Folie à Deux

by ItsLeviOsa-NotLevioSA

"In truth, if the last six years had been any indication, sharing the Head position with Malfoy was going to be awful; living with him insufferable. Then again, although he was as caustic as ever, nothing outrageous had happened between the two yet. True, it was only Wednesday, but for them, it was almost a record." My best attempts to write a believable high school fic. Enjoy!

17. You Shook Me All Night Long

Chapter 17: It's Not Easy Being Me or, You Shook Me All Night Long

Rating: M mainly for language, and I can't discount any funny business later on

Disclaimer: I work with only what J.K. Rowling has given me.

---

Scorpius was still awake by the time dawn had broken and early morning light had begun to flood the Astronomy Tower. He hadn't moved from where he had been sitting, even as his back ached and his head had begun to throb. The place was still silent — apart from the birds that had started to sing — silent enough that the slightest disturbance to the environment pricked his ears.

The footsteps had only been audible for a few seconds before he saw the door nudge open, and he trailed the smart black flats up to the blonde ponytail slightly canted to the left.

"Fucking hell, what is it with people and this place?"

Juliette Bexley stared at him, wide-eyed, and then she pointed at the textbook that Scorpius vaguely remembered seeing when the darkness had subsided, but had taken no further notice of. "I forgot something."

"Yeah, you and everyone else," Scorpius muttered, but he leaned over, scooped it up and passed it to her.

She didn't stop looking at him, even as she pulled the book to her chest, and her head cocked a little as she continued, silently, to scrutinise him.

Uncomfortable, Scorpius narrowed his eyes at her. "What."

She shrugged. "You look terrible. Can I sit?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

She sat anyway.

"What's that smell?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "It's everywhere."

Scorpius took a deep, heaving breath and angled his head towards the area of dark-stained stone next to them. "It spilled."

Juliette frowned. "That's alcohol." She turned her gaze on him accusingly. "You're not supposed to drink alcohol at school. And the bottle's cracked. Did you know?"

"If you tell on me, you won't have a tutor."

Juliette sniffed. "I wasn't going to tell on you. Did you break the bottle because you were drunk?"

Scorpius slowly shook his head. "No."

"Did you break it on purpose?"

"No."

After a protracted moment of silence, she began to click her teeth, and in his periphery, Scorpius saw her slowly turn her head towards him.

"Sooooo...what happened?"

"No."

Juliette raised her eyebrows. "No?"

"Yes. I mean, no."

A tiny smile upturned the corner of her mouth, and she looked down at her shoes, edging her heels together until they were touching. "Whatever it is, it's probably not that bad. Things always look better in the morning."

"It is the morning."

"Is it something to do with that letter?"

Scorpius raised his gaze to the abandoned letter, folded over and face down on the stone floor a few feet away from them. The letter that meant things would be different when he returned home, things that meant funerals and strangers, white lilies and black clothes. Fuck, it should've been.

"Well, I don't like being alone when I get sad," Juliette continued when he didn't answer. "Nice people are better company than sad thoughts, that's what my mum-"

"I kissed her."

Juliette abruptly stopped talking, her head snapping towards him.

"Well, I mean, it's technically the second time we've kissed, but the first time was for a game so it doesn't count." He barely registered the words coming out of his mouth. His voice didn't sound right, it didn't even sound like him.

Juliette pursed her lips thoughtfully, and then said, cautiously, "That's good, right?"

Scorpius finally lifted his gaze in order to shoot her a sardonic look. "Yes, it's bloody fantastic. Oh wait, unless you count all evidence to the contrary." When she only raised her eyebrows and palms up in defence, shifting her gaze back to the lightening sky, he sighed heavily. "Why would that be good?"

"Because you like her."

Because you like her.

He'd heard those four words before. They were words his brain had whispered to him on the brink of sleep, the silent reply when he'd wondered why his stomach tugged in response to a smile, a laugh; why she could flatten him with the tiniest of tiny looks without even trying at all.

Why he'd spent all that time helping her, why his stomach had seized in panic when he'd seen her watch left on the table, why he'd grabbed it and been down in the Entrance Hall before he'd had the time to ask himself why he even cared. Why he'd had that dream — the worst ever, most wonderful dream that he knew now was like trying to capture the wonder of a sunset through a lens, but that last week had replayed in the forefront of his mind for three days straight.

He had no idea how long he'd been pushing those four words down, tucking them away into a box for another time (it was always for another time), but now a thirteen year old girl had plunged into that box, torn it open and shoved those words back into his face before he'd had any time to stop her.

Because you like her.

"That's—it's not…it's not that simple."

"Isn't it?"

Scorpius' brain swam with words, words, words, so many words he didn't know how to use, and Juliette's continued to echo in his head, drowning them all out. "I can't - it's not a good enough reason-"

"Why not? You like her so you kissed her. What other reason do you need?"

We got caught up in the moment.

I was drunk.

I don't have a grandmother anymore.

The other reason, the real reason that was no secret to either of them whispered again, but Scorpius pushed it down. Force of habit.

"I was the one who did it," Scorpius said hollowly instead. "And—and now she…she-"

Juliette's features relaxed in realisation. "So the problem isn't that you like her. It's that you don't want her to know that you do."

No. The whole thing was a problem and a headache, from start to finish — not that Scorpius even knew when it had started — and he wished she would stop saying that he liked her in that little voice that made the words sound so nice, nothing like the way Scorpius' brain said them, like they were there just to spite him, as if to show that he wasn't fooling anyone, that those feelings hidden away in closed boxes had never really been hidden away at all.

The more Scorpius thought about it, if it had just been last night, just that kiss alone, it wouldn't have been so bad. He could chalk it up to them being teenagers with raging, pent-up hormones, and Liv had felt like so long ago, and Rose was a pretty girl — no one would say otherwise — and they were around each other so much, constantly in each other's space, it was only natural he'd need to get it out of his system.

But then there was all that other stuff.

Stupid, uncharacteristically thoughtless stuff, like everything that had happened that weekend, and the weekend before, and months before that when he'd barrelled into that Bludger for her, when he'd practically invited her to dance with him at the Christmas Ball, when he'd taken her to that club in Hogsmeade - why, WHY were there so many damn things? - and before a few hours ago, those things could be a problem for another day. But now this stupid kiss had made everything today's problem, and tomorrow's problem, and every tomorrow after that if he continued to let things keep going as they had been.

He'd taken her to that club out of curiosity, out of some morbid curiosity that was seeing her in a club with him, to dare her to do something unexpected. But he had never actually thought about what would happen if they went out like that together, if they danced together in that club, if Rose Weasley did something unexpected.

He'd forgotten Juliette was there until she coughed.

"If it makes you feel better, I think she knew before."

Scorpius, still distracted, frowned. "Knew what?"

Juliette cleared her throat, and said, carefully, "That you like her."

His brain snapped back to life. "How could she know that?" He flung the words out. "I don't even-"

"Even if you don't know, she does," Juliette finished evenly, her voice soft.

Something began to build up inside of Scorpius then, a white-hot heat that felt like it was burning him from the inside out, and he was so stupid, so utterly naïve that it had taken him up until that very moment to understand that last night hadn't been anything new — no, last night had been the nail in the fucking coffin that housed every last shred of self-preservation he'd had, and of course she knew. She had to know.

"Did she…did she kiss you back?"

Scorpius nodded slowly. "She did."

"Well, then it can't be all bad, right? If she kissed you too. But I guess, um…since you're so upset about it, you guys didn't really talk after…"

The memory of her face suddenly fluttered across his mind. She'd looked breathless, shaky, and for a second he'd thought she was going to kiss him again, but then she'd pulled back, her eyes dropping to her lap, to the ground. Disappointment had wrenched into him, twisting into his stomach as he'd watched her draw away.

"It's um…it's pretty late, the party's probably - I mean, it's probably over by now but I should make sure, you know—"

"Yeah, it's getting late." He had been blinking too much, his voice thick.

"We should, um - yeah, we should check and make sure everyone's-"

"You go."

She had looked confused for a second, but her eyes flicked back down to the broken bottle on the floor, to the letter on his other side, and her expression had softened, and she had nodded. "Alright, sure. If that's what you want."

"Yeah. You go. I think I'm gonna stay for a bit."

She had hesitated a second longer after she'd stood, and he'd suddenly been almost at eye level with the dark green and silver band of his jumper, but he'd said nothing about it, and as it turned out he wasn't going to say much of anything at all.

"I, um…I guess I'll see you tomorrow? Or, I guess it's tomorrow already." A tiny smile then, one that had taken hold of the knife in his chest and plunged it in even deeper.

"Yeah." But it had been too quiet for her to hear, maybe he'd only said it in his head, and by the time he'd worked up the nerve to try again, she'd already left.

Tomorrow. Fuck. Would she expect him to, what, ask her out now? For them to be in a relationship now? He was so bad at relationships.

Unbridled, his brain poured with images, holding her hand, his fingers curling in her red hair, and terror rocked through him, winding around his heart and crushing it in a vice-grip. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maybe, just maybe, he could calmly explain to her that he had been drunk (he'd said he wasn't, but didn't all drunk people say that?), it had only been a matter of circumstance, everything had been pieced together for something like this to happen and her being there had just happened to be the last one, and it was fine, they were fine, and everything could go back to normal—

But then he thought about kissing her again, and God, that would kill him.

"I think you're better now."

For a second time, Scorpius had forgotten that he wasn't alone, and after a moment, he managed a dry scoff. "What makes you say that?"

Juliette shrugged, moving her arms behind her and bracing her weight against her palms. "Well, when I got here you looked kinda like someone had just shot your owl or something. I mean, you still kinda look like that, but like, in a focused way."

"And that's your idea of better?"

"Yeah, I guess."

He inexplicably felt a tiny smirk alighting on his face, and he sighed. "Misery loves company."

Do you want me to leave? she'd asked him.

If he'd said yes, none of this would've happened. He'd be in his room, asleep, the letter on his nightstand waiting to be addressed, but still, it would've waited until the morning. But even then, despite everything—

No, he didn't. He never wanted her to leave.

Movement next to him roused his attention back to the present, and he blinked as Juliette picked up her book and got to her feet.

"You need to sleep."

Scorpius made a face. "It's like, eight in the morning."

Juliette hitched her shoulders. "Better late than never. Anyways, you should get back to your dorm before people start coming downstairs for breakfast. You know, so they don't see you like…this."

As much as Scorpius would've happily stayed where he was until the next morning when he could heed her advice then, he found himself casting his eyes around for his wand, thinking he should at least get rid of the giveaway smell.

"What're you even doing up this early on a Sunday?" he asked as he searched behind him.

Juliette's eyes darted down to the ground before she gave the barest of shrugs. "I have a breakfast date."

Scorpius stopped his search and raised his eyebrows at her. "A date? This early in the morning?"

She shrugged again. "We both like breakfast. And anyway, we haven't told anybody about us — except you now, but you're not allowed to breathe a word of this — so we thought we could eat together in peace if we went early."

The pit in Scorpius' chest made itself known again, the only indicator that it had left at all, and he inclined his head at the door. "Go on, then, you don't want to be late." He thought for a second, and opened his mouth again—

"Don't thank me." The little wry smile drifted off her face, and she suddenly looked the most serious she had since she'd arrived. "I hope it works out between you guys."

Scorpius stared at her, and then he nodded, and his eyes finally found his wand lying a few feet away.

A thought suddenly occurred to him as he reached for it, and he furrowed his brow, lifting his gaze back up to her. "I never actually said her name."

Juliette paused, her hand resting on the bolt of the door. "I know." And then she was gone.

