How can she act so normal? How can she just be chilling at the Gryffindor table gorging herself on porridge and bacon when I feel so emotionally perturbed?

Look!

She's laughing.

How can she be laughing when she has not spoken to me for two whole days?

Don't get me wrong, it is nice to not be constantly under the threat of potentially being hexed into an unpleasant afterlife filled with three headed dogs and grindylows, but I think I have reached the point where I wouldn't mind being hexed.

At least it means she is aware I exist.

Merlin. What has become of my sanity?

Two days though. Never in my life has a witch been so brave as to dare to not speak to me for two days after being blessed with some lip action. This is unheard of!

It is agonising! What is she thinking? Does she want to do it again? How do I snaffle her away from her ginger gang of lunatics in order to repeat said activities? Do I want to repeat said activities? It is Weasley after all and the thought of my fellow Slytherins finding out that I had liplocked with a Gryffindor library-dwelling goblin? – Unthinkable.

"Why do you keep staring at Weasley?"

Ah shit. They have noticed. Be cool, Malfoy. Be cool. "Staring? Whaaaat?" On the latter word my voice reaches a high pitched noise as yet undiscovered by humankind. I cough slightly to recover my dignity, and then revise my statement. "I was not staring."

"Still dreaming about your snog?" Goyle pipes up with a smirk and a half. "Or should I say, dreaming about your dream about a snog."

"Operation Dirty Dreams mark II is a go," Zabini adds sarcastically.

Operation dirty dreams has not afflicted me, I tell you. That was real. 100% full on real.

Although part of me is starting to doubt myself since nobody else believes me.

I narrow my eyes at Weasley over my cup of Earl Grey. They say if you stare at someone for long enough they will eventually look your way. But she probably wouldn't flick a gaze in this direction if Hagrid did a tap dance over the silverware.

There must be some way I can get her attention. I know. I will walk directly in front of her. No woman can resist the strut of a glorious Malfoy, especially not with my utterly delightful derriere sashaying in their face.

"Right I'm off. Have to go to class." I announce to the table before jumping up.

"Malfoy we have 45 minutes before class begins," Goyle decides to rather pointlessly inform me.

"That may be so, Goyle. But some of us are dedicated to our education and wish to get good seats in the classroom." I neglect to remind her that we have Potions first thing today and thanks to her escapades in September I am cruelly obliged to sit at the Nerd table at the front of the class regardless of how early I deign to turn up.

I sneak a look at Weasley throughout my entire catwalk of gorgeousness in front of the Gryffindor table.

She doesn't look once.

Zabini pointedly perches on the bench next to me in Potions. His eyes are glimmering with new-found joy, his mouth is twitching at the corners in gleeful abandon and I know that this is not good news for Mr Scorpius Malfoy, second Earl of Malfoy Manor, Malfoyshire.

"Zabini," I inform him, with a tone suggesting a man to be reckoned with, "I am not having a good day, please for the love of all that is magical, do not make it worse."

The eyes are still glimmering. The mouth is still twitching. "Your mother owled me this morning."

My mother appears to insist on contacting all other untrustworthy persons in my life instead of myself. I admit I may be partly to blame for this descent into reckless communication – I have been pointedly ignoring every message she has sent me for the past few weeks. Straight to the fire they have gone.

And why?

Because every single one is demanding to know when my new darling girlfriend will be coming home to meet grandmother Malfoy and the Malfoy clan.

My darling new imagined by Longbottom girlfriend.

I have not the heart to inform her that I am incapable of getting a girlfriend so the only other solution has been to ignore her and hope that between now and Christmas holidays (an abysmally short four days) I may be able to locate myself a girlfriend.

Zabini takes my silence as an indication to continue harassing me, "She's wondering about your girlfriend." I hear Weasley snort from the next bench, and have a brief elated moment where I am blissfully happy that she still knows I exist. What a bloody Hufflepuff I am. "Apparently she's hosting a dinner and dance on New Year's day and I've said your G. F. will be there or be square."

I drop my forehead to the table and groan loudly. "Zabini, how could you do this to me?"

This situation has gone from bad to worse. I literally cannot trust Zabini as far as I could throw him.

"I can offer you some advice on the girlfriend front," Weasley pipes up from behind me.

I am so enshrined with grief and sullenness that I do not lift my head up to retort, "I'm not sure you could possibly have any solid advice on the matter."

"Fine, suit yourself."

I lift my head and observe her with interest. She has returned to reading her textbook with a raised eyebrow and a stubborn ferocity. "I'll hear you out."

Weasley looks up and states, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Just tell your mother that you do not have a girlfriend."

Now. Weasley. Come now. That is a far too simple idea for this situation. Nothing simple ever works with my family. Deception and trickery is the currency of the manor, I tell you.

"I have an alternative option," I suggest thoughtfully to no one in particular. I have no idea why I am gracing Weasley with my innermost thought processes. I hope she is flattered by this invitation into my most enthralling mind. "I find a girlfriend."

Zabini snorts loudly.

Weasley gives him a disparaging look and turns back to me with a glint of a smirk. "And how do you suppose you will achieve that? Your only date from the entirety of this year has ditched you for King," she cruelly reminds me.

"And your only date for this year has ditched you for Goyle," I snap back, forgetting where I was going with my chain of thoughts.

"Are you trying to suggest that the situation is now so dire that we must date each other?" Weasley remarks in a tone of voice that implies even the mere thought of this makes her feel nauseous.

Zabini gives me a knowing look suggesting he is believing less and less in my tale of cupboard antics. In fact, I am increasingly beginning to believe that I hallucinated the whole thing.

