A/N: I'd like to apologise to you all for my insanely long absence; I've been in Africa for a month doing project work and only got back yesterday! But back to the story, fear not, I'm not finished just yet …

I'm woken by golden light streaming through the red curtains of the dorm and stretch lazily. One quick glance around the dorm shows that no one else is up and I suddenly remember everything about last night and I smile. But then I remember Scorpius stopping us, and stepping away and my smile becomes slightly pained. I shake this pain away; it's a massive step in the right direction and I couldn't be happier at this point in time.

I remember my promise to Jennie, Liz, and Clem and don't go and get ready; instead, I sit up, prop up my cushions behind my back and read a book until someone stirs. The first one to wake up is Liz and she greets me by hissing; "come on then, Weasley, what's the gossip?!"

I put my fingers to my lips. "We have to wait for the others first," I say wickedly.

Liz narrows her eyes at me before taking her two pillows, and throwing one at each of my friends who wake up severely pissed off.

"What," Jennie starts slowly. "The hell was that for?"

Clem sits up with a befuddled start. "Morning?"

"Do we want to hear about Rosie's date or not?" Liz asks Jennie bluntly, who wastes no time in rubbing her eyes and throwing herself to the end of her bed so she can hear me better. Clem and Liz and I all do the same and I start to relay the whole evening.

When I end in the kissing and Scorpius beginning to remember but asking to take it slow, they all grin happily.

"Called it!" Liz claims with a smile.

"Yeah yeah," Clem rolls her eyes. "It wasn't hard to guess it would start to happen."

"Hey!" I say indignantly. "Stop belittling my cause of distress."

Jennie steps in to avert bickering. "No one is belittling you, Rose," she says calmly. "Clem only means that even though it's been horrible for you to endure, we hoped this would happen."

I stretch and feel my bones crack. I feel happy today. It's nice to wake up and remember Scorpius without then being hit with a feeling of disappointment.

"So what's the plan for today?" Jennie asks us all.

"Homework." Clem and Liz glumly reply.

"Quidditch practise," is my answer – it's our match against Slytherin next Saturday and James is going crazy. I saw the Quidditch rotor; I'll be lucky if I actually get any sleep this week. "I'd better go to every single practise or James might actually have a small melt down. This match on Saturday means everything to him."

"Does that mean Al will be really busy this week?" Jennie asks, aiming for nonchalance, but missing.

"Yes," I say wickedly. "Why on Earth would you ask?"

Jennie's eyes narrow. "No reason, Weasley." She says, a blush creeping to her face.

"Would it have anything to do with you two constantly sneaking off together?" I ask innocently, enjoying Jennie go beetroot red.

"No."

"So yes," I grin.

Jennie simply shakes her head, refusing to say anything else on the matter." What time does your practise start?"
I check my watch. "After breakfast, so I might go for a run before we go down."

"And Fitness Freak Rose is back," Clem mumbles into her pillow, having flopped back down to the comfy embrace of her bed. It is only 8am on Sunday morning after all.

"Admit it, you were more scared with me not running these past several weeks," I say and Clem manages a tired laugh.

I swing my legs out of bed, scrape back my hair and pull on Lycra running shorts, sports bra, and my Quidditch t-shirt. "See you later, girls," I say as I leave the dorm with my battered trainers in hand.

"Bye Rose," they sleepily call back.

I make my way down the many steps until I reach the empty Entrance Hall where I briefly stop to stretch my muscles. I then push open the vast doors to the outside and breathe in the chilly morning air. It feels good to be outside and to be breathing fresh air into my lungs.

Starting off at a measured run, I make my way through the grounds on my old 5k warm up route which takes me past the Herbology greenhouses, round by the Quidditch pitch and down to the boathouse where I stop to stretch again and take in the view of the newly risen sun over the Black Lake. I look at my watch and make a face; not my best halfway time yet, but I have been pretty out of shape recently.