Scorpius was still for another long moment, kneeling on the cold ground, but then a door banged somewhere in the distance, and fuck, he needed to go. He gathered his things, Vanished any trace of last night's activities, and left the tower.

He hadn't done a single thing to deserve it, but he didn't see anyone on his walk back to the Heads' dorm, even though he could hear murmurs stirring on the floors beneath him. It occurred to him while he was walking that he was heading directly towards his problems — he was literally walking towards them — but the exhausted, drained part of him was sure that she, in some part equally as exhausted and drained as he was, would still be in her room, sleeping or no.

John seemed to think better of commenting on his appearance when he arrived at his portrait, wishing him only an amused, "Goodnight," after Scorpius had given him the password and trudged in. As he'd suspected, her door was shut, and he walked past it towards his own room.

As he pushed his door open, his gaze fell onto his bed, and he stopped, blinking, still in the doorway. After a moment, he continued on into his room, straight towards the jumper that had been folded up neatly and placed on top of his duvet, and without thinking, he raised it to his nose and softly inhaled.

He held it there for a few seconds, and then he sighed in defeat before he re-folded it and put it onto his nightstand, kicking off his shoes and climbing into his bed as sunlight poured in through the window.

---

Come Monday morning, Rose still hadn't seen him.

She'd spent every minute of Sunday morning analysing the entire situation — not deliberately, not at first, it was just that she couldn't stop thinking about it, even when she had tried her hardest not to. She'd even taken an unnecessary shower to try and take her mind off it, to metaphorically cleanse herself of it all, but every time she'd closed her eyes, suddenly it was his hands in her hair, the hands that had brushed down her cheeks and cupped her face, now drifting down her arms and winding around her waist.

It had been the heat, clearly, the steam and the heat of the shower that had clogged her brain and made her think all of the silly things that she had specifically told herself not to think about. At least, that's what she'd told herself before she'd inched up the hot water knob just a little bit further.

But if she'd been having all that trouble stopping herself from thinking all of those thoughts, then, this was something she had wanted, right? It seemed that even in the height of all her confusion, every piece of the night that she had tried to push out of her mind, that one thought stubbornly remained.

She'd comforted herself by pointing out that she'd been feeling all…tingly around him for months, all those nice things that he'd done for her, things that were so unlike him, but maybe they were things that were just like him, she had no idea, so then why shouldn't she want to kiss him? If they were any other people, a kiss would be a very normal, natural, even expected progression.

Except they weren't just any other people. He was Scorpius and she was Rose and they had hated each other for nearly seven years, and people like that didn't suddenly go around kissing each other, and greenhouses and Apparition lessons and dances were one thing, but this felt like something completely different.

And yet—

Even with all of that running endlessly through her mind, she had still felt an odd sort of peace about her, one that came from the knowledge that all the tingles and the blushing and the tightness in her chest and the tugging deep in her stomach hadn't been over nothing — there was something there, something that he had chosen to act on.

Scorpius was smart — even Drunk Scorpius was a damn-near genius, and geniuses knew that kissing someone like that, well, it meant something, and he would know that she knew that it meant something, and knowing all of that, he'd done it anyway.

It was by the end of all of this logical thinking that Rose had come to what she thought was a fairly logical conclusion: Scorpius Malfoy liked her.

He liked her.

Just thinking it - she hadn't had the nerve to say it out loud, but she'd wanted to, God, she'd wanted to, just to see how the words would taste on her tongue - she'd felt giddy, and even more panicked, somehow, but giddy all the same. It was the only thing that could explain it. She didn't know exactly when it had started, maybe that club in Hogsmeade, but sometime since the first of September, he had started to like her. That's why he'd done all those things for her; all the lessons and the coaching and the late-night excursions, and why he had, on Saturday night, kissed her.

He had been drinking, yes, he'd heard terrible news too, but that couldn't account for anything that had happened before, it didn't change any of that.

With a thrill, she'd remembered how he'd taken her hairpin out, his eyes never leaving hers, and how the hair cascading softly around them in a curtain of red had made her feel ridiculously pretty, and then he'd told her as much.

She hadn't known he thought she was pretty.

Maybe that was why she'd said what she had before she'd left. I guess I'll see you tomorrow.

She hadn't really realised she'd said it until the words had hung in the air between them. Not quite a question — until it occurred to her that she was waiting for an answer. She'd still been in some sort of post-kiss trance, but a part of her had wanted to see him, that's why she'd said it without any sort of thought, and he liked her, so that meant he wanted to see her too, right?

Except he hadn't.

She'd gone for breakfast early on Sunday — well, too early for someone who'd only gotten about four hours of sleep — so that she could've been back upstairs for ten in case, you know, he'd woken up and come looking for her and she hadn't been there.

When it got to midday, and she'd still heard nothing from his room, she hadn't really been surprised. She had, after all, lain awake, her brain blank but buzzing, waiting for the muffled sound of his voice outside the portrait hole, the soft plodding of his footsteps as he made his way towards his room, but she'd never heard any of it. So clearly, he had slept in because he'd gotten in so late, far later than she had. She deliberately chose not to think why.

As the hours had ticked by, she'd put more and more conviction into the excuses she'd made for him, persuading herself that all his drinking meant that he was now bedridden with a terrible hangover, one that was made all the more worse by his desperation to see her.

Although it was her favourite, even she couldn't convince herself that a talented brewer like Scorpius wouldn't have a hangover cure lying around to use after a heavy night of drinking; in fact, her traitorous brain had remembered back to a conversation they'd had after the Valentine's Day party that confirmed he did. She'd tried to make other excuses in her head for every hour that his door had remained shut, but each one had been somehow worse.

At four o'clock, when she'd finally forced herself to concentrate on her Charms homework — not that she ever really needed to concentrate on that — a thought had suddenly hit her, and she'd immediately felt stupid and terribly guilty at the same time. Here she was, worrying about why he hadn't come to see her after he'd kissed her, when it was far more likely that he was locked up in his room with grief, now that the news of Narcissa Malfoy had had time to hit him without alcohol to soften the blow. Following that, she'd immediately wondered if she should knock and offer him her support — it wasn't as if she didn't know the situation — but as she'd been working up the nerve to do it, she'd heard footsteps, and she'd been so startled that she'd dropped her wand mid-flourish. She'd quickly realised, however, that the footsteps weren't his — the gait was different — and then she'd heard a knock at his door, then Toby's quiet voice, and then something had been set down onto a table before the door closed again. A plate, she'd thought, and that seemed to confirm it for her, and she'd gone back to her Charms homework with no further excuses to be made.

A sudden determined tap on her forearm jolted her from her thoughts.

"Rose? Hello, Earth to Rose?"

She jumped, reddening, and met Gen's suspicious stare. "Sorry, what?"

Gen, her eyes still slightly narrowed, jerked her head at the desk where their teacher was seated. "McGonagall just told us to make sure we've got our homework assignments ready for collection."

"Oh, jeez, right." She ducked under the table and began looking for her assignment in her bag, rooting around in all the loose papers — God, she was so disorganised this morning — until she finally located it.

She had just resurfaced when McGonagall's voice sounded from the front of the room, beginning to brief them on the lesson plan. Immediately, Rose's brow creased and her eyes sought out the clock on the wall, and then her stomach flopped.

He's not here.

As much time as they had spent together, even though she had known him for almost seven years, she didn't really know that much about him. She hadn't thought he was the type to become so immobilised by grief that he'd shut himself away, but then again, like she said, she didn't know that much about him. Not really.

But there was still another part of her that couldn't shake the thought that if he really was upset about that, and not about, well, her, then he would've told her so, precisely so she wouldn't be doing what she was doing now. The thought was only more entertained with McGonagall's voice a muffled constant somewhere in the back of her awareness; there was no way he would be holed up in his room missing class, horrible as the news was, so it was must be something - someone else.

McGonagall's lecture briefly paused as she asked them to submit their homework up to the front of the class, and as they set about passing along their papers, Rose bit her lip and finally caved.

"Gen?" she whispered, quiet enough that Al wouldn't be able to hear from Gen's other side.

"Mm?" her friend replied, turning her head a little absentmindedly as she tapped her papers on the desktop to straighten them.

"Please don't ask me why, but can you check if Malfoy's here?"

Gen stopped, looking directly at her, her eyes unreadable, but after a moment, she bent her head slightly, subtly checked behind them, and then gave Rose a minute nod.

An uncomfortable, prickly heat immediately began working its way up Rose's neck beneath her shirt collar, and she had to stop herself from pulling the fabric away from her skin. She could feel Gen's gaze still on her, so she gave a grateful little nod of her own and turned back to face the front, eyes burning.

Had it been bad? Had she been bad? The memories flooded back, and her brain said, No, it can't be that. After all, she was the one who had pulled away, she who had gotten her head back on straight and thought that they shouldn't take it any further than that, not when he had been drinking (he'd said he wasn't drunk, but didn't all drunk people say that?), not when he'd been so sad.

Do you think we're going to do something stupid, Weasley?

Had they done something stupid? Had it all just been one big stupid mistake?

Her stomach flopped even more, and an ache began to pit in her chest.

He was here after all. And he hadn't even stopped to say, "Hello".

---

They were packing up at the end of class when Professor McGonagall called, "Potter, a word," over the hum of student chatter.

Al looked up, and then shrugged at Rose and Gen before he shouldered his bag and walked up to the desk.

"On second thought, Miss Weasley, the situation pertains to you as well."

Rose's brow creased in surprise, but she picked up her bag too and walked up to join her cousin, Gen quickly pointing outside at the corridor as an indicator that she would wait for them there.

McGonagall surveyed them from underneath her square spectacles. "I have some rather important news that will require your immediate attention." Her expression turned somewhat resigned before she readjusted her glasses so they sat lower on the bridge of her nose. "I understand that because of Spencer Davenport's frequent shoulder ailments, Bryce McGinty has been promoted to the position of Beater full-time."

Al side-eyed Rose and said levelly, "It was our only option."

Rose shot him a semi-exasperated look and inwardly rolled her eyes; what with all of her Head Girl duties and tutoring and generally keeping up her grades in order to qualify for the country's top magimedical school, she didn't really have the time or room for the pressure of such a promotion. Al hadn't exactly been understanding.

Suddenly, she felt the back of her neck prickling, and then the distinct sensation that there were eyes boring into the back of her head. Even though she could barely stand not to, she didn't turn around, and a second later she heard footsteps passing behind her. It took fighting every cell in her body not to flick her gaze to the right for just a second; it would be that easy just to check. But then the prickling feeling disappeared, and Rose forced her attention back to her Headmistress.

"I am afraid it is my duty to inform you that Mr McGinty has been performing consistently poorly in his Potions assignments. He is, to be frank, failing the class, and unfortunately his performance in Transfiguration is going much the same way." She cleared her throat. "Now, I'm sure the two of you are both aware of the conditions upon which students are allowed to participate in the Quidditch House teams, namely that you must be achieving at least an Acceptable in all of your classes. For this reason, I am afraid that Mr McGinty has been suspended from the team until he manages to raise his grades to the requisite level."

"Suspended?" Al echoed. "Five days before the final? Professor, you've basically given him the sack."

McGonagall's lips twitched almost infinitesimally. "I am not one to argue semantics with you, Mr Potter." She turned her head slightly. "Now, Miss Weasley, if I am not mistaken, you have maintained the role of reserve Beater since the match against Ravenclaw in October?"

Rose nodded.

"Well, then, congratulations are in order. You have just been promoted."

