Chapter Eleven

Lily had no idea what it was like to be in a normal relationship, so she was pleased to find that it was utterly amazing. It helped that the relationship was with Scorpius: someone she was attracted to, someone she loved and admired and laughed out loud with. She tried not to think about how he was, essentially, her only friend, and that if things turned sour, she would be left alone, heartbroken and lonely in a way that girls like Rose, who had many friends, would not understand.

For now, she had to trust that she and Scorpius were the real deal and that now that the air had been cleared, nothing could get in the way of them being happy. They had also turned things around with Albus. Scorpius talked things out with him after their fight, and Albus agreed Scorpius was a respectful guy who wouldn't take advantage of Lily. Lily spoke with Albus privately to tell him, quite sternly, that as much as he wanted to protect Lily, he couldn't police her actions. If she wanted to be with Scorpius, she was going to be with Scorpius, as long as he wanted to be with her, too.

"But I am sorry," she admitted quietly. "I've been selfish lately, I know it."

Thinking back on childhood memories only made her sad. Family used to be the most important thing to her. Her brothers and her cousins were her best friends in the world, her aunts and her uncles and her mum and dad and her nana and papa were her mentors and confidantes and caretakers. She remembered a time when Rose qualified as her closest female friend. They would sit by the beach, under close supervision by their parents, and sort sand dollars and sea glass. Rose taught her how to braid hair, and let her leave Rose's already messy hair in horrible knots as Lily practiced and practiced forming loops and twists. Albus and James used to be her entire world and the people she looked up to the most. She would squeeze her eyes shut tight and hope that she could be a boy too, just so she could be like them. These were the people she spent most of her time with, and these were ultimately the people she had ignored and hurt the most in pursuit of her own happiness. Maybe she and Rose weren't close anymore, sure, but Rose wasn't a bad person. Rose made mistakes, sure, but Lily felt she couldn't possibly judge anyone ever again for making a mistake, considering the mistakes she'd made.

"I forgive you," Albus had said immediately, because that's who Albus was. Forgiving and loving, the most altruistic person she knew.

"No, wait," she interrupted. "I've been selfish, I really have. I didn't even think about how wanting Scorpius might put a strain on your friendship."

"I'm not worried about my friendship with Scorpius, I'm worried about you. As long as you're happy, Scorpius and I will be just fine."

"And if I'm not happy with Scorpius?" Lily suggested.

Albus narrowed his eyes and said, "Then he's dead to me." They smiled and the issue was resolved, right there at the bottom of the staircase to the Slytherin boys' dormitories. They hugged and parted ways.

Lily and Scorpius, as much as they needed to be together after their fight – after Lily had finally told him, the first person she had ever told, her most private secret – they also knew it would be better to spend the night apart, because as much as Albus insisted everything was okay now, Lily had an inkling that it was still a touchy subject. She could imagine slipping out of Scorpius' dormitory in the morning and accidentally bumping into Albus on the way down, and the look he might give her, and the hurt he might feel. It was best to tread lightly. Scorpius and Albus had a friendship to patch up, and it was important for that to happen not just for her brother and her (possibly) boyfriend's happiness, but also for the future that she and Scorpius could have. It was important to her that they get along, because currently, they were the two most important people in her life.

The following week, however, once Lily and Scorpius started sitting with Albus and Ibrahim more during lunch, she found herself spending the night more and more in Scorpius' dorm. It was kind of the best thing to have a boyfriend who was Head Boy. They had their own private place to hide away, a place apart from the stares of their classmates (many of them her family. Hugo, who she considered one of her better, cooler family members accosted her and Scorpius once in the hallway to ask them who the hell they thought they were.)

They would often open the window of Scorpius' room, something the other boys in Slytherin dormitories were unable to do. It was a privilege to be Head Boy and a Slytherin, with a room two stories above the rest. The lake that lapped against Albus' windows was nearly twenty feet below Scorpius', which allowed them to smoke out of it and look over the expanse of water that was the Great Lake.

They would crouch on his window seat, legs folded beneath them, and lean dangerously far out over the empty air, watch the small waves crash against the stone wall below, breathe in the wet, salty air, breathe in dank smoke, breathe out into each other's mouths and kiss until they were out of breath. Although this was always good fun, there was one time that Albus knocked on the door and tried to open it so suddenly that Scorpius had barely thrown the joint out the window before Albus could catch them.

"Oh, Lily, you're here," Albus said, although he didn't sound too surprised. Was he trying to catch them doing something wrong? Had he smelled weed from under the crack in the door? As far as Albus knew, she had only smoked weed the one time, and when he had caught her, he had been so disappointed in her. She couldn't stand for him to be disappointed in her now. And if he found out she still smoked weed (and so often, too) he might tell their parents, which was a possibility she absolutely refused to become reality.

