Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Thank you to AMBERJANUS, Son of Whitebeard (I'm glad that things are finally looking up, too!), and Guest for your reviews! Especially AMBERJANUS and Son of Whitebeard: you guys have been with me from the beginning, so I'm super glad you're still reading along with me! It's been a hell of a week, so now more than ever I really, really appreciate your kind words. Thank you ever so much!

Soooo this week has been... a trip. I was ill, then iller, then rode in an ambulance for the first time ever, but then apparently I'm a-okay so we're all good! Still, it was weird as hell. But ambulances are cool inside, so there's that! As always, shout out to the NHS: you guys are the best!

So, we hit a couple milestones this week that I just wanted to talk about: firstly, we passed over 80 reviews! You guys are amazing! Obviously, I'm going to have a huge honours list of everyone who reviewed in the last chapter but for now just... wow! I'm amazed and incredibly touched by all the lovely comments. Thank you, everyone, from the bottom of my heart. And on a similar note, we're now less than ten chapters away from the end... crazy, right? According to my calculations (which are terrible, so take this with a whole scoop of salt), I'm going to be publishing the last chapter on Christmas Day. Yeah, I know! So I guess, give us a follow and I'll have your Chrimbo-Day entertainment sorted.

Anyway, enough rambling from me. Enjoy!

Chapter 18: Green As Grass

Tap tap tap

Silence

Tap tap tap

Silence

Tap tap tap

"Oh for the love of Arthur!" Albus groaned, throwing a balled up bit of parchment at Scorpius, who fumbled his hands in the air and caught it between his elbows.

"What?"

"You are tapping and it is driving me insane!" Albus said through gritted teeth.

"Oh. My bad." Scorpius offered, putting his pencil behind his ear instead.

Albus was curled up on the floor, a pile of books behind him and a taller one in front of him. Although you could never say that Albus didn't like his studies, he loathed all the reading that came with it. And so sometimes, he had to read fifteen books all at once. Just like now.

"I hate life." Scorpius heard him mumble in a grouchy, low whisper.

Max gave a muffled snort and tried to cover it up by shuffling further along the sofa.

"Hey, what's this?" He pointed at a doodle on the bottom of a bit of parchment Scorpius was holding.

It was a dragon, breathing blue flames that wove in and out of shocked looking witches on pyres. They had been learning about some witch burnings up near Manchester, which made it a little bit less morbid.

"Oh, that? Yeah, Isabelle drew it the other day."

"Oh." Max watched the dragon for a few seconds more. "She's good. Isabelle, right?"

"Yeah. The one with the slight American accent."

"Huh." He turned back to his book with not so much as a word more. Scorpius shrugged it off and went back to reading through his assignment instructions again. Professor Binns did know how to give by far the most boring essay questions in all of life and death. Then again, being 'alive' for that long would suck all remote bits of joy out of you.

An essay on the perception of gnomes in Victorian England, the role of ghouls in the 1572 Witching Hour Attack, or to what extent the sightings of Magical Creatures aided ancient Gaulic warfare was all he had to choose from. Slim pickings. Deciding that since gnomes were at least known to say hilariously rude things, that one would be the most fun, Scorpius sat back and relaxed for all of three minutes. He'd earned it, after all.

"What's the time again?"

"Forgot your watch?"

"Probably."

It was unusual that Joshua didn't immediately lunge towards Scorpius' wrist to feel for a watch there. It was a sign of how stressful the year had become that Scorpius wasn't wearing his watch today.

"It's just gone 11."

Scorpius hummed. One hour until lunch. Probably four hours until Al moved next. "Alright, I'm going to the library."

"Euphemism?"

"No," Scorpius rolled his eyes, "and that was going to the Owlery, anyway."

"Whatever."

Alfie thankfully interrupted before Max could say something very stupid. "How is it going?"

Scorpius shrugged. He couldn't say if he tried. In the week that they'd been regularly meeting up, not much had changed. Not much, except that he was pretty certain that he now knew why the Amortentia smelt the way it did to him. And he was desperate to know what it smelt like to her.

