Closer to Perfection

by slightlysmall

Just after graduating from Hogwarts, Rose is content to spend her summer moping at the Burrow, and the last thing she wants is to see, talk to, or even think about her now-ex-boyfriend Scorpius Malfoy. But it's really hard to avoid him when he shows up at the door.

"Scorpius is here."

Rose sat up cross-legged on the bed where she had been content to mope since arriving at the Burrow the night before. "But Gran-"

"You're going to have to talk to him at some point, you know. May as well be now, while you have family here. If worse comes to worst, I'm sure at least half of us will take your side in a duel." Molly Weasley smiled at her granddaughter, a sparkle in her eye. She leaned down to kiss Rose's forehead, then left the bedroom.

Rose grumbled but didn't see what choice she had. Sure, they'd broken up, but they had been friends too long for Rose to subject him to the constant conversation of her cousins. Sure enough, as she made her way down the stairs, she heard Lily chattering away and paused at the stairwell to listen.

"I'm really looking forward to N.E.W.T.-level classes this year," she was saying, "Especially Potions. That's always been my favorite class, and now those who didn't do well enough on their O.W.L.s won't be there. I like it so much better when slackers aren't in class anymore. So I guess everyone- especially Hugo- will be thrilled that I'm not taking Charms anymore. I just couldn't take that class seriously. It seems so silly, making crickets dance and banishing pillows. Potions is way cooler."

Lily barely paused between sentences and Rose had to stifle a laugh. From where she was standing, she could see the two of them sitting in the kitchen, Lily talking animatedly with her hands, Scorpius's elbows on the counter, supporting his chin in his hand. She always had appreciated how hard he tried to be interested in her cousins; but no matter now. They were broken up and that's all there was to it.

Never one to stay on the same topic for more than a beat or two, Lily was now rambling on about Quidditch. "Did Rose tell you I've been made Quidditch captain? And as a sixth-year, too! I really couldn't be more thrilled, but we have our work cut out for us. Ravenclaw's team has really improved over the last few years and we barely beat them in the House Cup. I wonder how Slytherin felt, being third."

Scorpius spoke for the first time since Rose started listening. "I was there, Lily, remember? And it was awful. I bet you the team has already put it out of their minds and made the subject taboo. You're going to have to train really hard to beat a team whose pride has been wounded."

There was a sparkle in his gray eyes and Rose felt her heart beating far faster than it should around an ex-boyfriend. As Lily droned on and on, Rose finished making her way into the kitchen. "Lily, leave him alone, will you? You've been talking his ear off since you went to Hogwarts."

Lily hopped off the bar stool, looking exactly like her mother. "Fine, Rose. I'll let you two lovebirds be." With that, she all but skipped out to the backyard, where a few cousins were just finishing a pickup game of three-a-side Quidditch.

"We broke up, Lily!" Rose called, but she was already too far gone to hear her.

Rose took the now-empty bar stool and tried to meet the eyes of the man beside her. "So," she managed.

"So..."

"Why are you here?"

"We need to talk at some point, don't you think?"

"Not really. The way I remember it, you stormed out of my house and slammed the door, swearing by Merlin that you'd never speak to me again. But you are."

"And I seem to remember you saying your father was right- that you never should've dated a Slytherin and I'm just as bad as the rest of them and you hated me and never wanted to see my face again. I'm pretty sure all of that happened before I-what did you say I did?-stormed out of your house." His voice was raising, his pale cheeks flushing, and Rose could feel the anger rising in her again as if their argument wasn't nearly two months old.

"Whatever, Scor. It's over now. We're over now. What in the world are you doing at my grandmother's house? Here to flirt with Roxanne, maybe? Or Dominique?"

"Dammit, Rose. No wonder I broke up with you. We can't even have a normal conversation without you accusing me of something!"

"I seem to recall that it was mutual. And what was I accusing you of? I was just asking questions! Merlin, Scor, stop twisting my words."

She slid off the bar stool and stomped up the stairs to Aunt Ginny's old room where she was staying, and under her heavy steps, she couldn't hear Scorpius following her. She had barely collapsed on the bed and picked a good pillow to cry into when she saw him appear in the doorway.

His voice was softer now. "Do you want to know why I really came here?" She nodded, refusing to meet his eyes. "I came to apologize."

