Chapter 1 – Prologue

And when I'm feeling alone
You remind me of home

Under the mistletoe
Watching the fire glow
And telling me 'I love you'

2nd December 2023

"Sam and I have broken up," Janey Davington announced to her three roommates.

Two of them let out audible groans at the declaration, whilst the third just rolled her eyes. This was becoming what felt like an almost daily occurrence within that particular dorm room, and Rose Weasley had come to expect it.

"Janey," Rose sighed, "this is the fifth time this past month, and the second time this week, that Sam and you have 'broken up'."

The small blonde girl regarded the redhead with distrust. "Rose," she said condemningly, oddly formal, "I don't appreciate the sarcasm. I can only apologise that my tumultuous relationship is not as wonderfully stable as your own."

It was hard not to feel a little smug. Rose's relationship with her boyfriend Scorpius was, for once in their life, remarkably and wonderfully stable. Since they had officially reconnected around three months ago they had been blissfully happy. Long gone were the days of sneaking around in the shadows, their guards up, their friends and family critical and unsupportive of their relationship, and their own self-doubt tainting their ability to truly be at peace with each other.

No, there were no longer any external threats, nor any internal conflicts to prevent them from being truly, openly, blissfully in love.

The same, however, could not be said for Janey and Sam. Their relationship exceeded Rose's by only a couple of months, and although they'd seen the summer through pretty steadily, since returning to Hogwarts for their seventh and final year of their magical education, the two had very quickly fallen back into their old ways, their clashing personalities interrupting periods of what appeared to be true contentment and leading to bickering, heavy public disagreements, and, according to Janey only, several half-hearted 'breakups.'

"I am so very sorry," Rose apologised to Janey, her tone serious and not at all sarcastic. "Please forgive me. I will try to have a less perfect relationship to spare your feelings in future."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Janey sighed in an exaggerated and performative manner, hands still solemnly clasped like she had just delivered the devastating news of a family death rather than a superficial breakup. "There's no longer any relationship to outshine. Be happy," she instructed. "Savour every moment of sweet, youthful romance whilst it's still yours."

Taylor McAdams grabbed the nearest pillow and launched it straight at Janey's head. Fortunately, her aim wasn't very good so it sailed right past the other girl's shoulder.

Janey shot her daggers in response.

"Janey, stop declaring you and Sam have broken up every single time you have a slight disagreement!" Taylor ordered on behalf of them all. "It has been three months since we've been back at Hogwarts. Three!"

"So?"

It was Gwen Jones who answered Janey's question. "So either end it with him for good or stop with the half-hearted on-off-on-off back-and-forth bullshit!" She was trying to be serious, matching Janey's energy, but the smirk that lurked beneath was hard to conceal. "Take it from all of us, it is very exhausting."

"Hey," Janey snapped. "The way Sam and I conduct our relationship is up to nobody but ourselves!"

If Janey hadn't been so intently glaring at Gwen then she would have noticed Rose's second eye-roll of the conversation. The way Sam and Janey conducted their relationship was often very public and very much not between themselves. It was often conducted in the Gryffindor Common Room. And the Quidditch Pitch. And the Great Hall. And the library. And in Prefect meetings. And in between classes. And sometimes, much to everybody's disgust, within classes.

"Oh, of course," Gwen said sweetly, placating her fiery roommate. "But may I pose a challenge?"

Janey eyed her suspiciously.

Taking this as confirmation to proceed, Gwen went on. "I pose a challenge to you to try and make it to Christmas without breaking up with Sam."

"Well, we're already broken up anyway," Janey said dismissively.

"No, wait," Rose cut in eagerly. "Gwen's on to something here."

Janey now looked at Rose with apprehension.

"I think you should go and patch things up with Sam—I'm sure he'll understand," Rose said quickly, noticing Janey had opened her mouth to protest. "And I think you should try and give it your best effort until Christmas."

"That's only three weeks," Taylor piped up.

