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“Brad!” cried Rose.

In moments his arms that had been contentedly holding Rose were grasping at thin air. She had quickly extracted herself from his arms, and in a trice has straightened her clothes. Her hair remained slightly disheveled, which somehow satisfied Scorpius. He stood and gave a short inclination of his head to Brad, hoping his expression didn’t give away his anger about the interruption.

“Oh… it’s Brendon. Wonderful,” muttered Al. He stared at Brad as he would a chicken he was about to behead. “Come to use my Floo, have you?”

“Of course not,” Brad said with a good-natured laugh. “I’m here to see my Rosebud.”

He gave her a gratuitously soppy stare. A pretty blush worked its way across her cheeks, and she lowered her eyes in a charmed fashion. Scorpius felt such an overwhelming sensation of envy he thought he might hex something. He settled on imagining boring a hole through Brad’s head.

“I’m going back into the kitchen. Tell me when he has left.”

“Nice to see you too, Al,” Brad said with a wry grin. He was always gracious when faced with Al’s rudeness. This made Scorpius hate him all the more.

“Hello, Rosebud,” said Brad, giving Rose a kiss that lingered a bit too long, a hand shockingly trailing up her side. Rose’s eyes began to close, but, spotting Scorpius, her blue eyes went wide and she suddenly shirked away.

“Not in front of Scorpius, Brad,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, sorry!” said Brad, grabbing Scorpius’ limp hand and shaking it firmly. “Hey Scorpius!”

“Hello Brandon,” said Scorpius in as nice a tone as he could muster.

“Always Brandon never Brad,” said Brad in a singsong tone.

“Well, Brandon is your first name. I could call you Bradley if you’d prefer. I don’t do nicknames,” said Scorpius with what he hoped was finality.

Brad fondly rolled his eyes, before they took a piqued interest in Scorpius’ neck.

“Nice robes! Are those Giardano?” Brad asked, reaching for Scorpius’ collar. Scorpius quickly maneuvered himself away from the impertinent hand.

“Er, yes,” Scorpius admitted, giving a sidelong glance to Rose who was giving him a curious stare.

“He’s quite a good designer. I have at least five of his robes in my closet, don’t I, Rosebud?”

She gave a snort. “Like I’d know. All I know about Giardano is that he’s a short Italian man with a penchant for pinching his interns, if Magnolia Longbottom’s stories are true. But since when do you wear anything like that, Scorp? You said that buying those overpriced robes was as silly as buying tea cozies.”

Rose seemed oblivious to the vexed look cross Brad’s face. Scorpius smirked.

“Yes, well, my sentiments are unaltered. Magnolia and your cousin Lily thought it would be fun to dress me up.”

Rose cocked her head.

“What ever made them think of that?” she asked, her brow crinkled in confusion. “I prefer your own robes. Much more traditional and fitting for you.”

“Agreed,” piped in Brad.

“Why did you say yes to being their guinea pig?” queried Rose. Scorpius felt as if he had been caught doing something wrong, but wasn’t sure why.

“Well, Lily just sort of showed up on my doorstep and barged into the bedroom—”

“She was in your bedroom?” she quickly asked.

“Well, she and Magnolia—”

“Both of them?”

“Yes. They had me—”

“Scorpius, who would have ever thought you were such a rascal!” Brad interrupted. Scorpius felt a surge of panic as Rose crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

“Yes. Who’d have thought,” she said in a snipped tone.

Before Scorpius could even form a coherent thought, much less a syllable of contradiction, Brad sat down and took hold of Rose’s hand, and her attention.

“So! I finished talking to all the guests, have saved all the food with preserving charms, and have made the last of the reservations for the venues. I know I didn’t help much last time, what with that important deal going on— but not this time. This time, I’m all yours.”

“Do you mean it?” said Rose, the sweetest of smiles working its way onto her face.

“I’m here to help,” he said kissing her hand.

Rose seemed to quiver a bit under his gaze and looked alarmingly close to pouncing Brad right there- until they all heard a faint buzzing noise emanate from Brad’s pocket. He quickly reached in and pulled out a pocket watch. In bold red letters the top of his watch read ‘Allenworth- Floo 34.’