Al didn't bother to mask his delight; he grasped Rose's shoulders, shaking her in his excitement. "Do you know what this means? Slytherin is totally screwed, they think they're gonna be up against McGinty, we can lure them into a completely false sense of security, it'll be—" He cut off abruptly at the attentive look on their professor's face, and he coughed. "Sorry, Professor. Most…most unfortunate."

Rose had heard almost nothing Al had said since the word "Slytherin" had left his lips. Her insides had immediately iced over, her stomach bottoming out, and she stood there, blinking furiously as her cousin continued to speak as dim background noise against the turbulence in her head.

She vaguely registered McGonagall's voice telling them to get to their next class, and she felt Al's hands on her shoulders with the same level of disconnect as he guided her out of the doorway.

"What did McGonagall want?" Gen's voice was similarly faint to her ears.

While Al gleefully relayed the contents of their conversation to Gen, the chaos swirling in Rose's head dissipated for one sudden moment of clarity, but that tiny, hopeful part of her was shot down the minute she saw that Gen was the only person standing in the corridor waiting for them.

She'd been more disappointed than she'd thought possible, and with a fresh wave of dread curling in her stomach, Rose decided that the worst thing that could happen was already happening, and resolving the matter was the only thing they could do. Whatever the outcome, she insisted to herself. So she made up her mind.

After dinner, she would find him, and they would talk.

---

"What does one wear to an anniversary party?" Toby wondered aloud from where he was lounging over the entirety of a couch in the Slytherin Common Room. "Do you dress like you're going to a wedding? I mean, you basically are, just, like, twenty years later."

"Twenty-five," Liv corrected automatically, much more demurely seated in the corner of the couch nearest to him. "And I don't think it's that fancy."

"Yeah, but, like, this anniversary's themed, isn't it? You wouldn't really call a wedding 'themed' — unless you did theme it, which would be awesome, by the way — because it's just a wedding. Unless the bride and groom are totally freaky."

"My aunt and uncle are not freaky."

"So then what should I wear? I mean, I wanna impress them, they've met Scorp already, I have standards to meet."

"My parents like you well enough, Toby. And they've seen you hungover."

"Yeah, but I'm cute when I'm hungover. I'm all mopey and sleepy, like a baby bear or something. Right, Scorp?" When there was no reply, he furrowed his brow and sat up, leaning over the couch. "Scorp?"

Scorpius, roused by the more urgent call of his name, blinked obediently. "Did you say something?"

Stupid question. Ever since he had Owled Toby the news (and told him to pass the message along to Liv if he wanted to), Toby had barely left his side, and he'd more than made up for Scorpius' reticence by speaking almost entirely in a stream of thought manner, which basically amounted to saying aloud every thought that passed through his brain the moment it did. Scorpius wasn't usually one for talkers, but Toby had become something of a comforting white noise machine to him over the years, and most importantly, he didn't expect Scorpius to talk back. Even now, although he had largely tuned out of the conversation, Scorpius knew Toby was still rambling on for his sake; he could tell by the way he kept throwing him these tiny furtive looks that he thought Scorpius couldn't see.

The anniversary party (if they were still on the topic) was just the latest of Toby's efforts to take Scorpius' mind off the Floo journey he would be taking home just before midnight, and for that reason, Scorpius added, "About the party?"

A look of ill-concealed relief passed over Toby's face and he lay down again, the sofa cushion sighing as he did so. "You think I look cute when I'm hungover, right?"

Scorpius issued a weird look at the part of the sofa that Toby's face was concealed behind. "Okay, what the fuck. I thought you guys were talking about the party."

"Toby doesn't know what to wear," Liv supplied, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

Scorpius couldn't give himself much credit for the attention he was paying to the conversation, but he could still read expressions, and although Liv's face held the tiniest fraction of exasperation at Toby's inquisitiveness, it was far overshadowed by the glow that had taken over from the moment he had enthusiastically brought the topic of the party up.

"Black tie optional," Scorpius said.

"But what about the theme?" Toby pressed. "What tux would go well with cream and plum colours? I shouldn't wear a plum-coloured suit right? Yeah, no, that would be stupid. What are you wearing, should we match?"

"Jesus, Toby," Liv sighed, "You're meeting my family, not the royal family."

"Yeah, but they're your extended family. Your whole, extended family. Your cousins are gonna be there too, aren't they? And your grandparents, are they gonna-" He abruptly broke off, his eyes wide and instantly fixed on Scorpius. Scorpius felt a pang deep in his chest, and his face obviously gave him away because Toby immediately looked extremely upset with himself, and silence washed over the group.

Scorpius still hadn't really processed the news, not least of all what would happen when he went home. He didn't think he would until he got there, or maybe that was just the excuse he made for shaking away the thoughts when they came too close.

Toby audibly swallowed, and Scorpius heard him intake a breath before he said carefully, "How…how are your parents doing?"

Scorpius' eyes fell onto a piece of thread that had unravelled at the bottom of his jumper, and he twirled it loosely around his index finger. "I dunno. Mum's okay, I think." He paused. "I haven't heard from Dad."

In his periphery, he could see Liv fiddling with the hair tie around her wrist, and she took it off, twisting her hair up into a bun and securing it into place with it. Scorpius suddenly remembered back to that morning when he'd seen her in Transfiguration — well, seen the back of her head — and how he had felt inexplicable disappointment at seeing her hair up in its usual ponytail, and then had been immediately upset with himself for even briefly entertaining the idea that Rose cared at all what he thought her hair should look like.

Scorpius couldn't believe he was thinking it, but in a way, he was grateful that his brain was occupied trying to understand what had gone on between them on Saturday night because it meant that it didn't have as much room to think about the other thing he was currently finding more and more difficult not to think about.

Toby was still looking at him sympathetically. Scorpius kept his gaze lowered, and when it passed over the watch on his wrist and he saw the numbers showing on its face, he exhaled in relief. "I gotta go. I need to draw up some plays before practice." He moved to stand, and Toby immediately threw his legs over the side of the sofa and stood too.

"I'll come with. You'd better familiarise me with them anyway in case I need to run an emergency practice before you get back."

They said goodnight to Liv (she wished him all the best for the upcoming service, looking a lot like she wanted to give him a hug — and surprisingly, Scorpius sort of wished that she had — but she settled with a, "See you on Thursday," and a little reassuring smile) and then they trooped out of the portrait hole.

They had only made it about ten steps down the corridor before Toby took in a sharp breath of realisation. "I almost forgot," he said, turning to Scorpius, his mouth forming a slight grimace. "A little birdie told me that there's a change to the Gryffindor team line-up."

---

It was after dinner, and Rose was in the library.

Her plans to talk to Scorpius had been thwarted magnificently; Al had gathered the Quidditch team at the end of the lunch period and informed them that their usual Monday night practice would be moved to the next night instead. He didn't say why, but Rose knew it was because Scorpius would be leaving in a few hours to go home for his grandmother's funeral, thus missing Slytherin's usual Tuesday night practice. She thought it was nice of Al, but she didn't say anything.

It did mean, however, that by the time she'd left from dinner and arrived back into her dormitory, she had found herself all alone. She'd briefly considered waiting for his practice to end and just…maybe saying "Hello,", that would be a start, but the momentum borne from her decision made so many hours before had all but left her, and now she didn't even think she had the nerve to do that.

So here she was, in the library. It was strange to sit here, her body tight with tension, none of it released by the comfort the library usually lent to her. She realised with a start that maybe it was because it had been a long time since she had properly studied in here — so long she couldn't even call to mind when that last time had been. She preferred her — their — dorm now, with its welcoming fire and cosy warmth and…well, him. He was all of those things.

Just thinking about that was enough to lead her suggestible mind astray. Her fingers curled around her elbows as she remembered how warm he had felt next to her; she was used to the slight heat of his body as they studied together before the fire blazed and swallowed it, but up there in the Astronomy Tower it had felt as if his entire body was radiating it, and then he had touched her, and it had become almost unbearable.

She felt warm all over again just thinking about it, but then she remembered back to that morning in Transfiguration, and her blood iced over.

Now she was sure of it. He was avoiding her.

All of that logical thinking and reasoning, the Sunday that had devoted itself to excuses made for him, had been nothing but a wretched attempt to protect herself from the knowledge that had already wormed its way into her gut, into her heart. And what right, what right did he think he had to avoid her when it had been him who had kissed her in the first place, he who had taken out the pin in her hair and told her she was pretty, he who had given her his jumper when she had been cold—

And he who had ruined everything in the one second it would have taken for him to say, "Hello".

Her mind tumbled back into the vivid memory of when she had opened the door to her bedroom and had immediately caught sight of herself in his jumper, how her reflection had immediately blushed. It had hung just shy of mid-thigh, the sleeves far too long (they had been folded back, but…they had come undone at some point), and with it falling below her skirt, it looked to be all she was wearing. Even now, despite herself, she blushed again at the memory of it.

You look nice in my jumper, Weasley.

She'd felt something like that when she'd caught the look in his eyes as they'd traced over her, and she'd ducked her head to hide her pink cheeks, burying her nose in the scent clinging to the fabric as she'd knelt there in a jumper that smelled like him and was warm like him, and now she wished she'd never given it back.

Her gaze flicked towards the massive clock mounted on the library wall. Nine fifty-five. She'd already been in here for two hours, not that you'd be able to tell from the measly three sentences she'd written on her parchment. After a protracted pause, she sighed in resignation and rose from her chair, slowly gathering up her things, half-wishing she hadn't lingered around after dinner for so long and had caught him before practice, demanding that ten minutes would be enough.

The library corridor was deserted, the silence only broken by the methodical click of her footsteps against the stone floor. She tried to concentrate on the sound, on her shoes as she inspected them for scuff marks, but the constant motion of them made it too difficult to see. Her brain still clamoured for real distraction, and as her gaze travelled up towards the curve of her tights where they met her flats, it got its wish.

She remembered how she had peeled off tights identical to the ones she wore now, how the movement had wafted the smell of sweet whiskey up into her nose, and how she had immediately stilled, grasping them in her hands, allowing the scent to continue its assault, knowing that she needed to magick the stain away, knowing that she wouldn't. Instead, she'd dampened a warm towel and washed away the stickiness on her legs, and then she'd climbed straight into bed with those tights draped pathetically over the chair by her desk. They were the last thing she saw before her eyes had closed, and they were the first thing she saw when they re-opened hours later, and the sight alone was enough to convince her that, despite the disbelief that pressed tight against her heart, she hadn't just made the entire night up. As soon as the temptation to bring them to her nose again had hit her, however, she'd Levitated them into the sink.

With her eyes cast down at her feet as she walked, she didn't notice the person leaning against the wall outside of the Heads' dorm until she was nearly at John's portrait. Gen's eyes were at half-mast, gazing past the stone floor.

Rose's brow creased. "Gen?" she asked, hesitatingly.

Her friend looked up, and a sad smile flitted across her face. "I broke up with Al."

Rose's stomach immediately plunged in guilt, and she felt like the worst friend in the world. "Gen, I-"

Gen seemed to read her mind. "Don't feel bad," she waved her off. "Nothing went, well, wrong. Kinda makes it worse, right?" She shrugged her shoulders helplessly, still looking heartbreakingly sad. "It was just…I never felt that spark between us, you know? That feeling you're supposed to get when you're with someone you're...well, with someone you're in love with. I love Al, I love him to pieces, but I'm not, you know, in love with him." She bit her lip, shoulders drooping. "Which is okay, but I couldn't think of a time when I would be. At least, not where I am right now."

Rose studied her face as she spoke; there were no telltale signs of tears, but that was Gen. Rose had never seen Gen cry. She closed the distance between them as she joined her at the wall, leaning her head back against the cold stone as their arms brushed together. She felt Gen's weight shift as she pressed a little closer.