"Hi, Albus," Lily said brightly, trying to sound completely normal, but her voice sounded fuzzy to her own ears. She wasn't sure how enthusiastic she should act; how much might seem like too much.

Albus' eyes narrowed. She was getting sick of him narrowing his eyes at her in scrutiny; he was such a judger. But I guess when you're that much of a golden boy, you can judge whoever you want, Lily thought.

"What's up?" Scorpius asked, scooting slightly away from Lily, which only made them seem more suspicious.

"I don't know, Scorpius, what is up?" Albus countered, looking around the room for something to accuse them of.

"Nothing," Lily interjected. "Anything else? Can you go now?" Scorpius laughed, but Albus was not amused.

"I actually just came up to ask Scorpius something," Albus said, giving Lily a pointed, annoyed look. He turned to Scorpius. "You're invited to Christmas with us. My parents asked if you wanted to come. Also, weirdly, I think Ron and Hermione miss you." At this, Scorpius laughed a fond sort of laugh.

Ron and Hermione had always found him to be the sweetest, dopiest guy they had ever met. Although they loved him as a person, they absolutely despised him with their perfect, studious daughter. Lily remembered overhearing Hermione lecturing Rose once about Scorpius being a "distraction." Ron thought he wasn't worthy of someone as beautiful and smart as Rose. But eventually, they found him to be absolutely harmless. Lily suspected that they knew he was no match for Rose and figured the relationship would end sooner or later, so it was better for Rose to be with someone like Scorpius than with a worse sort of boy. This realization came around the same time that the Weasley family was scandalized by finding out about Molly's boyfriend, who was over half her age, not to mention a seedy muggle politician with a wife. That relationship ended poorly, with Molly becoming somewhat of a C-list muggle celebrity until the politician resigned and the commotion died down.

"Christmas at the Potters?" Scorpius pondered, but he looked pretty excited.

"And the Weasleys," Albus reminded him. "Also, I'm pretty sure Ron and Hermione think you and Rose are still together. At least, that's the impression I got from Mum."

"And why did you get that impression?" Lily snapped, partly jealous, partly panicked. If Scorpius were to spend the holiday with them, she did not want to be antagonized all over again for stealing her cousin's boyfriend.

"Because Mum said, and I quote, 'I bet Rose wouldn't mind him being there, too.' Then she said it would be better for him to stay with us so that Ron and Hermione don't freak out about the whole arrangement," Albus said. Imagine how they'll freak out about the new arrangement went unsaid, but heavily implied. Lily and Scorpius exchanged a look. Lily wanted to tell her parents about her new boyfriend, but technically, Scorpius hadn't asked her to be his girlfriend. She had been waiting for it to be official to tell them, and she was under the impression that Rose and Scorpius' breakup would already be divulged and blown over by now so that the news would come easier.

"I'm telling you this," Albus disclosed, "in case you decide not to go. Of course, I want you to come, but it might be uncomfortable for you."

"I'll need to talk to Rose about it," Scorpius said. This made the siblings look at him in surprise, and even Scorpius looked surprised by what he said. However, it made sense.

"Maybe I can talk to her, too," Lily said slowly. Neither of them said anything, although Albus looked approving whilst Scorpius looked skeptical.

It was time to talk to Rose, and Dominique, for that matter, too. It was only lately, now that she was happy and in love, that she remembered the times she had seen Rose eating breakfast by herself or looking dejected while Dom talked at her, how she had felt when she pined after Scorpius, and the pain she'd felt when Philip had betrayed and hurt her. No one deserved to feel that way, and she needed to make it right.

"Rose!" Lily yelled, running to catch up to her cousin in the gushing throng of students spilling out of the building on their way to the Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw match. Lily wore yellow and black, simply in defiance of Philip, and wasn't surprised to see Dominique and Rose wearing blue and silver.

Rose paused and turned to see Lily rushing towards her, and the pair of cousins backed out of the line of traffic to wait for her to catch up. They wore identical expressions of surprise and consternation on their faces. That expression was enough to convince Lily that they really had been the masterminds behind her painful fall, but she didn't let that realization stop her from her mission.

"Rose, can I talk to you?" Lily glanced at Dominique quickly. "Privately?"

"Sure," Rose said slowly. She turned to Dominique and said, "I'll meet you inside. Save me a seat."

