Disclaimer: JK's.

A/N: ...and here is part 2 for me, and chapter 3 for you :)

"You can't send that as an interdepartmental memo, you git!"

Finch snatched the piece of parchment from under his quill. "Dear Rose," he read aloud. "I was delighted to receive your latest owl and look forward to meeting you again at - Merlin's pants, Scorp, were you seriously going to send this to Rose?"

"Why not? She sent me a letter, I send her a letter. Isn't that how it works?"

"I was delighted to receive your latest owl?" He put down the note. "First of all, no way in hell would you use the phrase "delighted to receive" in any correspondence whatsoever with a girl under the age of ninety. Secondly, there is no-one named Roland Knightley anywhere in the Ministry, as you should know, so he has no way of sending interdepartmental memos to anyone, let alone his latest paramour. And finally, and you'd better damn well be listening to me here, why the bloody hell do you need to send a reply in the first place?"

"She asked me where she should meet me!"

Finch stared at him wordlessly for a long moment, then, with a long-suffering sigh, placed his head in his hands. When he looked up, he had a scrunched look on his face. Almost pained.

"Alright, Scorp, listen closely, because I'm only going to tell you this once. It is the worst romantic advice you will ever receive in possibly your entire life, but I've decided that your situation merits a slight bending of the rules. Roland Knightley is a player, correct?"

"Uh -"

"Yes, that's correct. Would Roland Knightley send that note?"

"Uh, no, but -"

"No, he wouldn't, because Roland Knightley is a seasoned professional at this sort of thing. If he wants to meet a girl at a bar, he tells her he'll be there and expects her to show up. He possibly expects another ten girls to show up, too, just on the off chance of seeing him, so why would he bother replying to one of the dozens of owls he's probably received today?"

"That goes against every dating principle my mother ever drummed into me."

"Yeah, well, your mother probably doesn't want to see Rose naked, either."

"Knightley doesn't have ten girls hanging after him, anyway," Scorpius argued, changing the subject before it got out of hand.

Finch rolled his eyes. "Rose doesn't know that."

"She will when she sees me standing all alone outside the Leaky!"

"That's why you won't be standing all alone outside, you'll be chatting up Longbottom's kid behind the bar." He turned to face a noise at the door. "That's Bletchley there, I've got to go. Look, Scorp, I'm not saying treat her mean to keep her keen or anything like that. But the entire point of Knightley is that he's confident and desirable. Or, in words you might understand, he's not desperate. If you can't pull that off, well, how long do you think this charade is going to last?"

It was dark. It was only eight or nine in the evening, but the Leaky Cauldron was already filled with old men and young women propping up the bar - probably for very different reasons, though. A scruffy blues trio shuffled away in the corner, but the pounding beat of a dance club somewhere nearby gave the probably harmless crooning a darker, almost sinister undertone. Scorpius might have been imagining that, but the pervading smell of cigar smoke and burning incense was very real indeed.

He coughed.

Longbottom's daughter - he never could remember her name, though she couldn't have been more than a couple years behind him at Hogwarts - was indeed behind the bar, but since she was surrounded by an eager gaggle of admirers he couldn't exactly go 'chat her up'.

He felt exposed, standing there in the doorway, the Muggle streetlamp just outside probably casting a spotlight on him to everyone inside.

But he was Knightley, and Knightley was cool, and tonight Knightley was going to get the girl of his dreams.

The girl Scorpius could have had last night, if he weren't such a bloody coward!

He looked around, and was just about to step into the pub, when - "Roland?"

It was Rose, of course. But Rose Weasley as he'd never seen her before.

He was used to fancy dresses - Merlin knew his parents had thrown enough formal dinners over the years for him to be completely immune to their effect by now. And he was used to Rose - because in seven years at school and three out of it, one did end up seeing one's best friend every once in a while. You know, on the odd occasion.

But he was not used to the two of them combined. She'd worn a very pretty green gown for their seventh year dance, one he'd really quite admired because it had shown off her hips to great effect, but -

Merlin's flaming pants on a goblin she was that sexy tonight!

