The first Hogsmeade trip of the new year arrived two weeks into January. Although they had only been back to classes for a short amount of time, the students of Hogwarts were immensely grateful for the escape to the small village. And they weren't the only ones that found themselves trudging along the snow covered path. Consumed by curiosity, or perhaps a respite from the chill suffocating the Hogwarts grounds, students of the visiting schools followed the Hogwarts students up to the village. With the exception of the students from Ilvermony of course. As Albus passed a pack of them where they stood in front of their cars, he could see mournful looks of envy across their faces.
Albus joined his friends in the walk up to the village, but he had plans that would draw him away once they got there. His plans were centred around the accursed little building that claimed to house a tea shop. Albus was still of the belief that Madam Pudifoots was a secret torture room, but it was also the only first date appropriate location within several hundred miles of Hogwarts.
Scorpius had kept relatively quiet about Albus's upcoming date, and so had Clara, neither of them were the type to pester Albus with personal questions. However, Octavian exactly was the type, and he had enough pestering in him to make up for the lack of any coming from their other friends. Albus had not revealed the identity of the person he was seeing, not for lack of trying to force it out of him on Octavian's part. He had gone down a list of all the age appropriate girls he knew by name to see if any name gouged a reaction. Albus had trained himself to keep his face unreadable.
"What's her hair colour?" Octavian asked.
He had resorted to springing questions on Albus out of the blue, hoping to catch him off guard. It did not work. Albus didn't answer, but smiled self-satisfactorily in Octavian's direction.
"Octavian, lay off," Clara chided him from behind, where she was bringing up the rear of their walking group while linked arm in arm with Kopek.
"Yeah lay off," Albus agreed.
"I mean seriously Octavian, why ask questions when you can just spy on him later," Scorpius said, grinning as Albus shoved him sideways.
"They do have nice big open windows at the tea shop don't they," Octavian put a hand to his chin in thought, earning him a shove as well.
They made their way into the centre of Hogsmeade. The little township seemed far more crowded than usual. The addition of extra students from other schools seemed to have put its strain on the capacity of the shops. However they didn't seem to be the only new additions. Scorpius noticed more adults around than usual, all of them unfamiliar. And all of them seemed to be watching the teenagers running around the town.
Before he could pass these concerns onto Albus, he took off in the direction of the tea shop. Both Octavian and Scorpius made moves to follow, both for different reasons. They were stopped by Clara grabbing their coat sleeves and yanking them back.
"There's something weird going on," Scorpius insisted as they walked into The Three Broomsticks.
"When isn't there?" Octavian said in response.
They looked out on the crowded interior of the pub. All tables as far as they could see were packed. The group of four had to resort to cramming around a two person table, for which extra chairs were conjured forth by the barmaid. Clara offered to get drinks, leaving Scorpius and Octavian with Kopek.
They had seen a lot more of him over the past two weeks. Even when classes had started and Clara no longer got to spend most of her day with him, he still somehow managed to be around. It wasn't that Scorpius didn't like him. He was friendly, and agreeable. But he had a knack for always being there. Scorpius still hadn't got used to him. The one thing he could give him credit for was that he had kept Scorpius's secret about Rose away from Albus and Octavian.
Rose. Scorpius had tried not to think too much about it since he spoke to Clara. He still had yet to make his apology. The energy in the air around Rose was still somewhat toxic and unapproachable. Not to mention Scorpius never saw her without at least three Gryffindors surrounding her like well committed bodyguards.
"So what you think there's a bunch of death eaters in town or something?" Octavian asked of him, snapping Scorpius back into the situation at hand.
"You don't think it's weird, a bunch of strangers snooping around and watching?" Scorpius demanded of him.
"They're probably here for the tournament. Hogwarts is closed off to the public but Hogsmeade isn't," Octavian said.
"They're reporters," Clara returned, placing a butterbeer glass in front of everyone at the table. "Journalists and the like. Mostly from silly little magazines that barely anyone reads. All looking for a scoop. But there's some serious ones out there, big names."
"And how do you figure that?" Scorpius asked.
"I asked one of the ladies at the bar," Clara shrugged. "The woman up there in the hat, she writes for Witch Weekly. And she's not the only one. They've sent at least three different writers in apparently."
Octavian laughed, snorting into his glass of Butterbeer. "Guess it's not me Albus has to worry about spying on him."
