"Oh, Merlin save me!" I exclaimed, turning to look at Scorpius in outright panic.
"Hey, it'll be okay," he said, taking me by the shoulders and looking deep into my eyes. "It was an accident. You just need to tell Hugo as soon as possible and speak to James, make sure he doesn't... you know, say anything."
Scorpius was right of course, but I knew there was no way I could walk up to Hugo and say, 'Oh, you know how you're gay and you don't want anyone to know? Well I told James.' James was probably one of the last people Hugo wanted to know. He already teased my brother far too much.
Seeing that I was still fretting over how to tell Hugo, and how he would react, Scorpius pulled me into a hug and rocked from foot to foot, trying to calm me.
"Calm down before you have a heart attack at least, Rosie," he joked, trying to alleviate my fears with humor. I managed a weak chuckle but that was all.
"Sorry," I mumbled, referring to my lack of laughter as well as my panicking.
"So, are you going to go and tell Hugo?"
I shook my head.
"Rose, you have to. He trusted you with his secret," Scor said, making me feel even more guilty.
"I will," I interjected, "just not yet. I'm going to talk to James first and make sure he doesn't say anything to anyone else, namely Fred. He'll probably be celebrating in the Common Room, come on."
Hand in hand, Scorpius and I walked back up to the castle, his proximity lending me silent support. I tried to smile at him in thanks, but it ended up being something between a grimace and an apologetic smile, wobbling and threatening to slide out of place. At the Seventh Floor corridor, we could already hear the celebration going on the Gryffindor Common. There were cheers and shouts to be heard, which was quite an achievement, considering that Scorpius and I could also hear the pounding bassline of some kind of music coming from the radio that always sat on one of the tables.
I gave the password to the portrait of the Fat Lady and immediately had a red and gold banner thrown around my neck by Albus, who was obviously happy with his brother's quidditch win.
"You were great out there, Rose!"
"Thanks," I mumbled distractedly, peering around Al in search of James. Not seeing him, I asked Albus, "Have you seen James? I need to talk to him."
"Last I saw he was over by the punch bowl," he replied, biting into what looked like a Pringle.
"Thanks." Scorpius followed me further into the Common Room, the both of us looking left and right for James. Only he wasn't at the punch bowl anymore, and I couldn't see him anywhere. I leapt up onto one of the chairs and tried to look for the top of his head, seeking his black hair. I only saw the top of Al's head though, momentarily confusing him for James because of the exact shade of black they shared as a hair colour. In fact the only reason I managed to tell the difference was due to the messiness of Albus' unruly hair, while James' was neatly trimmed, him having had a haircut during the Easter holidays after months of Auntie Ginny nagging him about it. She'd be moving onto Al soon no doubt.
Sighing, I stepped down and shrugged at Scorpius, thinking perhaps to check the boy's dormitories in case he was somewhere there. There turned out to be no need as at that moment he swaggered in through the portrait hole and declared, "You're now looking at the newly signed seeker for the Cannons!"
A cheer went up through the room and James was hoisted onto a crowd of Seventh Year students' shoulders.
"Found him," I muttered to no-one in particular.
Scorpius watched with pursed lips, probably wondering what it was about James that led to the entire Gryffindor House worshipping him like a hero, even though he'd only won a game of quidditch, a feat which he had done many times before.
Darting between two Third Years, I found myself in the middle of the crowd surrounding James, who was still airborne.
"James!" I called, adding my voice to the din of the other Gryffindors shouting his name. "James! I need to talk to you!"
I had to shout his name five more times before he heard me. Signalling his carriers to put him down, he tumbled to a stop in front of me.
"What can I do for you, Rosie?" he asked, sounding slightly arrogant.
"I need to talk to you. Outside," I added, hardly moving my mouth and using a serious tone of voice.
I started heading towards the portrait hole, waiting for him to follow me. As soon as I stepped out of the Common Room, I felt better. The air was fresher and I was surrounded and pressed in upon by ten other people. I was definitely a person who needed my personal space, although Scorpius could invade that space as often as he wanted.
I waited until we had walked down the tower stairs to the Seventh Floor corridor before speaking though.
"I'm warning you, James Sirius Potter, that you cannot say anything - and I mean anything - about what I said earlier. Hugo's sexuality is none of your business and you are not to breathe a word of it to Fred, to Dom, to Roxie, Al, Lily or anybody else for that matter!" I said sharply, though containing my voice to a hissing whisper.
James nodded, the bravado he'd shown in the Common Room all gone now that we were alone (with Scorpius though). In fact, he looked warily at me as if I might lunge with my wand and stab him in the eye. I slid my wand into the pocket inside my robes as if to help squander his fears.
"I wouldn't say anything," James finally answered, sounding wounded. "I may lark about and play jokes and tease you guys, but you are my family and I would never do anything to hurt any of you. I'm not that insensitive, Rose. And I know that Hugo's...business is his...business; not mine. I was just surprised earlier."