"How…how did he take it?"

Gen nodded a little to herself, and she rubbed a tired hand across her cheek as if to wipe away the tears that weren't there. "I think he was okay. A part of me actually thinks maybe he saw it coming. Maybe. He didn't say much, but I was sort of speaking at him. I was rambling on, saying all this stuff, so he probably couldn't have talked if he'd tried, but maybe there was a part of him that understood it was the right thing to do."

She looked hopeful, too hopeful that Rose didn't have the heart to say what they were both thinking, what they both thought they knew; Al had liked Gen for years, maybe he'd even been in love with her for years. He wouldn't have given up on them so easily.

"Where is he?"

Gen sighed, confirming Rose's thoughts. "He said he needed some air."

"Meaning air is code for hit something," Rose mumbled.

They stood there in silence; it hung heavily, and Rose chanced a glance to her left, but John was nowhere to be seen. He must have left to give them some privacy. Which was nice, except it meant that they were both stuck out here until he returned to his portrait.

"I've been putting it off for a while," Gen suddenly said, her voice quiet. "I know that sounds horrible, but I kept thinking that maybe we could make it work. I feel awful for telling him so close to the game but, you know, I had to do it before it got too close, and if I did it after the match…"

"If we won, it would bring down the mood, and if we lost, it would make him feel even worse," Rose finished. "You made the right call."

Gen bit her lip, nodding again, but she didn't look like she was feeling any better about it. Then a fresh wave of anguish seemed to course through her, and she pulled an agitated hand through her hair. "See, this is what I was worried about before we got together. I didn't want things to be awkward between the three of us, and, ugh, now look what we've done. All those years of friendship and now-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Rose said soothingly. 'We'll all be fine, don't worry. And you guys will be okay too."

Gen exhaled. "I know, I know. It's the when that worries me." She scuffed the toe of her black shoes against the crevices in the stone floor, the material already wearing out. She angled her head up at Rose, sighing wearily. "Where were you, anyway?"

"The library. Working."

"Oh. You don't really work in there much now."

Rose shrugged casually. "Yeah, I just wanted a little change of scene is all."

Gen arched a curious brow. "Were you working...alone?"

"Yes."

Gen shrugged. "Okay."

Rose pulled a face, and she nudged against her friend's shoulder. "Really."

But something in her voice must have revealed the weight behind the simplicity of the word because then Gen turned to look at her properly, her brow furrowing. "Is everything okay?" she asked, the droop of her shoulders instantly disappearing as concern took over her features, and Rose wondered what she had ever done to deserve a friend like Gen.

She considered telling her for a moment, and she wanted to tell her, she wanted to tell her best friend more than anything, but instead she forced a shaky, exasperated laugh and shook her head. "You've got enough on your plate right now," she said. "But ask me again in a couple of days."

---

It was unreasonable to expect that the awkwardness between Al and Gen would have evaporated overnight.

Rose's brow lined when she saw Gen enter through the doorway alone into their Defence classroom; she knew they hadn't seen each other since the break-up, but they'd walked together to class before they'd started dating, all the way back since first year, so an optimistic part of her had irrationally hoped that that would've continued.

She waited until Gen had shrugged off her shoulder bag and sank into her seat before she asked, "You came down without him?"

Gen sighed unhappily, hitching her shoulders. "I sort of couldn't see how we could manage it, you know? So soon after."

Rose nodded understandingly, but she didn't really know what else to say. Despite having now broken up with two boys, Rose didn't know how to navigate the situation when it was one like this.

They sat in silence until Gen suddenly tensed, and Rose looked up to see Al hesitate at the doorway before he stepped inside, his mouth tight. He made his way over towards them, and although Gen had sat herself at the outer side of the desk with a seat next her, Al chose the seat on Rose's other side, even though it meant manoeuvring his way behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gen's eyes cast down towards the tabletop.

"Morning," Al mumbled as he sat down.

Rose replied with an overly-cheerful "Hello!" while Gen went pink and mumbled a "Morning," back, though it sounded a lot more like "Mohnuh".

Once Al had settled into his chair and the rustling had given way to strained silence, Gen picked up the quill resting on her parchment, fiddled with it, and then put it back down four seconds later. After a pause, Al began to rummage through his rucksack, though Rose could clearly see from where she was sitting that there was precisely one textbook and one quill inside of it. There were still five minutes until class was due to start.

"I wonder if it will rain again today," Rose said.

For a pained moment she was met with only silence, but then Al answered, almost unintelligibly, "Yeah, maybe."

"Yeah," Rose said, feigning contemplation. "It rained last night, so…"

"Oh. I didn't notice."

"Really? It was super loud, so…that's weird."

Rose thought they were in for a similar treatment the next morning when the three of them sat together waiting for Charms to start, but Gen surprised her when, after Toby Nott had walked past their desk, she turned to her with a frown and asked, "No Malfoy again?"

Rose cleared her throat. "No, he's gone home for a couple of days."

"Is he okay?"

She shook her head. "He's gone home for his grandmother's funeral."

Gen's features slackened with surprise. "Oh, God, that's awful. When does he get back?"

"Tomorrow after dinner," Al responded, jolting them both.

Gen hesitated, and then she leaned over Rose a little, craning her head so that she could see Al. "Is he going to be playing the match?"

Rose hated the tiny part of her that sparked at the thought that maybe he would opt out, but Al instantly shook his head. "Sit out the final? No way." He pulled in the corner of his mouth. "Poor guy, and the timing couldn't be worse. I could tell something was seriously up when I talked to him on Monday. He's obviously taking it pretty hard."

Rose stayed quiet. It was because of his grandmother. Nothing else could compare to something like that. But still, an irrepressible, selfish part of her wondered.

"How's his team going to manage with him being away until the night before the game?" Gen asked. "I mean, he's cutting it seriously close, and—"

Professor Flitwick gave the three of them a pointed look from where he had raised himself up behind his desk, and they immediately went quiet.

---

It had just gone eight thirty the next night when a flash of green light suddenly flooded the Heads' Dormitory, and Scorpius stepped out of the fireplace, brushing off the ash from his cloak and the top of his suitcase. The blaze of the flames subsided from behind his eyes, and when he blinked them into focus, he was greeted by the sleeping image of his best friend spread out haphazardly across the couch.

Scorpius put down his burden and shrugged out of his cloak, simultaneously reaching out a foot to prod at Toby's thigh.

"Where's the fire?!" Toby shouted blearily, his arms searching outwards as he bolted upright.

Scorpius rolled his eyes, folding the garment across his arms. "You just missed it. How do you sleep through that commotion, but then a light tap on your leg sends you into panic mode?"

Toby scrambled up, realisation having dawned in his eyes. "You're back!" he grinned, throwing an arm around Scorpius and ignoring his question. "Sorry, I totally meant to wait up for you, but your couch is way more comfortable than the ones back in the Common Room, so I couldn't stop myself from dozing off…"

Scorpius clapped his hand on Toby's back before he carefully dislodged himself. "Very sweet. Hang on, I need to go dump my stuff before we go." As he turned back to grab his suitcase, something pulled his attention, and he paused, his eyes settling on the closed door in front of him. Sound travelled in the dorms; surely she would know he was back.

She had been a constant in the back of his mind, even with everything else going on - maybe because of everything else going on - and his arm ached with the need to knock on her door and just get a glimpse of her face for a moment, hear the voice that had been whispering through his mind, but he had no idea what he would even say or if she even wanted to see him, so he picked up his suitcase and turned in the opposite direction towards his room.

"I'll be right back," he said to Toby before he disappeared behind his door. He deposited his suitcase at the foot of his bed, hung up his cloak, and then pulled on his coat. He stepped into his bathroom, scrutinising his reflection in the mirror, and after a moment, splashed some water onto his face and patted himself dry before re-emerging. "Ready?"

"We're leaving now?" Toby asked, his brow furrowing. "So soon? You don't wanna…" He trailed off. "I mean..."

"No," Scorpius said firmly, shaking his head.

Toby looked conflicted — he had always tried to convince Scorpius to open up more, to not keep things inside, but after a few years, he'd generally accepted that that wasn't how Scorpius operated. But sometimes...sometimes he tried just a little bit harder.

Scorpius sighed. "I'm fine, Tobe, I'm just…I'm all talked out, alright?"

Toby bit his lip, but then he nodded, picking up his coat from where he had slung it over the back of the couch. "Okay. Ready."

Scorpius' eyes flicked once more towards her door as they passed by, his ears overly sensitive to the sound that their footsteps made, but then he realised measuredly that she might not even be in her room. Maybe she was working in the library like she had done before they had started studying together in the dorm, and she didn't even know he was back. Maybe she didn't even care. Given the way he'd handled things, she'd be justified not to.

The portrait hole closed behind them.

Unbeknownst to them both, Rose retreated back to her desk, her breath finally leaving her in a sigh of disappointment as the sound of their footsteps faded away.

---

The day of the Quidditch match dawned clear and beautiful, and come the afternoon, the air in the Gryffindor tent was static.

Al was pacing the length of the benches, muttering incoherently to himself and smacking the fingers of his glove against his palm while the rest of the team attempted to ease the tension by chatting, though the frequent lull in conversation as they waited for the horn to sound made it obvious that no one was really invested in it.

Rose had given up on pretenses, and she sat by herself on the bench, only roused every so often by the sweep of Al's cape against her boots as he crossed in front of her.

She had awoken absurdly early that morning, having slept badly, so she'd crept out of her room a little before five and wandered down to the Great Hall to appease her rumbling stomach. Unsurprisingly, Al had already been there, staring past his bacon and eggs.

She'd barely been able to concentrate during Arithmancy, her brain exhausted from the lack of sleep but whirring uncontrollably at the thought of the looming match that afternoon. The normal nerves were accounted for, but the lump in her throat that she couldn't quite swallow down and the impossibly tight coil that had knotted in her stomach had nothing whatsoever to do with the match itself.

She'd only brought up the prospect of seeing him for the first time on the field as the most terrible, most unlikely outcome of all of this; that if she kept that horrible thought in her mind, she might've plucked it out of the realm of possibility for it to exist only in there. Never had she actually believed that that most terrible outcome would be the one that came to pass, and if Madam Hooch was as punctual as she usually was, it would be coming to pass in less than five minutes.

There was a sudden commotion at the door as the tent flap opened, and Rose's head snapped up at the same time that Al's did.

It was only Gen, and she weaved her way towards them through the players standing by the entrance, thick streaks of red and gold painted prettily along her cheekbones and a furled crimson flag grasped in her hands. In her periphery, Rose saw Al straighten, and she caught the movement in his throat as he swallowed.

"Good luck, guys!" Gen said, grinning, her big smile not quite big enough to hide the tension lines surrounding it. "You'll be amazing, I can feel it." She bobbed her head energetically a few times for emphasis before her smile faded a little, and she stood there, clearly unsure of how to proceed. Her fingers ran over the length of the flag's pole, and Rose wondered if she had only brought it in here as a way to give her hands something to do.

After a quick glance at Al had made it clear that he felt as uncomfortable as Gen did, Rose reached a hand out to Gen's shoulder. "You should probably get up there," she urged. "The horn will blow any minute now."

"Oh, right, sure!" Gen's relief was ill-concealed, and she leaned forward, catching Rose in a hug and squeezing her tightly. She pulled back and her arms instinctively reached out again for Al, but then they both hesitated, arms half-outstretched. Gen, a determined look on her face, stepped that last step forward and wound her arms around him, her chin resting on the back of his shoulder instead of in the crook of his neck as it usually did, and it took Al a moment to register her there. With a pained look on his face, he patted her upper back awkwardly, but when Gen pulled away and looked back at him, he was ready with a careful, restrained smile.

