Rose Weasley fixed things. Anyone who has met her can tell. She fixed people and their relationships, she fixed teams and schools and programs and vases and anything that was even remotely hurt.
The only thing she never bothered to fix was the most broken one. The broken boy from a broken family who is just so utterly ruined.
The Slytherin house was in shatters after the War. Reputation in pieces, no one within the house was trusted anymore. As Head Girl, Rose tried to fix that. Give power and respect to those in the House.
There were things that were too broken to be fixed, even by Rose.
The Malfoy name was one of them. The name itself was blasphemy, anyone seen with it was immediately hated. The family was in disrepair, the Father too afraid to make his Father's mistakes on his own son. The Mother too distant, never wanting this marriage or son in the first place. Which left the son lonely and unloved and all around messed up.
Scorpius was broken. Broken beyond any chance of repair.
Rose was an antidote to everything and everyone. Everyone but Scorpius.
She never even tried to help him. Maybe it was his name and the reputation around it. Maybe she felt it too wrong to help someone from a family and house that was so against hers. But maybe she could sense there was too much damage for even her to repair.
He knew all of those were true. Everyone can see it. He was broken. So completely broken, broken from his past, constantly breaking in the present, and will never heal in the future.
The memories of the past mingled with the wounds of the present and the scars of the future.
He thought no one could fix him. He thought no one was as broken as he was. Then he found out who Rose Weasley truly was.
She was in an alcove at Hogwarts, and he could hear her sobs. There was a faint static around the area, a failing muffliato spell. Curiosity peaked in Scorpius. Peeking behind the curtain, he was fairly shocked to see the familiar and almost iconic dark red hair of Rose.
"What is it?" she snapped. Scorpius simply looked on, unsure of what to do next. "Never seen a girl cry before?"
"Are you alright?" he asked, unsure of what else to do.
She only laughed. "Does it look like I'm alright? Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected from you. Something better than that, I guess," she said, laughing again.
"Well apparently you're not. I suppose I'm trying to ask why you're crying your heart out in an abandoned hallway."
"That's better."
"Well? Why are you crying in a hallway all alone?"
"Oh, Scorpius, why aren't you crying in a hallway. You're just as screwed up as I am. More, maybe. Probably not, though. You know you're messed up, you don't try to do anything about it. I, for some bloody reason, try to not be. I help. If you can call it that." She burst out laughing again. "Doesn't matter what the hell I do, I don't change anything. Everyone is still completely broken. People don't bother to change it. They continue living like that. I try to make them see that. I try to fix things. They just don't understand how badly they need it.They don't seem to understand anything."
"Rose-" Scorpius started.
"Sh! You need to understand too! You're broken. Broken like me. Oh, the others are broken too, but not like us. They can be fixed, if they just realized it. We," she smiled "we can't be fixed."
Scorpius might have said something, but he had no clue as to what to say. While he was standing there, thinking what to say, Rose stood up, thinking as to what to do next.
"Rose-" Scorpius tried to start again, but he was cut off.
"We are broken, broken into pieces and burned into ashes. Ashes can't be fixed. They can only be burned again."
Rose leaned towards him and kissed him. Together, their ashes were burned and mixed and somehow, they were put together, closer and less broken than before.
\\0/
Rose Weasley fixed things. Anyone with half a brain cell could tell. She tried. She tried so hard, she tried fixing everything she could. She knew everything was broken in it's own way. She tried fixing people and their relationships, teams and schools and programs and vases.
The one thing she never fixed was one of the most broken things she's seen.
Herself.
She knew about being broken from as young as she can remember. Hermione and Ron Weasley's daughter. Harry Potter's niece and goddaughter. Parents haunted by the War. Fame at her every step of the way.
Expectations and rules everywhere she looked.
Brokenness everywhere she turned.
Oh, how much Rose hated to see all of that.
She was so tired of seeing all of it. Being as broken as she was, she hated knowing others were feeling the exact same thing. So she tried to fix it. Fix all the people and relationships and everything.
She listened, she suggested things, she did things, she glued things, she did everything she could for everyone she could.
But she never even attempted on herself.
Rose knew it was too much to even think about fixing something so broken. She could feel all of society's and her parent's and her teacher' rules and their expectations of someone so seemingly full and perfect. She could feel them strangling her, and crushing her, until she finally snapped into pieces.
They haunted her past, confused her present, and was all too ready to ruin her future. Brokenness followed her everywhere, she could see it on others at every turn. And then, when it all seemed too much, and she closed her eyes, trying to get away from it all, she saw it within herself, and that was worse than anything else.
Some days were worse than others, occasionally she could have one small victory, enough to make her forget about all the defeats. Take her away long enough to forget, and that was all she really wanted. To forget the brokenness everywhere, to try to imagine everything was still good.
But she knew better than to actually believe that.
She could always see it everywhere. Some days there were no respite, even for the shortest time, from the hurt and pain she could see everywhere. When it was like this, she went and hid away in an abandoned alcove, hidden from the world and its ruins by a curtain and a muffliato spell.
She would be alone with herself and her thoughts, a situation she often hated, but was occasionally the best she could think of.
Alone is what she had. It protected her from the world and it's hurt.
She enjoyed the brief peace from people and their problems, until a familiar and almost iconic platinum blond haired boy walked directly into her corner.
"What is it?" she snapped. She couldn't help herself, did he have to find her here? Couldn't people leave her alone; couldn't they understand her?
But of course, they didn't. No one could understand.
Scorpius just continued to look on with an anxious expression, not doing anything.
Why is he just standing there?
It brought out her Weasley-Gryffindor temper that no one thought she had. She brought it down enough to reply to him again: "never seen a girl cry before?"
"Are you alright?" he asked hesitantly.
Am I alright? Sitting here alone in a hallway crying, and he asks if I'm alright. She couldn't help but laugh, at him, at the situation, at herself.
"Does it look like I'm alright? Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected from you. Something better than that, I guess,"
"Well apparently you're not. I suppose I'm trying to ask why you're crying your heart out in an abandoned hallway."
"That's better."
"Well? Why are you crying in a hallway all alone?"
She expected the question, but it still took her back. She just let the words fall out of her mouth, without any thinking.
"Oh, Scorpius, why aren't you crying in a hallway. You're just as screwed up as I am. More maybe. Probably not, though. You know you're messed up, you don't try to do anything about it. I, for some bloody reason, try to not be. I help. If you can call it that."
She burst out laughing again, she couldn't help herself.
"Doesn't matter what the hell I do, I don't change anything. Everyone is still completely broken. People don't bother to change it. They continue living like that. I try to make them see that. I try to fix things. They just don't understand how badly they need it.They don't seem to understand anything."
"Rose-" Scorpius started, trying to get a word in. Rose had no clue as to what he would say, she doubted if he even knew what he would say. She continued on her tirade, knowing that if she didn't say everything she thought know, she would ever get to say it. Say how she really felt, all the time.
"Sh! You need to understand too! You're broken. Broken like me. Oh, the others are broken too, but not like us. They can be fixed, if they just realized it. We- we can't be fixed," she said with a small smile.
Rose could tell he had no clue what to say now. He didn't even try to say anything, he just stood at the same spot by the entry where he initially came in. Rose had no clue what to do either, she just stood up and started closer to him.
"Rose-" Scorpius started to say yet again, when he was cut off, yet again. She had things to say, and she was going to say them. She had no clue whether he actually knew what he was going to say, or that it was important, but she spoke over him anyway.
"We are broken, broken into pieces and burned into ashes. Ashes can't be fixed. They can only be burned again."
She knew the truth of her own words, and she could tell that he knew it as well.
So she did the only thing she could think of. Rose leaned towards him and kissed him. Together, their ashes were burned and mixed and somehow, they were put together, closer and less broken than before.