“Drat! I really need to take this. Al, may I use your fire place?” asked Brad, already hunkering down and grabbing a handful of floo powder.

“Help yourself,” called Al from the kitchen with all the fondness of a half-starved Acromantula.

“And this needs to be private,” said Brad.

“Of course it does,” said Al in a mocking tone.

Brad waved his wand, encasing the fireplace in what looked like a large, transparent, blue bubble.

“Wanker!” Al added with relish, knowing full well Brad couldn’t hear a syllable.

Ever since the invention of ‘the buzzer’ professional witches and wizards were prone to darting in and out of other’s Floos for business calls. Being a Wizarding sports agent, Brad had been one of the first to own one, and had gotten into the annoying habit of using others’ Floos in a near constant state.

Scorpius found buzzers to be annoying gadgets that made him far too accessible to people. Always a private person by nature, Scorpius didn’t like the idea of people constantly demanding his attention, nor did he relish the idea of being indebted to others for Floo time.

He had a studied look of indifference on his face as Rose watched Brad spiritedly speaking with some old warlock, and taking out a Quick Quotes Quill to magically take notes. Rose crossed her arms and gave Brad a glare, but a look of hurt started to make its way into her eyes. Scorpius vaguely wondered what the penalty for cursing Brad enough that his ears permanently fell off would be.

“So, how long have you been playing ‘dress up’ with Lily and Mags?”

“This is the first time Magnolia has ever been to my house,” Scorpius smiled.

“But not the first time Lily has?” she asked in a surly tone.

“Well, no—” Scorpius answered, thinking back to the few times that Lily had visited his house along with Al and Rose.

“I see.” Rose looked to her fingertips that were steepled in an uncomfortable looking position that made them resemble a clutch of particularly tangled reeds. She was biting her lower lip.

“Rose, is something the matter?” he asked, gently untangling her hands.

“No… Why would anything be wrong?” she said with small shrug of her shoulders.

Perhaps this was the moment that Scorpius was looking for; a moment when he could steer her affections towards himself in some subtle way. Perhaps if he were to hold her again something would come of it?

Scorpius gave a quick look to see if Brad would interrupt. If he just eased his hand into hers, perhaps she would lean back into his arms and—

“I’m going to curse his bollocks off if he flakes out on us,” Rose muttered. Scorpius felt his breath leave him in disappointment.

“Well then I suppose you aren’t going to be having any children in the future,” Scorpius replied carefully, giving a nod to Brad.

Rose’s wand started to intermittently give off sparks as Brad finished his call and excitedly undid the privacy spell.

“We did it!” exclaimed Brad, scribbling down a few more notes by hand. Rose only glared.

“You might have to adopt at this point,” Scorpius muttered under his breath.

“Er, did what?” asked Scorpius when Rose continued to give a cold gaze and say nothing.

“I just got Melrose Finwick to be a starting Keeper for the Harpies! I thought she’d have to be a second, or stay with the Kestrils, which would have done nothing for her career. I thought it wouldn’t come through, but here it is! Coming through! I need to go over and finish the paperwork with them, of course, and I’ll need to renegotiate her contract again as well, but it’s all but done! This is amazing!” finished Brad in one long breath.

“That really is amazing,” said Rose. “Didn’t you say you would hand over all your clients to another agent during our honeymoon?”

“I told them to call me if there were any big breakthroughs. At the time the deal had dead ended, so it didn’t matter who was on it,” Brad said with an innocent shrug.

“So if this breakthrough had happened, say, on our honeymoon, you would have left me on the beach in the Caribbean by myself while you renegotiate a Quidditch contract for Melrose Finwick?” said Rose dangerously.

“What?” he asked, looking bewildered.

“Would you?”

Brad gave himself a moment to ponder this question, and then said, “If it meant getting the deal done right, yes.”

Rose had turned an alarming shade of red.

“Look, this is a big deal,” Brad supplied.

“And no one else could handle this?”

