"You're going to ask Lily?" Rose replied, her mouth falling open a bit. Her blue eyes widened considerably, and then she turned away, biting down on her lip. The blood drained from her face, and her tan looked considerably less brown than before. "When?"

"Whenever." Scorpius puffed out his chest and refused to look at her. "Perhaps you could help me set something up? Avery told me girls like that, to be asked inventively."

Rose shook her head, but said: "I'll help."

"Girls don't like to be asked inventively?"

"What?"

"You shook your head."

"Not to that."

"To what?"

"I don't know." Rose clutched the bag against her chest. "Can we go back to school please? I think I'm catching that stomach bug."

"Fine," Scorpius said sullenly. They walked back to the castle in silence, Scorpius trailing ever-so-slightly in her wake. Rose did not look back at him, but if she had, he might have seen the peculiar expression across her features; he would have seen the anger in her brow and the hurt in her eyes. When they reached the Gryffindor Common Room, Rose went straight up the stairs and closed the door to her dormitory.

Scorpius collapsed into the couch and put his head in his hands. Snow began to swirl down past the window in crazy gusts of wind. He had a pounding headache—Rose's figure in the dress burned before his eyes like an eclipse. Had she seemed disappointed when he told her he would ask Lily? Had she seemed angry? She hadn't seemed pleased with it. But it was Rose. Again, knowing Rose as well as he did, Scorpius assumed that if something was wrong, she would have told him, perhaps yelled a bit. She was always stern when she was cross. This, somehow, was worse.

"Scorpius?" Someone said. He looked up and saw Lily Potter, standing cautiously at the easy chair next to the fireplace. She had just been outside too; her hair was windswept and dotted with flakes of snow. In one hand she held a broom.

"Hi."

"Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Scorpius replied, gesturing towards the armchair. "Do you want to sit?"

"Sure." Lily collapsed into the chair, slinging the broom over her legs.

"Practicing?" Scorpius asked.

"I was," Lily laughed. "Until it started snowing." She looked down at her hands. "I'm still upset that I didn't make the team this year…but once Jade is gone, another chaser position should open up."

"You'll make it. James will be captain at that point."

"Oh, so I can only make the team if James is captain?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Scorpius said immediately, scrambling. "No, not at all. I just meant that it could help, you know. Because the team already loves you."

"Relax, Scorpius," Lily said with another giggle. "I was just teasing. I know I'll make it, regardless of if he's captain or not."

"Well…okay. Good."

"You're so easy to rile up," Lily noted.

"I don't think so."

"Oh, Rose and I agree." The sound of Rose's name sent a shock through his spine. "But it's in a good way. You're hot-headed, but also…I don't know. Not? You're also not-hot-headed. It's endearing." Scorpius felt himself blushing in spite of himself. Lily tossed the broomstick back and forth in her hands, and then hummed the tune of a Bent-Wing Snitches song.

"Lily?" Scorpius asked.

"Mhmm?"

He had expected, at this point, to feel like falling over. He had expected to be so nervous that his stomach would feel like a bucket of snakes, that he'd feel his heart pumping in his throat, and that he would attempt to smile but would be so nervous that it would instead look like a sneer. But he didn't feel any of that. So instead, when he spoke, he sounded almost bored.

"D'you want to go to the Yule Ball with me?"

Lily paused, let the broom hover a few inches above the ground. She turned to look at him, her eyes curious.

"Yes." She sat up in the chair and smiled, her eyes crinkling. "Yes, of course."

"Great," Scorpius said, smiling too. After all, it was Lily. He had just asked Lily Potter to the Yule Ball. And here she was, smiling at him and saying yes, and goddammit, all he could think about was Rose Weasley. All he could think about was the robes she would be wearing and how they brought out her eyes, and her tangle of long red hair and her red lips.

As he lay in bed that night, ready to go to sleep early, Albus stumbled into the room, red in the face. Scorpius sat up, frowning, and found Albus staring wildly at him. Beyond the doorway stood Jaclyn, looking a bit frightened and embarrassed.

