The next few days, the air was full of anxiety and excitement. The ball was in four days, and girls were already squealing about dresses and hair and such. Rose found it all very amusing, and spent most of her time in the library, though the workload had lightened considerably. On the second day, the second-to-last day before the ball, Lily found her curled up in a corner, a book in hand.

"I can't believe you, spending all this time studying! It's ridiculous!" Rose rolled her eyes at the younger girl. The young, albeit beautiful redhead, had managed to get a date with Travis Longbottom, Neville and Hannah's son. He wasn't exactly the most handsome boy, but Lily figured it was better than not going at all. Roxanne was going with Eric Finnigan.

"I'm busy. I don't want to fall behind on my schoolwork."

"You haven't even shown me your dress yet!" Lily complained. Rose shrugged.

"Don' have one."

Lily's jaw dropped and her eyes widened to the size of dinnerplates. "WHAT?"

"I did't get a dress. I was thinking I'd just wear that summer one I got last year-"

"C'mon!" Lily pulled her up by the hand and sprinted down the Grand Staircase, Rose shouting for her to stop. They reached the passage to Hogsmead and Lily dragged her down the corridor silently. They immerged in Honeydukes cellar and they silently snuck out, moving towards a dress shop that sat towards the end of Hogsmead.

"Lily, I don't want to-"

"I think an olive green would suit you, or maybe spice brown-"

"Lily, I really don't want to-"

"And definitely sleeveless, you've got amazing shoulders..." Ignoring Rose's protests, she dragged her into the shop. The dressmaker glanced at the girls and smiled kindly.

"Hello, Lily."

Lily smiled rather frantically. "Hello, Mrs Pirkys. We have a big problem. We have a ball in two days, and my cousin here doesn't have a dress." Mrs Pirkyns yelped, hurrying foreward and taking Rose's hand, pulling her to the back of the shop. Lily followed, grinning.

Rose moaned as Mrs Pirkyns pulled out the fifth dress, yanked it over her head, and then made a disparging noise and pulled it off again.

"This is hopeless," she told the both of them, but stopped short when she saw the next dress Mrs Pirkyns had. It was a sleeveless dress the color of wheat. She slipped it over her head gently, silently examining it. There were five gold bands that hugged the material to her figure, and two gold bands that came down from her straps across the chest. The dress gathered at her waist with a gold bow, and came down in the front to a couple inches above her knee, and in the back about half way down her calves.

"That looks amazing, Rosie," Lily said breathlessly, her hands clasped together. "You have to get that one!" Rose sighed, trying very hard to look impassive, but couldn't help but admire the dress in the mirror.

"Fine." Lily squealed, clapping her hands together.

The day before the ball, the classrooms were havoc. Nobody really seemed to want to learn, especially in the older grades. The only teacher that seemed to be able to keep order was Professor Cursus, who could make you become permanently mute just by glancing at you.

Professor Slughorn, however, was not so lucky. He tried several time to explain the potion they were studying to the class, but everyone was restless. Rose, who was sitting by Damien Corner and chatting amiably with them, couldn't even find it in herself to pay attention. She did not notice Scorpius, who was sitting a few rows behind them, throwing them furtive glances. Having had enough of their flirting, Scorpius stuck his hand in his cauldron and pulled out some of the goop, which they were supposed to change into a liquid, and raised it.

"Oi, Weaslette!" Rose turned, slightly annoyed, only to have a handful of goop splatter into her face. The rest of the class erupted into laughter-even Damien was chuckling- and their eyes flicked nervously between the legendary frenemies.

"SCORPIUS HYPERION MALFOY!" She roared furiously, pulling out her wand. "I'm going to KILL YOU!" She sent a spectacular bat-bogey hex in his direction, but he just laughed, ducking behind desks, running around the classroom. Rose sent hex after hex at him while Slughorn tried unsuccessfully to calm them both down. Finally, he groaned helplessly and left the classroom with huffy breaths, leaving Rose free to hex Scorpius into oblivion. When one of her curses finally hit- Avis-Scorpius sprinted out of the classroom-still laughing, mind you-with a flock of demented birds chasing after him.

"What're you looking at?" She snarled at the rest of the class, who were staring at her with wide eyes. She plopped down next to Damien, who was still chuckling, and attempted to get the goop out of her hair.

"You guys are so perfect for each other," he told her, and she froze, staring at him in bewilderment.

"What're you talking about?"

He shrugged. "Nothing really. The whole school thinks so. You guys are absolutely destined to be together."

Rose scowled, deciding that Damien was a git. "No, we aren't," she said forcefully.

He shrugged again, but there was a knowing glint in his eyes. "Think what you must."

That night at dinner, Rose was ranting furiously about how much she hated Scorpius Malfoy to her family. Lily and Roxanne were grinning by the end, but Albus was just rolling his eyes. "You guys are so crazy about each other."

