The First Time I... | Chapter 7 (First Part)

[sanalayla]

 

The first time I allowed myself to actually entertain the notion of asking Lily Potter out, it was – unfortunately – much too late.

After the evening of the Valentine's ball, Lily's popularity rose steadily. Suddenly, the entire male population of Hogwarts was chasing after her, as though her date with Lysander had been just what they'd been waiting for.

Certainly, I couldn't point fingers at them, because even I was thinking that if she was capable of snogging a fifth year in public, then it wasn't a huge leap for her to go ahead and snog a sixth year. Namely, me.

I didn't get a chance, though. Lily, for whatever reason, wasn't the least bit interested in dating anyone. Everyone assumed she and Lysander were going to become a couple, but they stayed clearly in the friends zone after the ball.

Fourth-year boys in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw began making excuses to talk to her and tried to work up enough courage to ask her out. The Slytherin fourth years and other Houses' fifth years just went for it. She went out a few dates here and there, but never went out with anyone more than once. Things weren't helped by the fact that she'd suddenly decided to start wearing more form fitting clothing, and even started doing her hair and make-up properly. She had barely looked like a fourteen year old before, but now she looked like a sixth year, at the very least.

Not that any of them were talking to me about it. Every once in awhile, I'd hear comments about "the little Potter girl" or what-not, but they quickly shut up once they saw me, probably because they knew I was a friend of Albus's.

But it didn't matter, because Albus and James were paying attention, and Albus would give me detailed rundowns in the Slytherin common room, while he paced back and forth and ranted about how misguided his parents were.

"Mum doesn't even get it! I swear, Lily has been spoiled since she was baby. The girl could Avada Kedavra someone's arse and my father would figure out a way to blame it on her wand!"

It was a familiar rant I'd heard for years (apparently, Lily being the only girl and the youngest to boot, was pampered and spoiled in ways that James and Albus considered wholly unfair). Not having any siblings of my own, I always just took Albus's word for it.

"But she's not doing anything, is she?" I asked him, in what I hoped came across as a 'I'm only mildly interested in this because you're my best mate' kind of a way and a not a 'I really need to know, because I want to be the one your sister's doing something with' kind of a way.

Albus scowled and sat down in the chair opposite of mine. "I have no idea. No, I don't think. I mean, I haven't caught her snogging in any dark corners or anything." Then, he became serious. "But it doesn't matter, though, does it? Because everyone thinks she is. When you're a girl, that's all that matters. Even if my Mum doesn't care she's a girl, it doesn't CHANGE that."

I cast him a sympathetic look. "Listen, I'm sure she'll settle down at some point." For obvious reasons, I didn't add 'hopefully with me'. I didn't think Albus was ready to hear that yet.

Not that I was quite sure how to go about getting Lily to do that, truth be told. I had a moderate amount of experience with girls, but this was the first time I'd ever considered a girl who wasn't in my year. That made it so our paths very rarely overlapped, since we didn't have the same friends or the same classes.

And it was almost impossible to get her alone. Every once in a while, I'd manage to catch her coming out of the library (where she spent a considerable amount of time) or on her way to class. But the conversations would be very short, because she was invariably on her way somewhere or someone would join us within two minutes.

I decided that I would talk to her the next time I was at the Hollow, since no one was around. I figured that it gave me an advantage. So, when Albus and Lily planned a trip back to the Hollow for a weekend in So, one day, I followed her outside to the portion of the gardens where there was a fountain. I knew she loved to read near a fountain in a specific part of the small gardens surrounding the Potter's home at the Hollow.

When I got there (timing it so she got a ten minute head start), I pretended that I hadn't known she was there and apologized for intruding. Lily grinned up at me and put aside the book she'd been reading.

"It's no problem, Scorp." Lily glanced around the gardens and added, "I didn't know you came out here."

Lily was sitting on a stone bench, so I settled down on the edge of the fountain right in front of her. "Um… well, I don't come here often." I figured it wasn't exactly a lie.

