A/N: Hello. This fic is much...sadder and heavier than what I usually write, though you guys might not notice. I don't know where it came from. So...yeah. Hope you guys enjoy, and don't ever take your friends for granted.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Still Alive

People said Rose was clingy, but Scorpius ignored them. Sure, she followed him everywhere, never left his side if she could help it (she'd even been inside the Slytherin common room more than once), but he knew that that was just Rose needing comfort and friendship. People said she was a bitch, but Scorpius laughed and told them that she was tougher than all of them, so they should get over it. People said that she was psychotic, that she was suicidal, that she was on medication, but Scorpius hexed them or just beat them up physically if he was feeling particularly merciful that day. Rose was his best friend, his only friend really, and to hell with anyone who dared to say a word against her.

The problem was that most of the rumours about Rose were true, and clingy and bitchy were not the worst of them. Not by far. Rose did get depressed sometimes, she suffered drastic mood swings and…yeah, she had once tried to kill herself. Scorpius lived in fear that one day she would try to do it again, and that she would succeed. No one knew, because she had begged him, tears cascading down her pale face, not to tell her parents.

'They'll lock me up, Scorpius!' she had cried, gripping his wrist in a painful hold. 'They will – I know they will!'

They'd only been thirteen years old then, and he had been terrified, scared of what she would do if he did not agree. And so he had promised, watching her as she visibly calmed down, even giving him a shaky hug.

From then on, he defended her secret, and kept a closer eye on his best friend. It wasn't easy. He tried to stay with Rose as much as he could, telling jokes and doing things for her just to see her laugh. Every week he would cast a Disillusionment Charm over himself and sneak into her dormitory inside Gryffindor Tower, checking her things for sharp objects and suspicious pills. He found them far too often, and each time his heart would break as he carefully Vanished them away.

If only he could Vanish her troubles away just as easily.

Their peers were not stupid, and they began to talk when they saw Rose breaking down into sobs for no obvious reason. Rumours spread quickly, and he tried his best to silence them, to keep the worst of them out of her hearing. He kept her together when she felt like falling apart. Defending Rose had gotten him into so many detentions that he had lost count, and his once perfect grades slipped, until they had slid so low that there was no hope of retrieving them. His teachers picked up on this, and tried to get him to tell them the reason why, but Scorpius held out and didn't say a word.

They asked him, 'Is something happening at home?' Scorpius would say, in his quiet voice, 'No, Professor.'

'Are any of the other students bothering you?'

'No, Professor.'

'I just don't see why your grades have slipped so much, Mr Malfoy.'

'I don't either, Professor.'

And then they would give up, leaving Scorpius to rush back to Rose's side. Every time he saw her, smiling and waving at him, he would breathe a sigh of relief and say, 'Still alive, then, Rose?'

And Rose would smile at him with that brilliant smile of hers, and Scorpius knew that it was all worth it, just to see her smile.

It was his fifth year at school before he realised that what he felt for Rose was deeper than friendship. They were more than friends, because who would give up as much as Scorpius had for someone who was 'just a friend'? She was his whole life now. As he had coldly told his father during the holidays, this was no puppy love.

His heart may have been hers, but it still broke whenever he saw the barely healed cuts on her wrists, and the way she laughed and smiled but the happiness never quite seemed to reach her eyes. Sometimes it was all Scorpius had not to yell at her 'I love you, isn't that enough?' He knew that for her it wasn't enough, would never be enough, and so, that was how he made his decision to break his promise.

'I'll always be here for you, Rose,' he told her. 'The question is, will you be there for me? Will you be there…at all?'

She just looked at him. She had no answer.

'That's why I have to do this.'

Her eyes had widened as her parents Flooed into the fireplace, followed by the Headmistress and several Healers. She screamed and sobbed, shrieked at him and cried for him simultaneously as she was taken to a secure ward at St Mungo's. Her parents thanked him for doing the right thing, but he could never forget the look in Rose's eyes as she was led away.

…

It is a bright, sunny Sunday morning at the St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, when a blond-haired boy gets into an elevator. He rides all the way to the concealed sixth floor, where he gets off and walks to an unlocked door at the end of the hallway.

Inside the room is a sixteen year old girl with brown eyes and flaming red hair. She squeals and flings her arms around the boy as he enters. He smiles, a small quiet smile.

'Still alive, then, Rose?' he asks, and she smiles her own brilliant smile, one that finally reaches her eyes.