Wooohoo, I have returned! And writing about my favourite couple. This is gonna be a multipchap, obviously. I don't promise regular updates but I'll try to update twice a month. I hope you like it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own HP.

To be perfectly clear from the start, I didn't intend to hex Lily Potter's hair purple. I was completely innocent – in fact, I'm fairly sure my wand acted on its own accord. Lily snarled at me when I told her my theory, saying it was impossible. But her own father's wand had acted on its own accord once upon a time, and saved his life from the Dark Lord. She should know that, as his daughter.

But alas, no amount of explanations, no matter how true some of them sounded, got her to forgive me. Lily knew how to hold a grudge. I guess it came with being a Slytherin. We were ridiculously good at holding grudges and appear evil to the general populace. I think they put something in our pumpkin juices.

I guess I could see her point. Somehow, and I say this with complete bewilderment I had managed to hex her hair permanently purple. Okay, let me confess something first. I did mean to hex her hair an unnatural colour – I knew she held special love for her long, flaming locks that marked her as member of the Weasley family (go figure) – but I didn't mean to make it a permanent change.

Here's where my wand's free will came into play. Somehow it had fired a stronger spell than intended, and bam, I had a purple-haired, fire-breathing Lily Potter out to get me. I suppose this was where I told you that I faced her head on with a cocky smirk on my face, told her that she deserved it for being a complete bitch to me every time we had Quidditch practice, and then proceeded to somehow charm my way out of having her rip out my spinal column through my mouth and then use it to strangle me?

(When Lily was pissed, and I mean, downright boiling and seething with anger, she didn't use magic. You'd think, given her skinny frame, she would be easy to deal with. Don't make the mistake of underestimating her physical strength or you're finished. I did it once, and I still have the scars on my arse to remind me of my stupidity.)

I wish that was what happened, dear readers. But I live in the real world, and when a witch with notoriously bad temper and violent tendencies was out to skin you alive, you did the smart and sensible thing and ran for your life.

Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid her forever. It would have been easy if we didn't share a common room and the girls weren't allowed to go in the boy's dormitory. (Could we take a moment and ponder on how completely unfair that was? They say girls were more innocent than boys and they could be trusted, but I'd heard enough girls' false alarms about being pregnant to know that it was complete bullshit.) And the girl was nothing if not vengeful.

And this was how I found myself boycotting the dorm and sleeping in the Ravenclaw common room, on their stuffy couches. Honestly, even our couches were more comfortable and they were not made to be comfortable. Having a cousin with you in Hogwarts really had its benefits. Of course, it took come bribing, because Lianna was a Greengrass and a Zabini and she didn't do anything for free, and her motto was: the more I could take, the better. How she ended up in Ravenclaw and not Slytherin was beyond me.

'Are you done primping?' Lianna's bored, drawling voice came from the other side of the door. I had to wait for her dorm mates to leave for breakfast before I could use their bathroom. That was ten minutes ago. I was far from ready.

'No.' I replied, struggling with the stupid tie. I hated the ties and if Greyson didn't get so prissy whenever she saw anyone without it, I wouldn't bother with it at all.

The door opened and my cousin stepped inside, her uniform and most importantly, her tie, looking perfect. Her dark hair was pulled into pristine, tight ponytail and when she walked up to me and reached for my tie, I saw her perfectly done French tips. Lianna was always perfectly put together. She was always in control of everything in her life – something I was secretly jealous off – and she was always on my case about 'lazing about' and not doing anything productive with my time. I'm sorry, but not everyone had the ambition to become the supreme ruler of the world. Again, how did she end up in Ravenclaw, given her ambitious nature, was beyond me.

'How did you end up in Ravenclaw?' I asked interestedly as she fiddled with my tie. Her blue eyes flicked from my tie and met mine.

'I asked the hat to put me here.' She replied casually. 'There, you're done.' She said, stepping back to observe her work. She nodded in satisfaction and looked up at me again. 'Are you ready to go now?'

'You asked it?' I asked, confused. You could do that? Of course I wouldn't know. The second the hat had touched my hair, it put me in Slytherin. My mother said the same thing had happened to my father and I tried not to think too much about it, given what git my father had been back in his school days. (The man himself confirmed it, but he also told me that he was justified, given the pressure he'd been under. I secretly thought that it wasn't pressure alone – my father was still not the nicest person around – but I kept my opinions to myself.)