On the other side of Hogsmeade High street, and in the tea shop just off the side lane, Albus had not in fact realised that there were vampirish reporters about. He was usually very good at spotting them, having been trained in the practice of avoiding them by his family. On that particular occasion however, he was distracted.
He sat across from his date, Faye O'Neill, and remained very focused on keeping her entertained. Faye had pretty blonde hair, (not dark like Clara's hair), and green eyes, (also not dark like Clara's eyes). She was a Hufflepuff in the same year as Albus, and he had to keep telling himself not to think about the fact that she was Clara's dormmate.
Albus picked up very quickly on the fact that Faye was quick witted, and sarcastic. She kept throwing jokes back to Albus and teasing him, she didn't sit there and fawn him. The circumstances of actually finding Faye to take on a date had been very touch and go, but Albus found himself pleasantly surprised at the results.
"You know everyone told me not to go out with you," Faye said, staring Albus down over the rim of her teacup.
"Why's that?" Albus asked, knowing that by her tone he was in for another round of banter.
"You've got a reputation Potter," she said. "You've tossed aside basically every girl you've gone out with. Isla Weaver is still staring daggers into your back."
Albus couldn't exactly argue with her. It would be pointless to attempt to do so as she did in fact have the upper hand. He could have of course explained that most of the girls he went out with turned out to either only care about his famous parents, or would eventually become too clingy. Albus felt that mentioning any of these points would result in a storm out, or a slap.
"So what are you doing here then?" He asked with a cheeky grin.
"Wanted a free coffee, clearly," she raised her teacup.
"So who exactly advised you against going out with me?" Albus asked. "I wanna hear who's been talking about me behind my back."
"Basically every girl in my dorm, including your friend Clara," she answered.
At the mention of Clara, Albus's stomach performed a conflicted twirl akin to an acrobatic trick. On the one hand, Clara was interfering in his dating business, business that he was only conducting as an attempt to squash the odd emotions he had started to harbour towards her. On the other hand, maybe it meant that Clara was jealous. Maybe the crush she claimed to have gotten over was still there, if only in a tiny fragment.
"Sounds to me like you ignored a lot of warnings just for a free coffee," Albus forced himself to think about Faye, not Clara, and continued the line of banter.
"Maybe I have my other reasons," she raised an eyebrow.
"Well now I really am intrigued," he leaned forward and she giggled a little.
"I'll tell you, if you tell me why you asked me out first," she promised. "I mean, you turned down basically every girl who asked you out to that stupid ball thing, ended up going with Amy Stroud of all people, who you then promptly ghosted all night to the point where everyone heard her crying in the girls bathroom. It's more than a little suspicious to see you back in the dating game."
Albus winced, he hadn't known that about Amy. It explained why he hadn't seen her since the night of the Yule Ball, not that he was too fussed about not seeing her.
"First things first, let me clear my name. I never took a date to the ball. Professor McGonagall got Amy to dance with me so that Hogwarts didn't look silly compared to the other schools and their champions," Albus explained.
"So that's gives you a reason for ditching her?" Faye asked.
"Maybe not," Albus admitted. "I asked you out because I find you very attractive and I consider you a captivating conversationalist. Is that not enough?"
"Well that part was obvious," she said. "So what, you didn't want any showing off at the Ball?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Albus admitted. "Alright, go on, you've grilled me enough. What could have possibly brought you this low as to agree to going out with me, an apparently notorious heartbreaker and awful person?"
She smiled, teeth clenched as she tried to fight back against answering the question. Immediately upon seeing her embarrassed reaction, Albus regretted asking.
"I have an ex that I want to make jealous," she confessed, finally letting the answer slip between her teeth.
"Ah," Albus nodded in understanding. "And who better than Harry Potter's most handsome son, who also happens to be Hogwarts Champion, to inspire envy."
Albus wanted to be annoyed, or even at least a little upset, but he truly wasn't. It made him feel a little calmer about trying to find a date just so he could stop thinking about one of his best friends in a way that wasn't wrong and annoyingly inconvenient. Maybe he and Faye were a better match that he originally suspected.
"I am interested," she said very quickly. "I also find you nice to look at, and you make for good banter. But ultimately, the opportunity to piss off Curtis was the thing that tipped me over to your side."
