Although he knew his dad had been reluctant, his mum had readily agreed. Scorpius strongly suspected that she employed Truckle because of the ructions it caused. There had certainly been a smile on her lips when she broke the news to her Malfoy in-laws on their last night at the Manor that she would now be paying her house-elf. His grandmother had nearly choked on her roast parsnip whilst his grandfather had gone a very strange shade of purple and started raving about the ‘stupidity of the new laws’ and how they were all the fault of that ‘meddling Mudblood woman.’ At that, Scorpius’ mother had glared at her father-in“law, and he’d seen her kick his dad on the shin under the table. When Draco had not uttered a word, she’d spoken instead.
“I find that term offensive, Lucius,” she’d said crisply. “And, these days, it isn’t clever to throw insults around like that.”
“I will say whatever I please and about whomever I want in my own house, Astoria,” Lucius Malfoy had roared. “You speak like a blood-traitor!”
Scorpius hadn’t spoken but, like his dad, calmly carried on eating. He could, though, have cheerfully hexed his mum for bringing up the subject of house-elves when he’d planned to lob his own Bludger into the conversation by asking his grandparents about Teddy Lupin. However, after she’d successfully ended the evening on an all-time low (and there had been many, many lows concerning his mother and her in-laws), Scorpius did not have the nerve to ask any questions about his cousin just yet.
There was a knock at the door, and before he could say ‘enter,’ his mum walked in, carrying a pile of freshly laundered shirts. “Truckle told me you’d sent her away,” she said, a note of disapproval in her voice.
“She was trying to pack vests, for Merlin’s sake,” he replied in exasperation. “Honestly, she still thinks I’m five!”
“She looked after you for a long time, Scorpius, and loves her precious baby boy,” Astoria cooed, laughing as Scorpius scowled. She sat on the bed next to him. “She is crashing pots and pans around in the kitchen now. I swear she was never this noisy before we freed her.”
Scorpius glanced sideways at her. “Did you only free her to annoy Granddad?”
“Partly,” she replied and smirked. “It is the only way I can get through those interminable Malfoy Christmases, darling.” She paused and reached over to ruffle his hair. “Truckle was unhappy, though, and she helped me so much when you were born, and for years after.”
He pulled away, smoothing down his hair and faced her. He had heard the story from his aunt Daphne of how his mum nearly died giving birth to him. She’d been young “ barely seventeen “ when she’d gone into labour a month early, and abroad. To both sets of grandparents’ disgust, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy had been born in a Muggle hospital, where they’d saved her life. It had changed his parents’ views forever, although only Astoria was forceful enough to say so. “Is that your subtle way of telling me I was rude to Truckle?” he asked at last.
“Make sure you say goodbye to her tomorrow,” she replied and stood up. “I shall leave you to it. You seem to have rather a lot of packing left to do.”
“You won’t help?” he asked hopefully, but she shook her head.
“Not a chance. You told Truckle to leave, so you can finish it yourself. What a shame you didn’t learn any of those useful household spells in Charms.”
As she stood, he remembered what he’d wanted to ask his grandparents the night before. His mum might not know anything about the Black family, but it would be a start.
“Uh, Mum,” he began nervously.
“Mmm,” she replied, and turned back to face him.
“What do you know about Grandma Cissa’s sister?”
Astoria raised one eyebrow and fixed him with a frosty glare. “The same as everyone else. She was a thoroughly evil woman. I never met her, but she terrorised your father. He still has nightmares about her. Do not mention her name to him.”
Scorpius stared in bewilderment then his face cleared. “No, no, I don’t mean Bellatrix. I mean the other one, Andromeda Black.”
Astoria stopped short. The look on her face was no longer hostile, merely curious. “Why are you asking about her?”
He looked away. “Uh... No real reason, but she’s family, isn’t she?”
“She was disowned for marrying a Muggle-born. In those days “ and in that family “ it was probably the worst thing she could have done,” Astoria said, and sat back down on the bed. Her pale blue eyes “ so like his own “ were alive with interest. “I’m intrigued, Scorpius. You’ve never been interested before. So, why now?”
Pretending not to hear her, he pressed on with his questions. “She had a daughter, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” she replied slowly and placing her fingers under his chin, she turned his face towards her. “Why are you asking about her?”
