Delicate - eng version

An April Fools Prank Gone Horribly, Horribly Wrong

"He's clearly in love with you!"

I awake with a start. This is the fourth night in a row I've had the same dream of Dom uttering those words. Although it was over two weeks ago, I can't get them out of my head. I mean, what if there was a bit of truth in them? Is Scorpius Malfoy really in love with me? It's all so confusing. I've been trying so hard to look for signs that he could have more than friendly feelings towards me, but so far he's shown nothing. Well, unless you count the other day when we were hanging out in the common room and he let me have the last Jaffa Cake. I'm not sure that counts, considering he'd eaten around six of them before that. And sometimes he catches me looking at him, searching for hints, and he looks really freaked out and leaves the room.

As if to add insult to injury, the situation with my parents has reached crisis point. On Saturday there was a trip to Hogsmeade, so Mum wanted to meet with me for tea and whatever else normal mothers and daughters do. I can tell you what normal mothers don't do is meet up with their daughters to ask their opinion about who she should bring to a wedding – as a date. I'm serious, my once sensible mother has lost her mind.

"You're bringing a date?" I cried in the middle of Patil Pasties, accidentally spilling my boiling hot tea all over my knees – thus adding more injury to insult and injury.

"I can't go alone," she shrugged, sipping her own tea, "It's a wedding."

"I'm going alone!" I argued, "And anyway, you won't be alone! Dad's going to be there!"

Mum rolled her eyes. "I can guarantee you your father is going to bring his own date just to annoy me," said Mum darkly, "I'm not going to be sitting on my own like a loner. So I was thinking I'd bring Cormac."

"McLaggen?" I asked, disgusted, "Mum he's married!"

"Divorced," Mum corrected me.

"And you hate him!"

She didn't argue that one.

"You're just bringing him to piss Dad off," I said angrily.

"Language, Rosie," she warned.

"Don't 'language, Rosie' me!" I was now sort of shouting, "This is just like Aunt Ginny told me! You did this in your sixth year!"

"He did it first!" she claimed childishly, "And anyway, I'm not just doing this to annoy your father! I need company too you know!"

"Well as you pointed out," I muttered through gritted teeth, "It's a wedding. You're not going be the only person there!"

I know she didn't listen to me. She just changed the subject back to my pregnancy by asking when my next ultrasound will be.

"I had one last week," I told her bitterly, "Thanks for taking an interest in my life."

"I am interested!" she protested, and I knew I was being a bit unreasonable saying she wasn't. She comes up to the school practically every day and I get mail from her and Dad all the time asking how I'm doing. It's completely my fault that I didn't tell her about the ultrasound. I didn't tell anyone. Everything's fine, I don't see the point in exciting people over some picture that you can't even see. I told Scorpius afterwards, and he seemed a bit annoyed that I hadn't brought him along. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let him come to St Mungo's while the gynaecologist looks up my you-know-what.

Oh yeah, Madam Pomfrey recommended I go to St Mungo's for checkups rather than to the hospital wing because the healers are more experienced with that kind of thing than she is. It's no big deal, I suppose.