She should've suspected something a long time ago.
She should've suspected something when Lily Potter, seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, had hesitated in taking the Snitch in the match against Slytherin; when Lily called him scum the day he had snogged the Terrence girl. Lily had seldom joined James and the others when they were insulting him. Lily had almost always been carefully neutral.
She really should've been suspecting something when she had caught Lily lingering a little too long at that corner of the library; how her eyes strayed to Scorpius too often whenever they were in the same vicinity. But when Lily danced into the Gryffindor commons, a brilliant smile on her face, blushing slightly, and announced that Scorpius had asked her to accompany him on a Hogsmeade trip, the news hit her like a hex cast square at her chest.
"WHAT?" James yelps. "Malfoy! You didn't say - oh, Merlin, you didn't say yes, did you?"
Her heart plummeted and torrents of bitter jealousy warred with loyalty and love for her younger cousin.
Lily was beautiful. She was not.
She should be happy for Lily - happy that Lily had so easily obtained what she wanted most in the world. From that perspective it was impossible, but she wasn't strong enough to look at it any other way. That being said, she wasn't so weak as to not act otherwise.
"I'm really happy for you, Lily," she forced out a smile, but her voice breaks on the word "happy."
Lily hugged her, beaming, and danced away.
(No one asked her since when her opinion of Malfoy had changed enough that she wasn't backing James up. No one asked why she seemed to withdraw ever the more. But the concerned, worried look that Alia sent her way is enough to assure her that those questions are on everyone's mind.)
It is one thing to know your obsession is going out with a faceless, nameless girl, and a whole other creature to know your obsession is going out not only with a girl whose face and name you know, but is a close friend and relative. She couldn't nurse the semi-satisfying petty spite that she would've been afforded if the girl had been a stranger. As it was, she knew she should be happy for Lily - happy that Lily was the object of his heated glances, gentle-laughing words, and soft touches.
Returning to that corner of the library was the stupidest thing she could have done. She had promised herself that this was the last time; that she would, with this final visit, cast him away from her thoughts.
She had seen it. Them.
Her lips.
Her hands.
His hair.
Her eyes.
His hands.
Her voice.
His lips.
Her neck.
She had no right to feel betrayed. She had left without a noise.
Her hair.
His body.
Her body.
His voice.
"Rose."
Silence.
The next morning, Lily marched to the House table, declaring in a curt voice that she had broken up with Malfoy, that two-faced git.
She should not have been happy - not been happy that he had hurt Rose; that they had broken up. But she was, and she couldn't bring herself to feel sorry.