Scorpius knew how to lie. He was adept at lying and had lied to his professors, his friends, his girlfriends and even his dad. He could lie to everyone...except his mother. He swallowed. “I met my cousin,” he said quietly, trying to drag his eyes away from hers. She would not release him. “Teddy Lupin.”
“When?”
“Is that important?”
Astoria looked intently into his eyes and then sighed. “No, not if you don’t want to tell me, Scorpius.” Patting him on the cheek, a gesture she knew he found irritating, she smiled as she got to her feet. “I don’t know very much about that side of your family.”
Scorpius gnawed the side of his bottom lip. “Will Dad tell me, do you think?”
“If you pick the right moment, darling, your father will tell you anything,” she replied, smiling slyly as she left the room.
There had not been a right moment. His dad had returned from the Ministry in a foul mood and snapped whenever anyone spoke to him. Astoria had pursed her lips but largely ignored him, instead keeping up a stream of conversation with Scorpius about packing, studying hard, Quidditch (which was laughable, because she knew nothing about the game) and, in the end, asking him about his love life. Knowing she was only doing this to provoke a reaction out of him, he vowed not to respond, but after what seemed like the fortieth comment about how lovely Ariadne was, he took the bait.
“Mum, will you give it a rest!” he exclaimed hotly. “I’m not seeing her anymore, all right?”
“Really,” she replied, her eyes darting from his face to Draco’s. “Then who are you seeing?”
“No one,” he muttered quickly “ too quickly, he realised, because now his dad looked up from his plate of food and stared at him through narrowed eyes.
“Scorpius Malfoy, you’ve spent the entire holiday moping around in either your bedroom here, or the one at your grandparents,” his mother declared. He flushed and looked away, praying she’d stop. “Then you disappeared one morning, returning long after breakfast with a smile on your face so wide I could have fed you a whole watermelon.” She laughed at his reddened face. “You are smitten with someone, so don’t try to tell me that was just from flying, darling.”
“It was,” he protested. “The broom Dad got me is brilliant.” He shot an imploring look at Draco. “You know what it’s like, don’t you, Dad?”
Draco helped himself to a freshly baked roll from the basket in the centre of the table. Very slowly and deliberately, he split it in two, but didn’t take his eyes off his son’s face. “Mmm, when you’re eleven or twelve and have a new broom, I agree it is very exciting. Not so much at eighteen.” He broke off a piece of the roll and dipped it in his gravy. “Who’s the girl, Scorpius?”
“There isn’t a girl!” Scorpius exclaimed. He gasped as he saw his parent’s expressions, mirrors of horror as they automatically jumped to the wrong conclusion. He laughed. “No, no, it’s not a boy, either.”
His dad smiled for the first time that evening, his shoulders relaxed. “Thank Merlin for that. I thought you were about to tell me you’d fallen for that obnoxious Weasley brat... What’s his name, Hugh, or something?”
Scorpius snorted. “Hugo, and no, Dad, he’s really not my type.”
Draco mopped up the remaining gravy on his plate. “Good. I’m not sure what would have been worse, you being with a Weasley or being a queer.”
Scorpius blinked but instantly fixed a smile on his face. He laughed along with his dad, but noticed his mum eyeing him with a very curious expression on her face.
The meal had ended cheerfully enough, but Scorpius’ nerve had failed, so he hadn’t asked his dad about Teddy Lupin. Instead, he busied himself with the rest of his packing and placating Truckle (who he was rather fond of) by asking if she’d make him some food for the journey back to Hogwarts.
“Your cakes are so much better than the ones on the train,” he said, adding a pleading touch to his voice.
Truckle stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Truckle has already made Master Scorpius some cakes,” she said. “Truckle is not forgetting how much he likes her cooking. Would the young master like to choose a filling for the puffs? Truckle has pumpkin, or maybe blueberry.”
“How about apple?” he suggested, his mouth watering as he imagined biting into her light-as-air pastry. “Make two, will you, Truckle ... please?”
Astoria insisted on taking him to the station, even though he insisted he could get there by himself. For all her fragility, his mother possessed a steel spine and was unbending. He kept his eyes focused on the train and his fellow Slytherins, all the while aware that she was watching every conversation he had with any girl on the platform. He deliberately stopped himself from searching for any redheads, especially those who were whippet slim, with long tangled hair fluttering in the bitter wind that coursed across the platform.
“Hmm,” his mum whispered in his ear, “I do hope it’s not the Head Girl who’s caught your fancy, darling. Your father really would not be happy with that.”
