THE SUMMER BOOK CLUB

Pairing: Scorpius/Lily

Rating: K+

Summary: Laden down with new responsibilities, Scorpius struggles to keep track of his friends.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Notes: Written for a 30 minute writer's block challenge on LJ. The prompt was '42'. I suspect most people will get the incredibly obvious direction that I went in for this.

The problem with being Head Boy was that people looked to you for answers. The even bigger problem was that no one told you how to answer them.

It was this unpleasant dilemma that Scorpius was contemplating as he left the Great Hall after breakfast on Saturday morning, with every intention of escaping the cloying attentions of his assorted housemates before they had chance to finish eating. It really was becoming unbearable. After all, he had done nothing to deserve the attention. He had not even wanted to be Head Boy. If it had not been for his father's certain pride, he would have turned the job down. There were responsibilities, too. Scorpius was not at all a fan of those. They ate into the time he could spend with his friends, with a never-ending list of meetings, planning sessions, and patrols. It was all getting to be a bit ridiculous, and it was not even Christmas yet.

He was halfway through negotiating his way past an inconveniently placed swamp (Peeves' work no doubt), when he spotted a small, familiar figure darting away down the corridor.

Lily.

His duties as Head Boy were abruptly shoved aside in favour of something far more interesting.

"Lily!" he shouted. "Oi, wait up."

The redhead paused, and then spun very slowly on her heels after appearing to contemplate whether to bother doing so.

"What?" she asked rather shortly, folding her arms across her middle. For a moment, Scorpius felt his eyes stray in a direction that would almost certainly get him hexed by Albus, if his best friend was ever to find out, and quickly dragged them up again. The look on Lily's face suggested that her brother was possibly the least of his problems. He frowned. Lily never got mad at him, not really. She would frown, and bluster, but she never actually got angry. It was one of the fundamental points in favour of their friendship. His chest tightened uncomfortably.

"You've been avoiding me," he said, giving voice to a suspicion that had gradually been beginning to dawn on him for the past week or so, ever since he had begun to notice her acting oddly.

"No, I haven't."

"Yes, you have," he told her, covering the remaining distance between them, if only to get away from the malodorous scent the swamp was giving off. "You ran out of the library when I went in there yesterday, and you haven't been coming down to watch practise, like you used to. You even slipped away when Albus was trying to talk to you the other day, and you wouldn't look me in the eye."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You think you're so smart, don't you?" She jabbed a finger at his chest. "You think you know everything, and you don't. You really don't."

He leaned back, trying to sway out of the way of her finger without giving any ground. "What are you waffling on about?" he asked.

Lily made an exasperated little sound. "You and your sudden personality transplant," she said almost accusingly. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear that someone had been brewing Polyjuice." She paused, and then noting his still stunned expression, added, "You're acting like a know-it-all, and… And, well, I bet if someone walked up to you and asked you the meaning of life then you'd have an answer for them."

"Forty-two," Scorpius joked, grinning down at her.

"I… what?" Lily exclaimed, clearly thrown.

"The answer is forty-two."

"You're completely barmy," she said, turning around and beginning to leave.

Scorpius reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her back. He made her look at him again, his hand brushing against the silky mane of red hair as he grasped her arm. Lily's hair was impossibly long. He did not know how she managed with it. Usually she would wear it in a long plait, but today it was down. It floated around her as she turned around to once again look at him. At least this time she was not glaring quite so fiercely.

"No, don't you remember? That book you gave me, when I came to stay with Albus last summer? He ended up with that weird rash, so your mum quarantined him. Remember? I didn't want to go home even though I was bored senseless, and you gave me that Muggle book, and told me to amuse myself."

He had, as well. He had taken the raggedy old paperback out into the garden of 12 Grimmauld Place, and proceeded to devour the contents under the summer sky. With James at his new job, and while Albus was safely locked away in isolation, there had been no one to distract him. Except for the occasional trip inside to cool off while sitting at the kitchen table with Lily as she did her homework, Scorpius had spent the time alone. It had been while he was talking to her on one such break that he had surprised himself by realising how much he was enjoying it. Lily had always been an odd, frequently overlooked fixture in his life. She was certainly still a bit odd, but she was now far from overlooked. In fact, Scorpius had spent a great deal of time looking at her ever since.

