(a/n: you will probably notice that in this chapter I changed the names of the other sixth-year girls *they were Joan and Jane before*. I mentioned them briefly in Chapter 2, but I decided when I was writing this chapter to choose names that go better with their surnames. I'll go back and change Chapter 2 after more chapters have been validated. . )

Disclaimer: I regularly consulted iQuidditch Through the Ages/i for this chapter's match sequence. Also, the spell "Aresto Momentum" isn't mentioned specifically in any of the books, though it appears in one of the films.

hr /

Scorpius and I slipped into an easy friendship after spending the afternoon talking in the infirmary. I still hadn't confessed to being the one who had cut a chunk out of his hair, but it didn't seem to be on his mind. I had noticed three more distinct freckles: one on the left side of his mouth, one on the bridge of his nose, and one on his neck. I wouldn't tell anyone that I looked for his freckles, but I liked them because for me, me who was always assigning special meanings to things, it represented his differences from his father, who seemed to be a slightly pathetic but also somewhat despicable character.

Weeks passed very quickly and in a sort of haze. Now that Scorpius and I were friends, he took to spending time with me in between classes and with Albus and Molly, too, when we ate meals and had weekends off. He had come patrolling with me the night after Hagrid had gotten on my case ("O' course, I wou'n't tell ye this if I di'n't have to, but as yer Head o' House, I've got to let ye know that ye should be patrolling the seventh floor twice a week") for skiving off duties, because it wasn't Albus's night to go and he had to finish his Defense essay.

I discovered that although he didn't have the same free period that I had, he had one right after lunch on Wednesdays, and that's why he'd been able to skip that one afternoon when we'd first spoken in the hospital wing. It had been a few weeks since then, and I had living been in a sort of disbelieving haze. It was as though we had been born to grow up and be friends.

It was a Friday night, the 25th, the night before the big match. Scorpius and Molly and Albus and I were sitting on four armchairs near the fire in the common room, butterbeers in hand. Molly and I had made a Hogsmeade run earlier in the day, directly after classes, and had picked up a few things from our friends at the Three Broomsticks. As the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes got more popular and gained more revenue, and as madam Rosmerta got older, it became a goal of Uncle George's to buy out the Three Broomsticks. In my third year, he did, and although Molly and I had been making runs out of the castle before then, they had become infinitely more fun since.

Surprisingly, the sixth and seventh year boys had managed the decorations. There were scarlet and gold streamers everywhere, along with drawings of lions pouncing on serpents, or roaring. There were self-portraits of all the the team players, which was my favorite part of the display-Albus was a great artist, and his was predictably quirky and still somehow realistic, but Molly, who had never had much luck with depiction, had drawn herself in what she labeled "cubist" after interrogation, but what was her only and every style. Scorpius had taken a more humorous approach to his portrait and had drawn himself as a pudgy cartoon polo player nearly falling off of his horse to hit the ball with his too-short mallet.

I was momentarily surprised that he knew anything about Muggle sports, seeing as his background seemed to be ill-favored towards them. iBut then again/i, I said to myself as I looked over the ink-strokes in the horse's pudgy belly, ihe has developed a certain fondness for Molly/i. If he felt the same about Muggle-borns as his dad did for Mum, then they wouldn't get along well at all.

And they did, I thought, as I watched Molly slop some of her warm drink down Scorpius's robes as she attempted to toast but slid on a Fever Fudge that someone had left on the carpet. He just laughed, pretended to punch her arm, and used a simple heating spell to evaporate the liquid. Steam began to rise from his robes in small streams, and suddenly stopped. There was a sizable gap between the time this happened to the time that I saw more steam begin to rise again in the familiar, small billows.

"Why didn't it all dry up at the same time?" I asked, pointing at Scorpius's robes.

Scorpius laughed nervously, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" I demanded, sitting up straighter and looking him in the eye. He quickly distracted me by holding the glance too long, and I looked down at my lap, setting down my butterbeer on the floor by my chair.

"Alcohol's boiling point is lower than water's," Albus piped informatively, leaning towards me in his chair.

I felt numb shock seeping through my veins.

"Oh no," Molly gasped, her light brown eyes flying open wide, her black eyelashes nearly forming "o's" around them.

