This was written for the 2011 smrw_ficafest, where it was one of the top rated by the readers, so thanks for that huge boost of confidence! :) Prompt used: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best- Marilyn Monroe"

Note: Hugo Weasley has long fascinated me, because he seems to disappear into the fandom's background, overshadowed always by his big sister. And so I started thinking, what if that's the way he was in "real" life? When I saw the prompt above, this idea was given form and direction, and I have so loved crafting the relationship of Rose and Scorpius as seen by an outside observer. Thanks so much to Maggie, my faithful beta, and enjoy!

It was storming fit to beat the band the morning Rose Weasley was born.

Being her younger brother, I, of course, have no firsthand knowledge of this, but that's how Mum always starts the story. The night before Rose was born, a thunderstorm the likes of which hadn't been seen in years came raging down around our home. It continued raging all through the night, bad enough that when Mum finally realized she was in labor, no one felt safe trying to get to St. Mungo's, so Rose was delivered at home by Grandma Weasley while thunder, lightning, and pouring rain crashed down all around them. The thunder that had been nearly constant all night lulled just as Rose gave her first cry. Grandma Weasley likes to say that the storm was chased away by the ferocity of the girl being born. Whatever the reason, the cloud cover broke and the storm began to wane just as Rose was laid in Mum's arms.

My own birth was far less exciting, happening quickly and easily in a white, sterile room at Mungo's, and the only thing even remotely curious about it was that I hardly cried at all, but instead gave a single shout and then, gurgling, looked about the room with curiosity. At least, that's how Mum always tells the story of my birth, but I have a feeling she wanted to add a point of interest so I wouldn't feel that my own tale was lackluster next to Rose's.

Maybe it has to do with the circumstances of her birth, but my sister has always loved storms. When we were little, at the first sign of rain, she would run out the front door, past the Wellingtons and rain coats lined up and waiting in the front hall, and stand in the yard, eyes to the sky as the rain began to fall, hoping for lightning. And on the occasions when lightning did fork through the darkened clouds, her gleeful laugh would be swallowed up by the thunder. I liked storms as much as the next person, but I preferred to watch the lightning from behind the glass of the front window. Rose would never stand for that, though. She would draw me out, every time, from the shelter of the doorframe to dance with her in the rain. And then I was the one who would take Rose's hand, however long later, and guide her back inside to dry off before we caught cold. It was how we worked.

I know my sister better than anyone else in the world. For as long as I can remember, she's been my companion, my confidante, and my best friend, and I, hers. Our parents couldn't understand it, but we rarely argued and never fought. We knew what the other was thinking before any words were spoken, and we always made the best team.

Growing up, we were inseparable, and my biggest fear at the time was what would happen when she left for school. I wasn't afraid that she'd forget about me or anything, but I knew things would change. They couldn't not.

I spent my childhood being known as Rose's shadow, and it was truer than most people knew. Rose grabbed the spotlight in any room she found herself in, which allowed me to fade into the background and escape notice, and I was more than happy to do so. I've never begrudged Rose the attention, not in the slightest. I prefer to go unnoticed. In fact, my first bit of accidental magic at the age of three was to make myself invisible, an ability I wish I still had on the few occasions when I find myself forced into the center of attention. I was the shadow to Rose's spotlight, the quiet to Rose's clamor, and the eye to Rose's storm.

And Rose could often be a storm. With gray eyes the color of thunderclouds and a temper to match her hair, Rose could be a whirlwind when infuriated. It was on these occasions that I came into my own, for I would march straight into that whirlwind when no one else would go near, and turn my sister once more into a rational human being.

I learned early on when to calm her and when to let her rage; she, on the other side, knew when to pull me forward and when to let me fade. We understood one another perfectly, and there were never any secrets between us.

That was half the problem. Because being the eye of Rose's storm meant I got trapped in the middle of far more than I ever wanted to.

/|\

It was overcast the evening Rose packed her trunk to leave for school. I stood in her doorway, watching her fold robes and socks, separate her books into a pile to take and a pile to leave, and try to find a place to put her new wand so it wouldn't keep rolling onto the floor. I was as silent as she was. She was leaving. And neither of us had any idea what to say about it.

I was the one who noticed the rain first, which was unusual. She was so lost in her thoughts that she either didn't see or, for some reason, pretended not to see the drops of water hitting her window. I bit my lip and said nothing, waiting for her to notice what had always been in her nature to notice, but finally, I couldn't keep quiet anymore.

"Rose?" I said softly. "It's raining." She looked out the window for a long time, and I was terrified for a long moment that she would look down and tell me she was too old to go play in the rain.

But finally she turned and said, "Come on," holding out her hand to me, a smile on her face. I took it with massive relief. Hand in hand, we ran down the stairs and out the back door. We were soaked to the bone within moments, twirling and laughing, and for those moments, it didn't matter that she was leaving in the morning and that neither of us knew what to say. What mattered was that we were there, together.

Finally, we stopped spinning and stood facing one another, both of us breathing hard.

"Promise me one thing," Rose panted, raising her voice to be heard over the storm.

"What?" I asked, pushing my sopping hair out of my eyes.

"Keep dancing in the rain," she said, and instead of responding, I hugged her fiercely. "I'll write you," she promised. "I'll tell you everything."

"You'd better," was all I said, and we stood there like that until Mum came to the door and called us in.

True to her word, I received letters from her like clockwork her first two years at school. Through those letters, we stayed as close as ever, and I learned half of the lessons she herself was learning, not to mention receiving more information than I'd ever cared to have about the boy who suddenly seemed to be the most important person in her life – Scorpius Malfoy.

She hated him. It filled every letter. A Ravenclaw to her Gryffindor, he was smug, condescending, and the most irritating person she'd ever met. He was her rival in every class, and from what I could tell, the competition between them was fierce. She had taken Dad's parting words to heart, and was determined to best him in every class, assignment, project, and exam. Her letters were full of personal exultation when she succeeded and curses against his name when she did not. Other opinions and recollections changed over time, but on one thing Rose was ever firm: Scorpius Malfoy was the bane of her existence, and she would not rest until she had proved her superiority over him irrefutably.

I just smiled and shook my head and took everything she said with a grain of salt. I knew how competitive Rose was, and how prone to blow things out of proportion. I reserved judgement, therefore, until I could go to Hogwarts and meet this Scorpius for myself.

/|\

It was calm but cloudy the night I was Sorted into Ravenclaw House. Rose was both unsurprised and disappointed for me, though she was quick to stress that the disappointment was, "only because you have to share a house with Malfoy. Just stay away from him as best you can," she advised, "and you let me know if he bothers you at all." I hid a smile, and then made a point of introducing myself to Scorpius Malfoy that night in our Common Room. I introduced myself as Rose's brother specifically so I could gauge the reaction.

"Ah, yes. Rose," Scorpius said with a friendly smile and perfect amiability. "Your sister's very intelligent. She'd have done well in Ravenclaw."

