A/N: ok, so first fic ever. Please be sincere because this came in a rush of emotional insanity, so, let's hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: So sad, but I own nothing. If you can recognize it guess... not mine!
Found & Unfound.
Ever since her muggle grandmother gave her a muggle guitar for her 10th birthday, she fell in love with muggle music. She took 1 year of classes and was pretty good at it, accompanied with her love to sing anywhere and everywhere; she was also blessed with a lovely voice that wasn't heredity from neither father nor mother, but so she was told, from a grate grate aunt that used to be a muggle rock singer.
Rose always played her guitar whenever she felt something: sad, happy, hungry, always. She used to drive her brother insane by playing the guitar to wake him up with songs she made up in the moment, and she loved it. That's why she was sitting on her head-girl dorm with the door wide open and her black 7-year-old guitar creating a song that came from her broken heart.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's go to the beginning, were this broken-hearted girl was just a girl with a crush.
All through her fifth year at Hogwats she developed a crush on lady-killer, pretty boy, smug extraordinaire Scorpius Malfoy.
If she had to be honest with herself, ever since she laid eyes on that 11-year-old blonde, she felt… something. Something, because she didn't know whether to like him or not; whether to hear her father's warnings or just don't.
So they went all through their first four years of Hogwarts being acquaintances, occasionally speaking to each other when they had to ("Weasley, could you please hand me the hellebore, please?", "Is this sit taken, Malfoy?", and so on), always keeping their faces and not once giving away anything; always using this business-like mask not letting anything escape.
Obviously this tore Rose apart because after a little incident on her first month at her school-to-be for the next 7 years of her life, she learned to treat Malfoy the way it was more suitable for him: by expressing nothing, and masking her something.
First year Rose Weasley stepped onto the Hogwarts Express full of anxiety and nerves because she was going to Hogwarts! The school where her mother and father and uncle had made history; where every member of her family had been and accomplished their goals. Yes, Rose was reduced to a knot of excitement.
She had made some girl-friends and was talking to everybody with a smile plastered on her face that remained there all through her sorting ("RAVENCLAW!") and the feast afterwards.
All her excitement followed her until the first day of class, History of Magic with Slytherin, when she first encountered such blond.
Rose was kind of lost, because it was such a big castle, and this was her first ever lesson, so she decided to ask the first first-year she found, Ravenclaw or Slytherin, for directions. The first one she saw was indeed, Scorpius Malfoy.
He was on the (which, at that time she didn't know) hallway to the history of magic classroom, lying on a wall surrounded by 5 I'm-so-pretty-I-don't-need-a-brain Huffelpuff girls giggling madly at something witty he had just said.
She approached him with the gleeful smile still plastered on her face despite her distress of not being able to find a classroom. At first, when she saw him from the distance she didn't quite know how to ask for directions to a Slytherin boy (this particular Slytherin boy) and not sound dumb.
"Excuse me? Would you tell me where the history of magic classroom is?" she timidly asked to the group of girls and boy. When they didn't even look at her she said a bit louder, "excuse me? Could you please point at the direction of the history of magic classroom? You see, I'm a bit lost. It's a big castle an-"
She stopped abruptly when she saw the look on the Malfoy kid's face. He scanned her from head to toe, as if he was examining her for some beauty padgen in which she was wearing jeans and a tank top to a cocktail dress night.
"if I didn't answer the first time, what makes you think I am going to now?" he said this with a cold, superior tone, a smirk creeping on his mouth and a look of total smugness on his face.
On cue, all his better-for-nothing-more-than-giggling-like-idiots-and-batting-their-eyelashes-like-love-sick-dumb-girls broke into a fit of the most annoying giggling you've ever heard.
Rose's face fell to the dungeons and a look of utter hurt was displayed on her young features. "You needn't be so rude about it. You could have just pointed at the direction and now I wouldn't be wasting your precious time" she replied rather spitefully, all she wanted were some directions that would have taken like 10 seconds to give.
"Oh, I was rude, wasn't I? I'm oh-so sorry about it! Let's be BFFs now, and we will share our secrets. Boo-hoo-hoo. Move along, Weasley, I'm getting tired of your display of emotions." You had to give it to him; he was a mastermind when it came to making idiot girls giggle.
