Lucky you.

JKR owns everything that you recognize.

June 2024

There are three days between the end of the examination period and the Leaving Ball. Then it's another three days to graduation, and leaving Hogwarts on their final train out.

Rose spends the first three days recovering from her nasty exhaustion by napping in every conceivable comfortable location on the sunny grounds and hanging out with her friends in Hogsmeade, where they have been given free rein to visit for this week. She finds time in the mornings to visit Hagrid and his creatures, wanting to immerse herself back into the world of magical creatures as a prelude to her internship and intended continuing education.

Hagrid still chuckles every time he sees her, but he's long since given up on trying to convince her not to come since she's graduating soon.

"That's hardly a good excuse," she protests. "That means I should take full advantage of having all the wonderful, healthy creatures in the Forbidden Forest at my fingertips for these last few days before I go back to the city and their creature shelters. Also, what kind of letter of recommendation would it be if you had to write, 'The applicant slacks off at the slightest excuse and prospect of a vacation?'" She's already asked for Hagrid's support for her application to a four-year dragon keeping apprenticeship in Romania, at the same facility as her Uncle Charlie.

On the day of the ball, Rose planned to sleep in, only to be rudely awoken by Alice clamouring for hair and make-up.

"Just one more hour."

"No."

"Thirty minutes."

"No, get up, Rose."

"Fifteen."

"Ten, and that's the most you're getting."

Rose rolls over and is out in an instant, but it only feels like two instants since Alice said ten minutes and she's being unceremoniously dumped out of her bed.

Several harrowing hours later, after every part of her body has been scoured and poked and prodded and painted various different shades, and her hair has been pulled aggressively, Rose has to admit that Alice and her friends have done a good job, and taken someone who wouldn't be able to identify the business end of a make-up brush, and transformed her into a fairy princess. She's wearing an asymmetric A-line jade green dress, has a French manicure, her hair is up in a magnificent 'do and not frizzy for the first time in her life, and is she wearing just enough make-up to glow – especially on her eyes.

Their little entourage goes downstairs to meet their dates, each one more dapper than the rest. She takes Lyle's arm and together they proceed into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall has been completely transformed: the four long tables have been replaced with smaller, circular tables, each sporting an assortment of finger foods. Fairy lights hang over the infinity dance floor, where a live string quartet is keeping things mellow while people eat.

A disco ball descends from the ceiling and a more upbeat DJ replaces the strings as people start finishing their dinners (it was excellent – the house elves have outdone themselves again) and drifting toward the punch bowl and the dance floor. Rose's group joins this migration, and they dance in a group for a short while before Rose rapidly becomes bored and excuses herself to Alice and Lyle. Alice protests more than Lyle, which is still not very much, and as Rose walks away, she sees out of the corner of her eye Sadie Bai move to dance next to Lyle. Good for them, Rose thinks. She saw her making eyes at him over dinner, and is happy that he might get some action after all tonight.

Rose ends up in a side courtyard outside. It's lit by fairy lights, again, and seems to be lightly heated to stave off the evening chill. She sits on a bench, and a lady lightning bug alights on her hand when she holds out some offerings she swiped from dinner.

Scorpius finds her communing thusly with the insects when he also comes outside. He stops abruptly upon seeing her, but before he can change his mind to go back inside, she notices him.

"Hi, Scorpius," she says, without moving.

"Hi, Rose," he responds stiffly, taking another step outside.

"Fancy seeing you out here," she jokes lightly. "Whatever happened to… Arugula?" Rose realizes with a start that this is the first time that she's conversed with Scorpius on a topic outside of schoolwork in over a year.

He makes a face. "She was making wedding plans over dinner. Then she tried to pull me aside, presumably to seduce me in a broom closet, after dinner, but I managed to convince her that I had really bad food poisoning. And now I'm here."

Rose laughs. "Bathrooms are that way." She points in the direction of the dance floor.

"It's not funny!"

Rose ignores this and continues chuckling, and Scorpius eventually concedes. "Okay, maybe it's a little funny, now that I've escaped."

Scorpius sits down on the bench next to Rose and they sit in companionable silence, punctuated by the occasional chuckle from Rose. Scorpius breaks the silence by asking, "Why are you out here? Didn't you attend with… what's his face."

"Lyle Wood. Yeah. I'm… just not that interested in him. He's fit and all, from Quidditch or whatever, but he's just kind of boring. Kept talking about Quidditch all dinner, so I was more than happy to leave him be when I saw Sadie eyeing him."

"Bai?"

"Yeah, how many other Sadies do we know?"

There's a comfortable lull in the conversation, which Scorpius has to go and ruin by asking, "And what about your… American?" His tone is light, but he manages to make American sound like a swear word. "He couldn't be bothered to escort you to your graduation ball?"

Rose sighs. She's a tiny bit relieved that he brought this up, so she can finally come clean with him. But mostly annoyed, so she lets him stew for a couple minutes. But she has to say something before he leaves in a huff…

"His name is Kasper. And he's not my boyfriend," she blurts abruptly. "I broke up with him that day in Hogsmeade because I couldn't keep up with the long distance."

"Oh."