I vaguely regained feeling in my feet, at which point I struggled to kick over the bottle of butterbeer. In my spasms, I sent it flying across the room where it landed at the feet of Addae Jordan, who picked it up, toasted me with his eyebrows raised and looking extremely pleased, and emptied it in one swig.

I felt my face twisting with revulsion and the horror of realisation came crashing down on me.

"Butterbeer has alcohol?" I demanded, pulling on the front of Albus's robes, pulling him towards me with nervous strength. "You mean I've been…I've been…" I swallowed dry air, pressing my eyes closed, desperately trying to propel the word out. "iDrinking?/i I'm a prefect-" My eyes widened even more, my mouth popping into an "o." "iAl/ibus! iYou're/i a prefect!"

Molly rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I could feel my eyes wide open and my mouth moving wordlessly in shock. "It's okay, Rose!" she said, shaking my body, trying to snap me out of my trance. I could barely see Al and Scorpius kneeling by the arms of my chair.

"There isn't enough alcohol in butterbeer to be traceable in the human bloodstream."

My head instantly cleared. My eyes snapped to Scorpius, who was clearly hiding a wide grin and possibly a laugh behind a seemingly-stony face. I knew I was grinning sheepishly at the three of them. I got up suddenly, spotting Addae, and marched over to him.

"In that case," I muttered to myself, grabbing my empty bottle out of his hand, "I'll take this."

Addae's eyes were practically boring into my back as I walked back to my armchair. I pointed my wand at the bottle, casting a silent refilling charm. It filled to the lip with the yummy golden liquid, and I took a small, polite swig before I sat down. The three were motionless for a moment, watching me with a strange, half-amused, half-exasperated look on each of their faces. Then Albus got up, patting my shoulder, and I knew he was rolling his eyes.

"What do you think about Scorpius's sudden interest in our group?" I asked Molly later that night after we'd changed into our flannel pyjamas and were in the bathroom, washing our faces.

"I dink it's genuibe," Molly said, rubbing water into her face. She continued for a moment, shook her head wildly, and then toweled her face daintily. "Don't you?"

I had started to brush my teeth, so I nodded, but there was clearly a frown indenting my forehead. I stared at it in the mirror.

"You don't seem so sure," Molly mused, wringing out her hair into her sink.

"Well, it's just…" I started, and to my, well, not quite surprise but to my slight horror, I felt my eyes begin to burn. That sort of feeling you get when you're going to cry, but you don't want to, and don't really understand why you feel this way.

"What is it, Rose?" Molly asked, placing a hand on my left shoulder. I continued to brush my teeth, perhaps a little violently. She looked at my face a long while, as I brushed, trying to ignore the tears brimming up in my eyes.

She suddenly clapped her palm to her forehead. "Oh my gosh," she whispered, looking horrified. "Oh, Rosie, I'm so sorry! This can't have been easy for you-"

Tears began to fall. I continued to brush in a methodical fashion.

"I mean, you had only just told us that you'd fancied him all this time, and you finally rid yourself of him, and all of a sudden he comes up and now you're best mates, and I mean, yes he's lovely and nice and caring and all…we just weren't thinking about what was best for you, Rose…were we?" She wrapped her thin arms around my torso. My arm kept moving, up down, up down, up down….

"You need some space. You need to breathe. You need to become sane again." Her ochre eyes met my light, sky-blue ones in the mirror, which were rimmed with red and out of which tears were flowing prodigiously. My red eyelashes were clumped together, little arrows pointing at my eyebrows, which were screwed together at the knot in the space that should have been between them. She must have seen something of what I wanted to say in them, because her face, which had melted into a sympathetic and understanding grimace, suddenly looked unsure. She looked at my reflection out of one eye, wondering.

"There's more than that…I can tell by your eyes. It's something poetic, I suppose," she sighed, sitting down on the wicker hamper. She waited while I finished brushing, spit, and rinsed my mouth, knowing that I would talk. I always did, in the end.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long moment.