“Well, yes they could, but—”

“Our honeymoon was not as important to you as some Quidditch player’s contract?”

“Now you know that’s not true,” Brad said in a placating tone. “Love, we both know you’re making a mountain out of—”

“Don’t you talk down to me, Brandon Bradley!”

“Well if you weren’t being so impractical, perhaps I wouldn’t,” he said with a smile.

If this was meant to charm Rose, Scorpius thought Brad was gravely mistaken in his choice of tone and manner.

It was difficult to tell exactly what happened next, but within moments there was a flash of yellow light and Brad had been hurled into the opposite wall, his robes smoking.

Al rushed into the room, an expectant grin splitting his thin face. It fell upon seeing the action was all over.

“Damn, I missed it,” Al said, seeing a coughing Brad pickling himself up from the ground.

“You are all impossible!” she screamed.

“All? What did I do?” Scorpius asked, completely bewildered.

Rose ignored him, slammed the door open and Disapparated with a giant bang that resembled a potion explosion he had witnessed in Fifth Year.

“What in the world?” Brad let out.

For once, Scorpius found himself on the same page as Brandon Bradley.

“I have no idea,” he answered, watching the door as if it might supply an answer.

“Brad,” said Al.

Both Scorpius and Brad were startled to hear the name come from Al.

“I might remind you that there are Quidditch deals aplenty, but only one Rose Weasley. Perhaps you need to get out of here and apologize to Rose,” said Al in the gentlest of ways.

Both Scorpius and Brad stared agog.

“I think flowers would be a good gift for her,” Al said with a convivial smile, patting Brad on the back.

“Uh… yeah… Thanks, Al,” Brad said with a worried look on his face.

Both Scorpius and Brad didn’t know what to make of this, but Brad seemed too shell-shocked to respond in any other way than giving his thanks and Apparating away.

Al’s serene smile didn’t leave his face even after Brad left. Normally he would have taken this opportunity to call Brad ‘wanker’ or something the like. Instead he just grinned and headed for the fireplace.

“Why were you helping Brad?” asked Scorpius, feeling angry, but confusion tempering it quite a bit.

“She was jealous!”

“Al what—?”

“Jealous! Jealous!” Al repeated impatiently, as if this explained something. He quickly Flooed someone and stated to the grate, “Emergency! Arrive stat!”

In a flash of green flames Lily swirled out of the green flamed fireplace.

“What happened? Where’s Rose?” Lily asked.

“Brad showed up—” began Scorpius.

“Brad?” Mags asked, stepping out of the fireplace and dusting off her robes.

“Yeah. Git. Anyways, Rose is jealous of you,” Al said to Mags.

“What?” asked Lily.

“And you too Lily! She thought you two, like, had an orgy or something with Scorpius today, and is completely green-eyed.”

“Oh!” Mags said, before laughing and joining Al’s eager look.

“What in the world are you grinning about?” Scorpius asked, feeling quick peevish.

“I don’t know how you managed to get such high O.W.L.s when you are so bloody thick!” said Al with impatience. “Rose was angry as a Doxy-bit kneazle when you started talking about girls in your bedroom.”

“She was?”

“Yes, Prat, she was.”

Scorpius felt a smile beginning to form on his face.

“She was jealous of Lily and Mags,” he said in a dazed fashion.

“Yes! So we’re going to have to exploit that. Which girl are you going to pretend to be involved with?”

“What?” cried Mags lurching away from Al. Lily’s eyebrows creased and she stared at the floor.

“We need to get Rose jealous enough to realize she loves Scorpius, not Barton.”

“Brad,” supplied Mags.

Al ignored her.

“One of you needs to pretend you’re in love with Scorpius and in some sort of relationship with him. And it needs to be convincing.”

Both Mags and Lily stared at him and Scorpius with wide eyes.

“Look, neither of you needs to enter into this madcap scheme of his,” Scorpius said looking at the two girls.

“I’m certainly not going to,” said Mags giving Al a glare. Seeing Scorpius’ affronted look she added, “I’m just… Well, I’m sort of already involved with someone else. And I’m a terrible liar. No offense Scorpius. I just don’t think I could manage it.”

