Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this - I'd be rolling in my heaps of money.

A/N - Right - next chapter finally up. This had felt like forever (thanks writers block and exams) but here it is! Enjoy.

Lily rushed down to the Great Hall for dinner, completely distracted. She was still thinking about what Hugo and Annie had said about Scorpius. They'd only known each other for five days, after all, but it seemed like so much longer. They'd just sort of clicked, and Lily hadn't missed the look on his face after Quidditch practice the previous day. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she marched headlong into someone. She looked up to see a familiar blonde haired boy smiling down at her.
"Someone's distracted." Scorpius said, and she prayed she wasn't blushing.

"Yeah... Aren't you going to dinner?" She added, and to her surprise he looked bashful.

"Just to the... um... library." He muttered, not making eye contact. Lily pretended not to notice and shook her head.

"You Ravenclaws, honestly." He gave a shy smile at that and said,

"Yeah; can't pull us away from our study. See you later." He was half way down the corridor when he remembered,
"Lily!" He shouted, and she turned.

"Detention the Second is this Saturday, at five o'clock, in the Forest with Hagrid."

"I'll look forward to it." She smiled, and his heart skipped a beat. He wished it would stop doing that.

Lily made her way into the Great Hall and sat down in between the Creevey twins.

"Good day?" Asked Bella, making conversation.

"Not too bad." Lily replied, "Just found out I'm going to have to back out of Quidditch practice on Saturday because I have another detention. I think McLaggen's gonna have a fit."

"I'll get a camera." Bella said, and Lily giggled.

"Sounds like a plan." She said, "Then you'll have evidence that it was he who killed me."

Bella smiled and returned to her dinner. Lily ate absent mindedly, wondering what had been wrong with Scorpius, because he wasn't himself at all. Perhaps he was merely embarrassed; he had to be getting just as much crap from Connor as she was from Annie. In fact, from what she had deigned of Connor so far, Scorpius was probably suffering from the teasing even worse than she was.

When she noticed Cormac McLaggen striding towards her down the Hall, Lily got up and almost sprinted out of the Hall. She didn't want to have this confrontation with McLaggen now – she knew if he annoyed her she would ne dup cursing him, and she wasn't about to do that in the middle of dinner, with all the teachers watching.

When Lily reached the portrait hole she gave the password and clambered through, going straight to the dormitories and collapsing onto her bed. Then she remembered; Professor Victis had given her twelve inches of parchment on the evolution of methods of Transfiguring foods. This was something Lily just didn't understand, and Victis was utterly unsympathetic with her struggles, so picking up her books she headed down the stairs towards the library, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't bump into McLaggen on the way. She was not in a good mood, what with Annie's teasing, her secret fears that her friend was right and far too many inches of homework she feared a meeting with the big-headed brute would push her over the edge into temporary madness.

She dumped her bags by a desk in the library and stomped off to find a book she prayed would help her. She shoved her tenth book back onto its shelf with a sigh and turned to the second shelf of transfiguration books when she caught sight of Scorpius sitting in an armchair in the corner of the Library, his nose buried in a books called Spelling out Secrets. He was so absorbed in the book he didn't notice her there as she debated whether or not to disturb him. Why was he looking in a book about secrets?

Probably just a school project Lily thought to herself, you are looking far too far into this.

Shaking her head at her own paranoia, she pulled another book from the shelf and set to researching her essay once more. Eventually she found something and sat down to write, when she was done she only had seven inches, and Professor Victis wasn't going to be fooled by big writing. She looked at the clock – Madam Pince would throw her out of the library in just over an hour. She buried her head in her hands as she thought of the third detention she would now receive and her imminent slow death at the hands of McLaggen. She was just about to give up and go to bed when she jumped to hear a familiar voice,

"Having trouble there?" She looked up to see Scorpius standing behind her, a grin on his face.

"Just a bit." She replied irritably.

"What appears to be the problem?" He asked, swinging out a chair and planting himself on it.

"Victis." She moaned, and he nodded knowingly.

"I thought as much; the way you held your head in your hands, eyelids drooping, is a classic symptom of Victis." He said seriously, and Lily couldn't help but smile.

"That's better. Now what precisely is the problem?" He asked.