"And if you still feel the same way by that deadline then you dump him," Rose declared. "You dump him for good!"

Janey considered the proposition. She appeared to be somewhat hesitant. "For good?"

"Sure," Taylor agreed. "You break up all the time anyway, why not make it permanent?"

"Right?" Gwen chimed in once more. "But until then," she emphasised, "you're not allowed to even mention the word 'breakup'. You have to be fully committed—put your whole heart and mind into it. And when it gets to Christmas—"

"Only when it gets to Christmas," Rose added.

"—you make a decision," Gwen concluded. "A final decision once and for all."

Janey observed them all with deep distrust, scanning the room with her innocent blue eyes. "I don't know…"

"Well," Rose said, "the challenge is there if you want to take it up. Or you can just dump Sam now and be done with it. Or get back together by the end of the day, and then break up again tomorrow and keep going through the same cycle over, and over, and over, and—"

"Okay," Janey commanded. "I get it."

"And…?" Taylor prompted.

"And," Janey declared, "I decline."

Gwen and Rose both looked at each other in shock. "What?" they said in unison.

"Sam and I have already broken up so this challenge thing can't even happen anyway. We're not together anymore. End of," she said dismissively, and with that, she departed the room with a flounce.

Taylor fell backwards, groaning once more.

"Well, it was a good effort," Gwen said.

Rose was still taken aback by Janey's swift departure. "I really thought that would work! She loves a challenge. She loves proving everybody wrong."

"Yeah, but only on her own terms," Gwen pointed out.

"Well, anyway," Rose sighed, also getting ready to depart. It was a weekend, but she had plans to meet up with Scorpius. "What's the bet they're making out again in Quidditch practice this evening?"

Taylor sat up again, shaking her head from side to side. "What's the bet they're making out again by the time we get down the stairs?"

To the Gryffindor girls' surprise, Sam and Janey weren't making out by the time they'd all descended the stairs to the common room. In fact, the blonde girl was nowhere to be seen. Rose picked out Sam though, and made a beeline for him. He was chatting with his roommate and Rose's cousin, Albus Potter.

For someone going through his fifth breakup of the past month, Sam was remarkably cheerful.

"So sorry to hear the devastating news," Rose said sarcastically.

Sam frowned at her. "Devastating news about what?" he asked in confusion.

"Oh, you know," Rose said brightly, "your breakup?"

Sam looked furious. "Are you kidding?"

Rose merely nodded.

"Again?"

"What happened?" Albus demanded.

"What happened," Sam said, furiously looking around the room for the perpetrator of his unknown breakup, "is that my girlfriend is a psycho, who has no idea how to resolve even the tiniest bit of conflict, and instead"—he was now actively pushing people aside to try and identify Janey—"just runs away and tells everybody we've broken up without any communication with the guy she's supposedly breaking up with!"

Sam was gone, and Rose was struggling to suppress her laughter. Janey had fallen into the habit of declaring her oh-so-frequent breakups with Sam to anybody and everybody other than the boy himself, with Sam having to find out via third-party informants. Rose had taken it upon herself to be the messenger straight off the bat so Sam could at least have the knowledge readily available to him.

"Have they really broken up?" Albus asked in shock, looking at his cousin with disbelief.

"Of course not!" Rose snorted. "Janey is very much afraid of how she feels for Sam," she explained, "because he's her first serious boyfriend and she doesn't want to admit how much she actually cares for him. So whenever there's any conflict whatsoever—or even if Sam just treats her a little too nicely—she puts her defences up and she does this."

"Does what?" Albus asked dumbly, looking around the room to see what Rose was referring to.

"Hides," said Rose. "She disappears. But not after she's told everybody other than Sam that they've broken up."

"That sounds exhausting!"

"Mhmm," Rose agreed. "We're all hoping it's just a phase. She had more space over the summer," she explained, "but since she's back at Hogwarts she and Sam are in each other's lives every single day and it's a lot for her."