With a nod, she looked at me expectantly, as though waiting for me to begin talking. And then I realized, with a start, that we never really spoke to each other much when we were at the Hollow. We spent a considerable amount of time in each other's orbit, but one on one? The instances were rare.

So, I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. "So, Lils, how's your studying for the OWLs coming along?" Inwardly, I winced. Was that the best I could do?

Lily, though, sat up a bit straighter, her eyes brightening up. "It's going all right. I have to confess, I'm a bit concerned about the History of Magic exam." She indicated towards the book she'd just put aside. "I'm going over some extra reading, because I'm just convinced that 1921 incident in Muggle Chicago, and the impact it had on legislature regarding the sale of Wizard alcoholic beverages to Muggles, is going to be on it. But it's not in our textbook and Professor Binns didn't cover it in class."

"Er… what makes you think it'll be on the exam, then?"

"I've been practicing past exams," she explained, leaning forward slightly. "And the question was on the 1975, 1983, and 2000 exams."

I stared at her in amazement. "You went back all the way to 1975? I only practiced past OWLs back five years."

Suddenly, she looked a little embarrassed. "Um… yeah." She glanced down at her feet and then back up at me. "I reckon you think I'm a bit of a nerd?"

I actually did think that, but I didn't think that in a mean way, so I just answered, "No, I don't think that."

She didn't look like she believed me. But she shrugged and said, briskly, "So, what are your plans, Scorp? My brother was saying you did fairly well in your OWLs. What subjects are you taking for your NEWTs?"

I gave her a list of the classes I was taking and she considered it for a second. Then, she frowned. "Those are the classes you're required to take to join the Auror Academy."

"Uh… yes, I suppose you're right." Flustered, I ran my hand along the edge of the fountain, avoiding her gaze. It was something I hadn't even discussed with Albus. My secret ambition to become an Auror.

"Well, have you talked to my father, then?" Lily asked, in a frank tone. "You should, you know. He helped design the training program at the Academy."

I had considered it, but didn't really think it was a good idea. No matter how many times I visited the Hollow, and how nice Mr. and Mrs. Potter were, I couldn't forget that I was a Malfoy. And that, if the stories were true, my father and Lily's father had detested each other in school. I’d asked him, once, in passing what it would take to become an Auror and he’d mentioned that one would need to score highly in their NEWTs and he’d listed the courses to take. But I hadn’t yet had the courage to ask him about my own chances directly. 

Lily must have sensed my hesitation, but she didn't press. Instead, she just asked, in a curious tone, "How do you parents feel about it? About you becoming an Auror."

I looked up at that. It was an odd question. With a frown, I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean…." Lily's voice trailed off and then she said, "Rose's parents weren't happy when she wanted to be one. And my Uncle Ron actually IS an Auror."

Blinking a bit, I realized she meant the safety issue. Well, the truth was that my parents weren't exactly happy. They'd always assumed I'd take over for my father and become the head of Malfoy Industries. But once I'd explained that this was something I felt I had to do, my father had accepted it.

I hadn't revealed it even to my parents, but the reason I wanted to be an Auror so badly was because I was sick and tired of people seeing the name Malfoy and automatically getting a disgusted look in their eyes. I wanted the name to mean something good again. To be associated with good; not evil. Twenty years or however many years down the line, when I dropped my children off at King's Cross to go to Hogwarts for the first time, I didn't want them to hear the words 'Death Eater scum' even before they'd boarded the train. And I figured the best way to accomplish that was to fight the very Dark Arts that had been my family's downfall to begin with.

But I didn't say any of this to Lily. Instead, I forced a smile to my lips and said, smoothly, "My parents are my parents. Not much to say."

She looked confused for a second but then shrugged again. "Okay, then." But, she did ask, "Why do you want to be an Auror?"

"Why do you want to be a reporter?" I responded, turning the conversation back around to her.

Lily raised a brow. "How do you know I want to be a reporter?"

