Rose and Luke had been engaged for over three months now, and the households of both families were swarmed with wedding - planning chaos. Lily, in the meantime, had turned twenty and moved into Teddy's old apartment. He had decided to abandon it for a fancier mansion to share with Victoire, when Lily convinced him to let her have it.

"Lily, hey, wake up!"

"Mmm, what?" she groaned as she roughly put a pillow on top of her head.

"I'm leaving now."

"Okay, see you," she said, irritated. She heard laughing as she felt someone pull her out from under her covers. "Brad, seriously, don't piss me off right now."

"Why not?" he said, smirking. "What're you going to do about it?"

"It's eight in the morning, Brad!" Lily whined. "Just let me be."

"If I let you be, I'd barely ever see you awake," Brad said, as he pulled his girlfriend into his arms.

"You know, maybe that isn't such a bad thing," Lily countered. She gave in eventually, and kissed him goodbye as he headed off for another day of work at St. Mungo's.

As it turned out, Rose did, indirectly, help Lily meet her current boyfriend. Bradley Cohen had been present at her engagement party, and had immediately taken a liking to Lily, and Lily, being the lazy woman that she is, decided to go with it, because really, who doesn't like someone who likes them?

His presence over the past three months was due more to convenience than actual feelings of affection. Lily knew that, and so did Brad. It was just about the sex, but since they were exclusively with each other, Brad had taken to calling Lily his girlfriend.

No one knew about this relationship, mostly because it would be seen as "immature" and would be widely disapproved off…especially by family. Lily knew that her cousins would pounce on the fact that there was a man in her life, and would endlessly goad her to marry him despite her assurance that she lacks feelings for him. It was a fine game to play when she was at Hogwarts, but now that she was older, she was expected to behave accordingly.

"Ugh," she groaned, about an hour later. She tried but could not seem to slip back into her deep sleep. Knowing that she would be grumpy all day, she decided to get out of bed, and start the day early.

She entered Weasley's Wizard Wheezes at precisely ten-fifteen, and found her Uncle George gaping at her. "Have you been up all night, because there's no way you woke up this early," he exclaimed.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "There was a really annoying noise and I couldn't sleep through it."

"That's a first. You once slept through Hugo and Albus bursting a hole in the ceiling."

"To be fair, Uncle George, I was five then," Lily reminded him. Wanting to be left alone, she said, "Hey, why don't you take the day off? I mean, I'm here so early already, I can take care of things. Plus, I didn't show up twice this week."

George laughed, "Since when am I the kind of person who'd worry about you showing up?" He paused and then said, "Actually, I have been working on this new version of Extendable Ears. You know, where you can choose to focus on only one sound?"

"Yeah, you told me about that."

"Hmm, yeah, I'll need to call in a few favours to start production. I think I'll do that today." Twenty minutes later, he left the shop and reminded Lily to scare as many customers as possible.

It was quite a slow day: three or four customers faded in and out. It was just past lunchtime when Lily sank into a comfortable chair behind the counter and opened a Witch Weekly magazine.

"Witch Weekly, really?"

"There's nothing else to read," Lily replied dully. Brad had stopped by at the store as he usually did during his break.

"No uncle today?"

"Nope."

Brad smiled widely and jumped behind the counter. "I have about twenty minutes to kill."

"Hm," Lily smirked. "Should be enough," she said as she yanked him onto her chair.

The chair was luckily in a dark corner behind the counter, as just as they were getting into it, the door to the store opened and a loud child seemed to run inside.

"Shit," Lily whispered, beginning to laugh. She untangled herself from a silently laughing Brad, and roughly put her clothes back on.

She emerged from behind the counter to find Scorpius Malfoy started disapprovingly at a child who seemed to be rambling on about his favourite Quidditch team.

"Hi, how can I help you?" Lily asked, putting on her best smile.

"Hi," Scorpius said, recognising her, "I didn't know you worked here."

"Well, it's something temporary that seems to've become permanent so," she said, shrugging. "Is he yours?" she asked, slightly confused.

"God, no," he said, as if the thought disgusted him entirely. Grinning, he said, "My fiancé's nephew. I was asked to babysit today."

"Ah," Lily said, smirking at his sad duties.

"Hey, don't give me that look, I'm miserable here," Scorpius said, unable to hold back a laugh.

Lily laughed as well. "You're right, I feel for you, mate. So," she bent down to the boy, "what's your name?"

