"I like a boy." The year had flown by again, another year at Hogwarts almost gone. And Rose remained as direct as ever. She and Scorpius sat in the Gryffindor common room one of the evenings before their final exams, pooling notes while Albus napped in his chair. Rose glanced at Scorpius and tickled his ear with the end of her quill when he didn't immediately reply. "Did you hear me?"

"Processing," Scorpius murmured, staring down at his paper. He set his quill into the ink well and then glanced at the common room clock. It was nearly midnight, and the room was beginning to empty out, except for a few hysterical OWL students crowded into a corner. "Who?"

Rose, self conscious over the other half-inch she had grown since September, hunched over the table.

"You don't know him."

"Well aren't you going to tell me?" Scorpius asked, slightly affronted. He was so tired from studying that his eyelids were beginning to drop. Rose blushed a deep pink.

"Maybe," she countered, putting her face in her hands and peeking at Scorpius through her fingers. She stared directly at him, her pupils widening before she blinked. "It's embarrassing, Scorpius. How come you never talk about this with me?"

"I don't like anyone," Scorpius said instinctively. He spoke too quickly, as the thought of Lily Potter floated to the front of his mind. Rose stared at him for a long moment in which she remained stubbornly quiet, as if waiting for him to assure her that he was lying, he did like someone. Scorpius remained just as quiet.

"Could you tell me something?" She asked finally.

"What?"

"Do you think boys like me?"

"How do you mean?" Scorpius rubbed his eyes, yawning.

"Forget it," Rose said, staring up at the clock.

"I mean I know that Travis is basically in love with you, Rosie," Scorpius laughed lightly, beginning to stack his notes into chronological order. "Is that who you like? Rose and Travis sitting in a tree…"

"Oh shut up," Rose commanded, rolling her eyes. "I didn't mean it like that." Before Scorpius could ask her anything further, she rapped on the table and opened another set of books. "Do you want to quiz me first, or should I quiz you?"

"Aren't you going to tell me who you like?"

"Oh, no," Rose said, squirming in her seat. "It's not important right now."

In the corner, Albus let out a tremendous snore that caused the anxious fifth years to vacate the common room entirely. After only twenty minutes of shooting back and forth test questions, Scorpius dozed off, his forehead falling into the cracked spine of his Transfiguration textbook. Rose watched him sleep for a moment before she gathered up her books and blew out the candle on the table. Before she ran up the staircase, the blush still staining her cheeks, she leaned down to whisper in Scorpius' ear as he fell into dreamland:

"I like you, Scorpius."

It became difficult, for Scorpius to forget what Rose had asked him over the summer. In fact, it had bothered him so badly during his transfiguration exam that he had nearly forgotten to fill out an entire page of the test. Do boys like me? It had been most unlike Rose to broach such a question—Scorpius had hardly met a person who seemed so sure of themselves. He knew, of course, this wasn't always the case, but it had still thrown him off guard.

Rose was pretty, in his opinion. She had lustrous hair and cute freckles, and Scorpius liked her smile, which was a little goofy and wide. She had a nice laugh, and was smart and fiercely protective. He didn't understand, exactly, what it was that someone wouldn't like about Rose. He felt a surge of anger at the mysterious target of Rose's affections, the idiot who apparently didn't recognize her spectacular qualities.

The thought did not leave his mind in mid-July, when he had received permission from his parents to visit Albus and Rose for a week. Their families were vacationing in the Potter's summer home, which turned out to be more of a mansion, in Italy. It was a beautiful villa set into crumbling stonewalls of the Almafi Coast. On the day Scorpius' mother brought him to the villa (his father had sheepishly stayed behind, at home), Scorpius and Albus had pounced on him, each deeply sunburnt.

"I am so happy you can stay for the whole week," Rose exclaimed, hastening to show him the different kinds of flora she had collected over the holiday. Albus tugged him in the opposite direction, to show him the brooms they were allowed to use at night, under restricted usage. Scorpius' mother chatted with the other two women who had appeared jovially at the doorway of the villa.

"I really am so grateful that you're letting Scorpius stay for the whole week," Celia was saying to Ginny Potter. "If he's any trouble at all, you're to tell me right away. I can be here in an instant." Ginny and Hermione both burst out laughing.

"Nothing we can't handle," Hermione assured her.

"Besides, Scorpius is such a sweet boy," Ginny said. "Albus and Lily are always saying how kind he is."

"It's true," Celia said, watching as her son and Rose bending over the balcony of the villa, looking down into the water below. "He's very kind-hearted." She approached her son to kiss him goodbye, but paused and lingered behind a curtain of sweet-smelling flowers when she heard him speaking with Rose.

"—And there, there's a place Al and James and I go swimming. Hugo and Lily can't swim well enough, because it's too deep. You can swim well, can't you? I think I saw a shark the other day!"

"I was thinking of what you said before school ended the other day." Celia was surprised by the tone of her son's voice, it was on the cusp of changing, and had the tone of constantly being about to break.

"What did I say?" Rose asked. "Oh, and Scorpius, I forgot, Harry makes banana and pineapple treats, muggles call them smoothies, and they are so amazing. I can't wait for you to try one, I really am so excited you're here."

"Me too," Scorpius said, beginning to draw on the edge of impatience. "But Rose, let me say this, okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." Celia saw, through the flowers, Rose smile at her son, her smile genuine and wide. Her smile was the perfect combination of her parents.

"You asked me if boys like you, remember that?"

"Oh, gosh." Rose blushed furiously. "I was just tired I think…"

"We're thirteen now," Scorpius said in an exceedingly mature tone that made his mother crack a smile. He sounded as if he were about to announce his move into his own apartment and start a new job. "And I just…if you go with a boy-"

"Oh my god, Scorpius, can we just go swimming?"

"Just hang on." Scorpius ducked his white-blonde head, aiming to capture Rose's eye line. "If you ever meet a bloke who immediately cannot tell you why he likes you, can you come tell me?"

"Why would I tell you that?" Rose queried.

"So I could tell him all the reasons he should like you, and then hex him a couple times."

Rose snorted, then giggled, and then butted Scorpius' shoulder with her forehead. Scorpius returned the shoulder-butt. Albus emerged from the house, clutching smoothies in hand, slopping them over himself. Rose tore away to help Albus clean up, and Scorpius tucked his hands into his pockets. Celia smiled and stole away, slipping through the heat to apparate home.