'Yes, I asked it.' Lianna repeated, reaching out to push some of my hair away from my forehead. I let her because the hair was bothering me anyway and I was probably going to do it myself. I refused to gel my hair the way my father did. Not only did he have the Malfoy's sharp, haughty features to make him look like a stuck-up prick, but be made extra effort to look like a git and sleeked his hair back. I had inherited the features – unfortunately, my mother always said with a teasing smile on her face – and I refused to make things worse for myself. Especially considering that everyone expected me to snap and turn evil one of those days. 'Actually, I argued with it for a while, and it decided that my brain and thirst to be right fit right in with the Ravenclaws.'

'I suppose that's true.' I allowed after a moment. Lianna was ridiculously smart, after all, and she did have some know-it-all tendencies. That spurred an intense rivalry with Rose Weasley, who was probably Lianna's copy in personality. If they looked past their competitive natures, I had no doubt that they'd become the best of friends. Of course, neither of them looked inclined to do that any time soon, and I was occasionally used as a buffer in their fights. The things I did for family.

'Now that we got that out of the way, we should get going. ' Lianna drawled – she spent way too much time with my father – and looked me up and down. 'You look presentable enough to show your face in public now. When are you going to go back to your common room?' She asked, raising her eyebrows. I didn't like the mocking look in her eyes at all. She thought my fear of Lily was amusing and just a little pathetic, but she didn't know what it was like to be at receiving end of the wrong side of Lily's broom. The few people who did understood my feelings perfectly.

'When my life is no longer in danger.' I answered promptly, and side-stepped her in order to get out of the bathroom and the amused look on her face. I grabbed my schoolbag which I had dumped on a random bed upon entering and swung one strap over my shoulder.

'You're overreacting. You know my housemates aren't happy that you're bunking in our common room. It's just a matter of time before someone tells on you, and you know the punishment won't be pretty. Just man up and face her already. This was funny at the start but now it's getting really, really pathetic. I'm going to start denying my relation to you if you continue like that.' I turned to face her but she only gave me a reproachful look. 'She's not all that scary either. Sure, she screams a lot and likes to use her fists sometimes, but you're a boy. You can handle her.'

I shook my head. She simply didn't understand. She didn't know Lily's angry side the way I did. We were very closely acquainted. Lily not only didn't hesitate to use her fists, but she didn't spare either nails or teeth. I had the scars to prove it. Dimly, I realised, that I was a victim to her violent tendencies more often than anybody I knew, and if I weren't convinced she was the spawn of devil himself and relished and enjoyed in inflicting pain and dominance over me, I might have wondered what spurred the special treatment. After all, it was not like I went out of my way to annoy her. Sometimes, breathing too loud when she was in the vicinity set her off.

'Let's just leave it and go to breakfast, okay?'

Lianna looked like she wanted to argue but at the last moment thought better of it. 'Fine.' She said with an exasperated sigh. 'But this is not over.' She warned me as she walked past me and left the dorm room.

'I figured.' I grumbled unhappily to myself as I followed her, closing the door behind me.

...

'Malfoy!'

Hide.

That was the first thought that registered after the unholy screech pierced my ear drums. I scrambled for a place to hide – studiously ignored the amused looks Carmen and Claude were giving me – but before I could make my move and swoop in, in the nearest broom cupboard, a hand fisted in the back of my robes and yanked me backwards.

'Don't you dare!' She hissed from behind me. I shot a panicked look at my best friends (and cousins) but they only smirked in that creepy identical way of theirs.

'Well, we'll leave you two chat in private.' Carmen said as looped her arm through her brother's whose grinn widened at the look of despair on my face. I knew those bastards were sadists but this was taking it too far.

I watched my best friends abandoned me to my death, all the while giggling like schoolgirls – which, in Carmen's case, wasn't a huge stretch from the truth, not all, actually – and stilled myself for the upcoming onslaught of attacks on my person. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes cautiously and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Lily standing in front of me, hands on her hips. The first thing I noticed was her hair, and how it had become a lighter purple in odd places. I bit my tongue, feeling guilt pool in my stomach. Look, I wouldn't admit this under the threat of painful death but I quite liked Lily's red hair. If I hadn't been taught by my father to feel disdain and superiority to anything Weasley related, I might have had the courage to share this piece of information with Lily. But there really was no use in crying over spilled milk now. Especially not when Lily was staring at me with blue eyes so cold, I was surprised I hadn't turned into a giant icicle yet.

