Chapter 7

Songs I was listening to while writing: Better With You by This Wild Life, Brothers &, Cardinals by The Wonder Years, LA Devotee by Panic! At the Disco

When Albus came storming into my room at eight in the morning on a Saturday, unannounced, a part of me was satisfied. Over the years I had come up with 98 reasons to justifiably kill Albus Potter, mostly when we had been school enemies and lately when he was annoying me. He had just given me 99.

"What in the name of Merlin are you talking about?" I groaned, pulling the dark sheets up and over my head. Al had perched himself on the edge of my empty desk, already dressed in jeans and what looked to be a Molly Weasley original knitted sweater. The embroidered gold A on the purple material was emblazoned with little snitches all over it and reminded me of the horrible socks stuffed in my drawer.

"We're going to an important meeting. The Leaky Cauldron. Twenty minutes."

I searched through my mind for anything pertinent that could make sense of the rubbish Al was spouting off. There was nothing going on for the Ministry or Auror Training. There were no birthdays.

"Al, I don't need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Stop picking up the flyers."

There was a hard thump against my blanket-covered form and I knew Al had chucked something in his exasperation.

"Scorp get up," He said shortly. I could hear a smirk in his voice. "I'm paying for breakfast. We have to talk to Dom about what we're going to do about Goyle."

I didn't say anything right away. Free breakfast was tempting but the mention of Goyle filled my insides with an icy sensation sort of like a slow-acting freezing charm. I hadn't truthfully put much thought into just what I was going to actually do. How would I protect myself? Where was Goyle most likely hiding right now? These were questions I had kindly escorted to the back of my mind up until now.

I grumbled a few choice curse words which Al evidently decided to interpret as agreement to his meeting. Dressing in a sleepy stupor, I pocketed my wand on my way out of my bedroom and smoothed my hand over my hair which probably looked as though I had just woken up (for some funny reason).

A punctual twenty minutes later found Al and me seated in a comfortable booth in the back corner of the Leaky Cauldron. The barman had given us a shifty look when we requested this, but Al slipped him a few silver sickles and he limped away with a toothless grin.

"I thought you said Dom was coming." I yawned, flipping through the dingy menu in front of me. Without even reading it, I knew what I would order. A strong cup of coffee and as many chocolate chip pancakes as it would take to wake up.

"She should already be here." Al said, shifting around in his seat impatiently to glance at the door to the pub. It wasn't very crowded for a Saturday morning. Witches and wizards would come to use the London entrance to Diagon Alley and stay for a cup of tea or in an exceptional case, a strangely smoking liquid that the barman looked frightened to concoct. No sign of Dominique's Veela blonde hair or trademark bounciness could be found.

We waited for several minutes before Al decided he was too hungry and ordered for us. I barely heard him, my eyelids drooping, as he listed off our order to the waitress assigned to our table. He tapped my elbow sharply with his wand and I resisted calling him a name I knew would probably scandalize the dumpy looking witch and her little daughter at the table next to us.

"Fighting already and it's not even lunchtime!" A voice too loud for the time piped up. Dominique was practically skipping her way to our booth, a pale blue scarf wrapped around her neck. She nudged Albus to scoot over in his seat and sat down with a sigh far too relaxed for my taste. I was so tired I almost didn't notice that Dominique hadn't arrived alone— Rose was currently sliding into the seat next to me, her flowery scent immediately waking me more than any coffee could have.

Merlin, why was she sitting next to me? We hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms last time we had properly spoken. We'd been friendly and civil in the weeks following but our small talk that I had grown almost dependent on was limited at best and I knew it was all my fault.

"I brought Rose." Dominique chirped, perusing a menu. This seemed unnecessary of her to say as Rose was here, in the flesh.

"Rose, not that I don't love you, but you're not supposed to be hearing any of this." Al said uncomfortably, scratching the back of his neck. Rose shifted in her seat to look taller, the effect of which didn't really make any difference.

"What, has Scorpius got a scandalous girlfriend I'm not supposed to know about?" She joked, though the words stung a little. I knew they were payback for how I'd addressed her relationship with her stuffy boss, Luke. Part of me was proud of her for saying something.

Dom looked properly confused but Al stopped her before she could question the all too satisfied witch sitting next to me.

"More like Scorp's got a raging lunatic stalker out for his life."

Rose paled considerably. Her eyes grew wider and I let out a heavy breath.