"Fine."

"How descriptive." Joshua snorted. "It's a good job that you're the one who never gets any action."

"Wha— Hey! What do you mean 'the one'!?"

"To be fair, Josh, he's one of two. Alfie's either going out with no one or one half of an old married couple."

Alfie, sitting in an apparent daze in front of his book, did not answer.

"... or he's having an intense internal crisis." Joshua offered.

"Last time he looked like this was just before he broke up with Sabrina."

Scorpius watched him silently. Something was definitely wrong. Usually, you could never stop Alfie from reading if you placed anything remotely resembling a book in front of his eyes. And right now, he was definitely not reading.

"Weird. Anyway, I'm off to the library. Let me know when you're going for lunch." Scorpius waved behind him and headed briefly up the stairs to collect his bag, before wandering down the empty hallways to the library.

For some reason, the library was always nice and toasty. No matter how cold the castle corridors got in the dead of winter, you could always nip into the library to thaw yourself out.

Evidently, everyone was still in their common rooms, warming themselves by the fires. The library was calm and quiet, a fire crackling peacefully away in the large fireplace opposite Madam Pince's desk. She really was terrifying - and at lest four-hundred years old He walked down the tranquil rows of desks, almost all abandoned, until he decided almost at random on a quiet one, happily in the history section.

He put his bag down and stepped over to the rows of books - surely there would be something there on Gnomes. Rows upon rows, stacks upon stacks of books lined the wearied, knotted wooden shelves and yet there was nothing, nothing at all, about gnomes. Letting out a strangled sound of irritation, Scorpius wandered down the shelves until, slouching past the Herbology section with his hands deep in his pockets, he saw a gilded, gaudy book catch his eye. 'Gnomes of Yonder Year'.

Well, if that wouldn't do then nothing would.

"Hey, Scorpius. That book looks horrible."

Scorpius didn't even have to look up to know who it was. "Hi, Lily."

When he looked up, she was already flouncing away somewhere else, leaving just him, Lily's bag, Hugo, and Fred.

"Oh, hi."

Neither said a word but waved to him and took their seats.

"Really, though. That book's ugly as fuck."

"Lily - What did your mum say about swearing?"

Lily watched Hugo imperiously. "She said she'd wash my mouth out with soap like she did James. Not like she can hear me, though. Not here." She huffed sniffly, fists clenched on her hips and looking down her nose. Scorpius has heard tell that their mother was no woman to be messed with - and he could see why if she were anything like this.

"She's also no fool. She could have a charm on you." Hugo pointed out, voice calm and sage.

Lily faltered. "Yeah uh, well... Whatever. Dad'll sort it out." She declared and tucked herself into a chair.

Both Hugo and Fred agreed with a simple look between them, and pulled books out of their bags.

"What're you reading?" Fred asked him. Caught off guard, Scorpius spluttered unattractively, before slamming the heavy tome shut and trapping his hand in the middle.

"Ow— Um, it's a book about gnomes."

"Fascinating." Lily declared dryly.

"It could be."

"I've got to side with Lily on this one, Hugo," Scorpius admitted apologetically. "It's really, really boring."

"That's a shame. There's clearly so much missed potential in that field."

Scorpius started dumbfounded for a moment. He sounded exactly like Rose.

"Yeah, he sounds just like his mum sometimes," Fred gave a grin, an expression that sat much better on his face than the usually absent look, "it's really weird."

"It's not." Hugo insisted, shyly.

"It's okay, I'm sure your girlfriend likes it."

"You have a girlfriend?" Scorpius asked, eyebrow raised and smile full of mirth. Rose had mentioned how cripplingly shy Hugo could be, but not this. He wondered, as Hugo's blush rose, if she even knew about it yet.

"Go on, Hugo." Fred elbowed, his smile widening. Scorpius got the impression that such a mischievous grin was only reserved for occasions such as this.

"I'm going out with Holly Roberts." He said, head sliding into his hands so that all Scorpius could see were his ears, burning red beneath his auburn hair.

