"I hear you broke into the Slytherin Common Room."

Rose jumped and turned her face to look up at her cousin. "Of course I didn't. Don't be ridiculous." She busied herself in her work. It was a beautiful day, one of the first since winter, and most students, like her, were out enjoying the weather by studying in the courtyard in front of the lake. "Where did you hear such a thing?"

"Amanda," said Albus Potter.

Rose paused in her writing and looked up at him again. "What did she say to you?"

The whole school was buzzing about this mysterious student who had shown up in the Slytherin Common Room and then had quickly disappeared. There didn't appear to be any leads into who it could have been, though the Slytherins swore it wasn't a member from their house. Several had reported that Scorpius Malfoy had escorted the student from the room. But Malfoy's official report was that the student had ran ahead of him, apparently realizing he was a Prefect, and had escaped his sight after leaving the room.

"She came to me very distressed," Al explained. "She said she was afraid you had done something stupid and that you could be in trouble. I couldn't begin to image what she was talking about. She explained that you had gotten ill after dinner and that after she had escorted the Gryffindors back to the Common Room she went to check on you and make sure you were all right. When she couldn't find you, she preceded to check the bathroom on another floor. And then she thought maybe you had gone to the Hospital Wing."

Rose winced and hoped Al hadn't noticed. She had run into Amanda on her way back to the Gryffindor Common Room. Amanda had told Rose she'd been looking for her, but she hadn't specified she had checked for her in the Hospital Wing.

"When she found you on the way back to the Gryffindor Common Room," Al continued. "You told her you'd gone to the Hospital Wing, but we already established you weren't there." Al leaned down toward her. "Now are you going to tell me what happened, or are you going to make this Ravenclaw reason it out of you?"

"Don't even play the Ravenclaw card," said Rose, turning back to her notes. She didn't want to discuss it.

"How about the Intellectual Cousin card? Or the Official Family Mediator card?"

"Nope. Not even those."

They were silent for a few moments, and Rose actually started hoping he might leave her be.

"What are you doing, Rosie?"

"I'm doing my Transfiguration homework."

"You know what I mean."

She looked up at him again and saw genuine concern across his face. He was worried about her. As was Amanda.

Rose sighed. "It's just a stupid contest," she told him.

"What is?"

"Scorpius and I," she explained. "About who's better."

Al sighed. "Rose-"

"I said, it was stupid all right?" She turned away from him. "It started as just a simple conversation, and then it turned into a dare, and I wasn't thinking."

"I'll say you weren't. Did you think of what could have happened? Of the kind of trouble you could have gotten into?"

"Top of the class, remember?" she said, pointing herself. "Of course, I thought of the consequences! Do you want to know the number of hours I spent running them through my head?" She picked up her quill. "There's no rule that students can't be invited into the Common Rooms of other Houses, I looked it up."

"Do I need to point out to you that you weren't 'invited'?"

"No, Al. You don't."

Silence again. Rose couldn't concentrate on her notes, so she looked up at him.

"Why did you do it, Rosie?

She dreaded he would ask that question. She had been asking herself for the past two weeks why she was so determined to go along with it. And she still didn't have answer. "I don't know."

"Oh, come on, Rose."

"I don't know, all right!" she started gathering up her things. She wasn't getting any work done this way. "I wanted to show him."

"Show him what? That you were better than him?"

"No."

"Then what?"

She was on her feet now, her gaze level with her cousin's. "I just wanted to show him." She didn't understand it any further than that, and she didn't want Al to press her into trying to understand it.

Al grabbed her arm as she tried to leave. "I don't care who you hang out with, Rosie. You could befriend the whole of Slytherin House for all I care. I just don't want to see you get hurt."

She appreciated that. "What did you tell Mandy?"

"That she was overreacting and you would never do such a thing."

"And she believed you?"

"Of course."

"Thank you." She walked away.

"Don't expect me to cover for you next time!" Al shouted after her.

Scorpius stood chatting with his friends by the large oak tree beside the lake. Classes were done for the day and it was too beautiful outside to begin studying. Thomas was the only one of the group sitting at the ground and scribbling away on some parchment after receiving a requested 24 hour extension on his Transfiguration essay.

"Come on, Thomas. Take a break."

"Can't," he said, scribbling madly. "Have to finish."

"Didn't I help you with that last night?" asked Scorpius.

"Yes, but if you remember, we threw out all of my stuff and added all of yours, so now it sounds like you wrote it instead of me, and I got docked points the last few times I turned it in like that."

Scorpius leaned over him. "You do realize your O.W.L. scores are technically more important than your class scores? And I don't see you scrambling to study those."

"Well, then, this is good practice," Thomas insisted, but his quill slowed. "I mean, it's not like I'm wasting my time here. I just . . ." He sighed and put down his quill and parchment. "I hate you."

Scorpius chuckled. "You have plenty of time to finish it tonight. Just enjoy the weather for a bit." As he gave Thomas a slap on the shoulder, he noticed someone was staring at him.

It was boy with dark hair and glasses. Scorpius recognized him as a Ravenclaw. The boy was standing five feet from him and staring intently at him, waiting.

Scorpius didn't understand what was going on, but he left his friends and walked up to the boy, "Al Potter, right?"

The boy nodded. "Rose's cousin."

"Ah."

Al held out his hand. "I don't believe we have been properly introduced."

Scorpius shook it. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I want to know what your intentions are regarding my cousin."

"Excuse me?"

"Rose Weasley. What are your intentions?"

Scorpius had understood the question the first time and hadn't needed it rephrased. "I don't understand what you are referring-"

Al leaned closer to him so he could whisper, "breaking into the Slytherin Common Room."

Scorpius looked back at his friends. Then he quickly escorted Al further away from them. "She told you?" he asked once he was sure no one could overhear them.

Al shrugged one shoulder. "I got it out of her."

"Does anyone else know?"

Al shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Scorpius didn't know much about Al Potter or about his relationship with Rose beyond the biological. But he felt like he was being confronted by an angry protective older brother. "I promise," said Scorpius. "I was not trying to get her into trouble."

"What were you trying to do?" Al insisted.

Scorpius didn't have an answer. "It was just a stupid contest."

"That's what she told me, but apparently not only did both of you decide to go along with it, but also neither of you considered the potential consequences of this 'stupid contest.'"

Scorpius took a step closer to Al. "If anything happens, I will not let her take the blame for this alone. If I can, I will take full responsibility so she doesn't suffer for it.

Al's eyebrows raised. "You'd do that?"

"She's a . . . friend," said Scorpius. "I imagine I care about her as much as you do."

Al nodded in thought. "I hope that's true because I will hold you to it. If something happens and you don't come forward . . ." It was Al's turn to take a step toward Scorpius. "I assure you that as a Ravenclaw I know the best places to hide a body."

Then he turned and walked away, leaving Scorpius to wonder just how serious he was.