Chapter 3

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Al had never invited Scorpius for the annual family dinner before last year, yet here he was again, this time shirtless. I didn't mean to stare, but I couldn't help it. Did I mention he was shirtless? As in he wasn't wearing a shirt. Meaning his very sculpted chest was very visible. I'd never seen Scorpius shirtless before, and as much as I hated to admit it, he looked good. Hiding underneath his shirt was the most toned set of abs I'd ever seen, as embarrassing as it was to realize. Of course, I would never tell anyone that. Ever.

"See something you like, Weasley?" His smooth voice interrupted my thoughts, sending my cheeks into a slight flush of embarrassment at being caught.

"Not even a little, Malfoy," I retorted, resolutely fixing my gaze on the wall just behind him. I couldn't trust my eyes not to wander.

"I didn't know you had legs," He replied. I glanced down, remembering that I was dressed only in a baggy t-shirt that hung down to expose the very tips of denim shorts too late. However, rather than the sniping tone the exchange would have taken on last year, we were actually almost joking around. Almost. It still held an underlying tension of our years spent in conflict.

Whatever I was about to say (and I wasn't entirely sure what that was) was cut off by Albus's head poking around from behind Scorpius. He grinned when he saw me, shaking hair that I now noticed was damp out of his eyes as he greeted me. I also noticed that he, too, was now shirtless, as though in the process of changing. Which, I realized, he probably was. The dinner had to be starting soon, and Al wouldn't want to appear anything less than perfect for it, as usual. Come to think of it, Scorpius had probably been here overnight, or at least all day, meaning they'd found something to get into that left them dirty and thoroughly unpresentable, which meant they both had to shower and prance about shirtless like guys do.

"Well don't just stand there, Rosie," Al said, still grinning widely as he stepped back, pulling Scorpius with him, "Come in."

Malfoy echoed the invitation in what I assumed he considered his 'seductive voice,' (when had his voice gotten so deep, exactly?) and I rolled my eyes. The last thing I wanted was to go inside a room with Albus while Scorpius was there and they were both shirtless. I still had my limits to how much I could take, and that just screamed uncomfortable. "Uh, no thanks, Al. I just came up to see if you knew where Dom was?"

Albus shrugged as Scorpius disappeared behind the door. "I dunno. I think she's flitting about somewhere. Probably off gossiping with Lucy."

I smiled, thanking him before continuing up the stairs to the third level of the Manor. There was a sitting room up there that had huge bay windows overlooking the vast fields behind it. Dominique, Albus, and I loved it up there. A bit weird, considering Dom and I didn't live at Potter Manor, what with us not being Potters and all, but I spent enough time here with Al that it might as well be my home, too, and Dom just made any place she went her home.

I found them exactly where I'd expected to: sitting on either end of one of the ginormous window seats, giggling in their usual way.

Smiling to myself, I made my way over to them. Dom shrieked and ran, giggling, to hug me. I returned the hug, laughing to myself at her exuberance. It was one of the things I loved about her. I'd just seen her a couple of days ago, and yet she acted like we hadn't seen each other in a month. Lucy, always more subdued than Dom, grinned at me as we exchanged a brief, one-armed hug. I had never been as close to Lucy as I was to Dom, or even as close to her as Dom was. Maybe it was because Lucy had been a year ahead of us and, therefore, 'ran in different circles' than us, or maybe it was just because Lucy shared Dom's love of fashion and appearances, whereas I couldn't care less.

I sat down in one of the plush armchairs across from Dom and Lucy, bracing myself for the inevitable. As Dom and Lucy continued to giggle over Mitchell Trieger, Lucy's latest boyfriend, I stared out the window, not paying much attention until the conversation shifted to who Dom should go for this year. It took all of my self-control not to scoff at Dom's doubt over whether she could get Reese Abbott, a Hufflepuff in our year. Dom was so gorgeous that she could have any guy she wanted. Well, except for her cousins and Scorpius. For some reason, he never gave her the time of day, and she never asked. She was always the first one to bring up his attractiveness, yet she'd never actually gone for him. It confused me. With her long, white-blond hair that had the signature Veela sparkle, and her perfectly proportioned body, it was a mystery as to why Scorpius didn't leer after her like he did almost every other girl.