"Al, you could have put it more delicately."

"If I'm anything, I'm a man of the truth." He insisted pompously.

"If you're anything? That's a wide range of better choices you're ignoring—"

"Stop it." Rose snapped. "What are you saying Albus? Scorpius?" She looked a little frantic, turning to me in her question. I seized up. With Rose's big brown eyes trained on me it was all I could do not to pass out right there. This was already a much too eventful morning.

Al was looking at me expectantly and I cleared my throat. How could I answer this without making it sound as bad as it was?

"Erm— the trainee that used that curse on me when I was in St. Mungo's?" I started. Rose nodded along. "He's sort of escaped."

"Sort of?" She looked unbelieving.

"Well you know. By sort of I mean he has. Escaped that is."

"Escaped the Aurors? How could he have done? You mean they really don't know where he is?" She said all this very fast and I, having already done more than enough bewildered explaining as it was, turned to Albus with a pleading look.

Al beckoned for Rose to lean across the table to hear him better so he could whisper the details of what Teddy had told us about Goyle. I exchanged an uneasy look with Dominique over their backs and she shook her head, a worried crease on her forehead.

"Right." Al said once he had finished explaining the situation to Rose who settled back into her seat looking terrified. "I didn't call this meeting to bring Rose up to speed on everything but seeing as there was no avoiding it…"

Dom huffed. "She has a right to know. She may not be in Auror training but she's just as involved as any of us!"

In a way, I was glad Rose knew. I didn't want her to worry, and specifically I didn't want her to worry about me. But just the idea that she would be on our side was comforting. No matter how many times I'd messed things up for us, she was still the only person that could keep me truly sane. I needed that more than ever.

"I have information from my dad." Al continued, ignoring Dom's little outburst. I rose my eyebrows at this. He glanced at each of us in turn, gave a quick scope of the pub, and then cleared his throat importantly.

"He says he thinks this bloke's dad was someone he went to school with. Gregory Goyle was his father. He was a bully, not too bright, a follower of this other student…" He trailed off awkwardly. Suddenly, Al wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Who was the student?" Rose asked, voicing the question I was a hesitant to ask if only because I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"Draco Malfoy." Al said shortly. Both Dom and Rose whipped their heads in my direction, concerned looks on their faces. I didn't feel any shame or embarrassment like I thought I would. My father's past was exactly that— the past. It had nothing to do with me. Or at least, it didn't used to.

"Did your dad say anything else?" I asked Albus, ignoring the awkward tension that had settled around our table. Al shook his head as if to clear it.

"Not much. Just that Goyle was on the wrong side of the war and went to Azkaban for torture and stuff like that. He was released and laid low afterward. But no one ever knew he had a son."

Al seemed to be finished. I took a long sip of my coffee, letting all the new information that had been crammed into my head settle. Looking back, this was probably what my father would have told me if I'd given him the chance. With grim satisfaction, I felt pleased that I'd gotten the same information without any of his help.

"So what are we going to do?" Dominique asked, a note of urgency in her voice.

"We're not going to do anything. We might be training, but we're not Aurors." Al said simply. Next to me, Rose huffed impatiently.

"Since when have you ever been hands off about anything?" She almost snapped. Al rolled his eyes.

"Rosie, I'd love to walk up to this Goyle idiot in the streets and strangle him with my own two hands if I could. But he's missing. We don't know where he is, where he could be, what he's doing. All we know is he wants Scorpius."

"Isn't that reason enough to actually do something?" Rose pressed on. I was almost surprised she was so intent on action against Goyle. She must have been really scared, and I instantly felt guilty. Anyone associated with me now would have to keep an eye out for themselves. That made me more furious than the idea of my potential murderer on the loose. I hoped Goyle did find me, because when he did I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

…

"Ronald Weasley if you so much as breathe on my Christmas tart before it's ready, there will be a world of trouble waiting for you!"

This latest outburst, courtesy of Molly Weasley, seemed unnecessary as it was aimed at a grown man. Still, Ron Weasley extracted his hand from the handle on the oven door and slumped out of the kitchen, grumbling.

"Amazing," I muttered to myself, feeling another wave of annoyance towards my ex-girlfriend's father pass over me. Al and I were on decorating duty, which seemed like a really bad decision but was too late to change. I was levitating brightly colored Christmas baubles up to Al who was perched on a questionable wooden step-ladder we had found in the garden shed.

