Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Thank you to my lovely reviewers Guest, catwomannnnn1, MLMarint (Happy birthday!), Guest, Guest, Shadwood (don't worry, a few more chapters to go! But thank you so much for joining us!) reppad98, Corellia11270 (I shall address my thoughts on a sequel in the final chapter, but not to give too much away - yes, I do indeed have something in the works). So. The feedback from the last chapter was just *amazing*. This week was tough in reality, so it was just so nice to read all of your reviews - and we passed 100! This has been a thrilling experience for me in many ways, but all the support I've received from my lovely readers has absolutely been at the fore of it all. As I always say (but I mean it more every week), thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Apologies for the lateness today, I was travelling home for the holidays!

Enjoy!

Chapter 22: Anticipation

It was two days before the ball, and all semblance of teaching at Hogwarts had finally, thankfully, been let go. Even Professor Henrich was treating them more like humans and less like homework-producing-machines. Professor Flitwick had even let them charm a hoard of self-throwing snowballs, which had gone about as well as expected.

"Al, watch out!" Scorpius had shouted, as a huge snowball had hurled itself into Albus' face, and Max had proceeded to die laughing.
"I'm sorry," Scorpius sighed, as he helped Albus dry himself off.

"It's not your fault, Albus said, giving a pointed stare over at Rhys Owens and friends, who were laughing about as hard as Max was. "I don't get why it's always me who seems to be drowned in snow, though." He sighed, and wiped away a few more drops of water from around his eyes.

But of course, when you left a castle full of excited, hormonal, energetic teenagers to their own devices, all the laws of natural dictates that things were going to go crazy. Headmaster McGonagall had given them a sermon a few days ago when the unruly behaviour had begun, but it didn't help. Hearing a 90-year-old witch who you doubted ever knew how to have fun in the first place tell you not to have fun was kind of like having Hagrid tell you about the importance of being short. So behaviour had rallied up and up until the castle was almost buzzing with energy.

"I heard a rumour they've booked the Wizard Kicks for music," Scorpius heard some thirds years whisper excitedly as they scurried past on the way to dinner. Which was funny, because he'd heard the exact same rumour about the Downtown Boys, Estella Tauris, and Iphigenia and the Fiends being booked. The rumours had escalated to the point where Max had told them about a first year he'd seen excitedly telling her friends all about how there were going to be Hippogriffs dressed in Muggle tinsel to greet them at the doors. Now that was a hard one to believe. A Hippogriff hasn't been seen on site since 1994 - at least, not that Scorpius nor Max knew of.

Scorpius ambled jovially down the corridors from his History of Magic class to Alchemy. Everything had been going very well indeed over the past few days. Rose had snogged him - not once, but multiple times. On the lips. Not in his dreams. In actual reality. It hadn't even been an accident! And, she'd asked him to the Ball. And, now she was his girlfriend, too.

In short, life was amazing and he didn't know if he'd ever been happier than he was right now.

He swanned into the dungeons with a glancing wave at his other class members and sat down next to Albus.

"Alright there, Scor?"

"Of course. I've got absolutely no reason to be upset at all.

Albus snorted. "Merlin, you are over the moon about all this."

Scorpius raised a wry eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you and Lydia looked the exact same when you two started going out."

Albus opened his mouth to reply but was prevented from actually saying anything by not having a leg to stand on.

"Still, I'm glad you two are finally going out. Even if you look obnoxiously happy."

Scorpius beamed even wider at Albus' words. It meant a lot, coming from him.

"Besides, Rose finally stopped being a complete tight-arse and let herself go a little."

Scorpius decided not to prove his point by telling him what Rose had proposed they do with the freshly brewed love potion. Albus never needed to know about that idea.

—

Even their dorm room at nights was buzzing with anticipation and excitement. Dress-robes lay hung out on their communal wardrobe, in case - Dumbledore forbid - something happened behind those closed doors in the next 48 hours. They were almost universally black or navy or deep grey, and plain as could be when it came to smart dress-robes. And then there were Max'. You didn't even have to ask to be able to tell which his were: deep navy with faint, emerald embroidery of large, exotic looking flowers that shone in the light. Professor Hagrid had once exasperatedly said that Max would never make a wallflower of himself, and Hagrid was absolutely right. Well, in the metaphorical sense. If he got too close to the wall in the right lighting he might end up as one.

