If Walls could Whisper
Okay, so this is my like 5th attempt at a Scorose fic, and I think I finally have settled on a scenario that I could write for more than 20k words.
This is set about five years after Scorpius and Rose graduated from Hogwarts. Not much else to say now, but will talk more at the endnote!
Disclaimer: This will be the one and only time I will mentions this, but yes! Thanks J.K. Rowling, characters and universe are attributed to you.
"He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it" – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
It was the kind of hot that could melt skin off and boil blood if you weren't careful enough. Constant blinking and baited breathing was also a side affect of the heat and surprising lack of humidity.
Despite the weather, Laurel Malfoy, the only daughter born to Astoria and Draco Malfoy, was humming pleasantly as she strode through the garden. Then again, Laurel had plenty of reasons to be at ease.
Being a Malfoy, she was born to one of the most prestigious and wealthy wizarding families in all of the United Kingdom. She was also the only daughter of a generous and loving father, who usually caved to all of her demands without much effort on her part. And of course, it was also the first morning of her summer break. Not that she disliked her school, Hogwarts, all that much.
But nowhere was quite like home, she mused as she passed one of the many water fixtures on the property of Malfoy Manor.
And what a manor it was.
It boasted a total of thirteen bedrooms, nine bathrooms and two acres of fenced and well-maintained lands.
Despite the large house and even larger garden, the atmosphere of the house was warm and cozy. The coziness was largely due to the great number of people currently residing within it.
About fifteen years ago, after a rather unfortunate incident, involving the S.P.E.W. and Lucius Malfoy's mistreatment of house elves, the Malfoys had to resort to humans for help.
Now there were about five live-in servants maintaining the manor, and those living within it, at all times.
One of which was working in the garden. When Laurel turned to find him bent over while pruning a shrub, his eyes were already trained on her.
"Morning Brent!" She said to the young, dark-haired, man.
"Good morning Laurel," he greeted her politely, while wiping the sweat off his brow using his wrist. "How was it waking up at home?"
"It was the greatest," Laurel said with enthusiasm. "I would have went to sleep again to relive the moment, but breakfast is waiting."
"They're up stairs, near the oak," he told her.
"Thanks!" She hollered over her shoulder as she hopped across the footpath. Brent's gaze lingered on her a little while longer until she climbed the stairs and disappeared from sight.
"Good morning everyone!" She said in greeting to the picnic set up towards the upward slopes of their property.
"Good morning!" everyone else coursed back. Her smile widened in response and she plunked herself down on an empty chair.
Though the term picnic might have been of an understatement.
A beautiful ceramic table and chair set was planted under the largest tree on their property. The table was set with all her favorite breakfast dishes: marmalade, toast, french toast, eggs (sunny side up, just the way she liked them), thick slices of seasoned bacon and a large loaf of sour dough bread.
"Good morning sweetheart," said a regal blond wizard, at least a decade past his prime. "We had the table here in the shade."
"Great thinking," she said, going in to hug her father.
Draco Malfoy was not the man he had once been, but in the best way possible. After the Battle of Hogwarts, his previous hatred of all things nonmagical had turned into impassioned tolerance. After the birth of his children, his cold and aloof nature had melted away to a loving father and pleasant person. After the death of his wife and parents, his love of appearances and arrogance had diminished completely to make him a more withdrawn person.
He hugged her tightly before letting her return to her seat next to him.
"Here dear! Take your bacon before it cools!" said a portly women, wearing a smile which simultaneously made her wrinkles more pronounced, and made her look younger than her age of fifty.
Laurel picked up her plate to accept the three strips of bacon that the women placed on her plate with a pair of tongs.
"Thanks Ms. Green," Laurel said to the women before gnawing on a piece rather enthusiastically. She caught Ms. Greens amused gaze before lowering the bacon to try and regain some of her dignity.
"Don't worry," she said warmly to the girl. "Herbert it grilling a dozen more! I'll bring them right over once they're done."
"They nearly are!" Herbert, who was also Ms. Green's husband, hollered from the grill. "When is your brother getting here Laurel? The last of the bacon is nearly ready."
Right as the words left his mouth, Laurel's younger brother, Philip Malfoy, came bounding up the stairs yelling,
"I SMELL BACON!" He settled himself down in the last remaining chair and asked, "Am I right?"
"Good morning," everyone around the table coursed again.
"And yes you are!" Mr. Green answered Philip's questions before walking over to the table to place a plate of bacon in the center of the table.