With that he turned his attention from her to his little female crowd and took on the story he was telling, while Rose, with anger flaring on her chest, and a bit hurt by the blond boy's reaction, walked toward the classroom she thought it was history of magic, eyes settled on the distance not giving in to her desire to hex that idiot blonde who had just smashed her first-class-of-her-life mood into oblivion.
She never saw a pair of gray eyes screaming regret, following her all the way until she was only a red dot in the distance.
Later that night Rose took her guitar and wrote a song about that stupid git that just made her mood shift so violently, promising herself not to let him get under her skin, and so, speak to him as coldly as her voice would allow her. But she couldn't deny being a bit hurt by his reaction, because she believed that Blondie would be different. She had heard her father speak to her mother and uncle about the Malfoys some time before going to school.
She was preparing her trunk to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry one month before the Hogwarts express parted, when she heard something that made her frenetic packing come to a holt.
"Oh Ron, how can you be so prejudice?" her mother's indignant voice reached Rose's ears.
"I'm telling you, that kid of his is his exact replica. I never trusted Malfoy in the past, what makes you think I'm gonna trust him now?"
"Ron, we've been through this before. Draco changed; he understands everything he did was wrong, and he regrets it all. And little Scorpius was raised between him and Astoria. If you don't trust him, at least trust her." Her uncle's clear, clamed voice was next.
"Harry look, you are being a bit naïve with this whole Malfoy thing, but I'm not like you. I'm telling you, the Malfoy kid is going the same road his father when twenty years ago."
Rose chose not to believe her father's unfound accusations because she knew Ron Weasley better than anyone, and knew just how childish he could be sometimes. So she played all her cards on her Uncle Harry's theory: Scorpius Malfoy wasn't his father.
But they were wrong. Slytherin extraordinaire Scorpius Malfoy, was a complete and utter moron. And she felt disappointed.
On their fifth year, both prefects, being top of the class, to both their outmost delight were appointed head duties together. They had Monday, and Friday night patrols together. That meant one whole hour of Rose and Scorpius walking the halls of Hogwarts alone, at night with awkward silence pressing hard onto them. You can imagine her excitement.
After bitching about her night patrol with her room-mates, Rose exited her Ravenclaw dorm and headed to her oh-so wonderful night with the Slytherin boy.
She got to the great hall and saw him sitting on the ground fidgeting with his Slytherin tie, trying and failing miserably to tie it properly. When she caught sight of him she stopped to admire just how cute and… human he seemed, when suddenly he got tired, undid it completely and shoved it on one of his robe pockets. To this, Rose smiled and walked toward him.
He jerked his head upwards when he heard her coming, and quickly stood up smothering his robes.
"You're late" he spat.
And she remembered the person standing in front of her and her smile was whipped off her face.
She automatically said "you're early" she was never late. The clocks were broken; people were early; they had told her another time: she was never late.
He rolled his eyes at her stubbornness and started walking away.
I don't want this to become a routine, Rose thought, if this is the way I'm spending my night patrols, you can forget it. She felt so tired of always trying to outsmart the hidden insult he had just said with something really witty that didn't sound thought through at all. She felt exhausted even by thinking about it.
Not thinking twice, she took his shoulder in a manner of stopping him. Ignoring the shiver that went through her spine, she looked directly at his confused grey eyes, and sighted deeply.
"I really don't want to spend the rest of my year bitching with you. Let's just make a truce, Ok? We will treat each other as if our surnames were Brown and Lorie all the way through our rounds, and make this easier for the both of us. Agreed?"
Never releasing his shoulder, she stared with all the courage she could find at his eyes that somehow, softened when he heard her pleading tone. Scorpius quietly considered her offer, and softening he said "Agreed"
With a smile fighting its way up the corner of his mouth, he extended a hand and reluctantly releasing his shoulder, she took it, sealing their verbal agreement.
The minute their hands touched, her heart did a somer soult that left her puzzeled, but managed to mask it perfectly when he looked at her and released her hand.
"Shall we?" he said a bit less hostile
She nodded, still shaken by her reaction to his touch, and started walking to begin their night patrol.
The round went perfectly well, without any incidents (Rose even laughed a little at a story he told her to fill the silence). When they reached the great hall, putting an end to their round, neither of them wanted it to end because of fear. They both secretly feared (never out loud because their big egos wouldn't let them) that these truce would only applied to their rounds and not to the whole school year; they had actually enjoyed each other's company didn't want to return to cold-bitchy-don't-like-you behavior.