Albus accessed his inner encyclopedia of all the Hogwarts students he knew to remember that the Curtis she was speaking about was most likely the seventh year Gryffindor, Curtis Wallanby. He was one of the people Albus had unwillingly beat out for the position of Hogwarts Champion, and now he was seeing his ex-girlfriend. He had to hand it to Faye, she had picked an excellent choice to make her ex jealous.
"You know, I have some ideas on ways we can make you ex even more jealous," Albus suggested with a raised eyebrow. "But, it means we have to leave this delightful little tea shop that is absolutely not filled with garish decorations that make my eyes bleed."
Faye was already on her feet before Albus could finish his sentence. They left the tea shop after hastily paying for their drinks, and while they were far too busy paying attention to each other, they failed to notice the gaggle of about four adults who had been hovering near the windows of the tea shop, each of them holding their own writing pad and a quill.
The Three Broomsticks was more reminiscent of a battle scene than a pub. Scorpius and his friends felt like they were holding down their far too small table like it was the last precious supply fort left and the enemies were closing in on all sides. Octavian nearly had his chair stolen out from under him three separate times.
"Is it always so many people in here?" Kopek asked after he was nearly smacked on the head by a passerbys trying to get through the crowd behind them.
"No," Scorpius answered. "The tournament has brought in too much attention."
"It is taken very seriously here," Kopek said, observing another journalist trying to catch one of the Beauxbatons students in an interview. "At Koldovstoretz, not many people really care. We only come because Headmaster Kotov wanted to show Durmstrang real wizarding. He said that, not me. Half of students who are 17 didn't even want to come."
"But you came," Octavian pointed out.
Scorpius hadn't really registered it up until that point, but he realised that at some point Kopek would have put his name in the Goblet and missed out on being the champion for Koldovstoretz. He wondered what it was that motivated him, and the question blurted itself out before Scorpius could stop himself.
"Why did you want to be champion?"
"The way they describe it, it sounded like friendly competition," Kopek said. "It was a chance to see a new place, a world I would never get to see if I didn't come. And I get to meet new, different, people."
He smiled in Clara's direction and she blushed.
"Is it what you expected, the tournament?" Scorpius asked.
Kopek shook his head. Some of his bright demeanour leaked away, and he became slightly more serious. "The contests, they are more sinister than they told us. They made them fight themselves. I do not see any good reasoning for that. I am glad to not be chosen. Your friend is brave to be a champion."
The table went quiet. Evidently, Clara had no told Kopek that Albus had not been the one to put his name in. Octavian and Scorpius gave her a second to fill in the gaps and update him, but strangely she didn't speak. She avoided the stares coming at her from Scorpius and Octavian and took a sip of her butterbeer.
"You know I was thinking about showing Kopek some of the sights around Hogsmeade," Clara said instead. "So we might head off. I'll see you guys back at the castle?"
Octavian and Scorpius nodded as she got to her feet and took Kopek along with her. She left a butterbeer glass on the table with a quarter still left in it that Octavian immediately slid across the table to himself. Finally, the two person table was actually operating within its capacity, and the empty chairs left by Clara and Kopek were immediately snatched away to another table.
"Off to the Shrieking shack I bet," Octavian joked. "Looks like it's just us two bachelors now."
"I'm thrilled," Scorpius said in a flat voice, and then dropped the tone to ask a serious question. "Do you think Kopek is too nice?"
Octavian rolled his eyes. "Not everything is a sign of treachery Mr Big Brain, sometimes people can just be good people. Besides if he does cross Clara, she can handle it. All she needs is a beater's bat and she'll send him all the way back to Mongolia herself."
Scorpius nodded, thinking about how Clara could in fact beat anyone to a pulp if she tried hard enough. He considered that Octavian may be right, and he was acting too suspicious towards everyone. Considering what the school year had held for them so far, he didn't consider it to be beyond the realms of reasonable thinking. They still had yet to solve the mystery around Albus and the tournament.
"Hello there boys!" An unusually chipper and unfamiliar voice rocketed the eardrums of both Octavian and Scorpius as a man deposited himself at the corner of their table and held a hand out to them, moving so fast that Scorpius thought he was about to get punched. "Sol Striker, how do you do?"
Neither of them accepted the man's handshake. He lowered his hand as quickly as he had shot it at them, and leaned back in the chair he had conjured up to their table. He was in neat dress robes, speckled in black and white, making him look a bit like a very strange cow. He also wore an obnoxiously large and wide brimmed hat that did not match his robes.