"Mr. Malfoy?" Ms. Green said, referring to the eldest Malfoy at the table. "We're done preparing all the food, we'll come back up once the tea and dessert is ready."
"DESSERT?" Philip yelled again, delighted.
Ms. Green smiled at the boy. But before he could inquire further about what exactly the dessert was, the giant plate of bacon distracted him, and he began to chow down on it ferociously.
"Please join us," Laurel begged them. Ms. Green's gaze turned to the oldest Malfoy again.
"Laurel has clearly missed all of you very much," he said, seemly torn between wanting to please his daughter and not wanting to force the Greens to do anything against their will. "But we don't want to inconvenience you."
"Maybe later," Mr. Green responded. "But we have a few more chores to get done before relaxing."
"Fine," Laurel pouted. "Then I'll come down to the kitchen later."
"It's a deal!" Mr. Green grinned, before descending down the stairs with his wife.
Once the Green's left, Laurel turned to her father, clearly ready to ask him something.
"Where's Miss Reed?" She asked him.
"She has gotten into the habit of walking in the nearby town in the mornings," Mr. Malfoy said to his daughter. "Usually she's back before breakfast, but maybe she took a longer route than usual."
"Oh," she replied, looking down into her lap.
Miss Reed's absence was the one small blemish in her otherwise perfect morning.
"Don't look so down!" Her brother complained, reaching to her plate to grab her last slice of bacon. "She'll probably be here in a minute. It's not like you won't see her every day for the rest of the summer."
"Easy for you to say, you still get to see her every day," she responded huffily while slapping his hand away from her bacon. "Whereas I only get her on the summers, winter breaks, and during Hogsmead trips."
"Like that isn't a load of time," he said.
Though she knew he meant it in a mocking way, but she felt that it really wasn't enough time. Miss Reed had been living with her family for as long as she could remember. Probably the best way to describe her position in her life is as a type of caretaker or governess, but both terms felt ill-fitted and formal.
When her mother had been alive, Miss Reed would usually just give Laurel and her brothers piano lessons, and teach them basic things that they would need to know at Hogwarts like reading, writing, and some arithmetic.
After Mrs. Malfoy's death, she had become an even greater companion, and was maybe the closest thing that she had to a mother.
Like always, after thinking of her mother's death, her mood plummeted, and she had a lot more difficultly engaging herself with the conversation around the table.
She couldn't help herself from looking at her father and seeing his tired expression. It had been seven years since the Malfoys had lost their beloved mother, and seven years didn't seem like long enough for time to heal the family's broken heart, and especially her father's.
Everyone who knew Draco Malfoy, before and after he met their mother, commented on the change he went through.
"He used to be a right prick and a bully if I'd ever seen one," admitted Professor Longbottom (who also insisted on being called Neville by all his students, though Laurel never could quite get the hang of it). She grilled him for details about her family after class in the second year. "But, I talked to him a few times and he seems like a changed man."
"Really?" She had asked, trying to imagine her father as a bully.
"But I reckon your mother did quite a number on him," Professor Longbottom's expression softened. "I met her as well, remarkable women."
From what Laurel could recall, she really was a remarkable women. Easy to make people laugh and laugh in return. Generous with her heart as well. Opening the Malfoy name up to those who usually would never dream of putting a foot on it's doormat. She also managed to remove a lot of the stigma by wearing it proudly wherever she went.
"What are you thinking of dear?" Her father said to Laurel, breaking her from her reverie, his grey eyes connected with her identical set.
"Nothing," she said smiling, gazing around the breakfast table. "I was just wondering what we were going to do for the rest of today."
"We'll think of something fun," he said winking at her.
She smiled back at him, noticing that the brightness didn't quite each his eyes. She then threw herself into their conversation with gusto, and as they sipped on their tea and nibbled lemon cake, she thought of how nice it would be to see him smile like when their mother had been alive.
Time heals all wounds, that's what they said at her mother's funeral.
"YOU DON'T GET A SAY IN WHO I MARRY!" A man's voice yelled at the top of his lungs. "IT'S NOT YOUR DECISION TO MAKE!"
Rose Weasley was a good floor, and two doors away from the racket, but she could hear everything being said downstairs word-by-word. She thought it was her brother's voice. He rarely yelled, so it was hard to tell.
"OF COURSE IT IS!" Ronald Weasley, her father yelled back with equal mirth.
Rose wasn't privy to the exact details from the conversation before the all the yelling started, but she could guess that it probably pertained to the topic of her brother's impending wedding to Aretha Zabini.
