Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other awesome things you may recognize in this spiffylicious story.

I would like to dedicate this chapter to Bucky5 who gave me extra motivation to really push this chapter out, and also to BethTonksBrown for doing a beta read over it for me! Thanks so much guys! You guys ROCK! :D

The Rarest Type of Seer

Chapter 2

Scorpius sat in Albus's room pondering what dinner would be like with Lily Potter there. He

realized that he could not remember ever sitting down to the Potter's table with her there. She had always been 'away'. (He sometimes wondered where 'away' was, but usually ended up regarding his thoughts as unimportant. He certainly never voiced them aloud to Albus. He figured his curiosity was best left unsaid.)

Dinner with the Potters was always a pretty laid back affair. Scorpius could not remember a single meal where he had ever felt nervous sitting down to eat with them. Oh. Wait, there was the first time. But he figured that one hardly signified. The way he saw it, anybody would have been nervous to be sitting down to eat with the savior of the wizarding world.

As he sat down to that first meal, he tried to remember all his manners and etiquette that his mother and aunt and grandmother had been drilling into his head since he was a very young child. Scorpius sat in his chair across from Teddy Lupin, (who was looking entirely too amused for his own good,) with his back straight and a blank expression on his face, hoping and praying that he didn't make a fool of himself, or upset Mr. Potter in any way.

Before he left his house that evening his grandmother informed him that he had better be on his best behavior. (Not that he wouldn't have been anyway, but that was not the point.) He was a guest in the Potter house, and he had better make a good impression on them. It was at that point that he realized his grandmother's social climbing ways. It wasn't like he had never noticed them before; it was just that he had never been part of her schemes, whether it was directly or indirectly, and he could honestly say that he did not like it.

He remembered sitting there fidgeting with his hands in his lap while waiting for the little house elf, he thought her name might have been Winky, to place the food on the table. Albus kept shooting him funny looks every time he moved. It wasn't like the Malfoy scion to be so nervous, and the tension in the room was so thick, you could cut it with a butcher knife.

Scorpius was used to polite and quiet dignity at the dinner table, so it was quite a shock to him when the food was all placed on the table, and Mrs. Potter looked at them all, quirked an eyebrow at Teddy, and said, "Well, aren't you boys going to eat?"

As the boys dug in to the wonderful food at the table and the chatter seemed to take on a life of its own, Scorpius felt as if he were being stared at. Looking up at the head of the table, he realized that it was Mr. Potter that had been staring him down. Not knowing what to do, he returned the gaze with a questioning look of his own, in the back of his mind praying the whole time that Albus's dad did not hold the same prejudice's that Rose's dad did against his family.

Mrs. Potter, having noticed the staring contest going on, stopped her conversation with Teddy, and waved her hand in front of her husband's face, and broke him out of his trance. "I think you're scaring the poor boy, honey," she whispered. Of course, they all heard what she said making Teddy and James bust out laughing while Albus groaned. Scorpius felt his skin heat up, and he just knew that he looked as if he had just spent hours in the sun.

"So sorry," Harry said with a self-deprecating grin. "I tend to get lost in thought sometimes, and not really pay attention to what I'm doing." He gave Scorpius a genuine smile and that, it seemed, was that.

He shook his head at his reflections and his thoughts circled back to Lily Potter. He wondered briefly what the great mystery surrounding the youngest Potter was, and why Albus was so wretched to her. He also wanted to know why it was that Rose seemed to dislike her so much, though he figured a good deal of that had to do with jealousy. (For the life of him, he couldn't figure out what Rose had to be jealous of, but who was he to know how the minds of girls worked.) Scorpius also could not disregard some of those looks of utter fear that had crossed Rose's face when she first saw her cousin. Oh, sure, she had covered them up rather quickly, but he had seen them just the same.