“Huh?” Scorpius dragged his eyes away from Lily and her clutch of cousins. “Who, Rose Weasley?” He laughed in genuine amusement. “Merlin, Mother, give me some credit. She’s about as much my type as her brother.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Astoria purred. “She’s pretty enough.”
“She’s also incredibly bossy and boringly obsessed with rules. Bloody glad I wasn’t made Head Boy now.”
“If you say so,” Astoria replied, a small smile playing on her lips.
He bit his tongue, unwilling to respond to her needling because he knew she would wheedle the truth out of him if he said anymore. Instead, he started up a conversation with Vaisey, telling him he had a new broom and could return to the team. Vaisey, he noticed, did not quite look him in the eye when they were talking, and exclaimed only half-hearted congratulations over Scorpius’ Firebolt X. He wondered about that, wondered whether Vaisey was avoiding him because of Ariadne or because he didn’t want him back. Well, that was too bad. He had his broom and he had his nerve; Vaisey had no choice but to play him now.
Except you pulled out of the team, a voice nagged in his head. Vaisey doesn’t have to pick you at all.
“Scorpius, I’m flattered that you want to delay your departure so you can spend more time with me.” His mum’s voice brought him back to the present. “But you really should get on that train.” She ruffled his hair, grinning as he scowled and began to flatten it. “Look, that pretty Rose Weasley is summoning you. It must be love!”
“No, it’ll be a bloody rota for patrol duties,” he replied, through gritted teeth. “Weasley will have made sure it’s all very fair, but that somehow, I’m left to check on the first years.” His mum looked puzzled. “They’re always sick on the train, Mum. Stupid first years who never know when to stop shovelling food into their gobs. Hufflepuffs are the worst.”
As she laughed, he pecked her quickly on the cheek, and strode towards the train, dragging his trunk. He accepted his rota (all colour coded) and noted with a sardonic grin that he was indeed being asked to pay special attention to some of the first years, who she’d seen were seated in the third, fifth and ninth carriages down from the prefects.
“Yes, Head Girl,” he intoned. “No, Head Girl.” Three frigging moneybags full, Head Girl!
“You don’t have to look quite so irritable,” Rose retorted. “We’re all doing our bit, Malfoy, and I have given you a reasonable amount of free time on this journey.”
He glanced down at the rota. “Why have you paired me up with your brother? What possible reason do you have for that?”
“Feeling’s mutual, Malfoy,” Hugo said from further down the corridor. Scorpius turned to see the Gryffindor boy glaring at him, then stifled a smile as he saw Lily peeping out from behind him and pulling faces at her cousin.
“As I explained to you, Hugo,” Rose began, sounding flustered. “We are short-handed on this journey. A few of the prefects stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas, and you are the only spare. Malfoy is “”
“Hold on!” Scorpius interrupted. “Why can’t I patrol with Flint?”
“He’s already paired up with Ariadne,” Rose replied as she studied the list, adding in an amused voice, “She didn’t want to be anywhere near you, she told me.”
“Thank Merlin for that,” Scorpius muttered. Seeing that Hugo was now poring over the list and arguing with his sister, he risked a wink in Lily’s direction. She blew him a kiss back, but the gesture caught Rose’s attention, who immediately looked up. Flicking her eyes over Scorpius, she looked puzzled, but then she glanced over her shoulder and gave a small, secret smile back at Lily.
Scorpius looked behind Rose and saw “ to his horror “ stupid bloody Harry Cootes waving excitedly at Lily.
“There’s space in our carriage, Lily,” Cootes called. “And I’ll take your trunk if it’s too heavy for you.”
“What a gentleman,” murmured Rose, teasingly. Lily, Scorpius was relieved to see, shot Rose a look of fury and started blushing.
“He’s a prat!” she whispered as she stared at the ground.
Cootes was a prat, but a stubborn one. Seemingly ignorant of Lily’s opinion of him, he barged his way through, stepping in front of Scorpius.
“Er...” Lily looked up at him and smiled nervously. “Hello, Harry, I’m ... um ... already sitting with my cousins, but ... um ... thank you very much for the offer-”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Harry replied. Was Scorpius imagining a leer in his voice? “I was hoping we could pick up where we left off, after that Quidditch practise on your field.”