'You—' She stared, jabbing a finger in my chest. I flinched but bravely stood my ground, looking in Lily's blazing eyes, which, being honest here was a feat itself. Not many people had it in themselves to look her in the eyes when she was angry. Some people swore they saw every painful memory they had flash in her eyes, reflecting in the crystal blue. I knew it was an exaggeration – I mean, she was scary but she was not, say, Voldemort – but it made me feel better about myself when I listened to other people's pathetic wailings about their fear of the littlest Potter. '—you missed practice again.'

I blinked a little confusedly, and Lily stabbed my chest with her finger again. I flinched only very slightly, barely registering as her hand crept up my neck and fisted in my hair, ready to pull down. 'You told me not to return to practice.' I told her blankly, shifting uncomfortably when her grip on my hair became, er, painfully tight. Lily smiled slowly, a sort of a fiendish smile that sent little kids into fits of snot and sea of tears.

'And you listened?' Her voice was deliberately slow and dangerous, meant to intimidate. She stepped forward and titled her head slightly to meet my eyes in a challenging stare off, one supercilious eyebrow cocked upwards. I noticed the red of her eyebrows immediately, and despite the circumstances, couldn't help but think how horribly they clashed with her purple hair. 'This is Quidditch, Scorpius.' She continued in the same voice. 'Our first game is in less than two weeks and with Gryffindor no less. Is your head really full with hot air? Is it going to deflate if I accidentally poke it with something sharp? How am I supposed to find another keeper in less than two weeks and train them our strategies?'

I feel the need to clarify that what Lily considered 'strategies' other people considered 'cheating scams'. She only got away with it because she was a Potter and clearly no one wanted to accuse her of playing unfairly. Clearly. She really was lucky that she got sorted in a house where moral wasn't very high when a big praise was on the line, otherwise, she was screwed.

A painful pull of my hair brought me back to earth and I yelped, my hand flying to my head. I clasped it around Lily's fist full of my hair, and tried to answer as calmly and confidently as I could. 'I couldn't have known. After what happened I—' I paused when Lily's EYES FLASHED and her nails dug into my scalp painfully. I winced internally and did my best to continue in the same blase voice. 'I thought you really meant it.' I finished and then added hastily. 'I'm so sorry about your hair, by the way. I really didn't mean to do it.'

'Bullshit.' Lily scowled. 'But whatever, I got over that. My parents are sending me over some muggle hair dye tomorrow and I'll get rid of this monstrosity soon enough. What I care about is my team and finally snatching that blasted cup from Al's dirty claws. I can't stand the gloating during the summer. I swear to freaking Merlin, I'm this close to killing him.' She let go of my hair, much to my relief and stepped back from my personal space. Her scowl slowly transformed into a steely expression I had come to associate with Quidditch. When Quidditch was involved Lily Potter didn't kid. The bird aspired to become a professional Quidditch player when she finished with school, preferably on her mother's former team, Holydead Harpies.

I, for one, played Quidditch for the fun. But when you got Lily Potter for a captain – and I was still a little bitter about it, since I was the most senior member on the team, but Greyson had still seen it fit to put Lily in charge. I suspect favouritism was involved, what with Lily being Harry Potter's daughter. It was incredibly grating and a huge blow to my pride. My father's disappointment only made it worse – you couldn't simply have fun. She had us all up at the crack of dawn, had us run twenty to thirty laps (and if you were being particularly vocal with your complains or saw it fit to be mouthy with her, you got ten more) and then had me, and the beaters, lift weights and occasionally the female members of the team to built up our muscles. It was incredibly tiring, unnecessarily so, but in the end, none of us had the courage to say anything and we continued to suffer in silence while she cackled over us with unholy glee.

'Point is, you better show up at practice tomorrow morning or there will be hell to pay. Got it?'

I nodded slowly and she nodded curtly in return, turning on her heel to leave. I paused in mid sigh when she whirled around suddenly, fixing me with a calculating gaze.

