Yeah, I know, another story :D... I'm on a kind of story-writing roll at the moment and I keep getting new ideas bugging me... although this one has been in my head for about a week or two now except I postponed it because I didn't want to write another Lily/Scorpius one so soon after bungee-jumping hearts.

So, I don't really know exactly what is going on in this fic except that Lily's a bit of a wildcard and Scorpius is hopelessly in love with her even though he knows that she's probably not good for him :P. And I actually know several real life relationships like this so it made writing it even more interesting for me because I tried to put across the fact that being a wildcard doesn't make Lily a b**ch (hopefully she's not too much of one in this) and being in love with one doesn't necessarily make Scorpius a hopeless case - although he kind of is :P.

So, enjoy and reviews/favourites/whatever are always appreciated 3.

Because she's fire and fire burns.

xXxXx

He sees her in the street, handbag swinging and nails gleaming red to match her hair. There's a click click click as her high heels touch the pavement and she's laughing at something that her frizzy-haired cousin Rose has said. He's surprised to see her, surprised that she's not running around in a foreign country, like she spends the majority of her time doing now.

She pauses as though she can feel his eyes on her, and her head turns ever-so-slightly in his direction, brown eyes piercing. He hastily averts his gaze and fixes his own eyes on a broom in the Quality Quidditch Supplies shopfront. Scorpius thinks that she might just be looking straight at him, might recognise him...

But no. He can hear Rose's voice faintly murmuring something to her and the two girls carry on down the street, laughter in the air once more.

Scorpius isn't really sure what's wrong with him. He knows that she's Lily Potter and he's Scorpius Malfoy and the two names just don't mix. They really don't. In what world does the name Lily Malfoy sound right, anyway?

He also knows that everybody expects him to fall for Rose, and, heck, if Lily hadn't been around maybe he would have. Rose is one of his best friends, and she's pretty much everything Scorpius would have asked for in a girl. She's smart, she's funny, she knows where she's going and where she wants to be, she can speak three languages fluently (English, French and Dutch - although he's not really sure where she learned the last one), and she's strong-minded and his family's Death Eater past doesn't faze her in the least. He even finds her attractive, with her frizzy brown hair, wide blue eyes and broad smile.

In reality, though, Scorpius knows that any chances of him being with Rose were lost when he first saw Lily and realised that she was everything he hadn't been looking for in a girl but somehow she was everything that he really wanted. All it had taken was a Saturday night filled with idle conversation with the owner of those daredevil red eyebrows and he was lost.

Because Lily is firefirefire and she laughs in the face of danger, dancing with it and spinning it closer to her. Her hair is jaggedly short, red curls twisting and falling over each other languidly and her brown eyes dare you to follow her off the edge of the cliff and dive into unknown territory. She's not known in the school for being smart because she routinely flunked classes in favour of practicing her Quidditch skills and setting fire to random chunks of the school (he's surprised that it took until sixth-year for her to be expelled). Her sense of humour is as dangerous as her persona and it's razor-sharp wit that cuts those who aren't careful. She's best friends with Rose and one would have thought that Rose would have been able to entice a sense of direction into the the other girl, but no. Lily drifts around like a wildfire, singeing and burning everything in her path and following the wind wherever it takes her.

Scorpius thinks that he should never find her attractive. She burns and he knows this from first-hand experience. He remembers her dragging him under the mistletoe the Christmas before she was expelled, her eyes alluring and daring him to come with her. Of course he did, he always will (he knows that with certainty). He was naive that night, genuinely thinking that a kiss under mistletoe meant that she cared for him. Yet the next day she was back to her fire-setting ways and when he asked her why she'd done it, why she'd played with his feelings like that when she knew that he liked her, she'd just shrugged and asked him if he really regretted it as much as that.

He doesn't. She's Lily Luna Potter and he's never regretted anything that he's done with her.

He knows that he's got it all wrong. He knows that his heart should beat RoseRoseRose and that if it did he would be oh-so-happy and his life would be beautiful. Yet instead his heart is beating LilyLilyLily and somehow he still manages to find a way to be happy, and his life is still beautiful because he's friends with her (in a way, although she makes it difficult for people to come close) and they have a thing together and as long as she's in his life he can't help but smile.

She can run off to all the countries she wants, to all the sun-lit beaches and frozen lands, but the fact remains that Scorpius knows he'll always be here waiting for her when she returns on her sporadic family visits, red hair curling wildly around her head.

He feels a tap on his shoulder and he turns and she's there. She's lost Rose somewhere in between when he last saw them and now. Her brown eyes are gazing up at him and he feels strangely peaceful despite the fire burning in her eyes.