There was a silence, broken only by a giggle from Rose and a furious fit of coughing from Lily. Scorpius stepped to the side of Cootes and, totally ignoring the now crimson- faced Lily Potter, he dragged his trunk over Cootes’ feet and down towards the Prefect’s carriage. “Well, it’s been wonderful chatting to you all,” he said sarcastically. “But I’m off. See you in four hours, Weasley.”
He thought he heard someone gasp and wondered if it was Lily, but he was too bloody furious to look back.
She’d made a date with Cootes. Not only had she had a date with Cootes, she’d taken him to the same frigging place! He felt a hot wave of anger rush through him when he thought about how much he’d enjoyed kissing her, especially as they flew, and to think she’d done all that with him and then called Cootes... or maybe Cootes had been the first ... the first of many.
“How fucking stupid am I?” he growled.
“Do you need an answer to that?” Ariadne asked coolly as she stepped out of the carriage with Flint.
He glowered at her, but said nothing, turning away so he didn’t have to hear her awful prattling laugh. The carriage was largely empty, apart from the Head Boy, who appeared to be studying, but on a closer look was in fact doodling all over Rose’s carefully constructed rota. Despite feeling like shit, Scorpius couldn’t help laughing, and the other boy looked up. Benedict MacMillan may have been a Hufflepuff, but Scorpius quite liked him and felt a grudging respect for him (even though he’d been appointed when Scorpius thought he should have got the badge). He was a large, blonde hunk of a boy, with a pleasant face and a smile for everyone. Usually, Scorpius felt an almost sadistic urge to hex him “ simply because he was so bloody nice, and fair and full of Hufflepuff virtues, but today, after stowing his trunk, and dropping his bag onto an empty seat he just sat down heavily and sighed.
“What’s up, Scorpius?” Benedict asked, placing his quill on the small ledge by the window. That was the other thing about Benedict; he didn’t use surnames and asked everyone to call him by his first name, insisting that they couldn’t be friends unless they were on first-name terms.
“Nothing,” he replied moodily. “Just bloody Weasley... er ... Rose assigning me first years again. I hate those carriages “ always stink of puke.”
“Mmm, I noticed she’d colour coded you green. At first, I thought it was to represent Slytherin, but perhaps she was being ironic.”
“Is she capable of making a joke?” Scorpius mused and studied his copy of the chart again. “Look, this is so bloody unfair. Potter has first shift. That’s always a doddle because everyone’s calmly getting their sugar fix or eating lunch.”
“Are you officially complaining to me?” Benedict asked in a reasonable sort of voice. “Or just sounding off because you’re in a strop?”
Scorpius glared at him then shook his head. “Forget it. I’ll get Hugo to clean up any sick. It’ll be good practise for him.” He paused. “Bit odd, that.”
“What’s odd?”
“Oh,” Scorpius looked up, aware that he’d spoken aloud, “Er, odd how all the Weasleys and Potters have been prefects, except for Lily Potter.” Moodily, he kicked the seat opposite him. “Must really rankle with her.”
Benedict raised his eyebrows but said nothing, so Scorpius went back to his lone musings. There was a tapping at the carriage door; Scorpius looked up to see Lily frantically trying to catch his eye. He ignored her. She tapped again, but he refused to look up. When she opened the door, he still refused to look at her; instead, he found his hands suddenly very fascinating.
“Lily, is there a problem?” Benedict asked in the sort of tone he’d used earlier with Scorpius.
“Er ... yes,” she said hesitantly. “Yes, there is a ... big problem. Rose asked me to come and find you because the problem was so very big that she couldn’t handle it ... at all. She’s right down the far end of the train... I think she said something about ... er ... Garrotting Gas.”
“Merlin, will these kids never learn?” Scorpius heard Benedict sigh. “Thanks, Lily. Scorpius, stay here while I deal with this.”
“I’ll come with you!” Scorpius replied immediately.
“No, I need someone here, in case there are more problems,” Benedict replied as he strode out of the carriage and down the corridor.
Scorpius glared at Lily. “Close the door on the way out, will you, Potter. I’m sure Cootes can’t wait for you to get back.”
“Oh, please,” she whispered. “Please, Scorpius, let me explain.”
“Explain what? How wonderful Cootes is? How you couldn’t wait to teach him all your fantastic flying skills? Merlin, Lily, I thought you’d have had the guts to tell me you were also snogging Cootes. No wonder you were quick off the mark with my alias. You had him on your mind all the time!”
