Well, this is my first try at RoseScorpius. I honestly don't know where the idea came from, but it's been a while since I had so much fun writing something.
I hope you'll like it Alice, because this is for you – a bit late, but better late than ever I guess.
Don't forget to leave a review on your way out, it'd make me really happy!
Word count: 2990
and we could be chasing starlight
i.
"Hey you! What in God's name are you doing here?"
"Finally, someone's he-" began a young redhead girl that had definitely not been there before, but Scorpius didn't leave her the time to finish.
"What do you think you're doing? You can't be here! Do you have any idea of the kind of problem I could get into if someone saw me with you? What would my parents think?"
Scorpius may very well have been panicking a little bit, but he had his reasons. Very good reasons too, seeing as he was already late for his next lesson, and that not being on time in the Malfoy's household could lead to some drastic punishments.
Especially for him.
After all, at almost eleven years old, Scorpius was soon to begin his journey through the British court, and he had to uphold his family traditions which mean he couldn't afford to slack and being late to his lessons certainly counted that way.
He could still remember the last time his parents had been told he hadn't studied, how disappointed they had been and how… Well, let's just say that no further warning had been needed to make him do his best.
Which was why he really needed to get to the room that was at the end of the corridor now, and if that girl who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere could just move – if she wanted to end up in his father's dungeons it wasn't Scorpius' problem, he guessed some people were just masochistic like that – it would be perfect.
"Do I need to repeat myself? Move, you're in my way!"
The girl wasn't moving however. She seemed very content to just stand there, gaping like an idiot – or worse, like a commoner – since Scorpius cut her off. Admittedly, that hadn't been one of his best moments, but it was no reason for the other child to refuse to move.
Maybe it would be worth trying another approach though. His father kept telling him he had to work on his temper, and while he found it a bit hypocritical of his father to say that when he couldn't even stay calm when confronted with certain subjects, the advice was sound. Plus, she was a girl and her mother had taught him to always be a gentleman.
(it was still a work in progress though)
"Well? Do I need to remind you I'm waiting?" Scorpius asked less harshly before adding more politely, "Would you please move?"
It would figure that the please would be the thing to snap the redhead out of whatever place she was in.
"I'm sorry, but could you tell me where I am? Because I'm not too sure as to how I got there…"
Hadn't he been taught to keep his composure at all times, Scorpius would have gaped. Openly.
"What do you mean you don't know where you are?" He asked, his haste suddenly forgotten. "You cannot not know where you are! How else would you get there?"
Unfortunately for him, the girl wouldn't have the time to answer as Scorpius heard his tutor call for him. It was a shame – that girl seemed nice, and they were the same age. Scorpius knew having friends were for common people, and he was a Malfoy and thus uncommon, but surely he could have a companion, couldn't he?
He snuck a look toward his uninvited guest and as he heard steps getting nearer and nearer, he did the only thing he could.
He pushed the girl out of the way toward a nearby tapestry and gestured at her to hide behind it.
Or at least that was the plan. Because as soon as his fingers brushed against the intruder's arm, he felt like he had plunged his hand into a cold bath, and his finger phased right through what should have been flesh but instead felt like some kind of mist.
"Didn't I say? I think I died," were the last words Scorpius heard before his word faded to black as the shock overwhelmed him.
His last conscious thought was that those words had been said in a much too light tone.
ii.
He woke up suddenly and shot up in his bed. He had to hurry, or he was going to be late at his lessons. Why hadn't the servants woken him? It was supposed to be their job, and now who knew how much work he had already missed…
A chuckle shook him out of that train of thought.
Right – he had already gone to his lessons. Or tried to, at least, judging by the fact that he could distinctly remember never reaching the classroom because of a…
"Hello? Anyone in there?" Someone waved a hand in front of his eyes, and instinctively Scorpius looked up. To find himself looking at the concerned look on a half-translucent face.
He somehow managed to bit back a scream but not the reflex to recoil.
"Come on, don't do that now… I swear I'm not going to do anything to you. See?" She held up her empty hands and took a step back. Almost in spite of himself Scorpius found himself relaxing and managed to muster the courage to talk. He was in his own Manor after all, and it would take more than a, a ghost to scare him away.
"Who are you?"
"My name's Rose," said the ghost-girl with a smile so bright it could have outshone the sun, "I'd offer to shake your hand, but somehow I don't think that'd work."