With a final wave, she disappeared, taking all of the air in the room with her. After a pregnant pause, Al let out a slow breath, his shoulders drooping, and he turned to Rose, his mouth opening—

And the horn blew.

The sound of the crowd suddenly erupted, slamming into them like a tidal wave of noise, stamps and cheers echoing all over the stands, and Al took a deep, steeling breath, hefting his broom on his shoulder before he turned to his team.

His eyes were fierce. "Let's go fuckin' win this thing."

He pulled open the flap of the tent, and light spilled in from the outside, so blinding that for a moment none of them could see a thing. But then the black spots faded from behind Rose's eyes, and she saw the Quidditch pitch in front of them, the crowd a sea of red and green, all on their feet. She picked up her broom and followed the others out.

The Slytherin team were all green capes and brooms to her lowered eyes, their features obstructed by the sun and the players in front of her, but soon they were metres away from each other, both teams stopping as they reached the middle of the pitch.

With her heart in her throat, Rose moved out from behind the Gryffindor Seeker, and the sound of the crowd died in her ears, everything else pulling away from her vision as their eyes met.

---

It took Scorpius a moment to realise that everyone was staring at him, and he blinked, her face disappearing as he turned back to meet Madam Hooch's expectant gaze. He lowered his eyes, a gloved hand sticking straight out at him, and he looked up to see Al watching him with a furrowed brow.

He automatically grasped Al's hand in his, pumping it up and down twice before releasing, as was customary. It felt strange, but they had a show to put on, a crowd to please.

Suddenly, something in Al's eyes changed, and he inclined his head at him, a questioning look on his face, and Scorpius nodded, answering his silent question. Satisfied, a smirk crept across Al's features, and Scorpius couldn't help but twitch his own lips in response as they stepped away, back towards their respective teams.

"Now, I'd like a nice, clean game, ladies and gentleman," Madam Hooch said sternly, her eyes on the Captains. "It would be the first time," she amended, grimacing, "but better late than never. Mr Malfoy, as you know, Slytherin will be taking the right side, Mr Potter, the left." She consulted her watch, then looked over her shoulder, giving a quick nod to where McGonagall was sitting at the commentators' podium. "Alright, players, mount your brooms!"

The crowd let loose with another wave of sound as the players fired off into the sky, and as soon as he was up in the air, the wind batting his robes around him and roaring in his ears, Scorpius could breathe again. Though every bone in his body ached for another look, he kept his gaze away from her, scrutinising his team as they assumed their starting positions. Like pieces on a play board, he thought to himself, and he saw the board now in his mind's eye, how the scope of it was rebuilt onto the pitch, and him, right at the apex of it all.

His eyes narrowed as he noticed Noah Bixby hovering slightly too far right than he had instructed, and he snapped his name, a hiss too low for the other team to detect. It felt good to hear his voice like that; he had a role to play, a team to command, and little else. He could do that.

After Bixby had adjusted his position, Scorpius looked down and saw Madam Hooch pointing her wand at the chest on the ground next to her, and it popped open with a loud clank. With another swish, the chains noisily snapped off from around the Bludgers, and all of the balls slowly levitated into the air, eerily still as they waited for her command.

She pressed the whistle to her mouth, and with a shrill screech, the match began.

There was a mad scuffle for the Quaffle as soon as it had been launched into the air, and it was only after someone had gotten hold of it and the throng had disbanded that Scorpius could see that it had been Bixby, of all people, who was now pinning it under his arm, flying high and disappearing behind the sun's glare.

"Noah Bixby is taking refuge behind the sun," commented a familiar voice that, with the help of a Sonorous Charm, rang in Scorpius' ears like it had come from mere metres away, and Scorpius had to bite back a groan when he instinctively flicked his eyes over towards the commentators' stand to confirm who it was. "God, he might as well be wearing an Invisibility Cloak. Can you see him, River?" Conrad Wells asked.

But then everyone could see him as he passed under the shadow of a cloud just as he had gotten in range of the Gryffindor goal posts, and three Chasers hurtled towards him, boxing him in from all sides. In a flurry of hands, James Young had punched the ball out from under his arm and was now zigzagging with it low across the pitch, sand billowing up in a grainy plume behind him as he tried to outfly the Slytherin Chasers.

Something flying high above Scorpius edged into his periphery, and he clocked the two other Chasers in red as they took point above and flanking him, two corners of the triangle where he was intended to be the last. They were waiting for James, waiting for him to get close enough before they shot down at the same time on either side of the goals, two equally viable recipients and impossible to know which one James would pick.

"Tobe!" It was just loud enough for him to hear, and he turned, his brow lifted in question, and Scorpius gave a small jerk of his head upwards. Toby looked up, and instant understanding passed between them. He faced the front again as if nothing had changed, but Scorpius could hear the invisible clock ticking in his head as he waited for a signal—

The small twitch at James' arm was enough to give him away, and Toby immediately rocketed upwards, startling Sophie Price mid-dive, and as she spiralled away in a frenzied attempt to avoid him, William Holloway caught the Quaffle, and, in his panic, lobbed it haphazardly right into Scorpius' waiting hands. Cheers exploded from all around them for the first save of the match, and Scorpius allowed himself to revel in it for a brief second before he brought the game back into play, underhanding the ball to Toby as he raced by.

"We have our first save, folks," River announced, "by Slytherin Captain, Scorpius Malfoy. He really does look good in green." There were more cheers from the green-clad portion of the crowd, though distinctly more high-pitched than last time.

Scorpius' eyes followed Toby as he zoomed down the pitch, and just as he passed through its centre, Scorpius caught new movement at the corner of his vision: Albus was streaking perpendicular towards Toby, his bat raised as he put himself into the firing line of the nearest Bludger, waiting to redirect it to a better, Quaffle-holding target.

Scorpius blew a piercing two-beat whistle, and his Beaters pricked up in recognition. Toby looped backwards in the sky, doubling back as they flew to meet him, and then they were flying in an arrowhead formation towards the Gryffindor goal posts, Toby a broom's length ahead as Nolan Hanes and Sydney Locke batted one of the Bludgers between them, bone-chilling cracks echoing again and again as they sent it back and forth. Scorpius saw Al and Rose exchange a frantic glance from above them, but neither of them could do anything to get between them with time so short and the other Bludger so far away.

Joseph Knight was hovering in front of the middle post, his gloved hands stretched outwards, but his head anxiously darted around, his priority clearly protecting himself from the Bludger that was quickly closing the distance between itself and him. As the trio approached, Nolan whacked the iron ball towards Sydney in a final pass, and she wound up like a batter and struck it with all of her might towards the Gryffindor Keeper, and as it careened, screaming, towards him, he had no choice but to dive out of the way, his head twisting back just in time to see the Quaffle soaring effortlessly through his now open goals.

The stands erupted, and Scorpius let out a breath, his shoulders dropping in relief as the commentators announced that Slytherin had taken the lead. The air seemed to come alive around him, crackling with tension as the players readied themselves for a game now played on tipped scales, and after another screech of the whistle, Joseph Knight threw the ball back into play.

The Gryffindor team was visibly on edge. Scorpius could see it in the straightness of their backs when he scanned their positions, searching for a vulnerability. His gaze, intended to pass over her, was suddenly caught, and his eyes did a double take, latching back on to her face. There was something different about her now; something about the way her eyes were moving — tracking — unnerved him, and he followed them.

Nolan Hanes was sticking firmly by the Quaffle, flying side-by-side with whichever of his teammates held it in their possession, and with his six-four height, broad shoulders and a wooden bat to top it off, he made for quite the bodyguard.

Rose took off, her red ponytail whipping around her face in the wind as she sped towards him and Jack Harrington, keeping high and out of their sights until she was close enough to drop, and then she propelled down, blocking their path and forcing them to change direction. They'd made it a couple of seconds before she did it again, and soon she was blocking them at every turn, dashing in and out like a gannet plucking fish from the sea.

"Rose Weasley's playing dirty," Conrad Wells announced, a laugh threatening his voice. "Get a look at her, Jordan."

River snorted into the megaphone. "Yeah, and by the looks of things, Hanes isn't gonna take it for much longer."

Whether he was prompted by River or his own irritation, Nolan suddenly jammed his broom against Jack's, using his body weight to veer them both sharply right, and Jack nearly dropped the Quaffle that he'd been painstakingly keeping lodged under his arm. When Rose swerved back in front of them, they both pulled up roughly to avoid her, and when their brooms knocked into each other in the commotion, she finally hit her mark.

Scorpius saw Nolan Hanes' dark eyes flash, and panic instantly wrenched deep in his gut. Stop, he thought, the word frantic in his brain. Leave him alone. But Rose only did the opposite, zipping back and forth, up and down, dancing out of the way as he struck out at her with his bat, and next to his massive bulk, she looked like a ball of yarn being snapped to and fro from a progressively angrier and more violent cat.

A high-pitched keen suddenly whipped by less than a metre away from Scorpius' ear, and he spun out of the way as one of the Bludgers passed him, racking through the air towards the two Beaters and the Slytherin Chaser still playing their ruthless game, and as he watched, Nolan managed to break free just long enough to pummel the ball in Rose's direction, and Scorpius saw the tips of her ponytail brush its black surface as she wheeled out of its path.

In the midst of the chaos, Jack Harrington had finally broken free, but he was now being tailed by the three Gryffindor Chasers, and Rose turned her broom away from him, her eyes on Nolan as she waited for his next move. For some inexplicable reason, he kept her gaze, and Scorpius narrowed his eyes, an uncomfortable feeling pitting in his stomach. Why isn't he moving?

But then he saw.

Unbeknownst to Rose, Sydney Locke was streaking soundlessly up the pitch behind her, her eyes on the other Bludger as it cut a trail through the sky to meet her, and as Scorpius' eyes whipped back to Rose's unsuspecting gaze, he thought of it cracking against her head, shattering her skull, and suddenly it was like a hand had closed around his windpipe, and he opened his mouth to take a shuddering, desperate gasp for air—

A scream ripped its way out of his throat, and it took him a moment to realise that it was him whom the horrific noise had come from, and before he knew it, he'd surged forward—

But then Albus rocketed up in front of his cousin's back, raising his own bat and intercepting the ball seconds before they would have collided, and he slammed it without mercy into Sydney's gut. She cried out in pain and doubled over on her broom, clutching her stomach as she reeled away, winded.

Scorpius' face crumpled in relief. He looked over at his Beater, coughing and gasping as she took in several shallow breaths, struggling to get the air back into her lungs, and when he realised that the sight of her provoked nothing in him, nothing that lessened the gratitude that had swelled in his chest, he went cold all over.

He kicked backwards, forcing his broom towards the goals he had left completely unprotected (what had he even planned to do to help her from half-way down the pitch, there was no way he could have reached her in time) and realising with disgust that if anybody was a liability to his team, it was him, and he wanted to punch himself in the face. FUCK. This was exactly the kind of shit he was trying to avoid. Scorpius had never lost at something as important as this, and he didn't think he would be very good at it.

He took in another breath, clenching his jaw. She was just another button for him to move, a piece on a board. She could be something else later.