“I didn’t!” she declared, with what sounded like outrage.
“He seems to think you have something to pick up from,” Scorpius snapped at her.
“He’s a prat, that’s why!” she snapped back. Lily took a deep breath and stepped further into the room. “I only invited him to the field because I had to.”
Something about her tone, her very ridiculousness at trying to explain, stopped him from speaking. He motioned to her to sit down, and she flopped into the seat next to him. He winced as she sat on his bag, but said nothing.
“Teddy was making comments about Harry Cootes for the rest of the day, so I had to invite him around to practise, in case Teddy said any more and Al quizzed Harry about it.” She swallowed and tentatively touched him on the arm. “We weren’t alone, Scorpius. There was a whole gang of Weasleys and Potters there.”
Slightly mollified, Scorpius looked at her, noticing that her hand on his arm was shaking. “And Cootes thinks there’s more to it, I suppose.”
“Mmm, well, once I’d invited him, the others started making remarks about him ... and me. Merlin, my mum is infuriating at times.”
Scorpius grinned at her. Infuriating mums, he could understand. He leant across and kissed her very softly on the lips. She responded, shifting her weight in the seat to get closer to him, and then pulled back. “Ughh! I felt something squelch!” she exclaimed, looking to see what she’d sat on. “Oh, gods, I’m sorry, what have I ruined?”
“Nothing much,” he replied, muffling his laugh. “I got our house-elf to bake some pastries. They were apple puffs especially for you.” He removed a small crumpled paper box from his bag, and showed her the flattened cakes with applesauce oozing from them. “They’re not very puffy now, but possibly still edible.”
Lily giggled and dipped her finger in the goo. “Mmm,” she said, licking her lips, “Delish!”
“Take them,” he offered.
“No, share them with me now,” she said as she leant towards him for another kiss.
“We’ll be seen in here,” he replied softly, regretfully. “The other prefects will turn up soon.”
Lily stood up, taking, he was amused to see, the box with the flattened apple puffs, with her. “Will I see you later? On the journey, I mean.”
“Yes,” he said. “There are half a dozen empty carriages on the train. We’ll lock ourselves into one.”
She nodded and smiled at him then, as she walked to the door, a thought occurred to him.
“Teddy Lupin,” he said. “Is he fond of jokes, Lily?”
She shrugged. “In my family everyone is fond of jokes.”
“And he’s family?”
“Teddy was brought up with us. He’s like the big brother I never had,” she replied, turning back towards the corridor.
“You have two big brothers, though,” he queried. Lily smiled at him, a quirky smile.
“Teddy is like the big brother I wish I’d had,” she modified. “Why are you asking about him?”
Scorpius stood up. Peering out into the corridor and spotting no one, he kissed her again on the lips, enjoying her response as she leant into him. After a while, he pulled away. “Your ‘big brother’ was playing you, Lily. He knew exactly who I was from the first moment he saw me.”
“WHAT!” She dropped her hand from his shoulder. “The filthy snake! That was a mean trick. I’ve been panicking like mad! Oh, he should have been a Sly-” She broke off and took a step back.
“A Slytherin,” he finished for her. “Mmm, perhaps he should have been.” Scorpius laughed at the blush appearing on her face. “I can take insults about my House, you know. And telling someone they should have been a Slytherin because they’re sneaky isn’t much of an insult.”
“Sorry,” she murmured, biting her lip. “A bad family joke, I suppose.”
‘Prejudice exists on both sides, Scorpius, as I’m sure you are aware “ being a Malfoy and a Slytherin.’
Teddy’s words had never sounded so apt. “It’s okay,” he muttered. “My family have a whole stack of jokes about you lot, too.”
He had hours to kill before his patrol with Hugo, hours to do what he pleased. Except that he couldn’t, because what he wanted was to spend the remaining time on the train locked in a carriage with Lily Potter doing wildly inappropriate things, and that was impossible.
Instead, he stayed where he was, watching the other prefects come and go as they signed on or off for patrol. Benedict sat opposite him, reading a book or murmuring to Rose, who kept casting venomous glances at Scorpius.
He smiled, knowing it would annoy the hell out of her. If the rumours were true, the Head Boy and Girl shared a lot more than responsibility. Rose wanted him to leave, but he had no intention of going until he was ready. She cracked first.
“Don’t you have some friends you can sit with?”
