While extremely difficult to figure out what exactly Scorpius Malfoy had wanted with my brother that day, it remains easy to see why Hugo went along with it. As a scrawny little bookworm with a name like Hugo starting at the bottom of a large school, it was clear that he needed something -- in this case, someone -- to keep him from faltering under the pressure of his first year. I remember it perfectly myself, and I wish I had had someone older to help me out. Of course I had to get by on my own, because all of Uncle George’s luck had been passed down to Hugo as opposed to myself in all aspects except for when it came to whose name was least embarrassing, but I’d say I turned out fairly well. Mum and Dad would beg to differ, but I tended to ignore them on most occasions.
After a particularly gruelling day at the Daily Prophet, my last before the holidays, the only thing I wanted was to sit down on the couch and relax, but like I said, Hugo had nearly all of the luck. No sooner had I sat down than my positively charming cousin James burst through the door with a look of utter derangement on his face.
It might’ve been more frightening if it was the first time that had happened.
“What’s up, Potter?” I muttered as he closed the door behind him.
“I have to talk to you, Rosie,” he replied quietly.
“Damn, why couldn’t I be the ugly one in the family? Then maybe people would stay away from me,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I’m sure Albus would trade the gene with you any day,” James said with a wink before sitting down next to me. “Do you have any idea when Hugo and Lil are getting home for the holidays?”
“Not the faintest,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. “Couldn’t you have just asked your parents?”
“Not if I wanted to scope out the house for the party on Friday,” James replied, looking around the room happily. “It looks like a pretty good location. My house is ideal, of course, but Mum and Dad are on to me about the parties and decided to go to Ireland a week early this year… Now, you’re sure Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione are going to be out of here on Christmas Eve?”
“Yes, James, for the nineteenth time,” I said. “Your parents are going to dinner with them. Speaking of which, are you absolutely sure that you can’t just have the party at your house considering they are going to be out?”
“Rose!” James gasped. “I can’t believe you think I would fall for their planning; I’m insulted. You see, they’re going out to dinner this year with your parents. They think they’ll be able to catch me in the act of throwing this party; you know how they’ve been miserably late every time they tried to come home from their vacation early. This year, though, I’m one step ahead. I’ll tell Mum and Dad that Lil, Al, and I are going out to dinner with you and Hugo. They’ll go out to their own dinner at seven thirty to that fancy Muggle restaurant with your parents. Then, all four of them will go back to my house after the meal because they’ll assume that I’ll have some huge party going on, but they’ll be sorely disappointed!”
“I’m sure they will be,” I muttered distantly.
“Considering Mum and Dad will come home to an empty house, they’ll take the time to talk with Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. Minutes will turn into hours and eventually it’ll be a decent time for my party to end. Everyone here will go home, and the three of us will go back to my house. Your parents will be so shocked at the late hour that they’ll immediately go home and I’ll be in the clear. Mum and Dad’ll trust me again, and everything will have worked out well.
“Well? What do you think?” he asked.
“I think you’re exceptionally dumb for someone who’s been legal for four years,” I answered, looking at James disdainfully. “You don’t think Aunt Ginny will see something fishy about this? Or my mum? Uncle Harry and Dad can be a bit daft most times, but our mothers are not idiots. There’s a reason my mum was always the brightest witch of her age, and it’s not because she was happy all the time.”
James stared at me for a moment before laughing harder than I thought appropriate. I rolled my eyes at him. “James, shut up.”
“I’m sorry, Rose, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” He wiped a tear away from his eye. “She was the brightest witch of her age, and not because she was happy all the time? Bloody hell, you were right: Hugo did get the intelligence gene.”
“I’m going to throw something very heavy and very painful at you in less than a minute. You can leave my house now.”
“Not a chance,” James replied, getting more comfortable on the sofa. I stood up and left the room, leaving him and his uproarious laughter to themselves.
As I arrived in my bedroom, I noticed a large red circle around a day on my calendar. Looking at it closer, I realised that it was the date of Hugo’s and Lily’s arrival from Hogwarts; they’d be arriving at the platform in less than two hours. Which meant that Malfoy would be arriving too.
Oh, damn.
“James!” I yelled loudly. “James!”
His laughter subsided for a moment, and I took that to mean he was listening.
“They’re getting here soon!” I shouted. “We’ve got to meet them at the platform!”
