5 Things Scorpius Malfoy Never Told Rose Weasley
1. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
Scorpius spent every morning at breakfast watching her, because she was at her most beautiful when she just woke up.
She had skin like vanilla ice cream, white but not quite, smooth and unblemished. At the end of the day, her cheeks would be pink from all the yelling she would do and all the running from class to class as she tried to make it on time. There would be black specks of ink on her forehead because of that habit she had of chewing on the end of her quill, then ripping it out of her mouth to write and splattering ink over her face. But not now. Now, her skin was flawless.
Her hair was like fire: bright red with distinctly gold streaks that were only visible under a certain light. It was tightly curled and she always wore it up because it bothered her but a few wisps always fell over her face anyway. At the end of the day, she always got sick of those stray wisps and put on a headband to keep her forehead clear but not now. Right now, her hair was a bright mess of curls and it was perfect.
She was a morning person—it was evident in the way she smiled and laughed and joked and teased while everyone at the table was still asleep. Amidst the hushed silence of the Great Hall and all its sleeping denizens struggling to wake up, Rose's laugh rung out like pealing bells. It's what he imagined sunshine to sound like. At the end of the day, her temper would start to flare, her words would become short and cutting, and her laughs would be far and few but now, her mood was good, her smiles were dazzling, and she was just beautiful, the most beautiful thing in the entire—
"Scorpius!" She'd raise her voice to bring his attention back to the table (Gryffindor or Slytherin, depending on where she and Albus had agreed to sit that day). "Pass the salt!"
He would shake the cobwebs out of his head and grant her request.
"What're you daydreaming about?" She'd ask, batting her eyelashes as beside her, Albus made kissy faces at him.
He would pretend not to have heard.
2. I've spent every Hogsmeade weekend since third year wishing I had asked you to go with me.
Hogsmeade was nice in the beginning, until Rose started going there on dates. Then each Hogsmeade weekend became a deadline of sorts. Scorpius spent the months in between each Hogsmeade weekend gathering courage to ask her to go with him. Usually, someone beat him to her. Colin Finnegan had her booked for an entire year of Hogsmeade weekends before she dumped him. His heart had almost stopped in relief when she had told him that Colin was finally gone.
A few times, he came very close to asking her. It was the same thing every time. He would procrastinate until Friday night, spend the entire walk to Gryffindor Tower rehearsing what he was going to say, then let himself in past the portrait of the Fat Lady (Albus always told him every two months or so when the password changed), and see her sitting there before the fire with a book in her hand. He would walk right up to her, run a hand through his hair, and take a breath to steady his nerves.
"Rose, there's something I need to ask you," he'd say, infusing his tone with a confidence he only wished he felt.
She would close her book—sometimes it was a Muggle fiction book, sometimes it was a textbook—and give him her full attention. Sometimes he wished she wouldn't because it was awfully distracting.
"Ask, my child," she'd say, a laugh in her voice.
He would open his mouth—and freeze. Every time. This was as far as ever got. Because looking into those warm brown eyes, he'd realize that he didn't stand a chance. She was Rose, she was popular and smart and witty and so, so pretty. She could have anyone, anyone at all. She would never choose him—it was already too much that they were such close friends, what with their fathers' history. Being friends was one thing, one okay, acceptable thing. But anything more was something else entirely.
"I—I need to borrow your Charms book," he would say, deflating.
"That's not a question," she'd chastise.
"May I borrow your Charms textbook?"
She'd laugh her pretty laugh and run off to get the book, and Scorpius would follow her with his eyes. He'd feel very Slytherin at those moments when he'd watch her walk away from him. Bravery never was a trait Slytherins could boast about, after all.
3. I have a picture of you on my bedside table.
It wasn't anything special, just a simple photo in an even simpler frame. He had charmed it long ago to appear as a snapshot of him and Albus arm in arm, in case any of his dorm mates got too close to it. Only he could see what the picture really showed.