"You asked my sister?" He bellowed.

"Er…"

"Al?" Jaclyn said timidly. "I'm going to go."

"Oh, okay," he replied mildly, turning to smile at her. Jaclyn smiled too. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Anytime."

Al continued to smile as he shut the door, and then rounded on Scorpius, who was grinning cheekily.

"Don't think that because I'm in a good mood that you can get away with asking my sister to the Yule Ball."

"I'm not apologizing," Scorpius said.

"Well…well…okay," Albus replied, clearly thrown off. He lowered his voice. "But she's my sister."

"It's not like that, you know."

"So why'd you ask her?" Al took a seat on his own bed. "If you don't like her like that, why'd you get her hopes up?"

"I don't think her hopes are up. I don't think so at all. I hope not." Scorpius put his head in his hands again. "I don't know what to do."

"Should I tell her you don't want to go?"

"That's not it." Scorpius smoothed back his hair. "Without you punching me or hexing me or whatever, can I tell you something?"

"Not the best start, but okay."

"I thought I liked Lily. I used to. But that's not why I asked her to the Yule Ball. I asked her as a friend. On impulse. But it's…it's Rose. I think I like Rose."

"You thought it would be a good idea to tell me that you liked my sister, and now you like my cousin? Who, might I remind you, is our best friend?"

"I have a headache," Scorpius grumbled.

"Without providing details, what changed?"

"What?"

"I mean…" Al sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "I can't believe I have to talk about this. But what made you think you like Rose? And hey, man, I feel like I need to at least kick you for not liking my sister."

"Wait until Rose finds out I asked her to the ball. She'll probably kill me for you."

"She loves Lily too much."

"I don't know what happened. It was really sudden. We were just in Hogsmeade, looking at robes, and then she put on some Dress Robes that made her look…She didn't look like Rose, but she did. She looked beautiful. And I couldn't bear it, couldn't bear the thought of thinking about her that way. It was confusing and embarrassing. I had to go outside to calm down, and by the time she joined me, wouldn't you believe it, but Travis had asked her to the Yule Ball."

"Well surely she didn't-"

"She said yes."

"Well that's shocking." Albus frowned. "Scorpius, don't you think that maybe Rose feels the same way?"

"No." Scorpius shook her head. "No, I don't."

"Really?" Al raised his eyebrows. "Because I've known Rose for my entire life, and I think she does. Break it down, and it's easy to see. She actively sought you out to be our friend when we got here. She could have ignored you. She had enough family to have other friends. But she didn't. Rose, whose hardly broken a rule in her life, was the one who insisted we go out and find you that night our first year, when you wandered off into the castle. She's stuck by you thick and thin, defended you (need I remind you what she did to Zabini?), and smiles almost every time she sees you. She'd do anything for you."

"Those are all things a friend would do."

"I didn't hex Zabini," Albus reminded him. "I didn't stay up every night to play Wizard's Chess and talk in the common room. I didn't make study guides for you whenever we've had a transfiguration exam."

"I don't-"

"Talk to her."

"You're suggesting I go up to Rose, when she's acting strange (possibly angry), and try to tell her I'm into her out of the blue?"

"You didn't say she's mad at you." Albus exhaled. "Yeah, keep your distance. We'll figure it out together."

"Thanks, Al."

"Don't mention it."

The night of December 27 was the Yule Ball. It was one week following Scorpius' trip to Hogsmeade with Rose. She had not spoken to him since that day. She sat with other girls in class, ate with Clementine at breakfast, lunch and dinner. She spoke to Al when he spoke to her, but looked straight through Scorpius in the hallway. If he tried to approach her on his own, she would dart away quickly—she was much faster than he gave her credit for. Lily, on the other hand, was suddenly around more than usual. The thought would have thrilled him, eight days earlier, but now, even her bright and cheery presence couldn't cheer Scorpius up.