Lily put a hand over her mouth to restrain her guffaws. "You know, Holly and Isla has a whole fight over who got to ask him first, and then Holly went off script and just plain asked him out. It was hilarious." She cackled, and Hugo sank further into his hands.

"Sounds like you're pretty popular there, Hugo."

"Please don't." He pleaded in a muffled, desperate voice.

"'Course he's popular. He's that one kid you'd never expect to be popular so secretly all the hot girls are after him."

"Well, not all the 'hot girls', Fred. There's-"

"-Shut up." Hugo groaned, head still resting in his hands, and his ears almost steaming red.

"Anyway, at least that all of us sorted for the Ball now." Fred sighed, cracking open his book and settling into his chair.

Scorpius' interest was aroused. "Oh yeah, who're you two going with, then?"

"James White."

"Ruby Taylor."

"Huh." Neither of the names registered with him. Scorpius suddenly felt very old. And every single.

"What about you, Scorpius? I bet you've been asked loads now you're all popular."

"Whoa there, Lily. 'Popular's an overstatement. And actually, I've only been asked properly once."

"Seriously?"

Scorpius scratched his chin. "At least, one time that I'm aware of."

The three cousins looked between each other, and silently some understanding passed between them. Scorpius, not for the first time, felt like an intruder.

Hugo coughed, breaking the silence. "Anyway."

"Right, Yes. Study time, kids."

"'Kids'?"

"Yeah, you're like what - 14? That makes you a kid, you child."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I'm not a kid just because you're ancient."

Lunch that day was a delicious affair of beef stew; soul food that never failed to warm you right to the bones on a cold winter's day. Scorpius had to give it to the muggles - they did come up with a nice, non-magical recipe with that one.

"'m gunna to do it."

"And again, with proper diction?" Joshua asked, putting on his Thamesy-est, strongest, London accent.

"I'm going to do it tonight." Albus repeated, sounding less like he'd just spewed up word vomit this time.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to ask for clarification on the 'it'." Max asked, Joshua nodding along.

"I'm going to, y'know—"

"No,"

"— ask her out. Tonight." He hissed, looking around anxiously.

"She's on the other side of the hall, it's okay." Alfie supplied helpfully, and Albus' shoulders receded all the way down from his ears.

"Have you got it all planned out?"

Albus nodded. "Speech in mind, location chosen."

"Where? Just out of — curiosity?"

"I'm not telling you, Joshua." Albus deadpanned. "You're not spying on me."

"Damn it."

"And it was so much fun watching Scorpius, too!" Max sighed.

"You really are a weird one." Scorpius declared, pausing from his food to give Max a slow, disapproving shake of his head.

Max, as always, didn't care. He gave a handsome smile, and went back to badgering Albus.

"Have you asked her yet?"

"What? No! I'm doing that tonight, have you been listening at all Joshua?"

"Well yeah of course I've been listening. I meant have you asked her out for tonight yet, genius."

"Oh. No. I was going to do that after lunch."

"Good idea." Alfie nodded sagely, "she's midway through lunch right now, by the looks of it."

"How would you know? I've never even see you ask someone out, like ever."

Alfie just shrugged and went back to eating.

"Yeah— come to think of it, when did you ask Sabrina out? And then you asked her to the Ball too, didn't you? You're depriving us of some very valuable information there!"

Alfie frowned. "Uh, okay then." Even Scorpius was paying attention, distracted from his really good food. They all looked up to Alfie with rapt attention; as though he were the rhapsode and they the young children. "I asked her out first in fourth year. Um, spring term. I think it was after Care of Magical Creatures, out near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. I just... asked her."

"What?"

"I just asked her, 'Will you be my girlfriend?' And she said okay."

"That's..."

"That's so easy." Albus sighed, longingly. "What've you got me doing all this for, then, if that works so easily?"

"Because it's never failed us!" Max and Joshua declared in almost perfect unison.

"Alfie's just a different league of person, isn't he?"

"Thanks... I think."

