Here We Go Again

It was a rainy, stormy night, and Julia had nothing better to do, than to take a pointless trip to The Leaky Cauldron. It was pretty busy, due to the inclement weather, and therefore very loud. She found it difficult to find an empty seat remote from the noise, but, soon enough, she found an attractive-looking table away from the people. Julia took a seat at it and got comfy, pulling out a book from her bag. It was a spin off of The Wizard of Oz, about the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. She loved the story "Wicked", though she read it numerous times before, she never got tired of it.

Julia continued reading, attempting to zone out the noises of the other people. It didn't work very well, but she was getting a few good laughs over two drunken men arguing over who would pay for their next firewhiskey. As strange as it sounded, she loved listening to drunk people talk. It was always nonsense, which Julia often talked of, and usually made her laugh. Though they got annoying after a while, and she just channeled them out again. She was getting into the story that she could recite word-for-word.

It was getting boring, but Julia knew she couldn't leave in such weather, she supposed she would get a room and spend the night there. In the meantime, she hoped something- or someone- would distract her from her boredom.

It was quite common of the Malfoy Family to stay at the Leaky Cauldron in the week before the departure to Hogwarts. They would rent the best rooms, stay there for a week, shop for new books and other school materials, then set off to Kings Cross. Today however, Scorpius was in his room instead of at diagon Alley due to the rainy weather. He was doing what he usually did when he was bored - reading. He wasn't exactly at his home or at Hogwarts though, and there wasn't exactly much to read. Besides his new coursebooks of course, but those weren't exactly what you would call entertaining.

Getting a sudden idea, Scorpius glanced at his watch. It was past 11, and his parents, twin and sister were probably asleep. The perfect time for some firewhiskey downstairs. Putting his books back in his bag, Scorpius walked downstairs to the main floor. Predictably, as it often was at this time of night, the room was loud and filled with drunk people. He quickly dodged past them and approached the bar, ordering a firewhiskey from the bartender, who gave one to him without a second look. Turning, he searched for a nice and quiet table away from all the people and saw -

"Julia!" he exclaimed, suddenly spotting her reading in a quiet table away from the commotion. "Haven't seen you in a long time," he said, sitting down opposite to her. Though she was reading, she probably wouldn't mind the interuption as Scorpius could tell she was looking quite bored. What she was doing reading in the middle of the night in a room full of drunk men looking distractingly gorgeous he had no idea, but he felt best not to ask.

By now, Julia would have been in her room already, snuggled in her blankets and getting ready to sleep, but she was too distracted by her book that she hadn't realized the time until she heard a familiar voice. "Scorpius!" She exclaimed, it had seemed like forever since she last seen him... perhaps it was some time in the late spring? Before school ended, she remembered. "I know, it's been too long" She agreed. Julia put her book in her bag and sat back in her chair, relieved that she now had someone to talk to.

Honestly speaking, Julia missed Scorpius incredibly, they were pretty good friends, but ever since the situation at the Valentine's Dance, she felt that relationship deteriorate. But, she still wanted to be friends with him, nonetheless, and, if anything, she still wanted to be more. But, she had to draw away from these thoughts, with Arthur in the picture, she didn't want anything to go wrong with him, either. He was a great person, and she couldn't risk losing him.

"So, how are you?" She sniffed, "Firewhiskey, eh? I think I'll go grab one for myself in a minute" She giggled. Firewhiskey sounded great at the moment, there was nothing else to do.

Scorpius hadn't seen Julia for almost three months. She was one of his best friends, and to see her here made him smile. Still, their relationship had gone quite complicated after the Valentines Dance. He had went with her, but the whole thing had been a fiasco, they didn't even dance there, and after that he didn't talk to her much. He was too proud to blame what happened on himself, instead he blamed it on Elijah mainly. He still wanted to be more than friends with Julia, but he had no idea of her relationship status, he hadn't been in contact with her all Summer.

"Oh I'm okay, looking forward to going back to Hogwarts," he replied. Unlike most people, he despised Summers. It meant staying at Malfoy Manor with his family and other Death Eaters. It also meant he had to spend more time with his annoying twin. "How about you? Did anything interesting this Summer?" he asked.

She directed his attention back to the firewhiskey, so he took a sip. "I can get one for you if you like," he offered. "By the way, what are you doing here anyways?" Scorpius asked, referring to the time and place.

Knowing that Scorpius still had somewhat of an interest in her life, relight the spark that she felt for him. Flashbacks of the good times they had spun through her mind, making her feel slightly dizzy, though she tried to stop them, they kept coming back. She remembered from the time she first met him all the way to graduation, which had been the last time she saw him. She remembered how much she missed being with him, he had always been great company, and her heart always felt warm and fuzzy when she was around him.