"Isn't that just what being in a relationship is like?" Albus asked. "I would love for me and Annabel to spend every day together, but she's in Hufflepuff!" Annabel was the Hufflepuff Prefect in their year, and Albus had started dating her around the same time as Sam and Janey had gotten together. As she was in another house they overlapped far less than all the Gryffindors did. It was sometimes the same with Rose and Scorpius—him being in Slytherin.

"Maybe it works for us," Rose considered, referring to herself and Scorpius, as well as Albus and Annabel. "Maybe that bit of space helps?" But she couldn't comprehend actually wanting space from Scorpius. If she could somehow convince the Sorting Hat to re-sort him into Gryffindor for his final year then she would. Though she knew he'd never want to, House proud as they all were.

"They'll be back together by the end of the day," Rose said firmly, looking after Sam as he continued searching. She had a suspicion Janey was long gone from the common room though. "They're not even broken up—Janey's just very trigger-happy. You'd think she'd be a fighter in a fight-or-flight type scenario," Rose mused, "but she's been a massive flight risk recently."

Albus just continued to look alarmed by the whole scenario.

"Anyway," Rose said with finality, no longer distracted by Gryffindor's most dramatic couple. "I've got plans."

"With Scorpius?" Albus asked politely.

"Of course," Rose confirmed, unable to shield her smile. "And I'll see you at Quidditch Practice?"

"Don't go giving away all our tactics!" Albus ordered with mock severity.

Rose just laughed as she departed. They were having an unofficial friendly match between the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch teams the week before Christmas, but they were all taking it incredibly seriously. Rose and Scorpius would be playing against each other, but there would certainly be no scheming or 'taking it easy' on either side. Both were equally as competitive, as were all the others involved.

Rose wandered through the halls of Hogwarts feeling particularly elated and for no particular reason. She felt a genuine lightness within her that she had not even realised had been extinguished from her being for quite a long time before that summer. The summer that everything had changed. The summer that had allowed for everything to so perfectly fall back into place.

When she saw him she found she still felt a giddy knot form in her stomach. No amount of comfort she had allowed herself to feel around him could counteract that achingly childlike longing she felt whenever she looked at him. Rose wondered if it would ever disappear or if she would feel like that forever.

Merlin knows she wished she would be able to feel like that forever. But she had relied on forever once before and it had been to their detriment. For now, she would merely take every moment as it came. And in that moment, she felt elated, grateful, and blissfully smitten.

"Hi," Scorpius breathed as Rose ran to him and fell into his equally eager arms.

"Hi," she greeted back, beaming up at him.

"How has your day been?"

"Completely unremarkable," Rose said cheerily. "Until now."

Scorpius just stared down at her, a thousand thoughts and emotions flickering between them through eye contact alone. Merlin, it was good to have no complications or drama for once. This was true happiness.

Without warning, the blond boy clasped either side of the redheaded girl's face and brought his mouth to hers in one swift movement. Rose gave a slight squeal of surprise before she contentedly melted into the kiss.

His lips felt so soft and familiar against her own. There was simplicity in kissing him, like breathing or eating.

"I'll get in trouble," Scorpius murmured eventually, but not quite fully breaking away from her.

"With who?" Rose murmured back, genuinely surprised. All the people who had previously been a threat to their relationship were no longer at odds with the couple.

Sure, Rose's dad might not have been fully on board with anybody dating his daughter, but he, for the most part, at least tolerated that Scorpius was Rose's boyfriend. And her older cousin James Potter had since served his time at Hogwarts and left the school. Sam, who had formerly held a candle for Rose, and thus loathed Scorpius, was now, well, in a somewhat happy relationship. Ebony Bobbin, too, the Headmistress' daughter, and Scorpius' best friend and former whirlwind girlfriend, was literally married to James.