I started laughing. "Because you created the Hogwarts Gazette in your second year. You either had a social death wish, or you really like writing for newspapers."

Lily flushed. "I still think Hogwarts needs a school newspaper. It's the best way to get the news in one place."

"Yes, but the problem is that gossip it the only school news that students care about," I told her, with a grin. "And you wrote articles about things like study schedules and the importance of doing well in your OWLs."

Lily rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Don't remind me. Albus and James will NEVER let me live that one down."

"As well they shouldn't," I replied, in a light tone.

She laughed. And then stood up, picking up her book. "It's almost dinner time. We better head in. And I have to finish this book by tomorrow. See you around, Scorp."

With dismay, I realized she was right. I got up and started to follow her back in. "Wait, Lily!"

She turned to look back at me, but kept walking. "Yeah?"

"I… um… I wanted to…." I stopped awkwardly and cleared my throat. But before I could finish the thought, Albus came walking towards us.

"There you two are!" Albus scowled. "Hiding, are you? Mum's on a rampage. She's made me change the table settings twice!"

"That's probably because you did it wrong the first time," Lily told him. But she quickened her step and followed after him towards the kitchen.

Letting out a sigh of frustration, I shot Albus a dirty look.

He frowned in confusion and said, "What?"

Shaking my head, I just said, "Nothing. Come on, let's go help your mother."

xxx

Before I knew it, I was in seventh year and Lily was in fifth. I felt the clock ticking. I'd be leaving Hogwarts soon, and I wondered what it would mean if I left before telling her that I was interested in her. In fact, was it even right to tell her that? She'd never indicated that she saw me as anything beyond a friend of one of her brothers. Sure, she would talk to me happily enough, but she never sought me out. I'd had quite a few girls interested in me during my time at Hogwarts, and I had gotten to the point where I could tell when a girl wanted something more. And I couldn't help but feel that I didn't see that from Lily. So, a mixture of fear, confusion, and pride kept me from revealing my feelings.

It didn't help matters that she'd actually started dating someone seriously for about three months. A stupid git by the name of Aidan McCormick. He was in my year (ironically) and he was in Gryffindor. When I'd been in sixth year, I'd told myself I never wanted to be the reason that a girl cheated on her boyfriend, and I didn't want to break that rule for Lily.

But, then, Al found me in the Slytherin common room one day and he was fuming. Apparently, he'd just heard from a good friend of his that someone had written something about Lily in the boys' bathroom in Gryffindor House.

"You think McCormick did it?" I asked Albus as I pulled my wand out of my pocket and started to follow him out the door.

Albus frowned. "No. He didn't. But my friend said that he was in the bathroom when a few other guys showed it to McCormick and you know what the arsehole did? He laughed. And made some sort of a comment that made it seem like he agreed."

My grip tightened on my wand and I felt anger bubble up in me. "All right, then. Let's find the bastard and make sure he never laughs again."

Albus shot me a gratified look. "Thanks, Scorp. I mean, if James were here…. But, I guess, it wouldn't have happened if James were here. Obviously."

"Yeah, I know."

It took a while, but we managed to track McCormick to the Ravenclaw common room, where he was waiting for Lily to come down since they were going out on a date. One thing led to another, and Al and I ended up hexing him and punching him a bit. We probably could have used some particularly nasty hexes that we'd been practicing, but there was just something satisfying about breaking his nose the Muggle way.

Of course, Lily didn't seem to understand that we were defending her honor. Instead, she used a Shield charm to protect the damn bastard from us and then ran off to take care of the situation herself.

I was about to go after her when I looked down to see Albus lying crumpled against the wall. "You all right?"

Albus groaned and touched the back of his head. When he pulled his fingers away, I saw that there was blood on them. "Damn it. I always forget she's a stupidly brilliant witch."

I leaned down and helped him up. "Come on. Let's get you to the hospital wing, mate."

xxx

When I'd sorted Albus out, who needed to stay in the hospital wing overnight for observation, I headed towards the Gryffindor bathroom to clean it up. And found Lily there, with a friend of hers, and they were arguing about how to handle the situation.