Julia quickly snapped out of her daze to answer his question. "Really? I'm sort of excited to go back, I mean, it is our last year at school, so it's sure to be great" She agreed. "Nothing remotely interesting, I went to Ireland," Of course, "but other than that, I pretty much stayed around here. I went out with Arthur a lot, though" She added. Arthur. The thought of his name made her feel like a traitor. But it wasn't like she was hooking up with Scorpius or anything of the sort, she just felt terrible that she was thinking of Scorp in such a way.

"That's alright, thank you, though.Excuse me for a minute," Julia smiled and got up from her seat and walked over, quickly, to the bar, ordering a firewhiskey. She sat back in her seat and took a sip of her drink, closing her eyes. It had been a while since she had alcohol, and it felt great to have it back in her system. The feeling brought back the blurry memories of those drunken nights with Elijah, one including last year's Yule Ball. She could barely remember the ball, though. She had gotten to intoxicated that the memory ended when a professor came over to the duo and asked what they were drinking. She chuckled a bit at the memory, though she had no intention in getting drunk that night.

"I really had no intention on coming here, I was on my way home and it started down pouring, and this was the closest shelter I could get to" Julia giggled. "What about you?"

"Yeah.. it is," Scorpius replied. Thinking about that, Scorpius realized he hadn't even given serious thought to what he would do after Hogwarts. Join the ministry? That was almost impossible now. Perhaps he would become a professor at Hogwarts, History of Magic or Charms perhaps. that was something he had always wanted to do. But then again, you never know. Professor Binns probably wasn't going to retire anytime soon.

"Arthur?" he repeated, not even bothering to ask about her trip to Ireland. "Who's that?" he asked. He knew who it was, he had been one year above Scorpius, and had graduated last year, but he never knew that he and Julia had been friends, so he asked so she gave extra information as to what the exact nature of their relationship was. It was odd, but for some reason he was very protective over Julia.

As she left, his smile vanished as he pondered on that. He glanced her direction as she was ordering firewhisky and grimaced. She had been his friend for so long that any change in that relationship would just feel weird, so why did he feel jealous about this Arthur guy? Deciding not to ponder on it, he turned and drank some more firewhiskey.

"Yeah, the weathers not exactly great right now," he agreed. "Well I'm staying here with my family, so Suzannah's here too, we've been doing shopping for school for the past couple days," he informed her. "I couldn't sleep, so I came downstairs.."

Julia really was getting somewhat excited to go to school that year, and she thought of what seventh year prank she would pull. That would probably be the most exciting thing that would happen through the whole year. She was considering breeding jack rabbits and setting them loose throughout the school- that would be fun. Or maybe putting toothpaste in all of the Slytherin boy's pillowcases. There were so many things to choose from, but she would definitely find something that would suit her best, and also be extremely fun.

Julia nodded to Scorpius, "Yes, Arthur Severus Poe" She said, smiling slightly at his name. "We've been dating for about three months now, he's really great" She assured him. Three months, that had been almost the same amount of time Julia was away from Scorpius. It seemed to be too long, too long to be away from your best friend whom you still felt feelings for. It was unusual for her to feel this way, especially because they were friends, it probably would feel awkward if they were anything more. Maybe she was just getting paranoid, or at least she hoped she was getting paranoid.

The weather was unsightly the past few days, but it was sunny this morning and afternoon, but the clouds took over by the time Julia was on her way home, leaving her with no choice but to go to the messy pub. But now she saw that it was a good decision. "Oh, Suzannah's here..." Julia groaned internally. She hated Scorpius' twin, she was extremely rude and loud, and she saw herself to be the greatest thing that ever happened on this Earth. Julia tried to ignore the girl altogether, but found it difficult because she was in all of her classes for the most part. "Well, then, we can hang out for a little while. I need to get a room, though. I'm definitely not going back out in that rain" She giggled, but then cringed as a flash of lightning lit up the room and loud thunder crackled. No matter how old she was, rain storms always freaked her out, she wasn't sure why. But the patter of the rain on the roof was somewhat comforting.

What Scorpius would like to do in his last year of Hogwarts was just to have as much fun as possible with his friends. You know, like parting every other day. Still, that was hardly possible. Last year of Hogwarts was the NEWTs (literally Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests), and as the grown ups, specifically his father and grandfather, liked to remind him, the NEWTs required your full attention. Scorpius did desire good marks but he wanted to have fun as well. After all, what was the point in life if you were just serious all the time?