"Twelve inches on the evolution of Transfiguration with food." She grumbled, and he laughed.

"Your enthusiasm astounds me." He chuckled, and she shot him a dark look.

"OK, no jokes." He muttered, and pulled a clean piece of parchment towards them. "You really are in a wonderful mood this evening."

"Are you going to help me or not?" Lily asked, suddenly.

"Only if you ask me nicely." Scorpius smiled, and Lily scowled. On the one hand giving in was something she never did, growing up with two older brothers had taught her not to, but on the other she really needed to get this done and she wasn't going to do it alone. Grudgingly, she opened her eyes and fluttered her eyelashes at Scorpius, saying,
"Please Scorpius, do help me with my Transfiguration for that slimy git Victis."

"That's better." He grinned, standing up. "Wait here for just a second." He returned in no time, holding a heavy, leatherbound book, which he dropped onto the desk before Lily.
"There you go – that book has everything you could ever need to know about Transfiguring food."

Lily opened the book to the first page, entitled A History of Transfiguration in Cookery.

"You are an angel." Lily breathed, flicking through the pages.

"You didn't hear it from me." Scorpius said with a wink. "And you also didn't hear from me that pages seventeen, fifty six and a hundred and twelve are particularly helpful."

"Gotcha." She smiled as he got up to leave.

"Oh, and Scorpius, how come you were reading a book about secrets?" She couldn't help adding as walked away.

"What? Are you stalking me now?" He asked, and she blushed,

"No, I saw you earlier whilst I was looking for a useful book." She explained, wishing her cheeks would return to their natural pale pink.

"Ah, of course." He replied, "It was homework for Jordan, looking up various Wizarding methods of keeping secrets." He still didn't manage to look her in the eye and although his excuse was utterly plausible, Lily found herself growing even more suspicious.

"See you on Saturday." He smiled, and left her alone with her thoughts. She skimmed through the book and found that by the end of her essay she had over fourteen inches, even Professor Victis would have to admit it was good.

She dragged her bag behind her, letting it bump up the stairs as she made her way back to the common room. It was far too heavy for her to pick up, and her eyelids were heavy too. When she finally got up to her dormitory she found the other girls asleep and she got into her pyjamas as quietly as possible. She collapsed on the soft bedding and fell asleep almost instantly, but her mind was still reeling and her dreams were vivid.

She was following Scorpius down a dark corridor, and watched as he pulled back a curtain and slipped through it. She pursued him as quietly as possible, but her footsteps seemed to echo all around. She pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room, but as soon as the curtain fell back behind her she was enveloped in blackness, she reached for her wand, but could not find it, and as she took a tentative step forward she found herself falling down into the blackness and sat up abruptly in bed. It was still night, and Ella was snoring lightly in the bed next to her. She fell back on her pillows and mused on her dream. Why was she so bothered about what Scorpius was keeping from her? It wasn't any of her business anyway, but she couldn't help being curious. It must be her father coming out in her, she finally decided.

Lily closed her eyes and attempted to sleep again, cursing her father for giving her his curious disposition. Eventually she drifted back off to sleep, but was rudely awakened by Annie,
"Lily, I'd get up if I were you. McLaggen's waiting at the bottom of the stairs for you."

"What?" Lily asked, sitting bolt upright in bed.

"Yeah, he kinda found out about your second detention and I think he's going to kill you."

"But... how did she find out about it?"

Annie glanced meaningfully at Ella, who blushed.

"Sorry. It just sort of slipped out..." She muttered, and Lily shook her head, jumping out of bed and stomping down the stairs. When she got to the bottom she found an irate McLaggen staring at her; she leant against the wall and crossed her arms.

"Look, McLaggen, if you insist on serenading me I'd suggest the window... less public." She said, glancing around at the assembled crowd. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Albus shake his head and Rose giggle. She must have been an intimidating sight, her messy red hair in a mane around her head and a frown etched on her face. McLaggen's eyebrows rose into his messy brown hair and he stuttered to find a comeback,

"I... Just look here Potter; I can't have a Seeker who doesn't turn up to practice because she's got detention. I'll let you off this one, but one more before the Ravenclaw match and you're off the team." He said; his intimidating anger all gone.

