REMEMBER ME
by Oh Prudence
Inspired by Thomas Bergersen's composition of the same title.
"I had come face to face
with someone who's mere
personality was so fascinating that,
if I allowed it to do so,
it would absorb my whole nature,
my whole soul,
my very art itself."
-Oscar Wilde
PROLOGUE
November 2031
On his third evening in the UK, he's scattered with a madman's passion, the feelings of three years ago returning and burning all reasoning left in his skull. Gone was the collected gentleman he portrayed himself to be, and in its place, a nervous wreck to see Her again. A hand runs along slicked hair, the eighth time that evening, before fiddling for a box of cigarettes in his blazer pocket. He lights, drags, and disposes of the thing before anyone sees, especially Nana Molly, and the punch in his lungs provides all the warmth he needs.
He's in the last place he'd ever thought he'd be - all while his eyes watch animated photographs of a lifespan dancing before his eyes.
He's never been more envious of pictures.
Never, in the twenty-four almost twenty-five years of his life, did he ever find himself in his current position—dragon-skin boots rooted firmly in what his grandfather once called a "pigsty", surrounded in a left behind grime of a Sunday roast dinner, and feeling a disbelieving jealousy thanks to a huge pictorial arrangement strung haphazardly above the Burrow's single fireplace. To his recollection, the Malfoy Manor contained a singular album, a tattered leather-bound inheritance stashed in his father's study, embodying the embarrassment of the Malfoy lineage compared to what he thinks is Arthur and Molly Weasley's great ancestral display.
Two photos in particular captivate him at the Burrow that day.
He becomes a man enhanced by history.
To the left is a photo of a nine year old toothy girl and her father, greying hairs on the eldest—a once youthful hairline rests above a crinkled forehead while his daughter wears a shit-eating grin, presumably soaking in her childhood position of Daddy's favorite.
The innocence of the two's coordinated laughter is a stark contrast to the second picture that grasps his attention. The old Him and Her. He'd recognize those faces anywhere—they were young once, and beautiful, and destined for nothing.
Arms intertwine around bodies, a strength in the man's hand holds her waist firmly. Her burgundy nails compliment the diamond on her left hand and rests across the man's crisp suit, and the flash of a firm line mirroring her father's runs across her mouth and changes into a plastered smile within seconds. He, on the other hand, keeps solemn and watches the girl in his arms carefully.
He remembers when that photo was taken, and he remembers it like it was yesterday—Daminia Malfoy, bless his sweet step-mum, was neurotic all morning, though the epitome of perfection nestled in her backyard garden. Wisteria vines framing the lengths of wooden archways and fading hydrangeas of youthful lavender and drunken citrine transformed his childhood home from a cold nest into one holding all the warmth and potential in the world.
Or it was supposed to.
By the end of that day, the final conclusion burned its mark, ugly across their hearts: as long as they remained side by side, smiles were never destined to reach the eyes, were they?
He remembers it a little too perfectly. He remembers when she took off that ring and he let her slip through his fingers, deluding himself this is what she wanted, she never asking him if it'd be enough. He tucked fate that day into to the box of endless what-if's he hadn't dared explored since the summer Astoria Malfoy died.
The potential, the what-ifs, the forbidden phenomena…
He remembers the time when he wasn't afraid anymore, years later.
He was no longer scared shitless.
He was also too late.
In the course of three summers, he figured out the hard way what internal war and heartbreak did to you: made you grow up, and it was merciless if you weren't ready, and uncaring if it started a second war between the head and the heart.
He remembers every detail and God, does he wish to forget. The images forming in his mind are cut when he hears voices nearing and the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. He's brought back to the present: him standing in the middle of the Burrow. He toughens up and remembers why he's here.
His fingers smooth the lines of his midnight blazer—this is it. Noises thinned into a faint reverberation, and he hears a person pause behind him. He doesn't need to question who. Seconds later, a woman's voice, a voice he remembers too well on drunken nights, and one he decides in that minute too late he wasn't brave enough yet to hear.
Oh fuck it, Malfoy, you can do this.
"Scorpius?"
He stiffens immediately. He can't.
-:-
May 29, 2029
Rosie,
There's a shop I pass every morning here in what American Muggles call Brooklyn.
It's a used bookshop, and before you go off about my preference for more
refined things, I entered the store because it had you written all over it.
When you said you'd given a piece of yourself to me while I'm away,
I didn't think you meant your voice…
I could hear your nagging voice, woman, urging me to go in.
I'm kidding, woman. You know I bloody love you.
I'm glad I did stop in. Currently, there's two copies of Dickens
lying atop my bed ready to join your collection at home.