And just like that, Scorpius found himself smiling back.
(Rose wasn't so bad for a ghost-girl – maybe if she stayed it would finally ease the loneliness in his life)
iii.
"So… You're really dead?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I can't really remember much – one moment I was at home and the next I was here, looking like this," Roses said while gesturing at herself. She strangely didn't look that bothered at finding out that she was possibly dead, and it kind of got on Scorpius' nerves.
Had this been happening to him, he certainly wouldn't have been so calm.
"And you just decided to take a stroll through my Manor-"
"Your Manor? Really?"
"Yes, mine. Well, my parents' for now, but it'll be mine soon enough. But that's not the point. How can you not know if you're dead or not?"
"It's a long story."
"Since my tutor didn't leave a note, I assume I've got all day. So go on, this just might make it bearable."
Rose sent him an assessing look – for what purpose Scorpius didn't know – before she relented and began her tale.
And it was such an extraordinary one that had he not be witnessing it himself, Scorpius would never have believed it – or rather he would have thought it to be the work of the devil.
Except that Rose wasn't trying to convert him, or to 'drag his soul to the deepest pits of hell', as he had often heard the priest say. No, instead she was weaving the story of ordinary people who had had the fortune of being born with something extraordinary, something magical.
"My parents are like that," Rose said, "my mother even grew up in your world but she found us and we taught her our ways, and that's how she met my father. They'd never hurt anyone unless provoked."
"They sound nice," Scorpius commented, almost sounding wistful despite himself.
"They really are. If I ever get out of here, I'll take you to meet them. My mother's rubbish in the kitchen, but my grandmother can cook a feast worthy of kings. You'll like her."
And it was then that Scorpius realized just how she managed not to fall to pieces – because behind her carefully constructed walls, she definitely was. It showed in her nervous biting of her lips, and in the barely hidden pain in her eyes.
She was scared, terrified even, and the only thing holding her together was the faith that whatever was happening to her was temporary.
"I'm sure I will," he answered, because it was the only right answer, the only one that wouldn't end up with him having to deal with a broken ghost. A 'normal' ghost was weird enough for him after all, no need to make it worse.
"Anyway, if you can't… you know… find out what happened to you, you could always stay there. I mean, if you want. I know I'm probably the only person who can see you, so you might be lonely with just me for company, but it's better than nothing, right?"
He hadn't known it was possible to make a smile seem so happy and sad at the same time, but he understood. Well, as much as he could.
"I hope it doesn't come to that though. No offense, but I'd rather get home."
He tried to ignore the anger simmering at the back of his mind – he had been the one to find her, she had to stay with him! – and smiled maybe a little more tightly than he should have.
"None taken. So, will you finally tell me why you're in such a state?"
"Ah yes, that. It's probably going to sound a little weird-"
"Weirder than the 'I think I'm dead' thing? Because I don't think that's possible."
"Yeah, you're right. Compared to that, everything will seem so normal…" She paused a moment and cleared her throat. "Anyway, I'll just be blunt. I'm pretty sure I've been cursed. It's the only thing that fit, because I don't really feel dead – and all the ghosts I've met told me they clearly knew they had died-"
Scorpius chose to ignore that part. Even with his newfound acceptance of supernatural activity, he wasn't quite ready to hear that the dead could just stay behind and haunt their world. He had always been kind of scared by ghost stories after all.
"-even if I don't really feel alive either, which probably should be obvious seeing as I don't really have a body now. But I'm pretty sure that if I just found it again, I could be well again. And my parents are great wizards, they'll find a way to heal me, I'm sure of it, and even if they didn't they should be able to see me and tell me what I'd have to do.
"Well, what do you think?"
Scorpius wasn't sure why she was asking him, since he hadn't even known magic was real two hours ago, but he couldn't stop the next words from coming out of his mouth.
"As long as you don't ask me to kiss you, I'll help."
(it was a perfectly normal concern too, because everyone knew that the only way to help a damsel in distress was to kiss her – or at least, that was what the tales always said)
iv.
It took almost five years before Rose began to lose hope to ever find a way out of her situation.
It took Scorpius less than a year to fall for her.
He spent all the free time he had with her, half hoping she would somehow find a way to get normal again, and half praying she would not so she would stay with him. He showed her around the Manor and taught her to behave like a proper lady.
She taught him how to enjoy life, and what it was like to have friends.
