Hey! Lucky chapter #13! Long time no see, and sorry for the wait. I participated in NaNoWriMo this year, so I tried to finish this up before November came, but it just didn't happen. The beginning of this chapter is a little awkward but stick with it, the ending is worth it! I promise!

Chapter 13 -November

Today was the first Quidditch game of the season. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. Before she left, Lucy had made me dress in emerald and silver from head to toe. I felt ridiculous as I walked to Gryffindor tower to meet Rose and Scorpius. When I arrived, it looked like Dom and James had done the same thing to Scorpius; only in scarlet and gold.

Louis, Rose, and Roxanne were standing near Scorpius. Everyone else was already at the pitch. Rose looked between Scorpius and I, struggling to hold back her laughter. She wore a silver hat and a scarlet scarf, the latter matching her hair almost perfectly; supporting both teams, but nothing as extreme as Scorpius and I.

"If only our parents could see us supporting their rival teams," Scorpius wondered aloud as he looked at me with his eyes wide. We switched scarves and hats so now we looked like walking Christmas trees covered in red, gold, green, and silver.

I walked with Rose and Scorpius while Louis and Roxanne walked ahead of us. Roxy chattered excitedly while Louis listened politely though he didn't look too enthusiastic. From what I'd heard from James, Louis didn't get too hyped up about Quidditch games unless house pride was at stake when Ravenclaw was playing. Then he was just as hyper and loud as any one of us.

We found our group of cousins sitting where the invisible line between the two team's sides was drawn. This was so we could cheer on each team equally without looking out of place on one side or the other. I saw Molly bet Victoire 10 sickles that Slytherin would beat Gryffindor, and Victoire took her on excitedly. Both were convinced that their own sister would beat the other's.

Madam Hudson asked Dom and Collin, the captains of the two teams, to shake hands. Each did their best to try to crush the other's hand. Dom smirked devilishly when Collin withdrew his hand quickly; clenching and unclenching his fist trying to regain the feeling in his fingers. She was stronger than she looked. The quaffle, two bludgers, and the snitch were released, and the 14 athletes flew to their respective positions on the pitch.

The crowd cheered as Lucy snatched the quaffle right from under James's nose. Emily shot him a dirty look as she sped after Lucy. Lucy threw the quaffle into the goal and scored the first point, much to Dom and Emily's annoyance.

Halfway through, Emily and James seemed to learn to work together. When they were arguing, Lucy could deal with them easily, but when they were working together, she was no match for both of them at the same time. I busied myself with watching the two flit around the pitch either stealing the quaffle or going for a score. I saw James preparing to throw the quaffle through one of the goal posts, and leaned forward in excitement. At least, until Austin's face appeared in front of mine.

"All right, Potter?" He asked.

I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of James as I muttered, "Fine." But it was too late. The Gryffindor side was already cheering from their latest score.

"Potter." Austin said in a demanding tone.

"What?" I asked growing frustrated. Couldn't he find someone else to bother at the moment?

"Isn't Professor Westbrook just awful?" He asked, fishing for a certain answer.

"Er. She's okay. I guess I don't have a problem with her."

"Oh, she's just terrible." Austin complained dramatically. "She gives me terrible marks on everything from essays to exams. She's out to get me, I swear."

I rolled my eyes at him when he was focused on something past the Quidditch Field.

"My dad will make me transfer back to a muggle school if I don't do well here. I don't want to go back to my old school. I was never… popular, exactly. Please Al, I need your help."

It was odd to see Austin actually begging for a change. I sighed, "Okay. How am I supposed to help?"

"You know that paper that's due Monday for Transfiguration? Well, I haven't even started it. I have no idea where to begin. Could you help me in the common room or the library tomorrow?" His eyes had become pleading to show he was sincere.

I laughed, and confusion covered his face as if laughter was the last reaction he expected from me. "I'm not going to be much help. I'm not that great at essay writing. Rose helped me with mine." Well, more like wrote half of it, I added inwardly.

