Chapter Three

Snooping to Their Level

When Lily Potter was ten years old she had her first boyfriend. She did not tell anyone about it. Mostly because her older brothers would have no doubt beat him up. He was only nine and she fairly sure that getting whaled on by two older boys would have scarred him for life. She ended up breaking up with him by the end of their first week together, so she figured that no one really needed to know about it.

Once she finally got to go to Hogwarts, boys started flocking to her. Lily thought she was pretty before, but she never knew just how pretty until she started school. Boys sought her out and every last one of them asked to be her boyfriend. She declined most offers. The boys were almost making it too easy for her. She felt pretty, but not desired. And at eleven she could tell the difference.

All of the boys who asked her out liked her because she was pretty, not for her intelligence, her humor, her fun loving spirit. They only liked her for her looks, and that got old fast. Every one of her past boyfriends, all thirteen of them, got broken up with within two weeks of dating. Lily only started dating them because she thought that maybe they liked her because they thought she was a nice, smart girl. Thoughts like that came to a halt shortly after the first date.

For this reason and this reason alone, Lily Potter had been single her entire third year. Which surprised the hell out of her friends and relieved her parents. Lily had no interest in any of the boys in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. And they were the boys that asked her out. The boys in Slytherin admired her from afar, but never actively pursued her. One of the many reasons that Lily respected Slytherin boys. She did not like most of them, but she respected them.

Only one Slytherin boy ever asked her out that was Scorpius Malfoy. Lily made a point of being disgustingly polite but, of course, refused the offer. She thought, as he spoke to her in library, that she would later have a great laugh about this with her dorm mates. But when she saw the look on his face after she said no, she was forced to keep the conversation to herself. He looked crushed and Lily immediately felt bad.

Scorpius had always been kind to her and James. He had a sort of truce with Albus, they had so many classes together and were the two top students in their year, competing with each other would take time away from their studies.

Her mum and dad always made a point to never speak ill of the Malfoys in front of their children, but Lily could tell, as could her brothers, that their parents were not fond of them.

But when Lily declined Scorpius' offer to take her to Hogsmeade, she had not even thought about the fact that her father would freak if she'd said yes. She already had a boyfriend at the time and Lily was always faithful to her relationships, however short lived they were. Once she had gotten sick of her current boyfriend she was hoping that Scorpius would ask her out again, but he did not.

In the end she thought it was for the best.

But as Lily lay on James' bed, shuffling through his mail, she began regretting her decision. Scorpius had never been drawn to her by her looks, at least not as far as she could tell, and that was the main reason she broke up with all of her boyfriends. He also was unlike most Slytherins. He made a point of being kind to other students in all of the houses. It was like he did not want to be like his father and Lily liked that about him.

At the moment she could do nothing about it.

Lily absentmindedly looked at the parchment lying in front of her. The only reason that she was in his room was because one of her older friends told her that James had barged into her Transfiguration class. He had pulled Albus out of class saying that he had received an urgent letter from dad. And he had not told Lily about it.

She figured that he was lying, but she could never be too sure. None of his mail seemed all that interesting, until she found a half finished letter to Teddy.

Hey Teddy,

I been meaning to ask you something for a while now. How did you know you fancied Victoire? I mean she was like you best friend and stuff. How did you separate your friendly feelings from the romantic ones? When you finally asked her out, weren't you worried that if she said no, you'd no longer be friends with her? How did you do it, man?!

I'm asking this because yesterday I saw Kira's knickers. Not on purpose or anything, but she tripped and fell and her skirt went flying up and I couldn't help myself. She was lying on the floor with her skirt up around her waist and all I could think about was how pretty she is. Hell, that's all I can think about now!

She's got freckles and red hair and the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. It's like I know her so well, that every little thing she does, things she's done thousands of time before are just driving me mad with wanting her. I can't get her off my mind. In class I scribble her first name with my last name in the corners of my papers. She's driving me bonkers.

I don't know what to do, mate. You've got to tell me what I should do. She's not dumb and I'm not subtle so she's bound to figure it out eventually. If I lose my friendship with her over a pair of white knickers, I'm going to jump off the Astronomy Tower.

Write me back and tell me what to do or I'll be sending a letter to Victoire about that ring you've been hiding since Christmas.

Yours,

James Potter

Lily smiled. Kira had liked her brother back when Lily was in her first year. She had not said it in so many words but it was obvious to Lily that Kira was overly fond of her brother. She did not know if Kira felt the same anymore so she decided she should not tell Kira about this dubious letter.

But she did have every intention of taking the mickey out on her brother.

In the meantime she had yet to find a letter from dad that seemed urgent. She was beginning to think that the letter was made up. She had thought that initially but could not pass up an excuse to pock through her brother's belongings.

Lily sighed and got up. She had done just about as much snooping as she could justify at the moment. She left her brother's dorm room and headed towards the library.

---

Scorpius Malfoy gave James a curious look. The other boy was obviously distressed, but was having such a hard time articulating himself Scorpius had no idea what he was upset about. He had his shaggy head in his hands and was groaning quietly. Or maybe he was talking, Scorpius could not tell. James had never been a very loquacious lad, least of all when distress. In fact Scorpius was fairly certain that James had a class he should have been in at the moment.

"James?" Scorpius asked. James groaned again, but did not look up. "James?"

"Oh, bugger it! What?!" the other boy snapped, pulling his head out of his hands.

"Don't you have a class right now?" he asked. James sighed and shook his head. "You don't have a class right now?" Scorpius scrunched up his face in confusion.

"No! I mean yes! Yes, I have a class right now but Kira-" James broke off all of the sudden. His face went from irritated to dreamy once Kira's name passed his lips.