Irritated, Rose shucked her powder brush onto her vanity and made her way downstairs. She walked down the spiral staircase into the living room, to arrive upon the scene of her father's and brother's identical red-faced and angry expressions.
"What are going on about again?" Rose asked, clearly directing the statement at her father. "The wedding is the day after tomorrow. There is hardly anything you can do about it."
"Not now Rose," Mr. Weasely said to Rose through his teeth. "This is a topic between me and your brother."
Your brother and I, Rose mentally corrected him.
"It's fine Rose," Hugo said to her, still seething with anger. "Father was just expressing his superfluous opinion on the matter of my marriage."
The vein on their father's forehead was in danger of erupting. He hated when Hugo and Rose would argue back using 'pretentious language.' It was a trick they learned from their mother.
"Why are you causing such a fuss now?" Rose demanded him.
"Because the baby that got us into this mess in the first place, may not actually be your brother's!" He said, turning away to the window, as if he couldn't stand the sight of them.
"I know it's mine!" Hugo said earnestly. "And even if it wasn't, Aretha and I love each other and I'll love it as my own."
Seemingly unable to come up with a response to that, Ronald Weasley turned and walked through the drawing room's door out into the hallway. The sound of a slamming door and quivering glass panels let them know that he had just walked out the front door.
"Git," Rose muttered under his breath.
Ronald Weasley had been a changed man since his youth. The war had made him less cheerful and work had made him tired. Though their family was happy for a while, things slowly deteriorated for one reason or another. Rose had always been aware of her father's deficiencies: his selfish tendencies, his anger towards his children and wife, and most of all his envy.
He's moods had become even worst within the last couple months.
Hugo, while maybe subconsciously aware of all these things, never was willing to discuss them with Rose. Then again, he wasn't aware of the same things that she was.
"Is the baby yours?" Rose finally asked her brother. "You know you can hold the wedding off for a little while longer?"
"I want to get married to her now," Hugo said stubbornly. "I love her."
"Okay, you love her," Rose said. "But you still didn't answer my first question."
Hugo sighed, and sagged into an embroidered ottoman. He ran his hands through his dark cherry colored curls, about three shades darker than hers, and looked up at her helplessly.
"I'm not sure," he said truthly. "We've only been dating exclusively for four months, and for three of them we have been engaged."
"Exclusively?" Rose prodded him, zeroing in on the most problematic thing about his confession. "Do you know who else she might have been seeing?"
He looked at her, clearly not impressed with what she was implying.
"If you're asking if it might be his, it isn't," he said. "I just know that she had been seeing other people."
"Well, so it might be?" Rose pointed out. "Merlin Hugo, how are you going to get married to this women if you can't even asked her if the baby was her exes? Especially an ex that's been one hell of a headache plus some?"
"I don't want to talk about him," Hugo said getting up agitated and began pacing around. "Things we're finally going well with us, and now this had to crop up!"
Rose didn't ask if the "this" was referring to their father's outburst or the possibility that the baby might be his arch nemeses'.
"Look, just ask her tonight if she was seeing Scorpius Malfoy" –Hugo flinched– "when you two weren't exclusive," Rose said, putting a comforting hand on his arm. "If she says no, then there is no confusion and you two can get married and live happily ever after."
"She said it was ours," he said finally.
"Well then, you'll have to trust her," Rose said.
She went to the kitchen to ask the house elves to make them some tea, and right after they finished their cups, Hugo got up and said that he had to get ready for his wedding tomorrow.
It was the late in the afternoon and Draco Malfoy was once again at the cemetery like he was every Monday. Though his visits had become somewhat more frequent within the last couple months, to the point that it was almost becoming a daily ritual.
The sun was still high enough in the sky where he could stay a while, but the weather had cooled enough for him to comfortably sit by his wife's grave underneath the shade of a ficus tree.
He looked across the cemetery, which was overcrowded with graves because of the age of the property. All Malfoys, and most major wizarding families, were buried Sorrow's Moore Cemetery. Mixed in with old families were a few other distant relatives and those willing to pay the expenses for three-by-one meter plots.
He tenderly laid a bouquet of orchids by her marble headstone. He traced the letters of her name, Astoria Malfoy, to see if touching the curves and lines would evoked the same feeling that pronouncing them did all those years ago.
He felt sad, but he no longer felt the weight of her memory, instead he smiled, which seemed fitting since she brought laughter with her wherever she went.
A head of red curly hair caught his attention, belonging to the head of a young woman. His gaze followed her as she wove through the graveyard, unaware of his presence.