I refocused my attention on following the conversation at hand. Luckily for me, they'd just started a new topic, so I didn't have to catch up. Unluckily for me, it centered on the emergence of a pair of boys from the house.

Dom sighed as she looked down at the field below. "Wow. Scorpius has definitely gotten so much more… Mmmm," She said, grinning. "Oh, come on, Rose. You have to admit, he is fiiiine."

I nodded in agreement before I even thought about my answer and realized the slip as Dom's eyes widened. Whoops.

"Ok, so maybe he's a little attractive," I conceded as Dom squealed.

"A little?" Lucy asked in disbelief. "If I was still in school… I would be all over him."

"Oh, I'm sure he'd be willing to give a graduate a try," I replied without thinking. Lucy and Dom laughed, agreeing with me.

We lapsed into silence as the two girls watched Albus and Scorpius do whatever it was they were doing; I was too far away to see.

Dom gave another lustful sigh. "Man, I wish he would take off his shirt. It should be a rule that all men have to walk about shirtless."

I couldn't stop myself before I blurted out, "If Scorpius Malfoy walks around shirtless it'll reduce half the female population to mush."

Dom laughed before the meaning of what I'd said sunk in and she stopped abruptly, whipping her head around to stare at me. "Wait, you've seen him shirtless?"

I sunk down in my seat, flushed red as I admitted, "I knocked on Al's door on the way up here and Malfoy answered."

"Shirtless?"

"No, wearing a parka. What do you think?" I snapped.

"What was it like?" She asked eagerly, ignoring my sarcasm.

"What kind of question is that, Dom?"

"A kind of question I want answered. In detail," she answered, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

I crossed my arms resolutely. "No way. I am not gossiping with you about Malfoy of all people."

Both girls pouted but seemed to recognize a lost cause when they saw one. Luckily, a search for a new topic wasn't needed because Lily and Hugo stuck their heads around the door, telling us that it was nearly six. The three of us rose and followed our younger cousins (and brother, in my case) down the stairs and into the main room. For whatever reason, it had become tradition for my family and Dom, along with a random assortment of other family members depending on the year, to meet up at Potter Manor before the annual dinner, which actually took place at the Burrow. Why, I will never know. I figured it was something to do with Grandma Weasley's insistence at holding most, if not all, important family dinners, even though the Burrow was about one third the size of Potter Manor. Not to say Potter Manor was an elaborate place. It was only three floors, and a bit larger than the average Muggle house.

As we started down the stairs, Lily turned back to look at me. "I thought Dom threw all of those shirts out."

Thankfully, I'd managed to salvage a few from Dom's reign of terror, and told my younger cousin as much.

Dom recognized that Lily was going to say more on the subject, bless her, and quickly averted her attention by focusing on something behind me.

"Albus! Scorpius!"

The awkward silence that stretched between us as Dom faltered, realising she had nothing near exciting enough to exclaim after her big opening. Dom was awesome like that; she would totally embarrass herself just to take the spotlight off me.

"Dominique!" Al shouted back, making a joke out of the situation, though his face reflected his confusion.

"Why are we shouting?!" Scorpius joined in, looking just as confused, and more than a little amused. Lucy and Lily giggled while Dom smiled. Fighting a smile, I turned on the spot to apparate to the Burrow.

While others might scoff at it, calling it rundown, I thought it was charming. I liked homes that looked lived in, instead of exceptionally neat and tidy. I smiled, breathing in the scents of Grandma Weasley's cooking as I stepped over the threshold and heading to the kitchen.

After Grandma's round of hugs had been delivered, Dom grabbed my arm and tugged me outside after her. She was slightly claustrophobic, or at least that's what she always said, so she often took the first opportunity to flee the madness of Weasley family gatherings. I understood her point, though. Anyone with as much family as we had would always be a tad 'claustrophobic'. Don't get me wrong, I love my family; there's just so many of them.

"So," Dom started, grinning mischievously.

I groaned. "Dom, I am not talking about Malfoy."

Her face showed her disappointment clearly, even though she covered. "Who said I was going to ask about Scorpius? His shirtless form must have really made an impression if you're jumping to conclusions like this!"