He was pondering all this when Albus came into the room, looking broodier than ever. The green eyed boy made his way over to his desk and proceeded to bang his head on it a few times. "Look, Albus," Scorpius began, "About Rose, -"

Albus cut him off, "Save it for later, Scor. I don't want to talk about it right now. Not with Lily and her – friend here." He sneered the word 'friend', making it sound like a bad thing, and adding more things to Scorpius's list of questions. 'Just what exactly did this Cham girl do to Albus? And, more importantly,' to Scorpius's mind anyway, 'how in the heck was it that Al had met her, and he, (Scorpius) had not?' He voiced this last question out loud, but all he got for his troubles was a grunt in response.

Scorpius looked at Albus for the first time that day. I mean, he really looked at him. Out of all the Potter kids, Albus was the one that 'wore his emotions on his sleeve'. And even then, most people would not be able to actually see what he was feeling. Maybe it was because they had been friends for so long that Scorpius could read him better than most.

Albus looked tired, worn, and beat out. Scorpius had to wonder how much of Albus's mental strain was from Rose, and how much was from the surprise of seeing his sister after so long.

There was a shriek and a clatter that came from downstairs making both boys jump up. But, before either of them made a move to the door, Rose stormed in looking angrier than ever and Scorpius swore that there was steam coming out of her ears. "What's the matter now?" Albus asked her, exasperated.

"Nothing," she said shortly. "I just came up here to tell you that Aunt Ginny says dinner is just about ready and you two need to get down there." She turned to leave just as abruptly as she had come in, but stopped at the door briefly. "Oh, and James and Teddy are here also."

Albus groaned. "It just gets better and better," he muttered standing up, "that would explain the shriek though. I bet it was Lily greeting her 'favorite' brother." He used air quotes around the word 'favorite', and there was a sadness in his green eyes that was barely perceptible, but there non-the-less.

Scorpius watched him curiously. He wanted to say something that might ease his friend's tension, but he had no idea what he could possibly say to make the situation better.

Albus sighed and then squared his shoulders as if getting ready for battle. "Scorpius," Scorpius stopped on his way to the door at the seriousness in Al's voice. He turned with a questioning look on his face, imploring silently for Albus to continue. "You need to keep your thoughts to yourself tonight at dinner," he said cryptically.

"What do you mean by that?"

"It means exactly that. Keep your mind guarded, practice basic occlumency, reign in your thoughts, whatever you want to call it," and with that said, a frustrated Albus left the room.

Pizza, he remembered, is what Mrs. Potter had said they were having for dinner that night. He wasn't expecting it be homemade pizza, though. Nor was he expecting Rose to be scowling so severely over the fact that it was. At least, he assumed that's what she was scowling at. It could have been the fact that she was sitting directly across from Lily, and Lily, it seemed, was having fun making faces at her cousin when she thought there wasn't anyone looking.

'How very mature of her,' he thought idly. Lily suddenly met his eyes, and he saw a flash of irritation cross in her own green eyes as if she heard him. She looked away quickly enough and he remembered Albus's warning about keeping his thoughts to himself.

Scorpius shook off the warning and took in the dining room around him, and the delicious looking food on the table, all the while listening to the conversation that surrounded him.

The oblong table that usually sat six had been magically expanded to accommodate not only himself and Rose, but James's most recent girlfriend, and Lily's blonde haired friend. Scorpius was unsure as to why James would bring his latest girl to a 'family' dinner so soon after just beginning to date her. He shrugged that thought away just as quickly as he did his earlier ones on Albus. What James did was his business. Besides, rumor had it that James didn't care if his latest fling met his parents. It was only serious if he introduced them to his baby sister. This made him wonder if James had known Lily was even home.

As Scorpius looked around him, he realized that this was the most lively he had ever seen the Potters. Ginny Potter, Scorpius knew was not only the love of Harry's life, but the glue that held their family together and everyone in the wizarding world knew this. Apparently though, there was a well-kept secret that Lily Potter was the true heart and soul of this family. She brought a life and vitality to it that Scorpius had never seen before.