'And you can—' Her face pinched in discomfort and she scowled. 'You can come back to the common room. I'm not going to kill you or anything. Even my dad won't be able to bail me out of that one, so you're safe.'

'Er, okay.' I said awkwardly. 'Thanks.'

'Yeah.' Lily said, stared at me for another moment, and then spun and left for real this time. I allowed myself a deep exhale and a rub to the back of the head where Lily had pulled on my hair so mercilessly. I didn't think she was going to kill me but she was way better at crushing spirits and skulls, and that wasn't, unfortunately, punishable by law.

Well, on the bright side, I could return to the common room without fearing for safety, and I could play Quidditch again.

Maybe I had overreacted, after all.

...

I hadn't bloody overreacted.

It was official, Lily Luna Potter was not the spawn of devil; she was the devil herself. Let me start from the beginning of my day. It was Saturday and I was sleeping in my bed for the first time in a week. I was practically melting into the soft mattress and immensely enjoying the feel of the soft, silk sheets. It felt like heaven. A heaven I never wanted to depart from. Of course, given that Lily was The Devil, she barged in on my safe Heaven in the crack of dawn and dumped a bucket of cold water and snails on top of me. Why snails, you ask? Because, sometimes, when you were too sleepy, cold water didn't really deter you and you continued to sleep on, despite the chattering of your teeth. But when you knew and could feel the slimy, disgusting snails crawl all over you, you just had to get up. Sometimes, you screamed and jumped so high in the air you hit your head in the canopy.

I'd seen it happen. Not to me, of course. Vince, the poor bloke, as if his head wasn't angular enough on its own without having to add another lump to it. I was pretty sure the crying on his graduation party wasn't because he was sad to go but because he was happy to finally get away from Lily.

My dorm mate and team mate Derek Nott didn't have to be treated to a cold, snail shower this particular morning. My startled yelp was enough to wake him and sent him flying in the bathroom before Lily got to him with her bucket.

Lily, the cold-hearted witch, laughed at his speedy exit, as if his terrified stuttering was something she should be amused by. I swear to Merlin, I had no idea why people kept selling the Potters as the 'good ones'. All three siblings were evil to their very core. I still hadn't forgotten the bludger that nearly broke me in half in fourth year, and James wasn't even a beater! Albus didn't use physical violence. No, instead he broke our team's spirit and self-confidence under his heel like we were annoying cockroaches with a few well-chosen one liners. It always seemed to work, though this year Lily seemed determined to somehow make us resilient to his methods.

'Get dressed up, Malfoy.' She said after her cackling finally came to an end. She shot me frightening look. 'Don't be late. The girls' are already up and ready. I'm going to go wake up Smith now, and by the time I'm finished with that, I want the two of you in the common room, doing stretches, got it?'

I could only nod dumbly. She nodded in satisfaction and with a skip in her step, grabbed the bucket full of water and snails and left the room, all the way humming a very ominous tune. Actually, it was rather pleasant, jaunty tune but coupled with Lily's smirk of doom, it was nothing short of blood-curdling.

Sometimes, I really wondered about her parents. What could have possibly done to raise her to be such a monster? Weren't they supposed to be the good guys, the preachers of all that was good and innocent in the world? Shouldn't their kids share their view? Shouldn't they be preaching about goodness, acceptance, equality and all that shit my father always complained about whenever the Potters were brought up in a conversation?

We'd all be lied to. I had my suspicions from the first time I met the girl, but I definitely think we were victims of a large-scale scam. It would explain Lily's penchant for them.

'I'm done.' Derek announced as he walked out the bathroom. I nodded and walked past him. 'Hurry up, though. She's pissed at you enough already.' I slammed the door in Derek's smirking face, turning to glare at the window broodingly. In the mornings, I looked much more like my mother, who was not nearly as well put together as my father's side of the family. My mother was an elegantly built woman with delicate, well-defined features that came with her well-bred linage but she was far from being a delicate, elegant pureblood matriarch everyone mistakenly thought her to be. Behind closed doors, my mother had a foul mouth, plenty of well-meant and jokingly delivered criticism and a bizarre obsession with muggle board games.

When I was young, I really wondered how on earth she and my father ever got together but the one time I asked, they said that they were the only ones who could stand each other's weird quirks and questionable past and so they stuck together, and eventually, came to love each other.