After some resistance, I managed to get her to agree to let me just get it off for her, and her friend left us alone to go be on the lookout.

It took some concentration, but I managed to do the spell silently. Auror Potter had told me that I should practice silent spells whenever I could, because that was the best way to learn. When I was finished, I saw Lily staring at me with a mixture of anger and – if I wasn't mistaken – a hint of begrudging respect.

"Did you just do that entire spell silently? That's above NEWT levels."

She was impressed. I hid a smile and said, modestly, "Just about NEWT levels, actually. But I've been practicing with your father."

"Oh, right, I see. Where's Albie?" Lily asked, making a show of looking around. "A little odd to see Twiddledee without Twiddledum."

I paused, having no clue what that meant. Who were these twiddle people? But it seemed like she expected me to know, so I just shrugged. "Your brother had to be taken to the hospital ward. He hit his head pretty hard when he got hit with your Shield charm."

"Oh." Lily considered that for a moment, and then her voice hardened again. "He deserves it. Unless you want to join him, I would suggest you stop butting into my life, as well."

With that, she started to head out the room, but I was sick and tired of her sweeping out of a conversation before it was finished. Not even realizing what I was doing, I beat her to it and stood in front of the exit, staring down at her in anger. "Why are you angry with ME? What did I do?"

"What did you DO?" Lily echoed, her brown eyes spitting fire. "Let me tell you something, Scorpius Malfoy, I do not need you or my brothers to fight for me. I am perfectly capable of doing it myself."

"I see that," I answered, coolly. My heart was pounding and I crossed my arms so I wouldn't be tempted to grab her and shake some sense into her. "Given this has been up here for two weeks and you've been snogging the living piss out of McCormick the entire time with absolutely no clue. You're doing a bang up job taking care of yourself, Lily."

"What do you care who I snog?" Lily answered, through gritted teeth. She crossed her own arms and glared up at me. "You're not my brother. And - in case you hadn't noticed - between my brothers, cousins, uncles, and even Teddy, I have PLENTY of over-protective male relatives. I'm not hurting for more. If you really feel the need to adopt a little sister, then I suggest you find yourself a little orphan girl!"

She made to move past me, but I grasped her arm and turned her back around to face me.

"Little sister?"

My jaw dropped as I stared down at her. She thought I looked at her like a little sister? I'd been lusting after this girl since she was thirteen years old and had, to my own embarrassment and shame, many mornings where I was forced to change the sheets because of dreams I'd had about her body the entire night, and she thought I saw her as a little sister? I'd been fighting my attraction to her, being the honorable prat that I was, for three years and – the entire time – she thought I was standing in line to be another one her of endless male relatives?

Letting out a soft sigh, I said, "I wish. Ah, Lily, I wish."

Which all led to the moment where I, in a hasty and clumsy way, grabbed her and snogged her senseless. My mouth descended on hers and I claimed her lips, swallowing her exclamation. Her taste was as heavenly as I'd imagined; she tasted like toothpaste. Her lips were soft and at first, she was utterly still. Then, amazingly, she melted against me and started kissing me back, all heat and passion.

My hands dropped to her tiny waist, and I deepened the kiss, matching her fervor with just as much urgency. She was molded against my body, and I felt my body responding. It was all I could do not to slide my hands down her bum and grind against her. After a long minute, I broke away, because I was suddenly aware that we were in the Gryffindor bathroom, for Salazar's sake, and groping her in a bathroom was not exactly how I pictured making my feelings known to her.

We were both silent and staring at each other, and then Lily stepped back, looking a little bewildered. "What was that for?"

Lily was flushed and her lips were swollen, her hair falling down around her face, coming undone from the loose ponytail it had been in earlier. She looked like she'd been thoroughly kissed and it made me want to grab her and mess up the rest of her hair.