"My name's Harry!" he yelled, enthusiastically. "I was named after Harry Potter! D'you know who he is?"

Lily cringed and looked at a grinning Scorpius. "I'm familiar with him, yes."

"I'm going to meet him," the boy went on, "because he's coming to Uncle Scorpius' wedding!"

Lily raised her eyebrows, "Oh, is he?"

"Yeah, and he's going to teach me how to ride a broom and fight evil wizards and-!"

"He's quite a shit rider, if you ask me," she smirked. "Oops, I mean, bad rider."

Scorpius laughed at her apologetic look and whispered to her, "I don't care, I've been swearing in front of him all day."

Harry the child was not quite done talking. "How do you know he's a bad rider? Do you know him?"

"Nope, I'm just making things up," she lied easily. "But if you want to learn to fly, why don't you just ask your Uncle Scorpius? He used to be an amazing Seeker, as I recall."

"Yes, Uncle Scorpius, you have to, you have to!" he begged loudly.

"Okay!" Scorpius said, exasperatedly. "Now go look for something you want to buy. Run along, now." As Harry ran away, Scorpius gave Lily a look of mock betrayal. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"I'm sorry, I just knew your face would be really funny," she said, laughing.

"I'm also quite insulted, actually," he said, narrowing his eyes at her as he grinned.

"Oh yeah, why's that?" she smirked, leaning on the counter.

"Lily," Brad interrupted. He stepped out of the corner and grinned at her. "My break is almost over; I'll have to head back. See you tonight?" Lily nodded as he grabbed her waist and kissed her. He smiled at Scorpius and left.

"Last time I saw you, Rose was trying to set you up with someone. I assume she succeeded?" Scorpius asked, curiously.

"God, no," Lily said, shuddering. "He's just some guy I met and – actually, it doesn't matter. Do me a favour? Don't say anything to anyone about what you just saw, yeah?"

"Why?" He could not understand it, but he was glad that she wanted it to be a secret. He hoped that she was ashamed of the relationship and would break it off. He was unable to fathom the direction in which his thoughts were going. He had a fiancé after all.

"Why is none of your business," Lily smiled sweetly, "Just please don't tell anyone."

"Ugh, alright," Scorpius said in mock exasperation, "But I deserve something for keeping this secret."

"How about…all of little Harry's toys are on the house?"

He smirked and leaned in close to her, "No, I deserve something."

Lily was unknowingly biting her lip, and sending Scorpius' insides into a fit of ecstasy. It was a simple situation: two people flirting quite intensely. What was to happen next would be a natural course of action.

Scorpius knew why he was leaning closer to Lily's face, and she knew why she was reciprocating. His mind was free from thoughts of his imminent wedding, and she did not seem to have a care in the world.

Their lips met after what seemed like forever. The only thing separating them was the counter, and Scorpius wanted to make it vanish as he grabbed her waist. A peculiar sensation had gripped them both, but it was a good feeling. As they ran their hands across each other, they were happy.

Little Harry was, thankfully, behind the numerous rows of shelves at the store, and chose to drop quite a few boxes of merchandise just when Scorpius was itching to tear Lily's clothes off. They immediately snapped back to reality and ran to the sound.

"Shit," Scorpius muttered. "Harry, you alright?"

"Yeah," the little boy said, "I'm sorry, I was running through here and I somehow knocked it all down and -!"

"Don't worry about it," Lily said, shrugging. She placed it all back with a simple wave of her wand. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," he said, in a low voice.

Lily gestured to Scorpius to make him feel better, and Scorpius mouthed, I don't know what to do!

She narrowed her eyes in annoyance, and attempted comforting the guilty child with her zero maternal instincts. Scorpius realised he had to step in when he saw that all Lily could do was pat Harry's back.

Ten minutes later, Harry was fine, and his toys were packaged and the two customers were ready to leave.

"Can we get ice cream?" Harry begged.

"Yeah sure," Scorpius replied, carelessly. "Uh, Lily."

"Yeah?" she said, looking up from the receipt she was filling out.

"Thank you…" he said, lamely, and regretting it almost immediately.

Smirking, she said, "You're most welcome."

"Er, no, actually…uh, you know what? Can I maybe speak to you sometime? Alone?"

"Um, sure. You can…come by my apartment anytime." She had not intended for any sexual innuendo, but Scorpius grinned as she wrote down her address.

"I'll see you around," he said as he locked eyes with her.

"Yep," she said, breaking away from the apparent staring contest.