Dominique gaped and then said, "You're seriously going to listen to her? Come on, Rose, let's go." Dom was already looping her arm through Rose's and pulling her away when Rose stopped and yanked her arm back, a little more violently than she needed to. Dominique looked affronted.

"No," Rose said calmly, in contrast to her forceful actions. "I'll meet you there," she insisted, already turning away from Dom and tilting her chin toward a bench facing the Great Lake where Lily and Rose could talk. Lily, stunned by this dramatic change in Rose's behavior, followed her to the bench, Dom swept away into the crowd of students attending the match. Rose had never defied Dom, at least not to Lily's knowledge. Lily couldn't help but smile. This was someone she could get along with.

They sat together on opposite ends of the bench, carefully turning their bodies towards each other. Rose wrestled a piece of knotted hair out of her thick blue scarf, tossing it behind her shoulder.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, stuffing her gloved hands into the pockets of her black wool coat. Her voice didn't sound antagonizing, but it sounded the same as if she were asking, 'What is it now?'

"I know we aren't exactly friends right now, but we're still family," Lily began. Her voice trembled slightly, and she cleared her throat. "And despite everything that's happened, I care about you and I feel ashamed that I hurt you the way I did." She had practiced this speech in her head many times, but for the next part, she was drawing a blank. Her throat seized up, because unexpectedly, Rose was crying. Silently, and with a solid expression, but still crying. Rose didn't wipe them away, just stared at Lily, letting them fall. Lily was stunned into a long silence that Rose didn't care to break.

Finally, Lily gathered herself and continued. "I know we'll probably never be friends now, but I hope we can be civil at Christmas."

"Why would we not be civil at Christmas?" Rose inquired, quirking an eyebrow and finally wiping away her tears.

"Because I know you and Dominique hate me," she said, letting her voice imply that she knew the truth. At this, Rose looked abashed but didn't say anything to defend it or apologize for it. "And also, because Scorpius is going to be staying with us."

"He is?" Rose said, her voice loud. "And why on earth would he be doing that?" Rose was shaking her head as if the situation were impossible, ludicrous, her eyebrows furrowed.

"I mean, you know how it is with his parents." Lily shrugged with one shoulder.

"Yes, I know. But I doubt you know," she snapped.

Rose wasn't wrong. Lily probably only knew a portion of the entire truth, and Rose definitely knew most of it. But what she did know was that things were tense at Malfoy Manor, and that Scorpius liked to mostly stay on campus for holidays.

"I'm sorry, but Scorpius absolutely cannot come to Christmas. My parents don't even know that we broke up!" Rose asserted angrily, although she didn't seem angry with Lily, per se. "Are you going to tell your parents that you're with him now?"

"I wasn't planning on telling them, but now that he's coming, I might have to," Lily said regretfully. Rose looked so upset that she felt sorry for wanting Scorpius to come at all.

"Please, you cannot tell them. Look, I'll tell them Scorpius and I broke up, but I need some time to do it. I need to construct some sort of excuse that doesn't involve you," Rose said, the wheels in her head already turning.

"And why would you do that?" Lily asked. She couldn't comprehend any reason that Rose would want to protect her in this situation.

"Because I don't want to seem like… like I'm some sort of victim. Need I remind you, I broke up with Scorpius, but everyone here, even my friends, still see me as some sort of scorned woman. I might as well have a scarlet 'A' on my chest." Rose rolled her eyes. Lily sat back a bit, looking Rose over. She seemed… different. Almost… spunky. The meekness that she used to sport was gone, and instead, she was assertive and honest in the most refreshing way. Lily couldn't help but respect her for it.

"I won't tell them we're together, then," Lily decided. "I can wait to tell them until enough time has passed. Just let me know when."

Rose looked at her, a bit surprised that she was going along with it. Had she expected Lily to fight her on it, just out of spite? "I would benefit from it too, Rose. I don't want our family to see me as a bad person." Lily returned Rose's honesty with some honesty of her own, which Rose raised her eyebrows at.

"Hm. Well. Then I guess I'll be off to the match, then," Rose said, standing up. Lily stood up too, a half foot shorter than Rose. Rose looked down at her, nodded, then walked off.

Lily watched her go, feeling oddly relieved. Rose hadn't accepted her apology, necessarily, but something had shifted and she felt like things weren't so bad between them as they had been.

"Did you talk to her?" Lily asked, unzipping her hoodie and dropping it to the floor once Scorpius let her into his room.

"I did," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and walking backwards, pulling her towards the bed.

"And?"

"It went well," he said lightly.