Rolling his eyes, Scorpius surveyed the room before him. Albus was fiddling with the laces of his shoes again (which he had already shined three or four times) and Max was doodling something fierce on a piece of parchment that seemed to have Care of Magical Creatures notes on it. Alfie for once wasn't reading, but staring up at the canopy of his bed and had taken up a position that made him look awfully like he was lying in a coffin, and Joshua was staring dreamily off into the middle distance. As for Scorpius: well, he'd been trying to write a letter to his father for the past twenty minutes but had only succeeded in writing one sentence so far. It read,

Dear father,

I hope you're doing okay.

Brilliant, he knew.

But seriously though, "Hey, what do I write to my dad?"

"About what?" Albus said, looking up suddenly as though startled from a daze.

"I dunno. Everything." Rose. He meant about Rose.

"Tell him everything's normal. Because it is?" Albus said, with a face like a confused twelve-year-old.

"Yeah. Okay."

"Don't tell him about Rose yet, it's too soon." Alfie sighed, still not moving from his death-like position.

"I told my dad and sister immediately. Amelie and I are just so perfect together, it's bound to last long enough for her to meet them." Joshua said, promptly getting up. "I'm going to the loo, anyway."

He swanned out of the room, leaving them all in an awkward silence after him.

"So..." Albus drawled, "are we ever going to tell him that he's about a thousand times more into Amelie than she is into him?"

"Nope." Scorpius said with a resounding stop.

"I am worried about him." Alfie sighed, shuffling into a sitting position. "Inevitably, she's going to dump him, and he'll be so blindsided. It'll destroy him. She's the first girlfriend he's ever had."

"Really?" Scorpius prodded.

"Well, first one who lasted more than a week."

Scorpius nodded. Alfie wasn't wrong. Whenever it happened, whatever did end up happening, it was going to be horrendous. And Scorpius wondered just how soon that was going to be.

"Max?"

Max looked up from his doodling with little more than a glazed look over his eyes, quill still poised over the parchment. "Yeah?"

"Will you try and keep an eye on Joshua?"

"Why?"

"Because inevitably Amelie's going to break his heart...?"

Max frowned. "Why should I?"

"Because he's your best friend...?"

Even Alfie was frowning now.

"It's his own mistake to make. I can't stop that."

"But you could, if you give him a warning."

"No. I can't do that, that's interfering where I'm not needed."

"But doesn't your friendship mean more than that?"

Max went back to doodling on the parchment. "'Course. But I'm not interfering where I'm not needed."

"So you're just going to let a girl get in between you and break his heart, and probably soon?"

Max gave a small moan of irritation and set his parchment aside. "It's not a girl coming between us, it's Josh being a teenage boy and getting way in over his head. For someone who comes across all 'holier than thou', you really do know nothing about relationships."

Alfie, for the first time in a long time, looked exceedingly angry. Gathering up his bag, he stormed out the room in a matter of seconds, passing a bemused looking Joshua on the way out.

"What was that all about?" He said, eyes wide as he stared after Alfie's already faded back.

"He was just being a twat about something. Ignore him. Ignore him in general." Max snarled.

"What, did you ask him about Mia?"

"Shut the fuck up!" Max hissed, eyes going to Albus and Scorpius.

They shared a glance, and Scorpius said, "We already know you like Isabelle, not Mia. It's not hard to work out."

Max glowered at them. He often got angry and defensive like this when something was really not going his way. "Well, any bright ideas then?"

"One or two." Albus said. "You could just go to the Ball with Mia, but make it clear that you don't feel the same way anymore."

"Too hard."

"You could ignore her."

"Too brutal."

Albus rolled his eyes. "What do you want then?!"

"Isabelle?" He offered, with an expression that was remarkably sheepishly for Max.

"Then you've got to tell Mia." Scorpius sighed. "I know better than most she can be a total pain in the arse, but you owe it to her."

Max rolled his eyes. "I knew you were going to pull out the 'you owe it' line."

"Because it's true. Besides, it's only a ball."

All eyes turned on Scorpius.

"Are you joking? We just watched you spend months agonising over that 'just a Ball'." Max said, voice dripping with derision.

Scorpius rolled his eyes. Max could be so arsey when he got like this. And even if Scorpius was pissed off with him, Max did have a bit of a point.

"Really Max, just be honest." Joshua sighed, "it'll just be worse if you don't."

"Fine! Fine." Max groaned. "I'll go find her."

And so he left, leaving the room with a stale, awkward air in his wake. It was as though you could feel the frayed nerves of the five of them burning out in the very atmosphere that surrounded them; threatening to choke them.

"Well."

"Yep."