"You were being a pest," she complained, though he noticed that her expression had softened. "I was trying to do my homework and you wouldn't leave me alone."

"The way I remember it, I was trying to help you with you homework."

She snorted. "You don't even take Muggle Studies."

Scorpius shrugged. "I was bored," he reiterated. "Come on, Lily-Lu."

"Don't call me that."

"Albus calls you that."

"Albus knows that I'm not likely to hex him. Are you finished now? Can I go?" Without waiting for a reply, she did just that.

Dumbfound, Scorpius stared after her. A deep, unsatisfied feeling permeated through him as he did so. Lily was the one who had undergone a personality transplant, in his opinion. The Lily that he remembered from the summer holidays was soft, and gentle. She let him systematically plough through book after book from her collection, pointing out which ones that she thought that he would like, and invariably guessing correctly. He had learned fairly quickly that while Lily was not the sort of girl who liked to stick her head in a school book, she had a vivid imagination which was reflected in those books that she did like to read.

"Muggle books are the best," she had told him one day. "Wizard books are boring. There's always a spell to save the day. Muggles have to use their imagination more."

He remembered wondering whether any Muggle could possibly have an imagination as lively as his was, at that moment, as she leaned over the kitchen table and placed a plate of sandwiches down in front of him. Only a few moments earlier, he had been gazing at her back, admiring the way that she looked in her summer dress as she fixed them both lunch.

Realising that leaving was about the last thing he wanted her to do right at that moment, he strode after her. Lily looked up at him, her brown eyes wide with surprise, as he fell into step beside her.

She groaned. "Don't you have anything else you should be doing?"

"Not really. I finished my work last night."

"Swot."

He rolled his eyes. "And I can't work on the prefects' rota until Merry is done with it."

Even without look at her, Scorpius could tell that Lily had tensed. "You've been spending a lot of time with her recently," she observed, her voice carefully measured.

"It's sort of a necessity. She is Head Girl after all."

Lily mumbled something under her breath - something that sounded suspiciously like 'I don't know why'. Scorpius gave a half smile, even as a thought dawned on him.

"You're not jealous, are you?" he teased.

"No!" she said quickly.

"You are!" he laughed.

"No, I'm not. Stop saying that – and stop laughing!" Lily quickened her step, clearly intended to leave him behind. Scorpius matched it easily. When he looked at her again, he noted that her cheeks had taken on a distinctly ruddy appearance.

"You're jealous of the fact I have to spend time with Merry Hopkins. Really, Lily, you don't have to be. She's as boring as rock. She's the cheese sandwich of witches. Smells a bit like cheese, as well, actually."

"Don't be mean," Lily responded, although she did little to hide the amused gleam in her eyes.

"I bet fungus wouldn't even grow on her, she's so boring," he added dryly.

Lily's face lit up as she grinned, and Scorpius once again felt his chest tighten. This time, however, the feeling made a connection with stray thought that was idling around his brain. It was not that he suddenly realised that Lily was beautiful. He had decided that during the summer holidays, when it had finally dawned on him that there were parts of Albus' little sister which were no-longer little. Seeing her dressed in skimpy sun tops and dresses every day for nearly two weeks had ingrained the fact very firmly on his mind. No, his reaction, he realised, was because making her smile had been the highlight of his week so far.

He wanted to do it again.

Much to his annoyance, his breathing made an unnatural hitching sound as he tried to speak. "Merry told me to meet her in the library this afternoon, to go over the rotas."

"Oh," Lily said flatly. The smile she was wearing slipped a little.

"If I suddenly remembered that I'd already made plans, though, I wouldn't have to go."

Lily's lips parted slightly. Scorpius could see that she was contemplating what he had said.

Finally, she took a deep breath, and asked with false levity, "Did you forget that you'd promised to go over my Muggle Studies homework with me today?"

Scorpius breathed a sigh of relief, and then grinned. "Bugger, I think I did."

END