Not the most romantic story, right? But that was how my parents were.

But I'm getting off topic. Moving on with my awful day. Derek and I dressed and went downstairs to meet with everyone, with the notable absence of our dear, sweet captain and Robert Smith

My scowl was mirrored by everyone else as I fell into stretching stance beside Sylvia Beckett, who, for being Lily's best friend, was doing a rather fantastic job of cursing her very existence under her breath. It was a mark of how much time Lily spent drilling those ridiculous morning stretches in our heads as we formed a perfect line and started stretching our arms in unison. I could bet my Firebolt 3000 that we were the best disciplined team in the school.

Eventually, Lily and Smith – no one really called him Robert – descended the boy's staircase or rather Smith fell down the stairs ungracefully, with Lily following behind with a grim expression but a satisfied air about her.

'Right, now that we're all here.' She said, coming to stand next to Smith, who was groaning and rolling around the ground. He looked like a moron. No dignity whatsoever. Lily rolled her eyes when a particularly pitiful moan came from Smith and kicked his shin none-too-gently or sympathetically. 'I told you not to mess with me! Now get up or I'm going to do a lot worse than push you down the stairs. How about pushing you off the window, huh?'

'You can't afford to lose me now.' Smith said somewhat smugly, though any impression it might have left on Lily and everyone else was lost due to the fact that he was still lying on the ground. In her feet.

Lily's eyes narrowed and she bent over to look him in the eyes. 'Try me, Smith.'

Smith went pale at the serious look in her eyes and he scrambled to his feet, pushing his floppy fringe away from his eyes as he hurried to join the line. Lily smiled to herself, a victorious, thoroughly evil look in her eyes.

'Good. Now let me see you.' She said as she came to stand before us, hands on her hips. The hormonal, teenage boy part of me noted that she looked spectacular in her tight black sweatpants and matching sweatshirt but this thought was shoved away as quickly as it had come by the panicked and most importantly, sane part of me. I couldn't think of Lily as hot. Even if she was a complete knock out. Because. Well, because that would complicate things a little too much for my liking. I'd had enough excitement for the past couple of weeks.

'Sides, if she ever caught a wind of that, she'd laugh for days and then find a way to use it against me and blackmail me into joining one of her wretched plans to sabotage her brother.

'Alright, start with arms, then shoulders, head, waist, legs, and then some push ups and sit ups.' Lily leaned against the couch as she said this, crossing her arms across her chest. 'Well?' She snapped impatiently. 'Don't just stand there and stare at me – get on with it! I already did all of my exercises and I didn't need anyone to tell me to do them.' She sniffed distastefully, looking down her nose at us, as if it was our fault we didn't go bonkers when it came to Quidditch. 'Chop—chop, we don't have all day! If you don't get on with it, we won't make it to breakfast later.'

The very thought of missing breakfast was enough to touch the hidden motivation in me – and everyone else – and together, we all started the required stretches, all the way thinking about greasy, sizzling, delicious bacon and eggs. Probably not the best thing to think about when training, of all things, but as long as Lily couldn't read minds, I was okay with it.

Once we were finished – and out of breath – Lily ushered us out of the common room and made us run with her towards the Quidditch pitch. We knew better than to whine about the unfairness of it all and only followed her, although in a considerably slower pace, which seemed to irritate Lily, who had no sympathy for anyone but herself.

Once we were outside, I regretted not wrapping that thick wool scarf around my neck and putting that extra shirt underneath my sweater. It was the start of November and Scotland was getting colder and colder by the minute. The warm, summer days seemed like a distant, blurry memory, especially in the face of the frosty, temperamental weather we were having.

Wonderful, wasn't it?

'Alright, team.' Lily said seriously as we all gathered in the changing rooms, brooms in hands. 'I've got the plan laid out. It's full proof. If any of you idiots blurts out our strategy again, even if it's just a smidgen of it—' She glared at Helen Harris, who looked at her feet guiltily. 'I'm going to hurt you. And you're going to cry. Got it?' We all nodded. We weren't about to blurt out anything. We wanted to win almost as much as she did. I say 'almost' because no one wanted to win as much as Lily did. It was just impossible to reach Lily's fervent desire for winning. That should be classified as a mental illness of its own, in my opinion. 'Good. Everyone beside Scorpius, do your laps.' Everyone shuffled out of the changing room, sending me sympathetic looks. I accepted them quietly and glanced mournfully at my shoes. 'And don't let me see you slacking off!' She barked after them, not bothering to hide the threat from her voice. 'Or you're going to be sorry!'

