Author's Notes: Written for Prompt #004 – "Inside" – on 100_women and Round 8 of daisychain_drab on Livejournal.

300 words. Enjoy!

)O(

People had always liked to tease Lily and Scorpius. From the time she was eleven and he thirteen, and they had sat together at the Slytherin table for their breakfasts, people had laughed and said they were sure to get married someday.

Lily made out as though it was the most hilarious joke she had ever heard. She even pretended that she was playing along – ironically, of course. She used the idea that she might marry Scorpius to tease her loathsome brothers – your brother in law would be a Malfoy, then! – or her father and mother – just think of the family get-togethers… you'd have to be civil to Draco! – but no one took it seriously. Why should they, when Scorpius and Lily were laughing about it?

But though Lily did laugh, she herself took the whole matter so very seriously.

She mocked people who assumed that their relationship was anything more than a close friendship, taunting that they shouldn't believe boys and girls can't just be friends, but whenever someone said that they were sweet together, Lily felt a little flutter in her stomach, and had to remind herself that shewas Scorpius Malfoy's best friend, the girl he teased and talked to easily. He even took her lead sometimes, pretending he was madly in love with her.

But no one understood – Scorpius least of all – that what Lily felt wasn't the friendship she was so good at pretending it was. She was skilled at hiding her feelings; keeping them locked up deep inside, but even then, she still had to face them. Even though she pretended to laugh and scoff when people voiced their suspicions, she knew without a doubt that she, Lily Luna Potter, was unconditionally in love with Scorpius Malfoy.

She hated that love with a vengeance.

)O(

Fin