Scorpius scowled when she said that they had been dating Arthur for three months, but changed his expression quickly after realizing she was looking right at him. Now he had a completely blank expression. "Good for you I guess..," he said slowly. "Whats this Arthur guy doing now? He's graduated right?" He noted that Arthur and Julia would not see each other for 9 months now, almost a year. A lot of things could happen in a years time. It wasn't really sincere, to wish something bad happen to her and Arthurs relationship, but Scorpius did anyway.

Scorpius smiled at her reaction to him saying Suzannah was here. She evidently shared his dislike for his twin, and he knew why. Suzannah was stuck up, proud and ignorant, and didn't even look twice at people below her. And if she did, it was probably just to humiliate and make fun of them. Julia was a half blood, and not as well off as they were, so of course Suzannah would not get along with her. To Scorpius all these things really didn't matter or make sense, he just acted like he cared because well, he liked being superior over mudbloods and muggles. "Yeah Suzy's here," he said. "Though she's probably sleeping upstairs, as are the rest of my family."

"Really? Well do you have any money?" he asked doubtfully. Cause he didn't and he doubted that she had enough to afford a room. "You could stay in my room tonight," he offered a bit gallantly - Though afterwards he suddenly realized that that didn't quite sound right. "Its a suite," he added. They had gotten two suites, which three beds each, which meant there was two spare ones.

Julia grinned slightly at Scorpius' reaction towards Arthur, it felt good to know that he didn't care much for her boyfriend, though she knew she should have found it disturbing. "Yeah, he graduated in June. It's going to suck without him in all my classes, I'm gonna miss him..." She noted. She could already feel the empty space in her heart where Arthur was, and she could also feel the slight presence of another individual, and she could clearly tell who it was. "But I still have you, I'll be following you around a lot this year, just so you know in advance" She joked. Julia was glad because Scorpius was also a Slytherin, meaning that she could sneak in to the boy's dormitory whenever she wanted to see him.

Sleeping? Wasn't it only ten past eight? Julia checked the time and noted that it was now almost midnight, she should have already been in bed right now, just like the other Malfoy's. "Oh, wow" She breathed, "I thought it was much earlier than that. No matter, I can stay awake until the sun rises" Just give me another firewhiskey She thought. "It couldn't possibly be hard when we're together" She smiled, being honest, "I mean, we've already been talking for almost an hour already, just think of how long we could go in a night" Julia giggled. It was true, they could probably stay up for over twenty-four hours just talking, and not need sleep at all, Julia could do that in the first place, but with Scorpius she could probably go longer.

"I have money, I'm sure I could scrap up enough to pay for a night here" Julia chuckled halfheartedly, she had money, but not that much, and she dreaded going in the rain to get home. "Really? That would be great! Thanks so much, Scorp!" She smiled widely. Now they were never going to get any sleep... they were spending the night! Wait. This sounded wrong- too wrong. Was she going against Arthur by staying with Scorpius? Well, it wasn't like they were sleeping in the same bed, and, by the sound of it, they would probably have separate bedrooms altogether if he had a suite. But what if Arthur took it the wrong way? What would she tell him then?

Julia shook her head, she was over thinking things. It would be harmless.

Scorpius noticed that Julia didn't seem quite upset about Scorpius' reaction to knowing she was dating arthur. He had expected a frown from her after her seeing Scorpius scowl in reply. Instead, Julia did the opposite, and smiled at his reaction. That made him wonder if she still had feelings for him. He quickly cleared these thoughts though, that was just being silly. The only time she had shown any interest in him was when she first met him. Afterwards, they had just become very good friends, and she had never shown any interest in being anything more. Scorpius had tried his luck at the Valentines Dance, but then Melanie and Elijah had wrecked that. He could still remember that day, it would have gone quite well. He partly blamed Melanie and Julia for that, but mainly Elijah. Who had asked him to come interfere anyway?


Scorpius nodded, he hadn't even noticed the whole hour pass just talking and drinking firewhiskey. His glass was already empty and he could already feel the woozy feeling he got after drinking alcoholic beverages. Firewhiskey, it was special in the regard that it (supposedly) gave you courage. Which really just usually made you do quite stupid stuff. "True that," he nodded with another smile. Julia seemed delighted that she would spend the night in his room, which made Scorpius quite happy himself. They probably wouldn't sleep all night of course, they had a lot more catching up to do.

"I should warn you though, Suzannah is there too," he added with a grimace. His younger sister, as the youngest one, had to share with their parents, whereas the twins got a room to themselves. He hoped that Julia wouldn't change her mind after him telling her that fact though. He was also quite upset about that, has Sue not been there, well you never knew what might of happened between them. But she was and so Scorpius wouldn't try anything like that. Besides, he didn't want to ruin the friendship between them again like after the valentines day dance.