So Rose could not think, for the life of her, who in the school could possibly have a problem with her and Scorpius sharing a kiss within the walls of a Hogwarts corridor.

"Bobbin," Scorpius said, planting one more quick kiss on Rose's lips and running a gentle thumb down her freckled cheek.

She stared up at him, blue eyes shining with deep confusion. Why would the Headmistress have a problem with Rose and Scorpius? She had always championed their relationship, probably taking more of an interest in the couple's dynamics than was necessarily appropriate.

Scorpius had broken into a smirk at Rose's innocently confused expression. "Yeah, didn't I tell you? At our last prefect meeting, she heavily implied it wasn't especially, ah, appropriate for anyone with a badge to be seen snogging in the corridors."

"Well," Rose said, taken aback, "we were hardly snogging!"

"Absolutely not," Scorpius agreed. "We save that for after hours on the Quidditch pitch."

Rose couldn't help but be flushed with heat, offering Scorpius a playful shove. The two finally broke away from each other and began walking down the corridor together, hands clasped.

They had certainly been spending a lot of time together outside of classes. They had to. Although they did have some shared lessons, Rose was determined not to let Scorpius provide a distraction to her. It was their final year at Hogwarts after all, and they would be taking their NEWTs at the end of the year. Rose had already once let her relationship with Scorpius distract her from her studies back when they were in Fifth Year and doing their OWLs, and she wasn't going to let it happen again.

Them being in separate houses meant it was also harder for them to spend time together between classes. They couldn't go in each other's common rooms (at least, they certainly weren't supposed to), nor spend their meals together. So they had taken to spending stolen moments together, normally after school hours. Normally after separate Quidditch practices. And, yes, perhaps the magical atmosphere the setting winter sun provided had delivered the perfect romantic backdrop for some activities they certainly wouldn't be caught dead engaged in in front of their fellow peers.

"You know she probably only said that because of Sam and Janey," Rose mused. They were headed to the library. Weekends were perhaps the most time they were allowed to spend together, but often this consisted of them holed up in the library doing homework.

She couldn't fathom why else Bobbin would have enforced such a rule; none of the other prefects were unashamedly snogging around the castle as much as they were. The Ravenclaws were a brother and sister duo and they were pretty reserved if they even were in relationships—Rose had no clue. One of the Hufflepuff prefects was dating Albus, who was Head Boy, and Rose wasn't sure she had ever even seen them kiss in public once. As for her male counterpart, Rose once again couldn't have told you if he was even seeing anybody.

Scorpius was obviously dating her, and the other Slytherin prefect—and Head Girl—was Ebony. Who was married to James. Who hadn't set foot in Hogwarts since Bobbin's wedding at the start of the school year. Despite that one time Ebony had tried to sneak him in after he'd met her at a Hogsmeade weekend.

Badge-holders she supposed could extend to Quidditch Captains, which would include Gwen for the Gryffindor team, but she wasn't dating anyone. Unless she had been keeping it very, very well-hidden.

So that left only the Gryffindor Prefects. In their year anyway. Rose couldn't pretend she knew much about any of the younger students.

"Oh, it one thousand per cent was," Scorpius clarified. "They sometimes do it in the meetings."

Rose wrinkled her nose in disgust. "They truly have no shame."

"It's kind of sweet though," Scorpius said, a rare moment of kindness towards two people he'd never particularly liked before that summer. "I think they're a good couple. In a sort of deranged way, you know?"

"Ah, well," Rose remembered. "I hate to break it to you but that ship has sailed."

Scorpius was so shocked that he stopped in his tracks to look at Rose. "Seriously?"

Rose was grinning, deeply amused by his concern.

"They broke up?"

Rose nodded.

"But they… They were literally making out in the prefect meeting this week. That's why Bobbin had to speak up about prefects having to display a certain 'decorum' in the Hogwarts corridors!"

"Oh, you are so out of the loop," Rose said affectionately. "Janey has 'broken up' with Sam about five times this past month alone. You'd never know because they'll be snogging again five minutes later. I'll take it seriously if they ever go even a day apart."