"Scorpius Malfoy isn't it?" He stared Scorpius down from his relaxed position in the chair. He had crossed one leg over the other, and was tapping a pen against his side. "I would love to take a second to chat to you."
The man's identity finally registered to Scorpius.
"Striker. You write for the Daily Prophet."
"Shssh," Striker hushed him. "Can't let the competition know the big fish is about. As soon as they see what I'm doing they'll all rush in like piranhas, scrambling for a piece of the cake. You don't want that do you Scorpius?"
"What do you want?" Octavian demanded.
"Just a little chat that's all," he tapped his pen again, not taking his eyes of Scorpius.
His pen looked like a high end muggle ballpoint ink pen. Scorpius thought it both strange, and obnoxious that Striker was using it instead of a quill. He assumed from the unnatural shine to it that it was enchanted somehow. But to do what, Scorpius had no idea.
"I hear from my sources that you are Albus Potter's best friend," Striker started, putting the tip of his pen to his tongue before he placed it against his paper. "What an odd twist of fate, considering your fathers were famous enemies in their school years. How did you come to be friends?"
"I'm not talking to you," Scorpius said darkly.
"Come now," Striker chided. "Don't you want to share the amazing details of such an unlikely friendship. You could enlighten people, valued readers who want to support Albus in his upcoming trials."
"No thank you," Scorpius insisted.
"You heard him, get out," Octavian said.
Seeing his chances becoming more and more dim with Scorpius, Striker finally looked at Octavian and registered his existence.
"You're one of Albus's friends as well, do you have anything to say for his character?" Striker asked.
"No. But I have a few things I could say about your character," he threatened.
Striker sat up in his chair, tapping the end of his pen on the table in a slow rhythm, like a ticking clock.
"There's no need to be so closed-off," Striker said, his voice quiet and his eyes not matching the smile on his face. "Come on, not even one little quote?"
"Alright here's a quote for you," Octavian said and leaned forward. "Fuck. Off."
Striker surveyed them both, a distant smirk on his face as he looked both boys up and down. Seeing he was out of attempts, Striker got to his feet and nodded to them before he slinked through the crowd of the pub, presumably to track down an unsuspecting student for a 'quote.'
"We should get out of here," Scorpius said.
Several other journalists in the pub had their eyes on them, and if they were talking to other Hogwarts students, it was only a matter of time before they were identified as Albus's friends and would have the swarm descend upon them.
"We can hide out in Zonko's," Octavian suggested.
Scorpius, being the significantly taller one of the two, led the way through the crowd and out of the pub while Octavian hung onto his sleeve so as to not get swept away by the throng. They made it to the door safelty, but as Scorpius went to grab the handle to push it open, the door was pulled open from the other side.
Rose Granger-Weasley walked in, not realising there was someone on the other side intending to exit, and she came within an inch of running headfirst into Scorpius. She apologised, before she looked up and recognised the stunned pale face staring back down at her.
They stood in a face-off for a while. Scorpius, a head taller than her, stared down while she looked up. They were only inches away from each other, close enough so that Scorpius could smell her shampoo. It was a sweet, berry like smell and infected his nostrils, making his head swim.
Eventually, Rose stepped aside to let them pass. Scorpius took a second before he could move. Her stare had locked him in, trapping him in place until he could finally break free. He passed her, and finally noticed that she had a line of friends behind her that were all glaring at him. They moved out of the doorway, and Rose and her friends stepped inside.
Scorpius took one last look back over his shoulder and made eye contact with Rose once again before she closed the door after her friends had all entered. She gave him a small grimace like smile, her eyes wider and brighter than Scorpius had seen it weeks. He wasn't sure how he knew but, immediately something registered in his mind.
The first sign of forgiveness. The time had come for him to make his apology. Of course going back into the Broomsticks was a death wish, so it would have to wait. But as soon as he was back in the castle Scorpius knew what he had to do.
"What in the hell was that?" Octavian asked, bringing Scorpius back to reality.
"What? Nothing," Scorpius answered a little too quickly and a little too defensively for it to not be immediately picked up by Octavian.
"Ohh ho ho," Octavian laughed. "It's something. I know something when I see something and THAT is something. You and Rose? You have to tell me everything."