But the better part of me knows that this – this pretending to find me obnoxious, this act, is naught but an act. A bloody good one at that, she is a most convincing actress. But no one, not even a Weasley attempting to hide forbidden love from her extended family, can fake her button undoing prowess of the other night.

But no matter. I will play along…

"No, no, no, no, no, I was not suggesting that at all." I give her a look, a secret look, one that reminds her I am thinking about the cupboard and I know she too is thinking about the cupboard. "Get your head out of the clouds, Weasley. I was just reminding you to look at your own car crash of a love life before insulting mine."

"Car crash!" she snaps.

"Well, it's hardly going swimmingly is it, Weasley," I retort. "Whereas mine is looking on the up each day."

She looks suspicious – perhaps wondering if 'looking on the up' means I'm going to ask her out on the spot. But frankly, since half of the populace think she drugged me the other day I would just be feeding their gossip mill. Or perhaps she is wondering if she is not the only girl that has accosted me in the halls of Hogwarts in the past week.

I shall let her wonder. If she is playing it cool, I will be playing it cool. I will make her jealous.

"I shall find a girlfriend," I repeat decisively, "Weasley, any suggestions?"

"Not a single person comes to mind that would willingly be seen with you," she smarts back. I raise an eyebrow.

"We shall see, Weasley, we shall see."

"I have a matter of the utmost urgency to ask you about."

How on earth do these buffoons manage to find their way into the Slytherin common room! There is a password for a reason, and yet somehow they manage to slither their crafty selves in.

That is illegal.

As Head Boy I should really be reprimanding them for showing a blatant disregard for Slytherin's basic human right to be left along by Gryffindor meddlers. However, I can't really be arsed. Besides, I am bored. Goyle is off molesting her boyfriend and Zabini has been snoring in front of the fire for the past half hour. I have been entertaining myself by attempting to get scrunched up bits of paper into his gaping mouth as he sleeps.

I have been largely unsuccessful so far, which perhaps is evidence of why I am not a chaser.

Without even waiting for a response to his dramatic statement on arrival, Hugo flings himself on the sofa next to Zabini, jolting him awake. Albus sits on the sofa next to me, resting back on the cushions. "Bloody uncomfy sofa this."

"Who invited you?" Zabini asks sleepily.

"All of you Slytherins did when you kept the same password on your common room as you've had for the past 25 years," Hugo informs us with a smirk. Well, that explains the breaking and entering. Or should I just say, entering.

"For a matter that had utmost urgency, you don't seem to be getting to the point," I observe acerbically.

Albus sits forward and tries to plump up the cushion behind him. "We have to ask you a question."

"Well it's more of a request, really," Hugo adds.

"Would you-"

"Scorpius Hypoopy Malfoy-" I give Hugo a death stare. Hypoopy indeed. I know I was not blessed with the most normal of given names, but really? Hypoopy? " – care to attend the Weasley New Year's Eve party."

"It's on New Year's Eve," Albus adds stupidly. "But, of course, you probably knew that."

It appears I have been somehow sequestered into the Potter-Weasley clan! Everybody knows that an invitation to the Weasley New Year's Eve party is quite the coveted prize – usually reserved only for other halves and best friends. Not mortal enemies.

I have a moment of feeling a trifle delighted with the outcome of events. Then I realise that it would involve spending an entire evening surrounded by the maddest of ginger magical people in the British Isles.

"Please come," Hugo says.

And I am instantly suspicious.

"What are you plotting?" I demand.

Hugo throws me an unconvincingly wounded look. "Dearest Scorpius, you must not be so rash by biting the hand of friendship. We are merely extending a warm invitation to a chap who has had a frightfully awful year so far."

Now, it is eminently true that I have had an awful year so far. And the past few days have yet plummeted into further torment. Mother has been writing me (and Zabini and now Goyle) letters with increasing and alarming frequency about her excitement at meeting my 'girlfriend' and I am no closer to having secured a sacrificial victim to parade in front of her than I was when Weasley first enticed me to think of this genius plan.

But wait.

Weasley.

A moment of our Potions lesson not two days ago rings in my ears. The situation is now so dire that we must date each other.

I mean this ruins the jealousy plan, but it is not a wholly unsavoury idea.

"I will attend!" I inform them magnanimously.

Now it is Hugo's turn to look suspicious. "What are you plotting?"

"Dearest Hugo, maybe I am plotting something, maybe I am not… But since you definitely are, how about we call a truce and neither of us ever mention the fact that the other may or may not be plotting something in future," I say, hoping he takes the bait and does not enquire further.

It is one thing to attend a Weasley-Potter gathering when you are a Malfoy by name and Malfoy by nature, it is entirely another thing to attend with the sole purpose of kidnapping your host's sister to take to a dinner with your grandmother.

I say kidnap. It will not be kidnap. This will be a mutual agreement. One more flash of my abs and she will be lost. I will lure her away like the pied piper and his rats.

Hugo turns to Albus. They exchange several moments of wordless facial expression conversation. Then Hugo turns to me and says, "Let's shake on it, Malfs."

And so I reach out my hand, complete with monogrammed signet ring, and shake Hugo's slightly grubby paw. There is a slight knot in my stomach telling me that perhaps this was not the best idea I have ever had… But I have unerring faith in my gut instincts – and my gut instincts are telling me to initiate Operation Dinner Date.

I am a slow slow updater... But I apologise profusely! I am a busy bee most of the time unfortunately.

Let me know what you think!

GCO xoxo