She said good bye and turned around to leave when-
"Weasley?" he said rather timidly, and cute for the second time that night, she though.
"Yes?" she said a bit taken aback and expecting something like "if you tell someone, you're dead" or something around those lines.
"Would you help me with this? I'm kind of a mess with this stuff, and I can't actually ask my room-mates to do it for me, you know?" he held his silver-and-green tie with his arm extended towards her. He looked like a toddler asking his mother if she could buy him that chocolate frog even though he already had one, with big puppy eyes and a smile, not a smirk, a true, rather shy, smile.
To which she chuckled and approached him, took the tie and circled it around his neck and begun tying the knot. It wasn't easy, because he was much taller than her, so she had to balance on tiptoe to be somewhat comfortable. And also because while trying to tie round his neck, he was staring at her, which made her feel a bit uncomfortable and made the bats in her stomach try to brake free.
After staring at her for a while, he broke from his trance and realized that she had to stand on tiptoe to be able to tie the knot; he bent lower to make her more comfortable. Not realizing she was too dazed by his scent and the fact that she w as tying his freaking tie, he hit her square in the forehead and bounced back with a groan of pain. When he turned to face her he saw Rose Weasley spread eagle, laughing uncontrollably on the floor clutching her side and her forehead at the same time. Her laughter was as beautiful as her voice (which he had heard once passing by the prefects bathroom), and couldn't stop himself from joining in the laughing fit.
They remained there, both laughing for what seemed like hours. When they both recovered, he helped her up and she resumed the tying of the tie with a smile on her face, having broken all the tension between them. Once she was done, she said good bye and left for the Ravenclaw tower.
That night she wrote her first love song, not intended to be a love song but just driven by the lyrics themselves she ended up singing about some blond marrying a red head.
She sat on her bed and thought about what had happened to her that night. She couldn't stop the smile from braking lose on her face, because tonight, Scorpius had proven her and her father wrong. He wasn't a prick, he was just … well yeah, he was a prick, but not tonight.
Luckily for them, the truce lasted all through their school year, and they became kind of friends. Kind of, because they never hang out like friends did, but they changed the way they treated each other during classes, they greeted each other on the hallways and their nigh rounds were always fun and games. They even got to first name bases.
She learned he wasn't the world's greatest git that ever existed, but that was only his cocoon. The butterfly that lived inside was much more beautiful (yes, she compared him to a butterfly). And he learned that she wasn't an annoying know-it-all, and hated to be compared with her parents because she knew she could never be her mother or her father because that was it, she wasn't.
Rose couldn't help but feel happy about their major social improvement, and a bit hopeful that it would develop in something else. But she was contradicted, because she knew her father would disinherit her if she married a Malfoy, no, not marry. She wasn't thinking about marriage when she wasn't even on a relationship with the guy, no, not a relationship either. Let's rephrase that: her father would kill her if she was friends with a Malfoy. There.
Did she want to be just friends with him?
This friendly behavior lasted all the way through their fifth year, but it somehow changed during their sixth year. She learned that his grandfather was ill and currently living with him and his parents. Rose couldn't help but feel uneasy by this, because she never trusted the older Death Eater when it came to Scorpius.
Lucius Malfoy was a leech. That's the way his father once described him while telling a tale about the War. He had given his own sixteen-year-old son to the most evil and cruel wizard this world had seen without even flinching, just to save his own skin and the Malfoy family name. He was a coward, because he had only allied with Voldemort just to be with the winning side, and ended up looking bad with the Death Eaters, and the rest of the wizarding world. He was the reason the name Malfoy was meant as an insult. He was the reason Scorpius and Rose hadn't been friends since their first year.
Rose didn't like the idea of such man living anywhere near Scorpius.
So, all the way through their sixth year, they grew slowly apart. Scorpius became colder and more closed and measured with the things he said to her. Their rounds were filled with awkward silences and forced speech. Rose was torn up by this; she was worried because he looked tired every time she saw him, and torn up. He was a mess and there was nothing she could do about it.
By the end of the year, they had stopped talking and greeting each other. Their rounds were held with a strong iron silence pressing on their ears.
On the Hogwarts express back home for the summer, Rose decided that she had had enough of his behavior and stepped out of her compartment in search of him. She just wanted a proper good bye and to wish him well.