(well, one friend. He didn't think he would ever have many beside Rose)
He laughed more in that one year than he had in his whole life, and wasn't that just sad?
But he didn't care. Every day, as soon as he was done with his lessons, he'd go find her and they'd pretend to be heroes trying to save the world from whatever evil plot menaced it.
Rose was smart, brave and she never complained about their games being to boyish like all the girls he had met thus far would.
She was different, unique even, and somewhere deep inside his heart he knew she didn't really belong with him nor in his world.
But that didn't stop him from wanting her to.
His parents never noticed anything had changed with him, and when he felt like being honest, he told Rose just how much it hurt him that his mother and father didn't seem to see that he was happier than before.
"It's like they don't even see me, you know. I thought they did, but if they can't even realize when things have changed for me, then how could they ever have really seen me?" He asked, and then she just looked at him with such sad eyes that he couldn't help but change the subject to something happier.
When he didn't, he just donned his mask and mingled in an aristocratic world he had come to see a glass prison, holding him tight in a place he wasn't sure he wanted anymore.
In less than two year, he would be a Lord, and yet the only thing he now thought of when he heard that title was that under all the glitter he would just accept another binding – and that was without talking of the wedding.
He was to marry a girl he had never met when he all he could think of were the shining smiles of a girl he could never touch.
Rose had been indignant when she had learn of it, though he knew it had mostly been because she couldn't believe that he would have no choice in who he would spend his life with.
Her concern had warmed his heart, but he had told her it was normal for him. It was even expected of him.
(once, he had even understood it – now, he thought of the stories of love between her parents and realized his own family never had that)
Sometimes, when she wasn't there, he could even make himself believe that the flash of something he had seen in her eyes had been because she wanted to be with him too.
But she couldn't. She was Rose, and she was just extraordinary – a witch, a remnant of a girl he would have loved to meet alive but probably never would no matter how much she insisted she could still feel a thread tying her to life.
And he was Scorpius, a Malfoy – great things were to be expected of him, but he would never be like her.
He should let her go. He ought to make her leave. Having her here would only make it harder on him when she finally left, either moving on or getting her life back.
He was just a crutch to her, someone she could lean on while she waited to be saved. He knew she would end up breaking his heart, because she wasn't here for him.
She would leave, and he would have to go back to his ordinary life, one without a laughing immaterial girl he wished he could hold hands with. Perhaps it would be for the better too.
However, he couldn't let her go now. Perhaps he would never be able to.
(he had never pretended he wasn't selfish like that after all)
v.
He found her crying. It was weird sight, because he could see her tears fall, but they never touched the ground and seem to evaporate midway to the ground.
He wasn't good with crying girls – usually he was even the one to make them cry – but this was Rose, and he had quickly found out that he couldn't stand to her doing anything but smile.
She was rocking back and forth against the wall, almost but never quite touching it and repeating through her sobs "I'm dead, I'm dead" like it was the only thing that mattered to her.
It was the damnedest thing that he couldn't reach to her. It just about broke his heart, and it made him feel like he wanted to vomit.
Who would ever do such a thing to someone as innocent, as wonderful as Rose? Who even could?
He kneeled in front of her and did the only thing he could think of.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he grazed his fingers just under her eyes, like he could wipe her tears away, "I'm so sorry."
She felt cold, she always felt cold and he shivered. He kept at it until she stopped crying though, even if by then his fingers felt frozen and his knees ached.
"Thank you," she finally said, and he was surprised to hear that her voice was rough when he had only ever heard it smooth, "but you shouldn't have. I know… I know this makes you uncomfortable," she finished as she gestured at herself and the fingers he was trying to warm.
"Nothing you do could ever make me uncomfortable," he answered without thinking, and was almost bewildered to realize that it's true.
She smiled but he sees in her eyes that she didn't believe him.
He had never wanted so much to kiss her, but now was not the time if there would ever be such a thing so instead he just got up and lead her outside where she gazed up at the shining stars above them.
(he didn't need to look to the sky to see a star)
vi.
Maybe years passed, or maybe there were just days.
Time passed, and in the end Rose smiled again. Something had changed that day, but they both played oblivious.
After all, their story was an impossible one.
But was it truly so? It takes only one kiss to break the most terrible curses, and in another world their story could have been one of the fairytales of old.
After all, love is a magic of its own, and one they both had plenty of.