Rose was nearly whispering as well. "Well you haven't done a very good job so far."

"No, I really haven't. But you have to admit you haven't made it easy."

"You're right. I'm sorry, Scor." She paused, looked down at the duvet she was absentmindedly fiddling with. When she spoke again, she didn't even acknowledge that Scorpius was in the room. "I just didn't think we'd ever be here, across the room and yelling at each other. Once we started dating... well, I thought we'd only stop dating on our wedding day." She swallowed back tears, surprised she'd even made the confession, afraid of how he'd respond. Sitting down beside her and squeezing her shaking hand was the last thing she expected him to do.

"Honestly, Rose? Me too. What happened?"

"Well," she replied, and the accusatory tone had left her, "the day after we finished at Hogwarts, you came to my house and told me that you were going to move to Scotland. And it was the first I'd heard of it."

"I know. That was a mistake and I'm so sorry. I should've discussed it with you earlier, found out what you thought about it. I guess I took it for granted that you'd want to be there, too."

"All my family's here. I may not always get along with them, but they're family. I don't know if I could live so far away from my parents, from Hugo, even my cousins. I just don't get how you could talk to me about getting married soon, but not about where you wanted to live."

"We'd be closer to Hogwarts, you know. Technically you'd be closer to Hugo for the next two years. As to your parents, you passed your Apparation exam top of the class. It would take minutes to get back to London."

"It's the idea of it, really. What if I don't like it there? What if we don't make any friends?"

"We'd have each other. We'll always have each other. Didn't we decide that ages ago when we decided to tell our parents about us?"

Rose smiled at the memory. "Yes, but it was all for nothing, really. Dad said, 'Bloody hell,' Mum said, 'I told you so,' and your parents just averted their eyes. Anti-climax if there ever was one. Would you believe Dad was actually upset when he realized we'd broken up? It was actually kind of hilarious. She did her best to imitate his voice. 'That Malfoy boy is going to pay for this, breaking my little girl's heart.' When you came over that day, I think he was expecting you to ask for my hand in marriage or something." Her eyes twinkled as she spoke, but Scorpius looked down, embarrassed.

"Actually, that is why I came over that day."

"Seriously? The day after we graduated Hogwarts?!"

"Well, would you have minded?"

She looked down, swallowed, spoke to the pillow still sitting in her lap. "Not really."

When Rose met his eyes again, she was stunned by how close they were sitting. His leg brushed against hers, and their faces were inches from each other. Scorpius reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear and leaned closer to her. She could nearly feel his lips against hers when the door creaked open and Uncle George stood at the threshold.

He took a step in and looked around the room, avoiding the bed entirely, as they scrambled apart. A moment later, he met Rose's eye. "Do you ever get the feeling that you've interrupted something?" And with that he was back out the door and shouting down the stairs. "Don't worry, Mum. They're in Ginny's old room. No, they aren't trying to kill each other. Don't mind them at all. I'm sure they'll come down for dinner when they're ready."

Rose and Scorpius locked eyes as George shouted, then erupted in giggles. It was Scorpius who managed to speak first. "So."

"So. I feel like we've been saying that a lot today."

"So what?" Scorpius smirked and Rose giggled again.

"I miss this- laughing together. How many times have we fought, anyway?"

Scorpius over-exaggerated his concentration. "Well, there was that time in third year when I beat you on a Potions exam and you accused me of cheating..."

"That was before we were dating. Should it count?"

"Absolutely! I can't believe you thought that a Malfoy would cheat!" He grinned.

"Okay," she conceded, "That's one. Then there was Valentine's Day this year, when I thought you'd forgotten me entirely and poured all your attention on Roxanne."

"But that was all part of the plan!"

"I know that now, but I still fought with you about it."

"Only because I wanted you to. Then you'd appreciate the candlelit dinner for two more."

"Still counts. Which means three, including the last one."

Scorpius met her eyes, squeezed the hand he was still holding. "We broke up after our third fight in seven years."

Rose sighed. "So we did. But at least it was about something more important than exam results or stupid holidays. That reminds me, you never told me why you want to move to Scotland in the first place."

"You know how I've always loved lakes, right?"