"Fuck!" Al yelped for what was probably the fiftieth time in the last hour— the ladder had wobbled dangerously again. "Scorp, if I die tonight, tell Giselle I'm crazy about her and her body could stop traffic."

I scoffed at this, but assured him I would. Giselle was supposed to be coming to the party tonight. This meant I probably wouldn't see much of Al and if I did, I would probably want to immediately turn away and scrub my eyes thoroughly. Al and Giselle were just a very comfortable couple intimately— so much so that I knew not to enter a room without loudly clearing my throat a couple times to give them notice back at the flat.

The Burrow was bustling with "holiday spirit" as Molly Weasley called it, though I would call it more of a frenzied sweat shop under a dictatorship of Christmas joy. While Al risked his life to hang baubles on festive strands of garland, Fred and James were enlisted to clean every inch of the house and Dominique and Rose were babysitting Angeline upstairs while Teddy and Victoire helped spruce up the garden. All the while, Molly Weasley loomed over with a fine layer of flour on her hands and a crazed look in her eye that was best meant to be ignored.

I couldn't blame her for being stressed out— the entire family was coming to this Christmas party and then some. That was a good fraction of the population of England crammed into the homey but small Burrow. I had been invited home by my mum for the holidays and I was tempted to go. The Manor during Christmas time was something I couldn't describe. The cold and dark atmosphere brightened up considerably once the elves had set out the decorations and lit the fires with specially scented logs that wafted a pine scent throughout the corridors. But I was determined not to see my father any time soon, and the invitation to the Potter-Weasley-Lupin Christmas party was a welcome distraction from my royally messed up family life.

After we had been released from our decorating duties and Al had snuck a cookie from the platter on the kitchen counter (risking the continued use of his hands in the process), we holed away in the room Fred and Louis Weasley were sharing over the Christmas holidays from Hogwarts. The party wasn't a formal occasion like some of the ministry parties I had attended with my father when I was younger, but it still called for better than my ancient Slytherin House Quidditch team t-shirt and jeans.

I picked stray hairs off my black sweater while Al frustratedly tore through a pile of shirts his mum had deemed "appropriate" for the evening. I watched with amusement as he finally chose a knitted Weasley Christmas sweater in what I figured was an act of defiance. The emerald green sweater with red trim featured a Christmas tree with gold snitches and red Quaffles as ornaments, a stitched Albus in his Gryffindor uniform topping the tree. I distinctly remembered making fun of him when he'd received it in our fourth year at Hogwarts back when we were enemies. The temptation to do just the same was strong now, but I resisted.

Forty five minutes later, the party had started and was promising to be in full swing within an hour. The back door remained open simply because guests kept pouring in, laden down with puddings and cookie platters that piled up on the magically enlarged dessert table in the sitting room. Giselle was one of the first to arrive, and while Al had promised me earlier he wouldn't abandon me, I hadn't seen him for a good half hour. This left me with not much to do and I found myself aimlessly making a lap around the festivities.

The scariest thing about the Potter-Weasley-Lupin clan was not the size, but the fact that everyone knew everyone. Lilly Potter chatted away happily with Lysander and Lorcan Scamander, the twin sons of Luna and Rolf Scamander. The former of the two was currently stationed under the doorway to the kitchen, arguing dreamily with Percy Weasley over whether a sprig of white berries hanging in the doorway next to them was in fact mistletoe or a rare breed of the Northern European Dirigible Plums. Molly and Arthur Weasley hosted in the kitchen, stopping anyone who walked by to talk for a lengthy few minutes and leave them with a glass of Molly's famous hot chocolate. Fred and Louis Weasley were to be found sneaking around near the fireplace, burying No-Fuse-All-Fun-Festive-Fireworks from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes under the logs.

I hadn't seen Rose or Dominique for the duration of the night yet, but I wasn't sure I wanted to run into either of them at the moment. The weight of the conversation we had last all had together about Goyle was still present. Basically, it hadn't ended well. There was no actual conclusion about what we would do if Goyle sprang out from behind a pillar and started a duel to the death. This caused Rose to snap at Albus about being irresponsible to which Al replied Rose needed to be more consistent with when she cared enough. In the week that followed up until now, I wasn't sure Rose or Albus had made any attempt to speak to each other and mediating between Dominique and myself was getting old.

"Scorp," Al barked, clapping me on the shoulder. I jumped at his sudden appearance. He looked happy— too happy.