"You were surprised?" I laughed.
"Yeah, but I guess I kind of knew in a way. Hugo never was like the rest of us was he?"
"And what's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, beginning to get riled up again.
"Nothing. Just that, you know, he was never a keen to play quidditch with us, and he always cared about how he looked - he literally spends an hour getting dressed some mornings - and he just never showed an interest in girls. If Al, Fred, Hugh and I went somewhere and saw a hot girl, he wouldn't talk about her like we would - he'd usually only ever say something about her personality."
I nodded. They were things I had remembered once I knew the truth, so I could understand exactly what James was talking about.
"Anyway, if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to my adoring fans," he told me, all his big-headedness returning after one, brief moment of him being down-to-earth.
"Just one question!" Scorpius said, finally saying something after being silent through the conversation.
"Yeah?" James asked, looking back at Scor from the foot of the stairs.
"What happened after the match?"
"Professor McGonagall took me to her office and introduced me to the scout for the Chudley Cannons. We talked for a bit, about quidditch mainly, and he asked if I liked to play on contract for the Cannons," James answered with a shrug. I had no doubt that if the story was that simple and unexciting, he would almost instantly change the story somewhat once people in the Common Room began asking him about it. It wouldn't come as a shock if I walked back in to find people asking me if I'd heard how James had had to save the scout and Professor McGonagall from a 'bloody great-big Dragon attacking her office' and how the scout had been so impressed by the feat that he knew it would be 'ridiculous not to give James a place on the team.'
Shaking my head slightly at the thought of it, I leaned back against the wall behind me.
"Well that wasn't so bad," I commented off-hand.
Scorpius nodded and came to stand before me.
"I told you," he murmured, his hands coming up to rest on my cheeks.
"Yeah, yeah."
"You know something..." he breathed. "I realized I haven't done this all day."
I was cut off from asking what by his lips pressing down on mine. His hands left my face only to grab my waist and pull me closer to him as my arms wound around his neck. My fingers twined in his hair, twisting strands of it about, as I opened my mouth and tried to deepen the kiss as much as was humanely possible. Breathless, Scorpius set me down on my feet - though I had no idea when he'd lifted me off the ground - and rested his forehead against mine and gazed into my eyes.
"You still need to talk to Hugo," he reminded me gently.
Nodding, I leaned up onto my tiptoes and kissed Scorpius again before returning to the portrait of the Fat Lady and saying the password to gain entry once more, except this time I was looking for Hugo.
Scorpius spotted him first, standing and talking with Louis and one of the girls in his year year, Carrie, the daughter of Lavender Brown who Louis never stopped talking about because of her pretty, chocolate-brown eyes and quite clearly fancied.
"Hugh, can I talk to you outside for a minute?"
Looking confused Hugo nodded and mumbled something to Louis and Carrie then followed me back out to the Seventh Floor corridor. Feeling a strong sense of déjà vu, I turned to Hugh and sucked in a huge breath before beginning. Scorpius was stood beside me again, and that gave me some strength and courage to tell him.
"I'm really sorry, and it was an accident and everything - I swear it wasn't on purpose - but I accidentally told James-"
"You did what!" Hugo exploded.
"I'm sorry," I repeated, trying to edge behind Scorpius as Hugo started forwards.
"What was the one thing I asked you to do? Oh yeah, not to tell anyone, Rose! I thought I could trust you!"
"You can trust me."
"Clearly I can't. I bet you've told them all about Jasper as well, haven't you?"
"No! I haven't told anyone about Jasper. I haven't even told Scorpius, I swear."
"I can't believe this!" Hugo stormed, ranting and raving as he paced in front of me. "Rose, how could you? I specifically asked you not to tell anyone because I didn't want James and Fred to know! It's bad enough that they tease me over the fact that I've never had a girlfriend! Now they'll be mocking me about this too! I hate you!"
Stunned, I stared at Hugo.
"Come on, mate, you know that's not true," Scorpius said quietly.
"It is," Hugo asserted.
"Whoa, Hugh, take it down a notch," James interjected, seeming to appear from nowhere. People in the Common Room are starting to hear and are getting interested.
"What do you want?" Hugo demanded, turning on James. "Come to mock me, to gloat?"
"N-no," James stuttered, taken aback by Hugo's sudden and unexpected anger.
"All of you just piss off and leave me alone!"
With that Hugo walked off, kicking out at the wall as he left.
"Hugh! Wait!" I called but he ignored me.
I stared after him, hoping he'd come back. I even blinked a few times, hoping that I'd find I'd imagined the whole scene but I opened my eyes to the same empty corridor with James and Scorpius standing beside me. Numb, I allowed Scor to steer me back into the Common Room. By now, with the star gone, the party had dissipated somewhat and most students had gone to bed, included Dom, Lucy and Lily, who were also most likely to ask me about what Hugo and I argued about. While Dom probably just wanted the gossip, I knew that Lily and Lucy would genuinely be concerned about Hugh and I. We never usually argued that much, and never as seriously as we had just then.