“It’s ok. Lily can do it. She’s a great little liar,” said Al, smirking until Lily kicked him in the shin.

“What makes you think that I’m not already in a relationship, Al?” she said, looking between him and Scorpius with a tight smile. Al gave her a pointed look. She started to flush and look flustered. “Ok, fine, I’m too busy to have a relationship right now.”

“Uh huh,” Al teased.

“I’m busy being a Healer! And there aren’t any god men around. And-and I’m not wanting one anyways. Who says that you need a man in your life to be happy? I certainly don’t! Who cares about what they think? Never noticing anything you do for them, and never calling— Who cares! I certainly don’t mind being completely and utterly unattractive to men because of my intellect! I certainly don’t need a man’s approval in order to feel good about myself and there is certainly nothing wrong with being single!”

Her sudden outburst left the others in stunned silence.

“Shit, Lils, calm down. There’s nothing wrong with being single, ok?” Al said, holding his hands up in a defensive motion.

“Nothing at all,” added Scorpius.

"So, Lily," Al started gently. "Will you do it then?"

She looked at Scorpius for a moment, her eyes traveling over his face in a searching way Scorpius found highly uncomfortable.

“Fine,” she said suddenly, another tight smile making its way onto her face. “I’ll pretend to be in love with Scorpius.”

“Good!” exclaimed Al, patting her on the back. “Then it’s settled!”

Al and Mags quickly laid out the plan of action, both very enthusiastic and passionate about its veracity as the ‘best plan ever.’ The two were so wrapped up in their planning, that Scorpius found it the perfect opportunity to address Lily.

“You don’t have to do this,” Scorpius whispered under his breath. “It’s just a silly Gryffindor plan.”

“Perhaps it’s just insensate enough to function,” Lily echoing his words from the hospital, making Scorpius laugh.

“You don’t mind ‘pretending we’re in love,’ then?” he asked sardonically.

“I don’t mind at all,” said Lily, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm.

Description
“Brad!” cried Rose.

In moments his arms that had been contentedly holding Rose were grasping at thin air. She had quickly extracted herself from his arms, and in a trice has straightened her clothes. Her hair remained slightly disheveled, which somehow satisfied Scorpius. He stood and gave a short inclination of his head to Brad, hoping his expression didn’t give away his anger about the interruption.

“Oh… it’s Brendon. Wonderful,” muttered Al. He stared at Brad as he would a chicken he was about to behead. “Come to use my Floo, have you?”

“Of course not,” Brad said with a good-natured laugh. “I’m here to see my Rosebud.”

He gave her a gratuitously soppy stare. A pretty blush worked its way across her cheeks, and she lowered her eyes in a charmed fashion. Scorpius felt such an overwhelming sensation of envy he thought he might hex something. He settled on imagining boring a hole through Brad’s head.

“I’m going back into the kitchen. Tell me when he has left.”

“Nice to see you too, Al,” Brad said with a wry grin. He was always gracious when faced with Al’s rudeness. This made Scorpius hate him all the more.

“Hello, Rosebud,” said Brad, giving Rose a kiss that lingered a bit too long, a hand shockingly trailing up her side. Rose’s eyes began to close, but, spotting Scorpius, her blue eyes went wide and she suddenly shirked away.

“Not in front of Scorpius, Brad,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, sorry!” said Brad, grabbing Scorpius’ limp hand and shaking it firmly. “Hey Scorpius!”

“Hello Brandon,” said Scorpius in as nice a tone as he could muster.

“Always Brandon never Brad,” said Brad in a singsong tone.

“Well, Brandon is your first name. I could call you Bradley if you’d prefer. I don’t do nicknames,” said Scorpius with what he hoped was finality.

Brad fondly rolled his eyes, before they took a piqued interest in Scorpius’ neck.

“Nice robes! Are those Giardano?” Brad asked, reaching for Scorpius’ collar. Scorpius quickly maneuvered himself away from the impertinent hand.