"Take it." Max waved a hand at him lazily. "Anyway, point is that it's good to put in a little effort right now. No use starting a relationship with very little effort put in, because that's not going to last long, is it?"

"Uh... Alfie and Sabrina went out for like a year."

"Again, they don't count."

"Max is right, you may as well begin with a bang."

"Literally, if you can help it."

Scorpius groaned at Max' utterly unfunny joke.

"I think that's a step too far for him right now — aw look! You've made him blush!" Joshua jeered as indeed, a blush spread across Albus' cheeks.

"Ugh, Whatever! I'm going to do it tonight!" Albus declared ferociously with a slam of his fist, as a little first year squeaked in a panic a few places down from them.

"She looks like she's leaving, Al. Might want to go over now." Alfie nodded over, and Albus whipped his head around at a speed that surely can't have been good for his health.

"Oh, bugger."

"Didn't you just say you had this?" Joshua asked.

"You can do it, Al. She won't say no to meeting up now, at least!" Scorpius grinned at his friend with a double thumbs up. Albus nodded back with a grateful smile and tried to keep his speed-walk as subtle as possible. It did not work.

Max massaged his forehead and Alfie looked away as though he'd seen something rude.

Joshua groaned. "Why do adults always say these are the best days of their lives? That's horrific."

"I know. I know." Scorpius grimaced, watching Albus start to furiously blush as he finally got to Lydia.

"You think he's actually getting out proper words there?"

"Maybe. Hopefully." Scorpius hoped to Dumbledore that it would go okay. Lydia would be an idiot to turn him down, anyway.

"Careful!"

"Sorry." Rose drawled, with a brief roll of her eyes.

"I just mean, you don't want it to go wrong, do you?"

Rose gave an ever a slight smile. "I suppose not."

She stirred in the peppermint oil, face illuminated magenta in the dim light of the Owlery. "It seems to be going well, doesn't it?"

Scorpius peered over the rim. It had begun taking on the pearlescent sheen in the past few days, and the colour had now turned magenta. It was thinner, more translucent than usual Amortentia, but it was getting there. And, of course, it was doing that characteristic Amortentia smell. To him, fresh grass and roses and fresh bread. To her, shoe polish and Dumbledore knows what else.

"Yeah, looks it. After this, it's two weeks of maturation and then we'll know if it's good or not."

"You speak like you have practice." She smirked.

"Oh, you know me. All my girlfriends have been entrapped that way."

"All?"

"Yeah. All zero." Scorpius rolled his eyes with a snort.

She frowned. "You've never had a girlfriend?"

"Yeah..."

"Huh. I Just figured y'know. Like Mia, or... Clara? Emily? Wendy...?"

"Are you just naming all the Slytherin 6th years you know?"

Rose giggled. "Little bit." Her she gave a dumbfounded smile, "but seriously, though? You never went out with Mia Clarke?"

"Mia Clarke? No. No! No way. She's kinda... no." Now was not the time to go into that whole story.

"Oh." She blinked rapidly in the awkward, hanging silence. He knew that she'd caught onto there being something far more there, but she let it drop. She hung over the cauldron, peering down into pretty liquid as she stirred. "It smells like... caramel...?" She mumbled, her voice dripping with confusion.

"Caramel? You smell shoe polish and caramel?"

"Yeah. Just like back in first year..." she said, more to herself than to him. She seemed to be a thousand miles away, lost in a memory.

A memory Scorpius shared. At least, a bit. He had baked caramel shortbread with his mother that morning, before their very first expedition on the Hogwarts express. He'd been so nervous he almost let the caramel burn in the pan but, as always, his mother had stepped in just in time.

"Rose?" He didn't know what was coming over him. It was like he was in a haze, or had just woken from a deep, cozy sleep where he'd had a wonderful dream. "Hey, Rose?" She tore her eyes languidly away from staring at nowhere in particular, "Do you want to go to the Ball with me?"

The words were out his mouth as though another person were saying it, just like last time. But he didn't feel so out of control and horrified this time.