"Sounds exhausting," Scorpius said, eerily echoing Albus from just fifteen minutes earlier.

"Well, we've issued them an ultimatum."

"Who's 'we'?" Scorpius asked.

"The Gryffin-Girls," Rose explained, using the term Janey had coined for them in their first year. "We've told Janey that she has to commit to Sam until Christmas, without any messing around. And she's only allowed to break up with him after then, and it has to be for good."

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "Harsh."

"What?" Rose demanded.

Scorpius was grinning. "You're kind of bossy, you know?"

"I am not!"

"You so are."

"Hey! I—"

But Scorpius cut her off, turning to face her head-on, taking both of her hands in his. "It's one of the many, many reasons I love you."

All of Rose's protests melted away. In fact, all thoughts of Sam and Janey, and anything else completely melted away entirely. All that mattered in that moment was him.

"I can't help but notice there is mistletoe directly above us," Rose said quietly, heart thumping within her ribcage. It was true. All decked out for Christmas, there were trees, and lights, and wreaths, and indeed, mistletoe dotted all throughout the castle. And they had just so happened to find themselves directly beneath some. Or perhaps it sprouted wherever young love was.

Scorpius held her gaze. They were outside the library by then, ready for a day's worth of homework and study, curled up together in blissful happiness. And, later that day, Rose would be meeting her friends for Quidditch practice in anticipation of the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch friendly. But Rose only wished she could prolong that moment forever.

"I never cared for being a prefect anyway," Scorpius said with a shrug before pulling Rose towards him once more.

And as they kissed, certainly less reserved than their previous, as warmth and giddiness seemed to spread through their veins, so too did the mistletoe above them flourish and grow.

Author's Note: If you received an email notifying you that a fanfiction author you used to read eight years ago had suddenly, inexplicably, published a brand new story and thought, 'Surely not', and now you're here out of curiosity... Hello. The rumours are true. For better or for worse, you are not mistaken. I actually started to get back into writing over a year ago. This story, in fact, I started to write around the Christmas period last year, because I was feeling inspired, but it was more so for fun than necessarily to ever share online. And now, a year later, here we are. It seems insane, because canonically, in the timeline established by the original HP author (She Who Must Not Be Named) and what I'd written initially, this very Christmas I'm writing about would literally be happening this very Christmas—2023. So it only seems right that it be published almost in real-time of when it would actually be happening!

If anybody happens to be reading this, who did, in fact, read Rose and Scorpius: A Forbidden Love, which this story is very much a spin-off of, back when it was first published, hello again. It's been a while. This story will take place over fifteen chapters, including this one, and I'll be sharing a new chapter every day, with the final one being shared on Christmas Day. The story centres around our main characters' final Christmas at Hogwarts—three months after the final chapter of 'A Forbidden Love'. It's just a fun, little Christmas one-off, which I've had so much fun writing as I revisit the story which was such a big part of my life back when I was a teenager, and I'm fully expecting nobody besides myself to be reading this at all!

If you're new to my writing, hello, this story is very much a spin-off of my main body of work on this site, which mostly centres around Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy—but also a whole bunch of original characters which I created throughout that insane 200-chapter story. I'm not going to tell anybody to read that in order to read this little Christmas spin-off, but by all means go for it should you wish to! This story will make little sense without the context established in that story but it's up to you.

Each chapter, after the prologue, will be named after one of my favourite Christmas songs and will feature an epigraph with lyrics from that song. This one is from Taylor Swift's 'Christmas Tree Farm'. Oh, and the title and theme of the story has nothing to do with the Wham! song, by the way—I just liked the way it sounded!

I still feel insane for doing this, but oh, well—let's see what happens! Thank you to everybody who ever supported me and anybody who's reading this now. I hope you have an incredible Christmas.

All my love, once more,

Ever
xx