

Albus magicked with dishes into the cupboard, where they gently stacked themselves. Closing the door, he turned to face me.

"Eh. Not worth my time. Much too whiny for my liking." He flicked the remaining soap on his hand onto my nose. Scrubbing it off, I looked at him in mock amusement.

"Albus refused a hookup? First Lily refusing a drink, and now this? What is going on with the Potters?"

"You're such an ass, Rosie," he said, taking off toward the bathroom.

"You love me," I sing-songed. "And don't take ages in there, I need to get ready."

"Why? Got a hot date?" He called from the back of the flat.

"No, I'm meeting Scorpius today. He has to pick out a present for his little sister's birthday."

A knock at the door interrupted whatever Albus was going to say next. "Rose?" A voice called from the other side of the door. "It's me, Max!"

"Come in!" I yelled.

"It's locked."

I stood to open the door. "Sorry about that," I said sheepishly once I opened the door.

He smiled. "No big deal." Closing the door behind him, I turned to face the six foot four eighteen year old standing in my kitchen.

"Albus is just in the shower if you were looking for him.." I trailed off, not knowing what to say. Max and I had never been the best of friends. He was the twin brother of Lily's best friend, Peyton, and being two years older, I never took the time to get to know him properly.

"No, actually, I just came to see if I left my sweater here last night?"

"You did, actually, I saw it this morning on the couch. Make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back," I replied with a smile. I set off in the direction of the living room, and located the blue sweater that was resting on the back of the sofa.

Max was sitting at the kitchen table when I returned. "Here," I said, handing him the sweater, "I do believe this is yours."

"Thanks, Rose." He took the sweater from me and made to stand up, but hesitated. "I'm sorry if this is out of place, but um, I was just wondering about Lily? Did she, uh, seem funny to you last night?"

A blush had spread to the back of his neck, and I took a seat across from him. Frowning, I replied, "I don't think so. I didn't really talk to her last night, and she seemed fine to me this morning. Why?"

Max shrugged. " I don't know, but she was just acting really strange. She wasn't looking at me properly, and she was avoiding me the whole evening."

"Now that you mention it, she said she didn't even drink last night, which is really unlike Lily. Maybe you're right, maybe there is something wrong and we've all been stupid and haven't noticed!" I furrowed my brow worriedly, trying to think of anything that might be upsetting Lily.

"Ever since last night, after I introduced her to Victoria, she hardly looked at me the rest of the night."

"Hang on," I said, holding up my hand, "Rewind. Who's Victoria?"

"Vicky? She's a girl I work with, I brought her to the party last night. I introduced her to you, don't you remember?"

Now that he mentioned it, I did vaguely remember him coming with a pretty brunette. "Never mind," I said, shaking my head. "That's not important." The "wheels in my head were turning" as Scorpius liked to say. If Lily only ignored Max after he brought a girl, then that might mean one thing. And if she was too upset to even drink it off, she must really like the man sitting in front of me.

Well, colour me purple.

"So," I said carefully, "is Vicky your girlfriend, or?"

Max hesitated before answering me. "Uh, not really. Your party last night was the first time I asked her out." He took a breath before continuing, and his next sentence came out in a rush.

"Rose, the thing is – the thing is, is that I really like Lily. I've liked her for awhile, but I just don't want to tell her because I don't want to make a fool of myself. Plus, James and Albus are really scary, and her father is Harry Potter, for God's sake.

"But you know her well. Do I, do you maybe think that I have a, you know, a shot?"

I grinned. "Max, I think you have a very good shot. Trust me."

"Has she mentioned anything to you?"

"Well, no," I said, and Max's face fell just the slightest inch "but I just have a feeling. I could help you, if you want? Tell you the best way to approach her, see if I can get any information out of her?" Since I was already ninety percent sure Lily felt the same way, it would be a piece of cake.

"You would? Rose, you're the absolute best," Max exclaimed. Benedick walked around the table posts, and he leaned his hand down for the cat to sniff it.

"First step, though," I said, quirking an eyebrow, "no more introducing her to random girls from work for the time being."

He laughed. "Deal."

"Oh, and one other thing – Albus and James are really not scary. They act like it, but they're like teddy bears on the inside."

"Easy for you to say," he snorted, "they're your family."

I had to give him credit. It probably wasn't easy to be around the older brothers of the girl you liked, never mind that they were the kids of the most famous wizard of all time.

Benny jumped onto my lap, and I petted him softly. "There's one thing I still don't get," I said slowly.

"Shoot."

"How come you brought Victoria?"

Max chewed his bottom lip. "Wow, that makes me seem like the biggest jerk in the world, doesn't it? First I show up with a girl to your party, and the next day I'm spilling my guts and telling you how much I like your cousin."

I laughed. "Well, it doesn't exactly put you in the best light."

"I don't know – I guess I had kind of given up on Lily. But last night, I realized I'd rather have spent the night with her as my friend then with any girl that was my current pick of the night."

I cocked my head to one side. "Max, that's so sweet."

He rolled his eyes. "I know. I'm such a mush. If you ever tell anyone this, I will personally come into your room at night and dye your hair blue."

"You should just tell her how you feel." You're such a hypocrite, Rose. Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

"Well, I might, if your plan doesn't work first? Please, Rose?"

"But we don't even have a plan yet!"

"We'll come up with one, a really good one. You're smarter than anyone I know. Please?"

I sighed. "Of course, of course. I'll help you out."

He grinned. "You're the best, Rose."

"So I've been told," I said dryly.

"Anyway, I've got to run," Max said. "But thank you for everything. And not a word, Rose, I mean it!" He stood up and made his way to the door.

I crossed my chest, right over where my heart was. "Promise," I replied.

Giving me one last grin, he closed the door behind him, and I was left with an empty kitchen.

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