“Er, yes,” Scorpius admitted, giving a sidelong glance to Rose who was giving him a curious stare.

“He’s quite a good designer. I have at least five of his robes in my closet, don’t I, Rosebud?”

She gave a snort. “Like I’d know. All I know about Giardano is that he’s a short Italian man with a penchant for pinching his interns, if Magnolia Longbottom’s stories are true. But since when do you wear anything like that, Scorp? You said that buying those overpriced robes was as silly as buying tea cozies.”

Rose seemed oblivious to the vexed look cross Brad’s face. Scorpius smirked.

“Yes, well, my sentiments are unaltered. Magnolia and your cousin Lily thought it would be fun to dress me up.”

Rose cocked her head.

“What ever made them think of that?” she asked, her brow crinkled in confusion. “I prefer your own robes. Much more traditional and fitting for you.”

“Agreed,” piped in Brad.

“Why did you say yes to being their guinea pig?” queried Rose. Scorpius felt as if he had been caught doing something wrong, but wasn’t sure why.

“Well, Lily just sort of showed up on my doorstep and barged into the bedroom—”

“She was in your bedroom?” she quickly asked.

“Well, she and Magnolia—”

“Both of them?”

“Yes. They had me—”

“Scorpius, who would have ever thought you were such a rascal!” Brad interrupted. Scorpius felt a surge of panic as Rose crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

“Yes. Who’d have thought,” she said in a snipped tone.

Before Scorpius could even form a coherent thought, much less a syllable of contradiction, Brad sat down and took hold of Rose’s hand, and her attention.

“So! I finished talking to all the guests, have saved all the food with preserving charms, and have made the last of the reservations for the venues. I know I didn’t help much last time, what with that important deal going on— but not this time. This time, I’m all yours.”

“Do you mean it?” said Rose, the sweetest of smiles working its way onto her face.

“I’m here to help,” he said kissing her hand.

Rose seemed to quiver a bit under his gaze and looked alarmingly close to pouncing Brad right there- until they all heard a faint buzzing noise emanate from Brad’s pocket. He quickly reached in and pulled out a pocket watch. In bold red letters the top of his watch read ‘Allenworth- Floo 34.’

“Drat! I really need to take this. Al, may I use your fire place?” asked Brad, already hunkering down and grabbing a handful of floo powder.

“Help yourself,” called Al from the kitchen with all the fondness of a half-starved Acromantula.

“And this needs to be private,” said Brad.

“Of course it does,” said Al in a mocking tone.

Brad waved his wand, encasing the fireplace in what looked like a large, transparent, blue bubble.

“Wanker!” Al added with relish, knowing full well Brad couldn’t hear a syllable.

Ever since the invention of ‘the buzzer’ professional witches and wizards were prone to darting in and out of other’s Floos for business calls. Being a Wizarding sports agent, Brad had been one of the first to own one, and had gotten into the annoying habit of using others’ Floos in a near constant state.

Scorpius found buzzers to be annoying gadgets that made him far too accessible to people. Always a private person by nature, Scorpius didn’t like the idea of people constantly demanding his attention, nor did he relish the idea of being indebted to others for Floo time.

He had a studied look of indifference on his face as Rose watched Brad spiritedly speaking with some old warlock, and taking out a Quick Quotes Quill to magically take notes. Rose crossed her arms and gave Brad a glare, but a look of hurt started to make its way into her eyes. Scorpius vaguely wondered what the penalty for cursing Brad enough that his ears permanently fell off would be.

“So, how long have you been playing ‘dress up’ with Lily and Mags?”

“This is the first time Magnolia has ever been to my house,” Scorpius smiled.

“But not the first time Lily has?” she asked in a surly tone.

“Well, no—” Scorpius answered, thinking back to the few times that Lily had visited his house along with Al and Rose.

“I see.” Rose looked to her fingertips that were steepled in an uncomfortable looking position that made them resemble a clutch of particularly tangled reeds. She was biting her lower lip.

“Rose, is something the matter?” he asked, gently untangling her hands.

“No… Why would anything be wrong?” she said with small shrug of her shoulders.