"Yes," I agreed. "But she's a Gryffindor through and through." Scorpius laughed at that, but it was a friendly laugh.

"Yes, that she is," he said. "I look forward to getting to know you better, Hugo," he said with a smile before leaving for his dorm.

I made a point of mentioning the conversation to Rose during lunch the next day, but she just scowled and said, "I knew it. He's got something up his sleeve," and I knew it was hopeless to try and argue with her.

Our relationship continued at Hogwarts much as it ever had at home. Though in different houses, we made a point of eating together every day and remained, as our cousin James put it, closer than any siblings had a right to be. Rose continued to hold the school spotlight, while I continued to stick to the school's shadows, only now, there was someone besides Rose who occasionally tried to coax me out into the light: Scorpius Malfoy. Rose was not exactly pleased to learn of our growing friendship, but she grudgingly put up with it once I pointed out to her that there really wasn't anything she could do about it, as it didn't concern her.

The more I got to know Scorpius, the more convinced I became that the rivalry between him and Rose was mostly, if not entirely, in Rose's head. The competition continued to rage, though, because it became one of the few things I couldn't change Rose's mind about. Once or twice, I almost mentioned something to Scorpius, but each time, in the end, I couldn't. I didn't know if it was my place, first of all, and I was uncomfortable with doing it. I figured that, so long as Rose herself didn't call it into the open, there was no need for me to do so, either.

It became clear later that that decision set in motion pretty much everything that would happen between them after.

/|\

It had been rumbling threateningly all morning the day Rose stormed her way into Ravenclaw Tower on a rampage against Scorpius Malfoy.

She gained entry to the Tower the same way she'd been gaining entry in the four years since I'd come to school. Anyone could get in if they could answer the eagle's question. It may have taken Rose a little longer than most of the Ravenclaws, but she was more than capable of it, even if she did find it, quote, "a stupid way to get into a room."

I was reading, and when she stomped her way in, I sighed and started to close my book. I thought I knew what was coming. It wasn't until she'd passed my sofa without so much as a glance at me that I realized something much more serious was about to happen.

"Scorpius Malfoy!" she shouted from the middle of the Common Room.

I looked around futilely and wondered if it was too late to make an escape. The minute I saw Scorpius rise from a table in the corner, an eyebrow quirked, and advance calmly toward Rose, I knew it was.

"Rose," Scorpius said cordially. "To what does Ravenclaw Tower owe this honor?"

"Like you don't already know," she growled, seething.

I slouched down further into the sofa as Rose began shouting, wishing that I wasn't too old to stuff my fingers in my ears and start singing one of Hagrid's drinking songs or that I wasn't too young to have learned non-verbal Disillusionment spells or that I could remember what I'd done as a three-year-old to make myself invisible. But mostly, I was just wishing that the rant in full swing behind me would stop, or at the very least, that it was taking place somewhere where I didn't have to be the one to overhear it. As I said, Scorpius had spent the past six years blissfully unaware of how seriously Rose took their "friendly" competition, but it was clear that it was all coming to a head in this argument, and quite frankly, I had no desire to be anywhere near them when Rose revealed that particular piece of information. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to have been given much of a choice, which was about to become the story of my life.

Rants about Scorpius had long centered around classes, so it was no surprise that the issue of the day was an exam. An Arithmancy exam, to be precise. The sixth years' Arithmancy final in which Scorpius had scored two points higher than Rose. Rose was livid. That in itself wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that she was livid enough to be going directly to him instead of coming to me.

"You think this is some kind of joke?" Rose demanded, and I could tell by the edge in her voice that Scorpius was responding to her attack in his most infuriating way – with nonchalance.

"I don't know what it is," Scorpius replied, "because I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"You'd like me to believe that, wouldn't you?" Rose all but snarled, venom dripping from her voice. "And next, I'll bet you're going to tell me that your congratulations of my Transfiguration exam this morning was just coincidence, right?"

"Rose," Scorpius said, clearly bewildered and starting to lose patience. "I congratulated you on the Transfiguration exam because I know you've been studying hard for it in the past few weeks, and it was clear from the look on your face that you'd done well. Apart from that –"

"You're really going to do this?" Rose demanded then, incredulous, and I could just tell that this was heading for really not good ground. "You really expect me to believe that you don't know by exactly how many points I kicked your arse on that exam?"

"I do, as it's nothing short of the truth," Scorpius said, and now there was a slight edge to his voice that would have made anyone else stop and rethink the situation. Scorpius didn't lose his temper very often, but when he did, he did so in true Ravenclaw fashion. He became frosty, and would, with stony and detached logic, cut down his opponent without mercy. He was ice to Rose's fire, and I knew if their argument reached that point, Rose was more likely to feel the effects than Scorpius.

But Rose was known for marching headlong into situations without preparation, and she had a habit of speaking before she thought, and she was worked up enough that there really was no other way for this to end. It was a train wreck in the making, and I could see it coming from a mile away, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I would have had to step in, in front of the entire Ravenclaw Common Room, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

"And next you're going to tell me that you had no idea what was waiting for me in Professor Vector's office, that the reason you could be so smug and superior with your congratulations was not because you already knew the outcomes of the Arithmancy exam!" Rose shouted. "Do you deny it?"

"I don't believe I was smug or superior," Scorpius said then, his voice turning cold. It was underlined by a slightly louder rumble of thunder echoing around the Tower. I sighed and braced myself. "And I hate to be the one to break this to you, Rose, but you are not that important to me. And what's more, I am astounded to discover that I am that important to you." I winced on Rose's behalf, but I couldn't deny that Rose had had this coming. Scorpius's point was one I had been trying to make to Rose for years. I waited for Rose's response, but it didn't come. She was apparently shocked speechless, something I'm pretty sure hadn't ever happened before. Taking advantage of her silence, Scorpius continued.

"Am I to understand that you studied so hard for the Transfiguration exam simply to beat me? That you have been doing so for years? And that you have been operating under the delusion that I have been doing the same? Good God, Rose! Really?" I sank even further into the couch, withering under the force of a disdain not even directed at me. "Then this is going to come as quite a shock to you, but the only grades I have ever been concerned about are my own. I couldn't care less about your scores on these exams or any others, and I am appalled to discover that you care so much about mine. You've been doing this for how long? Six years? I'm left to wonder how you planned on motivating yourself once our paths of education and careerism diverged. The fact that your view of your own success has hinged so closely on mine is petty, childish, and, quite simply put, pathetic. You are sixteen years old, Rose. Grow up."

And with those words, he left, simply turned on his heel and strode away up the staircase to the boys' dorms, dismissing Rose silently and efficiently and never once looking back. I stayed frozen for a heartbeat or two after he'd gone, then chanced a look over his shoulder. Rose was standing stock still in the middle of the room, an unreadable look on her face. Then fluidly, ignoring the whispers and stares aimed at her from all around the Common Room, she turned on her heel and left the Tower. The sound of pounding rain filled the silence once she'd gone.

