After parting ways with Scorpius a couple hours later, Rose headed back to the Gryffindor Common Room, feeling in sufficiently high spirits to handle even the cold shoulder from Albus. Once Rose had climbed through the portrait hole, she made a beeline toward the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories to retrieve some homework - or, possibly, take a nap. All thoughts of doing either, however, immediately flew out of her mind when she found someone blocking her way.

She looked up, and Albus gave her a slightly sheepish smile. "Can we talk?" he asked.

"Sure," she said quickly. Schoolwork and sleep were both nothing compared to a fight with Albus, and since he didn't look like he was about to yell at her, the odds were good that he wanted to make up.

He glanced around the crowded common room. By that time, it was mid-afternoon, so while the Common Room wasn't quite as full as it would be that evening, there wasn't going to be much privacy or quiet to be found there. "Let's go upstairs," he suggested. She shrugged her assent and followed him up the other set of stairs.

When they entered the fifth year boys' dormitory, she was struck for what must have been the twentieth time by how much messier it was than her room. Granted, there were more boys in their year than there were girls, which certainly contributed, but even so, it seemed like half of the fifth year Gryffindor boys were completely incapable of picking up after themselves.

Albus, thankfully, was not one of them. She stepped out of her shoes and flopped onto his bed. He hovered by the door. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "I know I've been a pain lately."

He had been, but Rose didn't want to press her luck. "It's okay," she said. "You just don't want to share your favorite cousin. I get it."

He snorted, and some of the tension left the room. He joined her and seated himself cross-legged on his bed. "You caught me. I'm really a very jealous person."

She nudged him with her foot. "You don't sound very serious," she commented lightly. "Maybe it's Scorpius you don't want to share." Albus let out a bark of laughter, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh, Al! Is there something going on between the two of you? I wouldn't want to get in the way!"

"So it's 'Scorpius,' now?" he asked, and Rose felt her face get a little hotter. "Yes, you caught me. I'm madly in love with Scorpius, though I am starting to think that his snogging you all over the place might be starting to strain the relationship."

If Albus was willing to joke, he must be in good spirits – which would hopefully included forgiving her. "It could," she agreed seriously. "How do you know he's been snogging me nonstop?"

"Well, you sort of owned up to it the other night, and Roxanne told me about - er - bumping into the two of you in that passage. And - ugh. I felt bad today after breakfast, and when I couldn't find you, I figured you might have gone down to the lake for some fresh air."

She bolted upright. "Oh my god, Al, tell me you didn't."

He made a face. "No, I did, unfortunately. I got about twenty feet away before I realized that you were in my best friend's lap kissing him and that he had his hand up your shirt."

"I didn't see you."

"Neither did he. You both looked pretty occupied, and I didn't stick around."

Rose buried her face, which had all of a sudden gotten very hot, in her hands. "Oh my god. I - oh, hell."

"Oh, calm down," her cousin said. "I mean, it was pretty gross and scarring, but I still want to talk to you, don't I?"

She let herself fall backward onto the bed again. "Still. Sorry. So - does that mean you're not going to chew me out for… whatever I'm doing with him?"

Albus ran a hand over the back of his head. "Look, Rose, I'm not interested in dictating your love life. I just want to know—do you honestly like him?" She must have looked as offended as she felt, because he added, "I'm sorry, but this is really coming out of nowhere for me. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm dumber than I am, because I wasn't really surprised that he was interested in you - I wasn't even shocked by his antics this summer - but I didn't see it coming from you."

"You weren't shocked?" she asked, hoping that he would elaborate.

To her surprise, he did. "No." He glanced out the window at the darkening sky before looking back at her. "It actually explained a lot, once I stopped to think about it."

"Like what?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you seriously trying to get information out of me while I'm trying to apologize to you?"

"I'm curious."

Albus studied her for a minute before wrinkling his nose. "Oh, fine. He deserves it for lying to me about it, anyway. You lied for a week. I'm pretty sure he's been lying for at least eight months."

Rose could have hugged him. The only reason she restrained herself was that she was slightly concerned that if she did so, he would rethink it.

After a moment's hesitation, he grinned. "Like what?" She nodded eagerly. "Oh, god. He was tense around Damien the entire time the two of you were going out."

"He was?" That was news to Rose. Damien and Scorpius had always gotten on very well.

Albus snorted. "Yeah. He put it off to being disgusted with Damien's taste in girls, but that always seemed a little strange to me."

"What else?" Rose asked eagerly, and Albus bit his lip as he thought.

"I probably shouldn't…" After another moment of thought, he shrugged. He was clearly still more than a little irritated with Scorpius, whose analysis of who was more likely to be the target for Albus's ire seemed to be correct. "Well, over the summer—but you heard that, didn't you?"

She nodded, glancing down at the bedspread so she didn't have to see his 'I'm very disappointed in you' face. It was almost as bad as her mother's.