'Malfoy, you come with me.' She said with a much quieter voice, brushing past me. I followed her out the changing room and down the hallway. I had that dreadful sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew where she was taking me and I most definitely didn't like it.

We reached the door at the end of the dim hallway and she opened it, walking inside with her purple hair swaying with each step she took. I shook myself out of it quickly enough and looked in her eyes when she whirled around to face me. 'So, you have a week worth of catching up to do.' She said slowly, a smirk pulling at her lips. I bit back a groan and stepped inside the room full of various torture devices. My eyes fell on the weights neatly gathered in a line, arranged by their weight. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the biggest one, which looked to be at least twice as heavy as me. I knew that Lily wouldn't go as far as to make me lift this, mostly because I'd probably break under the weight and she needed me for the game in two weeks.

'You're starting with the lightest ones for a few minutes until you get used to it again.' She said, pointing to the small purple five pound weights. I crouched to grab them and tested them out, surprised that I didn't feel them as heavy as I thought I would. Five pounds wasn't much, true, but the first time she'd dumped them in my hands, I felt like my hands might fall off. I remember her shrieking voice crystal clear. It was the day I first caught a glimpse of her true, evil personality.

I remember huffing and puffing, sweat dripping from very uncomfortable places on my body. In my defence, I had gone through a two hour practice before that, with the stretches before that. I was damn tired.

Lily was having none of that, though. She stood over me with her fierce, calculating eyes narrowed at any sign of strain or weakness, and whenever I went for a break, she slapped me hard on the back and told me to man up and finish my fucking series or else.

There was this memorable day when I refused to do what she said and later acquired one of the scars I mentioned somewhere above. Ah, good times.

Point is; there was definite improvement. I tried not to smile too widely to myself and continued with my series, making sure to apply the breathing exercises Lily had taught me on my first day of weight training. Derek and Smith were usually here to keep me company, and I had no doubt they'd be joining me later. Lily's sadism wasn't satisfied with just one person's pain.

At some point, she left to see what was going with the team. She returned twenty minutes later, seething and demanding I followed her outside. She ordered me to grab my broom, which I did, and then proceeded to crush the life out of every single one of us with her ruthless training.

There were tears, so many tears, and sweat, and I'm pretty sure Candice started to bleed from random places from sheer exhaustion and fear alone.

After two hours of gruesome training, she let the girls go, and then dragged me, Derek and Smith back in the Torture Room, and proceeded to crush whatever semblance of will power we had left.

'How old are you, Smith? Five? No, five's too much. By the time I was five I was piggy-back riding James, for Merlin's sake. This is just pathetic. What kind of beater are you? Look at your arms! You're skinnier than me!'

When she was done with Smith, she moved on me and her deadly glower got me to cower a bit. It had nothing to do with the crushing weight I had on my shoulders, no, sir.

'And you!' She hissed spitefully. 'Look at you! Have you seen my cousin, Hugo?'

'Hard not to.' I muttered. The bloke was gigantic.

'Exactly!' She screeched. 'That's because he's not a lazy arse like you lot! He actually works to become better and you? You're content with what you are! Your problem Malfoy is that you know that you're good and you're okay with that. You're okay with never advancing and staying like this forever.' She crouched in front of me, her serious blue eyes burning holes in my face. 'You may be good but while you're lazing about, doing nothing, everyone else is becoming better than you and soon enough, you'll find that you've become useless. That you're behind everyone and you have no hope of ever catching up.' She cocked her head to the side, raising her eyebrows inquiringly. 'Do you want that? Do you want to be left behind?'

I shook my head, feeling empty as she stared at me. I definitely didn't want to be left behind. I definitely wanted to become better. For the first time, I felt like I understood why Lily always fought so fiercely and went to such lengths to become better. With a family and brothers' like hers, she was bound to be the one left out. Unless she did something about it.

'Well, then.' Lily said in a quieter, gentler voice I didn't know she possessed. 'Fight for it, Malfoy.'.