She saw him on the deserted prefect's compartment and approached him with a shy smile on her face.
"Hey Scorpius, I just wanted to wish you good luck and… see you next year" she smiled at him, but her cheery spirits were blasted once more by his stony expression.
"Weasley, I don't know what fantastic idea crept into your mind, but we are not friends. You should get that into that thick head of yours. If I wasn't clear with actions, I suppose I need to be clear with words. Last year was a truce, this year, the truce is over. So would you please get out of my sight and stop nagging me with cheese farewells?" this hit the poor girl like a cold shower and a strange feeling of having been through this overwhelmed her. She looked directly at his face wanting to meet his eyes and express that he was behaving like an idiot, just for the sake of it, but he wouldn't look at her, he was very fond of his shoes it seemed.
"You know, I thought you were a human being. How wrong I was, thank you for proving me wrong. I'm sorry I'm nagging you, your majesty." She spared the most disgusted look she could muster and spat "I want our rounds changed since I so obviously disgust you, I don't want to be near you any more".
To this he jerked his head up and looked at her straight in the forehead, too afraid to look at her blazing eyes full of fury. He had regret spread all over his face, but quickly masked it like the coward he was.
Rose shot him one last sharp look and left the compartment, whipping the tears off her eyes when no one could see her.
That night she wrote a song about murder, betrayal and hurt. She was pretty upset about everything that had just happened to her; everything he said had pierced her like the sharp blade of a sword. She was so angry with him, and with herself, but mostly with herself.
How could she have thought he was acting distant with her because he was hurt or lost or whatever excuse she created for him? He had acted like that because he never felt the way Rose felt for him.
With that she decided that the best thing to do was cut him loose from her mind, her heart and her dreams.
First day of her seventh and last year of school, being appointed head-girl to her parent's grate amusement, she promised herself that this was going to be the best year of her life and no one, not even a special blonde, would get in the way of her happiness.
How wrong she was.
First month of school she noticed, much to her dislike, that Scorpius looked shabbier. He had big purple bags under his eyes and looked exhausted. He looked like this last year too, Rose thought, but it never stopped him from partying, getting wasted every time, and taking a different girl each time to his dorm. But truth was, he looked worse, much worse, and she knew it.
He also took this annoying habit of sitting at the back of the class and stare loopholes at her back. To this she felt uncomfortable, because if he wanted to talk to her, he could just go and apologize for being such a git in the first place.
Avoiding him was much more difficult now, because he was appointed head-boy too, and therefore they shared a dorm with a common room, and was practically impossible for them not to brush from time to time. Always the tension and awkward silence (and hostility from her) surrounded them. But they still avoided each other like the plague.
This went on for two hole months, driving them crazy (her because she was dying to talk to him and make him better [and maybe scream at him all the harm he'd done to her], and him because he was dying to talk to her and let her make him better [and fix the big mess he did by pushing her away]) until one Monday morning, while walking out of potions, Silvester Pauls, Griffindore hottie, asked her out on a date for Hogsmade weekend. She gladly accepted because, let's be honest, he was really cute and he had a line of girls tailing him (not air-headed Huffelpuffs, but real girls with brains), and of all those girls, he asked her, so… yeah, she didn't gave it much thought.
Everything was sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but she couldn't understand why, when he asked, she couldn't stop the idea that she would have preferred Scorpius asking her out, creep silently through her mind and. She quickly shooked the feeling off and agreed to go out on a date with Griffindore raven-haired hottie.
All through the day she couldn't shake the feeling that she would have preferred a date with Scorpius than with Silvester, but she convinced herself that it was just because she had brushed him earlier entering the heads door room, and because of that, she had been thinking about him the whole day. She was clinging to that like a lifeline.
She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn't notice a certain blonde following her. Only when he took her by the arm and locked them into an empty classroom that she realized who he was.
"Malfoy? What the-?" she screeched.
"I'm sorry"
She stopped dead on her tracks and looked at him. He looked worse than ever, as if he hadn't slept in months nor eaten the right amount of food. He wore a broken expression, unlike his masked calmed one, and seemed to have completely lost it.
"wha- excuse me?" she stuttered, completely taken aback by his sudden vulnerability.
