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Rose huffed and crossed her arms. "This is never going to work."
Lily shot her a look but didn’t reply, turning her attention back to Albus.
"I’m sending him to you when he goes all maudlin over this," Rose informed her cousin tartly.
"He isn’t going to be maudlin because this is going to work," Lily hissed, still watching her brother sidle closer to his goal.
James flopped gracelessly into the chair beside his sister. "Has he done it yet?"
Lily elbowed him in the ribs. "No, now be quiet."
Rose frowned at the both of them. They were leaned forward in their chairs as if watching a particularly suspenseful movie instead of watching their brother walk to his doom. "I can’t believe you two are betting on this. Poor Albus is going to be heartbroken and all either of you care about is who wins the pot."
"Shhh," they whispered in tandem.
Albus had almost reached Scorpius when Hugo joined them.
"What are we doing?" he asked, bewildered by the intense stares.
Lily just flapped her arm at him in a vaguely shushing motion while James grabbed his wrist and dragged him down into a seat.
"You’re about to watch me win twenty Galleons," James informed him smugly.
Lily glared at them both. "No, you’re about to watch me win twenty Galleons because this is going to work."
Hugo looked to Rose for a translation.
Rose heaved a sigh of one raised around the Potter brand of insanity her whole life. "Lily somehow convinced Al to finally approach Scorpius. And then she promptly bet James twenty Galleons that Scorpius will agree to date him, instead of punching him in the face. Which is what James is anticipating. And frankly, so am I."
"He could hex him too, that would also count as a win for me," James added eagerly.
Hugo looked from his sister to his spectator cousins to Albus who was blushing and staring at the floor while he apparently tried to woo Scorpius Malfoy.
"Thirty Galleons says it works."
Lily whooped and wrapped her arm around Hugo’s neck in the combination headlock-hug that she was known for. (You never knew if she was happy with you or planning to suffocate you until it was too late.)
James and Rose stared at him slack jawed.
"How could you vote against—"
"Where are you going to find that kind of—"
"Shut up and look," Lily spat, causing all of them to turn back to the two boys halfway across the library from them.
Scorpius was frowning and slowly reaching for Albus. When his fingers curled into Al’s tie, Rose began to stand.
"Great, now I’m going to have to break up a fight," she grumbled but didn’t make it much farther than that.
Because instead of punching or hexing Al, Scorpius had tugged him into what appeared to be an amazingly intimate snog.
Lily was doing a little victory dance in her chair. Rose was still standing, staring, unable to process the fact that she wasn’t going to have to stop a fight quick enough to realize she should probably stop them from the groping session they were initiating now instead.
James turned to Hugo with wide eyes. "How did you know?" he asked, awed.
Hugo shrugged. "I caught them making out in the greenhouse last night."