I found myself conflicted. On the one hand, Rose completely deserved what had just happened to her. My sister took competition to an unhealthy level, and no one had been able to talk her down from it, not for as long as I could remember, and humility was something Rose needed to learn. But on the other hand, she was my sister, and she had just been publically humiliated, without ever seeing it coming.

I debated for a long moment over what to do. I could go talk to Rose or I could go talk to Scorpius or I could go back to my book and not talk to anyone. In the end, it was the whispers that made my decision. They followed Rose almost the moment she left the Common Room, and I couldn't stand what I knew they must be saying. So, wishing I could stop them from flying around the school but knowing I couldn't, I followed Rose.

I knew where she'd go, and sure enough, I found her sitting outside on the front steps of the school in the rain, soaked. Without hesitation, I sat down on the step next to her, ignoring the speed with which my shirt became plastered to my body. I was used to it. "I don't want to talk about it," were the first words out of her mouth as she continued to stare straight ahead. I shrugged, having expected that.

"Talk about what?" I asked. She managed to smile a little.

"Thanks, Hugh," she said. We sat in silence in the rain a few moments longer, and then she asked, "You think he was telling the truth?"

"I know he was," I told her honestly. She sighed angrily and shook her head, excess rainwater spraying in every direction.

"I thought – God!" she said violently, her hands in her hair. "He humiliated me!" I opened his mouth to point out the error in that statement, but she but me off with a hand angrily waved in my direction. "And yes, I know I brought it on myself; you don't have to point it out. I just – I feel so stupid! Six years, and it's all been in my head!"

I reached out an arm and put it around her shoulders and gave a quick squeeze. I felt rather than heard her sigh. "Come on," I said, standing then and offering her a hand. "We can play a game of chess. I'll even pretend not to notice when you cheat."

"No," she said with another sigh, taking my hand and standing. "If we're going to play, I want you to cream me fair and square." I laughed at that, and with an arm still around her shoulders, I led her back inside.

/|\

It was raining the day our fifth and seventh year Hogwarts letters came, but honestly, I barely noticed the water dripping onto my desk from the open window because I was too busy grinning stupidly down at the Prefect badge in my hand and biting my lip to keep from shouting out loud. I did allow myself a silent but exuberant dance of victory. Being a Prefect had been a secret near-obsession of mine since Rose had been named one her fifth year. I'd told no one. Rose had figured it out anyway.

My being named Prefect would be no a surprise to her, I knew that. She'd been telling me I'd get it since the summer began, but I had refused to get my hopes up, knowing the other boys in my year were equally well suited.

I also knew my achievement would be, as ever, overshadowed by Roses's. I was starting my fifth year, she was starting her seventh, and Head Girl was more important than Prefect, after all. And I didn't doubt for a moment that Rose had gotten a badge in her letter as well. Mum and Dad would dote over us both, of course, but just the tiniest bit more over Rose. It didn't bother me; I was glad to share the moment.

As soon as I regained my composure somewhat, I bounded down the hall to Rose's room. "Well, I did it," I said with a grin as I entered her room and flopped upside-down on her bed. "I made Prefect. And now you get to say 'I told you so,' and I'll reiterate my reasons for cautious optimism, but you'll just repeat that you told me so, and then we'll go down to Mum and Dad and you'll unsuccessfully try to tell them that being named Head Girl isn't as important as being Ravenclaw Prefect –"

"I didn't get it."

"– but they won't listen, and – wait, what?" It took a moment for what she said to penetrate, but once it had, I sat up so fast I heard something crack. Rose was still sitting in the open window where she'd been when I'd first entered, her letter half-crumpled in her hand as the rain soaked her right side.

"I didn't get it, Hugh," she said again. I stared at her, horrified. "It's okay," she said with a failing attempt at bravado, but I just shook my head and strode over to take the parchment from her hand. Furiously, I scanned the now-half-legible words.

Chosen as Head Boy and Head Girl from your year were Scorpius Malfoy and Lila Stonebrook. We hope you will continue serving as a seventh year Prefect for Gryffindor House –

"This is ridiculous," I said before I'd even finished reading. I looked down at Rose, but she just gave a half-hearted shrug. I could tell she was fighting back emotion. "Rose, there has to have been some mistake –" I said, just wanted to get her to talk about it.

"Hugh, it's fine," she said softly, but I knew she was lying. There were tears in her voice if not on her face. Unfortunately, she cut me off before I could call her out on it. "Really. This is how it works sometimes. Lila –" She faltered briefly, then took a deep breath and continued. "Lila deserves it. And you, well. You're just going to have to hold the spotlight on your own this time." And she pushed past me to the open door.

"Rose," I tried to say, but she wasn't paying attention because she was too busy shouting down the stairs.

"Mum, Dad!" she yelled. "Hugh made Prefect!" I knew what she was doing. She was setting me up so she could make her escape, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. "It's your day, Hugh," she said quietly, and before I could get a single word out, Mum and Dad were there, hugging me and congratulating me, and Rose had slipped away.

I slipped away from my parents as soon as I could, uncomfortable with the attention and concerned for my sister. They understood, no matter how hard Rose had tried to fool them. They knew both of us too well. So it wasn't long before I could go straight to the open window and scan the yard below for Rose. She was there, of course, her arms spread wide, her face to the sky. But there was no glee. I knew her head was thrown back so that the rain could erase any trace of tears.

I felt guilty somehow, though I knew it was ridiculous, and I knew Rose would say it was ridiculous. All the same, as I looked down at the Prefect badge still clutched in my hand, then back at Rose, I was somehow unable to feel any of the happiness that had consumed me only minutes before.

/|\

It was still thundering dully the next morning when Scorpius Malfoy came running into my uncle George's shop, looking for Rose. Rose and I worked there every summer, and we often got visits from classmates, most of them trying at least once to use the connection to get some discounts, but Scorpius had never been among their number, so I was utterly bewildered to see him there, even more so when he asked specifically for Rose and called the matter urgent.

"I think she's in the back," I said with a frown. "Hang on; I'll get her." As I parted the curtains that led to the back room, I tried to figure out what exactly Scorpius Malfoy could have to talk to Rose about that was so important it brought him to the shop in the middle of the summer in the middle of a thunderstorm. I didn't have much success.

Rose was indeed in the back, taking inventory and engaging in relatively meaningless conversation with the portrait on the wall. It wasn't that the portrait was incapable of serious conversation; it was just that, like its subject in life, the portrait thought there were far better things to spend time talking about.

"Honestly," the portrait was saying, "it's the simplest charm in the world, but it creates the most amazing havoc." Rose laughed, though not as fully as she might have, I noticed.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, making a note on her clipboard.

"You always say that, and then you never do," said the portrait with a pitiful sigh before catching sight of me. "Of course, there's a higher likelihood that you will than that Ravenclaw brother of yours over there. What a family disgrace . . ." I grinned.

