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Chapter 3

"Come on, Scorpius, we're supposed to be patrolling," Rose said, making a slight move to disentangle herself from Scorpius' embrace.

He did not let her go. "I think I can offer you a nicer way to spend your time," he said. "Interested?"

"Like what?" she teased.

"Like this."

She might be the first girl he had ever kissed in his life, but he was a quick learner, all their teachers said so. When he let her breathe again, Rose was looking at him with blear eyes, a happy smile on her lips. "Isn't it more interesting?" Scorpius asked innocently.

"Far more interesting, Scorpius, far more interesting," Rose giggled, "but it not exactly a part of our duties. Let me go now. I mean it."

He sighed and finally released her.

"Oh, don't pout. Be nice, Scorpius, and you'll have a nice kiss for – "

Her voice faded – she saw her cousin.

Lily's face had become as pale as a ghost's and her eyes were widened and darkened with pain. Scorpius noticed the horror in Rose's face and turned around. For a moment no one moved, because they were all afraid what would happen, if they did.

Scorpius went to Lily and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Lily – "

His voice was very gentle. The sympathy in his eyes dragged her away from her numbness. She pushed his hand aside and turned to the staircase.

"Lily, wait!" Rose cried, when her cousin rushed past her.

Lily turned around and Rose froze where she stood. Lily's face had colour again – deep, bright red.

"Lily – "

"Liar and traitor!" Lily raised her hand and since Rose had not expected the strike, she staggered and fell on the floor. "Slut!"

"Enough!" Scorpius cut in and seized her shoulders. "You have no right to hit her and you can't talk to her like this!"

"Never mind," Rose said from the floor and raised herself on her knees – she was not sure she could stand on her feet right now.

"Oh, but I do mind. Be angry with me as much as you like," Scorpius turned to face Lily. "I wish I could explain how much I'm sorry, if I hurt you in any way. But what happened here is between Rose and I. It is none of your concern. Besides, Rose is not the one to blame. Be angry with me, if you want to –"

"I want to." Lily's eyes were flashing dangerously with anger and maybe with tears. She stepped aside. "You didn't need to make a fool of me. You knew I had feelings for you. Merlin, you knew and you still – With her, of all people. She knew, she knew, and yet – I hate you! I hate both of you!"

She rushed past him and ran up the stairs.

"Dear Merlin!" Scorpius helped Rose stand up and then ran his fingers gently across her reddened cheek. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry. She didn't mean it – none of it."

"She does. She truly believes what she said," Rose whispered. "Every word of it. I have to find her."

"I'll come with you."

"No." She pulled back. "I have to do it alone. She shouldn't see us together, not now. That'll only make her angrier – and more hurt. Oh, Merlin, I thought I was doing what was best for her and look what happened!" She sighed shakily and pressed her fingers against her pulsing head. "What was I thinking!"

"You were thinking about me. And I was thinking about you. We have the right to think about each other. It's not as if I cheated on her or something."

Rose knew that he was right, but this thought did little to comfort her. "I have to go," she said.

"I have to mend things with her."

"And what should I do?"

"Went to your patrol duties," the girl answered, "and do them more seriously than ever, because I probably won't be able to do mine this night."

She ran after her cousin and found her in the common room, headed for the girls' dormitories.

"Lily, wait!" Rose caught up with her in front of the stairs. "Wait. Let me explain."

"Explain what? That you and Scorpius are together? I already know this, thank you very much. Just out of curiosity, when exactly did you plan on telling me?"

"Soon," Rose whispered.

"Soon, how soon? Next week? Next year? Next life?"

"I thought I could do it in a way that would be best for you –"

"Best for me?! You thought that snogging the boy that I fancy behind my back would be best for me?! Oh, that's rich."

"No, Lily, you're wrong. It wasn't like that."

But Lily was hardly listening to her cousin's words. "The two of you must have had a good laugh at my expense."

"No, never, I never thought – "

"You never thought of me, you mean?" Lily turned to her cousin and started yelling in a loud voice. "Great, just great! You're going like a slut to snog the boy that you know I fancy and you don't even think of me!"

Rose's eyes flashed, but Lily missed the warning there.

"You called me a slut once and I let you go away with it. You pushed me and I fell. I let you go away with that too. I won't let you insult me anymore, Lily, and if you lay as finger on me, I promise you that you won't like my answer."

"Go to hell."

Lily pushed her and turned aside to go upstairs.

The next moment she was breathless and immobile, because Rose had attacked her from behind.

"If you prefer to settle it this way, I don't mind."