Austin's face grew more confused. "Who's Rose?"

Oh, right. He doesn't know my whole bloody family. "She's my cousin; a first year like us. She's a Ravenclaw in our Tranfiguration class."

"Oh. Do you think she'd help me?" Austin asked tentatively.

Wow. He really was serious. "I think so. She's not one to turn down someone asking for help. She's right there in the silver hat, and the red scarf. Go ask her." I had to yell over the cheers of the crowd while pointing her out. Slytherin had scored a goal, and I had just missed it.

Scorpius sat on the bench next to me. Neither of us took our eyes off the match. We had to depend on our peripheral vision, even as he spoke, not wanting to miss a thing. "What was that all about?" He wore an amused expression on his face. He knew I wasn't too fond of Austin.

"He wanted help with the Transfiguration essay. He's convinced that Professor Westbrook hates him."

Scorpius laughed, knowing that Rose had helped me with mine after both he and Rose had offered to help. "Well, I know I wouldn't like him too much if I was her. So what did you tell him when he asked for help on the essay?"

"I told him to ask Rose, because I knew you wouldn't jump at the opportunity."

Scorpius tensed, but I didn't take much notice of it, figuring it was just a natural reaction to the November chill in the wind.

We both turned our attention to Rose as she sat between us. "Guys, the weirdest thing just happened to me. That Austin kid from our year, the Slytherin, just asked me to help him with his Transfiguration essay in the library.

"Guilty." I admitted with a sheepish smile. "He asked me for help, and I directed him to you."

She scowled at me, and immediately reminded me of her mother. "Well a warning would have been nice, Al. I'm not a tutoring service, you know."

"As good as." I muttered under my breath.

But before she could catch my last comment, Scorpius asked, "So what did say to Austin?"

Rose gaped at him, apparently appalled. "Yes, of course! It's not like I had other plans, Scorp." His expression remained indifferent.

I tried to ease the tension a bit and teased, "Besides, Rose was going to the library tomorrow anyway."

Scorpius grinned, while Rose yelled, "Hey!" But she smiled too because it was true. Rose was always at the library.

Lucy scored ten more points by making one last goal before Colin snatched the snitch. Slytherin had won with a score of 190 to 60. It had almost been too easy. The Gryffindor seeker had been on the other side of the pitch when Colin had ended the match. Colin smirked while Dom switch back forth from glaring at the two seekers. Victoire grudgingly gave up the 10 sickles of betting money to Molly.

Dom gave Lucy a brief hug for good-sportsmanship, but otherwise stormed off the pitch.

I crawled out of bed, weary from the party in the Common Room last night. I hadn't stayed there long, but once I had retired to the dormitories, I hadn't gotten much sleep from the noise. I made myself look presentable, both walking the corridors, and shuffling into the Great Hall with my eyes half closed.

"Good morning, sunshine." Scorpius joked, but didn't go any further in his teasing. By now, he knew I wasn't a morning person.

Everyone looked strained and soon I knew why. I noticed that every Gryffindor was turned slightly away from the Gryffindor seeker who was positioned at the edge of the group. Although instead of looking regretful, he looked irritated. "I don't see why everyone's shunning and blaming me." He protested.

"Because you blew it, Melvin! You practically gave Colin the snitch." James snapped.

"James." Dom warned trying to play the role of peacekeeper.

"What?" James demanded.

Dom stared him down. "May I remind you that you weren't so great out there yesterday either."

"I got over it halfway through! Besides, it was my first official match and I'm a second year. Melvin's a fifth year like you!"

Dom rubbed her temples as if this wasn't the first time an argument had sprung up between teammates this morning. "Well obviously we'll have to work extra hard for the Hufflepuff match, wont we?" She turned to the seeker temporarily. "Right Melvin?"

"Whatever." Melvin grumbled.

Dom gave him dark look meaning that was the wrong answer.

"Yes." Melvin corrected.

