Lily felt a sudden burst of pain in the side of her head as a speeding bludger collided with it.
She slid off her broom, falling into a heap on the ground below, the sound of James yelling out her name only just registering in her blurry mind. Luckily she had only been flying a few meters above the playing field at the back of the Potter's Thiramard home and there was snow on the ground to break her fall.
More than the pain from the bruise to her skull, Lily noticed the icy feeling of the snow below her. It felt suddenly familiar and she blushed despite herself.
Before long James, Teddy, Victoire, Dominique and Albus had all landed and were standing around her looking down with concern. It was a rare sight to see their normally agile sister and cousin fail to dodge a bludger.
'You alight Lily?' Teddy asked, looking at her flushed face with uncertainty.
Lily looked blankly at him and blinked a few times before answering.
'I'm fine' she breathed out finally before getting to her feet and walking off towards the house.
She couldn't keep this up- she needed to clear her mind. She had been distracted all Christmas break, hardly uttering a word over family dinners. Her dazed state was beginning to confuse her relatives who were used to her being the most lively of all the Potter-Weasleys.
'Lily!' James yelled after her, holding up her fallen broom. 'You wanna take this back too?'
But Lily continued walking mechanically towards the back door of their home, causing James to lock eyes with Teddy and raise an eyebrow.
Once inside Lily went straight to the living room. Rose was exactly where she had predicted- sitting in the window seat which overlooked the valley below with a Herbology book open in her lap.
Rose hardly had enough time to look up before Lily had taken a seat right in front of her and closed the book shut for her.
'I heard Finch Robinson kissed you after the Halloween feast' Lily said bluntly.
Rose instantly put a hand over Lily's mouth and looked around in alarm to make sure her father wasn't anywhere within earshot.
'Shh!' She warned Lily, before taking her hand away and rushing over to shut the door to the living room.
Once Rose had returned to the window seat, Lily grabbed her by both hands in an attempt to wipe the look of unease from her cousin's face.
'I'm not going to tell anyone, I just wanted to know about it that's all' she whispered, appealing to her with round eyes.
Finch was a clever fifth year muggle born boy in Ravenclaw who had a sharp wit and pretty hazel eyes. Lily had been privy to a number of conversations between Rose and Dominique regarding Rose's long harbored crush towards him in the lead up to the feast and whilst she hadn't actually heard that Rose had been kissed she had guessed from the way that she had been eating her porridge the next morning with a great big grin on her face that something must have happened between them.
'I kissed him actually' Rose corrected her with a self-satisfied blush. 'It was in the courtyard with the fountain of the winged horse and he kissed me back and- oh Lily, you should have seen how he smiled and held my hand and-'
'Yes yes- but then what happened?' Lily wanted to know. Rose looked a little taken aback by her business-like interrogation. When she had recounted the story to Dominque and Victoire they had shown much more interest in the details.
'What do you mean?' Rose shot back quizzically.
'What happens after the kissing bit?' Lily demanded in a pained frustration.
'What did you say? What did he say? What are you supposed to do?!' Lily waived her hands about and her voice grew louder.
'Uhh…' Rose furrowed her brow and shot Lily a suspicious look. 'Well, then he asked me to go to Madam Puddifoot's with him the next weekend-'
'-And you went?' Lily looked into her eyes for confirmation.
'-Right. Yes I went-' Rose nodded.
'-And then what?' Lily pushed her.
'Umm, well' Rose had become a bit flustered by Lily's urgent tone. 'Well then we talked about the twelve uses of dragons blood and how he had heard that there was some recent research into a thirteenth use-'
'Dragon's blood- got it. Then what?' Lily ushered her along.
'Well…' Rose thought back on it. 'Then we went for a stroll by the lake…'
'Stroll by the lake' Lily repeated, trying to jot it all down mentally in the hope that it might help her prepare somehow.
'And he said he had read my essay for transfiguration and that I had phrased my argument about the differences between animagi transformations and potions based human-transfiguration very eloquently…'
Lily couldn't really imagine that ever happening to her and so she filed that in the 'irrelevant' category of her mental notes.
'Okay, so then…' Lily's eyes darted between Rose's looking for some kind of sign- an answer to her anxiousness about how on earth she was supposed to act around Scorpius from now on.
'So… that's pretty much it up until this point Lily' Rose said apologetically. She was still unsure of what Lily was really trying to ask.