Perhaps this was the moment that Scorpius was looking for; a moment when he could steer her affections towards himself in some subtle way. Perhaps if he were to hold her again something would come of it?

Scorpius gave a quick look to see if Brad would interrupt. If he just eased his hand into hers, perhaps she would lean back into his arms and—

“I’m going to curse his bollocks off if he flakes out on us,” Rose muttered. Scorpius felt his breath leave him in disappointment.

“Well then I suppose you aren’t going to be having any children in the future,” Scorpius replied carefully, giving a nod to Brad.

Rose’s wand started to intermittently give off sparks as Brad finished his call and excitedly undid the privacy spell.

“We did it!” exclaimed Brad, scribbling down a few more notes by hand. Rose only glared.

“You might have to adopt at this point,” Scorpius muttered under his breath.

“Er, did what?” asked Scorpius when Rose continued to give a cold gaze and say nothing.

“I just got Melrose Finwick to be a starting Keeper for the Harpies! I thought she’d have to be a second, or stay with the Kestrils, which would have done nothing for her career. I thought it wouldn’t come through, but here it is! Coming through! I need to go over and finish the paperwork with them, of course, and I’ll need to renegotiate her contract again as well, but it’s all but done! This is amazing!” finished Brad in one long breath.

“That really is amazing,” said Rose. “Didn’t you say you would hand over all your clients to another agent during our honeymoon?”

“I told them to call me if there were any big breakthroughs. At the time the deal had dead ended, so it didn’t matter who was on it,” Brad said with an innocent shrug.

“So if this breakthrough had happened, say, on our honeymoon, you would have left me on the beach in the Caribbean by myself while you renegotiate a Quidditch contract for Melrose Finwick?” said Rose dangerously.

“What?” he asked, looking bewildered.

“Would you?”

Brad gave himself a moment to ponder this question, and then said, “If it meant getting the deal done right, yes.”

Rose had turned an alarming shade of red.

“Look, this is a big deal,” Brad supplied.

“And no one else could handle this?”

“Well, yes they could, but—”

“Our honeymoon was not as important to you as some Quidditch player’s contract?”

“Now you know that’s not true,” Brad said in a placating tone. “Love, we both know you’re making a mountain out of—”

“Don’t you talk down to me, Brandon Bradley!”

“Well if you weren’t being so impractical, perhaps I wouldn’t,” he said with a smile.

If this was meant to charm Rose, Scorpius thought Brad was gravely mistaken in his choice of tone and manner.

It was difficult to tell exactly what happened next, but within moments there was a flash of yellow light and Brad had been hurled into the opposite wall, his robes smoking.

Al rushed into the room, an expectant grin splitting his thin face. It fell upon seeing the action was all over.

“Damn, I missed it,” Al said, seeing a coughing Brad pickling himself up from the ground.

“You are all impossible!” she screamed.

“All? What did I do?” Scorpius asked, completely bewildered.

Rose ignored him, slammed the door open and Disapparated with a giant bang that resembled a potion explosion he had witnessed in Fifth Year.

“What in the world?” Brad let out.

For once, Scorpius found himself on the same page as Brandon Bradley.

“I have no idea,” he answered, watching the door as if it might supply an answer.

“Brad,” said Al.

Both Scorpius and Brad were startled to hear the name come from Al.

“I might remind you that there are Quidditch deals aplenty, but only one Rose Weasley. Perhaps you need to get out of here and apologize to Rose,” said Al in the gentlest of ways.

Both Scorpius and Brad stared agog.

“I think flowers would be a good gift for her,” Al said with a convivial smile, patting Brad on the back.

“Uh… yeah… Thanks, Al,” Brad said with a worried look on his face.

Both Scorpius and Brad didn’t know what to make of this, but Brad seemed too shell-shocked to respond in any other way than giving his thanks and Apparating away.

Al’s serene smile didn’t leave his face even after Brad left. Normally he would have taken this opportunity to call Brad ‘wanker’ or something the like. Instead he just grinned and headed for the fireplace.