Finally, when she almost tripped over a stray stone on the ground and up righted herself, her blue eyes found Mr. Mafloy's grey ones, which twinkled with a smile.
She walked up to him returning the gesture.
"I'm almost embarrassed that you saw that," she confessed. "But then again I'm glad that you're here."
"So am I," he said. "We keep running into each other, but never seem to meet anywhere else."
"You're right," she said to him. "Do you remember my sisters wedding tomorrow?"
"Ah yes," he admitted it. "You mentioned it a couple weeks back."
"Didn't the Zabini's invite you to it?" Rose inquired of him. She also realized that part of her was eager to hear his response, hoping for the affirmative.
Instead Mr. Malfoy looked hesitant.
"I'm not sure that your father would look too kindly on my attendance," he finally responded.
"He isn't take too kindly to the wedding in general," Rose scoffed. "He can handle a smidge more discomfort."
"Is he still not fond of your brother's marriage to a Zabini?" He asked sympathetically.
"Not too fond," Rose laughed, the sound sent goosebumps up Mr. Malfoy's arm. "But it isn't his wedding, and Hugo can marry whomever he likes."
"It's his choice that matters in the end," Mr. Malfoy conceded. "It's what will make him happy that matters."
"Exactly," Rose responded, her blue eyes into his unwaveringly. Mr. Malfoy felt at loss at what to say and stared back into them instead.
"Hugo also said that I could invite whomever I would like," she said, breaking the silence. A shy smile played across her lips. "And if you receive an invitation from both sides of the family, my father could hardly complain."
"Well, if you would want me there?" He asked her; still unsure of what social faux pass he would commit if he did, even if he was aching to go. Unusual, since all social gathers seemed to painful now without his wife's bawdy jokes and jubilant laughter.
And another part of him wasn't sure; did Rose really want him there, and as what? A friend, or maybe more...
"I insist," Rose said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. Her soft touch shocked his entire system, momentarily leaving him flustered for the first time in ages. "I hate fussy weddings, and having you there would really, erm, well… it would really help me."
Mr. Malfoy shook himself. Of course she'd want him there, but as a comforting shoulder. It would be hard to sit through a family function like a wedding so soon after it happened.
"Of course I'll come," Mr. Malfoy, delighted to see the smile that spread across her face in reaction to his answer. She threw her arms around him.
"Thank you," she whispered in his ear.
For a moment he was paralyzed, but then slowly his arms circled her small frame and he breathed in her scent of jasmine and mint.
When they broke apart, Mr. Malfoy cleared his throat, though he wanted to stay a little while longer, he had promised Laurel that he would spent the evening at home with them to celebrate the beginning of her summer break.
"I have to go," Mr. Malfoy said. "Did you want to walk out together?"
For a flicker of a moment, Rose's smile wavered.
"Oh no, I need a few more minutes and then I'll head out," she said to him.
"Okay," he nodded. "Then I'll see you tomorrow at the wedding."
"I'll be the one not wearing white," Rose said as a goodbye, and waved.
Mr. Malfoy walked away smiling at himself, and turned around to see Rose's retreating back as she walked towards the end of the plots.
He turned back around, thinking about his dead wife and living kids. As he stood outside the gate, preparing to apparate, he thought about Rose, and how she would look wearing white.
Rose stood before a head stone; her cheeks lacked the tears normally associated with loss and sadness. She hadn't cried over her mother's death since the funeral. One would think that that was a sign of moving on but, as if she were compelled to, everyday she would comeback to the graveyard and place a white lily next to the headstone engraved with: Hermione Jean Granger.
End note: Okay so I realize that I have committed a grave hp fanfic sin and made Ron into a raging douche (but remember, it's also from Rose's perspective and we still have more to learn about each character and their past interactions. I promise you there is a reason). Don't get me wrong, I love me some Ron. He's like my favorite Harry Potter Character, but I also like to drive characters to becoming their worst selves. So this is Ron becoming his worst self.
On the other end of the spectrum, I've made Draco Malfoy into some kind of saint. It's like one of those demonic Dramione fics, I know, I know. But once again, there is more explanation to come, and for the most part, not many of these characters met Draco Malfoy in his Deatheater phase so they may be somewhat biased when characterizing him from their view.
I have based this fic on a foreign soap opera. Especially in these first few chapters. If you can guess it, Hurrah! I'll compile a list of all the places which I drew inspiration from in the final chapter's endnote. But for now, I won't say anything since it might lead to googling, which in turn might lead to spoiling.
Also, I killed Hermione and three other canon characters. Oops.