Chapter 1

HogwartsSchool of Witchcraft and Wizardry was in for a shock when Albus Severus Potter got sorted into Slytherin. But the students and teachers were not surprised when Albus got into occasional fights with Scorpius Malfoy. Then all of a sudden, in their third year, the school witnessed another shocking incident. A Potter and a Malfoy had become friends. The two had gone from playing pranks on each other to playing pranks together. And the number of times the two found themselves in Headmistress Mcgonagall's office drove the transfiguration professor insane. But as much as it distressed her, the Potter-Malfoy allegiance was something she began to admire.

She wasn't the only one who was indirectly in support of Scorpius's friendship with Albus. There was another, a girl of eleven, two years younger to her brother; she was Lily Luna Potter. The moment that she had met Scorpius before the Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, (she had been chatting with Albus when Scorpius had come to see him) he had managed to get her eyes locked onto him.

"Have you met Lily?" Albus had asked and Lily flushed as she hid behind her brother.

Scorpius had only given her a smile.

"Lily," said Albus, pulling her forward. "Meet Scorpius. He's our most extraordinary seeker after dad."

"Scorp, this is my sister Lily."

"Hello," Scorpius said, extending his hand for her to shake. Lily stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before glancing up at him and then running off amid the crowd.

Scorpius chuckled and bid a bewildered Albus goodbye before joining his team. At that moment, as she watched the match begin from the Gryffindor stands, neither Scorpius nor Lily had realized that five years later at another Quidditch match, she would be cheering for Slytherin from the Gryffindor stands.

"Albus! Where in Merlin's name have you hidden my Herbology essay?" Lily exclaimed, stomping up to her brother in the courtyard.

It was a pleasant evening, and Lily had been lounging at the lake with her close friend Alice Longbottom — chatting about how sweet and considerate Lorcan Scamander was — when she suddenly remembered that she had to finish her Herbology essay. Lily had looked for it everywhere in the dormitory and then realized that Albus must have stolen it. She had muttered something about Albus being a nuisance, and left to go find him, leaving Alice to her daydreams about Lorcan. Alice could never stop gushing about her boyfriend and that was nearly always the topic of conversation between her and Lily. As much as Lily enjoyed hearing about the extravagant things Lorcan did for Alice to show his love for her, she also got annoyed knowing that there was no one Lily could gush so fervently about.

She was fifteen-years-old, and had been asked by a few boys in school but she had turned down every single one of them. Alice often remarked that Lily should've said yes to Lysander (Lorcan's twin) because the letter that he had given to Lily was the sweetest one ever. Lily had come up with some lie to get Alice off her back; something about him being the brother of Alice's boyfriend and that it would be odd. But she could never admit to anybody (at times not even herself) that her heart was set on one blue-eyed boy from Slytherin (who also happened to be her brother Albus's best friend).

Lily had long admitted that Scorpius Malfoy was off limits. She had three reasons to believe the same. One: He had a different girl draped around him every other month. Two: He had barely even given her a glance whenever they were in the same room. And three: Albus would throw a fit if anything were to happen between them. Yet those reasons did not stop her from grabbing every chance she could to be around Scorpius. Also it helped because Albus kept taking her things and hiding them so she could always go up to him and rattle his bones for doing so, while giving her eyes a good treat because her brother and Scorpius were constantly found at the same spot.

She had been infuriated that Albus had hid her Herbology essay again (one that she had spent three hours in the library working on) but it also gave her another chance to look at Scorpius closely as opposed to shooting him glances from the Gryffindor table in the great hall. She found them in the courtyard where Scorpius was sitting with his legs outstretched before him, his hair in the most chaotic state possible and eyes focussed on the book that he was scribbling something furiously on...Lily was finding it hard to look away from him.

Why does he have to be so attractive? She scolded in her head.

"I didn't!" Albus said, giving her the most innocent look he could muster. "There is no essay of yours that I have seen."

Lily rolled her eyes. As if he hasn't hidden it before.

"Stop being such a pain, Alb. Return my essay," she remarked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

It was a pesky habit that she had picked up whenever she was anywhere close to Scorpius. She would nervously keep tucking her hair at the back of her ears even though no strands were hanging loose. Hard as she tried, Lily could not break the pattern. After a while she had just started to ignore it.

"I'm not lying, Lily."

"Are you talking about the Herbology essay that was supposed to be submitted yesterday?" Scorpius asked when Lily was about to tell Albus off for lying.

She was so shocked seeing he was speaking to her directly that she couldn't answer. Lily began to stutter and managed an incoherent response that she was quite sure none of them heard. Scorpius hadn't looked up from his book at all while speaking but the sentence directed to her was enough to give Lily a panic attack.

Calm down, she told herself. It wasn't as though he had never talked to her, but it was only when extremely necessary or if he had to pass a message from Albus since he was busy in detention. But every time Scorpius directly addressed her, Lily's nerves would fluster and she'd start to stutter. She hated that. She hated that he had such an effect on her when to him she meant nothing.

"I overheard Thomas talking about it in the common-room today. He was saying that he had written some nonsense in it and that Professor Longbottom would not be pleased," he said, scribbling something in his notebook.

Thomas was a classmate of Lily's. She thought back to when she had handed the essay in the Herbology lesson the day before. She mentally cursed herself for being so thick. He must think I'm some deranged lunatic to be throwing a fit over nothing.

"Right," she muttered. "I'm sorry...I—I'll just—just go."