Nothing compares to waking up next to you, my love, but this city's sunrise
does alright when I'm not next to your side. You'd love New York.
You'll love falling in love with the streets, the air, the people…
I'll take you one day. I promise this, and so, so much more.
How does stretching our global tour to include the Mid-Atlantic sound?
I look forward to seeing you next week.
Forever yours,
Scorpius
-:-
The flask bordered empty by the time Albus finally spat it out.
They'd been in her room, downing Jameson, both anxiously awaiting the reunion – for Albus, a best mate… for Rose, so, so much more.
She should've known better; she should've seen Al's purposed avoidance of her all week. The man never knew how to keep a secret, and his punctual disappearance every time she walked into the room should've been an indicator.
"Rosie…"
The chestnut curly-haired man fidgets his fingers, twenty-five years old and undying of a childhood habit, nervous at the informational unload he'd set on her.
"I'm sorry to have sprung this now. Merlin, I should've told you sooner. Are you…"
Her eyes and mind trapped in an unforgiving haze, she stands on her feet, surprising herself with unaltered balance after what her cousin tells her. She thinks she hears Al ask if she was alright, but by the time he's finishes, she's halfway shuffled out the room.
She passes through the upstairs foyer, and Louis, a wrinkle between his forehead and leaning against a banister, sends a sympathetic nod as she approaches.
He'd known too.
Rose descends the stairs, feet heavy and threatening to trip themselves. She can't believe it.
Lily's ignorant chatter follows her with each downward step but fades away quickly. Maybe Louis stopped her.
Her fingertips reach the wide entryway, and she's not ready to see him, but before she stops her legs from walking in any further, she spots his immaculate posture, heightened while his gaze is intensely captivated by the slew of pictures she and Dominique strung together so many summers ago.
"Scorpius?"
Her voice deceives her, channeling a braver front than she lets on, one that'll fade any second. Her eyes say differently. She refuses to meet his stunned stare as he watches her carefully and instead focuses on the mismatched linen drapes behind him.
She thinks she hears him swallow before he greets her:
"Hello, Rose."
With a decade of friendship and more buried deep between them, even with time passed, they were past formal cordiality.
Exchanged how are you's and whatnots happen in eleven climatic seconds, and on the twelfth, she pounces:
"Is it true?" The alcohol fuels curtness in her voice.
It catches him off-guard, but he's still staring at her beautifully, and he stands before her unbent and seemingly unbroken, a crystal contrast from three years ago. Calm, cool, and collected. He's no longer her Scorpius. He's no longer the juvenile boy bending backwards when it came to Rose Weasley, no longer the fool Rose Weasley shaped him to be willing to throw everything and anything away for her.
"I'm s-sorry." She catches her audacity, and she looks down at her hands and shakes her head, and she dares herself to go on.
"But…I thought… I needed to know?" It comes in a question, but she decides to keep pushing though her voice becomes a stranger, quivering and without strength.
He clears his throat, and he knows it's obvious he can't bear to meet her eyes. Damn it, he's a Malfoy, and he's supposed to have better composition than this, but his tongue can't find the monologue he rehearsed hours ago. His hand meets the stubble on the side of his face, knowing full-well he should explain himself, but he doesn't.
He won't.
And with a last minute notion, he decides fuck it, he doesn't owe Rose Weasley anything.
"Yes. It is true."
He is monotonous, and she lifts her head to see what his face says otherwise, and when their eyes lock and exchange for the first time in a year, she regrets it instantly.
Rose is stunned, shocked, and her feet betray her, edging closer and nearer to him, but she freezes and feels her heart meet her stomach after what he says next:
"I'm getting married, Rose."
A breath is released, and her smile is a mix of euphoric relief and sharp-toothed sadness.
The question being, which was greater?
One autumn night, a Firewhiskey night, she fell asleep wrapped in his jacket. She smelled him on her for days—cedar and cigarettes clouded her mind for a time, but what they hoped for was a fair-weather friend. With a lack of letters and personal exchanges, the smell of him turned into a memory of crashing waves waiting to be explored on vulnerable nights.
It started with a reintroduction by Albus, a whisked away weekend, and a never-ending cataclysm of strong opinions, but who was she kidding? There was always something between them. He crept on her slowly, and he radiated cold, and over the course of a decade, she watched his spine mold his soul into a man's whose seen much further than he should have. She remembers his hands on her for the first time. He was acid, and she melted underneath him.
Together they were a paradox, a magnetic collision of right and wrong fated to explode into confetti you threw away in the end. They could never last, and they never made sense, but he owed her his life, and she owed him hers, and in the moments during she always asked him why.
Why should we be together?
She asked, and he answered.
Why the hell not?