"It's just a tired, tired line," I mumbled finally, dragging my hamper over and setting it in front of her, sitting down. "Girl has crush on boy, boy has crush on girl, they never talk, suddenly the girl realises she's a blubbering fool, and then, she finds out about the boy, they get together…" I looked at her, and I could see my eyes full of worry reflected in her own. "It seems…too cliché, I thought so when Al first hinted that Scorpius might want to meet me, after all. It seems too easy for someone to have orchestrated. It could be a plan. It could be fake. It might be the stage for some sort of ulterior motive, and I'm just playing the assigned part, delivering all the right lines…"

"Rosie…" Molly began, placing her hands, firm and steady, on my shoulders. I stared at my fingers, twisting them restlessly, anxiously. "Sometimes, life happens in a cliché way. You can't stop that from happening, always. Just because it's been written or imagined before doesn't mean that it won't happen in real life…You can't let your preconceived notions of what's real and raw, or what's cliché, get in the way of your feelings. You're a reserved person. I know for a fact that when you give yourself away, you do it completely and loyally and lovingly. And then you question your decision and begin to pull yourself back in. I never knew how you felt about Scorpius, and I know that if you had to write about it, you questioned your motives and his and everything a thousand times."

She looked me in the eyes, and I could see a surprising wisdom there.

"Don't analyse ieverything/i. It can make you judgmental. It can stop you from being vulnerable. And that's what you need to be for a relationship. No matter how it happens." She shrugged. "I don't really think that anyone's relationships begin in the way that they predict them happening." She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, groping wildly for words. "What I'm trying to say is, don't let the fact that something is 'cliché' get in the way of your feelings, or make you second-guess yourself."

I felt the tears slowly dry off my face, leaving crusty, salty trails. I hastily wiped my eyes, giving Molly a tight hug.

"There's something else," I whispered in her ear, and she pulled back to look me in the face.

I rolled my eyes before I proffered, in a barely-audible whisper, "Well, it's just that e.e. cummings said:

pleasure and pain are merely surfaces

(one itself showing,itself hiding one)."

Molly had sucked in her breath when I mentioned cummings, and hadn't let it out yet. She was looking at me, trying not to let her eyes go blank, I was sure. She finally gave up, pursing her lips, looking down and shaking her head slightly. "Uh, yeah….You're going to have to make me understand why that makes you nervous."

"It means that pleasure hides pain, and the other way around, too." I bit my lip. "Am I only attracted to Scorpius now because I'm feeling pain at the discovery of my true motives for being…attracted to him? I mean, the before-kind-of-attracted to him?" My eyes started to tear up again, and I could hear the pleading desperation in my voice. It had been something that had been bothering me for the past two weeks, since I had thought about that flutter of activity in my heart and midsection at his close proximity and close examination of his face in the infirmary.

Molly stared at me with a hard, glazed look about her, and I thought she was probably trying to work up an answer that didn't involve smacking me upside the head for my silly worries.

But she surprised me with a valuable answer. "You know what I've found over my years of hardly paying attention to most of life? It's that, your intentions only really matter a severe minority of the time. It's what you actually do that counts. Maybe that's hard for you to grasp, as someone so internal, who processes mostly mentally, from the inside. I guess that's just one way I'm not cursed." She grinned, and I pretended to scowl, but broke into a watery laugh.

"So act like his friend, and you'll become his friend," Molly whispered, catching me in a hug. "It's how I stomached Al for the first two years of Hogwarts."

I pushed her away, laughing.

"WAKE UP, ROSE!" I heard a loud, obnoxious voice bellowing into the curtains on my four-poster. I groaned, turning over in bed.

"Mollers, please," I said, my voice muffled, as I'd buried my head under my pillow.

"Don't you want to go down to the pitch to get some good seats?" Molly stuck her head into my curtains, already dressed in the scarlet and gold house uniform, strapping greaves to her forearms.

"Mph."

"Get up!" She yelled, smacking my read end. The resulting noise resounded through the circular dorm.

"Ow!" I squealed, turning over and walloping her with my pillow. Feathers streamed through the air. She grabbed my defenseless arm and dragged me out of bed onto the hard, cold floor, where I remained stubbornly curled, my bare feet tingling with chills.

"Get up, get up, get up!" Molly said, methodically timing her demands to match the tempo of each beat she wailed on my form with my pillow.

I suddenly lifted my head from the floor, though I remained curled into the fetal position. "Hey," I said, reaching up to guard myself from another blow. "Where are the other girls?" Aednat O'Shea, Jamila Thomas, and Amelie Finnagan weren't in bed. It was early.

"They fell asleep in the common room," Molly said, a slight frown taking over her face. She sucked in her bottom lip. It's the look someone has when they don't want to tell you something but know they should, and they're just wondering what's the best way. "Let's just say that there's a reason that you were chosen as prefect, and they weren't." She resumed beating me.