She smiled, a smile as sweet as the May honey, but shook her head. "No. Not yet. But I'll go to Hogsmeade with you?" Her voice was soft and tender, and the smile stayed on her face even as she spoke.

His heart slowed, but it did not sink. Somehow, he'd been expecting this. He'd been expecting her to say no, but not that she'd go to Hogsmeade. "Okay." He was still disappointed, of course, but not devastated this time.

With a mischievous smile, she gazed at him over the cauldron, "It's a date, then."

When Scorpius opened the door to his dorm that night, he was greeted by a blasting wall of sound.

There was Albus, jumping on his bed. Max and Joshua were entertaining themselves with Merlin knows what in the centre of the circular room and Alfie was pouring over his radio, adjusting the volume.

"Woah!" Scorpius yelled, clamping his hands over his ears as Alfie accidentally blasted it way up.

"Oh, Scorpius!" Alfie greeted with a wave as he finally got the volume to a more manageable level.

"I did it! I did it! She said yes!" Albus beamed, finally stopping jumping and giving the poor bed springs a break.

"Finally. Bed springs should only receive that kind of pounding when—"

"Alright!" Alfie called over the rest of Max' sentence.

Albus leapt over to Scorpius, who was just shutting there door, and barrelled into him with a big hug. "I still can't believe it. She's amazing, and she actually agreed to go out with me!"

Scorpius forced himself to smile. And once he did, he found it was easy enough to maintain. "Good. It's been four years in the making."

"She's so nice. And so pretty. And so clever, and..."

And so Albus went on, for hours.

The sound of crackling filled his ears. He opened his eyes, wearily knowing already what he was going to see.

Slowly, he opened them. But it wasn't what he was expecting. He was face-to-face with a picture of someone he didn't know over the mantlepiece. He looked down, and saw the fire crackling far below him. His hands, held out in front of his face, were thin, with long, boney fingers like his adult self.

This had never happened before. Not once in three years.

He looked back up again, at the pictures above the mantlepiece. All static, like the pictures muggles had, some hand-painted on waxy old oils and some grainy photographs. But even if he could see their bodies, he couldn't see their faces. None of their faces. Except…

There. To the far left. He, his mother, and another figure he couldn't see. He could feel the muscles in his face stretch into a smile; it was an alien sensation to him now.

A sense of dread rose like bile in his stomach. He knew what was next, what always came next. Glossing his eyes over the portraits full of people who's faces he just could not see, he turned, slowly, to the door. It had never looked so small to him before. He dwarfed it, now, and reached the black-lacquer door in just a few steps.

That metallic taste was back on his tongue; coating his throat and weighing down his tongue.

He rested a hand on the door-handle, which was eerily cold. It burned deep into his hand, chilling it right to the bone. It didn't take much to push it down.

The door breezed open.

But he didn't leave his body. His feet stayed firmly on the ground, tall as he was. He felt the weight of his body acutely.

Taking a step over the threshold, he was met with silence. The room was dingy, almost entirely coloured by greyscale. There was a man standing over her right side, weeping in silence. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn't see his face. Frustration welled up inside him, as the only heat in this god-forsaken room, and he gnashed his teeth in agony at trying to remember who this was. He suddenly broke out into uncomfortable sweats, which intensified as he looked down into the only lick of colour in the room.

His mother's eyes.

Green, like the first blades of grass after a harsh winter. Green, like the stone that shone proudly in the hairpin she passed down to him, that he knew Rose Granger-Weasley would wear one day. Green, like the rash of jealousy he felt every time Albus or Alfie or Max mentioned their mums.

She was pleading with him, begging form, reaching out a hand that never came near. And he felt himself rising, up and up and the heat enveloping his body like he was falling straight into the pits of hell.

"Mum!

Mum!"

"Mum!"

Yaaaay they're going on a date! How cute. I can't wait to write it! What do you think they'll get up to on their date? And what do you think that nightmare's all about? Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading. Please review if you've got time (oh boy do I need reviews this week!), and follow for more. Thanks!