Her dress was white tonight. Pure white, no ornamentation, but short. Oh, was it short - he'd seen her in pyjama tops that were longer than that. Not that they hugged her figure anywhere near the way this one did - and a good thing, too, else he'd be a gibbering mess every time she slept over at his flat.

He didn't have to fake his appreciative stare.

Then he remembered it was Roland she was trying to impress, not him, and the daze that had so fogged his head at the sight of her evaporated.

"That's my name," he said shortly, and her smile faltered.

Dammit! Just because she didn't think it was him didn't mean Scorpius had to ruin his second chance at a shot with her!

He smiled quickly. "And you, my dear, are a stunning white Rose tonight, and I would love to buy you a drink."

Her smile was slower - and infinitely more seductive. Merlin, he was glad he wasn't wearing Muggle jeans tonight. "I'd love that."

They pushed past the crowd around - it wasn't Gussie, was it? - to a quieter corner of the bar, where the older Mrs Longbottom was wiping down some glasses. Scorpius nearly gave her a friendly hello, but he realised just in time that Knightley didn't know Longbottom or his wife...

"What'll it be, Rosie?" he asked, turning to face her. He grinned - it was her least favourite nickname.

She wasn't quick enough to hide her grimace. Scorpius pretended not to notice. "A Spicy Pumpkin, if you've got one," she told Mrs Longbottom directly. "How are things, Hannah?"

She waved her cloth vaguely. "Business is as good as it ever was, as you can see from all the boys crowding around Augusta," she replied, eyes twinkling. "But I'm sure you've got better things to do tonight than talk to the old lady behind the bar. One Spicy Pumpkin, coming right up, and what will you have, young man?"

"Just a butterbeer for now, thanks."

She nodded, and before long their drinks had arrived. Interesting choice on Rose's part, he thought - he'd very rarely seen her drink anything but butterbeer on nights out away from home. He wondered if it had anything to do with the white dress - and her newfound air of confidence.

He decided to take it as a good thing.

"Want to sit down?" he asked over the music, and she nodded. They made their way over to a table in the corner, Rose leading the way.

Were her hips swaying more than normal?

She sat down, and gestured for him to take the seat next to her. That was encouraging, right? Sliding into the seat, Scorpius dared to hope that she'd forgotten her outburst at the cafe. She seemed to be going out of her way to get his attention tonight. Maybe he could pull a few more of Finch's moves...

He contemplated putting his arm around her shoulder. No, that was a bit corny, even for Knightley. The touch on the arm had given him some success the other day -

And then Rose's hand slid across his leg, and he inhaled sharply. Rose was moving even faster than bloody Knightley! He felt her fingers gently brushing against his thigh, meeting hard muscle as they drifted higher, and he wondered what they would feel like against his own softer skin, if Rose were doing this for real, exploring his own body with those beautiful fingers of hers...

He swallowed roughly, and looked up. But she wasn't looking at him, like he'd expected; she was staring across the bar, an absent look on her face, her mind obviously very far from her idling fingers. She wasn't paying attention to him at all!

Suddenly she straightened. Her absent expression was replaced with a focused one, and she stood up abruptly, dragging him up as well.

"What's the matter, honey?" he asked. "We just sat down. We were just about to starting getting to know each other."

"And we can't do that on the dance floor?"

"Well, when you put it like that..."

He pulled her closer, relishing the feel of her body pressed up against his. The Leaky Cauldron didn't have a dance floor, not really, but thanks to Hannah and Augusta's influence, couples often got up and danced in the space away from the bar. There were enough people dancing for Rose and Scorpius to be relatively inconspicuous, but Scorpius was still grateful for the anonymity of his disguise. If he was going to be dirty dancing with Rose in the middle of such a popular place, he certainly didn't want his mother finding out about it.

Rose wriggled against him, and once again Scorpius thanked the gods for the freedom of wizard robes. His hand, resting on her back, drifted lower - well, if it was too loud for verbal communication, he'd let his body speak for itself...