"Alright, alright, I'm getting up," I grumbled, almost shouted, shoving her off me. She'd been straddling my waist, the better to beat me into submission. She bounced off, happy suddenly, humming to herself.

I pulled myself up onto my elbow, resting my cheek in the cup of my palm. I watched Molly running around and grabbing last-minute things, pulling on her boots, hopping on one foot and banging her head on her wardrobe door.

"What, you think you're more coordinated or something?" she shot at me, seeing my smug face.

"I'm just warm and comfortable, and your head is probably throbbing."

"Get your robes on, we've got to go."

"Okay, okay…" I walked to my wardrobe and pulled on my robes over my pyjamas, fastening my heavy winter coat with the golden clasp. I stowed my wand into my pocket, pulled on mittens, boots, arranged the hood on top of my curls and walked out of the dormitory with Molly, who was practically oozing excitement. She could hardly keep from sprinting down to the pitch, I could tell.

We passed through the common room, stepping over bodies.

"Oh, gosh," I said, pressing my mittened hand over my mouth. Aednat, Jamila and Amelie were snoring loudly on the floor, face-down. I looked around tentatively. "I don't see anyone else passed out drunk on the floor," I said, my voice betraying my disgust.

"Aw, come on, they're not passed out," Molly said, prodding Jamila in the back with her boot as we passed. Jamila let out a loud grunt. "See?"

"Yeah, yeah, let's get out of here," I grumbled under my breath, dragging Molly across the room and through the portrait hole.

We walked down to the pitch chatting amicably, occasionally mocking this person's outfit, that person's performance in the school choir, tripping over small rocks buried in the snow, and quoting poetry (this was me). When we reached the pitch Molly headed off to the broomshed and the changing rooms while I hiked up the stands, to get a seat at the top. When I got there, huffing and cold, Trevor was sitting by himself, wrapped head to toe in red and gold.

"So you were obviously taking the subtle approach when you picked your clothes today," I said as I sat down next to him. He turned to look at me. His head was wrapped in a red and gold scarf, and only his eyes and nose poked out of it. But the skin around his eyes crinkled and I could tell he was grinning. He nodded.

"Ah wan-id t'be pay-dree-od'k," he mumbled through layers of fabric. I reached up and pulled the scarf down under his chin. "Thanks."

"No problem, Trevo-o-ooo-or," I said, yawning largely and stretching out my arms.

The stands were filling up quickly, blocked into two major dominating colour-combinations-red and gold, and green and silver. It seemed that the Gryffindor colours overpowered those of Slytherin-even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff chose us over Slytherin. Although there hadn't been any true showing of dark wizards since Uncle Harry and Mum and Dad defeated Voldemort, and the Slytherins themselves had no true evil characteristics, they had still been sorted into the house due to their "ambition," which often, when it was the dominating character-trait, seemed to bring along with it foibles such as arrogance and pretentiousness.

And of course, no matter the status of the world-at-large's evil forces, Gryffindor and Slytherin would always be engaged in a house rivalry.

"Who d'you suppose will win?" Trevor asked me, as he looked around at the stands, which were full by now.

"Gryffindor, of course!" I said loyally. "I am fully confident of Molly and Al's skills."

"And Scorpius," Trevor said. My eyes snapped to his face, but he wasn't watching me; he was looking out at the stands opposite us. "He's also one of the major assets of our team."

"We're like the dream-team." I couldn't contain my goofy smile.

"And, if you join next year, we really will be." He elbowed me in the ribs. I grinned sheepishly.

"It's just a maybe at this point, you know." I looked at him, curious. "How'd you know I was thinking about it?"

"Scorpius mentioned it last night," Trevor said, shrugging his shoulders. "He was trying to sound nonchalant, but we could all see he was really excited."

He fell silent, and I couldn't think of anything to say.

My brain was whizzing with questions.

But I felt immediately guilty. Of course Scorpius wouldn't befriend me only so I'd join Quidditch…silly Rose.

I shook my head vehemently, sending a iwhhh-b-bbbb-hhhwhhhh/i sound out of my lips. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Trevor glancing at me from the corner of his own. Our eyes met and he smiled widely, but didn't ask.

I really have better friends than I ever thought.

