He was sitting in a bar with a glass of vodka that was getting warm. The man, however, was oblivious to this fact and raised the glass to his mouth, threw his head back, and took a hardy sip. The alcohol burned down his throat in a heated sensation, but once again, he ignored this fact. He was tired and slightly depressed. Why else would he be in a bar in Paris all by himself?

His skin was paler than usual, his cheeks slightly sunken in. The dark gray eyes on his face seemed to magnify his emotions. They were filled with boredom and slight resentment. His pale blond hair was cropped slightly short but helped maintain his handsome semblance.

The twenty four year old failed to notice a young woman, looking around his age, walk up near to where he was sitting.

"This seat taken?" she asked quietly. The voice rang a bell in the back of his mind, but the young man ignored the vague familiarity.

"No," he replied gruffly, voice muffled by the hand that was covering his mouth. He didn't bother looking up.

"Thank you," the girl said and slipped into the seat. He took note of the British accent that was not unlike his. "A glass of whiskey, please."

The young man couldn't help himself from smiling slightly. Although he hadn't even looked at the girl, he was impressed by her preference of such a hard alcohol.

Still looking down, he heard the clinking of glasses at the bar. He could tell that the girl had drunk the whiskey when he heard the scraping of the glass against the table and set back down rather roughly. He heard the girl tap two fingers lightly on the table to indicate another glass. He heard the bartender pour the liquid into it and heard the process of her drinking the alcohol again. The girl next to him sighed quietly and fell back against her seat.

"So tell me," the girl said conversationally, "what's a handsome man like you doing in a bar all by yourself? And in Paris, no less."

The man smirked. "I would say that I'm working, but my business here finished a little while ago."

"Ah…and you work for the Ministry of Magic I presume?" the girl asked. The man was about to open his mouth to ask her how she knew that but she cut him off and her voice dropped to a whisper. "I see your wand. Might wanna try hiding it in a better place besides your side pocket."

The man ignored her piece of advice and kept drinking.

"So you went to Hogwarts, too?" he inquired even though he already knew the answer.

"Obviously…I was a Ravenclaw," she informed. "You?"

"Slytherin," he replied curtly.

There was a small silence.

"What department?" the girl asked abruptly.

"What?"

"What department do you work for at the Ministry?"

"Oh. Department of International Magical Cooperation," he said before elaborating. "International Confederation of Wizards."

The girl whistled lowly. "Impressive. Must have worked pretty hard for that, eh?"

The man shrugged. "Suppose I did."

"You like working there?"

He shrugged again and took a drink of his vodka. He tapped on the table to ask for more before speaking. "Decent pay, and I get to travel around a lot."

The girl made a slight hum of understanding before drinking from her glass again.

"You're lucky. I wish I could travel as much as you. A few years after I graduated from Hogwarts, I got accepted into the Auror program for the Ministry of Magic in America. Most of the investigations I've been on have been primarily domestic," she explained.

The man snorted, still keeping his head down. "Attended Hogwarts but ended up in America? Interesting."

The girl chuckled slightly before taking another sip of whiskey from her glass. "Well, things in England got a little complicated for me. So I left."

"Complicated, huh?" the man repeated. He laughed emotionlessly. "Yeah, I know how you feel. But unlike you, I never got the balls to move out of England."

"What do you mean?" the girl asked, curiosity lacing her voice.

"The usual," he muttered. "A girl mostly."

"That's not vague at all," she replied sarcastically. He didn't have to look up to see the smirk that was gracing her lips at the moment.

"She was a Ravenclaw," he said. "Maybe you knew her."

"Again, that's not vague at all," she repeated. He figured that she had rolled her eyes.

"Rose Weasley," he answered.

"She was a year ahead of me," the girl said after a short pause. "But the daughter of two-thirds the Golden Trio? It was kind of hard not to know her."

The man smiled despite himself. "She would kill you if you said that."

"And why would she do that?"

"She hated it when people referred her to the daughter of Ron and Hermione Weasley," he explained. "She would be pissed off for Merlin knows how long."

The girl next to him chuckled. "All those Potters and Weasleys were somewhat hard to keep track of anyways."

"Well isn't that the truth?" the man said sardonically with a smirk.

"So tell me," the girl continued, "what happened with her? Did you two go out?"

The man snorted. "No."

"Did you want to?"

The man shrugged and didn't explain.

"Then care to help me understand the situation?" she insisted. He sighed.

"We were friends at Hogwarts, despite that she was a Ravenclaw and I was a Slytherin," he said. "Albus Potter was in Slytherin and my friend, too. But that's not important.

"They were always my good friends. Rose slightly more than Albus, because we were always at each other's throats." He paused here to laugh lightly. "Over the years, I started to like her a lot, and I always thought about the possibilities about us and our future. Never had the nerve to ask her out."

The man paused again, wondering why he was spilling his story to a complete stranger, and why he even trusted her in the first place. But he continued nevertheless.

