After his spectacular failure as an amateur pickup artist, Al decided to take on a more subtle approach: find Scorpius' friends, infiltrate them. Alas, Scorpius was friends with the likes of Poppy Goyle and Henri Zabini, and Al really had no intention of going anywhere near them if it could be avoided. So that left him only one option—namely, cousin Rosie.

Now, Al rarely listened to Rosie when she talked. It wasn't personal or anything; he liked her well enough, he supposed, and she was family. But she just tended to drone on and on about the most uninteresting topics, such as prisoners' rights or the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy—the mere thought of which threatened to put Al to sleep. However, he vaguely recalled hearing her mention the words 'classmate' and 'Scorpius' in the same sentence more than a few times, so it probably wasn't too big a leap to assume both Rosie and Scorpius had attended Magical Law School together.

"… close is hardly the word I'd use. But we get along fine, for the most part," Rosie was saying. She held a fork in her left hand and a long quill in her right, and was scribbling tiny notes in the margins of a terrifically tedious-looking file—all while picking absently at her salad. Al wasn't even surprised. Leave it to Rosie to work through her lunch breaks. "He's nice to talk to, smart, just … We've had coffee together once or twice, but he mostly keeps to himself." She tilted her head. "I'm sorry, why was it you wanted to know again?"

"Well, I could use your help"—Al flashed her his most angelic smile, the one that always caused Grandma Molly to forget why she was cross at him in the first place—"and possibly some intel."

"On Scorpius, really?" She paused, looking thoughtful. "How peculiar."

"What?" Peculiar wasn't quite what Al had been aiming for. To be honest, he'd been hoping for a very different reaction, one more along the lines of 'But of course I'll help you, cousin dearest.'

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing." Now Al really wanted to know. He raised an eyebrow, fixing her with the look that made even Gryffindors cower until she relented. "He dropped by my office earlier today," she said quickly. "He was here talking about you, and now here you are, asking about him. Quite unusual, if you ask me."

"He was here? But why?" The offices of Nauplius Arrington & Partners (NAP for short; a most appropriate acronym, in Al's humble opinion) weren't anywhere near the top of Al's list of fun hangouts. In fact, they weren't in the list at all. In fact, as a rule, he wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near them.

"You're missing the point. That's not the shocking bit, the shocking bit—" Rosie's mouth suddenly snapped shut and she looked up at Al with narrowed eyes. "Never mind. You—" she pointed her quill at him, accusingly, "—didn't even know he worked here, did you? Merlin, it's like you live in an entirely different planet, do you ever listen?"

Al smiled sheepishly. "Sometimes?" He wasn't feeling particularly guilty. It had just occurred to him that, if Scorpius was talking about him, then perhaps his efforts hadn't been as fruitless as he'd thought.

"I've told you at least a dozen times," she said crisply.

"What did he have to say about me, anyway?"

"If I'm not mistaken, the gist of it was that you're childish and insensitive"—Rosie shrugged—"and have somehow managed to annoy him yet again."

"That I—What?" But how? What had he done?

"Honestly, Al, I'd hoped this petty little feud of yours would be forgotten once you were both out of Hogwarts."

"But …" What feud? There was no feud. His father and Mr Malfoy had every right to hate each other in their own time, but that was really none of Al's business. "I've never done anything to him!"

Rosie frowned. "You did vanish his DADA essay back in sixth year."

"That was a miscast." Al had meant to vanish the ink blot on his hand, but then Scorpius had done that terribly distracting thing he did sometimes, when he was concentrating hard on something, with the tip of his tongue sticking out just a tiny bit from between his lips and …

"And there was also that other time, in the Great Hall," Rosie went on, "when you emptied a glass of pumpkin juice on his head."

"An unfortunate accident!" Al snapped. "I didn't do that on purpose, he was just standing in the wrong place."

"Well, he really must have rotten luck then. He sure seemed to be in the wrong place frighteningly often when you were around," Rosie said disapprovingly. "What exactly are you up to? I won't have you playing pranks on my colleagues."

"I want to ask him out on a date." Al doubted Rosie would appreciate the full version; the short, appropriate for all audiences one would have to do.

"Oh," Rosie said after a moment, and then again, "Oh, I see."

"Will you help?"

"Sure." She paused. "Just please try not to mess this up, will you? Scorpius and I might not be the best of friends, but if this somehow affects our work relationship, Al, I swear to—"

"Merlin—" Al rolled his eyes, "—what's with you? It's just a date." What harm could it possibly do? In the worst case scenario, Scorpius would ignore him for a fortnight, at the end of which they'd both go their separate ways. Just like that. No hard feelings. "I think I can get through a date without setting off some form of cataclysm, really."