Several things then happened all at once. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, a great roar erupted in the stands, and the two teams walked out of their respective changing rooms. It was an impressive display-a frenetically waving and cheering crowd, the golden stream of light issuing from the heavens and touching down on the bright green field, the two teams, clumps of the house colours, slowly advancing towards each other, headed for the center of the field.

Addae Jordan's voice boomed out over the field and the stands.

"Good morning, all you dedicated Quidditch fans! Thanks for coming out so early on a weekend morning to support your house teams! We kick off the year with a match fueled by the emotions of the notorious rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin!

"Introducing, iSlytherin!/i" The clump of green-and-silver in the east corner of the stands hoorayed and danced and cheered wildly as Addae read off the names and the respective players raised their hands in acknowledgement. "Parkinson! Zabini! McLaggen! Crabbe! Goyle! Flint! Aaaaaand Avery!"

I could hear the grin in Addae's voice as he roared, "And introducing your holders-of-the-Quidditch-cup-for-TWENTY-SEVEN-YEARS, iGRYFFINDOR!/i"

I assumed that I went nearly deaf during the ensuing chaos, but I cheered along with everyone else, screaming loudly for Molly and Albus.

"Sloper! Malfoy! Pratt! Thomas! Kirke! Wood! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, iPotter!/i"

Molly, Al, and Scorpius looked up in my direction and waved before concentrating intently as Madam Hooch released the balls. Al stepped forward to shake the hand of Carrick Flint (I took great pleasure in knowing that his name meant "rock"), the Slytherin captain. As they stepped back, Madam Hooch raised the thin silver whistle to her lips.

This was the moment, truly, of calm before the storm. The stands were noiseless. The silence was almost as overwhelming as had been the ruckus only moments before.

The whistle screeched, and a flurry of activity commenced. I watched Al and Avery shoot up and over the stands in a matter of seconds, the Seeker's prime vantage point from which to spot the tiny, winged Golden Snitch. I had thought, second year, that I would try out for the position of Seeker-but Al and I decided, he'd be good at Quidditch, I'd be good at school and getting into trouble. Of course I wouldn't have ever wanted to take the only spot he really wanted.

I heard the vague shouting of Addae Jordan into the loudspeaker, and to my delight and slight surprise, Molly had possession of the Quaffle. She began to weave in and out of the other players in a strange, and seemingly-random pattern. I only figured out what she was doing as she zoomed dangerously close to my section of the stands, the Quaffle tucked neatly into the crook of her arm, and the other Gryffindor Chasers joined her. They zig-zagged through the air rapidly and, as the Slytherin Chasers tried desperately to catch them up, they were shaken off again and again.

"Woollongong Shimmy," I heard Trevor exclaim, laughing victoriously. "They've really perfected that since last season!"

"iYEAH!/i" I shouted, punching the air, trying to make up for my lack of knowledge for the sport's terminology by adding in extra enthusiasm. Trevor merely shook his head, smiling a little. I shrugged, turning to Molly's direction and continued to cheer her on, shouting and dancing.

She had reached the Slytherin's end of the pitch, and looked to be within shooting range. She skidded to a sudden stop in midair, passing the Quaffle to Scorpius, who had been tailing her closely throughout her crazed Woolloop Shimmy. He circled a Slytherin beater with blinding speed, and I barely saw him raise his muscular arm up high before shooting it towards the middle goal hoop.

It looked like Flint was about to block the shot with the tail of his broom, but Scorpius had obviously put measurable spin on the release; the Quaffle suddenly sped off in the direction of the left-most hoop, and made it through before Flint even had a chance to change his course. Addae was shouting into the loudspeaker, but no one, I'm sure, could hear his words. The cheering was uproarious, and Gryffindor celebrated the goal rambunctiously. Trevor and I hugged, jumping up and down, screaming nonsense words.

The first match of the year was always hectic. Always crazed. Always emotionally overboard.

But what would you do if you were thoroughly beating your rivals? Outperforming them in nearly every area, including names?

We continued to outperform them, Molly and Scorpius scoring each about seven more goals. "We're up nearly 150 points!" Trevor screamed in my ear. I nodded, cupping the aching appendage in my mittened hand.