It was Rose, of course. She was in mid-laugh, her head thrown back, her mouth wide open. Her hair was a crazy mess, locks falling onto her face, cascading down her shoulders in untamable waves. Her eyes had a sparkle to them that he had never seen anywhere else—so lively, so energetic. She was clapping her hands as she laughed in that weird way she did, with only her palms touching, her fingers splayed. She was sitting in the common room back at Gryffindor Tower, and Scorpius sat beside her, still as a statue even as she laughed and clapped with the magic of the photo. He was sitting in the corner of the loveseat before the fire, watching her laugh, a smile on his face. Looking back, he realized that although he couldn't really remember what joke exactly had been told by Albus right before he took the picture that set her off, that smile on his face couldn't have been because of the punch line. In fact, he hadn't even noticed that he had been smiling until he saw the picture.
It made him sad, in a way. The picture only underlined their differences: vivacious Rose, full of life and love; and then there was him, sitting on the side, watching but not partaking, never partaking, only contributing the bare minimum by smiling a smile that he hadn't even noticed was there in the first place.
That picture was the first thing he saw when he woke up, and the last thing he saw before he went to sleep.
4. I've written a thousand letters to you that I'll never send.
The first one was written the day she officially began seeing Mark Macmillan, and it was written with every intention of being sent eventually. But 'eventually' stretched itself taut, until it spanned years and filled the little wooden, magically sealed box he had bought to keep all the letters in, until it became a habit of some sort to write the events of that day or week or whenever he decided to write and let it all out, with the hope that she would read it one day but knowing that she wouldn't.
He was careful to include what she was wearing that particular day, or how she had her hair styled, anything visual to trigger her memory if she ever read the letters because he knew Rose's memory was best triggered by visuals. And he always included one interesting thing that happened in the Slytherin common room when she wasn't present because she loved hearing about what went on in the 'Snake House' behind closed doors, although it was usually boring but he knew she would appreciate the effort. He made his letters long hand, just like in those romantic Muggle novels she was always reading (he admits to nicking one to see what the fuss was about). And he put a piece of himself into each one, just a hint of Scorpius Malfoy, so she would know the identity of the writer before she even reached the modest closing at the bottom of each page in his neat cursive: Yours, Scorpius.
5. I love you.
Sometimes, when Rose couldn't sleep, she would force him out of bed and make him wander aimlessly through the castle until she felt tired enough to sleep again. So it was not uncommon for Scorpius to be summoned to the common room by whatever Slytherin Rose had found awake at the time, well past curfew. It was actually quite normal.
What wasn't normal was being summoned by a crying Rose.
Scorpius was not good with crying girls. He wasn't good with girls, period. But seeing a sad, distraught Rose had jolted awake some sleeping instinct within him and he quickly made his way to the sofa she was curled up on and tried his best to comfort her.
She cried quietly onto his shoulder, soaking his loose T-shirt almost completely. He put his arms around her, almost surprised at how small she was, how fragile. He forgot, sometimes, that despite how high a pedestal he had her on in his head, she was still as breakable as he was, still human.
When her tears slowed and her shuddering stopped, she just sighed.
"I don't even know why I'm crying," she explained, blowing her nose loudly into a tissue he had conjured for her. "I mean, I'm the one who broke up with him—"
"You broke up with Johnny Boot?" Scorpius asked sharply.
"Yeah," she muttered, sniffling. "I don't know. It's just so disappointing—I'm so disappointed. I didn't even like him that much, I just thought I'd give it a chance but it's so… he's so… I'm such a freak, Scorp. Will I ever just find someone to be happy? Someone I can just be with?"
She looked at him questioningly, as though she expected him to answer. But she had come to the wrong person. Scorpius was not the most eloquent person in the world, nor was he the best at comforting crying girls, nor was he the best looking or the bravest. He was not good enough. He couldn't make her happy.
So he put a lid on his thoughts and let his silence lull her into calm. He didn't think she was disappointed with him for not answering her questions, but he was disappointed in himself for being too afraid, like he had been for so many years before.
"I love you," he whispered, but only when he knew for sure that she was sleeping.
-FIN-