She grabbed Lily's hair in her fist and pulled it hard. Lily howled and hit her in the face. Without releasing her cousin's hair, Rose bit her palm. "Apologize!"

"Like hell I will!"

Lily stepped on her cousin's foot and Rose yelled, when she lost her balance. Despite that, she still managed to drag Lily along with her and the two of them fell on the floor in a tangle of flailing arms and legs.

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James Potter was always a light sleeper, so he awoke as soon as the noise reached his dormitory. He stayed in bed for a moment, trying to decide what had interfered with his nice dream of Quidditch and Nancy Emerson. Then, he heard the voices and the thuds that accompanied them, but he could not quite believe his ears. It was not that the girls in their crowded Potter-Weasley clan did not beat each other with fists, because they did. Rules were different with girls, though: boys could whop each other and hex each other whenever they wanted. They would give each other green hair and bleeding lips without even thinking and receive the joyful retaliation in the form of smelling curses or hexed off pants – nothing was never too cruel for those boys, and the thought that someone might be watching them was the last thing to cross their mind. Girls, on the other hand, were different: at Hogwarts, they always kept the façade of being above such primitive things like physical fights, and that was why James was now wondering whether he had really heard his sister and his cousin fighting, or his nice dream had suddenly turned into a nightmare.

No, it was very real: his dorm mates started stirring; they would wake up any minute now. James left the dormitory as quietly as possible.

He found his way, guided by the female screams. Some of the other Gryffindors were already standing in the common room, but they obviously had no intention to intervene in something that, according to them, was just sheer fun.

Rose had Lily pinned in the floor and was continuously rubbing her face against the floor, evading – not always – Lily's fists and repeating, "Apologize!"

"What the hell are you doing?" James exclaimed. "Leave her alone immediately, Rose!"

"Fine, as soon as she apologizes for calling me a slut twice in less than five minutes!"

"Slut!" Lily was almost crying with pain and anger, but she still managed to yell it. "Now, it's become thrice!"

"Did you hear?" Rose roared. "Did you hear her, James? Take that back, you little mollycoddle – "

"Arggg!"

They rolled on the floor in a mess of tangled legs ad arms. Without the slightest hesitation, James grabbed what parts of them he could reach and tried to separate them, but they tripped him up and he fell on top of them, too. Fortunately, the noise had attracted the attention of other Weasleys, too: Hugo and Molly started pulling their cousins from behind, while Albus and Lucien finally managed to part them. James hurriedly stood between the two girls.

"In my dormitory, now," he ordered.

Lily gritted her teeth at him. "Who made you the boss here?"

"In my dormitory," he repeated, pointing his wand at her. "You can either come by yourself, or be Levitated there. The choice is yours and the same applies to you too, Rose," he added, turning to his cousin, who had just opened her mouth.

The others followed him upstairs, passing right past their giggling and grinning classmates and taking care to leave at least two people between Lily and Rose.

James' dorm mates were all awake by now – all but one. "Outside," James told them shortly; having experience with the Potter-Weasley meetings, the boys immediately decided that they certainly did not need to be here for another one. While the others were pushing Lily onto James' bed and Rose – onto another one, Albus went to Fred Weasley's bed and shook him awake. "Fred, wake up!"

"Go away, Al," Fred muttered.

Al reached for his cousin's blanket and pulled it aside. "My blanket!" Fred cried and opened his eyes.

"Lily and Rose had a fight in the common room and we have to settle this," Al told him.

"Al, if you think that you can come in and wake me each time when – What did you just say?"

"You heard me. Lily and Rose had a fight. With fists. The whole Gryffindor tower probably heard them. We'll lose at least twenty points for this little event. How you could sleep through all of this is beyond me."

Fred stood up and slipped his robe on, then went to join the conversation. "Dear Merlin!" he exclaimed, looking at Rose's cheek. "She gave you a good one, Rosie."

"She won't have another chance," Rose growled.

"What happened?" Molly's voice somehow lessened the tension. She was a fifth year – younger than more of her cousins who were in the same room now – but she always had a calming effect on people. Her father, Charley, was quite good at that, too. "Why, all of a sudden – "

"It's a private problem between Lily and me."

"When one of you calls the other ugly names and you two fight like stray cats, it's not private," Albus stated calmly. "I thought you had Patrol duties this night, Rose."

"Oh, she had more interesting things to do with her time," Lily hissed angrily. "But she's right, that's between the two of us."

"Not quite," Hugo corrected her. "Like it or not, it's between all Gryffindors who heard you and saw you fighting, and the others, who would like to know why we lost – how many?"