"No! No, it's not something. It's nothing. And you need to stop with your obsession into other people's lives," Scorpius scolded him.
"You cannot spend a full minute staring into Rose Weasley's eyes and then tell me that it's nothing," Octavian argued. "You didn't just have a fight over a study session. Something happened. Did fiery hatred turn into fiery passion? Did you hook up with her?"
"No!" Scorpius exclaimed. "Nothing has ever happened there, and nothing ever will. You're reading into it too much. "
"Uh huh," Octavian remained unconvinced, but for maybe the first time in all his life, decided to stop pushing.
Even Scorpius was stunned by how quickly the conversation died off. He had never known Octavian to leave something be, but maybe Octavian actually did manage to identity that something serious was in fact going on. Serious enough that he knew better than to ask after it. Maybe he just didn't want to be at the end of another Scorpius rant about how Rose unfairly gets top spot in their classes. Scorpius was bewildered at the possibilities.
Their time in the joke shop was short, they had to flee when the journalists came in too close. Eventually, after Octavian insisted on a good amount of time spent in the sweet shop complaining about the lack of blueberry flavoured sweets, the two boys headed back for the castle. They were some of the earlier departures of the day, but noticed that many of the Australian students were also leaving at the same time, clearly unable to handle too much time outside in the snow, they clutched at themselves, shivering and stepping slowly through the snow like they were making their way through a blizzard.
Once safely back at the castle, they waited for their friends to return. Passing the time, they played a few rounds of exploding snap, and Octavian had to transfigure one of his eyebrows back on after it got singed. Scorpius won of course.
Clara and Kopek returned first. Except, it was just Clara who entered the castle. Kopek had apparently gone returned to the Koldovstoretz accommodation. Octavian then pointed out how silly it was that they called it accommodation when said accommodation was inside of a giant bronze dragon. Clara rolled her eyes at him. Scorpius then updated her on what had happened in The Three Broomsticks, with the exception of his interaction with Rose at the exit.
She was of a similar mindset as Octavian about exactly what she thought of Striker and his behaviour. Before her rant about unprofessionalism and cruel behaviour could go past the five minute marker, Albus returned. The smug look in his eye and the bright skip in his step told his three friends all they needed to know about what had happened on Albus's date.
"Are you gonna tell us who she is yet?" Octavian demanded, not letting Albus get the first word in.
"It's a surprise," Albus said, flicking an exploding snap card at him and causing Octavian to jump out of his chair in fear. "Not that you won't find out about it soon enough anyway. Rose and her friends saw us on the way back from the village I think."
Scorpius's head snapped up. "Rose is back from Hogsmeade?" he asked.
"Um yes," Albus answered, confused by Scorpius's reaction.
"I gotta go," Scorpius got to his feet and haphazardly gathered up his cards. "Study session stuff."
He fled up the stairs before Albus could point out that he had cancelled the study sessions. Albus looked back to Clara and Octavian, searching for answers from the both of them.
"Has he gone full mental?" Albus asked.
"He's always been full mental," Octavian shrugged it off. "Hey did you run into any of the reporters in Hogsmeade?"
"Reporters? What?" Albus repeated.
Scorpius got a floor up before he realised he had no idea where he would actually find Rose. He was completely unfamiliar with any of the common hang out spaces of the Gryffindors. He realised with a sinking feeling that there was a very good chance they could be in their house common room with no way for Scorpius to reach her. But he had to try.
There was one obvious gathering space outside of the separate house areas that he could try. He moved at power walk speed in the direction of the library, earning a lot of side eye stares from passerbys as he carved a path past them. He had run into Rose coming in and out of the library enough times. Surely there was a chance of her being there.
He entered the library, and immediately began a strategic pattern of analysing the bookshelves. Taking himself up the centre aisle, he looked both left and right trying to spot any sign of her dark red hair. A table in the very back corner of the library caught his eye, in a sea of loud chattering Gryffindors, there she was. She had a small paperback book in one hand, and was caught between reading it, and looking up to participate in her friend's conversation.
They were all there. Scorpius counted them off in his head. The three boys; Sam, Averi and Dorian. And the girls, Kitty, Isla, Miranda and Jane. It wasn't the most ideal of circumstances for an approach. In fact it was the worst possible situation. Scorpius froze on the spot, feeling his toes curl so tightly on the spot he almost felt like he might pop through his shoes and start squeezing carpet. He gritted his teeth, and marched forward. It was now or never.