"Really?" Lily asked, tilting her head up towards him, grinning. He picked her up and threw her on the bed, Lily letting out a shriek as she was airborne and then an 'Oof!' as she landed and bounced. He laid down next to her on his side, propping his head up with a hand and looking down into her eyes.

"Really, Lily," he said, grinning back. He smoothed a hand over her flat stomach where her shirt had ridden up, sending shivers down her spine. "In fact, it went so well that we've decided to be best friends now."

"Oh, shut up," Lily said, pulling him towards her for a kiss. They lost the Rose-train-of-thought for about ten minutes as they kissed, rolled around, and undressed slowly. He whispered several things to her that were absolutely unrelated to Rose, and she got so caught up that she forgot about the matter completely, until she remembered it too suddenly. She stopped him from pulling off her black underwear and pulled his head up to hers.

"Now wait just a second," she said. "We really need to talk about Rose."

"Okay, fine," he acquiesced, propping himself up by his elbows on either side of her head, his lower half settled between her spread legs, where he firmly pressed against her in only his boxers. "I told her that I was staying at yours for Christmas, and that I was sorry for everything horrible that had happened between us and that I hoped everything could be okay. She told me that her parents still didn't know that we weren't together, so that we should try to avoid each other until she tells them over the holiday. She's going to tell them that we decided we'd be better off as friends, and that's pretty much that."

"I talked to her, too," Lily replied. At this, Scorpius pulled away from where he had started kissing her neck. "We decided that I'm not going to tell my parents that we're together until she feels like it's been enough time."

"Well, that's not her decision to make," Scorpius said, his expression dropping a little, his voice hard.

"I know it isn't. But it's enough for me to be with you. I don't feel like they need to know yet. Besides, it's not like we're boyfriend and girlfriend," Lily said. Of course, she said this the way most girls do when in limbo with a significant other – with the intention to back them in a corner and make them define the relationship. And she said it so casually, too, just to make him squirm. It worked: Scorpius looked shocked.

"What are you talking about? Of course, you're my girlfriend," he said, sounding offended and slightly worried. He was starting to lift himself off of her, and she let him. He settled back against his headboard, his excitement from earlier having died down. He looked at her with an expression that said, 'Well? What do you have to say for yourself?'

"How am I your girlfriend if you've never asked me to be your girlfriend?" she said mischievously, absolutely unabashed in only her knickers. He shook his head once, a jerk of his head, his pink mouth open in revelation.

"Fine," he said, his shock turning into a slow smile. "Will you be my girlfriend?"

Lily answered by leisurely crawling over to him, straddling him, and kissing him deeply. He gripped her hips tightly and moaned. A wicked idea came to mind, and she pulled away to crawl back so that her head hovered above his crotch. She knew for a fact that no one had ever gone done on him before, and she wanted to be the first.

"I don't know, Scorpius," she said, tugging at his boxers. "I'm on the fence about it."

"How can I convince you?" he said breathlessly, helping her pull them off. She lowered her head and he gathered up her mass of dark red hair into his hands, holding it at the back of her neck and away from her face. She scooted down so their eyes could meet while she worked on him, and something in the look of his glistening stormy eyes was like nothing she had ever seen before. Her movements became quicker, bobbing her head faster, and suddenly he tugged on her hair sharply to pull her mouth away.

"What?" she gasped.

"I need to be inside you," he said. She had never seen him unravel like this. He looked beyond desperate, like he had been chasing a pool of water only to realize it was a mirage. "Get on your back," he ordered, his voice gruff. She couldn't help but obey. He climbed on top of her and pulled her knickers off, settling himself between her legs. She wrapped her legs around his lower back and sucked in a gasp once he roughly entered her.

"I love you," Scorpius groaned as he thrust into her.

Something about Scorpius: surprisingly, he could be quite the dirty talker in bed. Lily asked him about it once and he admitted that it was because of Lily – he would've been too embarrassed to say any of that stuff to Rose. He would be afraid of her scorn, or worse, her amusement. Scorpius told her what she had secretly expected, which was that she was way wilder in bed than Rose was. It was the only time she felt free enough to let everything go, letting her inhibitions fly away. It helped that Scorpius was the one she was having sex with – he was the exact same way.

"God, you're wet," he whispered into her ear before biting the lobe and tugging. Everything he said ranged from beyond vulgar and crass to innocently sweet and loving. It was just one more thing Lily loved about him.

After they finished, Scorpius and Lily lay panting next to each other more only a moment before Scorpius said, "Well?"

"Well, what? You want to go again?" she said, already turning to climb back on top of him.

"No, I'm not ready yet. But, duh, I want to go again," he said, chuckling. "No, I mean, will you be my girlfriend?"