"I regret that the most, not asking her out," he explained grimly. "A year after we graduated Hogwarts, Rose started going out with someone, someone that she really liked, and it made me so mad at myself for never being that guy. That guy who made Rose so happy and loved her unconditionally.

"And then, about a year since they started dating, Rose came over to my flat. And she was a bloody mess," he laughed mirthlessly. "She just started to break down and cry. I asked her what was wrong and then she started yelling at me. Saying things like it was all my fault and that she hated me. I didn't have the slightest idea what the hell she was even talking about. And when I asked her, she told me."

He paused and took a shaky breath. He didn't even notice that he was crying. He had always locked his emotions away, but the alcohol (or just himself) made him break down.

The girl noticed his silence and quietly asked, "What happened then?"

"She told me that I ruined her life," he said through a restrained sob. "That I took her one chance of happiness away from her. I still didn't understand and then I got mad at her, because she wasn't explaining.

"Rose told me that her boyfriend proposed to her, and she couldn't say yes," the man said eventually. "She kept telling me that if I had never existed, then this never would have happened. She could live a safe life, a comfortable life. And I don't know if I was being stupid or just deliberately slow that night because I still didn't know what she was trying to say.

"She told me she loved me," he admitted. Tears streamed down his face but he still didn't cry out. "She said that she had been in love with me for a while, and because of that, she couldn't say yes to her boyfriend's proposal. Apparently, she had always hoped that I would return her feelings. She said that I was always oblivious and thought that I felt nothing besides our friendship towards her."

He sighed again and put his face in his hands. "The reason I took this job at the Ministry was so that I could find her. Because after she told me she loved me, she left. And I was stupid enough not to go after her. I haven't seen her since those four years ago.

"And I never got the chance to tell her that I love her, too."

There was another silence between the two.

"Love," the girl said, "as in present tense? You're still in love with her?"

"Yeah," he croaked. "I just didn't realize it until she confronted me. And I still haven't been able to find her, let alone tell her that I love her."

A pause.

"Scorpius."

He looked up as he heard the sound of his name and groaned inwardly. Of course it was her. Of course it was the girl he had been looking for. Leave it to Rose Weasley to find him instead.

"Hey Rose," he muttered before looking back down. He couldn't stand looking at her tear-stained face again.

She made a huff of annoyance. "Really, Scorpius? Four years you haven't seen me, and you just finished telling me how you feel, and all you can say is 'Hey Rose'?"

Scorpius sighed again and looked back up at her. Her eyes were slightly red but she was looking at him with determination on her face.

"America, huh?" he replied awkwardly. Rose nodded stiffly.

"I tried to get as far away from you as possible," she explained.

"That turned out pretty well, didn't it?" he sneered. She narrowed her eyes but her expression softened.

"So you found me," she pointed out. "Haven't you ever planned what you were going to say to me when you did?"

"Well I explained myself to you already," Scorpius said. "And I didn't even know it was you. So I suppose that's over with."

Rose scoffed. "So you aren't going to ask me whether I still love you or not? You were just going to tell me that you love me and never give me a chance to tell you how I feel?"

Scorpius didn't say anything in reply, so Rose continued. "Were you going to give me a chance to explain myself? Were you going to give me a chance to tell you what I've been doing all these years? Were you ever going to give me a chance to tell you that I love you, too?"

Scorpius continued to stare at Rose in a shocked silence. He still didn't say anything, but he took her hand and brought it to his lips in a gentle kiss.

"I love you," he whispered against her hand, "if you didn't know that already."

Rose smiled, then laughed softly, and hopped out of her seat, Scorpius following suit. He took the chance to wrap her in a strong embrace to which she responded to instantly. He breathed in the scent of her curly red hair and kissed the soft skin of her neck.

"I missed you," Rose muttered against his ear. Scorpius smiled and kissed her neck again.

"I missed you, too."

Scorpius broke the hug and took a look at her face. It had not changed over the course of the years, but there was an air of maturity that surrounded her being and made her seem older. He brushed a hand against her cheek. Rose leaned into his palm and looked into his eyes with a smile. He returned the smile.

A few seconds later, Scorpius lifted her chin and pressed his lips against hers. Rose let out what seemed like a sigh of relief and wrapped her arms around his neck while his went around her waist. She tasted the alcohol on his lips and the happiness that radiated among him.

"I love you," Rose said on his smiling lips. Scorpius pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Promise you won't leave me again," he requested, a serious expression on his face. "I don't think I could stand it for a second time around."

Rose kissed him on the lips again and grinned.

"I promise."

LINE

A special thank you for my wonderful editor, Rushmore! :D Thanks for your wonderful words of guidance :D Love you lots, dude!

As for this...well it turned out longer than I expected…but I like it enough. Review please? (:

And please review my other story Breaking Down Barriers! :D Thank you!

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