Before he knew it, they were at the front of the dancing space, and Rose's arms were around his neck. "You can go as low as you like," she murmured into his ear. Her breath against his neck gave him goosebumps, all down his arm, and he jerked against her. His heartbeat quickened, and it had nothing to do with physical exertion.

"I'm not one to ignore instructions from a lady," he said back, grinning, and his hands slid downwards, brushing her hips and leisurely exploring the rest of her curves.

"Maybe I don't want to be a lady."

Merlin, she was killing him. What on earth was she up to? But then she moved her hips, and he felt every inch of the motion. He closed his eyes, savouring the moment. Who knew when the next time would be that he'd have Rose Weasley's breasts crushed up against his chest, her hips grinding against his on a darkened dance floor, her arms tangled in his hair?

Right now, he really didn't care.

She turned in his arms, so she was facing away from him, towards the bar. Her Weasley-red hair filled his senses, and he breathed in deeply. He had to physically restrain himself from thrusting against her. He was her best friend, dammit, he had no business - no, what? He was Knightley, he reminded himself, trying to clear his head, but gods that didn't mean he had the right to act like a bloody animal around her!

She was still looking at the bar. Once again, Scorpius got the sudden, distinct impression her mind was totally elsewhere. But what was so interesting about the elderly patrons of the Leaky Cauldron?

He looked down at her, just as she looked up at him. A teasing smile fluttered across her lips.

No, it wasn't teasing at all - teasing smiles were for laughing at Hugo when he lost at chess, for afternoons spent watching new recruits trying to navigate the Ministry elevators, for quickly suppressed giggles at Malfoy snobbery at the dinner table. This smile was sultry, and he didn't want sultry, because teasing was for Scorpius and sultry was for Knightley -

And he didn't want to be Knightley any more.

He pulled away. "I need to sit down."

"What?" The sultry smile disappeared, replaced for a fraction of a second by a look he'd seen on her face many times that could only be described as adorable confusion. But adorable confusion didn't belong on a girl wearing that dress, and it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Sure, if you want."

"Actually, Rose, it's fine. I think I'd better be going home anyway. I've had a nice night tonight, but -" you're not acting like yourself and if I can't have the real Rose then this damn charade isn't worth the Boomslang skin it's based on - "I don't think things would work out between us."

He couldn't believe what he'd just said. In fact, he couldn't decide whether to be proud he'd stuck to his principles or to kick himself in the nuts for blowing his one good chance at seeing Rose Weasley naked.

But seeing her naked had never been the plan! The whole idea of this scheme was to work out what approach to wooing her would be the most efficient, wasn't it? Like repeated trials in Time Chamber experiments. ..

Merlin's pants, he needed to get a life, if that was the best metaphor he could come up with!

No, he decided, this was definitely for the best. Knightley had grown out of his control, anyway, to the point that it didn't matter what succeeded for Knightley and what didn't - because there was no way Scorpius could ever pull the same moves Knightley had.

He gave her a quick hug, and left the dance floor and the Leaky Cauldron. He didn't want to look at her - but when he risked one last look through the window he saw her, still standing near the entrance, shock written all over her face.

Then she strode toward the bar, and Scorpius' curiosity overcame him. She'd been throwing glances over at the bar all night - what (who?) had kept her preoccupied all evening, making him feel like a pawn in a game he didn't quite understand?

There he was. A wizard in silver robes turned at her approach, and they greeted each other like old friends. They spoke for a while, and he wished he could hear what they were saying. As he watched, though, Rose's face became more animated, and suddenly her hand was on the man's chest, her fingers fluttering across the front of his robes. Laughing, he pulled her closer, and whispered something in her ear that made her throw back her head with laughter.

Scorpius' heart clenched tightly in his chest. He moved closer to the window, to get a better look at who she was talking to -

Finch?

He stopped in his tracks. Had her newfound seductiveness been for his benefit?