"Yes," she said simply, then fully climbed on top of him and leaned down to kiss him lightly on the lips.

Scorpius and Lily agreed that they couldn't be sneaking into each other's rooms during the holiday. However, Scorpius was more reluctant to keep to the agreement than Lily was. The last that her parents knew, Lily and Scorpius were friendly but weren't friends – at least not the way in which Albus and Scorpius were friends, or even James and Scorpius were friends. Growing up, Scorpius would come over to hang out with Albus, which meant he got to know James as well. The three of them would scrimmage together or play games together, especially when they were in their first, second, and third years. Lily was too young, not cool enough to hang out with them. She couldn't stand her brothers around those ages, because they were reaching puberty and suddenly thought different things were cool. She still loved playing in the forest, getting muddy and wrestling, playing wizard's chess, but now other factors were at play – school, girls, and people she didn't know.

One of the worst times of her life was when she was eight years old going on nine, and then nine years old going on ten, when both of her brothers were at Hogwarts. They came back during holidays with private jokes and references she didn't understand. Ginny comforted her, having been in the same position for a year when all of her brothers were at Hogwarts and she was stuck at home with no siblings to amuse her. However, Lily was a little better off since she still had Hugo, Roxy, and Lucy to play with, but she missed her brothers terribly and felt left out and lonely when they came back home, however briefly. This meant even James would have to appear friendlier with Scorpius than she was.

Lily realized she had to be distant from Scorpius, at least distant in comparison to how they were at Hogwarts. They could be friendly, they could chat and hang out, but he couldn't appear closer to her than he was to Albus because that could set off warning bells with her parents. This spurred them on to get a train compartment on their own and for Scorpius to lock it with his wand so that they could drink in every last second they had alone together before arriving at Godric's Hollow.

Lily tossed her legs over Scorpius' and leaned back against the window behind her. Scorpius pretended to read Lily's palm, as he was just learning about it in Divination.

"Just tell me. How long do I have left?" Lily asked as Scorpius traced a finger over what he told her was her life line.

"Maybe… a day? Two?" he said, shaking his head and pretending to look confused.

"Shut up," Lily laughed, snatching her hand away and grinning at him. "You know we only have one more hour alone together, right? And then no more canoodling."

"I'm going to sneak into your room, at least once," he said.

"No, you're not," Lily replied indignantly.

"Yes, and then I'm going to steal your virtue," he insisted. He leaned forward and kissed her quickly on the mouth, pulled away with a wicked smile. Lily leaned forward slightly as his lips left hers, wanting the touch to linger.

"We can't risk my parents finding out. Or worse, Rose's parents finding out," Lily told him. She'd said it at least twice before, but it didn't seem to bother him. Did he really think he was so lovable that her aunt and uncle would forgive him for breaking their daughter's heart and her mum and dad would accept him with open arms? He may be adorable, but he wasn't adorable enough to win over her parents so soon after his and Rose's breakup. Not yet.

"Oh, something I forget to tell you," Scorpius said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Lily sat up straighter. "I got an owl from Ron. He invited me to dinner on Wednesday night."

Lily raised her eyebrows and said deadpan: "He did?"

"Yeah. It'll be Rose's parents, me, Hugo, and Rose." Scorpius cleared his throat. "I said yes. I hope that's okay. I didn't know what else to say. But I'm afraid after that, they'll definitely know Rose and I aren't together anymore, unless we blatally pretend that we're a couple, which I don't plan on doing, obviously."

Lily ignored that he said "blatally" instead of "blatantly" and instead pulled her legs back from his lap and up to her chest. "Well, I sure hope not! Has Rose said anything about it?"

"No, but I figured she didn't know. If we're pretending everything's normal, then it would be weird if I said no to dinner, right?" Scorpius looked over at her, his eyes desperate for Lily to tell him it was okay and that he'd done nothing wrong.

"It's okay, you did the right thing. It's just one dinner," Lily said, pushing down her insecurities. She knew she needed to trust Scorpius. He wasn't Philip. In fact, he wasn't like anyone she'd ever met before – he was better.

Pretending to not love Scorpius would be difficult. Her infatuation with him was woven into her every action. How could she act like they were friends – no, not even friends, but acquaintances? This is going to be a long holiday, Lily thought.

Leave a review, tell me how the last two years of your life have been since I last updated. I've been reading a million manuscripts for my summer internship so I suddenly got the inspiration to write something, and since I've been thinking about this chapter literally every day for the past two years, I thought that I might as well make it happen.

Love you all and hope you're having a great summer, or winter, depending on where you are!