"I'm sorry Rose" she shivered at the mention of her name; it had been so long "for everything I've ever done to you. For treating you the way I did this past six years, especially last year. It's just-" he looked at the verge of tears, but quickly composed himself and looked at her directly into her blue eyes, "my grandfather died this summer. It wasn't a great loss to the world because, well, he was a twisted, full-of-anger son o f a bitch, and treated my father like filth his whole life." Rose was rather shocked at his sudden truth vomit, and she really didn't know where he was going with this, but didn't dare to interrupt him, so she sat down on a near bench as quietly as she could. "Unlike most people believe, my father changed. He really did. He spent most of my youth teaching me about how he screwed up when he was young, so I wouldn't follow his steps. And for some reason he became bitter with my grandfather's illness and death." With his back to the classroom door, he slide down and sat on the floor. Eyes shut; he took a deep breath, and continued. "Last year, I was in a dark place; A really dark place. I was confused, and with my grandfather being sick, I had to spend my whole summer nursing him. He… poisoned my mind with all these horrible thoughts. He… he made me think that I only lived for the Malfoy name and never did anything for myself. He put this… idea on my mind… that I…" he opened his eyes and looked straight at her "that I was only being friendly with you just to screw you over and hurt you for all the hurt your family brought up to mine" she would have jumped and refuted that her family had saved his grandfather and father's arse more than once and if anything, they owed to her, but he said it with so much disgust and hurt that she believed he didn't believe a word of it. "I pushed you away for your own sake." He gave a bitter humor-less laugh "but then I felt that I wanted, no, needed your company more than anyone would dare to speak out loud. And I truly do, Rose. So when that air-headed of Pauls asked you out today I just felt stabbed on the heart." He put a hand on his heart subconsciously. "And I knew that I had been an idiot, and that I hurt you, once more, and I just can't live with that anymore. Would you forgive me?" he looked at her expectantly.
She considered everything he had just said, biting her lower lip. He had been completely honest with her, more honest than ever, and even felt jealous when Griffindore hottie asked her out.
But on the other hand, many guys had asked her out through the years, and he never said anything. She could understand her guts boiling every time he flirted with some random girl, but she always knew why.
He stood up and rested his back against the classroom door and, Merlin, he looked so broken.
"Rose, I swear I'm sorry. I never-"
She couldn't take it anymore, so she climbed down the bench she was sitting on, walked the two steps that separated them and hugged him as if he was the smallest, most vulnerable little thing she had ever hugged in her life.
Relief spread on his chest when he felt her pressing her arms around him, and he pressed back.
"This does not mean I forgive you; but I'll figure something out." She mumbled against his chest.
He pulled back from their embrace and broke into the biggest, shiniest, most honest smile she had ever seen in her life; then bent lower and said to her ear "one more thing, I'm in love with you", planted a peck on her lips, turned around and excited the classroom, leaving a dumb-struck, heart-going-800-miles-an-hour Rose behind.
She didn't know what to think, what to feel. Did she love him back? Was that something love? Or was it just a crush? Or none and she was being over dramatic? Had she loved him all along? Had HE loved her all along? And what, in Merlin's name, WHAT was he thinking when he dropped that bomb on her? And why where her lips still prickling two hour after his love declaration?
Her head swam with questions she couldn't answer, and so, she decided that the best thing to do was avoid him until she could at least figure the first one out.
That night, guitar in hand, she couldn't play. Nothing came to her mind. She didn't felt like it, and that scared her. It scared her more than anything, because it meant Scorpius was more than something for her; much more that something.
Rose spent the next three days working in autopilot. She woke up extremely early, had breakfast in a dash, was the first one to arrive at the classrooms so she sat in the front row, had lunch with her back set to the Slytherin table, sit at the front of the class, went to the library until past curfew, sneaked into her room and slept until the next day. Not once touching her guitar.
On Friday she repeated her routine until something caught her attention while walking through a deserted corridor towards transfiguration. She heard some giggling and a door slamming shut.
She knew exactly what was going on so she moved so as to face the couple coming her way, acting as the respectable Head-girl she tried to be. She was rooted to the spot when she saw Katherine Nott, with swollen lips and short slutty skirt, waving her hand in a I'm-a-slut-and-love-to-show-it-by-snogging-people-inside-broom-cupboards-and-then-wave-at-them-like-a-total-tart way to a messy-haired Scorpius Malfoy who was walking her way with his back set to her.
The minute he turned around he was facing a crimson-faced, pissed off Ravenclaw Head-girl. He looked directly at her with no trace of regret what so ever.