"Hey, Uncle Fred," I said, and then I hesitated. I hadn't had a chance to talk to Rose about the letters, but I highly doubted that next year's Head Boy would be at the top of the list of people Rose wanted to talk to. But I had to tell her something, and in the end, I settled on the truth. "Rose, Scorpius is here." Rose's head snapped up.

"What?" she asked, frowning.

"Scorpius is in the shop, right now, and he wants to talk to you," I clarified.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"Didn't ask," I said. "But he said it was important." Rose turned half away, biting her lip and look conflicted before setting her clipboard down with more force than was strictly necessary, saying, "Yeah, okay," and heading for the front of the shop, already clearly on the defensive. After a moment's hesitation, I followed her. I was curious. I wanted to know what was so urgent.

Scorpius was still standing right where I left him, dripping rainwater on the floor and scanning the crowded store anxiously. He straightened when he saw Rose approach, arms crossed across her chest and mouth set tensely. "What?" she asked without preamble.

"You didn't get named Head Girl," Scorpius said, and it was almost accusatory. Rose was very obviously taken aback. So was I, honestly.

"I'm aware," she said shortly. I turned to the nearest shelf and busied myself, straightening up a display. The crowd in the store prevented me from giving them any more privacy than that, but once they got into their conversation, I disappeared from their notice.

"Why didn't you get named Head Girl?" Scorpius demanded. I rolled my eyes, wondering what on earth had prompted that question from the normally clear-thinking Scorpius. From Rose's answer, she had a similar reaction.

"I don't know, Scorpius," she said, both bewildered and irritated by his uncharacteristic behavior. "When they sent me my letter, they didn't include a detailed list of my flaws, but really, I want to thank you for coming all the way over here to rub this in my face. I really appreciate that, since it's not as if I've spent the last 24 hours trying to answer that question."

I glanced briefly at the pair of them and saw Scorpius flush. "What are you going to do about it?" he demanded next, and I made a face that neither of them could see. Drop it, Scorpius, I warned mentally.

"What am I—?" Rose repeated incredulously. "Nothing," she said, as if explaining something to a small child. "The decision's been made, Scorpius, you really think it's going to change if I demand to know why I didn't get the position, like some kind of petulant child?" Scorpius opened his mouth to answer, but Rose cut him off. "And anyway, I honestly don't know why you're so upset about it. I'd have thought this would be a dream come true for you. You get to work with a grown up instead of petty, childish, pathetic me."

And with that, she spun on her heel and left for the back room once more, leaving Scorpius calling after her futilely. After a long moment or two, I saw him sigh, upset, before he left the store altogether. I watched him go, frowning after him, unable to make sense of what had just happened.

"Was that the Malfoy boy?" came a voice from above me. Looking up, I saw Uncle George staring stonily at Scorpius' retreating form from the staircase leading upstairs.

"Yeah," I confirmed.

"What did he want?"

I shrugged. "Came to talk to Rose," he said.

"Did he get very far?" Uncle George asked.

Uncertain where the questions were coming from, I kept my answer to a simple, "No."

Uncle George smiled darkly and said only, "Good," before heading back upstairs. Completely bewildered, I shook my head to clear it and headed for the back room, looking for Rose.

I almost tripped over her. She was tucked away on a lower step near the back wall, and she was crying, a hand pressed to her mouth in a failing effort to stifle the tears she'd been holding in too long. "Oh, Rose," I said with a sympathetic sigh, sinking to the ground next to her and putting an arm around her shoulders.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," she repeated through her tears as she struggled to regain her composure, and I knew half of it was that she was furious with herself for losing control and letting this bother her.

After a few moments, she had calmed down enough to get her breath, but she was unable to stop the tears still streaming down her face. "This is so stupid," she said with a frustrated and watery laugh.

"It's okay," I reassured her. "There's no one here but me. Just take a minute." She sighed and looked away.

"It's just . . ." she started, and she sounded smaller than I could ever remember hearing her. "I really thought I had it, you know?" I nodded and rubbed her back.

"I know," I said. "I thought you did, too."

"And I'm gonna have to go back to school, and everyone's going to react the same way Scorpius did, and I'm going to have to face it a hundred times over, which is going to make it twice as bad for Lila, and— God, he was the last person I wanted to see today." The last statement was muffled because Rose had buried her face in her hands.

"Look," I said, searching for something to say to cheer her up. "There are a lot of reasons why— "

"I know why," she said, cutting me off. "I know why, Hugh. Scorpius was right, though don't you dare tell him I said that. I'm too competitive; I always have been. The teachers have seen it, and it's not a good quality in a leader. Lila's better suited. I've been focused on the wrong things for six years. Scorpius was right."

It was one of the most mature things I'd ever heard her say, and while I was proud of her, the words also pained me a little. Much as she'd needed the lesson, she was being too hard on herself, and I refused to believe, even as competitive as Rose had been, that Lila had been the better choice. But I also recognized that this was one of those times where nothing I said was going to make any impact.

I opened my mouth to try anyway, but an interruption in the form of my cousin Fred prevented me. "Hey," he said, looking mildly harried. "I don't want to interrupt anything, but we're kinda getting swamped out here. Can I have one of you on the floor?" I started to stand, but Rose laid a hand on my wrist.

"I'll go, Hugh," she said. And with a smile, looking almost like her old self, she followed Fred.

I stayed where I was. I wanted time to think through what had just happened, so I went to the back and picked up Rose's clipboard to continue with the inventory she'd been taking. I wanted to think not just about Rose and Scorpius, but also about Uncle George and why he'd responded to Scorpius's presence the way he had.

I'm a Ravenclaw, so when I want to know something, I start asking questions, and I had learned a long time ago that when it came to asking questions about my family's past, just about everyone in the wizarding world was more willing to answer them than my actual family was, especially the hard questions. Unfortunately, very few people outside my family really had the actual answers. But luckily for me, I had found someone just outside enough to be forthcoming and inside enough to know what he was talking about.

"Uncle Fred?" I asked as I made a couple notes on the clipboard.

"Yes, disgraceful son of my brother?" the portrait on the wall said in reply, but I was more than used to his jibes about me being in Ravenclaw; they made me smile.

"Can I asked you a question?"

"Well, that's two in quick succession, so I'd say the odds are in your favor."

"Why is there bad blood between us and the Malfoys?"

There was silence from the portrait, which was unusual. When I turned to look, my Uncle Fred had a very strange look on his painted face. First of all, it was frowning slightly, which one didn't usually see. I'd caught him off guard, clearly, and taken him by surprise. He let out a long breath. "Don't believe in asking the easy ones, do you?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Ravenclaw."

"Yeah," he said slowly. "It's complicated," he said then.

"I'm a pretty bright guy," I told him.

"I know," my uncle said then, and there was a faint sort of approval in his voice, which caught me a little off guard. "All right, then. What can you tell me about the war?"

"Logistically or ideologically?"

"Ideologically."