I watched the Chasers chasing the Quaffle and each other for a while, gradually losing interest. I tried to pay attention, and sometimes I just watched Scorpius, his golden hair glinting in the sun. He's so good-looking, I found myself thinking. I blinked hard, but I was smiling. At one point, seeming bored, he looked over in my direction, and I could have sworn he winked before speeding off in the direction of a Slytherin Chaser, proceeding to pretend to punch him in the nose ("Transylvanian Tackle!" Trevor whooped), and to steal the Quaffle, zooming off to put it through a goal hoop.

It looked like their actions were on a loop. Everyone else seemed to be interested. I just couldn't follow. I watched Albus, I watched Molly, I watched Scorpius.

"I'm bored," I screamed at Trevor, who looked a little shocked, but who then stared at me a long second, reassessing the person who was talking to him. After a moment of this he just smiled and nodded. I pulled out my wand from my pocket, prodding Trevor's cheek with it.

"You wanna see something cool?" I shouted at him as he jumped back, nervous at being prodded in such a way with a wand.

He clearly didn't, and he sighed dramatically before nodding. I felt my face crack into a smile.

I held out my wand in his direction, taking a couple of steps back from him. The people I shoved out of my way in doing so didn't seem to mind. They might not have even noticed.

Trevor was watching me nervously, but he seemed to know, albeit deep down, that I wouldn't do any serious damage.

"iAguamenti!/i" I murmured, and a stream of clear water shot out of the end of my wand. Trevor leapt back, but the water didn't touch him-it froze in midair, an arc of ice. It glinted in the sunlight, an ironic sight.

"POTTER'S SEEN THE SNITCH!" a voice bellowed from somewhere above us in the stands. I snapped my head up in time to see Al diving towards the ground, almost at a 90-degree angle to it. At the same time, I saw a flash of gold headed in the right direction-I looked up again, hoping it wasn't Avery, and saw that it was Scorpius-only, he wasn't diving for the Quaffle, or the Snitch.

He was ifalling/i.

I hardly stopped to think. My arm reached into my pocket and whipped out my wand, focused it on Scorpius's rapidly-falling form, and I screeched, "iARESTO MOMENTUM!/i" A white bolt of light shot out of my wand and headed towards Scorpius at an incredible speed, and seemed to engulf his form in a sort of cocoon as he fell. I was breathing hard, my puffs forming small clouds in the air in front of my face.

His body slowed considerably, but he was still high in the air. It gave Madam Hooch time to conjure a large blanket and run to hold it beneath him. Both the Gryffindor and (most of) the Slytherin teams zoomed to the ground to take hold of one of the edges. Scorpius fell into the blanket, but still landed on the ground. There was a loud /ithud!/i that resounded throughout the still and quiet pitch and the stands, but not a moment later, Scorpius bounced back up and held his hand up in an embarrassed wave. Al ran over to him, gave him a pat on the back, and held up his own hand. Applause began to echo through the stands and across the pitch.

And then we saw it. All at once. The little Golden Snitch was clasped in Al's gloved hand, fluttering its wings, which reflected light from the sun, which was now streaming down onto the pitch more brightly than ever. The applause became a loud roar, which became a wide-spread celebration. Addae Jordan seemed to regain his voice, and could be heard screaming into the loudspeaker, "AND GRYFFINDOR'S SEEKER ALBUS POTTER MAKES A SPECTACULAR CATCH OF THE GOLDEN SNITCH, WINNING THE MATCH AND EARNING AN EXTRA 150 POINTS FOR HIS TEAM, FOLLOWED BY AN EQUALLY-SPECTACULAR RECOVERY BY CHASER SCORPIUS MALFOY!"

I looked over to the commentator's box anxiously, in time to see Addae motioning Scorpius to come over. "See folks, he's quite alright! Chipper, I might venture to say. Aren't you, Scorp?"

"Erm-yes, quite fine, thank you," Scorpius's cool and collected voice boomed out over the stands, and I could hear the smile in it. The crowd cheered louder.

I looked down at Molly and Albus, who were celebrating with the rest of the team. They'd lifted Al up onto their shoulders, and were moving in a slow pack down towards the changing rooms. I was about to say goodbye, see you later to Trevor when he prodded my shoulder.

I looked up at him and saw that he was grinning, pointing down at the pitch. I followed his gesture with my gaze and suddenly spotted the unmistakable Madam Pomfrey, headed towards the tall-and-lanky boy who, even from this height, was clearly Scorpius.

I rolled my eyes.