Scorpius finally turned his attention back to the blank piece of parchment before him. Suddenly, deciding whether to tell his dad about Rose wasn't such a big deal anymore. Not with how many other issues there were clearly cropping up.

Things are getting a bit hectic and quite melodramatic over here, but hopefully it'll all pipe down after the ball. Speaking of which, I have a girlfriend! I'll tell you more about it when I get home. Speaking of which, that should be soon. We'll be home at around 5pm, this Sunday.

On another note, I have some (more) exciting news. If I brew a potion correctly over the holidays, then I'll have a job after I graduate! I'd rather tell you about it in person, so I'll give you the details then. Nonetheless, I'm still excited about it all.

I hope that all your work is still going well at the Ministry.

Love,

Scorpius

"What're you writing about?" Albus asked lazily from his bed. He was still fiddling with the shoelaces.

"Just writing to my dad."

"No, I know that. But you smiled really widely about something."

"Oh." An uncomfortable knot bunched in his stomach. "Yeah, I've just got some news."

"Oh?"

Both Albus and Joshua looked up with piqued interest.

"Yeah. I've got a job. For after we leave."

"What!?"

"Where!? Why didn't you tell me!?"

He could tell in Albus' eyes that he was a bit upset. And Scorpius looked directly at him as he told them the details. "It's a job as an Apprentice at Plantastrode Laboratories. I just need to brew this one potion correctly and then they'll have me."

"That's… amazing! Well done, mate." Joshua grinned, beaming in a way that Scorpius didn't often see from him.

"Congratulations, it's pretty amazing."

"Yeah," Scorpius grinned, "thanks."

The two shared a look. This was not how they'd imagined their future to be. They'd imagined it to be the two of them against the world, alone, but happy at least. They'd hide from everyone and everything somewhere together, and muddle their way through lives that they knew would be happier because at least it wouldn't be Hogwarts. And yet, here they were now. Scorpius with a job that was probably going to put him in the Highlands, and Albus down in London at St Mungo's. Him with Lydia and Scorpius with Rose, and with many shared friends in between. It wasn't how they'd imagined their future, but Scorpius thought that, all things considered, that wasn't such a bad thing.

Nowadays, even the future was looking up.

—

The door to the Owlery seemed to creek louder than ever today. Scorpius stepped into the chilly tower with anxiety in his footsteps, and a heart that leapt like a terrified frog as soon as he saw the dim, glowing light of the lit candles.

"Hello, stranger. I thought you'd never come."

All his nerves, anxiety and terror seemed to catapult into one, paralysing moment. There was Rose. His girlfriend.

And how was he supposed to act now?

Oh, bugger.

How Joshua and Albus and Max and Alfie made it look so easy, he'd never know. Or perhaps, this was only him. Perhaps he was just a bit of a weirdo, and this was something unique to him, and his weirdness. Oh Merlin, why couldn't he even look at her without sweating? How vile.

"What're you waiting for?" Rose asked, looking at him slightly alarmed. "What're you hovering at the door for?"

"I—Uh." Well, great. Now he couldn't even talk. What had happened? Had he suddenly reverted back to twelve!? "Yeah." He said, and his voice squeaked embarrassingly as he walked over to her.

"What is it?" She said, standing from her makeshift seat to meet him. She seemed to be completely at one with herself. No sweating, no nerves, no crackling voice. And then she took one more step closer to him, and her eyes were bathed in orangey candle light. Her pupils flickered from pin-pricks to wide and back again at though a heart were beating there, fast. He put a hand on her neck, as though on a trance, cupping her as he leaned towards her. Her pulse was going a mile an hour.

Well, maybe it wasn't just him. Maybe he was just worse at acting.

He leant down and kissed her; soft lips and he could feel a little smile at the corner of her lips. Yep, just as good as the other day.

And his nerves seemed to sink, and untie slightly as he pulled away.

"Sorry. I just…"

"No, it's weird. You call someone your boyfriend and suddenly everything changes. It's like if it had just been kept unspoken things could go on normally but…"

"But now it's been said, it's like an invisible line has been crossed."

She nodded, and they sat across each other; between them the crate that had, until yesterday, had a cauldron full of Amortentia on it.

"So." She said.

"So?" He questioned.

She looked at him, and tilted her had a couple of degrees to the left.

"Oh," he realised what she meant quite suddenly, "I don't really know what there is left for us to go over. Transfiguration? Potion theory? Hey— I could teach you some alchemy!"

"Maybe next time," she laughed. "Let's do transfiguration. But don't you want to know about my dress for tomorrow. So we can coordinate?"
"Coordinate…?"