"Well," I said, thinking back to a discussion from my History of Magic study group, "It all came down to blood status, didn't it?"

"In what way?" my uncle asked then.

"Well, Voldemort's side believed that there were three kinds of wizards: purebloods, half-bloods, and Muggle-borns. They defined half-blood as anyone with one pureblood parent and one not, even if the one not was magical. They saw both Uncle Harry and, say, Seamus Finnegan as having the same status, whereas now we would classify Seamus as a half-blood and Uncle Harry as a full-blood, since both his parents were magical, even though his mother was Muggle-born."

"Yes, yes, yes," Uncle Fred said impatiently. "I'm not giving you a grade at the end of this; you can skip ahead to the important part. Why does it matter that they had three classifications when we had four?"

"Because they didn't see the distinction as being important," I said. "Anyone who wasn't pureblood was inferior, plain and simple."

"Exactly. It had little to do with blood status, really. It was about blood superiority and whether or not you bought into that idea. And that idea has existed for generations, and as long as it has, really, the Weasleys and the Malfoys have been on opposite sides of it. So the animosity has always been there. Each family represented what the other hated most. For them, a family with pure blood who didn't value what they had. For us, a family that valued who a person came from more than who a person was."

"You're being awfully objective about this," I commented at that point, because he was, and knowing Uncle George as well as I did, I wouldn't have expected that from his twin.

"Yeah, that's because I'm a painting infused with the essence of Fred Weasley rather than Fred Weasley himself. Makes a difference."

"Right," I said. "Continue, please."

"Well, as I said, the animosity has been there for ages. But Septimus Weasley, your great-grandfather, and Abraxas Malfoy made it personal."

"How so?" I asked, but I got only a shrug.

"Who knows? They were at school together, Septimus was blasted off the Black family tree for being a blood traitor, but the actual reason, if there ever was one, has been lost to the aether. But your grandad and Lucius Malfoy were no friends, and in the last war, the Malfoy family was responsible for entirely too much of the torture and suffering of the Weasleys and of future Weasleys. Lucius Malfoy was the reason your Aunt Ginny was possessed by Voldemort, Draco Malfoy was the reason Harry, George, and I got banned from Quidditch, your mum was tortured at Malfoy Manor while the Malfoys watched . . . the world can change, but personal wrongs take a long time to heal. Like I said. It's complicated."

"Yeah," I said, struggling to take all that in. I understood it, but it was such a waste in my eyes. Scorpius was a good person, and one of my only real friends, and yet, I'd never really told my family that because I knew they'd have a hard time accepting him.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I almost missed what my Uncle Fred said next.

"It's going to take an awful lot to overcome all the history between us. Though the latest little Malfoy boy having the hots for your sister might just do the job fairly well."

"Excuse me?" I said once his words had clicked in my head, convinced that I'd heard him wrong, or misunderstood what he'd meant, or something. But the look on his face was positively gleeful.

"I said," he said with a broad grin, "that Scorpion Malfoy, or whatever his name is, has it for Rose, and he has it bad. Oh, I wish I could see the look on your dad's face when he finds out—"

"Uncle Fred—"

"— suppose I'll have to settle for George —"

"Uncle Fred!"

"— it'll be almost as good —"

"Uncle Fred!" I shouted, finally getting his attention. "Look, I know Scorpius, and I know Rose, and you're wrong."

He gave me a pitying look. "And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one in the family," he said with a sigh."

"Scorpius doesn't have feelings for Rose," I insisted. "Not like that. He thinks she's immature. They had a huge falling out last year, and it's not like they were really friends before that."

"I know what I saw," was all he said.

"And I'm telling you — wait. You were watching?"

"You all ran out to where interesting things were happening and left me all alone!" he cried defensively. "What's a portrait to do?"

"Well, it doesn't matter," I said firmly. "Because you're wrong."

He leaned in closer and looked me straight in the eye. "Those two will be together before the end of the school year. I bet you anything."

"You're a portrait. You don't have anything I want," I pointed out.

"I'll never make fun of Ravenclaw again."

"I'm not making a bet with you over this!" I sputtered, and he shrugged.

"Fine, your loss. Well, no. Actually, my loss, since there's no way you'd win."

"I'm going back out to the shop," I called to him, already on my own toward the door.

"You just watch!" he yelled after me. "Before the end of the year!"

I ignored him. After all, I knew my sister and Scorpius Malfoy better than anyone, and there was absolutely no way my uncle's portrait could be right.

But because I am a Ravenclaw, and no possibility, however slight, should be discounted without proof, I watched Scorpius and my sister with renewed intensity as the school year began. And what I saw was both highly encouraging and slightly worrisome.

On the one side, there was Rose. Rose, who had taken the loss of the Head Girl-ship as hard as she had ever taken anything, walked into the Prefect compartment on the first day of September with such an attitude that you would never guess she had spent the last three weeks of the summer in an agonizing state of miserable self-reflection. She was energetic and smiling, and she deflected people's shock with an ease that gave absolutely no hint to how badly she had wanted Head Girl.

She took every "But I thought for sure you'd get it!" and turned it deftly into praise and support for Lila, stating in a single breath both how well-qualified the Hufflepuff girl was and how poorly she herself would have done. Lila's own hushed and terrified apology was dealt with just as easily with an earnest and entirely honest, "Lila, you will work with Scorpius Malfoy better than I ever could have, and we both know it. I'm far too competitive to have made a good leader. It's an asset on the Quidditch field, but in the school? I've started far more disputes than I've ever solved. I'll be your biggest support, and I'll help you with anything you need. But you're the best Head Girl the Headmistress could have chosen."

I alone saw how truly hard it was for her to say all that, and I saw her take on all the strain and the stress that she had predicted in the back room of Uncle George's shop. But she was equal to it. And she remained equal to it. As the year progressed, I watched my sister grow and change into an incredibly mature and thoughtful young woman. She remained top of the class, though her competitive nature ebbed. She still struggled with it, and she still lost her temper in fits of passion, and she still had days where she slid backwards, but I was proud of her. She held herself in check.

I mentioned this to her one rainy day in November when we were out shivering on the grounds, both aware that this would probably be the last day til spring that we'd be able to dance in the rain. She blushed and bit her lip and made a startling admittance. "Do you know how I check myself?" she asked. "Every time I want to say something or do something, every time I feel my competitive side starting to get the better of me, I stop and ask myself what Scorpius would say about what I was about to do if he were standing beside me. And that keeps me from bashing in Edward Jacoby's face when he waves his marginally higher Potions score in my face." I smiled at that and squeezed her hand, grateful for the changes, but also that the old Rose was still there.

And if I'd just been watching Rose, I'd have had no worries really that whole year, my upcoming OWLs aside. But unfortunately, on the other side, there was Scorpius. And it was the change in Scorpius that was worrisome.