The time on my watch also tells me I don't have long until I have to be at 8:40am breakfast for 9am Quidditch practise.

I set off up the hill from the boathouse and by the time I'm stretching my leg muscles outside the Entrance Hall, Andrew Hallam has run into me. We look at each other awkwardly and he's the first one to say anything.

"Training for next weekend?" He asks, clearing his throat.

"Yeah," I say lightly and try not to blush as he looks me up and down in my Lycra shorts.

"Looking good, Weasley; how was last night?" Andrew tries for light-hearted teasing like we used to, but there's too much between us now for things to ever go back to how they were.

I sigh and meet his eyes. "Andrew," I start but he holds up a hand.

"That's never a good sentence starter," he says with a wry smile. "Leave it, Rose. Please." His eyes are pleading and I give in to him.

"Sure." I say and try for a friendly smile. "You'd better be cheering me on next weekend."

Andrew laughs wearily. "Sure I will, Weasley. All the way."

We stand in slight awkward silence for a few seconds until I break the silence. "Right well – I'd better go in and get breakfast before a crazy practise session with a frantic James."

"Sure, right well. See you later," Andrew says and I give him a wave before disappearing into the Entrance Hall and into the Great Hall.

I find my sleepy Quidditch team in a bedraggled and bitter huddle in the middle of a fairly empty Gryffindor breakfast table. "Morning all," I say.

"See everyone," James stands up to greet me, looking bright eyed and brisk. "Rose has been out for a run this morning. Now that's team dedication."

Dom and Lily look at me slightly murderously. As James walks past, he hits Al round the head with a rolled up Daily Prophet to wake him up. The two beaters Alex and Simon are gulping down coffee and they emerge from their coffee cups with untidy hair.

"Morning Rose," Simon greets and Alex gives me a sleepy nod of acknowledgment.

We eat light breakfast and barely have time to regain consciousness before being marched out of the hall by an overly shouty James Potter. He lines us up on the pitch and I can feel the dewy early morning grass soaking through my trainers.

"Alright team, up in the air – you lot know the drills." James yells and mounts his broom to fetch the balls.

"Aye aye, Captain," mutters Lily and her and Dominique mount their own brooms, catch the Quaffle thrown at them from James and call me over to practise.

"What on Earth is wrong with El Dictador over there?" Dominique asks as she secures the Quaffle in one hand without thinking about it and throws it at me.

"He's just stressed," Lily answers as I pass it to her. "It's just a shame he's such a pain when he's stressed."

"It's the only thing James gets stressed about," I point out and my cousins agree with me.

"OVER HERE, TEAM." James suddenly hollers and both Lily and Dominique make noises of disdain.

"I'll so kill him for this." Dom mutters as we fly towards where he's hovering in the middle of the pitch.

"Alright," James starts. "So as you know we have 6 days until the biggest match of the winter season. And it's against Slytherin, so you can take from that what you will." Here he stops to glance at me and I pretend to be mildly interested in my nails. "I need you all to be on your best on Saturday –"

"Have some faith in us, Captain!" Dom yells.

"Yeah," Alex starts up. "Anyone would think we're the worst team Gryffindor has ever had!"

"Only because we'd have been captained by the worst Gryffindor has ever had," Lily teases her brother who turns pale.

"We're only kidding, James," I tell him. "Don't get so wound up."

"At the end of the day," Simon says, flexing his arms. "We're the best team, captained by the best. We're going to ace it on Saturday."

Al decides to chip in at this point. "Just don't go having a melt down on us before then, yeah?"

James manages to laugh weakly along with the rest of us. "Alright, alright." He says, running a hand through his hair. "I'll cut practise short today by an hour," James looks around expecting us all to fall on him in gratitude.

"Whatever," says Lily. "Now get up by those hoops and let us throw this Quaffle at you."

The rest of practise goes fairly well, and no one gets injured apart from James' ego when he accidentally lets in a goal from Dominique. "You better not do that on Saturday, Potter!" Dom had yelled at him. "Looks like we need to work on your technique!" James had only scowled at her in return.