Emily took it upon herself to make sure there was always food on James's plate to prevent another outburst from him.

I stabbed a piece of sausage with my fork and chewed on half of it while I asked, "Where's Rose?"

Scorpius turned around halfway in his seat. "She's sitting with a few of her Ravenclaw friends. He glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, and that Hufflepuff, Ally, is sitting there too."

I almost choked on a sausage piece. "What? Since when are they friends?"

Scorpius raised an eyebrow at me. "I don't know, but obviously you're closer to a certain Hufflepuff than you had let on. Does someone have a little crush?"

"That's what Kyle said!" I clamped my hand over my mouth, realizing it didn't really help my case at all. Of all things, why did that have to come out of my mouth? "I mean, I don't have a crush!" I tried to salvage what I could out of this conversation. I don't think it was very successful.

"Do you want to go over there?" Scorpius asked with a gleam in his eye.

"No. Do you really want to be the only guys over there?" Scorpius looked disappointed that I hadn't stumbled over my words the second time around.

"Listen, Albus. I need to go to the library today. Are you coming?"Scorpius had lowered his voice.

"Why?" I thought we had already finished our school work for Monday.

"Some extra credit. I need to get a couple books for some research."

"Liar. You were finished long before I was last time we were at the library. You could have done it then, and you would've, if it existed." I saw Scorpius's mask falter for a moment before he regained his composure. "You're a terrible liar, Scorpius. Does this have something to do with Rose helping Austin today?"

Scorpius gave a defeated look. "I don't trust him."

"They're going to a library. What's he going to do to her? Slam her hand in a book? Give her a paper cut? Trust me, Rose can take care of herself. She certainly can hold her own against whatever torture technique James can think up." He gave me a pleading look, and I rolled my eyes. "Okay, we can go. But only for a little while, and we have to stay out of sight. Rose won't like to be spied on."

We waltzed into the library (Well, Scorpius waltzed and I tried to make sure Rose and Austin couldn't see us). Scorpius gave a flashing grin to Madam Piers the librarian, who just glared at the two of us. Scorpius usually tried to make good impressions on the teachers, but at the library he was always loud, rambunctious and liked to throw parchment about. As for me, Madam Piers hated James and therefore kept a watchful eye on me.

At first when Scorpius started pulling random books from the shelves, I thought he was just making an effort to look busy, but I realized he actually making a place to look through so he could see Rose and Austin without them seeing him, unless of course they walked up to their side of the shelf. Then they might see the pair of gray eyes peering at them.
I sighed and found a book on famous Quidditch teams and flipped through it lazily as Scorpius kept an eye on the two with a book in his own hand so as not to look blatantly suspicious.

"Can we go now? Nothing's happened for a half hour, Scorp." I complained.

"Of course not. Wait, she's getting up and walking towards a book shelf. No, she's walking toward this bookshelf. Albus! Get down!" He pushed me to the ground and we crouched there until we heard Rose's shoes walk back to the desk she and Austin were sharing.

Someone cleared their throat behind us. We looked up to see Madam Piers standing over us. Luckily, Scorpius was a quick thinker. "I love this carpet, miss." He said as he stretched his arm out to stroke it. "It's quite plush." She sighed, rolled her eyes, and walked back to her desk. I think she figured we weren't being loud or mishandling books, so she couldn't complain.

"Now that was close. Can we go now?"

Scorpius already had his face back in the spot he had cleared away. "No… Merlin! He's got his arm around her now."

I didn't believe it. "What? Let me see." Sure enough, he did, and Rose's ears were turning a brilliant shade of red to match her hair.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go play the protective cousin role and yell at him!" Scorpius whispered dangerously loud.

"No. I'm not embarrassing her." I thought for a minute. "Tell you what, if this happens again, we'll tell James and he'll chase him off for sure."

"Deal."

Thank you so much for reading. I most definitely appreciate it. Review please? I love reading what you guys think. The GOOD and the BAD.