If you recognise it, I don't own it.

Lily sat on the couch, dazed, for what felt like hours. She had nearly kissed Scorpius! Every time she remembered the moment, she felt an explosion of giddiness and happiness inside her. Then she remembered Lysander's stupid owl and she'd feel angry at him and his stupid letter again. The memory of Scorpius's hand on her cheek, his promise that tomorrow would be better, was more than enough to wash away Lily's anger like driftwood floating downstream.

Eventually, she wasn't sure how long after he left, Lily regained a sense of time and place. It was 1:27. She cleaned up the mess they had made on the couch. After that she didn't really know what to do. She was absolutely not going to watch another movie without Scorpius, and there was no one to play quidditch with. She didn't really feel like flying right now anyway. She wanted to move.

Lily had so much nervous energy and excitement coursing through her that sitting still was not an option. She wandered up to her room to see if there was anything interesting to do in there. She looked around, vaguely thinking she could clean up what was thrown lazily around her room.

Her eyes landed on one of the shirts she used to exercise. Perfect. A run would be sure to get rid of her jitteriness.

Lily changed her clothes and tied her hair up. Then she left the house and ran. She ran and ran. She ran to the town close to where they lived, then she ran around the town too. It felt so good to run like this. She was no stranger to running. She usually ran in the afternoons, especially when she was feeling stressed. It really helped to clear her head.

She didn't normally run so far though. The rhythmic pounding of her feet allowed her to think about Scorpius without feeling jittery. The energy that she had when thinking about him fuelled her body to run further and further.

She really, really liked Scorpius. And what was more, he seemed to like her too! If it weren't for that owl interrupting them then they would've kissed. He had promised tomorrow would be better too. Surely that meant he intended on actually kissing her tomorrow. Lily would definitely not protest if he did. She wouldn't be upset even one little bit.

Everything just felt so easy with Scorpius. Yes, they had little awkward moments, but apart from those, she could just be Lily with him. Not Lily Potter, Harry Potter's only daughter, not some quidditch hero. Just Lily. She didn't feel that sort of easiness with anyone else, not even her family or friends.

Lily always, always, felt some sort of pressure. Her parents were war heroes. They had accomplished so much by the time they were both her age. The least she had to do to not be a disappointment was get high grades, be a quidditch player that was as good as her parents, not get into too much trouble at school, and now that she was going into her fifth year everyone expected her to be a prefect too.

She loved her parents so much, and she knew they loved her. She didn't feel that sort of pressure from them, but it was still because of them that she felt it. Society expected her to be great because her parents were great beyond measure. It didn't matter who she was.

When she was with Scorpius, she felt like he was looking right into her soul. He was looking right at Lily. It was intoxicating. How was she supposed to wait a whole day to see him again? Ugh.

Lily's lungs burned, as did her legs. Challenging herself to maintain her pace, Lily began to head home. By the time she got there, she was exhausted. She checked her smart watch. 18 kilometres in 2 hours. A personal record by 3 kilometres. Wow. No wonder her legs felt like jelly.

Feeling so tired was good, Lily thought as she mixed a protein shake to reduce the inevitable muscle soreness she would experience tomorrow. Her brain was feeling significantly slower than before she had run. Now she wouldn't feel so jittery for the rest of the day.

The strategy worked. By the time her family came home she was still so mentally subdued from her exercise that she had no problem acting normal and not distracted at all.

James's first day had gone fantastically. He had been shown around the office and introduced to everyone. He had been given some mission reports of previous ruins that had been explored to review so he could get an idea of what a mission actually looked like. After a few weeks of that, he was going to be allowed to go with an established curse-breaking team on missions and they would assess from there whether he was ready to properly join a team.

Albus's internship continued to go well. He had started last week, so he was in a routine already. He had been told that next week he could tag along for a few low risk level missions as long as things continued to go well. This was very exciting news for him.

Eventually, dinner was finished, time wore on and it was time to go to bed. Despite her excitement for the next day, Lily was so exhausted that she fell asleep almost instantly.

The next morning Lily was sore. Her legs screamed in protest as she swung them onto the floor. She winced at the pain of actually standing up. As she was dressing, she felt a twinge of muscle pain in her triceps too. Walking down the stairs to breakfast was enough to make her sincerely regret breaking her record by an entire 3 kilometres.

Lily had gotten up a bit later than she had yesterday. Her family were all finishing breakfast. They would all be heading off in the next 10 minutes or so. Lily winced as she sat down with her bowl of cereal. Her dad noticed.

"What's wrong Lily Flower?" He was frowning in concern.

"I went for a run yesterday. It was a mistake."

James snorted. "How far did you go?"