“Aww, Rose, I thought you and Benedict were my friends,” he replied sarcastically. “Aren’t we one big happy prefect family?”
She gripped her wand, but he knew she wouldn’t dare use it, not with Mr Fair Play Hufflepuff next to her. Benedict looked at him in exasperation, so Scorpius relented.
“I’ll go for a walk,” he said, yawning. “Stretch my legs for a while and leave you lovebirds in peace.”
“We’re not lovebirds!” Rose exclaimed furiously.
“Really?” Scorpius smirked at them both. “Then why have you been running your hand up and down MacMillan’s thigh when you thought I wasn’t looking, Weasley?” He ducked to avoid the sudden hex she hurled at him. “Temper, temper!” he exclaimed and laughed as he dodged out of the carriage.
He was still laughing when he saw Lily walking towards him. She was strolling along arm in arm with her friend “ the one who played Chaser on the Gryffindor team. Leaning casually against the wall, he stared at the floor, then slowly lifted his head sideways. Lily, he saw, was peeping at him through her curtain of straggly hair, a slow smile playing on her lips.
“I think I’ve dropped my moneybag,” he heard her say to her friend. “Natalie, you go back to the carriage, I’m going to walk back to the trolley.”
Nice work. As Natalie walked off, Scorpius stood up straight and walked past Lily, his arm by his side, his fingertips inching towards her, touching her lightly on the hand. “Follow me,” he muttered and staring straight ahead, he strolled away.
He heard the faint rustle of her robes as she turned, and her light tripping steps as she followed, not faltering, but not speeding to their destination. At carriage twenty-three, he paused. No one liked carriage twenty-three, the first carriage in the next section of the train. It was known to rattle and jolt with every bump of the track. Swiftly, he opened the door, saw it was empty, and stepped inside. As Lily approached, he reached out his hand, plucked her inside and kicked the door shut. Giggling, she collapsed in a seat as he hurried to pull down the blinds. Then, as the train jolted around a corner, Scorpius stumbled forwards propelling himself into the seat by her side.
Not the smoothest of moves, he thought, but as her arms reached around his neck, he realised that didn’t matter. Lily was here, not caring about his moves or his chat. She was here because she wanted to be with him, and he didn’t have to impress her.
His mouth sought hers, and as her sweet, red, petal-soft lips parted, Scorpius felt himself melt into her. One hand cupped her face, while the other explored her glorious long hair. It smelt fresh, like the crisp clear air of winter. He broke off, burying his face in her neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her skin. Achingly slowly, he dropped faint kisses on her neck, leading up to her ear, delighting in the breathy moans escaping from her. His hand slid down to her waist, his fingers slipping under her robe. Lust coursed through him as she trembled under his touch, but then the carriage jolted loudly again, her eyes flew open, panicked, worried, concerned. It wrenched him back to his senses and he pulled away abruptly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he soothed. “Just... uh ...” He stopped, not totally sure what to say. “It felt like that day in the field, that’s all, Lily. I don’t want to push you too far.”
“Oh,” she murmured, and he saw her blushing again, a smile wavering on her lips.
Adjusting his position so he was sitting upright, he pulled her towards him and dropped a light kiss on her brow. “I want to see you again. At school. Is that possible?”
“Difficult,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper, “but definitely possible.”
Stroking her hair, Scorpius started asking her about her timetable, knowing that her year would be at least as busy as his. To his surprise, she was taking fewer O.W.L.s than he expected. Albus, he remembered had taken nine subjects, Rose eleven; Lily, it appeared, was taking seven.
“I was struggling, so Professor Longbottom suggested I drop the electives so I could concentrate on the core subjects,” she said, sighing. “Shame, because I didn’t mind Muggle Studies or Care of Magical Creatures, but it’s a relief to have a freer timetable.”
She liked Charms best, she told him, but struggled most with Defence Against the Dark Arts. This fact was embarrassing because everyone expected her to be good at it.
“Vector never got over me being bad at Arithmancy,” he said idly. “Mum was her star pupil, as she never let me forget. She was bloody glad when I dropped the class before I took the O.W.L. Talked about being disappointed, but I could practically smell her relief.”
“Was your mum disappointed?” Lily asked in a quiet voice.
Scorpius stopped to consider. He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t mind.”
Lily was quiet in his arms. He peered down at her noticing a wistful expression on her face. “Hey, baby Potter,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m sure your dad will be fine, whatever you get.”
