Name Game (completed)

Chapter Thirteen

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay, sorry it took so long for me to update, this is just something I threw together in 45 minutes, it’s basically a connecting chapter. Apologies to Jenk1120 for the way I portray Lily, but I’d planned for her to be like this form the start. Enjoy!

“Scorpius!” Rose flung her arms around his neck and ushered him inside. The warm air, infused with the scent of slightly burnt food enveloped him, welcome after the bitter wind. It was unusually cold for February. As Rose took his emerald green cloak (an undesired Christmas present from his grandparents) he glanced at her appreciatively, taking in her appearance. She was looking particularly pretty, with her faming hair curling on the shoulders of her indigo, V-necked jumper. Her long legs were clad in grey ribbed tights and a floral print skirt.

“You go on through.” Rose told him, indicating to the kitchen where everyone seemed to be gathered.

Obeying her, Scorpius went through. It was a large room, but overflowing with people, the majority of them redheads. As he scanned the ginger flood for Louis’ yellow blond, he caught sight of the bushy brown hair of Rose’s mother. As she was the hostess, he felt that it would be politest to greet her first. Making his way over to her, he passed Lily who was pressed up against the wall with one of the Scamanders. Scorpius suppressed a grin. He knew that Lily had already promised to go to the S.P.E.W charity ball with both of them, as well as several other boys.

“It was so kind of you to invite me, Mrs. Weasley-Granger.”

Hermione beamed at him, although he could see Ron glowering at him from the other side of the room.

“That’s alright, we’re so glad that you could come.”

“Scorpius, darling.”

“Hello Mrs. Weasley.” Emerging from the suffocating embrace, he greeted Rose’s grandmother.

“I was just saying to Arthur that you should come and stay with us over the Summer. We’d love to have you, and all the grandchildren come.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So,” Lily whispered conspiratorially in Rose’s ear, “Has Scorpius asked you yet?”

Rose blushed, and pushed Lily away.

“No.”

“He needs to hurry up.” Lily looked at Rose with big cinnamon eyes; she was dying to tell her all the scraps of gossip she’d picked up. “All the other girls, well, all the other girls worth dating, so that excludes the losers, have been asked.”

“Lily!”

Her younger cousin flicked a long strand of strawberry blond hair over her shoulder, and leaned closer.

“You know Roxanne?”

“Of course I know her, she’s our cousin!”

“That really fit Quidditch guy, Dave Robins, asked her!”

“Lily! You shouldn’t gossip about other people!”

“Hey mate. High-five!”

Scorpius returned the action, slightly bemused my Louis’ odd greeting.

“Rebecca replied to my letter yesterday. She’ll go to the ball with me!”

“You asked her by owl!”

Louis nodded, still looking immensely pleased with himself.

“So when are you going to ask Rose?”

“I don’t know,” Scorpius admitted, “I mean, I want to, but…”

“You’d better hurry up,” Louis told him, “Even if she is my cousin, Rose is hot. Someone else will ask her if you don’t. I’d do it now, when there’s no competition.”

Scorpius glanced over at her, and made a face.

“She’s with Lily!”

Louis grinned.

“Later then. Just don’t leave it too long.”

Scorpius settled himself in a corner with his plate of food. Rose was chatting with her cousins, and Louis was still loading his plate. As he raised the burnt slice of pumpkin quiche to his mouth, he overheard a few scraps of conversation between Ron and Harry that caught his interest.

“I just hope they’ll give up soon,” Harry was saying in hushed tones, “There’s a chance that without Voldemort, they won’t have the leadership to do anything too terrible.”

“But you said that they were searching for the resurrection stone – to bring You-Know-Who back to life.”

“True… but they probably won’t find it. I dropped it in the Forbidden Forest. No one goes there anymore, it’s “haunted by memories” or something. They think I still have it, if the robbery at my house is anything to go by. I’ve put the best Aurors on the job, but they know how to avoid detection.”

“So… you think that they’re not really risk?”

“Of course they’re a risk. But they don’t know where to find what they seek. They probably now think that I hid it somewhere, and’ll be searching for it, like we did for the Horcruxes. But if they change their minds, Hogwarts is where they’ll head.”

Ron swallowed.

“What about our kids? Rosie and Hugo…”

“They’ll be fine for now. The Death-Eaters aren’t much of a threat by themselves, and their numbers are pretty low.”

“What about Malfoy? Is he… you know, involved?”

“Not that I know of. I-“

“Hey, Scorp, mind if I join you?”

Looking up he saw Rose, hovering next to him, with a plate of half-eaten food.

“Sure.”

Rose bit into a piece of bread.

“Mum’s a seriously awful cook!” she joked.

Scorpius smiled.

“She’s not too bad…”

Rose laughed.

“Come on, Scorp.”

“Thorn…” He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes., and tucked it firmly behind her earThis was the perfect moment, if only he could pluck up the courage. Come on, he thought to himself, the sorting hat considered Gryffindor, after all. I can be brave! “Do you fancy getting some air?”

Rose followed him into the darkening dusk in the garden. The early stars where already shining dimly above them.

“Rosie… I was wondering, well, if you’d… if you would like to go… to go to the S.P.E.W ball? With me?”

Rose laughed, and tossed back her hair. She pressed her lips against his, soft but strong.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to ask,” she breathed in his ear as she pulled away. “Of course I’ll go with you.”