I waited for him to return all evening, only half-listening to Scorpius and James' conversation.
Every few minutes Scorpius would turn and look at me worriedly, his eyes lingering on my stiff limbs and unchanged expression.
"Maybe she's gone into shock," James suggested eventually.
"I'm fine," I mumbled, though neither of them were convinced.
Scor stayed another hour, though eventually he looked at his watch, noticed that it was gone one o'clock and unwillingly left, making me swear first that I would go to bed if Hugo didn't return in the next half hour.
James stayed with me and stared into the fire every now and again repeating the same few sentences.
"I don't know why he's so upset. Fred and I are never serious when we tease him. It's just what family do, isn't it?" he said again for what must have been the thousandth time.
At some point James and I fell asleep in our chairs and Hugo still hadn't returned. I hoped he wasn't outside catching hypothermia or something.
The next morning, I woke with a stiff neck and found James was still sat in the chair opposite me in his scruffy quidditch robes. Stretching and trying to work some life into my limbs, I shook him awake and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
"He's back?" James asked hopefully.
Shaking my head sadly, I walked to my dormitory and changed, seeing that the rest of the girls had already gone to breakfast, leaving me to wonder why no-one bothered to wake James and I. Sighing, I hurried back down the stairs, arriving in the Common Room at the same time as James who had finally put on some new clothes, wearing some Muggle clothing as it was Sunday and we didn't have lessons.
We went down to breakfast together, seeing that Hugo was already sat at the Gryffindor table. In relief, I hurried over to him.
"Hugo, thank Merlin you're okay!" I exclaimed.
I expected him to turn and at least say something, but he completely ignored me. He continued to pretend I didn't exist for the next two days, making me miserable. I hardly paid any attention in lessons while I focused on what in the world I was meant to say to make him forgive me. I was no fun for Scorpius when we did rounds together, despite the fact that he continued to spend practically every minute trying to cheer me up. He even suggested that he go talk to Hugo for me but I was afraid that would only make it worse.
Besides, it hadn't worked for James. He'd been trying to convince Hugo to forgive me, assuring him that he wouldn't tell a soul about his secret and that he didn't care if he was gay. He even tried the other angle that I had been defending Hugo when it slipped out, and that I felt really guilty and really sorry, but Hugo wouldn't listen.
My savior came in the most unexpected form. Jasper Radcon.
I didn't know what he said, or even how it happened, but Jasper somehow managed to convince Hugh to forgive me. I didn't want to pry and make the situation any worse. I didn't even question Hugo when he started to hang around with Jasper more and more. I was desperate to know if they were going out, but I didn't want to upset Hugo again, so I kept my thoughts to myself.
Scorpius and I were outside by the lake studying/sunbathing for our last exams about a month later when they walked past us holding hands. I gaped, only remembering to shut my mouth and act natural when they looked over and waved.
I smiled and waved back, feeling truly glad that Hugo seemed happy for once.
"Scor..."
"Yes?" he asked, looking up from his transfiguration textbook. "Is that...Hugo?"
I nodded and turned to Scorpius with a smile.
Scor grinned back and made to turn back to his book. I looked back down at my astronomy chart for a few moments, trying to memorize the constellations. Feeling that the sun was getting hotter, I touched my shoulders to see how warm they were.
"Scor..."
"Hmm?" he asked again, this time not looking up from his textbook. He'd clearly learnt to recognize when I wanted something. My dad always did the exact same thing. He continued to pretend to be concentrating on something until I actually asked for what I wanted.
"Could you rub some more sunscreen onto my back and shoulders?"
Sighing like it was such a chore, Scorpius bookmarked his page by folding down the corner - a behavior that always made me shudder - and turned to me with an exasperated look, though he grinned underneath.
He rubbed the cream in, chuckling at how pasty my skin was and how easily it burned. I still bore the slight red mark on my nose from the week before. And while I was still very pale skinned, Scorpius had taken on a slight tan, giving his skin a honey tone.
"Darn...., now I know I'll never be a supermodel," I said sarcastically.
He chuckled again.
Turning to push him slightly, I was surprised when he grabbed my arms and pulled me with him as he rolled and rolled. Momentum carried us further down the beach, the stones digging into our bodies through his short, into his bare chest, and into my legs, back, stomach, arms and neck where I was only wearing a bikini. It was a shock when the cold water of the lake washed over us.
Laughing, I splashed Scorpius in the face.
"I'm so going to get you for that," he declared, diving under the water and pulling me down by my ankles.
I couldn't even see him in the black water. My head broke the surface in a burst of bubbles and I was surprised to find myself ensconced in the warmth of Scorpius' arms. His lips touched mine before he pulled away for a moment to say, "I love you, you know."
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