"Where's Giselle?" I asked, scanning the room quickly but unable to find her.

"Erm, she had to powder her nose. You know how it is." He laughed uncomfortably and tugged at the neckline of his too-tight Christmas sweater that really only fit when he was fourteen. "Have you seen Rose anywhere?"

"I haven't".

"If you do, please give her a good reason not to come yell at me again. It's Christmas for Merlin's sake—"

Al was cut off by the clinking of glass coming from the front of the sitting room. It took a few minutes to get the din of chatter coming from the many guests to quiet down, but everyone's attention was soon turned to a beaming James Potter, Lacey Jordan on his arm.

"Evening!" James exclaimed in his enthusiastic voice. "I hope you're all enjoying the wonderful party put on by my outstanding family!"

There was a chorus of cheers from the guests. Lacey giggled next to James, blushing slightly.

"Now that you've all had some firewhiskey in you and probably more than your fair share of Grandma Weasley's pudding—"

Cheers sounded for Molly Weasley's all but magical feast and she glowed bright red, tutting disapprovingly at the interruption but contradicted by a wide smile on her face.

"Well, we weren't sure when we wanted to say this but with all of you here and a great night ahead…" James led on.

"We're engaged!" Lacey announced.

The screams of happiness that followed were loud enough to wake up the muggles in the neighboring village. I clapped as Al's stunned face morphed into a smile for his older brother and he joined in the stampede of family members now attempting to embrace the happy couple. The sitting room was soon unbearably packed and after being pushed into a bookcase twice, I managed to escape.

Sidling into the kitchen, I made a beeline for the counter where goblets and drinks were set up. My hand easily passed through the slightly shimmering blue circle that had been drawn around the bottles of firewhiskey— the defensive line preventing any underage Potter-Weasley having too much of a good time— and I poured myself a glass of the amber liquid. The chatter in the next room could be heard just as clearly in here and although the voices were all familiar, I had never felt so distant from them. It was really great that James and Lacey were settling down. But some part of me was convinced it wasn't necessary for me to tell them so.

"Um, sorry. Did I just walk into an empty kitchen at a party in the Burrow?"

Almost knocking over my glass, I whipped around. My heart was beating out of my chest but Rose's shocked face eliminated the fear immediately.

"I didn't mean to startle you! Oh, I'm sorry." She said, biting her lip. The crease between her eyebrows was torturously adorable and I cleared my throat while my heart calmed down.

"Don't apologize. I'm being paranoid."

"What is going on?" Dominique chirped, entering the room in a flurry of snow from outside. Taking in the empty kitchen, she huffed.

"Why is it that whenever we show up, there's always something else going on?" And in a whirlwind of silvery blonde hair and snowflakes, Dominique bounced into the living room. Rose gave me a questioning look.

"Erm, James and Lacey are engaged. They just announced it."

Rose's face lit up brighter than the tree. "James? Engaged?"

"What's all this about being engaged?"

Luke Sharman, or Gilderoy Lockhart the Second as I liked to call him, had entered through the kitchen door. If I thought I stuck out at these parties, he was a unicorn in the middle of a herd of thestrals.

Rose was pointedly looking at something just to the left of my ear now. I took a hurried sip of my drink which quickly turned into draining it whole. Luke didn't seem to notice the tension that had now enveloped our unlikely trio and was gazing around the room excitedly. His eyes landed on me.

"Scorpius, isn't it?"

I grunted in reply.

"Luke," Rose spoke up, startling both of us in a rather shrill voice. "I think my mum is through here. You wanted to see her right?"

I avoided eye contact with Rose as she guided Luke into the sitting room. It seemed the news of the engagement had died down a bit as people were filtering back into the kitchen. Fred and Louis streaked by, snickering about something that was most likely a prank— nine times out of ten it was. Molly Weasley stood guard over a vat of hot chocolate and held up the line by chatting with anyone who asked for a glass. Nothing was really different but the tension I felt was enough to change the entire night. I shouldered my way out of the kitchen and back into the sitting room where various Potters and Weasleys had taken up residence in armchairs, sat around the fire, leaned against tables and bookshelves.

"That's the kind of face I see after a botched Auror exam." Teddy said, a lazy smirk on his face that reminded me of myself. "What's up?"

I glanced around the room, trying to look as uninterested as possible. Rose and Luke were standing with Dominique by the doorway that led upstairs. Luke was laughing at something probably very unfunny and Rose looked… comfortable. I bit the inside of my cheek.

