Three hours later the team was still huddled together, but they had returned to the common room. Rose had her potions book out, pretending to be doing her homework. Lily was asleep in James' lap. He was talking quietly to Fred about changes he wanted to make at practices. Malcolm had annoyed Jenn by turning her hair green and they were frantically trying to figure out how to fix it. Rose looked around and saw Albus cracking up in the corner with his wand out. Everytime Malcolm tried t fix Jenn's hair, Albus would silently re-charm it green. Rose giggled at her cousin and then checked the time.

"Hey guys, I'm gonna go check on Hugo." Her team all nodded, and told her to say hi for them.

She rushed over to the hospital wing and was happy to see Hugo awake and sitting up. "Hey Hugo, how are you feeling?"

"Alright I guess. But we lost. And it was my fault." He said dejectedly.

"No it wasn't. Slytherin are jerks. And I should've caught the snitch faster. You did great." Rosse argued.

"Thanks Rose. Well, we'll beat Ravenclaw for sure!" He said with a small grin.

"Yeah we will!" It always amazed Rose at how quickly Hugo could switch from depressed to excited. Ms. Abbott came over to them.

"Dear, what's wrong with your wrist?"

Rose was confused, then remembered her swollen wrist. Her conversation with Scorpius earlier had driven it out of her mind. "Um, I fell on it during the match."

"Slight sprain," She waved her wand and the swelling went down. She summoned a potion out of her cabinet, "drink this and don't move your wrist for twenty minutes. Visiting hours are over, but you can stay the twenty minutes it'll take for your wrist to heal."

"Thank you Ms. Abbott." Rose said, after downing the potion. Tingles immediately spread from her wrist through her hand and up to her elbow. She resisted the urge to scratch by turning back to her little brother. "So you'll be ready to get back on your broom at practice on Tuesday?"

"Yea, I'm not nervous. But I also wont have giant Slytherins hitting bludgers at me so…"

"That's true." She sat on the end of his bed.

"You okay sis?" Hugo asked, noticing her distress.

"Yea, I'm okay. I'm just tired from the game. And aggravated at Slytherin." Really just one particular Slytherin.

Hugo just nodded and went back to looking through his get well gifts. Rose's thoughts drifted back towards that one Slytherin. She had noticed the change not only in his expression and voice earlier, but in his whole demeanor. His cocky arrogance had vanished, the sparkle in his eye wan't challenging, but caring. This was a new side to him that she never expected to see. Even before he started challenging her, he wasn't good. He was quiet and alone, never seeming to care about anything. But today he had stopped his games for long enough to find out if a Gryffindor, a Weasley at that, would be okay. Rose couldn't see how that fit into his personality.

After twenty minutes she said goodbye to Hugo and headed back to the common room. She stopped outside the portrait of the fat lady, and changed her mind. She wanted to be alone for a while, so she headed up to the owlery to look at the stars.

Scorpius found himself sitting between two girls, a Slytherin 5th year and a Ravenclaw 6th had only sat down to get rid of Poppy Parkinson, but now he wasn't sure if she was so bad. These two kept running their hands over his chest and kissing his neck. He didn't even know their names. The Ravenclaw girl was attractive, but he had no real desire to be with either of them. Nott had advised him to just relax and enjoy the attention. So he tried. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

He found himself thinking about her. Would he mind it so much if it were her hands slowly unbuttoning his shirt, or if it were her lips being pressed against his so lightly.

"No!" he said while jumping up. The two girls looked hurt and scurried off to go make out with someone else. Scorpius feelt bad, he didn't mean to startle them, he was just trying to get her out of his head. Rose Weasley. WEASLEY! A Gryffindor. A half-blood. Even with the prejudices of the Dark Lord in the past, he still knew he was expected to keep the Malfoy line pure. A bottle of Firewhiskey appeared in his hand. He looked up to see the Zabini girl looking at him.

"It looked like you could use some," she said kindly. He smiled at her and downed a huge swig. She slowly swayed over to her Ravenclaw boyfriend leaving Scorpius alone with his thoughts. The firewhiskey had done the trick. He wasn't a big drinker, but he had had enough that night that he couldn't see straight.

He wasn't sure exactly what he wanted, but he knew he didn't want to be at this party anymore. Without a word to anyone he slipped out of the common room and into the deserted castle. Fresh air would clear his head. But it was cold outside. His drunken mind decided that towers were nice, so he headed off towards Gryffindor tower. It took him until he was halfway there to realize, he wasn't in Gryffindor, he couldn't get in there.

He sat down in the middle of the hallway trying to figure out where to go. He decided to head up to the owlery. He went there a lot in first year, waiting for letters from home. It took three tries but he finally got back to his feet and started walking.

By the time he reached the owlery, his head had mostly cleared. He went around petting his favorite school owls. Cadmus was out hunting, so he just sat by the window and watched the owls dart in and out . One smaller owl had caught a rather large mouse, and two great horned owls were bullying him. Scorpius went over and shooed them away, leaving the small barn owl with his prize. When he glanced up, she had just walked in.

Rose was not expecting to see anyone when she entered the owlery, least of all Malfoy. He seemed as surprised as her to not be alone. Not knowing which version of Scorpius she was dealing with, Rose remained wary. "Sorry I didn't mean to intrude," she said as she turned away, planning to head to the astronomy tower instead.

"No, don't go, it's fine," Scorpius' head was still fuzzy.

His voice was of the kind Scorpius from this afternoon, so Rose walked past him to the window to look up at the stars. He hesitantly moved next to her. The smell of firewhiskey rolling off him made her nose burn. "What are you looking at?" He asked softly.

"Nothing really, just looking. You reek by the way."

He smiled at that. She had insulted him and he smiled? She swore she would never understand this guy. "I'm sorry," he said, being careful to keep his breath away from her nose, "Slytherin parties involve a lot of alcohol."

She rolled her eyes. "I bet you love that."

"No actually, I hate it. They forced me to go. I drank in hopes that I wouldn't remember it."

She just looked away. That wasn't a very good reason to drink, but it also wasn't the worst one she'd ever heard. He muttered a spell she couldn't hear and suddenly the alcohol smell was replaced by a pine scent.

"Better?" he asked.

She just looked at him in amazement.

"What?" he asked.

"I just don't understand you. You were such a jerk to me before the game, and now you're this nice guy. What are you playing at?"

Scorpius looked away and was silent for a while. He didn't know if it was the alcohol still buzzing in his head, or if he was just done being a 'Malfoy', but he desperately wanted to explain himself. He wanted to tell her that he didn't know a thing about girls, or about friends, or what his feelings towards her meant. Tell her that he thought about her all the time or that the fire in her eyes awoke a part of him he hadn't known existed. But when he turned back to her, his mind went blank. The moonlight accented her delicate features, and her red hair shone in the starlight, she was so beautiful.

Without thinking about it, he reached for her face and pressed his lips to hers. It was soft and sweet and he never wanted it to end.

Rose was too shocked to respond to the kiss, and Scorpius noticed it. He pulled away, feeling more sober than he had all night, and backed away from her. "I'm sorry, it was the alcohol…" he mumbled, and before Rose could say anything he rushed out of the owlery.

She stood there for what felt like hours, fingers pressed to her lips, trying to determine what had just happened.