"Yeah. Tie to dress colour." Rose said, and had a look on her face as though baffled he didn't know this kind of thing. It didn't feel like the time to remind her that he was both an only child and his parents had never been invited to functions like this before right now.

"Huh. Okay. What're you wearing, then?"

"Emerald green." She said, pulling her wand out of the robe she'd shed some time go. "So, just bear it in mind."

Scorpius nodded. Of course, she'd look gorgeous no matter what she wore, but she always looked wonderful in green. He only hoped he actually managed to transfigure his tie into the kind of green that she meant…

"Want to practice something, then?"
Scorpius nodded, again. He seemed to be short on words tonight. "What, though?"

"Well, you don't have your cat here, and I don't have Snowy, so we could… practice with this crate! Material transformations!"

Scorpius sighed inwardly. He'd accidentally turned a wooden block into a flaming block of ash a week or so ago. They were supposed to have been turning wood into stone, so he didn't quite get the hang of it, it would be fair to say.

"Okay," he agreed, "but we should check what's inside first."

Rose hummed, and rapped a fist on the crate. It didn't sound hollow inside; instead, the knock sounded deep and rich and as though there very much was something inside the crate.

"Let's open it and see."

The removed the shiny black mat they'd put over the crate, and pulled away their makeshift chairs. It really was a hovel, in here. It had served him well as a hiding spot in his first few years, but now, for the place where he hung out with his girlfriend...? Scorpius wanted desperately to take her up the Yesult tower instead, but Joshua had had a monopoly over the room for several weeks now. It irritated Scorpius to no end - they had actually chairs and heating and lights up there! But, that being said, this tower was always going to have a very special set of memories attached to it for Scorpius. Mostly Rose related, but some others. About his family. That he'd rather forget…

"Here — you get those bolts and I'll do these," Rose said, casting her hair behind her should and already working away at the bolts that clamped her side of the box shut.

"I wonder what's in here, though. It's not like they put any signs on the outside or anything…" Scorpius wondered aloud, working away at the rusted metal of the bolts. It must've been clamped shut over fifty, sixty years ago by now. "Hey, maybe it's some past relic. I heard about this lady, who found a bunch of badges from the past in her attic."

"Badges?"

"Yeah. Maybe?"

"I don't know, it sounded like some kind of fabric to me…" Rose said, and trailed off as she stuck her tongue out of her mouth and continued to pull on the metal.

"Fabric? That'd be such a let down!"

"Maybe it'll be — ah!" Rose yelped as she pushed with all her might on the last bolt one final time and it came flying loose. Scorpius rushed over and caught her just before she fell, crashing down onto the hard, stone floor. He cradled her like those muggle couples always did on their moovie posters. The curve of her waist fit neatly into his hand, and their faces were about an inch from each other. Her eyes searched his face, up and down, and she rested a hand on his cheek ever so gently. Like the touch of a moth to a bright, beautiful light.

"That's the only time I'll let you catch me, Scorpius Malfoy."

He took her smile as implied and leant down to give her a kiss. A deep, long kiss - longer than he really meant. But who could blame him? He was a seventeen-year-old boy, after all.

"So — the box?" Rose said, looking slightly punch-drunk.

"Yeah- Yeah, the box." Scorpius repeated, trying to snap himself back into reality and hoping to Arthur, or Merlin, or whoever, that he didn't snap himself too far.

Rose let out a defeated sigh when she peered into he wooden crate.

"What is it?"

"Seriously!? It is just material." She lifted reams and reams of golden material out of the crates. It looked as though it perhaps could've been satin - but was dull of any shine and slightly scratchy looking. "This is so disappointing. I'd take badges over this anyway."

"I'm sure there's something interesting in this room, just not in this box." Scorpius smiled, helping Rose empty out the box.

The two pulled their chairs over again, sitting next to each other in front of the wooden crate. "So. Transfiguration time?"

"You know I'd rather just talk to you." Scorpius said, feeling his heart flutter strongly as he did.

"Or," Rose said, pulling out her wand, "we could do both." She gave that small little smile that she did whenever she was flirting - or at least, attempting to.

"Fine." He sighed, pulling out his wand too.

"You remember what Henrich said?" Rose asked, and Scorpius could feel her watching him intently out of the corner of his eyes.

"Sure. Keep the spell in the forefront of your mind and be sharp with your wand movements."

She hummed in agreement, but added, "be a little bit aggressive with he wand movement, since you're transfiguring into stone."