James did not really have to finish his sentence for Scorpius to put the pieces together. Kira was lying to the professor, probably telling them that James was sick or something to that effect, so that James would not get in trouble and miss the up coming Quidditch game. Scorpius did not care one way or the other. He had never been terribly interested in the sport, much to his father's chagrin.

His father wanted him to beat the Potter boys at everything they did. Scorpius just was not interested. The Potter boys were two of his best mates, beating them at anything would happen only by chance. He was not about to seek out competition with them just because his father had an age old grudge against the family. One that he never talked about in front of mother. She always reminded him that Harry Potter had saved his father's life.

"I think I might… flabby keeya," James mumbled.

"You think you might flabby keeya?" Scorpius asked, dubiously.

"No! Merlin, aren't you listening to me?!"

"It's hard to listen when you refuse to articulate," he snapped. James shook his head and sighed.

"Look, I'm having a hard time with this, Scorpius. This isn't something I can just admit!"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what James was so troubled about. He had just figured out that he fancied Kira Fitzsimmons. Scorpius knew that James was not a smart as his brother, but he was sure that James was not half a stupid as most people thought he was. When James paid attention in class he got very good marks, but he paid attention so rarely that he did not have a chance to prove himself.

Once upon a time Scorpius had tried to convince James to apply himself to studies, but that had ended with Albus in the Hospital Wing for no apparent reason. He later found out that James had assumed that Albus had talked Scorpius into talking him into doing better in class. After that Scorpius realized that it was probably a better idea to just let James do whatever he wanted in class and hope that his own good marks would inspire James to do better. It had yet to work. Scorpius was usually interested in what James had to say, the oldest Potter was one of the few people Scorpius actually considered a friend.

The other people he considered friends were Albus Potter, Kira Fitzgerald and the thousands of Weasleys. He knew there weren't actually thousands of them, but after being bombarded by one after the other after the other almost everyday it truly seemed like there were at least a thousand of running around Hogwarts. The Weasleys had been the hardest for him to win over, but as soon as the Potters accepted him into the fold, they did too. Most of them were just acquaintances but a few had made an effort to actually get to know him and seek him out upon occasion.

James and Albus sought him out the most. James for advice on pranking or girls or any other thing he could come up with in an effort to avoid studying. Albus for someone to study with. Both Potter boys were interesting to talk to and brought different things to the friendship. James was fun, Albus was smart.

And Lily Potter was beautiful. He hadn't been interested in her during her first year at Hogwarts. Asking her out seemed like the popular thing to do among the boys of every house. A few of the Slytherin boys had bragged about asking her out, but Scorpius knew for a fact that none of them had. Those boys were his friends and told him later on in the dorm that they hadn't actually gone through with it. The common excuse was that she was a Gryffindor and they only wanted to date within Slytherin House.

It was complete bull and they knew that Scorpius knew that it was crap. They had asked out plenty of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and even a few Gryffindors. The real reason none of the asked her out was because she seemed to unattainable. That hadn't stopped Scorpius though. Once he figured out how he felt about her he wasted no time asking her out. She refused and Scorpius hadn't put himself out there ever again. He'd dated but it never lasted long.

The only girl he was really interested in wasn't interested in him.

Scorpius sighed, heavily and looked around the library. It was pretty empty, but then again it was the middle of the day. Most students were in class, the few that weren't didn't want to spend their free hour studying. Just more proof that Scorpius was an odd seed.

A Slytherin whose best mates were not only Gryffindors but the sons of his father's former worst enemy and he fancied his best mates' sister madly.

"What do you think I should do?" James asked.

Scorpius brought his gaze back to his friend. James had obviously been talking while Scorpius had been musing about the strange turns his life had taken.

"I think you should keep your head firmly in your arse and never do a damn thing about it," he said. James gave him a horrified and slight confused look. The overall look on James' face was quite amusing.

"What d'you mean?"

"I asked out this girl I really fancied and she shot me down," Scorpius explained. "All I got out of that situation was heart ache and the super fun experience of watching her date a bunch of nimrods. If I had just kept my mouth shut I'd still be able to talk to her and just be friends with her. Now it's just awkward."

"Hmm…" James mumbled. "You have a point. What reason did she give for saying no?"

"She said she was dating someone else at the time. But she was being so disturbingly polite about it I didn't really believe her."

"Funny, that sounds like something Lily would do," James mused. Scorpius' eyes went wide. He didn't want the other boy to know he'd asked out his sister. Scorpius valued James' friendship and didn't want to jeopardize that friendship by fancying his sister. It had been forever, he really needed to get over it.

"That's not the point. The point is that Kira is your friend, your best friend right?" James nodded. "Asking her out just welcomes all sorts of unsavory possibilities."

"Like her not returning my feelings," he sighed.

"Exactly. And abject humiliation when she laughs in your face, like asking her out was some kind of joke. Or the awkwardness that will plague the duration of your friendship afterwards. Or the inevitability that your friendship will end because you screwed it up by trying to make something more out of it. Or the-"

"That's enough, Scorpius!" James exclaimed, standing up. "You've convinced me, mate. I'm going to keep it to myself and hope the feelings go away." James shook his head and walked out of the library.

Scorpius sighed. He knew his advice wasn't very good and he'd kind of hoped that James would call him a wuss and make the bold move. He wanted to believe that if James could make it with Kira maybe he could make it with Lily.

As that thought crossed his mind, the one and only Lily Potter walked into the library. Scorpius freaked, grabbed his books and ran behind one of the towering shelves. He looked around the shelf. Lily appeared to be searching for someone and Scorpius desperately wished she was looking for him. That hope along with all the others made him cringe. He needed to get over her and he wasn't going to be able to do that hiding in the library.