"18 K's in 2 hours," she replied, then had a mouthful of cereal.

"Wow," James said, clearly impressed. "Good job Lils."

"Yeah, isn't your record like 15 K's or something?"

Lily swallowed her mouthful before replying to Albus's question. "Not anymore."

"Well done Flower, that's impressive."

Lily smiled at her Dad's praise. "It doesn't feel as good the morning after."

Her family laughed.

"No pain no gain though," her mother said. The rest of her family nodded and murmured agreement.

"Easy for you to say. I'm the one in pain," she grumbled under her breath into her cereal. She looked up as she heard her father snort with laughter across the table. He had heard her. She winked at him.

"What are your plans for today, Lils? I feel bad leaving you alone all day," Albus asked, getting up to put his empty plate in the sink.

"Not running."

Her family laughed at her response.

"Albus is right though Lily, you are home alone. Why don't you see Scarlette or the twins? You know your Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione wouldn't mind if you popped by to see Hugo either," her mum suggested.

Lily didn't know whether to be grateful that they were thinking about her or annoyed that they didn't think she could handle two days on her own. Up until yesterday James had been home too.

"I'm just going to watch movies today, mum. I don't get the chance very often."

The answer seemed to satisfy her mum. After all, it was certainly no secret that Lily was very fond of muggle entertainment.

"Ok, if you're sure. Anyway, boys, it's time to head off." Her mum kissed her head as she walked past. "Enjoy your movies Lily. Remember we're all just an owl away."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Yes mum," she deadpanned. "I know."

"We know you do, Flower. But you're still our little girl," her dad said, kissing her head as he walked past as well.

"Yeah, and you can't use magic yet," Albus added.

"You've only been 17 for 3 months!"

"Yes little sister, 3 months longer than you."

"Go to work," Lily said, very indignant.

Albus just laughed and ruffled her hair as he too, headed into the living room to floo to the ministry.

"Anything to add?" Lily snapped at James, who was the last to leave.

He held up his hands in defence.

"Hey Lils, I didn't say anything. You know they're coming from a good place."

Lily grumbled some more under her breath.

"But no," James continued. "I know you're a weirdo who doesn't mind being alone, and I know you're more than capable of looking after yourself for a day."

"Thanks James," Lily said, her tone significantly more gentle than before. "I'm glad you, at least, don't treat me like a baby."

James chuckled. "You might be my baby sister, but you're far from helpless. Have a good day. I'll see you tonight."

Lily wished him luck for his second day as he left the dining room. She heard him cry "Diagon Alley", she heard the roar of the fire sweep him away, and then she was alone. Her excitement began to creep back.

Lily forced herself to finish her breakfast without checking the time. Then she went to brush her teeth and do her hair nicely. She wished she was 17, not 15. Then she could use one of the hairstyling or curling spells that she knew. While her hair definitely wasn't straight, it wasn't curly either. Wavy, she decided as she examined herself in the mirror, would be the best way to describe her hair.

Eventually, Lily decided to tie up the top half of her hair and leave the bottom half down. Instead of tying her hair just into a ponytail, she plaited her hair and only used a single hair tie at the bottom of the plait, to keep it together. She put on the same makeup as yesterday. She was wearing high waisted denim shorts and a simple, black and white striped T-shirt.

Lily looked herself up and down. She had a splash of freckles across her nose that extended out to her cheekbones too. Her nose was small and slightly upturned. She had always been insecure about her lips. Lily had thin lips, and she knew the standard for being beautiful was to have big, plump, red lips. Not wanting to focus on her lips, she examined the upper part of her face. She and Scarlette had gone to get their eyebrows done together last Friday, so her eyebrows still looked very good. Her cheekbones were quite high, which really accented the shape of the rest of her face. She had a thin face, but not to the point she could call her features pointed.

A knock at the door drew Lily from her thoughts. She checked her watch. 9:32. Shit. Lily ran down the stairs as fast as her sore legs allowed, then took a moment at the door to compose herself before opening the door. There, looking as beautiful as ever, was Scorpius.

"Hi," Lily said, slightly breathless. Again.

"Hello," Scorpius said, smiling widely at her. She moved her arm in a wide, sweeping circle, indicating for him to come inside. He did, and she closed the door behind him.

"I can't stop thinking about the movie. Everything looked so real! My mother has taken me to the theatre quite a lot, but even with magic it doesn't look so real."

Lily smiled, delighted at his genuine wonder of the movie. "I don't know exactly how they do it honestly. They have huge teams working on it all and it takes years just to make one movie sometimes."

"That makes sense, I suppose. By the way, why did you name your owl Loki? Loki was a manipulative prick."