"Being a Head-boy, I thought you had some respect for school rules." She spat.
"Calm down Weasley, we were just having some fun. What? Jealous?" a glint of longing flashed threw his eyes, but Rose couldn't appreciate this because anger boiled in her guts when he said her surname as it was some kind of an insult.
"So what if I was, Malfoy?" she bit back, her voice growing louder by the minute.
He looked directly into her eyes with all the passion those grey ones hid "if you were," he took a step closer "it means it worked"
She stared blankly at him processing his answer.
"Are you?" another step closer.
"m-maybe" she mumbled, her anger evaporating as fast as it came, not being able to move or to tear her eyes away from him. Talk about butterflies in her stomach, she had butterflies the size of Hippogriffs battling their huge wings inside her stomach.
He cracked a lopsided smile and closed the space between them, their faces inches away.
"I said I loved you, and you ignored me for a week. What was I supposed to do?" an edge of hurt to his reply.
"I wasn't ignoring you" she lied like a 5-year-old who had just been caught stealing her father's wand.
"Bullshit." He chuckled "What would you do if I say it again? Disappear for a month?"
She snapped out of her trance, took four steps back and contemplated a bewildered Slytherin.
"What was I supposed to do? You caught me completely off guard! And then you left! Leaving me completely confused with my feelings made a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish. And I still don't have an answer for you, how messed up is that!" she said everything with one breath, so when she finished she had run out of air.
Breathing hard she took a step back and hit the wall of the hallway for some support. He closed once more the space between them, opened his mouth as to say something and closed it again, then pressed his forehead to hers.
She took a deep breath, a bit groggy about the closeness of their bodies, and begun once more "What did you wanted to hear?" rose paused, anger started to erupt in her chest "And besides-" she wanted to scream at him everything she was feeling, everything that he made her feel, some things that she wanted and some things that scared the Griffindore inside of her.
She wanted to do all this and more, but she couldn't; she just couldn't because of his soft lips pressing against hers.
He had silenced her with a kiss, how clichéd, she thought. But that lasted only one quarter of a second, because the minute she understood what was happening, she knew that it wasn't something easy to put into a song, but she wanted to write two hundred songs about it.
With Goosebumps all over her body she kissed him back, tailing his arms and reaching his hair to press him closer. Somehow, they weren't close enough. At the same time he cupped her chin with both hands and pulled back for oh-so needed oxygen; but Rose wouldn't give him a rest and pulled on his tie to close the space between them once more.
She could never explain how she felt while snogging Scorpius Malfoy senseless, because she had such turmoil of emotions inside her that everything was related and she felt a thousand things at the same time.
She felt a huge weight leaving her shoulders, as if she was carrying a five hundred pound blast-ended shcrewt on each side of the head and had never noticed it until they were removed.
She felt the floor she was standing shaking so violently, she was glad she was rested against a wall with Scorpius' weight supporting her because if not, she would have fallen hard on the cold moving ground.
She felt she wanted to stay this way forever; Joined by the lips with this boy that was making her feel as if she was the only and most important witch in the world; and everything surrounded them, but nothing would ever be able to push them apart.
With all these feelings, fears crept their way through Rose's thoughts. Everlasting love? That was true only on fairytales. Wanting to be with such blonde forever? That wouldn't last two minutes, they would be hexing each other the minute they started arguing about something. Feeling the ground move? That had 'bad sing' written all over it and a sign that screamed: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
Because the ground moving meant having feelings for Scorpius. And that scared her out of her comfortable and contempt shell, and pierced her confidence even more than it had swollen her heart.
She had once been told that "you can only trust yourself with your heart. Confide it to others, and they might never return it." Rose plainly agreed with this because she was always scared of showing her feelings, always scared of getting hurt.
As all this thoughts dashed through her mind, she couldn't bring herself to push the blond away. She just couldn't.
After what seemed an eternity, they pulled back, and he placed his forehead once more against hers. "I was expecting the obvious answer, but that is too much to ask from the girl I've been trying to ignore for the past year and a half." He sighted deeply and continued "So it would suffice with you not going out with Sil-looser".
She pondered on what he had just said, and on what she had just thought of. She didn't want to depend on him exclusively: she hadn't said she loved him back, so she was still a free woman. He was jumping to the conclusion that she was going to fall in love with him, just because he said he was sorry and confessed his feelings for her. She wasn't that naïve, nor that brave, "I'm still going out with him. I haven't made up my mind yet."