“I thought Scorpius was picking them up?” James called back. “Or do you just want to go see him too?” The smugness in his voice was simply begging for a large brick to appear out of nowhere over his head, and I had just realised that I could actually make that happen when the doorbell rang. For the first time in my life, I begged for it to be the all-too-aggravating Albus Potter as opposed to his sister. When Lily arrived, Hugo would be there, and that meant Scorpius. I completely wasn’t ready to face him so soon after our last meeting. There was, after all, a reason I hadn’t seen him in two years.
I heard the door open, followed by a rather loud curse from James, and was able to infer that it was indeed Albus who was at the door. Knowing that I was safe for the moment, I decided to get ready for Lily’s arrival; as far as I was concerned, Hugo was irrelevant as long as Scorpius remained in the picture. I looked around my room briefly, making sure that it was suitable for inhabitation by someone other than myself-- with Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry not getting home for another two days, Lily was under strict orders to stay with me. Downstairs, James had been right about one thing: his parents were definitely catching on to the shenanigans their eldest son got up to every Christmas season, and Lily was no longer allowed to stay home with just him.
My bed was large enough for the two of us to comfortably sleep in like we had since we were little, which was well enough because the floor was a mess as usual. Skirts and tops littered every inch of the carpet; the only places that clothing didn’t infringe were already occupied by furniture. A large ink spot unfortunately graced the rug under my desk from when I had gotten annoyed with an article I had been working on; Mum hadn’t found it yet and chided me for not being able to figure out a proper Cleaning Charm, and I thought that this was uncharacteristically lucky for me.
I traipsed into the bathroom to clean up the counter; toothpaste, anti-acne creams, and makeup cluttered the left side of the counter, and hair products (as well as a straightening potion that I used to cope with the hair I had been ‘gifted’ with) were organized chaotically on the right. The shower could do with being cleaned a little bit; I pulled my wand out of my pocket and flicked it at the porcelain, which shone brightly within seconds. Satisfied with this job, I replenished the shampoo bottle and then decided to go downstairs and greet my cousin. While passing the mirror, I caught sight of my hair; good grief. I’d definitely have to do something about that.
Albus and James were sitting on the sofa side by side, and Albus was roaring with laughter at something James had said. I rolled my eyes before collapsing next to them. I noticed with irritation that my notebook and quill had been haphazardly thrown to the floor and reached to pick them up.
“You do know that these are my assignments for work, right?” I asked, brandishing the notebook at the boys before setting it and the quill neatly on the coffee table. “How would you like it if I just threw your things around the room?”
“You do,” Albus said distractedly.
“Every time you come over,” James agreed, shrugging. “We’re just returning the favour.”
“Bugger off,” I growled, and went into the kitchen to fix myself something to eat. Mum and Dad weren’t going to be home from work for another three hours, and I didn’t think I could wait that long. Mum’s cooking was undoubtedly fantastic, but drastic times called for drastic measures. I had to settle for a simple sandwich.
I walked through the living room to the stairs, sandwich in hand.
“Why didn’t you make us anything?” James yelped. “I’m hungry!”
“You have an entire house of your own food,” I replied, shaking my head. “Is there a reason it’s not good enough for you?” I went upstairs, preparing myself for the feat that faced me in trying to fix the mess that was my hair. I only did this for special occasions, because it took nearly an hour. While unnaturally frizzy, my hair was also unnaturally thick, and not exactly flattering.
After an obnoxious amount of time had been spent trying to figure out what to do about my hair”a bottle of Sleak-Eezy serum had been the only thing that worked properly”I had finally finished with nearly forty-five minutes left before Lily, Hugo, and Malfoy arrived. I quickly applied the sparse amount of makeup I usually wore--only a minimal amount of eyeliner, mascara, and blush--before creating an outfit from the clothing all over the floor of my bedroom. A black turtleneck and grey high-waisted skirt were the first seasonal items I could find, and so those were the ones chosen. Able to relax for the first time all day, considering I was a horrible procrastinator, I collapsed onto my bed and looked up at the ceiling. When I was thirteen, I had asked Mum to enchant it like the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. She had refused to because she felt I’d be terrified to wake up to a flashing thunderstorm during the summer, and so I had taken matters into my own hand. I had managed to blast a hole through the roof the first time, which Dad had been very unhappy to explain to our Muggle neighbours that swore they had seen a rather large explosion, but the moment I arrived home after my seventh year at school, I had managed to make it look like a clear, starry night consistently despite the weather. It was my greatest accomplishment to date.
Against my better judgment, I let my eyes close and fell asleep. I dreamed restlessly of newspaper assignments, my boss’s frightfully large head, and the fact that his blond hair looked suspiciously like that of someone else I regrettably knew. Before I knew it, however, I was jolted out of my not-too-pleasant slumber by some small human form that had decided to jump onto the bed I was still lying in.
