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Sorry I'm kinda in a rush right now but thank you all for your reviews (I'm glad the foreshadowing paid off!) and

Enjoy!

Chapter 26: Albus

It all went south and everyone was sent to bed when the gin got into the punch bowls.

The world was lost to me as Lydia smiled at me, and was only brought crashing back around me when I heard Max, shouting apparently at the top of his lungs.

"Oh you stupid CUNT!"

Ooh. That's some choice swearing there. Then again, he always was the 'loud' one of us all.

Lydia and I were approaching the other end of the drinks table, frozen in time as we heard Max shouting from nearby. I hadn't seen him so wound up in a long time. It would've been unnerving if I hadn't stopped to listen to what else he said.

"Just leave Scorpius alone already, he's done nothing to you except show you up as an arsehole and actually be nice enough to get the girl you wanted. And just because the only way you could ever get a girl is through drugging them, doesn't mean its true for the rest of us."

"Do you think we should help out?" Lydia asked, alarm written all over her face.

I shook my heard, eyes still set on the conflict.

"Oh go on then, where's your date, funny little boy?"

"'Little boy'? 'Little boy'?! What are you, twelve?"

Oh yes, Max was absolutely pissed off. And when he got like this, he would win the fight he was having no matter what.

I shook my head, unable to stop the small grin that spread over my face. "No. Max' got it covered."

Amelie's face relaxed into a smile, too, and arm in arm, we walked back to the dance floor.

"I do wonder if we ought to have said something about Amelie and Jake Andrews, though." Lydia sighed, looking to me for guidance. She did hat a lot, and so far I'd improvised successfully. But I don't know why she looked to /me/ for guidance - I couldn't offer much help. I was just me. Albus Potter.

"No, I think that Max should be the one to tell Joshua. Or at least Alfie."

Amelie had been getting off with Jake Andrews behind the fountain. We'd only seen her out of the corner of our eyes, but it was enough to know what happened. Enough to know that this night would undoubtedly turn into one of the worst nights of Joshua's life.

"Still, it's sad."

I nodded but would say no more on the topic. It wasn't my place to.

"Oh, it's a slow dance. Shall we?" I asked, holding out my arms for Lydia to nearly step into.

"I'd love to." She smiled sweetly, in the way that made her eyes curve into little crescent moons. It was so adorable, and just one of the things about her I really liked.

She stepped closer to me and I put one hand on her waist, the other clasping hers, and we began to dance slowly. Swaying and moving slowly on the dance floor as though one entity, so close to each other I could feel her heart beating.

"You look so handsome tonight." She has that smile that I couldn't help but find slightly sexy, and that passion in her eyes that made the amber-brown pupils darken and intensify.

I flushed under her gaze, feeling a childish smile I'd always done when I got this fluttering feeling of nervousness in the pit of my stomach spread across my face.

I couldn't even manufacture a reply for a while. I never had been the eloquent one, that was always Alfie, but something about Lydia made it difficult for me to speak sometimes. The way she smiled when she could justifiably be sad, the way she pouted in her anger and the way she never took the world for granted, but always found joy and gratitude in the little things - even when they didn't go the right way for her. She made me a better person; better than I ever would be without her. Being with her was the most natural thing I'd ever done. It was like I was a traveller lost in the desert, coming upon the oasis I'd been searching for; that I'd found the thing I'd been looking for my whole life, without even realising it. She was my other half - quite often my better half - and I would be lost without her.

"Thanks," I said in barely a whisper. "You know I think you look like an angel."

She smiled, halfway into a laugh, "I know. Thank you."

So, this was what love felt like, huh?

The concert band had retired long ago, to be replaced by a collection of more modern instruments. Well, 'modern' in the magical world's sense of the term.

Lydia and I sat at the back of the hall, resting from all the dancing we'd done for, what? Two hours, perhaps?

"We should really be less tired than this." She opined next to me, as though reading my mind.

"Tell me about it." I sighed, letting out a deep breath that was perhaps halfway to a yawn.

"Hey—" She said suddenly, sitting upright in her chair and craning her head forwards. "Isn't that...?"

"It is! Merlin's beard. I never thought he'd actually pull it off!"

There were Isabelle and Max, dancing no different from any actual/couple on the dance floor.

"Oh! I don't..." Lydia turned to look at me and, wordlessly, we agreed upon the same thing: this was weird, but also kind of sweet.

"I'm happy for them. It's sweet. And, they do look good together."

I nodded, agreeing exactly with everything she said. "She's better for him than Mia was.

"Most definitely."

We'd seen Mia, not too long ago. She was sitting with Lola Travers, the two of them dateless and neither willing to dance with the other. So they occupied a slightly frosty silence, that seemed to be getting less and less frosty by the second.

"I still don't like her at all, but at least she's not alone."

Lydia nodded. "True. But as long as she becomes a better person I think it's okay to forgive her for the past."

"Scorpius'll have to do it first. He's the one she hurt."

"Of course."

And we sat in amiable silence, my hand in hers, just the two of us sitting here happily as though for a moment, the entire world had been put on pause around us.

That was, until Alfie and that boy... Oliver? scampered past us.

"Alfie? What're you doing here?" I called out to him, and Alfie pauses, rigid as a board, only turning around very slowly and very cautiously.

"Albus! Why aren't you two dancing?"