He sought out the position of the Quaffle, his head turning just in time to see Toby wrestling it away from James Young, and his brain swarmed with possible plays, recalling the movement of his fingers as they manipulated pieces atop the wooden board, and one jumped out at him with crystal clarity: the Beater's Block, designed to trap an opposing Beater between two of the Slytherin Chasers, clearing a path for Scorpius' remaining Chaser to fly accompanied by a Beater towards the goals. Since Toby had scored, Al had been sticking close to his Keeper, ensuring that the Slytherin team wouldn't be able to pull off another goal like they had before, and in doing so, had damned Rose to be the target.

But Nolan Hanes' frame was still taut with unreleased rage, and Scorpius knew that he would take any opportunity to pay Rose back for the grief she had caused him, and Sydney Locke was still pale, her chest heaving from the effort it took her to draw breath, and somehow that was Rose's fault too—

His throat still hoarse, Scorpius shouted the order for the arrowhead fly, and he watched as, from all around the pitch, his three Chasers obediently rechanneled their flight paths just like they had practiced the night before. As soon as he was in range, Toby flung the Quaffle towards Bixby, who then sent it soaring into Jack Harrington's arms, and they tossed it back and forth between the three of them, their passes getting shorter and faster as they continued to converge. As they approached the goals, Bixby suddenly dropped down, lining himself up perfectly with the lower post, and he raised his hands, ready to receive the Quaffle—

But as Joseph Knight twisted down to protect his goals, Toby hurled it instead at Jack, and again, Joseph tried to backtrack, pulling out of his dive and reaching hopelessly with his fingers in an attempt to stop it, but it cleared him easily, and the crowd came to life again as the Quaffle passed through the Gryffindor goal posts for the second time.

Their cheers rang in Scorpius' ears, hollow-sounding and muffled, but there. He could feel the anticipation pulsing through him, underpinned by something else that felt all too familiar to him: with success only came his raw desire for more, and he used it to drive out the remaining slivers of vulnerability that sat like a poison in his veins.

He dredged up the memory of how he had dealt with his dream, how he had sat in that Transfiguration classroom and pulled her image apart into tiny meaningless pieces, and he focused all the energy he had into doing that again now. She was just another player in a red cloak, trying to take away what he had been working towards for almost seven years.

He gritted his teeth, but this time, his voice rang clear. "Beater's Block!"

---

They were losing.

Rose watched as Madam Hooch pointed her wand at the scoreboard, and the two flipped up to become a three. The plaque now read 30-70 to Slytherin.

Al had been growing increasingly tense by the minute; he'd hidden it from them as well as he could, but the more Slytherin had pulled ahead, the more it had begun to slip out, edging in his voice and setting in at the base of his jawline. A few times, Rose had seen his head turn past the main action in the forefront of the pitch, eyes searching for something in the distance as if he couldn't help himself, and Rose thought that sometimes a part of him yearned for the quiet power he had wielded as Seeker; the kind of power that came with the knowledge that you could singlehandedly change the tide of the game, that you were the last shot in the dark. It was the kind of power that he never had quite gotten back.

Somehow Rose thought that he knew as well as she did that he was too emotional to ever be a better Captain than he was, too unable to free himself of his personal investment in the game to be able to appraise it with a cold enough distance to do it properly, not like…well—

Her gaze flicked over to the Slytherin Captain, his eyes carefully appraising every player, every ball, every shift in the wind, all the while looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. As if sensing her eyes on him, his own suddenly grew still before his gaze slid closer, closer and then over her as if she had blinked and missed the part where he had actually looked. She might've believed that if she hadn't lost count of the amount of times it had happened, and she couldn't help but think that maybe even Captains didn't need to be that cold.

It hurt more than it should've, and it had taken her long into the game to figure out why that was. It had only been when she'd dropped her guard and the cheers from the crowd had managed to worm their way in past her concentration, when she'd stared at him, framed perfectly within the goal posts, his cloak flapping like a cape behind him while the crowd screamed his name, that it finally hit her.

Heroism looked good on him.

It suited him in a way that she had never realised before, and how had she not when he'd looked just like this when he'd been trying to warn her of that Bludger, when he had flown out to meet it simply because she had been too damn stubborn and too damn angry to listen to him.

He had done all that then, why could he not even look at her now?

The thought made it impossible to tear her gaze away; some hopeful part of her continued to beat its insufferable wings and wondered if she only gave it a few more seconds, maybe she wouldn't blink this time. She searched his face, unable to stop herself — had she really kissed that face?

She remembered back to the Beater's Block he'd called half an hour before — she'd heard the wind stop and then his voice call it out, and she'd instinctively turned to look at him, but he hadn't been looking at her at all; in fact, he'd seemed almost determined to be looking anywhere else.

There was a sudden CRACK behind her, and she pulled up mid-flight, instinctively twisting to get a look over her shoulder at what had made the noise, and she saw Will, one of the Gryffindor Chasers, lurch so far off the side of his broom from a sudden impact that he almost toppled over. Next to him hovered Nolan Hanes, the Slytherin Beater whom she had very recently royally pissed off, his bat still raised in the air.

"FOUL!" yelled Al, pointing at them with his bat and gesturing wildly at Madam Hooch with his free hand. "He hit his broom!" Rose saw the Quidditch instructor raise the whistle to her lips—

The telltale, dull slap of a fist as it made contact with skin stretched thin over bone briefly punctured the air, and Rose whirled back around just in time to see Will land another punch to Nolan's face, this time, his nose, and despite the screech of the whistle and the blood that immediately began to trickle down into his mouth, Nolan threw his weight forward, hurling his fist into Will's stomach. In a flash, Al had gotten between them, shouting furiously at them both as he wrenched them apart, and Toby Nott flew forward, gripping the bigger boy's shoulders and pulling him away amid the cacophony of sounds from the crowd.

Rose watched as Scorpius flew out of his goals, and he grabbed Nolan roughly by the arm, forcing him to look his Captain in the eyes as he ordered something fiercely in a low, dark voice. Nolan nodded stiffly, immediately dropping his gaze, and flew back out towards the centre of the pitch, tilting his chin upwards and pinching the bridge of his nose to staunch the flow of blood while the other hand still curled protectively around his bat.

"Madam Hooch!" Scorpius called. "His nose."

She nodded, pointing her wand at Nolan and murmuring something under her breath. A moment later, the boy lowered his chin back down, using a brusque hand to swipe away the remnants of blood glistening on his lips and chin and pressing his thumb against his nose gingerly as he checked for any more.

"Well, folks," River announced in an awkward voice. "That's what happens when you hit someone else's broom. If I'm not mistaken, we're about to see a Gryffindor penalty."

He was not, and Sophie Price flew up to take it, but there was barely a murmur in the crowd as she positioned herself in the centre circle of the pitch; when it came to one on one, Scorpius Malfoy could save any goal hanging upside down with his hands tied behind his back. Sophie shot forward, drew her arm back and flung the Quaffle for all she was worth, but Scorpius had moved before it had even left her fingers, and in the next instant, he was holding it in his gloved hands.

The Slytherins roared their support, and Scorpius threw the ball back into play, his expression unchanged throughout the entire ordeal, and the game began again. Almost immediately, Sydney Locke, the corner of her mouth still stained with the blood she had coughed up, pitched a Bludger towards Rose's head (Rose was certain she had long since forgotten that players had soft, vulnerable bodies to aim for) and as she wheeled out of the way, she raised her bat and redirected the iron ball up into the sky, shielding her eyes as it disappeared behind the sun's glare.

Above her, Al shouted an order at Sophie, and she took off towards Noah Bixby, who had just caught the Quaffle and was now attempting to pass two Gryffindor Chasers with it. As he swerved them, Sophie burst through the opening he had created from the opposite side, curling her hand into a fist and punching it out from under his arm. It tumbled out, too quick for her to grab, and Rose instantly hurtled down, batting it upwards for Sophie to catch. The moment it touched her fingers, Sophie turned and forced her broom towards the Slytherin goal posts, yelling for her fellow Chasers as she attempted an ambush attack, but Scorpius had caught them between three of his own players, and she was on her own.

Rose saw Scorpius clock her as she closed the distance between them, the tiniest glint in his eye alighting when he saw that she was coming back in an attempt to redeem herself. Rose knew from experience that Sophie favoured the right-hand goal, and she thought that it was the kind of thing that Scorpius made his business to know too. The thought was confirmed when she saw Scorpius' expression change almost imperceptibly in preparation, and she realised with a pang that Sophie would never recognise it — and with an even bigger pang, that she had.

A black ball suddenly whooshed over her head, careening its way down the pitch. Rose took off after it.

She looped it, striking out with her bat to redirect it towards them, and with a thunderous crack, it barrelled forward, spinning towards the Slytherin goal posts, and Rose followed, veering sharply past the Slytherin Seeker, sending his cloak billowing around him with the force of her flight. As she neared and her line of sight changed, his face suddenly came into view from behind Sophie's back, and her brain immediately began to protest, her legs tensing against her broom as she fought desperately against every muscle in her body urging her to pull up.

She forced herself to remember that he had done the same tactical thing to her less than an hour before, and he hadn't even looked at her once during this game, he hadn't looked at her for more than a few seconds since Saturday night, and she steeled herself, raising her arm to give it a final whack—

His eyes shifted, and then they looked straight at her.

She faltered, her arm frozen in the air, useless beside her, and the goal posts and the Bludger and the crowd all fell away.

I have no idea of anything when it comes to you, Weasley. No fucking clue at all.

Just as she began to lower her arm, the other Bludger came whizzing by at full speed, and Scorpius was slow to react, forced to twist so violently at the last second that he lost his balance on his broom. As if something had ignited within her, Sophie came to and arced the Quaffle above their heads—

Scorpius recovered, surging upwards with his fingers outstretched—

Passing straight through the left hoop.

The stands exploded as the Gryffindors cheered, but the sound was hollow and dead against Rose's ears, and she turned to see Al hovering in the distance, his eyes fixed on her, an unreadable expression on his face. The breath that remained in her lungs left her, and she looked away, guilt rapidly expanding in her chest.

"Gryffindor is up another ten points!" Conrad's voice boomed over the megaphone. "Slytherin is still leading by three goals, but anything could happen."

Scorpius had already barked an order at his team, and by the time he'd passed the Quaffle back to Toby, they'd fallen into formation. Will shot out straight towards the Quaffle, blocking Toby's path, but Jack Harrington streaked by on Toby's other side just before Will could reach them, and the Quaffle changed hands.

Al took off after him, one of the Bludgers zooming around near the Gryffindor goal posts and the other nowhere to be seen, so Rose turned her broom and sped after him, edging up on Jack's other side so that he was stuck between them. They closed in, zigzagging back and forth to disorient him, and Al jarred the side of his broom forcefully against the back of Jack's, the jolt displacing his centre of gravity and causing him to fumble with the Quaffle as he struggled to regain his balance—

He attempted a weak, clumsy pass to an approaching Bixby, but his aim was too short and it fell into James Young's hands, who immediately bulleted down with it away from the rest of the players. As Rose watched him, she heard a voice behind her say quietly, "He's my friend too."

Her head whipped around to see Al staring at her, that same unfathomable look in his eyes, and she wanted to tell him how wrong he was, she wanted to tell him that friends don't kiss like that—

But his eyes suddenly widened, their conversation forgotten, and Rose instantly turned to see what he was looking at—

Something gleamed in the air, floating in the centre of the pitch, unnoticed by every other player except for them, and Al's gaze moved past all of the Chasers and the Beaters fighting for the Quaffle, looking for the Seekers. They hovered at opposite ends of the pitch, the Snitch dead centre between them. It would be anyone's game.