“Rose, get your arse out of bed right now!” my cousin Lily shouted angrily. I opened my eyes slowly and sleep blurred her features into fiery red blob. I blinked a few times before she finally came into focus: her red hair had been trimmed into a bob that rested just below her chin, and her bright brown eyes were flaring with irritation. How I had missed that look.
“Lily!” I yelled cheerfully, launching upright and throwing my arms around her. “I haven’t seen you since last summer; how’s school going?”
“It’s all right, I suppose,” she said, returning the hug. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I’m failing Charms, but it’s really no big deal.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think that failing a class in your final year at school was that big a deal either,” I replied. “Why do think I’m on the bottom rung at the Prophet?”
“Because your writing sucks,” Lily answered, rolling off the bed and landing on her feet. It was honestly a wonder that she was my favourite cousin; looking at the other ones I had to pick from, though, she was really the only viable contestant. “Your best friend’s downstairs, by the way, if you wanted to see him.” She winked at me, and the urge to conjure a brick was stronger than ever before.
“He’s not my best friend,” I grunted, trying to sit up but being too blasted out of shape to manage it easily.
“Really?” Lily asked mischievously. “That’s not what it looked like two years ago at Uncle Bill’s vow renewal.”
“Shut up!” I yelped, looking around to see if anyone was within earshot. “Thanks a lot, Lily, what happens when someone hears you?”
“Hears me?” she asked, laughing now. “I don’t think it matters if anyone hears me, Rose. You remember that your own parents were the ones who walked in on--”
“Shut up!” I shrieked. “Merlin, Lily, it’s not funny!”
“What’s not funny?” asked a familiar voice from the hallway.
I closed my eyes, ready to Disapparate right on the spot. Of course my mother had drilled proper social etiquette into me at a young age, and I figured that sudden departure would just be a step backward. “You’re here already. Yay,” I said unenthusiastically.
“I thought I heard your voice, Rosie,” Scorpius Malfoy said with a smile, revealing his perfectly straight and perfectly white teeth. “Miss me very much?”
“Not as much as I miss the Trace stopping me from hexing you,” I replied, smiling falsely. “They forced me to exercise such self-control.”
“Always witty, weren’t you?” the blond man said, never losing his smile. It was times like these that I wondered what exactly I had ever seen in him, and at the same time they reminded me just that. Son of a bitch.
“Asking questions now, as opposed to figuring everything out by yourself?” I asked, mentally cursing myself. How did I manage to go from suave and murderous to a babbling pile of mush?
“I’ll leave you two alone now,” Lily, who had been watching the exchange from the sidelines with a smile on her face, said. “I think James is calling me.”
“He didn’t say anything!” I said, imploring her to stay.
I was never the lucky one in the family.
Lily exited the room, leaving me with my worst nightmare in human form. His blond hair still fell carelessly into his eyes, just like it had two years ago. It had grown longer now, though, and damn him for the fact that it looked good. I rolled my eyes at him and attempted to brush past and join my brother downstairs, but he took my arm and looked at me.
“Rose, come on. We have to talk.”
“No, Malfoy, we don’t,” I replied, wrenching my arm from his grasp. “There’s a reason we haven’t seen each other in two years, or have you forgotten it already?”
“Rose, it isn’t that big of a deal!” he exclaimed, but I stopped him.
“It was my parents!” I hissed. “My parents! Not yours, not Lily’s, but mine! Do you have any idea how terrible and utterly mortifying that was? Damn, Scorpius, don’t tell me that you weren’t embarrassed in that situation!”
“I don’t think I could possibly be embarrassed to have been in any kind of situation, so long as it was with you,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up with the suaveness, it can’t save you all the time. You know that it’s still a big deal. To have my own parents walk into that room at Shell Cottage to find us… Us…”
“‘Snogging’ would probably be the proper term,” he replied calmly.
“But you’re you!” I exclaimed. “You’re a Malfoy, I’m a Weasley, do you not understand how completely pissed off my dad was? Mum has only so much control over him, Scorpius, I’m surprised he didn’t curse me!”
“Your father would never curse you,” Scorpius said softly. “He’s a good man; he wouldn’t hurt his only daughter just because she made a mistake.”
“I never said it was a mistake!” I exclaimed without thinking, and Scorpius’s eyebrows shot right up under that bloody long hair.