"Of course I remember, Scor. It hasn't been that long. That night in fourth year when you confessed that you would hate the Slytherin Common Room except that you could look out at the lake is one of my favorite memories." She smiled at the thought; that night they had really opened up to each other, talked about deeper things than school, friends, Quidditch. It was the first time she felt confident saying that Scorpius Malfoy was her best friend.

"Okay, well, my parents knew that too. And, well, they bought me a renovated castle along Loch Lomond as a graduation present."

Rose stared at him. "Wow. I got a set of books and new dress robes."

He rolled his eyes and pulled back his hand from hers. "I knew you'd take it the wrong way, Rose. That's why I didn't want to tell you."

"So what were you going to do? Marry me, whisk me away to the castle under the guise that it was our honeymoon location, and then surprise me by saying it's our home? Forgive me, but that sounds a lot more like a kidnapping than a marriage. Best thing I could imagine: finding out after I'd said 'I do' that I'd never live in England again." She looked at him with eyes pained and upset, and walked out of the bedroom.

She curled up in her favorite easy chair downstairs and began to cry, trying her best to stay silent and not attract the attention of the gaggle of relatives at the Burrow and not doing a very good job at it. Rose soon felt an arm around her and looked up, grateful to see her mother rather than a well-intending cousin.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Scorpius's parents bought him a castle in Scotland for graduation."

"Did they?"

Rose could hear her confusion. "Yeah. It's why he wants to move to Scotland, or at least it's why he's able to. He wasn't even going to tell me about it."

"Oh Rosie, men can be terribly thick sometimes."

"Yes they can. The worst part is I still love him so much. And if it weren't for being away from you and Dad and Hugo, I would probably love to live in a castle in Scotland."

Scorpius picked that moment to walk into the room. "Well, you can't know for sure until you see it. Would you like to go there with me?"

Rose nodded. She got up from the armchair she was curled into and took Scorpius's hand. They walked outside and she held onto him as they started spinning. As they landed on solid ground and the landscape came into focus, she couldn't help but gasping. A relatively small castle sat on a perfectly manicured lawn, the loch visible in the distance. They wasn't a motorway in sight besides the gravel lane coming up to the castle. Underneath summer's clear blue sky, Rose couldn't imagine a more perfect place anywhere. "Wow."

When she turned around to look at Scorpius again, he was down on one knee. "Rose Jane Weasley, I know I've been a bit of a prat these last few months, but you've been my best friend for seven years. You're the brightest witch I know; you're funny and sensible and cautious and brave- all sorts of contradictions I never expected to find in one person, but you are. You're everything to me and I love you so much. I can imagine a future without a lot of things, but not without you, Rose. You are my future. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she said, and once again she found herself crying because of Scorpius Malfoy. This time, though, she didn't mind, and cried all the more as he placed an antique diamond ring on her finger.

"It's Goblin-made," he said.

"If it were from you, I would wear a ring made of twine." She wrapped her arms around him and tilted her chin up to kiss him. The kiss melted into another and another, until she pulled herself away to say, "It's been too long since we kissed like that, Scor."

"I agree. Let's never go that long again, okay?"

"I think that's something I can agree to," she said, kissing him again.

"Would you like to see the inside of my -our- castle?"

"Of course!"

He showed her around, and she never stopped gaping. Each room brought more wonders, and it was maintained wonderfully and updated precisely to her taste. They sat down on a couch after the tour, and Rose looked at her fiancé. "It's perfect."

"So you think you could handle living here?"

"I'm sure I could manage," she said, smiling. Rose looked down at the ring on her finger. "It's too bad you never got the chance to ask my father's permission to marry me. I liked the idea of it."

"Actually, that's what I was doing while you were talking with your mother."

"Seriously? You were asking my dad for permission to marry someone you weren't even currently seeing?"

"Yes I was," he said, pulling her close to kiss her. "I knew you'd come around eventually."

"Well, I certainly can't fault you for lack of confidence. I love you, Scor."

"I love you, too."

Rose rested her head on his shoulder, looked down at her ring then around the room that would soon be hers, and was certain that nothing could be closer to perfection.

A/N: I'm not JK Rowling. I don't make any money writing these stories. Written for Lady's Writing School for conversations, the Adele 21 competition, and the Next-Gen Competition, which gave me the title. This is written in the same universe as my stories "Forging Bravery" and "24 More Hours" and directly references the events in the latter.