"Happy Halloween!" A rather breathless Scorpius fell into his seat at the Ravenclaw table beside Rose, who was already helping herself to chocolate orange cake. "Oh good," he continued, his eyes falling on the platters of food in front of him, "There's still some pumpkin pie left. I was worried it would have all been devoured by the time I got here. Honestly. Professor Longbottom has no sense of fun sometimes."

Rose paused, the forkful of cake stopping halfway on its journey to her mouth. "Neville? What have you been doing this time, Scorpius?" she asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.

The pale-haired fourth-year shrugged. "Just decorating," he said through a mouthful of the aforementioned pie, earning himself a disapproving grimace from his red-haired friend. He swallowed and made an appreciative face. "Mm, this is delicious. Think the twins would want me to save some for them?"

Rose, spotting his attempts to divert her, frowned. "Decorating?" she repeated dubiously. "And that's a good point. Where exactly are Lorcan and Lysander?"

"They're coming, they had to go and wash the pulp off," Scorpius said casually, already reaching for a jug of pumpkin juice. "And you know, just making the castle a little more festive."

Rose sighed. She could see where this was going. The Scamander twins had a habit of coming up with well-intentioned ideas which, coupled with Scorpius' wild imagination and enthusiasm, had more than a tendency to go wrong or get out of hand.

"Scorpius…" she began, putting her fork down and turning towards him, her eyebrows raised. He seemed to not notice; he was inspecting a bright green doughnut with apparent fascination. "Scorp, what did you do this time? Just tell me."

It was then that the twins arrived, noisily arguing about something as they sat down opposite her and Scorpius. Rose noticed that their hair and the hems of their sleeves were wet.

"….don't see how bewitching a pumpkin to bite people is all that dangerous…"

"…we should have just carved it by hand, though, I told you that the mouth looked a bit funny…"

Rose raised her eyebrows and turned to Scorpius, who was now looking at her with a resigned expression. "It was their idea!" he said defensively, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. He glanced at the twins, a smile appearing on his lips. "I was just helping."

"It was not!" Lorcan protested, at the same time as Lysander said something along the lines of, "You thought of the biting part!"

Rose shook her head, so that her ginger curls bounced against her back. "You know what? I don't even want to know." She returned to the unfinished slice of cake on her plate.

To her surprise, neither of the three boys replied. She looked up, expecting them to want to tell her of their genius plans, but found that they were looking over her shoulder. She turned to see Wesley Carrington, a Gryffindor boy she had a couple of lessons with, staring at her.

"Um, hi?" she said, clearly confused about why he was over here instead of at his own table with his own friends. From what Albus said - he was also in Gryffindor, but was absolutely not friends with Wesley - the boy was extremely annoying and certainly wouldn't look twice at Rose unless it was to insult her or make some snide comment about her hair or her weight or something. She glanced at Scorpius and the twins for help, but they looked just as perplexed as she felt.

"Hey," Wesley grinned at her, baring his teeth in an oddly predatory way. "Happy Halloween."

Rose blinked at him. "Happy Halloween?" she returned as politely as she could, already feeling quite out of her depth. It seemed to have gone a little quiet around them; she had the awful feeling that people were watching them, and that something was going to happen. Prickles of discomfort ran up her neck.

"So, um, I was wondering, there's the halloween dance later…" Wesley sounded the opposite of what she felt - cool and collected and confident. "Want to go with me?"

Rose felt heat rising to her cheeks, and knew her face was turning tomato red. "What?" she asked, dumbfounded. She heard someone nearby laugh.

Wesley looked at her through his lashes. "I said, want to go to the dance with me?"

Rose didn't seem to be able to speak. She knew she was being made fun of - probably it was because Wesley knew she'd never had a boyfriend and would likely never get one to go to dances with, despite having more male friends than female ones - and yet she had no idea what to say to stop herself looking like an idiot. She desperately searched her mind for a witty comeback, something nonchalant and unawkward, but came up blank.