“Maybe,” she replied but didn’t elaborate.
He held her close for a few more precious minutes, knowing that soon he’d have to leave and start patrol with her cousin. But this sudden sadness of hers hit him forcefully. “I got an Outstanding for Defence,” he said at last, running one fingertip down her cheek.
“Bully for you!” she murmured, pulling back, a small, sad half-smile touching the corners of her mouth.
“I mean,” he said slowly and deliberately, “that I could help you.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up, alive with hope. “You’d do that for me”
“You got me flying again, Lily.”
Tilting her head up, she touched her lips to his and murmured, “There’s no debt, Scorpius.”
He pulled away, muttering regretfully that he had to leave or Rose would send out a search party. “Your cousin is a slave-driver. You’d think I was a house-elf,” he grumbled as he stood up and opened the door a crack. “Coast is clear, you can leave.”
“If you were a house-elf, she’d treat you far better,” Lily said, grinning as she slipped out of the door. “See you ... soon, I hope.”
“You will.”
As she walked up the corridor, away from their tryst, he felt an urge to drag her back inside. Instead, he contented himself with watching her leave, enjoying the way her hair swung past her shoulders, almost to her waist. She turned her face towards him at one point, and he smiled, thinking she was about to blow him a kiss, but instead she looked hurriedly away. Glancing over his shoulder, Scorpius saw some Ravenclaw girls approaching. One, he vaguely recognised, but couldn’t quite remember her name or where he knew her from. Catching him looking her way, she slowed her pace and smiled at him.
“Hi, there,” she called softly.
He muttered something non-committal back, not really looking at her, but she didn’t take the hint and stopped by his side.
“I’ve heard a rumour that you got really lucky at Christmas, Scorpius,” she said.
Casting his eyes up the corridor, and seeing Lily watching them, he smirked. “Very lucky.”
“A Firebolt X,” the Ravenclaw girl said clearly. “I wouldn’t mind having a ride sometime.”
Tearing his eyes away from Lily, who had disappeared amidst a crowd of other Gryffindors, he scowled at the girl. “What are you going on about?”
“I said I wouldn’t mind having a ride ... on your Firebolt,” she repeated, adding in a murmur. “Especially as I also heard you and Ariadne aren’t together anymore.”
Scorpius looked at her. She looked a bit like Ariadne, with her dark shining hair, perfectly coiffured, and she was tall, nearly his height. But as he stared at her, not even trying to remember her name (Helena, possibly?) he felt nothing, not even a glimmer of an attraction for her.
“Do I know you?” he asked, aware he sounded rude.
One of her friends tittered and she flushed slightly. “It’s Heloise Edgecombe. I’m a sixth year prefect.”
He remembered her now. He’d sat across from her once in one of the interminably dull prefect meetings that Rose Weasley had organised. Heloise had offered to take notes, and he’d joked with Flint that of course she would because that’s what Ravenclaws did “ took copious notes on everything. He’d never been to another meeting, making sure Ariadne made his excuses. Bugger, he thought, I’ll have to start going to them now.
“Oh, right. You’ve patrolled now, have you?”
“Yes,” she replied with a simper and then leant slightly towards him. “I’m free now, Scorpius.”
He studied her face, the dark red lips curving lasciviously, and then he too leant forwards, whispering in her ear, “Well, Edgecombe, I have a hot date with Hugo Weasley and some puking first years, so why don’t you run along and find someone else who’ll give you a ride ... on their broomstick?”
“I was only being friendly, you arrogant bastard!” she spat.
“And I,” he replied starting to walk away down the corridor, “was just being honest. I thought that’s what you girls liked.”
Striding quickly back to find Hugo and start patrol duties, he wasn’t overly surprised to see Lily lurking in the corridor.
“What did she want?” she hissed.
“A ride on my Firebolt,” he muttered, not looking at her. He could practically see her irritation, but Hugo was standing just inside the carriage, so he didn’t dare risk even a smile.
“And?”
“She now thinks I’m an arrogant bastard. Good job I’m not a Gryffindor, or I’d have had to be far more chivalrous!””
Lily giggled. He felt her fingertips gently touch his, but the contact was all too brief. Hugo was backing into the corridor, still talking to his sister. Lily’s fresh delicate scent wafted in the air; but as it grew fainter and fainter, Scorpius knew she was gone.