Instead, I closed my eyes and let out a soft curse. "I'm so sorry. I… this isn't how I…."

"No, no, forget it." With a quick shake of her head, Lily turned and headed towards the exit. "I have to go. This… um… this never happened."

I watched, as she disappeared through the door, and wondered, with a quite bit of irritation, if she was even capable of finishing a conversation without running away. I considered chasing after her, but realized I needed to do something else first.

xxx

I made my way up to the hospital wing of the school and found my friend sitting up in bed, looking incredibly pissed off. I had a feeling the conversation wasn't going to go well, so I thought it was a good thing I was already in the hospital wing. When Albus hexed me into oblivion, Madame Pomfrey would be able to tend to my injuries immediately.

But, just in case, I brushed up against the night table and managed to jostle it enough that Albus's wand fell to the floor. Thankfully, he didn't notice. He was too busy ranting.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to fry her hair! I don't care if I haven't done that since I was six! I told you, Mum and Dad let her get away with too much! This is crazy!" Clearly, Albus was not feeling a lot of brotherly love towards his sister at the moment.

I stepped back a couple of steps and cleared my throat. "Uh, Al? I need to talk to you about something."

He stopped ranting and looked at me. It must have shown on my face how serious I was, because he immediately looked concerned. "Yeah? What is it?"

I sat down on the empty bed next to his and confessed, a bit abruptly, "I just kissed your sister."

Albus looked at me with a puzzled look. "I must have a concussion, Malfoy. I could have sworn I just heard you say you kissed my sister."

"No, you heard right." I paused and added, "But…er… you may still have a concussion. I'm not sure."

Albus sat up straighter in the bed and stared at me. "You kissed Lily? When?"

"Just now."

"But…." Albus looked utterly astonished. "You just went down to clean up the rubbish on the bathroom wall. How… when… where….?"

I took a deep breath. "Look, I did. I cleaned it. She was there. I don't know, Al. It just happened. I wanted to… I needed to tell you. You're my best mate, you know I wouldn't -."

Albus threw his head back and burst out laughing. Then, he winced and touched the back of his head. Chuckling a little more quietly, while I stared at him in complete bemusement, he finally said, "Oi. Where's the legendary Malfoy charm? You snogged her in the bathroom?"

Now, I felt like a bit of a prat. "First of all, I don't have legendary charm. Secondly, do you think I planned it? She just made me so angry and -."

"Wait, wait!" Albus cut in, holding up his hand, with a grimace. "No details, please." Then, he sobered up and gave me an uncertain look. "But what's your angle, mate? I mean, are you interested in her? Because she's seeing that arsehole -."

"I know," I interjected. Then, I took a deep breath, and admitted, "I've been interested in her for… some time. I just never did anything about it, because of you and, you know, she's younger…."

Albus nodded and then studied me for a minute. "I know you. You don't play around with girls. If you're really interested in her, then she could do a lot worse." His tone sharpened and he bit out, "She IS doing a lot worse."

I nodded in agreement. I hated that Gryffindor bloke with a passion.

"Let's say, for argument's sake, she dumps McCormick," Albus said, a bit abruptly. "You do realize that you haven't a shot with her, don't you?"

I shot him a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"You're my best mate," Albus said, simply, as though that were explanation enough. At my questioning look, he elaborated. "Lily never goes out with anyone that's either a friend of mine or James. It's like she's got a rule. I have no idea why – and, frankly, I don't mind – but that's the way it is. I just don't think," he finished, with a shrug, "that she sees you that way."

I thought back to how she'd responded when I kissed her. I smiled at him and said, "I can worry about that. My question is: are you all right with it?"

Albus shrugged again. "Look, mate. You're as close to me as a brother. In fact, you're closer to me than James sometimes. If you want to try to date my sister, I'll be fine with it." He paused and said, in a warning tone, "You might not want to tell James, though. He's not as cool about things as I am."

It was enough for me. With a grateful thanks, I picked up his wand off the floor and handed it to him.
 

To be continued in next part...