A/N: Hello, all!

I'm so sorry for this ridiculously long accidental hiatus. This is back for now, and should be my main Fanfiction focus here within the next few weeks. Hope you all enjoy the return!

This chapter is re-dedicated to Nayla (The Original Horcrux) for a really late GGE present.

Antares disappears after I read to all three of my children, probably off to ask his father some pretentious question. Cassi stays beside me, curled up in her pyjamas.

"You're looking melancholy tonight. Is everything okay?"

"I guess so," she says, but I don't believe her.

"Is it about Jake?"

"Of course it is. What else is there?" Oh. Right. I'd forgotten what it's like to be fourteen.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, nothing's wrong, exactly. It's just… I love to talk him."

"What's wrong about that? You have a crush on a guy you love to talk to. I think that's excellent."

"But it doesn't feel like a real crush, Mum."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he's more like my friend. I can talk to him about anything. One night-" She cuts herself off and looks down, her cheeks flushing. "Don't be upset, please, but one night we stayed up and talked on the phone until three a.m."

I can't help but chuckle. "I'm not upset. But why does that mean you don't think your feelings are real?"

"Whenever I've had a crush before, I was always nervous around the guy. I said stupid things and blushed and couldn't look him in the eye. With Jake, it's different. I still feel like myself."

I wrap an arm around her and squeeze. "Maybe you're right, Cassi. Maybe you don't have a crush on Jake."

"I... I don't?"

"I don't think so. I think you love him."

"Mum!"

"Well, I do. Do you want to know why I think so?"

Her embarrassment disappears as her eyes light up. "Does it have to do with you and Dad?"

I grin.

"Antares!" she calls. "Come here! You don't want to miss this!"

Nothing was going as planned. After my stunt in Hogsmeade, Bryan wouldn't let me out of his sight if he could get away with it. He never knew for sure that I met with Scorpius that day, but he didn't need my confirmation. True or not, he was sure it was the case. He followed me everywhere. Sat between Kavya and me, even, during our shared classes. If he ever saw anything in me at all, it was replaced with jealousy and distrust.

"Where were you yesterday at dinner?" Bryan said one morning at breakfast, about a month after the Hogsmeade fiasco.

"Screwed up in Transfiguration and needed a quick remedy in the hospital wing."

He looked me over, like he was trying to find the place of my imperfection. "You look fine to me."

"The thing about a magical hospital wing is that you usually leave magically healed," I said, irritated. "It involved a slight mix-up with fingernails and eyebrows."

"You're Rose Weasley," he said, the way my father used to say Draco Malfoy. "You're not supposed to be incompetent. What a liar."

"Go talk to Madam Pomfrey, if you must. Why the hell are you dating me if you don't trust me?"

He looked confused. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Just answer the question. Why. The. Hell. Are. You. Dating. Me?"

"Because I love you, Rosie. I've told you that. I love you and I want to make sure you become the kind of person I know you could be."

"What? A female version of you, except with no friends whatsoever?" There was some sort of noise from my left, but I was occupied with narrowing the distance between Bryan and me, glaring, and generally pretending like I was six inches taller than I actually was. "I may not be a love expert, but last I checked, love is what happens after you've been dating someone. Date someone who intrigues you. Date someone you think is interesting. Hell, date someone you think you could control. But 'because I love you' is a shitty reason and you know it."

His eyes softened and he took my hand. If he wasn't in love with me, he would have gotten an award for acting like it. "You were a damsel in distress, and there was no one else I would rather be Prince Charming for."

I pulled my hand away, and took a step back, my posture less guarded. "You… you know Muggle fairy tales?"

He laughed. "My Mum made me do it."

"She's Pureblood, too, though!"

"Family tradition, I guess."

For a slim moment, I saw what a healthy relationship between us could look like. That's when I realized what the noise over my shoulder was. I turned around to see Elizabeth Creevey, a fifth year, with her camera in our faces.

"Don't mind me," she said. "Act natural. It isn't documentary photography if I'm just documenting you standing there gawking at me. Pretend like I'm not here."

"And what? Keep having our argument? Kiss and make up?"

"Either of those would be fantastic, actually. Can you please get back to it? You were so interesting a few moments ago."

"Let it go, Lizzie. You're not getting more drama from me today. Bryan, I'll see you in class."

"But-"

"Let it go," Bryan echoed, and picked up my book bag from the floor to follow me to Charms.

Despite uniting for a moment against a common enemy, Bryan and I had not forgotten our dispute. Once again, he took my place beside Kavya in Charms and threw my book bag one seat over. Scorpius was on the other side of the room.

I hardly trusted myself to say anything during class, in case Bryan thought I came across as too much of a teacher's pet, or not smart enough, or some other qualification of my words. So I sat and did my work and didn't even look up when Kavya threw a note onto my desk. I did manage to knock it into my book bag as class got over, though.

"Here, let me get that for you," Bryan said as I stood up.

"No, er, I have to use the bathroom. I'll meet you in Runes soon, okay?"

"I can wait for you."

"Really, it's fine, Bryan. I'll see you there." He looked at me, concerned, but I pressed through a gaggle of first-years toward the bathroom, hoping Kavya had been near enough to hear our exchange.