Deciding to ignore this, Rose looked up just in time to see Scorpius stride into the Great Hall, smirking triumphantly. His eyes locked with hers, and his smirk broadened as he winked. She was about to stand and confront him when she saw another figure enter the Great Hall.

"Look guys, its Maddie!" she said excitedly. The others glanced up and grinned. Rose leapt out of her seat and hurried to the girl, who embraced her in a tight hug.

"How you doing, little cuz?" she asked, ruffling her hair. Rose grinned toothily at her. Maddison was Uncle Harry's Godfather's granddaughter. She was also half-Weasley, being Nikkyra and Fred's 'lovechild'. Nikkyra had become pregnant with her just a month before Fred died. They had been engaged. Maddison was one of the family now, like Teddy, even though her father was long gone.

"I'm good. What're you doing here?"

Maddison threw her head back and laughed. She had a beautiful, lilting laugh. "I came to chaperone your ball."

"Really?" Rose squealed excitedly. She nodded. They both walked back over to the Gryffindor table and Maddison sunk down beside her. The Weasley-Potter clan greeted her enthusiastically. She was the oldest child of the whole family, and everyone got along with her.

Rose felt her face redden immensley when Jeremy came to sit by her, flirting shamelessly. Maddison just sat there, smirking, but Rose could see the look in her eyes that said 'We'll talk about this, later.'

Rose and Jeremy were involved in a round of playful banter when Scorpius came to sit across from her. She glared up at him, the grin fading from her face instantaneously. "What do you want?"

"Want some pie?" he asked, smiling in a falsley sweet way. Before she could answer, the apple-tart pie that he was offering exploded in her face.

Exploded in her face. Several people looked around to see what had made the noise, and then laughed when they saw Rose. McGonagal's lips were drawn in a thin line. The redhead rose to her feet, wiping whip cream out of her eyes. "Two times in one day, you git!" she shouted, making everyone look round. "I hate you so much, you can never just leave me alone! I'm sick and tired of you always playing pranks on me and you never just let me be! Whenever I'm having a conversation you just have to go and throw something in my face! I'm so sick of you!" She ran through the tall doors, leaving a striken Scorpius looking after her. The Great Hall was silent for a few minutes, before they slowly shook themselves out of their tramautized state and got back to their conversations. Maddison rose slowly and started toward the doors, before turning back to Scorpius, raising her eyebrows.

"Follow me," she told him, and there was something in her voice that told him not to disobey. He followed her out of the Great Hall and up to the Gryffindor Common Room. They found Rose sitting on the couch, staring into the fire, her arms wrapped tightly around a pillow. Maddison sighed and moved toward the couch, pulling Rose to her feet and dragging her towards Scorpius. They stood face to face, but neither looked the other in the eye; Rose's eyes were on Maddison and Scorpius was staring at the floor, a crease between his eyebrows.

Maddison took a deep breath, and then looked at both of them in frustration. "Listen, I've known you both for a while. Rosie, I was eight when you were born, and I thought you were the cutest thing in the world. Scorpius, you came home with Albus the first summer after your first year. You two were as thick as thieves, and, despite the fact that you two teased her so much, you adored Rosie. You three were like Golden Trio all over again.

"Over the years, I noticed that Scorpius, no matter how many pranks he played on you...well, he adored you, Rose. Even though he teased you to the brink of insanity, he defended you against anyone. Someone said something as much as that you have to many freckles or something like that, he'd hex them to smithereens." She smiled sadly, looking at Rose earnestly. "He fancies you, Rosie. It's why he's always around you, even when you think he's not. Whenever you're talking to another guy, did you notice how he always chooses then to play a prank, or how he'll shout across the classroom just to say 'hi.' He gets jealous, and he wants you to pay attention to him."

Scorpius was spluttering indigantly by now, staring at Maddison with a newfound anger. She ignored his glares and continued.

"And Rosie cares about you, despite the fact that she says she can't stand your exsistence. You mean more to her than anything else in the world. You're all she talks about on vacation, and it drives Uncle Ron, Hugo, and Al crazy, although Aunt 'Mione thinks it 'cute.' When she sees you with other girls, or sees them flirting with you, twirling their hair and batting their eyelashes, it makes her furious." She turned to wink at Rose, who looked horrified. "She thinks you are the most attractive man in the world. Face it guys, you're totally compatible."

With that, she turned on her heel and left, leaving nothing but a flash of red hair. Rose and Scorpius stared at each other.

"She's crazy," Rose said finally.

Scorpius nodded quickly. "Definitely, lets forget this even happened." She nodded and they turned away from each other to their respective dormitories.

A/N: I love Maddie, she's so freakin awesome. I own her. I don't own anybody else, but I own Maddison, she's my biatch. So yup, seccooond chapter. Disclaimer: I don't own these other peeps, just my biatch Maddie. Yup. I already said that. Review Pleassssssssseeeeeeeeee