"Scorpius!"

He jumped. From the irritated look on his best friend's face, this was not the first time Albus had called his name. "What?"

"For the love of - have you heard anything I've said in the last ten minutes?"

"Probably."

Albus gave him a dirty look and twitched the curtain next to his seat aside to peer outside. "Are the girls outside really that pretty?"

Scorpius took advantage of his friend's distraction to examine him closely for the tell-tale signs of what Scorpius privately thought of as temper tantrums. Albus didn't throw them often, but when he got really annoyed, he tended to be very passive aggressive and self-righteous. It usually seemed to work on his brother and his cousin Rose, who were both Gryffindors, but Scorpius was less easily impressed.

Today, however, either the redness in his friend's face was hidden by his tan and muted by the deep red of his hair and bright red of his shirt, or Albus wasn't actually that angry. Scorpius hoped it was the latter; while Albus's temper tantrums usually left him unabashed, they still weren't enjoyable, particularly when he was only three days into a ten-day visit.

"Well, they're not wearing much," Scorpius told him. Albus rolled his eyes, but didn't let the curtain fall back.

"They really aren't," he said with interest. "I love the summer."

Scorpius was not entirely sure he agreed. Albus clearly was examining the girls walking by outside, but Scorpius actually hadn't been paying attention to them at all. His eyes had been fixed on the girl sitting on the front steps of Number 12, Grimmauld Place with her brother.

She was very nice to look at, but she also managed to infuriate him nearly every time she opened her mouth, and he wished he could stop reacting quite so strongly to her chest and long legs and the red curls that tumbled down across her shoulders and -

He shook himself. Thankfully, Albus was still looking at the girls passing by and didn't seem to have noticed him losing focus again. He chanced another look at Rose, who'd just thrown back her head to laugh. The sun glinted off her hair, and he dragged his gaze back to the well-lit room. The sun was glinting off both the red hardwood floor and the enormous red lionness painted on the far wall - you could tell all the Potters were Gryffindors - in the sitting room, which made it difficult to completely push her out of his mind, but at least now he wasn't looking at Rose, which Albus eventually would have noticed.

Stupid Rose.

Scorpius had never much liked Rose Weasley, though he was often forced to put up with her presence by virtue of his friendship with Albus. He wished that Albus had been sorted into Slytherin, too, so they could at least escape Rose in the Slytherin Common Room, but even he had to admit that his best friend probably did belong in Gryffindor - Albus didn't have a conniving bone in his body, and he was far more earnest than any self-respecting Slytherin would have a right to be.

Albus's headed turned slightly. "Oh, hey, Rose and Hugo are outside."

"Are they? I hadn't noticed."

Scorpius thought that he'd been successful at sounding apathetic about Rose's presence, but from the bemused glance Albus shot him, he hadn't been quite as smooth as he'd thought.

"Come on," Albus said, jumping down from the flowery cushions that lined the window seat. "Let's see if they want to play exploding snap." Scorpius stayed put. Halfway across the room, Albus realized that he wasn't being followed and looked back.

"I don't feel like it."

"Quidditch, then. We can go to my grandparents, play two a-side."

"Al, I don't want to play anything with them."

"Why not? What's there to dislike about Hugo?"

Now Albus was being intentionally thick. He knew damn well which Weasley in the equation Scorpius had a problem with, and it was not the unassuming little Hufflepuff. "Fine. I don't want to play with Rose."

The red-haired boy folded his arms. "Why not?"

Scorpius snorted. "Are you serious? Why don't I want to play Quidditch with her? Because she'll destroy me and then mock me about it. No, thanks, I'm good."

Scorpius didn't mind Quidditch. It could be quite fun once in awhile, even though outdoor activities weren't really his thing, and he did have a good broom.

But Rose had been on the Gryffindor Quidditch team since her second year, and three years of being a Chaser on one of the more successful Quidditch teams Hogwarts had seen in recent years showed. He'd ended up thoroughly regretting it the handful of times he'd let Albus talk him into playing with her, and he had no intention of making the mistake again.

"What if we got Lily to play?"

"She's better than Lily."

"You, me, and Lily against her and Hugo?"

"No."

Albus thought for a moment. Scorpius wasn't sure whether he was really in the mood for Quidditch or whether he was in another one of those phases he got once in awhile where he tried to make his two best friends spend time together, even though they didn't much like each other and would be far happier to ignore each other.

Or, as had been the case in this visit, Rose could ignore him and he could pretend to ignore her while covertly staring at her.

"What if we asked Noah?" Albus said eventually. "You, Lily, and Noah against me, Rose, and Hugo?"