Now I was never the one who was particularly good at reading people, but I knew that Alfie was acting suspiciously. Well, it wasn't for me to pry.

"We got tired and decided to sit down," Lydia said, saving me before I said something stupid. "And you two? Where were you?"

Oliver looked back to Alfie as the two sat down, and said, very suddenly, "I forgot my tie!"

"Oh."

"So we had to go back and get it. Then, I had a little trouble with the riddle so it took a while, but now here we are!"

Lydia let out a sound of deep sympathy from next to me. "Ah, I see. The riddle was quite hard this time, I thought."

"Yes, I really think Flitwick outdid himself this time."

Lydia and Oliver passed the time discussing the recent riddles that had been the key to their common room, until some loud shouting got all our attention.

"How /dare/ you try to derail the course of this party with your silly antics! Fred, Roxanne, detention for three months each!"

Professor Henrich shouting st You was not good. Professor Henrich using full sentences to speak to you was sometimes worse. A combination of the two...

"I think we should get out of here," I whispered into Lydia's ear, she gave me a little nod of agreement, and we stood, staying as quiet and innocuous as possible. Waving goodbye to Alfie and Oliver, who were still watching the unfolding drama with intrigue, we scampered out of the large doors, and quickly made our way to the back of the west wing. To the sixth floor of the Yesult Tower.

"Oh, we haven't been here in so long!" Lydia sighed as the warmth enveloped us as we stepped into the tower. It was toasty up here, the red rug on the floor soft against our shoes and the piles of cushions very comfortable to sit on. "I like it up here."

"Me too. It's one of those places I'll definitely miss when we leave this place."

"Yeah," Lydia gave me a sad smile, "I know what you mean."

She snuggled into my side as we sat together, my arm draped around her shoulders.

"You feel cold," I commented, as my thumb stroked her arm tenderly.

"It's fine. It's winter, and I'm wearing a dress, of course I'd be cold!"

I chuckled lightly, "I suppose so."

A light, easy silence settled over us again, as lethargy set in and we relaxed into the ultimate comfortableness.

"Can I come and visit you? Over the winter?" She asked, quite out of the blue.

I remember feeling surprised. The surprise I felt sometimes when I remembered that this really was real and not just some dream. Surprised that she'd want to spend time with me outside of school. I'd spend forever with her, but it was always nice to know that she'd spend it with me, too.

"Of course. Why? Do you want to see London?"

"And you." She said, with a cute little smile as she looked up to meet my eyes. "But yes, I've never actually been to London. Or to the south of the U.K."

"Seriously? But the south's the best!"

"Umm— Scotland's the best." She corrected with an unimpressed look I knew she was only putting on for show.

"The south's the best part of England, then."

"Yeah, that's fine."

"I can't believe you've never been down there, though!"

"Why would I? We barely travel by wizard transport because dad still finds it weird, and it takes a very long time to get down there by train."

"That's true. I can't believe your dad doesn't like wizard transport after what— 18 years?"

"I know," she sighed, "it's super annoying sometimes. But mam doesn't care so that's that."

"Where'd they meet again?"

"Oh, the bank. My dad works at a Muggle one, mam was lost and went in for directions. She happened to ask him, and he asked her for her telephone number. She just gave him her address instead, and then they never looked back."

"It's really sweet, actually. Better than my parents, anyway."

Lydia laughed. "What, you mean just like this?"

"Oh. Oh! Well, mum and dad were different...?"

I laughed with her. I couldn't help it, not when it was her.

"But anyway, you're welcome at home. Dad will be happy you're not ginger, and mum will want to meet you, I'm sure."

"Your family really does have a thing for gingers, doesn't it?"

"Well, until this generation. Thankfully. You're not ginger, and neither's Millie."

"Oh, that is true."

The owls began hooting outside. The moon was at the top of its post in the sky, and the stars shimmered on the blanket of the midnight sky.

We talked and talked, sitting there some comfortably in each other's presence. She talked about how she wanted to be a diplomat in the Ministry; I talked about how I was going to talk to the Nurses at St Mungo's next week. We discussed the finer (stranger) points of Scottish cuisine, and of how peculiar it had been, growing up with parents as famous as mine. And Lydia's mum, who had once been a Seeker in the Scottish Quidditch League, and the first Chinese woman to do so.

The time passed, and the moon shifted closer to its resting place than we had.

I knew what I wanted to say. What had been sitting on my heart for some time now. But for some reason, these three words were almost impossible to say when you really meant it.

The silence we sat in was so comfortable, so sweet. I wanted to add to it with those three words; disturb the silence for a moment, to only make it better.

"Lydia,"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

I felt her suck in a breath. She shifted slightly, to meet my green eyes with her entrancingly beautiful brown ones. "I love you, too."

I leant down to give her a quick kiss, my heart bursting with emotion.

She settled down again, leaning her head into my chest, hand entwined in mine. I leant my head over hers, letting my eyes fall closed in this blissful, wonderfully warm silence. I knew, with every fibre of my being, this was how I wanted to end every evening for the rest of my life. With Lydia by my side.

So, this was what love felt like? Then I was happy to be it's victim. growing up with a famous dad. I was happy to always be a victim of love, today and until I died, if all for Lydia.

Awww, they're adorable

Bonus points if you can guess who her mum is! (Hint: It's a named character in both the films + books)

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