'So then you and Robinson are friends again?' Lily queried innocently.
'Oh no!' Rose gasped, her face breaking out into a bright smile. 'Of course, he asked me to, well, you know…'
Lily's bushy haired cousin was suddenly all giggles. Lily stared blankly back, not quite comprehending.
'To go steady!' Rose explained in a voice so quiet that even a werewolf would have had difficulty catching it.
'You have a boyfriend?' Lily asked in astonishment.
'Shhh!' Rose laughed covering Lily's mouth again and looking around once more to check for signs of Uncle Ron, despite the closed door.
'Don't use that word in the house' she admonished her.
Lily nodded numbly and made to get up to leave but Rose grabbed her by the wrists and forced her back down again.
She didn't ask and instead merely shot Lily an interrogative look with a raised eyebrow.
Lily played dumb, blinking back at her with a blank face. They stayed like that, locked in a staring competition, for a few beats until Lily's ears reddened giving her away completely. It was enough to satisfy Rose's suspicions.
'Who?' Her cousin demanded.
'No one' Lily shot back defiantly. Rose let out a sigh, relaxing her grip on Lily's arms and Lily took the opportunity to roll sideways onto the floor and sprint towards the door. She slammed it loudly behind her.
The first evening back from the Christmas break, Lily could hardly eat a thing during dinner in the great hall. Poppy sat across from her loudly recounting the details of her father's earldom ceremony, but all Lily's attention was focussed on the Hufflepuff table. Had Scorpius arrived yet? Had he seen that she was there? Did he care? Was he planning to speak to her afterwards? Just thinking about it made her so anxious it turned her off her meal completely.
She hadn't received an owl from him during the holidays, though she reasoned that this wasn't unusual. His family only had one delivery bird and considering the secrecy surrounding their friendship it was quite rare for him to use it to contact her. The pocket watches were obviously not an option either as anything he wrote would also be visible to Poppy and Lysander. And yet Lily felt unreasonably uneasy about the silence.
She wondered if Finch Robinson had gone pale and shaky after Rose had kissed him. Somehow she seriously doubted it. And then of course, there was the dreaded thought that kept popping up in her mind that perhaps it had all been a silly accident. That perhaps Scorpius's lips had coincidentally found their way to hers in the confusion of the fall, and she was reading too much into the whole thing.
Lily tried to calm herself. She couldn't see the entirety of the Hufflepuff table from where she sat and so she couldn't be certain as to whether he was even there. Yet the thought that he might look over at her at some point made her unsure of how to sit naturally. After a few stiff attempts at spooning food into her mouth and several looks of alarm from Poppy at her inability to manage it, Lily excused herself and walked swiftly out of the hall alone.
She let out a shaky sigh as the large doors of the great hall closed behind her. She knew she was acting ridiculous. This was Scorpius- she had known him for years. She had spent almost every evening in his company behind the restricted section during her first year. And yet now the very thought of him being in close proximity to her made her stomach tighten uncomfortably. She didn't even know what that meant- she knew that he was kind and loyal and that she cared about him deeply. But she had never even entertained the idea that he might become anything more to her than that.
She made her way slowly up the marble stairs, resolving to stop thinking about it until the time came when Scorpius spoke to her. But as she reached the top of the first flight of stairs, Scorpius's white blond hair and yellow tie came into view, descending the steps towards her. Lily had been imagining his pale face, delicate hair and amber eyes so frequently over the past few days that for a moment she couldn't believe it was actually him. But that didn't last long as a feeling of panic soon set in.
Without thinking, she jumped back off of the steps onto the landing and rushed back downwards towards the hall. She knew instantly that she wouldn't be able to get away fast enough for him not to spot her on her way down but she wasn't thinking particularly logically and continued on anyway. She could hear his footsteps behind her and half expected him to call out to her. When he didn't, she slowed down and turned around. He now stood very still on the landing looking down at her with an unreadable expression and for a moment their eyes locked and Lily felt her heart stop.
With sweaty palms, she pushed the great hall doors open again and casually walked back over to the Gryffindor table as though she had just arrived for dinner. Poppy greeted her with an expression of utter confusion.
'I got hungry again' Lily muttered, scrambling back onto the bench and forcing spoonfuls of pumpkins soup down her throat.