Scorpius had started to watch Rose almost as intensely as I had been. It was clear that he noticed the changes in Rose as well, and they put a black look on his face that I did not, could not, understand. His notice of Rose, every movement, every action, every grade, got to the point where it started to rival Rose's notice of him for the first six years of their schooling. And the more he saw, the more frustrated he became, and again, I had no idea why.

There were times when I was tempted to ask him, tempted to question his feelings for my sister, but I couldn't bring myself to do such a bold and brazen thing. And I knew Rose wouldn't thank me for it. Because if I was sure of one thing, it was that Rose was harboring no romantic feelings toward Scorpius. I knew that with utter certainty, even if I could no longer be entirely sure about Scorpius. His focus on Rose was becoming an obsession, and I couldn't help but feel that it all tied back, somehow, to that day he'd stormed into my uncle's shop, demanding to know what Rose was going to do about the position of Head Girl.

Needless to say, I did not inform my uncle Fred of this over the winter holidays.

/|\

It was pouring rain the day the first time I really lost my temper with Scorpius.

It was the first rain of the spring, the first rain warm enough to go out and get soaked in, and I knew Rose would already be outside. Winter was a hard time for her, because dancing in the snow is not the same experience as dancing in the rain, and Madame Pomfrey has promised she will keep Rose on permanent castle arrest if she risks her health by dancing in the rare winter rains the way she did her first year.

This winter had been particularly hard on her as well, because out in the rain is the one time when Rose can truly let her barriers down, when her emotions don't show on her face because the wetness and the redness come from the sky as much as from within. Her seventh year was harder for her than she had ever imagined it being, and not because of her NEWTs. It was hard to keep smiling and supporting Lila, who was intimidated by Scorpius' new gruff demeanor that, Lila wasn't wrong, he only turned on her. It certainly didn't help that Lila had never had the most confidence in the world, anyway. She kept coming to Rose for help, which also wasn't making the situation any easier.

"There are days," she told me one cold day in February as we sat in the library and watched a cold misty rain trickle down outside, "when I look at Lila and have the awful thought, 'This was really the better choice?' And then I hate myself for thinking it because it doesn't help Lila, and she is getting better. And on her good days, on my good days, I know she was the better choice."

Yes, the winter had been hard, and as the days turned warmer, Rose kept a careful watch on the temperature, and the moment it crept above Madame Pomfrey's limit, she was out the front doors and under Ravenclaw Tower, beckoning me down. With a smile, I finished the section of the essay I was working on and obliged her.

"Hugo?" Scorpius called out to me as I passed him in the Common Room. He was seated in a deep window seat, and I had the unshakeable feeling that he'd been watching Rose only moments before.

"Yes?" I asked. He looked away, steeling himself for whatever he was about to say, and then he turned back to me and spoke.

"I need your advice on something," he said, his gaze drifting back to the window. I looked at him expectantly. "Hugo, if I – discovered something, if I found out that Rose was – that she should have been Head Girl, if I found proof . . . should I tell her?"

I stared at him. "Do you have proof?" I asked, taking a step closer, but he wouldn't answer.

"Should I tell her?" he repeated, more urgently.

"No," I said with as much finality as I could muster. It wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. His jaw tightened and he looked away, with a reckless look that I had seen many times on Rose's face, but never before on his, and I knew what it meant. "Scorpius, no," I said again, stressing my reply, fearful of what he might do. "She won't want to know."

"Won't want to know the truth?" he demanded. "Someone else has been given something that she earned! The Rose I know would want to hear about it!"

"The Rose you know is immature, impulsive, and competitive!" I shot back at him. "She's changed, she's worked hard to change, and she's grown! She's not the girl you knew anymore, and you don't have the right to take that away from her."

His jaw tightened even further, and he was silent for a long time. When he spoke, it was the least charitable thing I'd ever heard him say. "Lila Stonebrook?" he whispered. "A better choice for Head Girl? Do you honestly believe that?"

"She's getting better," I said, putting up a feeble defense, but Scorpius overrode me.

"She's timid," he said angrily, "and she lets people walk all over her. It wasn't supposed to be this way! It was supposed to be me and Rose, accomplishing more from these positions than anyone has in the last twenty years by using that rivalry we've always had to push each other and —" He broke off abruptly, coloring, realizing he'd said too much. A cold, burning anger ignited in the pit of my stomach as his words registered. "Hugo," he said, almost desperately, "I–"

"You had better not be about to tell me that when you called my sister out in front of all of Ravenclaw Tower last year, you lied to her." He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"I knew the rivalry existed. I didn't know the extent to which she took it. I thought she used it the same way I did – an extra incentive! We accomplished more pushing each other than we ever would have –"

"Stop, please," I interrupted forcefully. "I'm going outside. Please don't talk about this to anyone else. If you don't have confidence in Lila, how is anyone else supposed to?" And I left.

It was a retreat, I know it. But I couldn't handle the conversation any longer. Scorpius had shown a side that I had never expected to see, and it had struck me in the Tower how much more like Rose he truly was than I had ever before believed.

/|\

It was the kind of rainy day that Rose hates the most the day everything came to a head. The sky was ugly, black and ominous, and there was violent wind but no rain, with a tension in the air that set everyone's teeth on edge. It was the kind of tension that only a really massive storm could release, but though the sky and the air promised the storm, it didn't come and didn't come and didn't come. I can remember quite clearly Rose standing in our meadow on a day like this so long ago, staring up at the sky and finally shouting, "Come on!" in a doomed-to-failure effort to release some of that tension.

It was the kind of day that affected everyone, whether they were aware of why or not. Everyone was irritable, tense, set on edge. I had planned to spend the whole weekend revising, as the OWLs were growing ever closer, but even I reached a point where I had to slam my schoolbooks shut and escape the confines of a Tower that had suddenly grown cramped and stuffy.

Whenever I truly needed to be alone at school, needed a solitude beyond what a shadowy blue corner of my Common Room or the library could afford, I headed for the first floor. Quite by accident when I was a second year, I had discovered that the windows of the northwest passage had deep sills, wide enough to sit on, and were entirely covered by thick, heavy curtains. I had smuggled some cushions to one such alcove, and it had quickly become my favorite reading space. It was my own private retreat, and in four years, I'd never been disturbed or discovered. Not even Rose knew exactly where it was, though she had a general idea.

That was where I went on this day, a book in hand, hoping that some time to myself would help dispel the foul mood the castle had sunken into. I tried to read, to lose myself in a book the way I had done countless times over my life, but I kept getting distracted – by OWLs, by the revising I really ought to have been doing, by the impending storm outside, by the conversation I'd had with Scorpius little more than a week before. I couldn't concentrate or focus, and so when I heard a very soft, "Hugh? Are you there?" coming from the corridor, I very nearly pulled back the curtains to answer my sister. But a second voice stopped me before I could even reveal my presence.

"Rose! There you are. I've been looking for you." Scorpius sounded breathless, and my stomach, inexplicably, plunged. I froze, undiscovered, praying he wasn't about to do what I was sure he was.