He kept silent for a minute, then said with a measured voice, "what if I asked you not to go with him? To go with me instead, would you choose him over me?"
"I- I don't know" she whispered, not knowing why she did this. Of course she wanted to go out with him; she was just scared to open her heart. That's why she played the guitar, because she could sing everything that was happening to her, and she would always have the safety of her stringed friend shielding her from harm. "I' tell you after this weekend" she finished rather spicily. She didn't want to settle to one, but she could still have all her options opened, right?
He looked torn between hopefulness and hurt, but managed to hide all of it with a smirk "you'll tell me after this weekend" then tore his face away from hers and walked two steps the opposite way to their transfiguration classroom, then came to a sudden halt when he heard her voice.
"I loved you, Scorpius." She didn't know how, but she realized that that something was or had been, indeed, love for the blonde in front of her. "I really did, but I'm not sure if I still do"
He had his back turned to her, but she could hear the smile on his voice, "you'll tell me after this weekend" and with that he walked away, leaving her, once more submerged in a deep familiar pool that were her feelings. Lately she was a mess when it came to feel anything: she cried of laughter at a random, humorless joke; she heard her heart pumping four times its usual rhythm because of a change in her class schedule, and so on.
Only this time, she knew when he left, exactly how she felt and why; and there was nothing she could do but stare at him leaving.
Saturday came as fast as she would have not wanted it. Saturday meant Hogsmade, as in date-with-the-wrong-guy-but-not-so-wrong-because-do-you-remember-you-didn't-want-to-feel-that-way-because-you-are-a-pussy Hogsmade.
She prepared herself, having dressed up very carelessly, not caring if her shirt matched her pants, because he wasn't that much of a catch, and left the castle to the three broomsticks, were he told her he would be waiting with two butterbeers.
When she entered the pub, he was sitting on a table, two drinks on it, at the farthest corner the small space could handle. She inhaled deeply, counted to ten, exhaled and took the seat next to Silvester Pauls inside the comfortable pub.
Her date when pretty well, for what she expected. They talked the whole time, not once having to fill the awkward silence, about interesting topics. 'Interesting topics' because they talked about politics, the ministry of magic, their plans for the future, their NEWTS exams, the subjects on Hogwarts, but they never reached a topic 17-year-olds-talk-during-a-date appropriate.
Those were things work colleges talked about, not school friends; at least not on a date.
The only time they remotely scratched the 'friend' territory, was when he asked about Scorpius.
"So tell me Rose, what is like to be next door neighbor with Scorpius Malfoy?" he said, as if he was just asking her opinion in which shirt to use that day; to which she spilled some butterbeer on her blue jeans, quickly scourgify them clean with her wand, and looked at him.
"Just as annoying as you can think of" apparently she had managed to tell the truth in a way he didn't even think of, because he chuckled slightly. It wasn't a lie; living near Scorpius had made her life an annoying upside down wizards chess move, with uncooperative chessmen.
"Yes, actually I can imagine it. Having a daily parade of girls coming and going; brush past him every day; having him come on to you every time... yes. Horribly annoying" when he saw the murderous look directed at him, he quickly added "but you obviously never gave in to his repetitive innuendos."
She lowered her eyes and drunk some butterbeer for the sole purpose of not being able to answer to his statement. She wasn't a hypocrite. She wasn't going to tell Silvester that he had snogged her senseless on the middle of the transfigurations corridor, and she wished he would do it again. No, she wasn't. But how could she answer to his question without behaving as a hypocrite? How?
Not letting this behavior pass by, Silvester asked "you didn't, didn't you?"
He having to corroborate this made her guts boiled with indignation and anger, because it was unimaginable and completely bizarre to find her guilty of giving in to his charms. And that Silvester even considered it as not so bizarre, angered her more that ever. "For your information, Scorpius Malfoy is the most annoying, attention-seeking, smug-faced, double-crosser prick I have ever encountered in my short period of life. He is incapable of uttering any feeling at all, even if his life depended on it, and if he ever expressed so much as a spasm of reaction remotely resembling a feeling, would only be attributed to the need of something. Now," she breathed "if I was ever to fall into his charms, will you please smash my head with one of the giant squid's tentacles and not let go of it until I turn a dangerous shade of purple? I would be eternally grateful." And in the emotion of the moment, she was carried away and said "He's-he's like, the Voldemort for my Harry Potter." The minute she said it, she wished with all her magic that she could take it back. That was the biggest lie she had ever said in her whole life, and it truly weighted over her shoulders. Of course he wasn't the Voldemort for her Harry Potter; he was the Ginny Weasley for her Harry Potter. Well, maybe the other way around.
