The lake looked empty with the pirates gone, almost lonely, and even though she had studying to do for exams, Rose still went out to sit on the shore and look out at where it had been. She couldn't help missing them, even after what they had done, and she hated herself a little for missing them. She was acting like a heartsick girl, even though she was a Gryffindor and ought to be bolder than that.

But she was also a girl, and there wasn't any reason for her not to be heartsick. She had been betrayed by people she had thought were her friends. Anyone would be hurt by that. The only question was whether she would keep feeling sorry for herself or whether she would take a few more days to get over it.

The process took more than a few days, but partly because she needed to go back and relearn everything she needed to know for finals, she recovered rather quickly. Most of her days were spent in the library, studying with Ruby, Albus, and Scorpius. All the work they had to do felt incredibly dull, at least compared to the theoretical readings they had been doing before, and at least once a day Rose was tempted to toss aside the notes Ruby had saved up over the year in favor of a heavy book written in Latin that they would have to puzzle out. Ruby wouldn't let her, though, and every day Rose would sigh and return to the notes.

"It's just so boring," she said toward the end of May, on a day they had set aside for Charms. Scorpius, unsurprisingly, was doing well, even better than Rose, and that made her feel more bitter than usual. "Why can't we do something fun?"

"I think this is fun," Scorpius said, and he narrowly avoided the wadded up piece of paper Rose threw at him. Albus scurried off to collect it, and Rose groaned as loudly as she dared.

"You only think it's fun because you're winning," she said, slumping onto the table. "If you were doing as badly as I am, you wouldn't be having fun at all."

"You mean, if I were doing as badly as I usually do compared to you?" Rose lifted her head and saw that the smile had faded from Scorpius's face. "What about if I were doing the same as Ruby and Albus are compared to both of us? Would I be having any less fun then?"

Neither Ruby nor Albus met Rose's eyes, and she bit her lip. She'd never felt ashamed before, and she didn't like it at all. "That isn't what I meant," she said in a low voice, but she didn't know if Scorpius would bother to look at her. He would probably just get up and leave, and Albus and Ruby would likely go with him. She wanted to think that she wouldn't be bitter and snappish over the next few days at them, but the only other possibility was that she would be lonely and melancholy, and she liked that even less.

A bit too brightly, Ruby said, "I never thought you were a sore loser, Rose! I always thought you took things in stride."

"I never really had to lose before," Rose admitted. "I've always been good at everything." Losing to her father at Wizard Chess hardly counted, and neither did losing at James for the most part, since both of them were so much older than she was and had more experience with just about everything.

"Well, you just have to try harder," Ruby said cheerfully. "We've all been working really hard, and even if Albus and I aren't as good as you and Scorpius, we still manage to have some fun."

"I have been trying," Rose said. "It's just that none of this is interesting anymore."

Albus got to his feet. "Maybe we should take a break," he said, gathering up his stuff. "Want to meet outside tomorrow? The Quidditch season's over, so we can do some practical work on the pitch. I've been wanting to try out some of the spells we've been studying, and maybe we can even have a little fun and do some third year spells."

Everyone packed up after that, and Rose headed up to Gryffindor Tower accompanied, to her surprise, by Scorpius.

"Sorry I snapped at you," he said. "It was just really annoying, hearing you talk about how hard you have it when you're the top of the class."

Rose shrugged. "I'll try not to be as obnoxious next year." She didn't accept his apology, nor did she say he had been right, but the mood between them lightened a little. "Do you still want to hang out next year? If I'm not as annoying?"

"Sure," Scorpius said with a smile. "I'd like that."

Exams went well, and just as the year before, Rose did the best out of all the second years. A few Ravenclaws teased her, and she teased them right back, though only a few seemed genuinely angry that she had done better. The older students who heard about it actually congratulated her, though she suspected it was partly because they were as annoyed by the younger Ravenclaws as she could be. She did splendidly in Herbology, of course, and in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and while Scorpius did slightly better than she had in Charms, she wasn't bitter. At least, not too much.

"Next year," she told James as they packed up their things for the train ride. "I'll get him next year."

"Isn't that what you said last year?" he asked with a grin.

"That's different," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I got distracted by the pirates this year. Next year there won't be any distractions. It'll just be me and him."

"Or maybe there'll be even worse distractions," James said, his grin growing wicked. "Thirty Sickles says you two hook up next year." When Rose threw a sock at him, he laughed and deflected it with a flick of his wand and a "Wingardium Leviosa!" When it had fallen to the floor, he asked, "What? You don't still think boys have cooties, do you? I thought you outgrew that when you were five."