“Why were you helping Brad?” asked Scorpius, feeling angry, but confusion tempering it quite a bit.

“She was jealous!”

“Al what—?”

“Jealous! Jealous!” Al repeated impatiently, as if this explained something. He quickly Flooed someone and stated to the grate, “Emergency! Arrive stat!”

In a flash of green flames Lily swirled out of the green flamed fireplace.

“What happened? Where’s Rose?” Lily asked.

“Brad showed up—” began Scorpius.

“Brad?” Mags asked, stepping out of the fireplace and dusting off her robes.

“Yeah. Git. Anyways, Rose is jealous of you,” Al said to Mags.

“What?” asked Lily.

“And you too Lily! She thought you two, like, had an orgy or something with Scorpius today, and is completely green-eyed.”

“Oh!” Mags said, before laughing and joining Al’s eager look.

“What in the world are you grinning about?” Scorpius asked, feeling quick peevish.

“I don’t know how you managed to get such high O.W.L.s when you are so bloody thick!” said Al with impatience. “Rose was angry as a Doxy-bit kneazle when you started talking about girls in your bedroom.”

“She was?”

“Yes, Prat, she was.”

Scorpius felt a smile beginning to form on his face.

“She was jealous of Lily and Mags,” he said in a dazed fashion.

“Yes! So we’re going to have to exploit that. Which girl are you going to pretend to be involved with?”

“What?” cried Mags lurching away from Al. Lily’s eyebrows creased and she stared at the floor.

“We need to get Rose jealous enough to realize she loves Scorpius, not Barton.”

“Brad,” supplied Mags.

Al ignored her.

“One of you needs to pretend you’re in love with Scorpius and in some sort of relationship with him. And it needs to be convincing.”

Both Mags and Lily stared at him and Scorpius with wide eyes.

“Look, neither of you needs to enter into this madcap scheme of his,” Scorpius said looking at the two girls.

“I’m certainly not going to,” said Mags giving Al a glare. Seeing Scorpius’ affronted look she added, “I’m just… Well, I’m sort of already involved with someone else. And I’m a terrible liar. No offense Scorpius. I just don’t think I could manage it.”

“It’s ok. Lily can do it. She’s a great little liar,” said Al, smirking until Lily kicked him in the shin.

“What makes you think that I’m not already in a relationship, Al?” she said, looking between him and Scorpius with a tight smile. Al gave her a pointed look. She started to flush and look flustered. “Ok, fine, I’m too busy to have a relationship right now.”

“Uh huh,” Al teased.

“I’m busy being a Healer! And there aren’t any god men around. And-and I’m not wanting one anyways. Who says that you need a man in your life to be happy? I certainly don’t! Who cares about what they think? Never noticing anything you do for them, and never calling— Who cares! I certainly don’t mind being completely and utterly unattractive to men because of my intellect! I certainly don’t need a man’s approval in order to feel good about myself and there is certainly nothing wrong with being single!”

Her sudden outburst left the others in stunned silence.

“Shit, Lils, calm down. There’s nothing wrong with being single, ok?” Al said, holding his hands up in a defensive motion.

“Nothing at all,” added Scorpius.

"So, Lily," Al started gently. "Will you do it then?"

She looked at Scorpius for a moment, her eyes traveling over his face in a searching way Scorpius found highly uncomfortable.

“Fine,” she said suddenly, another tight smile making its way onto her face. “I’ll pretend to be in love with Scorpius.”

“Good!” exclaimed Al, patting her on the back. “Then it’s settled!”

Al and Mags quickly laid out the plan of action, both very enthusiastic and passionate about its veracity as the ‘best plan ever.’ The two were so wrapped up in their planning, that Scorpius found it the perfect opportunity to address Lily.

“You don’t have to do this,” Scorpius whispered under his breath. “It’s just a silly Gryffindor plan.”

“Perhaps it’s just insensate enough to function,” Lily echoing his words from the hospital, making Scorpius laugh.

“You don’t mind ‘pretending we’re in love,’ then?” he asked sardonically.

“I don’t mind at all,” said Lily, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm.