To Fracture the Mask
Rose X Scorpius
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
A/N: This is my entry for Round One of the Potter Project. The theme was non-slash romance, so I hope this came across. This isn't a traditional romance, but I hope you all enjoy it, all the same. Please review!
Rose
She wasn't sure what she'd done to make him hate her so much.
Everything she did seemed to get under his skin, and she had no idea why. Even the way she breathed earned her snide and cruel insults. She stepped on egg-shells around him, suppressing her true nature to prevent him from turning on her. She'd been at the wrong end of his anger too many times for her to risk being in that position again.
He could humiliate her, cut her down, and send her sobbing to her common room.
She'd always believed that Ravenclaws and Slytherins had an uneasy friendship, an alliance of sorts, and that was true in most cases. But Scorpius Malfoy was the one Slytherin that just would not befriend her, no matter the situation. She tried so hard to make him like her, but it would always go wrong and end with him insulting her existence.
Rose's father had told her all about the Wizarding War and the role her parents had in it, and so she knew of Scorpius' father, Draco Malfoy. Mr Malfoy sounded vicious, yet he had nothing on Scorpius. He made Rose feel like she was unworthy of life, and that she was a pointless individual. No-one quite understood the way his stabbing words affected her, perhaps him the least.
She just wanted to know why her existence irritated him so much.
What had she done wrong?
Scorpius
He could see her by the Black Lake, rosy cheeked and laughing without a care in the world.
Her flaming hair danced about her head in the autumn breeze, like a fiery halo, setting alight the air with her exquisite joy.
He had to stop it.
The sight of her caused a maelstrom of feelings in his chest, and that scared him. So he just needed to make her stop so he could quash these emotions and go about his day.
It was like this every day. He would see the ghost of a smile on her lips, and so he would snap a comment at her that made the smile vanish. He would see a glimmer of laughter in her chocolate eyes, so he'd push her to the ground and see the glimmer turn to an empty darkness instead.
He didn't hate her, but hated what she did to him. How she made him feel.
What gave her the right to force these feelings in him? She had to stop.
So he set off, out of the castle, and made his way towards the laughing figure. Pushing aside the horde of Weasley cousins, Scorpius stepped up to the girl, who hadn't noticed his arrival, and shoved her roughly to the ground.
"Stop it, Weasel. You look like an ugly idiot, dancing like that."
Rose just blinked up at him, and the hurt in her eyes made his heart squeeze tightly in his chest. Shoving her hadn't been enough. He needed to see her hate him.
"You make me sick. You're no better than a mud-blood. In fact, you're worse. You have mud-blood and blood traitor in you. You're filthy, worthless and disgusting. Stop forcing your hideous existence on the rest of us."
His voice was like a cobra spitting venom, and he could see the effect his words were having on the girl. Her face was expressionless, and her eyes blank. Why wasn't she getting angry?
He needed to try harder.
"I wish you were dead. I wish your whole family was dead. Even your little brother, Huge-o."
Rose glanced at her slightly over-weight little brother, and her features sharpened. Her mouth became a thin line, and her nose wrinkled up in disgust.
Scorpius watched her with relief as she stood up slowly, patted herself down, and promptly punched him in the face. He crashed to the ground.
He could feel the blood streaming from his nose, and smiled at the feel of it. It was like rain washing away his soul, leaving a blessed empty shell. He ignored the taunts of Rose's extensive friends and family members, and instead locked eyes with Rose herself, revelling in her hatred.
He felt so relieved.
Rose
He had taken things too far.
She had even resorted to hitting him, yet still he smirked, acting like he was better than everyone. She'd had enough. She was sick of him and the way he put her down. Rose needed to be happy, to enjoy her last few years at Hogwarts, and there was no way she'd let Scorpius Malfoy ruin that.
He was nothing. He was nothing but a self-obsessed little rat that deserved to spend his life in misery. She had tried so hard to be nice, but no more.
Now it was time to fight back.
Hitting him was the first step, but there was so much more to come.
But then he looked up at her, and she paused in her thoughts. She tried to make him see how much she hated him, but there was something in his stormy eyes that didn't seem right.
He looked relieved.
That was the last thing she expected. Why in the name of Merlin would he be relieved that she had punched him?
It didn't make sense.
She didn't notice that her facial expression had softened until she saw the relief drain from Scorpius' eyes, to be replaced by confusion and… was that fear?
Despite her better judgement, she put her hand out to help him up.
Scorpius
What was she doing?
He needed her hatred, her animosity. Why was she trying to be so insufferably nice?
It wasn't right. It wasn't what was supposed to happen.
He could feel himself faltering; feel a crack running down his mask. His hand seemed to move in slow motion as it was drawn to hers. He almost took it.
Almost.
He came to his senses and pulled it back, like he had suffered an electric shock, and just stared at her, bewildered and lost.
Why couldn't she just do it right? Why couldn't she hate him, and be done with it?
Why the pity? Why care?
The look in her eyes almost made him smile.
But not quite.
He felt a tugging at the corner of his lips, a swelling of joy in his heart.
But he couldn't succumb. So instead he frowned, not cruelly, but curiously.
What if it was just a trick? What if she wanted him to accept her friendship so she could tear him down and make him fall farther than he ever had? He already knew that she made him feel such strange things. What if she just used that against him?
She was a Weasley, after all.
His grandfather had warned him of them. His father had told him about Rose's parents at school.
But seeing her sincere expression, it was hard to believe she was anything like the rest of them.
He closed his eyes.
Rose
She watched him silently, saw the spectrum of emotions flash across his bloodied face.
Rose wasn't really sure what was happening, and what was going through his mind, but she did realise that there was more to him than his constant bullying.
She'd noticed his hand reaching towards hers, and the smile faint on his lips. But why?
He hated her guts, right? So why would he have even considered accepting her friendship?
But why had she even thought to give that to him in first place? Was it the conflict in his eyes? The anguish in his smirk?
She wasn't even sure if those things were really there, but if they were, she wanted to know why.
He had caught her off-guard, and the things she saw only made her want him to accept her friendship even more. She had seen through the fracture in his stony mask, and the little glints of light made her want to know him more.
It was the most irrational thought she had ever had, yet it felt like the most real.
She needed to know him. Not the cruel Slytherin boy, but the true Scorpius Malfoy. The one she had briefly glimpsed beneath the mask.
She would do anything to see that Scorpius again.
Scorpius
He could see something change in her expression. It was like she had resolved to do something, and he had a feeling that the 'something' involved him. What affected him the most was that he knew the 'something' wouldn't be bad. In fact, it would probably involve her doing something undeservedly nice to him.
He could just tell.
He wasn't sure why, but the thought made him feel sad.
Scorpius had been indescribably cruel to Rose, yet still she was willing to forgive and forget. Well, maybe not forget.
But it was a kindness that someone like him never deserved.
He needed to get away.
He pushed himself up from the floor, blindly pushed his way back through her cousins, and ran back into the solace of the castle.
He had a thousand new thoughts to process, and he couldn't do it with her looking into his eyes. She saw too much, that much he knew, and it made him feel weak and vulnerable.
He wanted to be alone.
Rose
She saw him leave, and her first instinct was to follow him.
Rose had always been so rational and intelligent, yet something about this moment had made all that leave her, and instead she was consumed with foolishness and insensibility.
She could see the faces of her friends and family, begging her not to go after him, but she knew it was the right thing to do. She felt it in her heart.
And so she did.
Scorpius
He didn't know why he headed there.
His father hadn't told him about the night Albus Dumbledore was killed, but Scorpius had heard rumours at school that his father had been there. He'd been the one who was supposed to kill him.
Scorpius couldn't imagine his father as a murderer, so he was glad when he learned that he didn't kill his Headmaster. Maybe that's why Scorpius was drawn to this tower. It symbolised, to him at least, that there was more to the Malfoys than just cruelty and blood status. The tower was the place where his father had not become evil; where his father had decided not to become the man the Dark Lord wanted him to be.
Scorpius had never spoken to his father about it, but he was proud of him. Some may have called him a coward, but he thought his father was brave for effectively defying the Dark Lord's wishes.
He was thinking about how terrified his father must have felt as he gazed out at the slowly darkening sky.
The sun bled slowly into the inky darkness, leaving nothing but a pink stain which itself faded into obscurity. Then, one by one, the stars blinked into existence, weaving into cosmic patterns that Scorpius could never hope to understand.
He'd needed space to think, and now he had an endless chasm above him, just waiting for his spilled thoughts.
But he kept silent, knowing that no matter what, he could never allow himself to let his true feelings slip out.
His mask had cracked, but all he had to do was fix it, and everything could be the same as it had been.
But he knew that wouldn't be the case.
Rose
Rose caught up with Scorpius just as blackness smothered the daylight.
She watched him as he stared out of the window, moonlight washing his features in a silvery glow. He looked almost ethereal as he turned to face her.
His face had settled into its usual mask, and she felt her heart sink at the sight.
Perhaps there was no hope for them.
Scorpius
He'd heard her before he'd seen her.
But when he did see her, he had to clench his teeth to prevent the gasp that wanted to escape his lips.
The moonlight made her seem ghostly, and her eyes shined like the stars themselves.
But he'd had enough time to prepare. His mask was back up.
It wouldn't take much to break it back down, especially now when it was so freshly put back together, and the sight of Rose's beauty almost tore it straight back down.
But being in this tower, where his father had been so brave, seemed to boost Scorpius' own strength, and he managed to hold the mask up, even though Rose was so close to breaking it.
He could see the hope fade from her silvery eyes, and though it threatened to tear out his heart, he kept his resolve and stared at her silently.
It wouldn't take long for the pain to numb this impossible love.
Rose
She knew it was hopeless to wait for him to show the person he really was under that mask.
Rose hated the fact that he'd finally shown her what he could be, yet still, he was so stubborn and proud. He would never fall for a child of a blood-traitor and a mud-blood. It wasn't in his nature.
But something about this strange day had made her dislike of the boy change to something different, something strange.
She would wait, and one day, she would manage to take down his mask.
She would fracture it, shatter it, and make sure he could never put it up again.
Rose just stared at him, and she knew he understood that one day, she would be the one to break him down.
But for now, she would keep up the pretence, knowing what the future held for them.
It was like a silent contract that only the stares bore witness too.
He was hers, and she was his.
She just had to wait.