Chapter Thirty Four

A/N: No reviewers.

The next few months, surprisingly, laid few obstacles in their way. Lily and Scorpius got on with their lives at Hogwarts, writing essays and playing Quidditch as they always had done, and not having to worry about who saw them together on Hogsmeade weekends. Of course, they had separate lives as well- Albus and Caitlyn made sure that they were never forgotten, wrangling their best friends into their respective common rooms as often as they could- but they all formed part of a wonderful whole that the two had never imagined would actually come true.

Lily felt a strange sense of relief when exam season rolled around, the memories of long nights of study still fresh in her mind from the previous year, when she had done all she could to distract herself from an attraction she was growing less and less capable of fighting. Of course, she still had exams to endure, as did every year, but they did not carry the awful weight of the qualifications making each slight move a life or death decision; that joy would await her next year.

N.E.W.T. levels, it seemed, were a different world altogether.

Scorpius had never been one for endless study, preferring to meet his brick wall and accept defeat, but in the weeks leading up to the exams, he might as well have taken up residence in the library. Every afternoon, as soon as his lessons had finished, he would gather a stack of books and a satchel stuffed with parchment and a quill, sit down at a desk and begin to take notes, over and over again; by the time he was done for the day, it would be only a few minutes until curfew. Lily had tried to sit with him, quiz him on little details or help him draw diagrams, but most of the time, he acted as if he did not know she was there. In the end, she simply stopped trying.

"I don't blame him for being worried." Albus reasoned. He had taken a more laid-back approach to revision, much to everyone's surprise, and was currently sat out on the grass outside the greenhouses, flicking half-heartedly through a potions handbook. "Have you seen the family he comes from? His father's high up in the Ministry, his grandfather is Lucius Malfoy. Do you need any more proof than that? He has to do well, there's no other option for him."

"There's not much of an option for anyone, Al." Lily reasoned. "Any of the jobs worth having need good N.E.W.T. grades. He'd need them to be a professor at Hogwarts, let alone head the Ministry."

"It's not about that." Albus sighed, slowly turning the page. Lily got the impression his intense focus on the handbook was more about avoiding her eyes than it was preparing for his exam. "His family… it's not like ours. They love him, yes, but they have expectations they need him to fulfil. Our mum and dad, they'd love us no matter what we did, so long as we were happy. Scorpius is the only heir of one of the greatest Pureblood families in the world. If he doesn't get amazing N.E.W.T. results, it'll bring shame on the family."

"And they still care?!" Lily asked, incredulous. "After everything that happened with the Dark Lord, their reputation isn't exactly at its best! I don't think a few duff grades would make any difference."

"But they do, and so he does too." Albus sighed, looking up from the page. He looked tired, and something told his sister the weary expression had nothing to do with his upcoming exams. Perhaps she was not the first person to try and raise this point about Scorpius. But a best friend and a girlfriend were very different things. Maybe there was a chance…

Albus did not have a chance to stop her, because by the time he looked up, she was halfway across the lawn and out of earshot of his desperate calls telling her this was a bad idea.

She found Scorpius where he always was, at the same desk in the same row right at the back of the library. He was scribbling copious notes from a dusty old tome that could not possibly have been part of the syllabus, as it looked as if it had not been opened in decades. Lily could not help but let out a sigh of frustration; so much for treading softly.

Scorpius spun round to find the source of the noise, his eyes filled with a frustration of their own, and when he saw it was Lily who had interrupted him, that anger did not seem to dim.

"Lily, I'm busy." he explained curtly, turning his attentions back to his page. But she would not allow him to get away with that, and so the girl stepped forward and snatched the quill out of his hand, leaving a long black trail of ink halfway down the parchment. Scorpius whipped back round, his eyes now blazing with fury. "Lily!"

"Scorpius!" she responded, in just the same angry tone. "I'm not going to let you carry on destroying yourself for the sake of a few grades! It's not worth it!"

"Not to you, maybe!" Scorpius shot back, his comment a little more personal than Lily would have liked. Of course, she had worked extremely hard for her exams, and that hard work had paid off, but she had hardly received a string of Outstanding grades, the way Albus, and Scorpius, had. "You don't get to decide what's important to me, Lily. You're my girlfriend, you don't own me!"

"No, but I love you." That phrase stopped him in his tracks. Lily had always been able to express love so casually, the word it had been done to her when she was young. She knew the weight of the words, but nothing held her back in saying them. Scorpius, on the other hand, preferred to show his love with actions, the way he had been raised to do; he did not think he had ever heard even his grandmother profess her love for her husband, and they had been happily married over fifty years. "Scorpius, I'm trying to help you. I'm not asking you to stop studying completely, I wouldn't do that. All I'm asking is that you let me help you."

With a sigh that was equal parts defeat and- though he would not admit it- relief, Scorpius picked up the ruined parchment and tossed it to one side, retrieving another piece from the pile stacked beside the books, covered in row after row of sprawling black handwriting. He offered the sheet to Lily, pointing to a list of charms that were almost impossible to pronounce. "Can you test me on them?"

Lily looked up at him, uncertain, but a smirk was already pulling at the corners of his mouth. She cleared her throat and began to read. "Okay. What is the purpose of the Tur… Turen… Turanti… alright, for a start, how do you say this word?"

They did not get much revision done in the end, too busy dissolving into fits of giggles each time Lily could not pronounce one of the complicated spell names, but it did not do any harm in the end. In fact, it was the best evening Scorpius had had in weeks.

A/N: Little bit of cutesy at the end! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review!