Al immediately shouted "Gold!" and the brown-haired girl suddenly plummeted into a spiral dive, a wickedly sharp descent favoured by the most agile of Seekers, and in the pandemonium as every player's head suddenly snapped to watch the movement, Rose saw Scorpius' eyes widen before he yelled "BATES NO!" just as Oscar Bates shot down towards Sophie Price like a bullet.

At the other end of the pitch, Laura Henley went into a crouch, pressing herself down so that she was lying almost flat on her broom, and the crowd gave a collective gasp as their eyes turned to the other brown-haired girl in crimson robes as she streaked through the sky in a perfect line—

Oscar Bates had heard his Captain too late and had pulled out of the dive, but he was too far away to do anything now, and could only hover there, dumbstruck like the rest of them—

And while all of the other players fought to understand what was going on, Rose and Scorpius both watched as the Gryffindor Seeker stretched her arm out as far as she could—

And caught the winged ball in her fingertips.

And then the stands erupted.

River Jordan, who had been completely, uncharacteristically, silent for the last minute of the game, immediately began screaming into the megaphone, whooping and crushing Conrad in a bruising hug with McGonagall stood next to them, beaming, her eyes shining as she clapped, her tartan hat fallen off in her excitement. Al was pumping his hand in the air, tears pouring down his face, and the Gryffindor team was flying as one red mass towards the ground where Laura Henley had landed, and as she held up the squirming ball firmly for all to see, Rose's eyes found Scorpius for a fraction of a second, still hovering by his goal posts, before he was swallowed by the crowd as it surged upon them.

---

"Toby, get out of the damn shower, you've been in there for about forty-five minutes."

When there was no reply, Scorpius rapped his fist on the door again, and a moment later, a muffled "Fine!" could be heard from the depths of the bathroom, followed by the slight whine of the faucet before the sound of water stopped.

Scorpius sat back down on the couch, his gaze falling on the table where his strategy board still lay, and he sighed heavily, lifting his eyes to the ceiling and slumping back against the cushions.

The handle of the bathroom door turned and Toby padded out, his feet covered by white slippers.

"Finally, what the fuck were you — Jesus Christ!"

The hand that was directing his toothbrush paused, and Toby pulled it out of his toothpaste-filled mouth, sticking it in the air. "Whuh?"

"Did you forget to bring a towel?" Scorpius gritted out in a strained voice, still averting his gaze, not for the sake of Toby's dignity, but for the sake of his untroubled sleep for the next month.

Toby looked down. "Oh yuh," he said, still talking around the toothpaste in his mouth. "I din' wanna use yuir body one, so I stole yuir hair one." He stuck the toothbrush back into his mouth and trailed back into the bathroom, where he spat before gargling noisily.

"Ugh," Scorpius gagged, the sight of Toby's retreating figure burned forcibly into his memory. "Remind me never to let you shower here again."

More water hit the well of the basin with a loud splash. "What good would that do me?" Toby called before the tap began to run. "Besides, it's like a fucking mausoleum in there. Where should I put your towel?"

"Burn it," Scorpius replied flatly.

There was a pause. Then—

"I'm hanging it up for you!"

Scorpius only groaned.

It was another minute before Toby walked out again, adjusting the collar of his shirt and shaking his hair out with his hand, smelling an awful lot like post-shower Scorpius. "Was I really forty-five minutes?"

When Scorpius failed to answer, Toby frowned and moved up behind him, peering over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. Toby stilled, and after a moment, Scorpius could feel the weight of his friend's eyes as they silently shifted towards him.

He sighed in resignation, his eyes casting down to the marks on the table where the polish had scratched off.

"I really wanted it," he said quietly.

He felt Toby's hand on his shoulder, and he clapped him gently. "I know, mate." Then he brightened. "But we won last year, and what difference does it make, really?" When Scorpius didn't answer again, Toby reached out his other hand and shook both of his shoulders lightly. "Come on, let's go get fucked."

"I got fucked last week," Scorpius reminded him with a sigh as he got to his feet, and why couldn't he have said that without his brain instantly thinking about everything else that accompanied it? As his gaze passed her room, he noticed that her door was opened wider than usual, and a stupid part of him thought maybe she had done that on purpose, to remind him that she wasn't in there. Whatever her intention, he was reminded well enough when the disappointment etched into his reflection's face was the only thing that greeted him from the section of her room he could see. "I'm taking it easy tonight," he finished, not wanting to see his own face for a second longer and entirely aware of the considerable pause he had taken in-between.

If Toby noticed, he didn't show it; he only threw a quick look back at Scorpius to check that he was following him out of the portrait hole. "Okay, well, when we go up to play Mugs, you have to pretend you're at least a little bit drunk or else they're not gonna let us play."

"What's the point of being drunk beforehand?"

"Alcohol doesn't work that fast, man. The game would be over in like five minutes."

"True," Scorpius acquiesced as they reached the flight of stairs. "Though if you're as smashed as you say you're gonna be, the only way we'll have a chance of winning is if I balance you out."

The sound of hushed but discernible voices became louder as they turned into the seventh floor corridor leading to the Room of Requirement, and they saw a group of students inconspicuously slipping in through the ornate doorway before it dematerialised again.

"Now to wish for a room where I can commiserate the loss of the match I've been wanting to win for the past seven years," Scorpius said dully.

"Remember to wish for alcohol for me."

Scorpius shot him an unamused look, but Toby's optimism was somehow worming its way through his wretchedness, and Scorpius sighed before indicating for him to summon the entrance. After walking back and forth three times, the doorway shimmered to life again, and once they were inside and the door had fully closed behind them, a wall of sound hit them both.

They stared into the party for a long moment before Toby turned to him. "See? You'll be the only sad, sober one in here."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Come on then, we can rectify at least one of those things."

They located the drinks stand, and they'd only been in the short queue for a minute before a familiar mop of messy black hair was visible over the top of the crowd, and soon after, Al's face appeared. From the way he was approaching them, Scorpius didn't think he'd started drinking yet.

Another familiar face surfaced from behind Al, and Toby immediately swore under his breath.

"Fuck, it's Ruth!" he hissed in horror before diving out of sight.

Al furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he eyed Toby hunkering down behind the couch, but Scorpius wordlessly shook his head with rolled eyes.

Then the moment passed and they stood there in silence, Al's face visibly lined as he tried to figure out what to say.

"That was quite the stunt you pulled there," Scorpius finally offered, inclining his head. "How long've you been holding onto that?"

Al looked a little sheepish, but grateful for the opening all the same. "Sixth year," he admitted. He pulled in the side of his mouth, sticking out his hand. "No hard feelings?"

Scorpius shook his head as he obliged. "Underhanded, but I wish I'd've thought of it."

As the guys in front of them paid for their drinks, he angled his head towards Al's. "So where's Chang? Don't you two have some sort of tradition at this thing?"

Al coloured. "Oh, er…I forgot to mention — well, I haven't really had the chance to tell you what with you being away and everything, but uh…Gen called it off a few days ago."

Scorpius blinked, but he was spared answering when the people in front of them moved off from the table, and the sixth year keeping shift lifted his brow at them for their order.

Scorpius pursed his lips in contemplation as he clocked Al's noticeably solemn demeanour, and then he elbowed him in the side. "Come on, Potter, I'll buy you a drink." As he pointed to two Firewhiskeys and laid his payment on the table, something occurred to him, and he bit his tongue against his teeth. "Oh, and uh…in the spirit of transparency, and because she's going to tell you at some point, there's kind of something you should know too."

Al's brow knit, but he nodded. "I'm listening."

Scorpius grimaced and picked up their drinks, holding one out to Al. "How 'bout we get a few of these down you first?"

---

"I still can't wrap my head around it."

Gen was staring at the curved ceiling above her, her back resting against the wall as one of her legs dangled over the alcove she was sitting in. "I mean, you and Malfoy. Getting it on in the Astronomy Tower."

"Okay, a kiss hardly counts as 'getting it on'," Rose pointed out from her position on the stairwell. The corridor they were sitting in was abandoned enough that she wasn't worried about eavesdroppers. "And come on, stranger things have happened."

"Oh, really?" Gen asked, finally casting her eyes down at her. "In the realm of relationships, name one."

Rose thought for a moment, and then sighed. "Okay, fine. It's weird."

"And you guys seriously haven't said a word to each other since?"

Rose peered down the neck of her bottle of mead; she had been right earlier, she should've brought two. "He's barely looked at me since then, nevermind actually said anything to me. Do you…" She paused, pressing her lips together in aversion. "Do you think he's the kind of guy who wants you 'till he's got you and then couldn't care less?"

Even saying it, her heart clamoured wildly in her chest, and she thought maybe she'd just said the worst thing she could think of in the hopes that Gen would immediately shoot it down. She needed an easy victory.

Gen had gone back to staring at the ceiling. "He could barely take his eyes off you."

Rose looked up from the reflections of candlelight pooling in her drink. "What?"

It took her another reluctant moment, but Gen met her friend's gaze. "During the match. He did a poor job of trying to hide it. Doesn't seem like the kind of struggle a guy who couldn't care less about you would go through."

She couldn't help it; hearing the words coming from someone else's lips sent a shiver of thrill down her spine, but she frowned as she tried to reconcile what Gen had said with her own memories of the match, which were memories of him doing the exact opposite.

Gen sighed heavily. "Don't take this as me encouraging this whole thing, okay, because a big part of me still thinks it's fucked and is hitting myself for not talking you out of it, but…" She shrugged. "You're not really seeing things from his perspective here. You're the one who left, remember?" She shifted a bottle cap back and forth between her fingers. "Maybe he's just waiting for you to come back."

"But—" Rose started, something inside of her caving. "I was the one who said that I'd see him tomorrow, the only one of the two of us who actually acknowledged that there would be something past that night. Isn't that telling enough that I wanted to see him?"

"Then you're the only one who went back on her word."

At Rose's stung expression, Gen elaborated, more gently, "If you wanted to see him so badly, then why didn't you?"

Rose closed her mouth, her gaze falling to the floor, the hollowness in her chest growing.

"You could've checked up on him, asked him if he was okay."

Suddenly that emptiness began to feel awfully, nauseatingly heavy, too heavy for Rose to ignore what it really was: guilt, and it continued to coil low and unrelenting against her stomach.

"But—" she choked out, her throat dry. "But what about everything that had just…what about figuring out everything that had just happened between us? I couldn't just walk in there, asking him how he was, as if nothing had changed."

Gen looked as if she was fighting some inner battle with herself, but after a few moments, she pushed her back off the wall and braced her forearms against her knees, looking at Rose squarely in the eyes. "Okay, Rose, listen to me carefully. What are you trying figure out? I think you know exactly why he kissed you, and I think it scares you shitless. So instead of facing it head on and doing something about it, you're keeping yourself occupied by thinking up all of these problems that you need to solve, knowing very well that you can't because they don't actually exist."

Gen's words hung unanswered in the air between them; a resolute silence that was waiting for its coup de grace with neither party willing to give it, and Gen's eyes were burning a hole through her, but it was the tightness at the back of Rose's throat as it continued to constrict, pressing harder and harder until it became almost unbearable—

The release of pressure in her lungs felt like a sigh of its own when she finally obliged.

"He could have at least said, "Hello"."

Gen's eyes softened, and she reached out a hand, winding her fingers around Rose's.

"You know, you've never really seen him as human." She shrugged doggedly, lifting her hand away so she could lean back against her palms. "Think about it. He used to be this weird Lucifer-like manifestation, like everything you hated the most all dumped into one person whose sole purpose on Earth was to make your life a living hell every single day. But for all that you hated him and for everything that he said or did to you, you never saw him as fallible, as someone who was anything less than his intent."