"Thank you, oh benevolent Captain." Lily smirked, making an elaborate bow. She rolled her eyes and made her way back up the stairs. She dressed in a hurry and made her way down to breakfast, with the eyes of every Gryffindor on her. She felt like she was blushing all day, with almost every person she came across asking about the incident with McLaggen. At one point she had to inform a fifth year that no, she did not slap McLaggen.

The whole week she seemed to be the centre of attention, with the rumours growing wilder and wilder. When Saturday finally came Lily breathed a sigh of relief. It would be nice to get out with just Scorpius and Hagrid, to escape the multitudes. She'd forgotten how claustrophobic the huge castle could get, especially if you were famous, and especially if you had a knack for trouble. She spent a lazy morning sitting with Annie and the twins on her bed, giggling and eating the cakes that Lily's Grandmother had sent. Lily couldn't believe it when the clock read quarter to five.

"How long have we been talking for?" Lily exclaimed as she pulled on her shoes.

"We didn't get up until twelve." Ella pointed out, "And then we had to cover Connor, Hermione's baby, homework, and how much of a git McLaggen is... it takes a while."

"You're lucky you're escaping before we moved on to Scorpius." Smirked Annie and Lily rolled her eyes.

"Are you ever going to give up on that?" She asked, exasperated.

"Nope." Annie declared, popping an Every-Flavoured Bean into her mouth and promptly spitting it out.

"Actually, maybe it's better you're going now – it'll be easier to talk about it without you there!" She continued, throwing the Bean into the bin with perfect Chaser's aim. Lily made a rude hand gesture at them, received with a chorus of "Oooh!" from her friends.

With one last withering look Lily took off down the stairs, heading towards Hagrid's Hut. She arrived at five on the dot, to find Hagrid and Scorpius standing waiting for her awkwardly.

"Good, good, glad you've arrived Lily. We'll be off then." Hagrid muttered, striding towards the forest.

"Do I run on a different clock to everyone else?" Lily asked, astounded.

"Probably," Scorpius replied, "I've been here for five minutes already."

"Hurry up you two!" Hagrid hollered, his long legs had carried him to the forest edge already, and Lily and Scorpius trailed behind. When they caught up, he lowered his voice and told them,

"Right. I've asked for some 'elp with this, 'cause there's been some funny business goin' on in the forest. I've been findin' some scraps o' cloth around the same place near on every week. I've seen human and... other tracks leadin' to and from the place. We're goin' to 'ave a look, alright?"

"Alright." The two replied, and Lily noticed Scorpius go white. She wouldn't have thought him to be the cowardly type. Nevertheless, he turned to her when he noticed her looking at him and smiled.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you." He grinned, and she scoffed,

"Like I need protecting."

"You've got a point." Scorpius acknowledged, "I hear you've been beating up McLaggen."

"Don't even go there." Lily said, following Hagrid into the Forest. "I've been fending off questions about that all week. Of all the times McLaggen could have chosen to attempt to threaten me, it had to be seven in the morning. Let's just say I wasn't best pleased, although he came to no physical harm."

"That's a shame." Scorpius said as they made their way through the trees. "I would've liked to see McLaggen on the end of one of your curses."

"Shush now, you two." Hagrid whispered gruffly, "We're getting near now, can you hear that?"

Lily and Scorpius stopped in their tracks, listening hard. From not far away there came a shuffling sound, like an animal.

Suddenly, there came a bloodcurdling animal scream and Lily jumped violently, almost toppling Scorpius who was standing next to her. Her heart had never beaten so fast, and her breath came in ragged gasps. She felt Scorpius gently take her hand, and as she looked up at him he smiled through the darkness. She didn't want to admit it, but she was glad for the comfort as they moved as silently as they could towards the source of the noise.

Hagrid waved them over to a patch of bushes through which they could peer unseen. A dirty, huddled mass lay in the centre of a clearing, shaking violently. As Lily moved her head to get a better look, she overbalanced and fell; her hand slipping out of Scorpius's and tumbled through the bush. When she looked up she found herself staring into the huge, glistening eyes of the creature.

"Merlin." She whispered.

A/N - Cliffy, I know! Any ideas on what it is in the Forest? I only got 2 reviews on my last chapter :( although much thanks to starlinc and Beautiful Dead for their lovely ones!