Rosie gave him a wary smile. "Well, that makes at least one of us," she said.

"My, my—" Scorpius smiled winsomely over his shoulder, "—if it isn't the Falcons' star Seeker. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

In the absence of better ideas—and because he was still working on a deadline and whatnot—Al had decided to run with Rosie's dreadfully Gryffindorish advice ("First, you need to apologise. Only then can you hope for a fresh start.").

He had arrived at Scorpius' office with a whole speech ready for the occasion, only to be greeted—or rather, thwarted—by the sight of Scorpius standing on a stool, his back to the door, sorting through the binders on the top shelf. Merlin, did his arse have to look so mouthwateringly perfect in those trousers?

"Did you need something," Scorpius prompted, raising an eyebrow at Al before turning back around, "or did you just feel like standing there gawping at me for a while?"

Al swallowed. It seemed to be all he was capable of doing as Scorpius reached up once more to pull out a rather generic-looking folder—it made Scorpius' neat white shirt ride up a little, and, (as the barest hint of skin peeked out from beneath the fabric), Al wondered, for a moment, if everyone else in the firm was somehow dead below the waist; there was simply no other way one could ever get anything done around such distractions. He then went on to wondering why Scorpius couldn't just levitate the wretched thing down from the shelf, like the wizard he was. Why wouldn't he, the bloody tease?

"Well?" Scorpius finally jumped down from the chair, turning to face him.

"Er," Al mumbled, "the thing is …"

"Out with it, Potter. I don't have all day." He wrinkled his nose in that way Al found so unbearably cute—never mind that Scorpius only ever did that out of irritation. "It might have escaped your notice, but this is my office. The place where I work."

"I …" Al cursed his mind for being entirely too focussed on writing sonnets to the gentle curve of Scorpius' lower lip. Now was not the time, damn it. He needed to stick to the plan; that was what plans were for. "I'm sorry," he managed at last.

"Sorry?" Scorpius looked momentarily stunned before he schooled his features into a bland sort of curiosity. "What for?"

"I know I was an arse to you, back in school, and I—"

"What exactly do you want from me?"

Al blinked several times. "Excuse me?"

"You've had years to apologise for that," Scorpius said. He held the folder closer to his chest, like a makeshift protective barrier meant to keep Al at a distance. "Why do it now?"

As much as Al hated to admit it, it wasn't that unreasonable an assumption. However, coming clean about his motives at this stage could only hurt his overall chances. So Al did what he did best: deflecting. "Are you doing anything tomorrow?"

"I have work tomorrow. Like every other Wednesday."

"Surely not all evening? Let me buy you dinner. You know, purely in the interest of apologising properly." Just that, nothing more. There was no need to rush things, after all—not when Al still had over a week to woo Scorpius. Dinner was a good place to start; if the way Scorpius' face seemed to soften was any indication, perhaps the place to start.

"Did you mean that, what you said?"

"Why would I lie about dinner?" Merlin, did Scorpius even know how to make sense? He might be the fittest bloke Al had ever set eyes on, but Al was beginning to suspect he was also something of a nutter.

"Not dinner, you git. When you said …" Scorpius looked off to the side, breaking eye contact. "Are you really sorry?"

"Sure." That wasn't all that hard. And it got Scorpius to finally relax his death grip on the binder he was holding, (or the Shield of Potter Protection, as Al had taken to calling it in his head), which could only be a good sign, right? If Al had realised he was expected to apologise for what had been, after all, nothing but a series of ill-timed mishaps, he might have done so sooner. Possibly.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Al tried not to sound as thrilled as he was feeling—with only limited success, if the way Scorpius' lips were twitching was anything to go by. "Can I count on you for dinner, then?"

Scorpius slowly shook his head. "No." Did the annoying bugger always have to be this … this difficult? "Now shoo," Scorpius added, "I have briefs to write."

"Why you little—" Al crossed his arms before he could complete that sentence and shoot his chances to hell, then uncrossed them, then—upon noticing Scorpius' glare—held his hands up and said, "All right, fine. I'll go." For now. And only because they didn't seem to be getting anywhere anyway.

"Oh, and Potter?" Scorpius said with a tight smile. "In the future, please refrain from showing up at my workplace unless it's for something work-related. Understood?"

"I will if you agree to—"

"Out," Scorpius barked.

Al managed to duck through the door in time to avoid the Bat-Bogey Hex thrown his way. Granted, it was a narrow escape. But he wasn't a Seeker for nothing.