"Yeah." A beat. She doesn't really want to go back inside, but it's getting really awkward out here. "Okay, I better go back to Alice and them. Bye, Scorpius."

She gets up to leave, but hasn't taken two steps when she hears Scorpius ask, "Rose, will you do me the honor of giving me this next dance?"

She turns around to see him, standing, his hand extended to her, his face open and hopeful. She hasn't seen an expression like this on him since the night they confessed to fancying each other, and that seems like a lifetime ago. She would be lying if she said that she was completely over him, so she stays. She takes his hand and steps closer to him. But much like their one trip together to Hogsmeade, they keep a proper distance from each other. The music piping from inside turns to a slow song, and Rose can vaguely see couples forming on the dance floor. What coincidental timing, she thinks.

They sway under the fairy lights, and Rose can't help but notice that he looks as good as ever. The same high cheekbones, the same warm blue-grey eyes. The eyes that are currently locked with hers, with an intensity that makes her feel that he's probing her soul. The eyes that have drifted. South. They're staring at her lips now. Rose doesn't know what this means. They have barely spoken for the last year. The song ends, and Rose and Scorpius stop swaying. His eyes come back up to meet hers, and neither moves from their slow dancing position.

"Rose," his voice is rough. Full of emotion. It makes her toes curl to think about that voice in a different situation – in a broom closet, waking up next to him in the morning. But no. Focus, Rose.

"Scorpius." She finds that her mouth is so dry.

"Can we still be friends after we graduate?"

"Of course!" It wasn't the question she expected… or hoped for, but it will do.

His old, familiar face-splitting smile reappears and Rose thinks that maybe this evening was not a complete loss. She's a fairy princess tonight, and she realizes with a start that they match – his dress robes are a deep, rich forest green and perfectly complementary to her bright jade. This is enough to convince her to return his face-splitting smile, and he pulls her in for a hug. They spend the rest of the evening seated on the bench, catching up on developments they've missed in the last year, and talking about graduation, their plans for the future, their hopes and dreams and fears.

Early the next afternoon, Rose is trekking back up to the castle after helping Hagrid with the hippogriffs – feeding and grooming them, and mucking out their space. She's sweaty and covered in bits of fur and feathers but fortunately has escaped their claws and beaks. She suspects that That Smell might just be permanently embedded in her nostrils and is experimentally exhaling forcefully when she hears her name called. She looks up and sees blonde hair flopping as Scorpius jogs toward her from the greenhouses. He's carrying a bundle of something, probably herbs considering where he's coming from. She pauses a moment to wait for him to catch up and they fall into step.

"Sorry about the smell," Rose begins without preamble.

"Didn't notice it," Scorpius lies easily from his arm's distance from Rose as they walk.

"Riiight. I believe you. So you wouldn't mind if I did this-" she throws her arm around his waist and he wrinkles his nose but does not pull away. "So what were you doing at the greenhouses?"

"Needed some artemesinin for my trip to South America in the fall. Professor Wolf said that I could get some from Professor Longbottom, and now with these cuttings I can dry and use some of them and use the others to try my hand at propagation in my dad's greenhouses."

Rose's arm is still around his waist and it's starting to feel awkward, but then he throws an arm around her shoulders and she stops thinking about withdrawing her arm. They're friends. They talked about this last night. Friends can embrace each other. This is normal. She'll just keep telling herself this.

She's also definitely not comparing it to how Kasper's arm around her shoulders felt on the afternoon that they broke up. Nope. Also, Scorpius' feels nicer.

"Ahh, right, mosquitoes and malaria. Shouldn't we have a spell for keeping away the mosquitoes by now?"

"Yes, but it has about the same effectiveness as a Muggle mosquito net – it's mostly protective but it's not perfect. So I needed to carry some backup plan."

"Gotchu."

They fall into a companionable silence as they walk along, each caught up in their own thoughts. Scorpius considers asking her if she knows that school is over and she doesn't need to do work anymore, but she breaks the silence first.

"Scorpius, what happened?"

When he doesn't respond immediately, she clarifies, "To us."

Another pause. They've stopped walking. Rose starts to pull her arm away but his hold on her shoulders is tight.

She is about to say that she didn't think their relationship had a fair chance, but he speaks first.

"We both… Well, we were younger," he finishes lamely.

She snorts a laugh. "That's hardly an excuse."

"Well, yeah. I'm sorry. I would do things differently a second time around."

She doesn't look at him when she says, "I'm sorry too. We were so painfully shy back then…"

She doesn't see him maintaining eye contact with the back of her head, with a look that almost reads like, "Do you want to try a second time, right now?"

"And now we're going away…" She turns her face back up to him, a small, sad smile on her face, "Promise me you'll stay in touch, Scorpius."

He grins shyly at her. "Did you hear that the company you worked for last summer released its phone?"

"Whaaat! Why would they not tell me this!"

Scorpius fishes a phone out of his pocket. This means they have to separate, but it's okay, because now he's holding a phone that's shinier and newer than hers. His eyes are sparkling. He pushes the power button, and the screen lights up.

"Could I get your number, Rose?"

She gives it to him. He sends her a text so she'll have his number. They continue walking back to the castle, and part with a hug.

A/N: Lorde, "Supercut"