I blushed. In an effort to salvage whatever dignity I had left after the encounter I had tried so long to avoid, I tore off down the hallway, leaving a flummoxed man standing behind me. Deciding that it wasn’t too much trouble to let him find his own way downstairs--he had, after all, figured out the way up--I hastily sprinted down to the living room, where my cousins and brother were talking in hushed tones in the corner.
“Rose!” Albus shouted when he saw me. “Great to see you again!”
“I saw you less than an hour ago,” I mumbled, collapsing onto the sofa between him and my brother. “Hey, Hugo, how are you?” I lightly slapped the top of his head, and he smiled at me.
“Hi, Rose,” he said brightly. “Have you seen Scorpius around? He hasn’t seen Al and James yet.”
I stood up and walked out of the room. Of course I couldn’t get away from him. I traipsed into the kitchen feeling worse than I had when the day began, and sighed heavily. I was hardly in the mood to stay up all night with Lily, talking about how school was going for her. Since I had left Hogwarts two years ago and started working, Lily was a lot less interested in everything I had to say. Everything was about her, considering I felt the need to vicariously live through someone after I entered ‘the real world,’ as Dad liked to call it. Sometimes, though, it was fun to have someone actually want to listen to me. No one wanted to hear it when I complained about almost not getting a job on the Prophet. No one cared when I nearly missed the deadline for my article on the Holyhead versus Puddlemere game. No one was remotely concerned when I couldn’t pay rent for my apartment and had to move back in with Mum and Dad.
Except Scorpius.
He had always listened to me; he had always been there for me. I knew that he would still have been there for me if I hadn’t been so quick to erase him from my life after the fiasco at Uncle Bill’s house. He had always been there to agree with me and stand up for me. He had even offered to pay half of my rent every month until I got a steady job, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure why I had turned him down in the first place. It was well and good, though; that had been a mere month before I stopped seeing him.
However, after reflecting on everything Scorpius had ever done for me, I couldn’t figure out why exactly I had been so quick to expunge myself from the situation.
Friday arrived faster than I could have ever expected. I woke up in the morning, having slept restlessly but unable to recall any dreams that would have had me tossing and turning throughout the night. I vaguely heard James shouting at my father downstairs, something that happened unfortunately often when my cousin visited, and I tried to roll over and go to sleep. However, a loud popping sound told me that this wasn’t going to happen.
“Get up!” Hugo yelled at me as he stood at the foot of my bed. “Dad’s having a go at James; it’s hilarious!”
I sat up and pulled a blanket up to my neck. “That’s fantastic, Hugo, but didn’t I tell you never to come into my room, even when you can Apparate anywhere?”
“You’re no fun,” Hugo muttered before regaining his jolly disposition when a loud crash signalled an escalation in the fight downstairs. “You’re really going to miss this?”
“Yeah, Hugo, I am,” I replied, lying back down. “I’m tired, and likely I’ll be up late tonight.”
“Big night with Scorpius planned?”
He was gone before I could reach my wand at the bedside table. I decided half an hour later, once my father’s and James’s loud shouting had subsided, that it was safe to actually get out of bed. I trudged downstairs and made myself a slice of toast before noticing that something was slightly amiss. Instead of the usual two people sitting at the table when I awoke around twelve o’clock, there were seven.
“Hi, Uncle Harry, Aunt Ginny!” I smiled widely, wondering what on earth I had possibly missed to have not expected this visit.
“Morning, Rose,” Uncle Harry replied, smiling. “You can wipe that expression off your face; you aren’t in trouble.”
“Harry and I were just here to plan dinner tonight,” Aunt Ginny put in. “James insisted on coming along, for whatever reason, and Lily wasn’t staying home alone with Al.”
“Even though James is the one who causes trouble,” Albus grouched.
“And even though I’m seventeen years old,” Lily muttered, looking down at her tea. “Wonder what Trelawney would say about these…” She absentmindedly began swirling her beverage around with her finger.
“Lily, don’t make a mess, I just cleaned the kitchen the other day. Use a spoon,” Mum said, handing Lily the mentioned silverware. She turned back to my aunt and uncle before speaking again. “I think we should go out around six thirty; Ron made our reservations for seven-thirty, and we should at least be there thirty minutes in advance. Right, Ron?”
Dad was flushing. “Er, right, about that…”
“What did you do?” Mum’s eyes narrowed.
“The reservations are actually for seven,” Dad said quickly. “I thought that’s what you said.”
Mum rolled her eyes and looked to Aunt Ginny. “Your brother, honestly!”
Aunt Ginny giggled, and I decided that there were things more interesting than watching the parents talk about Dad’s mistake. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one thinking this, for Hugo, Lily, Al, and James followed me out of the room.
