I'm not a morning person. Least of all when the morning in question begins with my so called best friend jumping on top of me and screaming "ROAD TRIP!"

"Alice," I moaned, attempting to remove her from me, "Would you kindly shut the fuck up?"

Alice is a morning person. And a night person. I'm not sure if she's ever tired. However, she is sensible enough to know when to stop being insane, so she rolled off me and marched to the window to pull the blinds open.

It was the morning of the first day of the road trip, and it looked set to be a long one. I had been surprisingly prepared and had packed the night before, so all that was left was to get dressed and attempt to tame my hair. Alice had stayed over the night before, and Albus was coming over very shortly in order to leave time to get to Malfoy Manor. I groaned internally at the thought of the Malfoy name. Me, Alice and Al got on very well together, and the addition of Scorpius would just mess everything up. Battling with my hair in front of the mirror (with Alice laughing at my predicament) I tried reasoning with myself. I'd never had a proper conversation with Scorpius, aside from the time we were Potions partners in second year; for all I knew he could be charming and funny. I just sincerely doubted that.

I raised my concerns to Alice, after hitting her with a hairbrush for laughing at me, who responded in a typically practical fashion.

"He's friends with Albus, he can't be that bad, and besides, you won't even have to talk to him that much." She said, pulling on a T-shirt. "Also, he seems funny, and he's pretty fit."

"WHAT?" I almost dropped my hairbrush on my foot. "Scorpius Malfoy is not attractive!"

"He is! He's got this 'mysterious nerd' thing going on…and his hair –" I raised an eyebrow at her and she tailed off. "He's not unattractive, that's all I'm saying," she concluded.

"Fine, he's 'not unattractive'," I snapped, aghast that the conversation had taken this turn, "But that doesn't mean he's fit."

"Who's fit?" I started. Albus was standing in the doorway, and I was in my underwear.

"Albus!" I shrieked, "Do you know how to knock!"

Finally noticing my state of undress, Albus turned a shade of maroon and dived out the room. We were cousins, so had seen more of each other than we would care to admit, but the more worrying part was that he would have heard some of our conversation about Scorpius. I really wouldn't want him getting the wrong idea.

Twenty minutes and two cups of tea later, the three of us stood outside a battered red mini.

"Al –"

"I know what you're going to say."

"And?"

"I've put an undetectable extension charm on the boot," he replied giving me his trademark "Merlin, it's so obvious" look.

"Making use of that O in Charms I see," my dad remarked, turning up behind us with mine and Alice's suitcases in his arms. Albus smirked (damn him and his insufferable intelligence) and I cast a forlorn look back at our house.

"We should probably get going soon." I said, surprisingly excited at the idea. I would certainly miss my house, but I was going to go on a road trip with my two best friends (and, unfortunately a random acquaintance) and seeing Al's car made it all the more real.

My mum, Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry came out of the house at that moment, as well as all my various cousins (except for Lily, who sadly was on her own holiday). I was sent off with a chorus of "Owl us!", various group hugs (with Alice included since she was practically part of our family anyway) and a stern reminder from my parents to be sensible. At that point I reminded them what they were doing at my age and they promptly shut up.

Alice and I clambered into the back, Albus into the driver's seat, and we all stuck our heads out the window and waved (even Al, which resulted in a near-crash into our neighbour's wall and several horrified shouts from our parents.) As the car turned the corner, elation bubbled in me, and I couldn't help grinning like a maniac. This was going to be amazing!

A few hours later, I was most definitely not in the same mood. Unsurprisingly, the back seats of a mini are incredibly uncomfortable, and after a few hours slogging through traffic to Wiltshire I was incredibly bored and had a sore arse. To make matters worse, Malfoy Manor seemed to be in the most isolated and hard to find place in the whole of Britain. After unnecessarily long periods of time spent arguing over the map, we turned a corner, and there it was.

To call Malfoy Manor posh is like saying Voldemort was a bit of a meanie. Seriously, the place oozes aristocracy; I could practically smell caviar and enforced table manners from the end of the driveway. And to top it all, it was damn creepy. Looking at the dark exterior and drawn curtains, I could see why the place scared the shit out of Albus the first time he came.

"This," Alice remarked as we drove ever closer, "Is the most pretentious place on Earth."

I muttered something in agreement, although as we pulled up beside the house it was clear that the Malfoy's had tried to liven the place up a little. The front door was painted cream, and there were small olive trees next to it. Looking at the windows surrounding the door, I could see warm light exuding from the rooms, and I caught sight of a cat sitting on a windowsill. Nonetheless, it still resembled something from a horror film, and in no way lessened my anxiety about meeting Scorpius. Albus hopped out of the car and rang the doorbell, while I contemplated why Scorpius Malfoy of all people made me nervous and uncomfortable.

I was still no closer to an answer when the boy himself opened the door, carrying a huge case that looked like it had been passed down over generations. His mother kissed him (and Albus) goodbye, prompting blushes from the both of them, and Scorpius clambered into the car, looking slightly uncomfortable and unsure of himself.

"Hey Alice, Rose," he mumbled as Albus started the car engine.

Oh Merlin, this was going to be a long trip.

Surprisingly, the mood lightened quickly as we chugged through the countryside. Although Scorpius mostly talked to Albus, and Alice to me, there wasn't much awkwardness, and Scorpius didn't seem too annoying. Alice and I were halfway through a conversation when she interrupted herself.

"Oh, shit!" I was worried, being a teacher's daughter, Alice rarely swore at all. "I forgot the batteries for the torches!"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Alice took her position as "mother of the group" very seriously, often with hyperbolic results.

"Relax," Albus replied, "We can get them at the next petrol station."

Luckily, said petrol station appeared quickly and Alice and Albus jumped out, leaving Scorpius and I to deal with the petrol, much to my horror. Having only driven the family car, I had rarely had to fill it up, and now it appeared I would have to teach Scorpius as well.

"So this just goes in here?"

I giggled. Scorpius was holding the pump upside-down and looking completely bemused.

"Not like that, you idiot!" I directed his hands into the right position, and he began to fill the mini up, looking extremely proud of himself.

"You're a dork," I teased.

"You're dork-ier."

"That's not an actual word."

"That's rich coming from a girl who made up her own language in first year."

"What – How did you even know that?" I shrieked, vividly remembering my first year at Hogwarts when I was lacking in the friend department, to put it politely.

"Your cousin is a gossip, dork face." His expression turned to one of panic. "Merlin! How do you turn it off! It's going to overflow!"

I chuckled at his surprisingly endearing terror.

"Relax, dork face," he grinned a little at our new nickname for each other. "It turns itself off."

"Wha–? How?" He looked suitably confused until the petrol shut itself off, and a few moments later Albus and Alice showed up laden with shopping bags (apparently, a trip to a real life Muggle supermarket was too much for Albus to resist.)

"You managed to fill up?" Alice asked, loading the huge boot, much to the astonishment of the few Muggles that were there.

"Yep," I said, and Scorpius elbowed me, muttering "dork face", causing me to burst into hysterics.

Alice looked at me in confusion as we sat down once more in the car, my spirits considerably lifted. It appeared Scorpius Malfoy was alright after all.