"Pineapple and Cheese! EW, Lily! Why can't you be normal?" Rose squealed, bringing Scorpius out of his thoughts. It seemed that Rose's indignant words silenced everyone in the room. Mr. and Mrs. Potter looked at Rose with identical questioning faces, while Teddy and James looked like they wanted to smack her. Lily's friend, Cham, Scorpius thought her name was, was sitting on the left of Lily and looked like she wanted nothing more than to help Teddy and James out with whatever punishment they might have for their younger cousin, and James's girlfriend, Amanda, just looked confused. Scorpius glanced over at Albus, who was directly across from Cham, only to get a shrug in reply.

Lily grinned impishly and shot a look at Cham before turning to Rose, "My darling girl," she practically simpered, "when are you going to realize that being 'normal', as you put it, is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." (1) She grinned triumphantly, and turned back to her pizza while Rose sat in her chair next to Teddy and spluttered.

Cham burst out laughing. "Oh Greece, Lils," she said trying to catch her breath, "I can't believe you even remembered that line! We watched that movie ages ago!" Lily smiled brilliantly at her friend and Scorpius had to suck in some extra air at the transformation.

He had known from his previous acquaintance of earlier that day with her that Lily was a rather pretty girl, but this smile was so genuine that it lit up the entire room. 'And now, I'm getting poetic', he thought ruefully.

"Lily." There was a warning in Mr. Potter's voice, but Scorpius could see the humor that danced in his eyes and the grin that he was trying to repress. Lily shrugged at her father, accepting the warning for what it was, but not promising to heed it just the same.

Teddy cleared his throat, and the conversation started back up around the table.

Scorpius didn't really pay much attention to any of it, simply allowing the conversation to wash over him and losing himself to his thoughts. He didn't know what he was going to do about Rose. It was obvious that she did not tell Albus the truth about why they were broken up, most likely spinning a tale of lies to him.

He wished for nothing more than some proof of her cheating to show Albus that it was entirely his precious cousin's fault. Granted, Scorpius had been thinking about breaking up with her for a while, and this had really just been a means to an end, but still, she could have had the decency to break up with him.

He felt lucky that Lily had stepped in when she did earlier that day. He wasn't sure if Al would have kicked him out of the house or not, and the distraction of his sister seemed to be just what was needed to ease some of Al's anger.

"…So, the question is really, should they blow it up or not," he heard Teddy say. "Victoire is certain that if they do, some ancient curse will be drawn down on their heads. Something about some organization, I think she called it Locks Lucas Alfredo…."

A gasp from the other side of the table made Scorpius look up from his current slice of pizza; there was no evidence as to who had made the sound, but Rose's eyes were wide and Cham was frowning deeply. Lily had a slightly troubled look on her face, but for the most part looked serene as she corrected Teddy.

"I believe the group of people you're talking about is called Lux Lucis Effrego." It means 'Light Breakers' in Latin."

"They aren't exactly known for their goodness of heart either," Cham broke in.

"What exactly do you mean by that, Cham?" Mr. Potter asked. There was a slight edge to his voice, and the light hearted atmosphere seemed to have drifted off to grace another's home.

The two girls exchanged a significant looked that did not go unnoticed by the other occupants of the table.

"Lily…," and there was a note of warning to that one word.

Just as Lily was opening her mouth to answer, Cham spoke up. "Let's just say that our run ins with them have never been pleasant occasions. They have never done anything physical to us," she hurried to reassure him, and Scorpius swore he saw Lily mouth, 'not yet, anyway,' "-it has all just been verbal sparring." Cham finished, while nudging Lily in the side.

Apparently Lily had said it just loud enough for her friend to hear her.

"Don't worry, Daddy," Lily said, turning to him and smiling, "We haven't got ourselves hurt in any way, shape, or form. Besides, it's not like we don't have an idea of what's going to happen with them."