"Fifty points," Lucien Weasley, a fifth-year, answered, "I heard Professor Longbottom mentioning it, while I was climbing up."

'Why we lost fifty points. And it certainly is a concern of Scorpius Malfoy." Both Rose and Lily gave him sharp looks, and he shrugged. "You were screaming his name, while you were trying to kill each other," he said. "And I wasn't the only one who heard. Tomorrow morning the whole school will know about that."

"Malfoy?" James asked disbelievingly. "You two fought because of Malfoy?"

"No, we fought, because Rose is a liar and a slut!"

"Watch your mouth, Lily!" Molly said sharply. "It's bad enough as it is. We're done with insults for this evening."

"Let her deny it!"

"Lily – " Rose started.

'Let her deny that she was snogging Scorpius, when she knew that I fancied him."

"You found the right words, Lily: you fancy him. He doesn't fancy you. He never did."

"Because he fancies you, you mean?"

Rose shrugged. "I tried to tell you," she said. "I told you again and again that he doesn't like you, but you just refused to accept it."

"And instead of telling me, you chose to snog him behind my back!"

"I didn't want to hurt you, I tried to –"

"To make fun of me?"

'No!" Rose exploded. "We both tried to make you understand that he isn't interested in you, but you just can't accept a refusal, that's it!"

"So it's my fault? How dare you!"

"You can't accept the idea that there is a guy who doesn't like you! Well, Lily, you'll have to go and find someone else, because this one is mine!"

Silence. Slowly, Hugo went to his sister and placed a hand on her back. "Rose," he said, "are you serious? You and Malfoy –"

She sullenly nodded. That was too much for Lily, who stormed out of the room. Hugo stroked Rose's cheek, careful not to irritate the bruised skin, and hurried after Lily.

Rose angrily wiped her tears and started talking. The others listened silently, not once interrupting her.

"I'll never know why you didn't tell her in the very beginning, Rose," Molly finally said. "Very stupid of you."

"I know," Rose sniffed, "but I just wanted to protect her. I didn't want to make her suffer and look what happened!"

"Calm down, little cousin," Fred said darkly, "what is done is done and committing a suicide won't help. Go to your dormitory and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day."

Not taking his eyes off her, he held out a hand and James placed ten sickles in it.

"What was that for?" Rose asked suspiciously.

"Nothing of your concern, cousin," James said quickly, "just a little bet that we did a long time ago – "

Silence.

"James Potter, you bet on me and Scorpius?"

"Err, no."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't lie to me."

"Well, maybe I did. I mean, it was obvious, Rose."

She smiled a little through her tears. "Maybe not so obvious, given the fact that Fred thought the opposite."

"Nay," Fred dismissed her doubts, "I just thought that you'll need more time to figure it out, like the seventh year or something." He sighed. "I kind of hoped we were all wrong, though. Come on, Molly, take her to her room and make sure that she's in bed, snoring."

The two girls left and the guys looked at each other. No one said anything for a very long time. "What are we going to do now?" Al finally asked.

"Well, it's easy," James said. "There is Malfoy – there is a problem. No Malfoy – no problem.'

Al gave his brother a firm glance. "Don't even think of that, James. You won't curse Scorpius. You won't beat him, either, and neither will you," he added, looking at Fred.

"Just a little, Al," James tried to persuade him. "He'll live through it."

'No, there won't be any fight," Albus insisted. "We are in enough trouble as it is. Rose and Lily won't speak to each other and you can't wait of the others to be exactly quiet of what they saw and heard. Until tomorrow afternoon, the family of each and every student here will know in details what happened."

"You mean we'll have to write the family about this before they hear about it from someone else?" Lucien Weasley's deep voice usually contained some of the soft notes of his French mother, but not this time – it came out brisk and worried.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I meant," Al confirmed, and looked around. "Where the hell is Hugo?"

"In detention," Molly said, entering the dormitory. "She's sleeping," she added, noticing her cousins' questioning glances. "I checked on Lily, before coming here, and she's sleeping too. Hugo succeeded in landing himself in detention with Filch – picked his cat by its tail, or so your friends told me, James – and he immediately made him clean the halls or something like that."

"This little cheater!" James exclaimed. "That means that we'll have to be the ones writing to his parents."

"Well," Molly said calmly, "what are we going to do now?"

"Finding quills and parchment," James answered angrily. "I'll write to Mum and Dad and, Al, you can write to Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione."

"Me?" Al groaned. "Why me?"

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A. N. So, what do you think? I loved writing this chapter. Did you like reading it?

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