“Ouch!” James yelped from behind me. I turned around to see him holding the back of his head, and at the table, Dad looked as though he was trying hard not to laugh.
“This is why you don’t get on Dad’s bad side,” I said over my shoulder as we filed into the living room, sitting in a circle on the floor just like we had when we were young.
“Someone could’ve warned me about that ahead of time,” James said, massaging his head. “What did I even do, anyway?”
“The shouting match might’ve had something to do with it,” Lily piped up, and James shot her a dirty look. She simply smiled and slid away from him, closer to Hugo. The two of them had always got on well, considering they were the same age; it surprised me that they had such a close bond, whereas Al and I had the exact opposite under the same circumstances.
“Anyway,” James continued, “your father hasn’t screwed up nearly as much as your mum thinks he has.”
“Oh boy, I can’t wait to hear this,” Lily said sarcastically.
“With them out of the way an hour earlier, we have more time for the party!” James exclaimed.
“But we have an hour less to prepare,” Albus replied.
“And they’ll be home an hour earlier,” I said, noticing how James’s smile had faltered. He had never been particularly bright, despite his dad’s high hopes that he would take after his grandfather. This was true, come to think of it, in a number of ways, though none of those had anything remotely to do with school performance. “Which means that you’re more screwed than you were before.”
James rolled his eyes. “If I was anyone else, that would be true. But I’m James Sirius Potter, named after the two greatest rule-breakers of the nineteen-seventies, and I will live up to my name!” he exclaimed proudly.
“Our names must mean something; ‘Hugo’ means bright and he’s definitely taken after his mum,” Lily said, nudging Hugo playfully. He smiled and pushed her back.
“Lily Luna’s going to be positively dotty!” he said with a grin. “And Al’s going to be off-his-rocker and moderately sadistic.”
“I’ll be as gorgeous as a flower,” I replied jokingly, and my cousins laughed.
“Already are, love,” said a voice from behind me.
I jumped in surprise, and Hugo laughed even harder. “Hey, Scorpius, come sit down!”
Scorpius walked into the room and sat down between me and Hugo, much to my dismay. He looked over at me and winked before turning to my brother. Maybe if Hugo had warned me that his friend would be over before the party I would’ve been less surprised at his sudden arrival, but of course no one in the house thought I was worthy of knowing anything.
“Didn’t know you were coming over this early,” Albus said to him, and I felt less bothered since I wasn’t the only one that knew nothing even if he didn’t live at the house. “I thought you’d come later tonight.”
“I had nothing better to do at home,” Scorpius said, shrugging. “Mum and Dad are always out, and I don’t really see a point in staying home with Perry.” He referred to the family house elf.
“Today’s going to go by insufferably slow, mind you,” James said warily. “You might want to save yourself from the humdrumness.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Scorpius said.
James was right. I didn’t think a day could go by slower than the six hours of Friday that were left before our parents went out for dinner. I wasn’t used to having so many people running about the house during the day, and Hugo and I ran into many of them (quite literally) on numerous occasions. The most unfortunate incident of these was when Albus fell down the bottom six steps on the staircase when he had to audacity to run upstairs at the same time that Hugo was sliding down the banister, child that he was.
Finally, six o’clock came. Mum was in a worse mood than I could remember her ever being in as she ran down the stairs in high heels trying to fasten her necklace around her neck. “Ronald Weasley, the next time I tell you to set dinner reservations is when you need to admit me to St. Mungo’s!” she screeched loudly.
I tried and failed to hide a laugh. Mum scowled at me before she found Dad trying to tie his tie. She rolled her eyes and tried to help him while I walked upstairs to find an outfit for James’s party. I passed Hugo’s room, where I could hear their quiet muttering. I debated finding one of Uncle George’s Long-Distance Extendable Ears in the attic and listening in, but it was a room full of four arguably clever boys; of course they’d have thought of using an Imperturbable Charm if their discussion was private enough to happen behind closed doors. I wandered up to my own bedroom, where Lily already was going through my closet.
“You need more clothes,” she said by way of greeting. “None of these are even remotely acceptable.” She threw several of my work outfits onto the floor in a messy pile. I’d have to re-iron everything when she was done with it.
“Why don’t you just wear your own clothes?” I suggested. Her current outfit, a ruffled purple one-shoulder top and black skin-tight jeans, was numerous times more ‘acceptable’ by her terms than anything that I owned.
Lily analyzed me for a moment before apparently agreeing, for she shut the closet and turned back to me. “I wasn’t looking for myself, Rose, I was looking for you. Scorpius is here, if you haven’t noticed, and it’s really not going to work if you wear something that you’d wear to work.”