Lily's anxiousness about speaking with Scorpius continued on for a week, and all for nothing it seemed. As usual, he never approached her during school. He ignored her in the corridors and never once looked over at her during meals in the Great Hall. In fact, he didn't even show up to their usual afternoon meetings in the shrieking shack with Poppy and Lysander. Lysander told Lily that he'd said he had been given too much healing homework from Montespan and was busy working on that alone, but Lily couldn't get rid of the sinking feeling that he was in fact avoiding her.
In all fairness, she had been avoiding him too. The thought that he might appear anywhere at anytime had kept her on edge all week. And yet conversely, a small part of her had hoped that he would seek her out and try to talk to her. She had no idea what he might say- she couldn't imagine him inviting her to Madam Puddifoot's or even for a stroll by the lake. And perhaps that was why she was so afraid of seeing him. She was beginning to get the impression that if he had held any kind of intentions behind that kiss in the first place, he now considered them to have been a mistake.
The thought was bogging her down as she made her way down from the Gryffindor Common room to quidditch practice one evening and she let her broom trail sadly along the stairs behind her.
What had she been expecting?, she scolded herself. Was Scorpius supposed to follow her around all week waiting for a moment when she was alone? She was the one who had made sure that didn't happen by rushing back to the common room at any opportunity. Rose had been bold enough to instigate a kiss with Finch Robinson and here she was running away like a frightened field mouse at the thought of even talking to Scorpius.
Lily stopped in front of the large entrance doors that led out onto the grounds and took a deep breath. She knew where she could find Scorpius if she really wanted to talk to him. She had always known that. And if she was going to put herself out of this misery of wondering what he was thinking she was just going to have to make the effort to go there and ask.
With broom in hand she gathered up all the courage she could muster and headed towards the library.
It was late enough that there were no other students around and so she stood in front of the restricted section for a few moments taking deep breaths and forcing her apprehension away.
When she finally rounded the corner, Scorpius was sitting in the spot she had seen him sitting in perhaps hundreds of times before, his eyes squarely on the book he held propped up in front of him. His shoulders appeared to tense slightly as she took her seat but apart from that he gave no indication that he had noticed her at all.
Lily's quidditch attire was proof enough that she wasn't there to study. She stared him down until finally he put the book down and looked up at her.
His face had on the hard, stoney expression that he had often worn when Lily had first met him and it sent a horrible heavy feeling through her.
'Hi' Lily said hesitantly.
'Hi' Scorpius replied with a sigh.
Lily waited a moment, but he avoided her eyes.
'Do you… have anything to say to me?' Lily felt embarrassed to ask and her chest heaved in trepidation. But she was nevertheless desperate to know.
Scorpius had stopped moving. He was looking at a spot on the table in front of him as though lost in thought and Lily even thought for a moment that he might not have heard her. But his clenched jaw indicated otherwise.
His reaction was enough to confirm her fears and she realized with a flash of dread that she didn't want to hear him voice it in words. She stood up to leave.
'I'm sorry' Scorpius said quietly. 'I shouldn't have done it'
It was Lily's turn to freeze. Her chest filled with a hot, sickly feeling.
'Right…' she whispered back. Her throat tightened and she felt her eyes begin to sting. She grabbed her broom and left.
But when she reached the entrance to the library she heard Scorpius calling after her from behind.
'Lily! Wait-'
She paused with her hand on the door, blinking away tears. She didn't turn to look at him. She didn't want Scorpius to see her cry.
'I'll talk to you later!' She choked out, before flinging herself through the door and down the corridor.
As she marched across the grounds towards the quidditch field Lily finally let her tears flow down and the sobs escape her. But she also felt a sense of indignation begin to flow through her veins. How could Scorpius have been so careless with their friendship? Did it really mean so little to him that he didn't even consider what might happen to it before initiating something he wasn't sure about?
Then Lily heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the wet grass running towards her from behind.
'What do you want?' She yelled, whipping around to glare in their direction.
But it wasn't Scorpius. Instead, she found herself face to face with a surprised Raul Pucey, who was heaving heavily after his run across the grounds.
Lily let out a groan and quickly wiped away her tears with the back of her sleeves.
Pucey looked at her wet face uncertainly for a moment before clearing his throat and stepping towards her with his arms held out.
'Just thought you might want a lift down to the field' he said with a smirk.
Lily let out another angry groan. The gigantic git had really chosen the wrong time to come and bother her.
'If you dare pick me up again, I will hex you so badly the only way you'll be able to participate in quidditch again will be as a bludger' Lily threatened.