"Looking for me?" Rose repeated warily, and I could see why. She had Scorpius had had precious little contact that year. For all his constant watching, he had avoided her actual presence equally consistently. "Why?"

"I have something I have to tell you," he said, still breathless. "Something you need to know." I chanced a peek past the heavy curtains just in time to see Rose cross her arms. She was tense and uncomfortable, that was plain, and I knew the day was getting to her. Scorpius, if he was there for the reason I thought, couldn't have picked a worse time.

"What?" she asked carefully.

"You should have been Head Girl." The words came out in a rush, and they froze Rose just as they froze me. She recovered faster.

"I don't have time for this," she said, and she pushed past him. But he reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her.

"No, you have to listen!" he almost snapped, and it was the least collected I'd ever heard him. "I've been trying to figure this out for months, how on earth you could have been passed up, why anyone would think Lila Stonebrook was a better choice, and now I've just come from the Headmistress, and she told me, Rose! You were everyone's first choice for Head Girl, just like I was everyone's first choice for Head Boy, but nobody wanted us to serve together, so they had to skip over one of us! But it should have been you, Rose, all along."

The silence in the corridor after he'd finished speaking was as heavy and oppressive as the silence outside, and the tension was coiled just as tightly, and as sure as I knew the thunder and rain were coming, I knew that Scorpius had just unleashed a tempest, even if he didn't realize it yet.

After a few seconds' stunned silence, Rose wrenched her arm from his grasp and said, in a voice full of bewilderment and anger, "Why would you tell me that?"

"Rose– " He sounded as bewildered as she did, as if he couldn't imagine why this wasn't welcome news, and I fumed at him from behind my curtain.

"No, what possible reason could you have for telling me that?" she demanded, overriding him in a wave of hurt, anguished fury. "I don't want to know that! Damn it, Scorpius!" I chanced another peek and looked at Scorpius' face – he was utterly shocked by her reaction, even though I had told him what would come of this.

"Rose, listen–"

"No, you listen!" she said furiously, rounding on him. As angry as she'd been when she'd confronted him in Ravenclaw Tower, he'd never seen her unleash her temper like this. "I have spent the last eight months coming to terms with the fact that Lila was chosen over me. I have spent the last eight months examining every short-coming, every weakness, every flaw in myself that makes her a better leader by comparison. And sure, part of me wondered, believe me, Scorpius, but I have always trusted that there was a wisdom behind the choice that I couldn't see, and so I could help her! I could grow and change and stand behind her and give her the confidence she needed. But now? Damn it, how am I supposed to look her in the face after this? How am I supposed to give her my unflinching support now, knowing I should be standing in her place? God, I hate you! Why would you tell me this?"

His jaw tightened at that, and his own temper flared to life. "Hate me?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yes!" Rose shouted.

"Because I dared to come tell you the truth?"

"Yes!"

"How dare you hate me for that!"

"Because I didn't want to know!" Rose screamed at him. "God, you stupid Ravenclaw, you didn't give me truth, you gave me a fact, the truth is something far bigger than you seem capable of comprehending!"

"And what is the truth?" Scorpius demanded angrily.

"That I changed because of you!" she yelled, and I shrank into my window. I wanted to disappear, I wanted them to disappear, I wanted anything that would enable me to escape, to not have to sit here and hear this. Those words shifted the tide of the shouting match – those words made it intimate, made it private, made it not something that I should be present for. But short of revealing myself, there was nothing I could do to stop it, and I sure as hell wasn't about to reveal myself.

"You called me out in front of all those people and laid out my faults!" Rose shouted. "You're the one who told me to change – you don't have the right to complain about what those changes are, and you don't have the right to come down here and tell me — I have spent a year with your voice in my head, your voice keeping me in check, and you put it there! I never asked you to meddle in my life!"

"Because I have to meddle in your life!" Scorpius shouted in return.

"Why?"

"Because that's the only way I can be part of it! You won't let me in!"

In the silence that followed, I swear I could hear Rose's shocked bewilderment. For her, this was coming out of the blue. The only reason it wasn't for me was because I'd been watching him because of that whisper from my uncle so long ago. But Rose had had no idea, and even now, when I chanced a look at her face from behind the curtain, she looked like she was still uncertain whether she'd heard what she thought she'd heard between his words.

I saw more than heard her whispered, "What?" and then Scorpius was looking strained, chagrined, like he'd said too much, but perhaps he felt he'd gone too far to stop now, and so, much to my dismay, he continued to speak.

"You're impossible," he said breathlessly. "Like a puzzle I can't solve. I've been trying for seven years. And just when I thought I had it all figured out, you went and changed the rules on me! This year was supposed to be about putting the last pieces together, you were supposed to be Head Girl so I'd have a chance to show you what we could do when you aren't fighting me!" I pressed myself as far back into the alcove as I could, wishing I could melt into the very stone, but at the same time, mortifying as it was to be trapped, overhearing them, I couldn't stop listening. "And instead it's Lila, and all I can think about is how you won't even look at me anymore, and I—"

He broke off abruptly, and it caught my attention because there was no reason for it that I could see. I waited for him to speak again, to overcome whatever hitch had stopped him, but there was nothing, and so finally, I pushed back the curtain just the slightest.

I froze in horror when I saw why he had stopped speaking, and my first thought was, She's going to slap him, because Scorpius Malfoy was kissing my sister, and I didn't think anything could be quite as shocking as that until Scorpius wrenched himself away, looking startled, and I realized that he hadn't kissed Rose – she had kissed him.

"What – what are you doing?" he demanded in a wary voice, and Rose colored a bright Weasley red.

"I thought – you said – I thought that's what you wanted," she stammered, and suddenly my face was as bright as hers, and I dropped the curtain like it burned. All I could think about was how I shouldn't be there, I shouldn't be hearing everything they were about to say. But I did.

"I – do you have feelings for me?" He asked it like he couldn't imagine it was true.

"I don't know," Rose said, sounding very young. "I think . . . I think I might."

"You think you might." He repeated it slowly, carefully, but from the sound of his voice, nothing she'd said could have been worse. There was a pause then, "I'm sorry. I have to go."

"Wait, what?" Rose demanded then, sounding a bit more like her old self.

"Rose, I have spent the last four years trying to figure out how to fit myself into your life," Scorpius admitted then, and I have always wondered if Rose went as red as I did at that. "And now, you think you might have feelings for me? No. I'm not going to be another Weasley fling. This isn't something you've been longing for. This is something that has just now occurred to you as something that might be worthwhile in some way. And I'm sorry. But that's not good enough."

"Not good enough?" Rose repeated, and there was definitely a spark of her usual temper in the words. "Not good enough? My god, what is wrong with you? You tell me I'm too competitive, then turn around three months later and blame me for not fighting Lila being named Head Girl over me! You call me out a year ago for being immature and pathetic, then take it as a personal affront when I change! And now, you admit that you've, I don't even know, been in love with me for four years, but the minute I tell you I might return those feelings, it's suddenly not good enough?"