“You define the word ‘difficult’,” I replied, sitting down on my bed. “Besides… What’s not going to work?”
Before she could answer, though, there was a loud rumble from the garage, followed by the creaking sound of the garage door closing; Mum and Dad were gone. There was a loud whoop of excitement from Hugo’s room, followed by the sound of eight feet swiftly pounding down the stairs. I rolled my eyes at the sound of a crashing vase and Al’s feeble apology, and I sincerely hoped that one out of three legal wizards knew how to perform Reparo properly.
Lily, who was growing more irritated with me by the moment, set back to rifling through my closet. Loud shouts echoed from downstairs as James’s guests started to Apparate in, and it took all of my effort to muster a simple ‘bugger off, Lily’ when she suggested Summoning an ensemble from her own closet at home.
“It’s illegal, anyway,” I said.
“I’d just have James or Al do it,” she said, rolling her dark brown eyes. “It’s acceptable for me to be seen right now. You, on the other hand, have quite a bit of work to do. Go redo your makeup and I’ll talk to James.” She disappeared from the room.
I looked up to the ceiling and sighed; there was never any winning with Lily when it came to matters of fashion and appearance. She had spent most of her life mocking my clothes and hair, and she hadn’t apologised once for any of it. It grew tiresome exceptionally often, but Lily Potter tended to be very intense when she disagreed with something. Until the day I began wearing her tight-fitting trousers and low-cut tops, I would be forever ridiculed for my clothing selection.
She reappeared shortly, breaking me out of my musings, and silently held out a pile of clothing to pick from. I settled on one that would please her but not make her too happy, and she smiled before walking to the door. Before leaving though, she said, “Almost everyone’s down there already. Hurry up, would you?” She left.
I sighed and quickly changed clothes; Lily had thankfully spared me from a majority of her collection, and the pink sweater and black jeans I had picked out were akin to clothes I would buy for myself. I listened to Lily’s instructions and reapplied my makeup before going downstairs. Nearly all of James’s classmates from his school days were there, including Ryan Wagner, with whom I had very unpleasantly dated for a time. (He wasn’t a particularly verbal specimen, and with the age difference, James had assured me that I’d be better getting out of the relationship early.) We said an awkward hello to each other before drifting quickly to opposite ends of the room.
I was rather surprised with what James had managed to do in the short time that my parents had been gone. The pale purple walls were trimmed with garland that had large ornaments hanging from them. The pine tree in the corner seemed to have doubled in size since Dad had bought it the previous week, and the angel sitting on top was now animatedly chatting with whatever attractive men walked by. A radio that had been purposefully hidden behind the tree was playing Muggle Christmas hits softly.
“Rose, you decided to show up!” James said with a grin, walking up beside me. “Great party, isn’t it? Could rival one from my house, I daresay!”
I laughed. “The only thing that could make it better is if your parents are as thick as you assume they are!”
He grinned and walked away to talk to Anne Barrett, a woman who now worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office at the Ministry. She had been in my year at Hogwarts, although she had been a Hufflepuff, and she distinctly reminded me of my grandfather. I walked away from James and found myself face to face with Scorpius Malfoy.
“I wasn’t sure you’d actually come downstairs.” He smiled, taking a sip of the drink that was in his hand. “Your sister was ready to send out a search party.”
“Of course she was.” I reluctantly smiled back at him. “What are you drinking? Firewhiskey?”
He blushed. “Er, no. I stopped that a while ago-- ran into a few problems with it and… Well, let’s just say that I’ve always preferred Butterbeer anyway.” He quickly regained his cheerful demeanour. “Would you like me to get you a bottle?”
“No thanks,” I replied, trying to ignore the fact that he was quite possibly the only person in the world that could actually look good in the black turtleneck sweater he was wearing. “I didn’t know you’d sworn off Firewhiskey.”
“Like I said,” he said, fidgeting the slightest bit. “I ran into a bit of trouble a few years back and your brother helped me realise that alcohol wasn’t exactly the best thing for me.”
“Oh!” I gasped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable! I just… I didn’t know.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he replied with a smile. Of course there was; I didn’t know that being mysterious could be added to his list of attributes, along with funny, friendly, and attractive.
“I suppose so,” I said with a smile. “I’d better get going; don’t want to make anyone here jealous by spending all my time with you!”