They didn't see him until he was right upon them, clearly wrapped up in their loud talking. Scorpius wondered what had happened to the quiet in the library rule, but had little time to ponder it deeply as he was spotted first by Miranda. She hit the people closest to her, and they looked up to see him too. Their chatter died off into uncomfortable silence.
Scorpius ignored their angry stares and looked directly at Rose, doing his best to pretend they weren't there.
"Can I talk to you?" he asked. "Alone? Please?"
"No chance," Kitty said, venom dripping from her lips.
"Kitty," Rose shushed her gently, putting a hand on her best friends forearm. "We can talk, but quick."
"I only need a second," Scorpius promised.
Rose's crowd of friends dispersed from the table, slowly and hesitantly. They broke off one by one, flicking their gaze between rage filled stares at Scorpius, and looks to Rose as if they were expecting her to call them back. They faded out of sight, but Scorpius guessed they would still be lurking close by, and possibly even spying. Oh well, it was the best chance he could get for talking to Rose alone.
He sat down at the table across from her. She had closed her book, but kept a finger between the pages, making sure she didn't lose her spot. It was another fiction book Scorpius noticed. On the front cover, a woman in a loose dress was holding on dramatically to a shirtless man. A romance novel. Scorpius almost laughed.
Very earnestly, he established eye contact with Rose and remembered step one of his plan.
"This is an apology," Scorpius stated. "I need to apologise to you."
Rose nodded, permitting him to continue. She was keeping her face as level and emotionless as possible. Scorpius felt a little stunned by her expression, he hadn't seen her look so cold before. It caused a brief hitch in his train of thinking before he managed to steer himself back to focus.
"What I did to you was wrong. I ignored your feelings, disregarded your emotions and was just generally very cruel," Scorpius said. "I left you feeling hurt and betrayed, and that was incredibly awful of me. This is not an excuse, but I want to explain to you that I have trouble with talking to people, and dealing with emotions."
Rose was following along with his words, nodding to what he was saying. Her face was still unreadable. Scorpius really wanted some kind of reaction out of her. Even to scrunch her eyebrows up and get angry would be preferable to the blank slate sitting across from him.
"When you told me," he paused. "What you told me, I was confused and I didn't know what to do. I didn't ignore you because I was being mean or malicious. I just didn't know what to do or say. I realise now how bad that was, and I should have realised that in the moment as well. But I didn't, and now here we are."
He attempted an airy chuckle to defuse the electricity in the air and maybe even solicit a small smile from Rose. It didn't work, she remained unreactive.
"I really am very sorry for what I did to you Rose," Scorpius said. "Please say something so I know whether or not I've made the worst apology in history or not."
Her cold façade broke and she let out an involuntary snicker. A tiny hint of a smile crept onto her face as she nodded at Scorpius.
"Not the worst apology ever," she confirmed. "I'd score it an 8.5 out of 10."
Scorpius nodded, letting himself smile as well. "I would say I'd try better next time but I'm really hoping I don't do anything so awful ever again that warrants a deep apology."
"I hope so too," Rose agreed. "I appreciate the apology."
"I'm not expecting you to forgive me by the way," Scorpius added.
"Maybe I will, we'll see," she said with a distant smile. "But maybe no more study sessions for a little while?"
Scorpius almost broke into hysterical laughter, but he fought back the urge and simply nodded in response. The air between them was slightly warmer now, but it was still tense. Like an elastic band had been pulled to it's maximum capacity and they were just waiting for it to snap. Scorpius considered Rose for a second, before he stood up and nodded to her politely before making a move to leave.
"Oh," Rose said when he was halfway down the shelves, causing him to turn around. "Happy early birthday by the way."
Scorpius stared back at her in confusion, eyes wide.
"Your birthday is next week isn't it?" she asked, suddenly uncertain.
"No, it is," Scorpius reassured her. "I'm just surprised you knew."
She shrugged, almost looking embarrassed. Scorpius turned back around, his thoughts swimming so deeply that he may as well have dunked his head into the deepest part of the ocean. She remembered his birthday a good week before it was due.
Scorpius's insides felt warm and fluttery as he left the library and a small tint of colour found its way to his cheeks in the form of a blush.