"What do you mean by that?" Amanda spoke up for what seemed like the first time that evening. "You make it sound as if you're psychic or something."

"Or something," someone muttered. Scorpius wasn't sure who said it though, but Mrs. Potter was glaring in the general direction of Rose, so he had a good idea.

There was an awkward silence after this that was saved by who Scorpius assumed was the least likely of people at the table.

"How's your archery coming, Lily?" Albus asked from what seemed to be out of the blue. "Uncle George has set up a new course out at his house in Hogsmead. It's really cool. You should check it out."

The humor flared back to life in Lily's green, green eyes, and Cham snorted from next to her. "Oh, I think her archery is getting better and better….," she said. It was obvious to everyone that she was holding back some secret knowledge, and it amused her greatly.

"Really?" James asked. "After how many years at the sport, and your finally getting the hang of it, tell us Lils, what got you improving?"

"I'm not sure I should," she said with an almost nervous glance at her cousin.

"Oh! Come on Lils, it's funny, if not just a tiny bit ironic." Cham cajoled.

Everyone at the table, it seemed, were looking expectantly at Lily. She sighed and said with some slight exasperation, "Oh, alright! Mrs. Leastor, the outdoors instructor of our – um," she paused slightly as if considering something and then continued, "-our school, noticed that I was having some trouble with focusing on the target, so she let me transfigure it into whatever shape I felt would help the most."

"It's a really cool process, though," Cham cut in across her. "You don't just say, 'ok, I want this to be a bullseye target' and then wave your wand and change it. You have to do it sub-consciously."

There were several raised eyebrows around the table at this statement, and it was Scorpius that asked the obvious question. "How in Merlin's name do you transfigure something sub-consciously?"

Lily grinned at him, (he refused to acknowledge his heart speeding up), and when she answered it was as if she was only answering him and not addressing anyone else in the room. "It's almost the same process as becoming an animagus," she said. "You have to let go of quite literally everything you are thinking and feeling, putting yourself almost in a trance-like state."

"You mean like that muggle exercise, what's it called? Yoda or something like that," Amanda said.

Lily nodded her head in acknowledgement, smiling slightly. "Yoga," she corrected her. "Anyway, after you go into the 'state of being and thinking', as our instructors call it, you have to imagine your target and then cast your spell at the real target. If it's done correctly, then when you come out of said 'state of being and thinking', you should have the target that will help you succeed the most in archery."

"Hmm, that sounds like quite a process," Mrs. Potter said. There was definite pride in her voice. "What did your target turn into, Lily?"

"Um…a flower." Nothing truly significant or anything."

Albus choked on the drink he just took, Rose paled greatly, and Cham stifled an all-out laugh.

"A flower," James echoed her dryly, amusement clearly etched across his features.

"What type of flower, l'il Lily?" Teddy chimed in, grinning.

Now, Scorpius was not a stupid person, and given the past animosity between Rose and Lily, (mostly from Rose) he could figure out, just as he was absolutely certain everybody else at the table, except for maybe Amanda, what Lily's archery target had turned into.

Lily looked as if she was going to pass out from the said animosity that was rolling off of Rose in waves. She looked very pale, and her face was scrunched up as if something she ate didn't sit well in her stomach. It seemed as if Cham was the only other person that noticed though. But even she seemed to be insistent in teasing Lily.

Lily, however, was apparently one of those people who recovered fast from discomfort. He watched, amazed, as color flooded back into her face, and she steeled her nerves, giving an uncaring shrug, and pushed her blackish-red ('is that even a color?') hair behind her shoulder. She lifted her current slice of pineapple pizza to her mouth, and just before she bit into it, she stated very simply, "It turned into a rose."

"THAT"S SO MEAN!" Rose screamed as Teddy and James burst into raucous laughter.