He laughed and tipped his head in farewell. The moment I left, though, I noticed Madeleine Stevenson sidle up to him. The scene angered me for some reason that I couldn’t explain, and I also couldn’t place the sense of satisfaction I felt when Scorpius hastily excused himself moments after. I grinned and turned around to see Hugo standing and smiling at me.
“Why are you acting so friendly to him tonight?” he asked. “Something happen?”
“Nothing happened, sod off,” I muttered, trying to step past my brother, but he just got in my way again.
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have my best friend in the family,” he pondered aloud. “I figure I could get away with a lot more; he can be really sneaky when he feels like it.”
“Really?” I muttered, trying to find another way to excuse myself from the conversation. My saviour came in the form of Albus, who had a rather dejected look on his face. He walked over to us and sighed heavily. “Rejected by Regina Fitzpatrick yet again, eh?” I asked. Al had been after Regina since our sixth year at Hogwarts, and I saw her talking to Ryan Wagner in the corner.
“Shut up,” he mumbled, looking at the floor. “James’s dumb guests have officially ruined my party mood. I think I’m just going to go home.”
“Then you’re officially thicker than I thought,” I replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the kitchen to find something to drink.”
“James put some Firewhiskey in the cupboard,” Hugo suggested.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that when you’re barely seventeen, but I am going to ignore it for the sake of my sanity. And for your information, I don’t really want any Firewhiskey.”
“You never say no to it, though!” Albus exclaimed. “You came back to Gryffindor Tower drunk after nearly every Hogsmeade weekend in seventh year!”
“Albus, meet my young, impressionable brother who doesn’t need to have his head filled with stories of his sister’s school years,” I said through gritted teeth before excusing myself to the kitchen. Shutting the door behind me, I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and sunk into a chair at the kitchen table. The clock over the sink read nine thirty already, and I was completely shocked to see that time had gone by as fast as it did.
I closed my eyes and set my head down on the table, facing the window. Snow was falling to the ground in large bits of fluff. I smiled; this was Christmas snow. It wasn’t hard and cold or frozen and painful. It was light and cheerful, and one of my favourite parts of the holidays. The full moon overhead was shining brightly on the Earth, and one large, shining star was visible through the clouds next to it. The panorama was so serene that I could have sat there, watching it, all evening. I probably would have, if Scorpius hadn’t chosen that moment to appear in the kitchen.
“Oh, hi!” he said, surprised. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I said with a grin.
“Was that you attempting to be funny?”
“Attempting, yes, but apparently not succeeding.”
He chuckled and sat down next to me, folding his hands in front of him. “Why’d you leave?”
I sighed. “It got a bit boring, is all. Seeing Ryan Wagner was really a nightmare come to life.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.”
“We’ve been over this already, okay?” I muttered, looking down at the table. “It was completely mortifying and I didn’t really want to see you anymore after that had happened! Do you think my parents wouldn’t be looking over their shoulders every time I left a room just to make sure I wasn’t sneaking off to see you? Do you think Hugo wouldn’t have interrogated us both every time he saw us? Do you think””
“No, I don’t think any of that at all, actually,” Scorpius countered angrily. “I think your parents would understand, considering they let your brother be friends with me. If any of that is because of what your father told you at King’s Cross on our first day of school, then you’re thick because he’s obviously forgotten it. As for your brother, I can’t say I’m particularly bothered by him asking me anything. You’d be pissed if he asked you about any of your boyfriends, so don’t try to use that as an excuse in this case because it won’t work!” His voice became louder with the last three words.
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” I replied. “I don’t think I was all that important to you, considering you’d moved on to Lidia Galloway less than a week later!”
“Don’t act like that!” Scorpius snapped. “You act like I had such a terrible reputation and wasn’t worth any of your time. If I remember, Rose, you weren’t so innocent yourself. Every night, sneaking out of Gryffindor Tower with a new guy!”
“Shut up!” I grimaced. “I wasn’t that big of a slut. Besides, how would you have known that? You weren’t a prefect; you had your own reasons for being out after hours, and don’t even try to defend them because you know exactly why you were out!”
“Fine!” he yelled. “I wasn’t perfect, but neither were you and don’t try to pretend that you were. Dating Ryan Wagner? You knew what he was like before you had gotten into that.”
“Seriously? That was nearly five years ago,” I snarled. “You don’t have anything better to do then dredge up old memories that mean absolutely nothing, just like that kiss two years ago did?”
For a moment, I thought he was going to hit me. He was completely silent and motionless, staring at me like he couldn’t decide what exactly he was thinking. He moved closer, and I was positive that he would hit me. At least I’d get a lawsuit out of this encounter. But then he kissed me.