She blew out a breath unhappily, pulling a tired hand through her still-damp hair. "And then suddenly he became this white knight who broke half the bones in his body saving you from that Bludger, then some genius who taught you how to Apparate in like five minutes, not to mention that whole seducing-you-with-his-weird-Herbologean-light-magic thing. Plus," Gen elbowed her dryly, the corner of her lips pricking up the slightest bit, "it doesn't help that he looks like the living proof that God sometimes gives with both hands." At Rose's raised eyebrows, Gen hitched her shoulders brusquely. "He's hot, Rose, whatever."

Rose's hair fell across her face as she ducked her head, a tiny, helpless smile too quick for her to suppress, and at the sight, Gen's expression sobered, and she stooped, pulling Rose's gaze back to meet hers.

"He's only human, Rose. Humans make mistakes."

Rose bit her lip; she could feel the tiniest of somethings flickering to life within her, a near-imperceptible thing that bloomed with warmth, slowly ribboning out over the darkness, prying off the weight that leadened down her stomach and coaxing the air back into her lungs. A thing that, were she honest with herself, she would know had begun to stir during the match, as soon as his eyes had met hers again.

A laugh slipped out then — a shaky, almost pitiful sound, and she missed how Gen's eyes widened infinitesimally before a grim determination set over her friend's features.

"If you care about him, Rose, if you really care about him — you need to go back."

---

"Man, fuck girls!"

Toby slammed his drink down with a loud bang, ale sloshing around and spilling over the sides of his cup onto the sticky table.

Al's drink followed with equal gusto. "Fuck 'em," he declared, wiping at the wetness at the corner of his mouth. "Fuck all of them in this room."

Scorpius discreetly lifted his elbows off the table in order to protect the sleeves of his clean shirt, a quiet snort escaping his throat.

"I swear to Merlin, every single problem I have in my life right now—" Al waved his hands, struggling to collect his thoughts, "—is because of girls."

"Must be nice to have all of one problem in your life," Scorpius replied dryly, though he couldn't help but think that what Al had described applied very appropriately to him this past week.

Toby held up his hand, obstructing Scorpius' face from Al's view. "Don't listen to him, mate," he said to Al in a heated whisper, slinging his free arm around his shoulder, not that they had ever spoken before tonight. "His problems have just as much to do with girls as yours have."

"Yeah, we haven't even started on you and Rosie hooking up," Al said, pointing his bottle at him accusingly.

"Not to mention the fact that you didn't tell me, your best friend, before you told him, your kind-of friend," Toby added grumpily, removing his arm and rummaging around their collection of drinks as he chose their next shot. "Even after I stayed with you for an entire afternoon, comforted you in my bosom-"

"Disgusting," Scorpius said flatly.

"-and never in that entire time did you tell me what happened. It would've taken five seconds-"

"Three!" Al crowed loudly, repeatedly tapping the side of the Beetle Berry whiskey bottle to cast his vote.

"Three seconds!" Toby corrected, plucking up the bottle and carefully redistributing its contents into the three shot glasses on the table. "Scorp, you're doing this one with us."

Scorpius made a face. "I told you, I'm going easy tonight."

"Come on, you have to commiserate with me properly," Toby protested. "Besides, you saw me pour it out, I can't just pour it back into the bottle—"

Distracted as they were by Toby thrusting the drink insistently at Scorpius' face, none of the group noticed the sixth year Gryffindor girl as she sidled up towards them until she had perched herself on the edge of the couch they were sitting at the foot of. She lowered her face until it was hovering near Al's.

"Hey," she said, drawing out the vowel and twirling a strand of her hair. "You were so amazing today, like, I was watching you from the stands, and the minute you started, I thought to myself, "Gryffindor is totally gonna win", no offence to you guys. Anyways, I um…heard a little something from someone that you and Gen called it-"

"Fuck girls!"

The girl immediately looked very affronted at Al's outburst, her brow knitting in offended confusion, but Al had already turned away and was cajoling Toby into their next shot, so Scorpius shrugged at her semi-apologetically.

"He loves girls," he assured her, unable to hold back a slight grimace at the misfortune of having to impart this information on her. "He's probably a feminist too—"

But his words fell on deaf ears as the girl got to her feet with another noise of indignation and flounced off without a glance behind her.

Toby, who had barely registered her presence, tipped his head back and emptied the contents of his drink into his mouth, but Al paused, his glass inches from his lips.

"Does everyone know about me and Gen already?" he asked, frowning.

When neither Scorpius nor Toby replied, the wind seemed to go out of his sails, and his shoulders slumped. "I smelled her, you know," he said colourlessly after a long pause, his eyes staring at nothing. "In the Amortentia." His brow knit, and he bit his lip. "I always have."

Scorpius and Toby exchanged a glance.

"That means you love someone, right?"

"Actually, it-" Toby started, but Scorpius elbowed him in the side and he coughed and clamped his mouth shut—

"I never told her though," Al went on, as if he hadn't heard. He probably hadn't. "That I loved her. Just never found the right time to do it."

A tiny sardonic smile pulled at his lips, and he shook his head. "That's all I was thinking about, you know? When she was breaking up with me. She was saying all this stuff about how we were better off as friends and how she felt so bad that she never felt what she thought she should've been feeling when we were together, and the only thing I was thinking about was how I had never told her that I loved her. How fucked is that."

Toby cleared his throat quietly, and he carefully set his glass back down on the table. "You know, when you've been friends with someone for that long, you start off with something to lose, and that's the fucking scariest thing about it, the part that fucks with your head. It's worse when you realise you'd risk all of that anyway, but that doesn't mean shit if the other person doesn't feel the same way."

If Scorpius' mind hadn't already turned, if what Al had been saying hadn't just taken a knife and carved a hole deep within his chest, leaving him with nothing but an emptiness so gaping it made him want to crawl out of his own skin just to escape it, he might have noticed how Toby's voice had grown soft, how his words flowed out as if guided by an unravelling string that had been twisted up for too long.

Al squinted. "You just said exactly the same terrible thought that I was thinking but in a different terrible way." He winced as he pushed his back off the couch, taking his glass and bringing it up to eye-level. "Why does it all have to be so fucked up?"

"Ooh, are we drinking again?" Toby asked.

Scorpius didn't hear him or see his fingers as they pulled away the glass in front of him; he heard and felt nothing but the echo of Al's words pulsing in his head, gnawing at his heart.

I smelled her, you know. In the Amortentia.

He hadn't had the nerve. He hadn't known what he'd wanted to find if he'd had; the thought of it had shook him to his core with terror and something else he hadn't wanted to place. It had been just like the time he'd first felt that unfamiliar stirring in his chest when they'd danced in that club in Hogsmeade, that something that had made him want to keep her pressed close to him until the sun came up, that at the same time made him want to leave her in that club without ever looking back.

Rose Weasley had completely fucked him up. The things he felt, the constant battle between the part of him that was desperate to feel something and the part of him that didn't want any part in it at all was the most unbearable thing, but then he thought about his dream again, thought about how if he could've bottled it all up and gotten drunk on it every night he would have, he thought of the shudder that had trembled through her as she'd brought her lips to his for the second time, and he thought of Juliette on her stupid little breakfast date—

"I have to go."

Toby stopped pouring gin into his cup, his face perplexed as he blinked at Scorpius, and it was only then that Scorpius realised he had said that out loud.

"Go where?" Al said, cocking his head.

But Scorpius was already getting to his feet, and he clapped a hand to each of their shoulders before he turned away from them and began pushing his way out of the dense crowd, not caring who he was pushing past, and he didn't even think about where she would be, he only felt the stone slapping against his feet as he took the hallway at a sprint, not slowing when he reached the stairs, and then he was bolting down the corridor towards the Heads' Dormitory, breathlessly calling out the password as he neared, squeezing through the portrait hole before it had fully opened.

He looked around the dormitory, his head still spinning and his breathing slightly ragged, and he felt his heart drop through to his stomach in the few seconds it took for him to realise that her room was as empty as it had been before he'd left.

After a long moment, he moved further into the room, walking aimlessly towards the fireplace and resting his elbow on the mantel, staring down at the string of twine balls Rose had strewn up all those months ago.

He reached a hand out, rubbing his fingers around the ribbed edges of the yarn, suddenly feeling at a complete loss. The silence in the air was deafening, but against it, his brain continued to scream its bitter song, railing around in the cavity of his mind until Scorpius couldn't take it a second longer.

He was done waiting. He'd search the whole bloody castle all night if he had to.

He took two steps towards the door, and then he heard it.

He stopped short, his heart clenching in recognition, a part of him still convinced that his desperate brain had only imagined it—

The portrait hole swung open, and Rose hurtled inside, her chest heaving, and Scorpius' first inexplicable thought was that she must have come from much further away than he had.

For a few long, excruciating breaths they both just stood there, staring at each other, until Rose broke the silence.

"You weren't at the party."

Scorpius hesitated, and then slowly shook his head. "I left." Unthinkingly, he took a step towards her. "You weren't at the party either. What brought you back here in such a rush?"

She swallowed, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips, but Scorpius' gaze was still fixed on hers. He didn't think he could tear it away if he wanted to.

He took another step, and he could see the fireplace burning from behind his eyes. "Why weren't you at the party, Weasley?" he asked, more softly. "Why didn't you come?"

He could feel the weight of his words as they left him, burdened down by days filled with unbearable questions, but he couldn't help it.

There was something in those eyes, something he couldn't quite place but felt all the way down, pooling at the base of his stomach. His mouth felt dry, but he needed to say more, there was so much he needed to say to her, except that he couldn't remember any of it, none of it at all—

"Weasley—" he started, but his voice died in his throat when she crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and suddenly she was right there, her trembling hands placed against his cheeks, brushing past the apex of his neck, and then her lips were pressed against his, every inch of her glorious body was pressed flush against him, but it still wasn't close enough — he had never wanted anyone — anything — this much and fuck, it terrified him—

His hands trailed down the line of her spine, and with the heat of her body that ache, that need, only pooled more in his stomach. He heard her breath as it caught in her throat, and he fumbled before his hands found her legs and hitched them up around his waist.

Somehow, through his daze, his brain fought for purchase, and when he pulled back, the expression on her face nearly took his breath away.

"Weasley," he murmured. "Don't leave me this time."

A tiny smile flitted across her face. "I won't," she whispered, and he felt all the world caving in on them as he carried her into his room, shutting the door behind them.

---

A/N:

OMG THEY KISSED AGAIN. First off, I wanted to thank you guys so much for the reception that the last chapter got - your reviews and messages totally blew me away ❤ Your enthusiasm for these characters makes me feel like I'm doing my job right. Second, thank you for being so patient with me while I got this chapter up - you have no idea how much your lovely comments mean to me ❤ Ironically, I thought I would struggle to find content for this chapter since like 98% of it consists of Rose and Scorpius not interacting at all, which completely runs counter to the content that has dominated the majority of my chapters since like chapter 9 — but this chapter took on a life of its own and wound up being the longest of the bunch by a significant margin, who'da thunk it (pls don't hold it as a standard for upcoming chapters; this is a one-show-only mammoth-sized abomination). By the way, the next chapter is going to be a special one — any ideas? :P Chapter titles come from Third Eye Blind's Blinded (When I See You) and AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long.

P.S. I get so many comments about the re-reads that you guys have done, and man, kudos to you guys, because I am not exaggerating when I say that I can stomach about 2 scenes pre-chapter 9.

P.P.S. To the guest reviewer who commented about the Scorpius/watch symbolism: thank you so much for realising my intention, I really love that scene ❤ Also your review cracked me up big time. (Not to say no one else caught that, of course!)