Pucey let out a bark-like laugh and lunged towards her regardless. It was the first time he had attempted to mess with her since she had come back from the dueling tournament and she was ready to show him just how much of a mistake he was making.
Lily thrust out her palms at the grass in front of her and yelled 'Glacius!'. Just as she predicted, Pucey ran straight over the icy grass and slipped backwards landing with an enormous thud onto his backside at her feet.
She wouldn't wait for him to get up and she certainly wasn't going to help him. Instead she turned on her heel and made to storm away. But within a matter of seconds of turning her back to him, she found herself lying face-first on the wet grass. The stupid git had tripped her up.
Pucey struggled onto his feet, keeping a hold on her ankle. Then he began to drag her, feet first, belly down along the grass towards the quidditch pitch, chuckling as he went. Lily responded with a string of angry expletives that would have made her grandmother gasp. She tried to kick at him with her free foot but it appeared to have no effect on his thick wrists.
'Let her go Pucey'
Scorpius's voice was low and tinted with anger. From her position lying on the grass, Lily could only see the bottom of his trousers and his shoes, which were calmly making their way closer towards them.
The giant Slytherin boy came to a halt, but he kept his huge hands tight around Lily's ankle.
'What do you care Malfoy?' He responded roughly, though he sounded somewhat apprehensive about finding himself on the wrong side of a Death Eaters son.
'That's none of you business' Scorpius shot back silkily.
'All you need to know is that you have four choices right now. One of them is letting Potter go and getting the hell out of here'
Pucey swallowed hard. His chin trembled defiantly.
'Or what?'
Scorpius slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and took out his wand.
'Well that's where the other three choices come in'
Lily could feel Pucey's hands getting sweaty around her ankle.
Scorpius took another step forward with his wand raised and instantly Pucey dropped Lily's foot and darted away as fast as his enormous legs could take him.
Scorpius bent down to help Lily up but she ignored him and scrambled to her feet by herself. The front of her quidditch uniform was smeared with mud and grass and she made a feeble attempt to wipe it off which only resulted in her getting her hands muddy.
Scorpius stepped forward with his wand and was about to perform a cleaning spell but Lily angrily pushed his hand away.
'What did you do that for?' She seethed at him.
'What do you mean?' He replied with a furrowed brow. 'Why did I stop him from treating you like a broom? Or why didn't I curse him into oblivion like he deserved?'
'I didn't need your help!' Lily yelled. She was really angry now and she wasn't entirely sure why. 'I could have dealt with it on my own!'
Scorpius appeared taken aback by her reaction.
'Well sorry but it seemed like you did' he muttered in annoyance, turning to leave.
But Lily wasn't finished. She stormed after him with clenched fists.
'He thought you were going to use an unforgivable curse on him!'
Scorpius turned around and looked her over indignantly.
'Well that's his fault for believing a stupid rumor, isn't it?' He said bitterly.
'You made him think that!' Lily wasn't about to let up. 'You pretended to be that person!'
'So what? Everyone already thinks I am anyway…' Scorpius narrowed his eyes at her and grimaced in confusion. He tried to move past her but she jumped in his path.
'So what?' Lily repeated incredulously, 'So when are you going to start making any effort to prove them wrong?'
'You want me to start being nice to Pucey now?' Scorpius looked at Lily as though she were mad.
'I want you to stop pretending to be someone you aren't!' She burst out furiously. 'To stop pretending that you don't even know me!'
Scorpius looked away for a moment, his eyes clouded in thought. Lily caught her breath as she waited for him to respond. The grass around her had blackened because of her rising temper and she was keen to stop it from getting any worse.
'How long am I supposed to go around pretending that you're not my friend?' She asked softly, leaning forward to try and catch his eyes. He turned back around to look at her and Lily felt a shiver run down her spine at the coldness she saw reflected in his amber eyes.
'Well if you're so worried about what people think of me, you don't have to pretend anymore' Scorpius hissed, before pushing past her and trudging back up towards the castle.
Lily's jaw dropped and her skin prickled in shock. Her heart stung like it had never done so before and she held a hand to her chest as a small sob escaped her lips. Scorpius was already half way back to the entrance doors by the time she had recovered enough to yell out to him.
'You know that's not what I meant-!'
A/N: I'm so sorry for doing that to all you Scorpius fans... one step forward two steps back... but please stay tuned I promise it will get better...