"Meh, it happens," Lily replied non-chalantly. "You think you might lower your voice a bit, I do actually like my hearing. I'm sure Scorpius does too, and he's sitting right next to you," she added as an aside. "Besides, I was trying to spare you the knowledge, since I didn't really think you would appreciate it. But – ," she trailed off, giving her brother and Teddy meaningful looks, and letting everyone else fill in the blanks.

"That's enough boys," Mr. Potter said. Though he, himself seemed to be trying to stifle his own laughter.

Rose huffed and glowered down at her plate.

The conversation drifted on from there, moving onto plans for over the holiday and what everyone was doing. He wondered if he would get to see Lily again before the Weasley Family Christmas dinner. And then he wondered what his sudden obsession with her was. He had never cared before. It couldn't be because he was rebounding from Rose. He wasn't even upset over splitting with her. He stared sown at his plate, pondering this newest turn of his thoughts. Sure Lily was attractive, but was it really worth getting to know her better? If they ever did end up in a relationship together, what would it do to his friendship with Albus? Would it put a strain on it? It was common knowledge that Al and Lily did not get along, although, Scorpius had his suspicions that Al truly did care for his baby sister. And then there was James. He was pretty dang protective of her, and for someone who had found favor early on from the oldest of the Potter children, Scorpius really didn't want to lose that.

On top of all of this, was the fact that she might be on bad terms with people he just might be unwillingly associated with, and he really didn't want to put her in any danger. (Her dad was Harry Potter, after all.)

The blonde shook his head at his thoughts; he was getting way too far ahead of himself. All he wanted to do right now, was to simply get to know her, and then see where it went from there.

He realized that he had moved his gaze from his plate and was staring straight ahead of him with a glazed look on his face.

"You alright there, mate?" Teddy asked him quietly, breaking him from his thoughts.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm good. Just thinking," Scorpius smiled a little to let him know he was ok, and then looked around the table, coming face to face with those perfectly green eyes. They penetrated him, as if they could see into his deepest, most darkest, and scariest thoughts.

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours to him, but was probably only a few seconds, before Cham said something, making Lily break her gaze first.

Then she made a tiny gasping sound and looked dead on at Teddy who was in a deep conversation with Mrs. Potter and Albus.

"Teddy?" She said in an unnaturally calm voice, putting a cease to said conversation.

"Yes?"

"Do you remember earlier today at the Auror Office, you were telling me that you wanted to make a surprise trip to visit Victoire?"

Teddy looked slightly bewildered, as if trying to remember this particular discussion. Then understanding flooded his features and he grimaced slightly, and nodded.

Lily never wavered from looking at Teddy, as if she were trying to impart something very important to him that she didn't want anyone else to know. "Maybe you should make that visit soon," she said.

"How soon is 'soon', do you think, Lils?" He asked her with a straight face, tilting his head slightly.

"Oh, I don't know. How about tonight? As in, 'I'm sorry Aunt Ginny, Uncle Harry, but I have an important meeting I need to get to right this very second; thanks for dinner; I love you much, gotta go' – tonight," she said all of this in a very hurried rush, and it was clear to everyone that she did not want to be having this discussion in front of them.

"Riiiiight….," Teddy said getting up from his chair. "Well, Aunt Ginny, Uncle Harry. You heard the girl. I'll see you later." He left to stunned silence in the dining room and everyone staring at Lily Potter.

"Heh. I think I'm really tired Mum. May I be excused?" Lily looked at her mum pleadingly and as soon as she got a nod in return, she fled the table.

(1) quoted from 'Practical Magic' (Of which I also own nothing!)

A/N: I would like to tell you how very hard this chapter was for me to write. I know that a lot didn't happen in it but it was a necessary chapter.

I want to thank everyone who favorited, and alerted, and cookies to all of you marvelous reviewers. I love you all! If I did not respond to your review, I apologize, but please know that every review I received meant a lot to me. So,*PLEASE* keep them coming! :D They are like candy for the muse's soul. HA HA! Plus, I shall give you all virtual cake this time. Until the next chapter!

CHEERS!

~Jeni