Scorpius did have to stop to consider that. Unlike him, his cousin Noah was very good at Quidditch, and he knew Noah was probably bored out of his mind and resenting the fact that Scorpius was visiting the Potters in London while he was holed up on his family's estate pretending to study for the coming year.

"Okay," he said finally. "If you can convince him to play with her after the Quidditch match in June, sure."

Noah must have been very, very bored, because when Albus stuck his head into the Potters' fireplace, he was only there about a minute. "He says sure," Albus said cheerfully. Scorpius cursed inwardly - he'd been half-hoping Noah would refuse.

"Fine," he muttered. "If they say yes."

When Albus opened the door, Rose turned to look at him and smiled. Scorpius's heart skipped a beat, and he was thoroughly disgusted with himself for it. "Hey, Al," she said. Her hair was practically glowing in the sunlight. "What's up?"

Albus leaned against the doorway. "Do you want to go to Gran's to play Quidditch?"

Rose jumped to her feet so quickly Scorpius instinctively ducked back inside the house - it was his experience that sudden movement from Rose Weasley was frequently accompanied by jinxes. "Thank Merlin," she exclaimed, completely ignoring him. "I've been dying of boredom. Who's playing?"

"You, me… Hugo?" Rose's little brother was wearing a grin identical to hers. "Hugo. I figure Lily will want to." Albus jerked his head toward Scorpius. "Us."

Rose frowned. "Odd numbers are even worse than two-a-side."

"Noah's coming, too."

The consternation on Rose's face vanished. "Oh, so you're thinking me, Lily, and Nott against you three?"

Hugo snorted and elbowed his sister. "Nice try," he said.

"It was worth asking. You guys might've bought it." She tore into the house and took the steps to Lily's room two at a time.

"Why'd she bring her broom here, anyway?" Scorpius asked as he, Albus, and Hugo followed her up the stairs at a much more sedate pace. "It's not like she can fly it in London."

Albus shrugged. "Well, she wouldn't leave it at Gran's like Hugo does - someone else might use it, and she's a lot more particular about her broom he is."

Hugo shrugged and turned into James's room, which he'd taken over while Albus's brother was traveling with their cousin Roxanne's family. While Scorpius didn't much like Rose, on the balance he thought he preferred her to James, who in addition to being a prat was a lot less fun to look at. "I'm not on a team," Hugo called out as he flopped down onto the floor and kicked his sandals off. "And my broom isn't as good as hers."

After a belated check-in with Mrs. Potter, who seemed quite happy to have them all leave for the afternoon, they each grabbed a pinch of floo powder and made their way to the Burrow.

London had nothing on the Weasleys' home near Ottery St. Catchpole. The minute Scorpius stepped out of the fireplace, he had to close his eyes; the curtains were all pulled back, and the sun was pouring in through every one of the house's large kitchen windows, and the way it glinted off the metal pans and the bright daisy wallpaper was pratically blinding.

As he was adjusting to the change in light, a hand clasped around his wrist and steered him toward the table, which was loaded with biscuits and lemonade. "You don't spend enough time in the sun," his best friend muttered. "No wonder you're so damn pale."

"Oh, shut up."

They settled in with Lily, Rose, and Hugo at their plump and greying grandmother's table. By the time Noah emerged from the fireplace about fifteen minutes later, only Albus and Scorpius were still inside; the other three had headed out.

"Hello, Mrs. Weasley," Noah said to Albus's grandmother. His grandfather was out for the day, which was just as well - Noah was far too interested in muggle things for Scorpius to want them in a room together.

After turning down both the biscuits and lemonade, Noah followed them outside. Even Scorpius had to admit that it was a pretty scene; the sky was impossibly blue, and he could see daisies growing down by the fence separating the back of the house from the meadow. Lily, Rose, and Hugo were sitting on the grass partway down the gentle slope, staring up at the few lone clouds drifting across the sky and giggling. Rose twisted around when they approached, and when she saw Noah, she broke into a genuine smile.

"Hey, Nott. Interested in repeating your humiliation from June?"

Noah snorted loudly and collapsed onto the grass next to her. It would have been uncomfortably warm if there wasn't a breeze, but with it, the day was actually very pleasant.

"Nah," he said, reaching out to nudge her knee. "I'm interested in payback."

Rose fell backwards and closed her eyes. "In your dreams, maybe."

"You shouldn't cross me. I'll put your arse in detention next year and make you miss practice."

She opened one eye again. "Oh, are you the new Slytherin prefect?" He smirked, and she closed her eyes again, clearly unperturbed. "Two can play at that game. I'll put your arse in detention right back."