"Alright. I'll whack it's brains out."

She giggled in a very un-Rose-like, and Scorpius had to take a moment to refocus himself.

"Transfiguro Duro." He said, and rapped on the wooden crate, hard.

In a second it had cracked into hard, marble-like stone, before it crumbled into a thousand tiny specks of dust.

"Ah!" Scorpius said, taking cover as the wave of dust rose over the two of them. "What did I do!?" He wailed, bemoaning his efforts as he glared at the pile of dust at his feet.

"It's fine, it's fine. You just went a little bit hard. Try relaxing your wrist a little bit more next time — like this," she gently squeezed at two spots either side of his wrist and the pressure immediately lessened slightly, "better?"

"H-How did you do that!? What kind of witchcraft is this?"

"Well," she smirked, "I hate to tell you, but I am a witch."

He gave a mock little gasp of despair, before joining in her laughter. "Okay, okay. I'll try with the lid." He declared, squaring himself up again.

"Hey — why don't we talk, to relax you a bit?"

"Go on then." Scorpius said, squaring himself up. "Transfiguro Duro." The wood turned into a slab of solid stone, and Scorpius could barely believe his eyes. "I did it!"

Rose gave him a peck on the cheek. "Well done. Now change it back - be less aggressive with the wand movement, but still try to keep the pressure out of your wrist."

Scorpius nodded, and took a deep breath.

"So," she drawled, watching as Scorpius successfully changed it back into wood - slightly grey wood, mind, but wood nonetheless. "What's your cat called?"

"Theia."

"That's a… unique name."

Scorpius snorted, internally celebrating as he successfully changed the wood into stone yet again. "It's the name of a Greek Titaness."

"That's…"

"It's a family tradition. Don't ask."

"But I want to."

"Okay," Scorpius said, suddenly becoming much less interested in the wood and much more interested in Rose. "It's a family tradition to name pets after Greek Gods. Since we have names from the stars, which are often Greek anyway, it's kind of complimentary."

"And here I am with my common flower name."

"But it's pretty."

She smiled, and, if he wasn't very much mistaken, a little blush dusted across her cheeks.
"Well, anyway, my middle name is the name of a Greek Titan, too, so it only made sense."

"Hyperion… right?"

Scorpius raised his eyebrows.

"Oh— Al told me, and it just kind of stuck in my memory. You know, for being… out there."

"Weird. Weird is the word you're looking for."

Rose, fairly unsuccessfully hid her laughter behind a hand.

"So Theia was the Titaness of some weird stuff like the light of the blue sky…? Something strange like that — oh, and of sight, too. And, of course, Hyperion was the Titan of the Sun. My dad used to have a dog called Cronos, too."

"Didn't he eat his children, or something?"

"Yes. I really don't think our Cronos did that, though. But anyway, my mum picked out the name Theia."

"Oh?"

Scorpius nodded, and could already feel a little lump in his throat. "Yeah. She picked her out, three years to the day before she died."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't kill her, did you?" He gave a laugh that was more like a sigh, "I never understand when people say sorry for things they didn't cause or do."

Rose's eyebrows pulled together in that vaguely exasperated look she'd been giving him more and more recently. "It's not that people say sorry for an action. It's that they say they're sorry that you have to go through what you did. It's not an 'I'm sorry I've done wrong', it's an "I'm sorry because I like you and I don't think you should go through this pain'."

Scorpius was left silent in the wake of her explanation. It was funny how one person could shake up the way that you view so much of your world.

"And I'm saying 'I'm sorry' in the latter way, right now. I've got to leave. Beauty sleep, and all that."

"You could sleep for two minutes and still be the most beautiful girl in the room."

They both fell into silence. That was, without a doubt, the single smoothest thing Scorpius Malfoy had ever said, and would ever say.

Rose gave him a kiss, deep and passionate, before standing. "I've got to go, regardless of what you say."

"I'll see you tomorrow night then."

Rose smiled widely. "Yes. Tomorrow night."

And she was gone, through the door, before Scorpius' heart returned to anywhere near a normal pace. Merlin, all this anticipation was going to kill him.

This anticipation is going to kill me, too! Also, writing romance is kinda hard when you've just been dumped and lost faith in romance in real life for a bit. Oh well~~

So, essentially, this is how it's going to work next week: one chapter every day (probably at varying times lol whoops) from next Friday until the 25th. It'll be an extravaganza, but hopefully, it'll be a great end!

Please review if you've got time (trust me, I'll need it for the next week of writing!) and follow for more. Thanks!