I drag myself up to Gryffindor Tower to get a shower before lunch and don ripped jeans and a grey t-shirt. I feel slightly more human after a shower and after grabbing some lunch I head off to the library to get some work done.

I love the library; my little escape from the world. The books that surround the small leather chair by a wooden table are comforting and make me feel safe and secure, and its nice, for once, for the only sounds I can hear to be my breathing and the sound of my quill scratching on the parchment.

Until I glance up and see Scorpius Malfoy coming towards me.

"Oh," I clear my throat. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," he replies with some warmth in his voice and he actually smiles at me. "I just wanted to say thank you for coming last night … I actually had a really nice evening." Scorpius says and drags up a chair to sit with me. "My parents sent me an owl this morning to say what a lovely girl they think you are."

I grin. "The pleasure was all mine, I really enjoyed it."

"I'm glad." Scorpius replies and we're silent for a few seconds until he clears his throat and looks away, mildly embarrassed. "Actually, that's not the only reason I came here."

"Alright?" I'm not sure whether to be worried or not.

"I wanted to talk to you about Macy and Andrew …"

"Oh."

"Did you …" Scorpius blushes slightly and can't look me in the eye. "Do anything more than just kiss with Andrew?"

I actually can't help laughing out loud in Scorpius' bemused face. "No!" I say. "No, definitely not – we only kissed and even that felt wrong." Scorpius looks relieved. "Did you do anything with Macy?" I ask, fear suddenly gripping my stomach as Scorpius lifts his eyes to me.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," is his answer.

I definitely don't like the sound of this. I try to focus on his face and not the fact that everything around him is spinning and I suddenly feel very light headed.

"Rose, are you okay?" He asks putting out his hand to steady my shoulders. This simple touch brings me back and I automatically shake him off. Scorpius looks briefly hurt.

"Just tell me," I whisper.

"Alright," Scorpius looks apologetic. "We didn't sleep together; not really. But it was very close and she tells all her friends that we have. I wanted you to hear it from me that we didn't go as far as sleeping together – and not some stupid rumour."

I reel slightly. OK so maybe he didn't sleep with her but … "what d'you mean 'not really'?" I ask.

"Rose …" Scorpius mumbles and flushes slightly, looking away. "Please."

"No really," I insist, sitting forward on my forearms. "What do you mean?" I add, slowly and carefully articulating each word.

"I'm so sorry. I really am – I wish I hadn't done anything with her, because even though I couldn't remember it, deep down, I knew we were together, but the thought repulsed me so much I needed a distraction and she was it."

"I feel sick." I say and stand up to leave but I've stood too quickly and I have to hold the bookcase to steady myself.

"Rose, please," Scorpius is on his feet, too, and is pressing me against the bookcase and I can feel the shelves digging into my vertebrae. "Didn't you guess that this would happen? Were you really so naïve?"

"Naïve!?" I repeat breathlessly. "Hopeful, yes, and perhaps slightly naïve, but I do not appreciate you talking to me as if I am a child." I half heartedly attempt to push him away even though having him so close is such a bitter joy. Scorpius doesn't shift.

"Rose, I am sorry, I have never ever been more sorry in my entire life," his face is so close to mine and his voice is so soft and I believe him but the idea of him and Macy doing such intimate things … "Rose, she knew she could never be what you are to me. Macy took the chance of having me for the short term and ran with it."

"Scorpius …" I plead and when he looks into my eyes he stops talking. I feel my eyes filling with silly tears and Scorpius' expression softens from hard defiance to gentle concern.
Scorpius leans into me and kisses me so lightly, as if he's giving me the opportunity to push him away. When I don't, he kisses me harder and I pull him into me and kiss him back, but all the time there's a little voice in my head, chanting her name over and over again, reminding me that Scorpius kissed her like this, Scorpius touched and held her like this.

And even though I try to push it away, it's really starting to mess with me.