"No, you're just an open book," I retorted, giving her a meaningful look and leaning against the garden fence. A gnome poked his head out from behind a tomato plant to stare up at us, but disappeared quickly when Dom spoke once again. Clearly, the hours James and Fred had spent de-gnoming the garden hadn't been effective. De-gnoming the garden was always the job us kids got handed as a sort of punishment. Luckily for us, no one outdid James and Fred in the grand scheme of things, so they almost always ended up doing it, even though they were now technically 18, and therefore one full year past the age where they should be subjected to punishments. However, they were James and Fred, so it wasn't surprising.

"Fine," She pouted, leaning her back against the fence so she could look at me. "So do you think that I could get Reese Abbott? I know Lucy says I can, but she always says that."

"Dom, you know you could get whichever guy you wanted. You're gorgeous."

"Everyone says that. I feel like you're all just saying it to pump up my self-esteem."

"Don't be ridiculous. We tell you that because it's the truth."

Dom smiled gratefully at me, but whatever she was going to say next was cut off by Grandma Weasley's call to dinner. We headed in the direction of the huge table Uncle George and Dad had set up yesterday, Dom threading her arm through mine. I smiled as we headed to the side of the table the 'kids' always sat at, Dom squishing into the seat next to Lucy as I took the seat next to Dom.

I filled my plate, watching in disgust as Scorpius and Albus dumped heaping spoonfuls onto theirs, and then proceeded to shovel the food into their mouths as fast as humanly possible.

"What are you looking at?" Albus asked, noticing the disgust on my face, a forkful of mashed potatoes too large to possibly fit in his mouth frozen halfway there.

"The food isn't going anywhere, Al," I replied.

"Yes it is," he retorted, "Into my mouth." And he shoved the potatoes the rest of the way into his mouth. If I wasn't so disgusted, I would probably be impressed at the sheer talent it took to fit that much food into your mouth at once. Scorpius snorted into his own food, and I turned back to mine, suddenly reluctant to eat it. Just looking at it conjured images of Albus shoving potatoes into his mouth. It was enough to make me gag.

"So, have you heard anything about Head badges yet?" Lily asked me.

I shook my head. "Not yet. They're supposed to be delivered with our Hogwarts letters next week. Or, at least, that's what James told me."

"Yeah, after you asked him for the fiftieth time," Albus added in his two cents. My cheeks tinted pink.

"Where's Emily tonight?" Lucy asked, searching down the table to where James sat with Fred. Albus started once again shovelling food into his mouth at warp speed.

I shrugged. "She said she had some family thing."

In December of last year, James finally managed to convince Emily to go out with him. They'd been seeing a lot of each other before then to begin with (though just as friends, as Emily constantly insisted), so it really wasn't much of a surprise to anyone when they finally made it official in January. No one expected Emily and James to last as long as they have, though. Once he convinced her to go out with him, it was like something clicked. He became the polar opposite of everything he'd built his reputation on. He stopped flirting around and completely devoted himself to her. I was surprised, I'll admit. More than half the castle felt the same way to see such a transformation. I was wary of James's intentions at first, but he seemed to genuinely care for Emily, and that was all I could ask of him.

Dinner ended after what seemed like forever, and we all waited impatiently for Grandma Weasley to bring out the cake. Even though some of us (like Dom) wouldn't admit it, it was our favourite part.

When Grandma emerged, levitating the cake in front of her, all eyes turned to focus on her and the huge cake that she'd turned into a life-size model of a broomstick. I almost laughed at the effort she had to go through just to feed our huge family (and we weren't even all there), but the cake did look magnificent. Albus was practically drooling at the sight of it, and James and Fred were whispering conspiratorially, probably debating the best way to get the biggest piece possible.

After a loud chorus of 'Happy Birthday' led mostly by the adults, the cake landed in front of Uncle Harry, who was situated almost in the middle of the table. At the precise moment that the song stopped and Uncle Harry tried to hide his embarrassment at being the center of attention (honestly, you would think he'd be used to it by now), the cake blew up.

A/N: Ok, so that's the end of that one! (in case the fact that I started an AN didn't make that obvious…) Sorry it's been so slow to develop thus far, but hopefully it will speed up now. I didn't want to dwell on sixth year too long but I had most of it written and then had to change the years around to make it fit with His Only Daughter and other ideas I had for down the road. I also didn't want to waste time showing the development of her relationship with Adrian when this is considered a Scorpius/Rose story. There will be a couple of chapters with Adrian I don't really like how the sixth year had to be condensed into such a short bit and I'll keep trying to fix it before I post it.