I was completely taken aback. Hadn’t we just been shouting at each other a moment ago? But this was Scorpius Malfoy, king of being mysterious and unforgettable, and any girl in her right mind would have paid her entire bank account to be in the position that I currently was. I figured that after everything that had happened in our past and everything that would happen in the future, if he would be in my future, the least I could do was make it all worthwhile. So I kissed him back, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I had started ignoring him all those years ago. His arms wrapped around my waist and my hands found their way to his hair, and I completely forgot that there was a raging party just on the other side of the door.
At least, until I heard the door slam open and saw James, Albus, Lily, and Hugo all standing there with the stupidest grins ever plastered on their faces.
Scorpius looked over at me, and I realised that neither of us had really moved since the arrival of my family. We both slowly stepped away from each other. “Bloody hell!” I gasped, looking at my brother. “Didn’t you ever learn to knock?”
“We heard a bit of a ruckus in here and decided to stand by in case more things were broken,” he replied, failing to keep a note of amusement from his voice. “It got really quiet, and we figured that both of you were squaring off to kill one another. It was Lily’s brilliant idea to open the door.”
“I’d say it was pretty well-timed,” Lily replied, smirking. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I really, really hate my family,” I whispered, dumbstruck.
Scorpius laughed and looked at Hugo. “Is she going to run away again?” he asked, smiling sheepishly over at me. I just smiled.
“After that display?” James answered for him. “Not in a million years.”
Before I could retort, there was a loud, obscene yell from the living room. James’s brown eyes widened magnificently, and Albus looked as though all of his dreams had come true in that one second. I looked over at Scorpius, who had his hand covering his mouth. I couldn’t tell whether he was hiding laughter or amazement, but the second Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry came bursting into the kitchen, he burst out into hysterical laughter. That generally resolved any confusion I had had.
“What the bloody hell is going on out there?” Harry yelled, pointing to the living room door. “There are nearly fifty people in that room, and I know that the Weasleys don’t have that many kids in their family.”
“James Sirius Potter!” Ginny shrieked louder than I had ever thought possible. “I don’t know what you were thinking, and I damn well don’t want to. You are in so much trouble, I don’t even care how old you are, you’re not leaving our house for a week! Don’t look at me like that, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into!”
“Please don’t curse me, Mum, I was led astray!” Albus said, hiding a smile.
“You’re in so much trouble, you have no idea!” Harry yelled. “You let your brother do this. You let this entire thing happen! I don’t know what you were thinking- you’re going to be grounded for five years! You’re never leaving the house!”
“I have work, Dad,” Albus muttered, attempting a joke.
“You’ll call in sick!” Harry roared. “And Lily, we’ll talk about this when we get home.”
“Why doesn’t she have to be embarrassed in front of her cousins?” James yelled angrily.
“Quiet!” Ginny screeched. “Just be quiet now!”
I thought that it was over, and after a major headache had been achieved by Aunt Ginny’s less-than-harmonious voice, I figured that that was all the punishment I needed. But of course, Mum and Dad were rushing into the kitchen too. Dad’s eyes immediately shot to the decided lack of space between Scorpius and me, but Mum didn’t appear to be looking at that.
“Rose, what’s going on out there?” Mum asked, sounding unsettlingly calm. “There are people other than this family in the living room. Why are they there?”
“Ask James, Mum, I had absolutely nothing to do with this.” I held my hands up in defeat. “I didn’t throw this party in our living room. I was in here all night trying to stay away from it.”
“It doesn’t look like you’re trying to stay away from him!” Dad shouted. I knew I hadn’t heard the end of the Scorpius complaints. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing, Dad!” I yelled. I looked over at Scorpius and smiled. “Actually, that’s a lie. He kissed me. And I enjoyed it, and you’re not going to be able to yell at me enough to convince me that I shouldn’t have.”
Dad looked from Scorpius to me before sighing heavily. “This doesn’t excuse the fact that you helped your cousin through a party that you knew wasn’t allowed to happen.”
Mum glowered at me. “We’ll talk about this later, Rose. Scorpius, go home.”
By now, I was sure that everyone else from James’s party had gone; when four angry adults rush into a party, it’s generally the cue to exit as quickly as possible. Hugo was smiling due to the fact that he hadn’t been yelled at yet, although it was clear that it would be coming the moment the Potters left. I looked over at Scorpius, who was looking defiantly at my mum. I smiled; he would find a way to stay the night with Hugo.
But instead, he simply smiled his infuriatingly calm smile, winked at me, and walked out of the kitchen.
Damn him.