"I shouldn't have come here," Scorpius said, his voice distraught. "Hugo was right–"

"Hugo?" Rose questioned immediately, a note of betrayal in her voice that went straight to my heart like a barb.

"I'm sorry," Scorpius said. "This was a mistake. All of it." And I heard his footsteps moving away down the corridor, first slowly, then faster and faster, and I knew he was leaving Rose behind as quickly as possible.

The silence was deafening, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with the sound of my pounding heart, and I felt almost sick. Not just with the intimacy of what I'd overheard – though believe me, that was there, too – but with the thought of the blame I knew Rose was trying not to put on me that even I couldn't decide if I deserved or not.

And then, out of the silence, I heard a sound that only added to the conflict in my head – a sob. Followed by another, and another, and another in quick succession. My sister, my best friend, was sobbing mere feet away from me in utter heartbreak, and I was too much of a coward to push back the curtain and go to her. All I could do was sit there and listen as my big sister cried alone, overwhelmed by the loss of something she'd never known she was missing until she gained it for one all-too-brief moment.

And then, another sound. Rain. It came in driving, pounding sheets, and it almost masked the sound of Rose's running footsteps. I knew where she was going. She was running for the nearest exit, running to fling herself into the deluge. I sat for a long time after she left, making up my mind what to do next. My face burned with the memory of all I'd witnessed and overheard. If I followed Rose, I'd have to make a choice when I reached her – pretend not to notice her pain and so clearly reveal that I'd been in the hall, or ask what was wrong and face reliving everything that had just happened.

And so, for the first time in my life, I consciously made the choice not to follow her.

I returned to Ravenclaw Tower and made myself miserable watching Rose far below me. There was no dance, not this time, nor was she spread out and welcoming the heavens. Instead, she was on her knees before the heavens, eyes upturned, begging the sky for lighting, for the release that would come with the storm. But just like her little brother, it never came.

When I went down to dinner, Rose was noticeably absent, and the only empty spot was across from a withdrawn and somber Scorpius. I took my seat and did not meet his eyes, but I could feel my face burning all the same.

We ate in silence, despite the chatter around us, but the tension that had been building all day was still there, the sky still black above us, the promised storm still nowhere in sight.

And then, suddenly, with a massive crash that startled us all, the doors to the Great Hall were flung open, and there stood Rose, soaking wet, with a fierce and determined look on her face. She barely scanned the room before her eyes lit on Scorpius, and she strode straight to him, everyone in the Hall following her every move.

She stood behind him for a long moment while everyone held their breath, waiting to see what on earth would come of this. And then Rose, in front of the entire school and staff, leaned swiftly down and kissed him, long and hard.

I don't know if the Hall actually went silent at that or if the ringing in my ears just drowned out all the sound, but the next thing I knew, Rose was straightening, leaving Scorpius looking dazed, shocked, and wary, and then she was speaking, not loudly enough for everyone to hear, but loudly enough that I could hear, much to my dismay.

"Just because I didn't recognize that this was what I wanted two days ago doesn't mean it's any less meaningful or substantial," she said, and Scorpius and I alone knew what she was talking about. "I may not have been able to name it like you could, but it's always been there. You are one of the smartest people I know, Scorpius. Have you really not understood that I spent six years doing everything in my power to ensure that you noticed me? Hugo can point you in the right direction on that, too."

"Hugo would just as soon be left out of this, actually," I said to my plate, trying to hide behind my hand, but Rose went on as if she hadn't heard me.

"Look, I am selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. And Scorpius, you are the only person besides Hugo I have ever known who can handle me at my worst. I am asking you, begging you, to let me show you that I am more than just my flaws. Please, let me prove that I want this as much as you do."

There was a long, awkward silence, and then Scorpius stood, slowly, until he was on her level. And then, still in front of the entire school, he made his decision, took her face in his hands, and kissed her soundly. Scorpius Malfoy and my sister all but made out in the middle of dinner, completely oblivious to the world around them until an angry Headmistress stormed down the center aisle of the Great Hall and demanded to know what they thought they were doing.

"Sorry, Professor," Scorpius said in a dazed sort of voice, not looking away from Rose. "I got caught up in the moment."

And at that precise moment, I kid you not, lighting flashed in a brilliant web across the sky and thunder crashed down around us. Rose held out her hand to Scorpius, a soft smile playing about her lips. "Come with me," she said.

"Where?" he asked.

"Come dance in the rain."

And he did. And I watched them from a window, the tiniest pang of loss and sadness striking me. Because for the first time, I had faded into the background for Rose. For the first time, when she looked to someone to lead them out into a storm, it hadn't been me.

I was about to turn and walk away and leave them to their dance when a small ghostly starling flew up and landed on my shoulder and said in my sister's voice, "Don't think I don't see you lurking in the shadows. Stop trying to fade away and come dance with us, Hugh."

And with a smile, I did. I guess some things don't change.

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It was storming fit to beat the band the day my sister married Scorpius Malfoy. This one I can attest to personally, as I was standing there beside them as their witness.

There were those who claimed the storm was a bad omen, proof that this union was doomed from them start, but no one listened to them because everyone who was there could see the glee in the eyes of the bride, that one of the most important days of her life should be graced with her favorite kind of weather. And when she and the groom ran out into the middle of the downpour after the ceremony, without a thought to their finery, I was right there beside them while the rest of the guests huddled under awnings to keep out of the wet.

It was a different kind of dance we did that day, and Rose and I both knew it. The look in her eyes was the same one she'd had on the day before she'd left for Hogwarts. "Things are gonna change, you know," she said with some regret, but I just nodded.

"I know," I told her. "They can't not."

"Promise me something," she said then, just as she had before.

"That I'll keep dancing in the rain?" I finished, and she smiled. I nodded. "I will."

She hugged me then, and into my ear said, "You were there that day, weren't you? Behind one of the curtains." I could no more lie to her in that moment than ever before.

"Yes," I admitted. She sighed.

"I'm sorry," she told me, but I shrugged it off.

"It's my lot," I told her. "And I wouldn't have traded the years I've spent as your shadow for anything in the world."

"Not anymore, though, right?" she said with mock scolding, and I smiled.

"Not anymore," I promised, and then I backed away toward the tent to let them have their wedding dance in the rain.

"I really wish someone had taken me up on that bet," said a voice by my elbow, and I looked down in time to see my uncle's portrait shoving Rose and Scorpius out of their own wedding photo.

"You're not supposed to be able to be here, you know," I commented, and my uncle just gave me a withering look.

"I told you, I'm infused with the essence of Fred Weasley," he said with disdain. "You didn't really expect me to follow the rules of portraiture, did you?"

"No," I agreed cheerfully.

"So," he said, looking out at the bride and groom. "You asked me once why there was bad blood between us and the Malfoys. Care to tell me now why there no longer is?"

"Well," I said, my eyes not leaving my sister and her husband, "it started with a storm."

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