"I mean, no offence, but loads of girls already have dates and I figured that at this short notice, you were a pretty safe bet for someone without one already," Wesley continued in a patronising tone. He smiled at her as if he was doing her a favour.

"Well— um— actually—" Rose wanted to say that she wouldn't want to go out with him even if he was the last boy on Earth, and in fact she didn't want to go to anything as boring as the halloween dance anyway, but the words couldn't seem to get past her lips. They stuck in her throat, all too aware of the chuckles and laughs that filled the air around them. "Actually, I—"

"You're wrong." Rose's head snapped sideways and found that Scorpius was on his feet, meeting Wesley's eyes coldly and calmly. "She already has a date for the dance tonight, so you can go away and you and your arrogant excuses for friends can find someone who would actually stoop to your level."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Wesley scoffed, looking up at Scorpius with disdain. "Sure she has a date already. Let me guess, it's her cousin — what's his name, Albus?"

"No," Scorpius' jaw tightened, his eyes growing fiercer. "She's going with me."

Rose's eyes widened. As far as she knew, Scorpius was going out with a very pretty Slytherin girl. It was all well and good lying to Wesley now, but it would fall through as soon as he turned up with the other girl tonight. As if sensing her worry, Scorpius put his hand on her shoulder very gently. She felt herself relax just slightly. He must have a plan, she thought. He always did.

"Oh, really? I thought you were going with Melinda?" Wesley asked, but he sounded more uncertain now.

"You thought wrong," Scorpius said coldly. "Maybe you could ask her instead…. oh no, wait, I forgot, you don't have the guts to ask someone you actually stand a chance with."

The dark-haired Gryffindor looked as though he was confused by the insult for a moment, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish quite comically, and then he shrugged. "Whatever. It was just a dare, anyway. As if I would want to go with her." He turned away and headed back over to the Gryffindor table, laughing as if he had won.

Rose looked up at Scorpius, a frown on her face. "Thanks," she muttered, her cheeks still burning. She hated that she had had to play the damsel in distress, and that he had had to jump in and save her. But she wasn't going to act ungrateful for it. "What about Melinda, though? He'll know you lied tonight—"

"I didn't."

"Huh?" Her forehead creased in confusion.

"I didn't lie," Scorpius said with a shrug, sitting down at the table once more and picking up his fork. Then he paused, his eyes meeting hers. "I mean, that is, unless you don't want to go with me."

"What about—?"

"Melinda and I broke up," he shrugged. "But it's okay. I didn't like her that much. Plus I was going to ask you to the dance anyway. So yeah. It's up to you."

Rose felt an unfamiliar surge of hope. "You don't? I mean—- you were?"

"Sure," he nodded, stabbing half an egg made to look like an eyeball. "There's no-one else I'd rather go with."

Rose was quiet for a moment, unsure what to say, and she looked at the twins to distract herself. They were looking at each other and communicating silently, being absolutely no help to her whatsoever.

Scorpius seemed unfazed by her lack of response and was once again inspecting his plate rather closely, but she could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was listening.

"I'd like that," she said carefully.

He looked up. "You would?"

"Sure." She smiled at him, an anxious fluttering in her stomach. "You're…. you're my best friend. Thanks."

"Oh." Scorpius looked surprised, though Rose didn't know why. Then his expression smoothed out, and he grinned. "You're mine too. And no problem. That's what best friends are for." He turned away from her quickly and started talking to Lysander about something, though Rose would have sworn that he was blushing just a little, turning his pale skin an adorable shade of pink.

"Rose?" She turned and saw Albus standing behind her, his eyebrows furrowed. "You okay? I saw Wesley over here talking to you."

She imagined Wesley's face, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, and heard Scorpius say there's no-one else I'd rather go with, and she gave Albus a dazzling grin. "I'm great," she told him truthfully. "Happy Halloween, Al."