Without getting a chance to embarrass herself even more, Lily took off hastily. She was grateful that she had reached at quite a distance when she tripped on her feet and was about to fall face-first. Lily shuddered at the thought of what would happen if Scorpius had witnessed her clumsy self. She'd rather not think about how amusing that would be to him; and how he would never think of her as anything but Albus's awkward little sister.

Lily rushed towards the Gryffindor common-room and made a beeline towards the girl's dormitory. She threw herself on her four-poster and buried her face into the fluffy pillow.

"This is blasphemy!" She mumbled into the pillow irately before turning around so she was lying on her back, and stared up at the ceiling, muttering cuss words to herself.

"How could I be so daft? We handed in the essay yesterday! Yesterday, for Merlin's sake, Lily, use your head!" She groaned and sat up.

Lily had a habit of talking to herself when she was frustrated or angry over something. The girls in the dormitory were quite accustomed to this habit of hers for the past five years. Her muttering and mumbling was ignored by everyone, and nobody talked to her when she was this way. They would rather sit and stare at nothing instead of talk to Lily when she was in her angered state where she'd hex anybody who came close to her.

"He could've just sat quiet," she muttered. "Why did he have to open his mouth? He doesn't talk to me anyway. Could've just shut his oral cavity and not spoken a word. But no...he just had to talk and make it worse for me."

"You are a fool, Scorpius Malfoy!" She said loudly, now gathering the attention of a group of girls huddled at a bed across from her. They looked at her as though she had lost her mind and when she sheepishly pulled the covers on top of her head, they turned away.

Lily wondered what the foolish Scorpius Malfoy must be doing now that she had left the vicinity and he did not have to see her humiliate herself anymore. Probably snogging some girl from Ravenclaw this time.

But that wasn't what Scorpius was doing. Rather he was busy chuckling to himself, recalling how adorable Lily had looked when she'd started stammering out of nervousness. If she thought that he didn't know that she fancied him, then she was utterly wrong. Scorpius had known since the day that she had met him for the first time before Quidditch. Her face had given it all away, and day after day when he came across her in school, she made it quite obvious how much liked him. It was only a matter of time until she got so mad that she admitted it to his face.

Scorpius was eagerly waiting for that day. It wasn't that he had never noticed Albus's sister before. She'd captured his attention just as much as he'd captured hers. Scorpius wasn't sure whether or not he fancied her, but he surely found her alluring. He'd seen her transformation from a timid and awkward girl who flustered whenever he was around, to a beautiful and bright young woman who also flustered whenever he was around. As much as he wanted to get to know her more, he couldn't muster up the courage to do so because he was aware that it would not go down well with his best friend. Albus had warned Scorpius beforehand — when he'd noticed Lily's behaviour around the latter — that his sister was not to be one of Scorpius's conquests.

Scorpius had a reputation of going out with a different girl every month, and even though Albus was no different, he did not want his little sister to be hurt. Had Scorpius not been this handsome and appealing to nearly all the girls in school (including those who despised Slytherin boys), and if he had not been told that Lily was to be considered nothing but Albus's sister, maybe Scorpius wouldn't have become so frivolous with the girls.

And maybe he'd have gathered the courage to look at her straight without admiring her beautiful face, her luscious red hair and long legs that drove him mad. It was difficult, he'd admitted to himself, looking at Lily as nothing but Albus's sister and not a grown up and attractive young woman. It took all his willpower not to pull her into an empty corridor and kiss her.

He'd scolded himself plenty for having such thoughts but he couldn't help himself. But he would never agree to the fact that he might just harbour similar feelings for Lily as she did for him. It was a dangerous territory to step into, and Scorpius would rather go around with other girls than lose his best friend just because he couldn't keep his hands to himself when it came to Lily.

And he only wondered what the result of courting Lily would be if his father found out. Draco Malfoy was never so happy about Scorpius's friendship with Albus, but he had accepted it because no matter how bad the rivalry between Harry and Draco, they had, in the end, become cordial with each other. But just because his father allowed him to be best friends with Harry Potter's son, did not mean that going out with the daughter would be acceptable.

Scorpius had decided long ago that he would never make a move on Lily, but it had never been established that he would stop thinking about her entirely. After all, he couldn't stop those thoughts from returning whenever she was around. He tried his best to keep safe distance and not pay attention when she was in sight, but doing so was trickier than he'd imagined.

When Lily had come to the courtyard raging about how Albus had hidden her Herbology essay, it took all his effort not to fluster her even more by giving her one of his signature smirks that had girls swooning. He'd then resorted to glancing at her while she was fuming at Albus, and then clearing her doubts about the essay, without looking at her once. Scorpius knew that he wouldn't be able to look away from that tight-fitted white shirt, and light-blue jeans that covered her legs, if he gave her another glance.

He had stuck to looking at his notebook and vigorously scribbling notes on it as though his life depended on it, until Lily had walked off. That was when Scorpius had sighed and asked Albus that they should return to the dormitory because it was starting to get dark. Albus had agreed and now they were sitting in the common-room where Albus was chatting with a few other friends while Scorpius was busy staring at the fireplace, trying to get the reddened face of Lily Potter out of his head. It was quite the task.

As the night gathered its darkness and the lamps went out, Lily and Scorpius lay on their beds, each thinking about the other. The two of them didn't know what the coming month had planned for them, and how their lives were about to experience drastic changes. But all they could do for now was fall into a slumber; Lily deciding to move on from Scorpius like she did every night, and Scorpius scolding himself to stop thinking about a certain red-haired beauty, like he did every night.