"Scorpius," her voice is huskier than other girls' voices, deeper and there's a rasp to it, a crackle that sounds as though her very throat is on fire. "Why did you ignore me back there?"

"I didn't," he murmurs, aware that his voice isn't fiery like hers is. His is normal, ordinary, smooth. It's a reminder of how he feels beside her sometimes - she's the fire-breathing dragon and he's the normal, ordinary grass that she burns beneath her fire.

"Was it because Rose was there?" she asks him, her hand rest lightly in one of his. He doesn't know when it appeared there, but he squeezes her hand lightly anyway.

"No," he lies. Of course it's because Rose was there - Rose is in love with Scorpius, as much as Scorpius is in love with Lily and somehow the three of them there together would have been too much. He knows that Lily delights in that kind of tension and she smiles wickedly at them whenever the three are together, and it's moments like those when he feels oddly like she's some kind of mischievous devil that's come to haunt him.

"Yeah, well, whatever," Lily loses interest and instead digs her nails into his hand and begins to drag him into a little alleyway near the Quidditch shop. She presses him up against the wall and their lips meet and it's some kind of heaven for him, even though he knows that for her he's just her snog-toy and when she's done with him she'll throw him back into the ocean of boys that she's done the exact same thing to.

Her eyes flicker open as she draws away from him and he's all kinds of confused at the moment - she's never dragged him away before, although she's appeared at his apartment randomly, eyes sparkling with desire.

For once her eyes appear less fire and more regret, and he feels his heart thump in worry. Maybe his time to be tossed aside is now.

His words come out in a rush, thinking that it's now or never. "I love you, Lily."

Shadows of doubts linger in her eyes and he's amazed that he can read her emotions so clearly. It's never happened before - normally a fiery curtain closes off her feelings from the outside world and she's just daredevil Lily to them all.

"Scorpius," her voice is more raspy than normal. "You know that... I don't feel that way..."

"I know, but one of us had to say it," he sighs, running a hand through his blond hair so that strands fall into his eyes. "Just think, Lily... please. Stop running. I love you."

It's a pitiful plea, and one he knows is useless. To ask Lily to stop running from the world, to stop wildfire-ing her way through life... it's as though he's asking a plant to stop growing towards the sunlight, or a bird to stop flying. He knows that she'll say 'no', and he knows that, truth be told, he doesn't want to be the one to cage her.

"Salazar," she curses, backing away from him and her eyes are all kinds of scared now just as his were all kinds of confused a few moments before. "Don't say that. I like you, okay? But I just... are you fucking stupid, Scorpius? Do you really think that saying 'I love you' is going to make me stay, like it does in the storybooks? You're just making it more difficult for me."

Scorpius lets her glare up at him for several minutes, curses flying out of her mouth and accusations in her eyes. "Lily... I... okay, forget it. Forget I said anything."

They both know that they can't forget what's been said. He knows that, deep down in her heart of hearts, she might just love him, too, but it'll take a lot more than a hurried confession from him to make her admit it to even herself.

Yet the fires in her eyes die down and she tugs impatiently at one of her curls. "I'm going to Romania tomorrow. Lorcan's coming with me this time."

Scorpius sighs at her change of topic, even though he's the one who told her to forget what he'd said. "That's... good."

"You don't have to sound so enthusiastic, Malfoy," she smirks at him, eyebrows raised. "I'm going for a month or two - Lorcan's helping his parents work on the latest edition of Magical Beasts and I offered to help. It'll be fun. We can track down some dragons, see whether they really are as deadly as everybody says they are."

He rolls his eyes. It's typical of Lily to try and head-butt danger in the face, and he supposes that she wouldn't be Lily if she weren't always trying to do that. Still, it worries him and he thinks that one day she's going to discover that she can't always escape intact from a fire-breathing dragon or the like.

"Be safe," he murmurs, almost to himself.

She catches it, of course. "You think I can't take care of myself, Scorpius? I'm not a baby. I'm twenty."

Twenty isn't very old, either, Scorpius thinks to himself. "I know, I know. I just worry."

"You're overprotective, that's what. I'm not even your girlfriend, so it's not like you have any right to be," she snorts, drawing her wand out of her pocket as she prepares to Apparate away. "Don't give me that look. We both know that you're not going to make me settle down, Malfoy. Even if you like to dream about it sometimes."

He wonders if she can see the faint traces of hurt written across his face. Maybe she can, because her gaze softens infinitesimally and she reaches up to kiss his nose.

"Bye, Scorpius."

"Bye, Lily."

xXxXx

She's fire and fire burns - he's got the scars to prove it.