To her surprise, Albus said, "Well, I understated it a bit to him. He was really shameless. I was surprised you didn't notice it. Of course, if you had, I probably would have had to punch him. As it was, I came close a couple times."

"Why?"

"He'd spend twenty minutes missing every other word I said because he was staring at your - let's spare my sanity and say your legs and your face - and then he'd excuse himself because he needed to shower, because isn't this such a terrible summer, Al?"

"He didn't."

"Oh, he did. By the time he left, I was pretty pissed off at him."

"It didn't show when we got on the train."

"Yeah, well, by then I'd cooled down a little. I really can't believe you didn't notice."

"I told you already, I tried to ignore him, mostly."

Albus opened his mouth, but before he said anything, they heard his brother's voice on the stairs. They both looked toward the open door and saw James leading Marion up toward the sixth year boy's dormitory.

Rose and Albus exchanged a gleeful look, and then Albus called out, "Hey, James. What are you doing?"

James jumped and stuck his head into the room. "Oh," he said. "It's both of you."

"Made up, then?" Rose asked, much more loudly than she'd really needed to. Behind James, she could see Marion put a hand over her face. "Good. Maybe now you'll stop whining."

"For what it's worth, I think you guys make a great couple," Albus added.

James raised his eyebrows at them. "Are you done?" he asked coolly. The red tinge that had appeared on his cheeks, however, belied his calm tone.

Albus and Rose glanced at each other, and then nodded at him. "Have fun," Rose said, winking at them.

"I'm going to kill you both," James said before disappearing from the doorway. "Just watch," they heard his voice echo down the stairs. Then the door above them slammed shut.

Rose and Albus immediately broke out into giggles.

"We're terrible people," Albus pointed out. "You know that, right?"

The idea didn't bother Rose very much. "So we're good?" she asked hopefully. "You're not mad at me anymore?"

The smile slid off his face, and she sighed. She should have known that he wouldn't let it go that quickly.

"You really like him?" Albus asked for the second time, studying her face. "Because even though I'm still pretty pissed off at him, he's still my best friend, and I'd rather you not mess with his heart if you don't actually like him."

Rose looked up at the ceiling and groaned. This was already strange enough for her. Having to justify it to Albus was just awkward, though she couldn't blame him for being so incredulous. "Yes, Albus, I really like him. If you say 'I told you so,' I'm going to turn you into a flobberworm."

Albus laughed. "I'm not going to say, 'I told you so.' Don't worry." He paused. "Does James know?" From his tone, he was clearly expecting a yes. She nodded, and her cousin blew out a breath. "Of course he does. What did he say?"

"I dunno." It was hard for Rose to force herself to keep her eyes on her cousin, but she managed it. "He was supportive, I guess."

Albus flinched a little at that. "You could have talked to me about it, you know."

"No, I couldn't have. He's your best friend."

He broke the eye contact then and started to study the bedspread. "Yeah, well, so are you, and I don't like you not being able to talk to me about things."

Rose felt her heart go out to him. "I just didn't want to make you feel awkward," she said, sitting up and edging over to put her arm around his shoulder. "That's all." His face still looked distinctly unhappy, and she sighed. "Look, it could be that all of this falls apart and nothing comes of it."

"I don't think it's going to fall apart unless you decide you don't like him, Rosie. He's had a weird thing about you for a long time - I think probably longer than he even knows."

Rose felt her entire body get warm. "Oh?" she asked casually.

Her cousin knew her too well for that. "Yes, and you know it. We just talked about it, and I'd bet galleons that you've talked to him about it, too. Rose, just… I'm not saying you should feel bad if you decide you don't like him after all, but don't play too many games with him?"

"I won't. I'm not." She frowned at him. "So why have you been an arse lately? You're just annoyed at us?"

He thought about it for a minute. "Well, yes. I hate being lied to, and this was - well, a big one. I'm still really annoyed at him - I keep going back to conversations we've had about girls that I thought were pretty theoretical that I'm now realizing were not. Some were about stupid things like hair or eyes, but some were a little more - I mean, look, if you're going to talk to me about my cousin like that, at least let me know!"

Rose patted his back. "I'll always let you know," she said helpfully.

Albus snorted. "Yeah, you probably will. You don't have the filter or self-control that he does, which I'm starting to think might be a good thing." He hesitated. "I don't know. I also just don't want to feel so cut off from my best friends, you know?"

"Oh, Al." Rose sighed. "I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking about that."

He shook his head. "Rosie, it's fine, really. I'll be supportive - I mean, hey, at least you're sort of getting along now. Just… try to be nice to him."

"I will," she promised.

And she meant it.

Mostly.

A/N: If you have the chance to leave a review, I'd love to know what you think. Either way, I really hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thank you so much for reading!

- Branwen