"Just tired. I like the hair." Teddy's signature electric blue locks had become a vibrantly festive red and green combo. He chuckled.

"Yeah, I made the mistake of showing Angeline. She cries every time I try to change it back."

I forced myself to laugh, bringing my glass up to my mouth but finding it empty. Figures.

"Scorpius, you realize you're at a Christmas party? You look like someone just snapped your wand in half in front of you."

I grimaced. It was all too easy to forget that while Teddy was my boss, he was also a member of this overflowing family.

"Listen, Scorpius. I know how you feel." His voice dropped to just above a whisper. "It's massively disappointing but you can't let it get to you. There's always going to be other blokes but there's only one you."

Had Teddy been reading Rose's romance novels? I almost rolled my eyes before I remembered he was the one who was training me to become an Auror.

"We don't have to talk about it." I insisted.

"I just wanted to give you the option." Teddy went on easily. "You don't have to feel like an outsider here. You're family, especially to me. Isn't the old Black family motto 'family is pure'?"

I laughed darkly. "Actually it's 'Always Pure'. Probably why it died out."

We laughed in that corner of the sitting room that had suddenly felt like a separate dimension from the rest of the Burrow. I resisted looking over at Rose and Luke again, knowing what I would see would only upset me no matter what it was.

"You shouldn't hide it." Teddy said tentatively. "I mean to be completely honest, you're not very good at hiding it."

I let out a long sigh. Teddy was right. I wasn't good at hiding anything I felt for Rose. I never had been.

Mercifully, Angeline came tottering down the steps with Victoire Lupin in tow and this distracted Teddy enough for me to slip away.

Two drinks later, the party had dulled nicely. Or at least, my perception of it had. The warbling voice of an aged Celestina Warbeck belting out her reunion holiday concert could be heard drifting through the house and guests fell into stupors that could be identified by full stomachs and satisfied smiles. When the fireworks in the fireplace finally ignited and caused a shower of sparks and bangs to whizz around the room colorfully, the lazy atmosphere was forced to come to a close. Ron Weasley almost elbowed me in the face three times in an effort to stop one of the fireworks from shattering Molly Weasley's family clock and I took this as a sign that a quiet moment alone wasn't a bad idea.

The steps creaked under me as I made my way up the many floors of the Burrow. Outside the windows, snow fell in dizzying flurries and buried the garden in a layer of white glittering powder.

"It's really beautiful."

I didn't jump this time. Maybe I was just drunk enough to have a hold on my demented senses. Maybe it was because I had been avoiding her all night and I knew eventually, that plan would be useless. I turned to face Rose who was now gazing out the window.

"I used to play with Hugo out there. Make snowmen. When we were little, we'd make them look like us and tie mum and dad's scarves on them and say we were off to Hogwarts." I didn't interrupt her as she went on. There didn't seem to be a point. Here in this dark landing of the Burrow, time stood still.

"Enjoying the party?" She asked, her eyes meeting mine. There was no time to think of a clever response.

"Erm,"

Brilliant.

"I invited Luke." She said very quickly. The words would have almost run together if I hadn't felt the sting of them.

"So I noticed."

"Scorpius…" She trailed off, looking out the window again. "I don't know. He doesn't have any family in London. He was telling me about his Christmas at home and it sounded miserable, I couldn't even focus on my work after it."

"Does he always depress you at work?" I prodded. She gave me a look that was clearly meant to be annoyed, but the uplifted corner of her mouth said otherwise.

"He's a very good boss. I'm learning a lot."

"Please. You could be teaching him." I hadn't processed the words as they came out of my mouth but maybe it was for the best if "Erm" was all I was able to consciously come up with. Rose's blush was creeping onto her cheeks.

"How's Auror training?"

"The same."

It was quiet then. I knew it was futile to try to say anything that wouldn't offend Rose or make myself look stupid. Rose had resumed looking out the window, her fingers pressed against the glass.

"Everything's changing." She almost whispered. Her breath fogged up the glass. "It all looks the same out there but in here…"

"Are you talking about James and Lacey?"

She nodded slowly. "Them and everyone else. Everyone at Hogwarts is different. Or maybe we're different, I can't tell. And you and Albus…"

"We didn't exactly have a lunatic to worry about last year." I finished lamely for her. She exhaled and the glass fogged further.