When I opened the door and leaned back against the wall by the sink, the door caught behind me as someone else followed me in. "Kavya. Thank goodness you got my hint."

"You haven't read my note yet, then," she said.

"No. I only just had the chance to-"

"Read it, Rose." The warmth and teasing normally in her voice were gone.

Rose,

I'm tired of seeing you beaten down by Bryan. You deserve better than him and you know it. You aren't yourself anymore and until you are…

"You passed that note right in front of him?! You've always had some nerve, haven't you?"

For the first time since she came in, a smile lit her face. "I charmed it to say something quite different if he opened it."

"Genius magic," I said. Then I remembered the rest of the contents. "Are you… breaking up with me?"

"Rose…" She pulled me into a hug, her arms over mine and my arms still holding my book bag in front of me. "I don't want to put it that way," she said, pulling away. "But… yes. Until I get the old Rose back. Not the one that lets Bryan tell her what to do all the time."

"Kavya, Scor barely talks to me these days and now you're leaving too? What friends am I supposed to have?"

"Bryan, I guess." She turned to go, but paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Maybe it will help you come back to us sooner."

Just as the door swung shut behind her, Elizabeth Creevey crawled out of one of the bathroom stalls. "I'm so glad I caught that. Your life sure is interesting, Rose."

"Shove it," I said, and, in case she didn't feel like taking my advice, I shoved her out of the way myself.

"But can't you see that-"

"Go follow around someone else," I insisted. "Maybe Lily or Lucy has done something interesting this week."

"You don't just randomly start following someone else in the middle of an exposé."

"Then drop it altogether or I'll have my uncle bring it up with your father."

"You wouldn't!"

I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to look menacing. Mum was always better at that than Dad, and unfortunately, I took after my dad. "I would."

I left the bathroom before she could respond and barely looked down the hallways as I raced toward Runes. I was going to be late again, and that was the last thing I needed. First year of N.E.W.T.s and I had completely lost it. Mum would be so upset with me.

About a hallway and a half from the classroom, I ran into someone and fell backwards from the impact. "Watch it!"

"I could say the same to you." I sat up and tried to stop the hallway from spinning around me. "Scorpius? What are you doing late to class?"

"None of your business, is it, since we suddenly stopped being friends or something."

"Oh like that's all my fault. Friendship's a two-way street, you know."

"Yeah. I do. And it's one you haven't walked all year. What gives, Rose? Did a kangaroo knock you over the head? Get your sense squeezed out of you by one of those poisonous snakes or something?"

I couldn't look at him, or accept the hand he offered to help me up. I knew exactly what I wanted to say - how Australia didn't change me at all. The problem was that he and Kavya stayed here and changed without me. "Scor. Stop. It's just- I mean- well-"

"Right. You ate too much vegemite and it sealed your vocal chords together. But only selectively."

"Stop with the Australia jokes already! I don't even like vegemite."

I still refused to look at him, but I could feel his posture relaxing across from me. "Then what is it, Rose? Why aren't we friends anymore? Why can't you talk to me?"

His kindness made me look into his eyes. It was the biggest mistake I'd made all day, and considering how the day had gone, that was saying something. "I- I-"

"What?"

I broke eye contact. "I had a thing on my lips," I mumbled, "but I didn't know how to make it words."

"Learn a new language, too? I don't know what you mean."

"We're late for class, Scorpius."

"Fine. Just answer me one thing."

"Fine."

"Do you think we can go back to the way things used to be?"

He was too handsome, too tall, too concerned with me. I was still the same inadequate girl with bushy red hair I'd always been. With, according to Kavya, terrible taste in boys. I didn't deserve to be in a relationship with him, but I couldn't stand the thought of friendship alone anymore. "No, Scorpius, I don't think we can."

I was just about to open the door to go in when Bryan came storming out. He looked back and forth between us, eyes opening wider than seemed possible. Too late, I realized just how close Scorpius and I were standing. But before Bryan could say anything, Professor Li joined him and scolded all three of us to get inside.

"Er, Mum?"

"Yes, Cassi?"

"What's that have to do with being in love?" She shifts her feet out from under her and studies me quizzically. "You said that how long I can talk to Jake means that it's not an ordinary crush, but in this part of your story, you couldn't say a word to Dad. You were giggling and blushing just like I told you I used to do."

"You're right. I couldn't talk to your father about how much I liked him. Could you imagine telling Jake how you feel when he just wanted to know if you could be friends?"

"Merlin, no! That would be torture!"

I smile knowingly. "Exactly. The most important thing happened in Runes class a few minutes later. But I needed you to know what kind of day I was having first."

"Can't you finish the story tonight?"

I laugh and push the hair back from her eyes. "No, sweetheart. I'm sorry I got carried away in the details, but it's well after eleven and you need to be getting to sleep."

She gets up and walks away from me, but I can see her reaching into the pocket of her dressing gown. I think about chastising her, but summer is only a few weeks longer, and then she won't have that Muggle device at all. If I were her, I would be sneaking in every late-night conversation I possibly could.