Scorpius's mouth fell open. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "They made you a prefect?" Rose shrugged. "What, were they all out of Gryffindors who follow the rules?"

To his surprise, Rose accepted his jibe at face value. "Dunno. I think they're cracked, but…" She shrugged and launched into a dissection of how they could split off into teams, and immediately hit on the unhappy reality that there wasn't really a great way to do it evenly. "If James wasn't with Roxanne's family -" she started to say.

"Then we wouldn't be playing," Albus cut her off. "Neither of you would play with Scorpius, and then it would be impossible to have even sort of balanced teams."

He didn't say that Scorpius was the worst flier of all of them, but the insinuation was there, and Scorpius felt his face get hot. To his surprise, though, Rose shrugged rather than tease him for it. He had too much sense to take it as a kindness - she was just bored and past ready to fly. "So who, then?" she asked. "Him, Noah, and Lily against the three of us?"

Before anyone else could say anything, Scorpius cut in quickly. "That sounds fine." The last thing he wanted was for everyone to dissect whether there was another way to rearrange teams and realize that there probably wasn't, because he wasn't all that good at flying - at least not without having him and Rose on the same team, and he definitely wanted to avoid that.

"Who's your keeper, then?" Rose asked, grabbing her broom off the grass.

Noah, who'd avoided the discussion of the teams - something which Scorpius was quite grateful for, since his cousin knew that he wasn't very good - grinned. "I am," he told her.

Scorpius breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that they'd be asking him to play Keeper, which would have been disastrous. The very last thing he wanted was Rose taunting him as she scored due to his ineptitude over and over again.

Rose grinned. "It'll be nice to beat you again."

"Sure you will."

They were acting entirely too friendly with each other, in Scorpius's opinion. They were on opposing Quidditch teams, and Gryffindor had snatched the Cup out from under Slytherin's nose just a couple months earlier.

Hugo kicked off. "I'll do it for us," he called down. "Unless you want to, Al." Albus shrugged and followed suit.

To Scorpius's surprise and relief, the game turned out to be fun after all. He was able to score on Hugo a few times, though Lily quickly outstripped him. It ended up being fairly balanced; while Rose was better than Lily, Noah was much better than Hugo.

Of course, Rose was better. She was the only one playing in her natural position; Lily and Noah both played as Seekers on Gryffindor and Slytherin respectively.

"Oh, come on, Nott, you can do better than that!" Rose taunted when the quaffle they were using soared past Noah's outstretched hands.

Noah retrieved the ball and threw it to Lily. "Yeah, you laugh now. You're going down, Weasley. I owe you for last year."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned back.

Scorpius stared at them. Was Rose Weasley flirting with his cousin? And, even more disturbingly, was his cousin flirting back? He wasn't quite sure, but either way, they were definitely being far too friendly for his tastes.

Rose, Albus, and Hugo did end up winning, but only by a slim margin, and to Scorpius's surprise, she barely gloated. After poking fun at Noah a little more - which annoyed Scorpius even more than if she'd been poking fun at him - she settled with Lily and Hugo on the grass close to the house.

"Have you completely forgotten about last year?" Scorpius hissed as soon as they were alone. "Remember how she scored just before you caught the snitch and lost us the Cup?"

Noah shrugged. "Sure. It's part of the game, Scorpius." He narrowed his eyes. "Jealous?"

"What? No!" Scorpius snapped, though even as he said it, he had a sinking feeling that it might not be strictly accurate. "What's there to be jealous of? Rose Weasley is the biggest pain in -"

"You've said." His cousin leaned back, looking a little bored. "Well, you're definitely acting jealous, so if you're really not, stop getting so pissed off that I didn't spend the game glaring at her."

Before Scorpius could think up a good comeback, Albus returned with a pitcher of lemonade, and he let it go. There was no use dragging Albus into the argument, especially not if Noah might be right - and if Scorpius couldn't argue with him with any real conviction, he doubted he'd hold up any better against Albus.

All the same, he kept sneaking glances over at the grass, where Rose, Lily, and Hugo were all lounging. When Rose let out a particularly loud laugh and elbowed her brother, he felt an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach that very disconcerting.

This was definitely not how he'd envisioned visiting Albus would go.

A/N: Just a fun little one-shot. If you enjoyed it and haven't read Curiosity Is Not a Sin, you should totally go read it - it follows how this develops after they return to school, though from Rose's point of view. You should also check out The Hogwarts Express, which is shorter but talks about their unenviable encounters on the train.

If you have read those, I really hope you enjoyed this as well!

As always, I love reviews, and thank you for reading!