"I'm scared for you. I didn't want to outright say it because it's not exactly going to help anyone but…" She tore her eyes away from the window.

"Scorpius, promise me you're not going to do anything stupid."

I threw my hand over my heart. "I'm wounded. When have I ever done anything stupid?"

She giggled. It was almost a sad sound given the circumstances. Voices carried from the sitting room to the landing, accompanied every so often by another bang of a firecracker.

"I should probably get back to the party. I only told Dom I'd be away for five minutes." Rose said. I thought about what Teddy said and almost like my mind was cut off from my body, my hand was raising toward her to…. What? Stop her? Ask her to stay on this floor of the Burrow and stare out the window with me?

But Rose hadn't moved, although I'd seen her turn away. For a moment, I thought my will to stop her had worked. But she was looking up with a surprised expression and I followed her gaze.

Hanging above us was a strand of glistening white berries and green leaves. As we watched the tendrils of the plant grew slowly, curling around itself.

"Is that—"

"Mistletoe. But it can't just be any normal mistletoe because I live in a family full of Weasleys." Rose said, an irritated spike in her tone.

"It's not a big deal Rose, we don't have to—"

"Actually, we do. Have to kiss that is."

Later, I would have to thank my brain for not formulating some brilliant response or my knees for not giving out.

"It's from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." Rose explained. "It's enchanted so that if you're under it, you can't leave until you've kissed whoever you're trapped with."

"And Fred and James were in charge of cleaning the house today…" I put together the two parts of the story probably a minute after Rose. She was currently glowing red and I thought she would have fit in nicely with some of the fairy lights in the garden.

"Rose, I mean… someone will come up here eventually. We don't have to…"

I trailed off because Rose wasn't exactly looking at me. She seemed to be determinedly staring at a point right around my shoulder.

"Right… so—"

Before I could say anything else— before anything else even had the chance to happen— Rose had leaned in and then as if nothing had ever changed since we were sixteen, her lips were on mine.

Numbly, I thought to myself the fireworks downstairs had gone off too early. Now would have been a more appropriate time. But the kiss was over as soon as it had begun and I found myself staring at her, taking in the glow of red over her freckles.

"Alright, um… I should be going. Luke is probably downstairs." She breathed.

"Yeah. Al is probably looking for me. Or shagging Giselle. Whichever comes first."

But stubbornly, my feet wouldn't connect with my brain. Or maybe my brain wouldn't connect with what my feet knew they were supposed to do. And Rose hadn't moved, not even an inch. It took only a second to take her little body in my arms, for her hands to press against my chest and for our lips to meet again.

In a moment of wild fear, I thought I was dreaming. Rose couldn't actually be kissing me back. Not after all we'd been through, all I'd done to hurt her, push her away, give her reasons to go to idiots like Luke who pranced around feeling like they deserved her. I knew I didn't deserve her. But Rose was real. She was real and she was against me and kissing her felt like it always had. Her fingers brushed through my hair, her nose bumped against my own but there was no pain, our breathing mingled as my lungs selfishly demanded air but who could think about air at a time like this?

I could have gone on forever, but Rose pulled away. Her face looked slightly flushed and her hair fell in loose curls in front of her eyes. I brushed the strands away, reveling in the fact that she didn't recoil.

"Rose, I—"

"Please don't say you love me."

My tongue got caught in my words. My heart seemed to drop and impossibly return to its position in my chest.

"But I—"

There was a world of things to say to Rose. A whole universe, actually. But her eyes were glistening not with a glow of just being kissed but with tears and I realized this too late.

How many times had Rose cried in front of me? Looking back at it, not very often. Twice, it was because of me and this made me feel like shit.

Rose, walking contradiction she was, wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. I didn't exactly know what to do. Arrogantly, I thought was I that bad of a kisser?

She pulled herself away and against my wishes though I kept them private, she separated from me. Smoothing down her hair, she swiped away tears impatiently.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. I have company, I'll um… see you later."

Her red curls flew behind her as she all but ran down the steps. After she was gone there wasn't much of a point to stand there, next to a window that was gathering snow and under the remnants of what had been the most fortunate mistletoe of my life. But on that landing, time stood still. And maybe some part of me wished it had for just a little longer.

A/N: I won't even try to explain the break between this chapter and the last. Just want to thank anyone who's reading or who's read my stuff in the past. It means the absolute world to me!

~yours in eternity, Amy xx