Lily laughed leading the way into the living room. "I never would have thought I'd see the day where the Slytherin Prince doesn't like the manipulative character. He gets better though. Sort of. But I thought that my Loki's dark feathers suited the name Loki more than Thor or Odin or any other character in other movies."

"Slytherin Prince?" Lily couldn't help but laugh even harder at the incredulous look on his face.

"What? You call me Baby Potter. I need something to call you too." Lily tried to make her voice as innocent as possible.

Scorpius laughed, and Lily felt goosebumps at the sound. His voice was relatively deep, and hearing his laugh was just a beautiful sound.

"I guess that's only fair, and I suppose your owl does look more like a Loki than a Thor," he conceded as they both plopped down onto the couch. Lily noticed they happened to be sitting a bit closer than they were yesterday. She didn't mind.

Lily didn't want to stop talking to Scorpius to watch a movie just yet, so she asked; "How was afternoon tea with your cousins yesterday?"

Scorpius frowned. "It was the same as it always was really. My cousin Abigail keeps trying to get me to hook up with Jasmine Flint. The two of them and Mia Bulstrode have this little gang that Flint leads. Abigail is talented, so it's a shame she chooses to follow around someone like Flint. Seeing my aunt and uncle was ok though. They're formal, but they value family very strongly, so it's a lot better than when my parents host dinners with their friends and business associates."

Lily frowned as well. She couldn't even imagine a family gathering like that. Her family was so chaotic and fun to be around. "Is that Abigail Nott?"

"Yeah, it is. She pretty much worships the ground Flint walks on. I can't have a single one on one conversation with her without her bringing up all of Flint's amazing qualities and how perfect of a couple we'd be. It's a shame. We used to get along really well when we were younger."

Lily felt her stomach lurch at the thought of Scorpius possibly liking someone else, and that someone else actually having people support her getting with Scorpius. Lily let this information digest for a moment.

"And Jasmine Flint," Lily began, unsure exactly what she wanted to say. "She's in your year level?"

Scorpius's face suddenly changed. His frown disappeared and a little smirk appeared instead. He looked into her eyes, his grey eyes looking more like liquid silver.

"She is," he answered, his voice suddenly deeper, his words suddenly slower and more deliberate.

Lily's breath caught, and she couldn't stop a bit of the internal agitation she was feeling appear on her face. As she frowned, Scorpius's smirk deepened and he moved slightly closer to her.

"So you spend a lot of time with her?"

"I do." His voice was slow and mesmerising. His face moved another inch closer. "Why? Does that bother you?"

It bothered Lily immensely, but Scorpius's mesmerising voice and his liquid silver eyes were taking away Lily's ability to think. Without even realising it, she began to lean towards him too.

"Should it?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"No," Scorpius replied. "It shouldn't bother you at all."

Then Scorpius leaned forward even further and kissed her. Lily closed her eyes and moved her lips against his. She felt a hand snake around her waist, pulling her closer. Without breaking the kiss, she shuffled closer to him until she felt his body pressed up against hers. She brought one hand up to run her fingers through his platinum blonde hair. Her other hand slowly made its way up Scorpius's arm, admiring the muscles she felt.

Scorpius's other arm moved up and cradled the back of her neck. Lily had never experienced anything like this. Scorpius's lips were warm against hers. Happiness exploded within her like fireworks. She could smell his cologne and a faint smell of broomstick polish. He tasted faintly like mint.

All too soon, they separated. Lily didn't want to open her eyes. She was afraid she would wake up and it had all been a dream. She felt Scorpius's forehead rest gently against hers. For a while, neither of them moved. Lily sat there, savouring the feeling of her first kiss, savouring how Scorpius's body felt against her, how his hair felt in her hand, how his hands felt on her.

Eventually, she opened her eyes and met Scorpius's eyes, like molten silver, gazing at her. Lily couldn't help the smile that exploded across her face. Her smile was like a trigger for Scorpius. A smile lit up his face too.

"I've been wanting to do that for a while," he admitted.

Lily laughed, feeling breathless. "So have I."

"Does that prove that you have nothing to worry about?"

Lily pretended to frown in confusion, but it didn't really work because she couldn't wipe the smile off her face.

"I don't know. I might need a little bit more convincing."

Scorpius laughed. He had such a wonderful sounding laugh, Lily thought.

"I'll try harder next time then, my lady."

Lily laughed, genuine happiness infusing her voice. She grabbed the remote and snuggled into Scorpius's side. He wrapped an arm around her and together they began to watch the movie.

Thank you so much for all of the follows, favourites and reviews! They really mean a lot, especially because this is my first story. I hope you all liked this chapter. If you did then don't hesitate to follow or favourite, or even chuck me a cheeky review 3