"It's not cooties," Rose said, wrinkling her nose. "Hooking up's for older kids, and for people who don't have anything better to do."

James shook his head. "Just you wait," he said. "One of these days, you'll get a boyfriend, and you'll change a fair bit. Maybe you'll even stop studying as much." When Rose scoffed, he added, "You'd be surprised. Lujayn's made me not as much of a rule-breaker, so anything could happen."

Rose stuck out her tongue, and James tried to throw the sock back at her, but she ducked and ran off, laughing.

The train ride back to King's Cross was just as cheerful as it had been the previous year. Rose was invited to join Scorpius, Albus, and Ruby in their compartment, and they tried to find ways to play four-player games with an Exploding Snap deck. Ruby coaxed them into playing Go Fish, but when three different cards blew up, leaving them with three more that couldn't be matched, they gave up.

"I'm tired of having things explode in my face, anyway," Scorpius muttered, and he would have wiped the ash away from his eyes, but Ruby grabbed his wrist and pulled it away.

"Not yet," Ruby said with a grin. "I want to treasure this first."

It was an amusing sight. Scorpius's skin had turned bright pink from the heat of the latest explosion, and the ash on his face had left dark stains everywhere that were startling against his pale hair and eyebrows. After a few minutes of laughing – and showing him his reflection in a little mirror Ruby carried with her so he could laugh too – they let him wipe away the worst of the ash, though a few marks remained.

"At least it was only two," Albus said. The third had blown up when he drew it from the deck, and none of them had let him draw another.

"I'd rather not have any," Scorpius said, but he smiled, and the smile didn't fade at all the rest of the way home.

They shared sweets of all sorts, and swapped Chocolate Frog cards – Ruby got a Rowena Ravenclaw and wouldn't give it up even for all of theirs combined, and when Rose asked what she would give it up for, she only giggled and blushed before sticking it in her suitcase – and Rose told them all about the pirates, or as much as she could remember from all she had learned. She didn't talk about Horus, but she told them about Tavian being brave and about how she had beaten them.

"It's just like Dad and the Disarming Spell," Albus said, and he launched into a story about how his father had used the Disarming Spell as his signature when fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Scorpius shuddered a little at the name Voldemort, but Albus and Rose had heard it often enough that they weren't disturbed by it, and Ruby didn't know why anyone would be afraid of a name.

As soon as Albus had finished his story, Ruby turned to Rose and asked, "Can I see your knife?" Rose got it from her suitcase, and for the next several minutes they all passed it around. She showed them a few of the moves she had learned, but they didn't look as excited as she had been when she learned them, so it wasn't long before she put the knife away again.

"What do you think will happen next year?" Albus asked. "This year Rose got to hang out with pirates, last year I fell in love with a princess, so what'll happen for our third year?"

"I don't know, but I hope it's my turn," Ruby said. "It's about time I had an adventure."

"What kind do you want?" Scorpius asked.

"I don't know… a library." The pause between the phrases lasted only a few seconds, and as soon as she decided, her eyes lit up. "I want to find a mystical library filled with all sorts of magical secrets, and then I'll do better than all of you on the exams."

"Not a chance," Rose said at once. "You were third-best this year, and you'll be third-best next year. There's no way you're beating me, and I doubt you'll beat Scorpius, either."

"Really?" Scorpius looked at her as though amazed she would say something like that about him. Rose blushed a little and quickly changed the subject.

There wasn't much need to change it, though, for a few minutes later they reached King's Cross, and after that it was a scramble to gather all their things and get out. Good-byes were said, and Albus met up with James to join their parents. Rose found her own parents, and Hugo ran up to give her a hug. She laughed and ruffled his hair, and her father took her suitcase as they went back to the car.

"Top marks again," she said, passing the paper with her scores on it to her paper. "I beat Scorpius in just about everything."

"Just about?" Hugo asked, and Rose ruffled his hair again. She decided she would do that even when he got taller than her, just because it would annoy him then.

"I'll have to practice Charms over the summer," she said.

Her father tossed her suitcase in the trunk of their car, and they all got in. Since they were only four people, there wasn't any need for any magic on it, and Rose doubted her mother would let anyone try anything. "How did the rest of your year go?" her mother asked as they left the parking lot.

"It was exciting."

A/N: And here's the end of Year Two! Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed, and look out for the next part of the story! Because I've got more free time, it'll start tomorrow and be about the growing friendship between Scorpius and Rose. Keep an eye out for Book Three: An Unexpected Friend.