Imperfection: A Scorily/Scorlily Fanfic

Chapter Twenty: Confrontation

The year ends, and soon summer is here. The students of Hogwarts all take the Hogwarts Express home.

Lily and Scorpius are still as happy a couple as ever. Al is slowly beginning to accept it as inevitable; he has actually been speaking civilly to Scorpius for the past week and no longer snaps at Lily at all. James has accepted it completely, and now refers to Scorpius as "my brother in law." The Potters have given their hearty approval, Harry in particular, and Ron has gotten to actually find the whole thing quite funny; he jokes about it in his letters. In fact, the only person who hasn't gotten at least close to acceptance is Rose.

Rose is hurting. She is still in love with Scorpius, and it pains her to see him, so happy with Lily, and know that his heart wasn't ever really hers.

She can't take her own heart back. It's trapped in a gilded cage known as Scorpius Malfoy. Nor can she really forgive Lily, though she knows it isn't the girl's fault that Scorpius has fallen in love with her.

No. That isn't what she resents. What she resents, rather unreasonably, is that Lily has fallen in love with him.

All her life, Rose has been the Weasley beauty, the Weasley genius, and not even a half bad athlete (she has to maintain her minuscule waist, after all). She's never wanted the title of family prankster. No, the Marauders take that prize, beating even James and Fred.

But she's always had nearly every other laurel to be awarded by the family. And even Hogwarts, up until this past year, has always viewed her as the school beauty and the school genius.

Up until this past year.

Rose has watched this past year as little ugly-duck Lily blooms. Lily, though she hasn't got classic features, milky skin, or hair like cherry-tinted gold, has a certain undefinable charm which only needed a lovely figure and a pointed, sweet-lipped face with huge hazel eyes to make itself known.

And it's made itself known now with a vengeance.

Rose, the previous beauty of the school, has watched, stunned, as her former admirers have begun to worship at Lily's shrine instead of hers (Lily herself, of course, completely unaware). She's watched as even that git of a Lorcan Scamander has begun to sigh after the Potter girl.

Rose is pretty. Lily is beautiful.

And Rose knows it.

Rose has always been a bit of a coquette, ever since age three, when she heard her mother talking about little Percy Belby's infantile infatuation. She's always enjoyed being the prettiest, the smartest, the sweetest.

Small wonder that when Lily, all unaware, comes into womanhood with all the innocent charm of naïveté and a lovely little face, Rose can't understand what it is that makes others drawn to her cousin.

Rose has always possessed a flaunting prettiness. Lily has always possessed true beauty, and it shines out from her every aspect now that love has perfected it.

And to make matters worse, Lily's determination to qualify to be an Auror has made her really work in classes. She now gets marks equally as good as, if not better than, Rose's, and many view her as the school genius now. Lily Luna Potter, whom even Professor Slughorn had to admit didn't work at all in classes a year ago!

Lily is blooming, and nothing Rose can do can stop her.

Rose isn't a bad person. It isn't her fault that her pretty face has always curried her favour. It isn't her fault that she's come to expect what she wants from others just as she expects the air she breathes.