“Are you okay?” Albus asked, his voice laced with concern.

Nat sat back on her haunches, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth, as Rose rounded on Albus.

“This is a girls’ toilet!” Rose yelled, effectively backing Albus out of the lavatory. “There could be first years in here, Albus. And you are a prefect!”

”What about the wards?” she asked when she could finally find her voice. “No boys in the girls’ dormitories.”

“What?” James yelled, spraying bits of chewed up chips everywhere. Then his gaze fell on Lily. “Omigod, omigod, omigod.” He put his hand on his forehead and then fanned him self dramatically. “Lily! How could you?”

“Go, Go, Gryffindor!” Albus mused, throwing himself across the four poster bed.

“Right down to the Gryffindor toilet seat cover,” Victoire giggled. She motioned to the door across from the bed. “Private bathroom. I’ll get you some extra towels eventually. Don’t tell my mother I’m such a bad hostess.”

Nat turned to her, her eyes tear-filled. “Thank you so much, Vic. This is really nice of you and Teddy to do…”

The whiteness started to fade, becoming darker and darker, and she hastily thought, I didn’t mean it. I like heaven!

“Does she really have the power to make us repeat a whole year?” Rose giggled and Scorpius slipped his arm around her waist.

“Of course,” said Hugo, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “she’s Mum!”

“Rosie, Scorpius is not cheating on you! He adores you! And for that matter, Hugo isn’t cheating on Mattie. You’re not cheating on Scor, and Mattie is probably not cheating on Hugo. There, problem solved.”

“Look out!” he called, seeing a group of students in the path of the careening book.

They arrived just in time to see a pissed-off looking Meghan Longbottom being helped to her feet.

“I know, okay?” She said softly, sitting down on his bed. “I’d have been blind not to notice.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he denied angrily

“You’re in love with her.”

She sipped the thick, creamy broth, munched on the chunky vegetables, and completely ignored the beef – it was a symptom of the pregnancy, her aversion to beef – all the while keeping her gaze trained down at the quilt beneath her. She couldn’t look up and see eight pitying eyes staring back at her.

“Ka-Ke-Kylie!” He seemed to grasp for her name, which wasn’t a good sign. But this was how she dealt with inebriated patients at the hospital:
“Aguamenti,” she muttered while pointing her wand at James.

“Yeah, I suppose it can’t get any worse than it already is.”

“Alright, Rose?” Scorpius looked at her with raised eyebrow. He even looked sexy doing that.  Darn it.