The night of the Yule Ball, Scorpius and Al got ready in their dormitory, along with Travis, Avery and Nash. Nash was constantly preening in front of the mirror, causing the others to smirk in back of him. But what Scorpius was bothered by, more than his crooked cufflinks, was Travis, who was babbling excitedly to the rest of the room.

"I think I'm going to ask Rose to go out with me," Travis said, adjusting his sleeves. Scorpius let his eyes roll into the back of his head before uttering a soft groan.

"D'you think she'll vomit again?" Avery snickered. "Er…sorry Al. And Scorpius, I guess."

"Why are you apologizing?" Scorpius snapped, and everyone stared. "It's not like it matters to me. Not at all. I don't care." He turned back to fiddling with his cufflinks. Albus tried to point out that Scorpius was putting them on backwards, earning a rather fearsome glare that Scorpius regretted a moment later.

Lily was waiting for him at the end of the stairs, looking quite pretty in golden robes with a floaty skirt and thin straps. She wore a white flower in her hair, which looked to be tropical and smelled sweetly. She smiled at Scorpius when he walked down to meet her, and he realized that she had curled her hair for the occasion, and it bounced around her shoulders when she leaned in to hug him.

"You look great," Scorpius greeted her.

"You don't look bad yourself," Lily said. "I do like your robes. Can't go wrong with classic black, eh?"

"I wasn't feeling too creative," Scorpius replied, trying to smile. Albus and Jaclyn, who looked quite pretty in light pink robes, joined them at the bottom of the stairs. Albus had gone to the trouble to buy Jaclyn a small broach made of color-changing ribbon, and she clutched at his arm with a satisfied smile. Al was wearing a set of emerald robes that clashed with his date's dress.

"Shall we go then?" Jaclyn gushed. "I hear they've decorated the Great Hall quite splendidly, full of icicles and crystal. My father told me that during his year, the Yule Ball was-"

But she was interrupted by the sound of laughter emitting from the top of the stairs. Scorpius cranked his neck turning to look up towards her—he knew Rose's laugh as well as he knew his own. She was even more stunning than before. Her red hair was twirled up into an elaborate up-do, and small, deliberate curls escaped loosely. She wore the blue robes she had purchased that day in Hogsmeade, and paired them with silver jewelry, a simple necklace and diamond earrings. Scorpius watched, his heart breaking and bleeding, as Travis approached her with a flower that folded open in her palm. Rose put it behind her ear and touched his arm in appreciation.

"Let's go," Scorpius said, more harshly than he had intended. He wheeled about and headed for the common room door, Lily bobbing along at his side.

The Great Hall, indeed, was splendidly decorated. Aside from the ceiling, the room could have been crafted solely from ice. Students were dressed to the nines, a particularly smug looking Scarlett Arickson sidled by, wearing a fur caplet. There were tables upon tables of food, sporting platters of cakes and pies. There were different bowls of party punch, each color of which had the ability to enhance the mood of the drinker. At the end of the Great Hall, where the professors usually sat, a large stage had been erected. The Bent-Winged Snitches were playing loudly, their guitars and drums nearly drowning out the chatter of the students.

"Do you want punch?" Scorpius heard Al ask Jaclyn.

"How about you?" Scorpius asked Lily. "Do you want punch?"

"No," she said briskly, grabbing his hand. She pulled him towards the stage. "Let's dance."

"Oh, I don't know…"

"You invited me to a dance, we're going to dance," Lily crowed. Scorpius felt eyes on the back of his neck and turned around just before heading into the crowd. Rose was standing in the doorway of the Great Hall, staring at him. Beside her, Travis was gaping around the room, nudging her elbow and pointing things out to her. Scorpius felt the rest of the room fall away around him, and all he could see was Rose. She offered him a greeting by way of blinking at him. And then he was being pulled away, his hand limp in Lily Potter's, as she pulled him away to dance.