She uttered a hideous, obviously fake smile and drank some more butterbeer.
Catching on the 'I really don't like him' drift, Silvester changed abruptly the subject and never sailed near those coasts again, to which Rose was relived. She had lied so badly before; she couldn't believe he hadn't noticed her being a big fat liar.
Passed twenty more minutes of conversation, and he was feeling totally 'friendly' (as non-businesslike as he could possibly be) with her. He was holding her hand, to which she didn't complain, but couldn't be quite comfortable with it, and was getting dangerously closer to her.
"Well, Rose, I had a lovely time" he said, still sitting on the table at the three broomsticks, and before she could do anything at all, he planted a kiss square in her mouth.
No weight being lifted off her shoulders, no moving floor, no feeling of remain what so ever.
Nothing. The only thing she experienced was a chest splitting wish of wanting to be Scorpius the one to kiss her on the farthest corner of the Three Broomstics.
A loud noise of a chair being pulled back roughly, followed by some students complaining about someone that had just passed abruptly by them, made Rose snap out of her trance.
She pulled back, "wow Silvester... I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, but this was a friendly" (making a big deal on reinforcing the word FRIENDLY) "type of date" she said apologetically.
"Yeah… Sorry about that. Just felt the right thing to do." He smiled slightly and Rose felt there was someone she had to talk to, but sensed that something was wrong with Silvester.
"Look, I had a really good time today. I hope we can repeat it, a friendly type of date." She gave him one of her true, blinding smiles.
"Thank you Rose. I'll get us another butterbeer." He attempted to call a battered Madame Rosmerta, but rose took him by the shoulder and stopped him.
"Kind of need to get going, but I'll see you later." and without giving him the chance to reply anything she sped past the crowd inside the three broomsticks, and as soon as she was out, broke into a run towards the castle.
When she reached the heads common room, there was one hour and a half left for dinner but no Scorpius on sight, so she approached his room and knocked three times.
No answer.
Well, she thought, maybe he was at Hogsmade and won't be back for another hour, so she took her guitar and left her dormitory room door open to listen if he came back.
Three hours later, she was starting to get anxious, because he hadn't been to the great hall to have dinner either. So she decided to wait for him directly sitting on the couch next to the door for his room, but quickly fell asleep.
She woke to the sound of the portrait door slamming shut. She popped her eyes open, "Scorpius?"
"Rose, what are you doing sleeping here?" he sounded tired, and she could see through the dim light of their common room, that he looked troubled too.
"I was waiting for you" she Rose from her chair, but kept her distance "I have an answer to your question now"
"I already know the answer" a look of outmost hurt was spread all along his beautiful feature "its ok. I understand that if you believing me as a – what was it … ah- the most annoying, attention-seeking, smug-faced, double-crosser prick you have ever encountered in your life, you'll never be able to love me. Or better yet, if I'm Voldemort for you, please Avada me right here, and spare the wizarding world another Grate War."
She gaped at him, not knowing what to say to this. How could he have known- the noise at The Three Broomstics. He'd followed her to her date, and heard everything she said, saw everything she did.
"You followed me?" it was the first thing that came to her mind, and as soon as she said it she regretted ever opening her mouth.
"Of course I followed you, Rose! You don't even deny it don't you?" to this point his voice was growing louder by the minute "I just wanted to know how your wonderful date was going with the idiot of Pauls," and then he dropped to the little hurt voice she had only once heard before in her life, and swore she wouldn't ever again "and as far as I heard and saw, you were really enjoying yourself." He paused and stared with passion straight into her blue eyes "So forgive me for having spread my oh-so non existing feelings on the table in front of you and handling my heart on a silver platter" grey eyes colder that she had ever seen them before, "obviously you don't feel the same way I do. I won't be making that same mistake again."
He attempted to leave, but she called after him "you don't understand, you have to listen to me-"
"You needn't be so cruel about it." He quoted.
"Scorpius, please…" she whispered, but he just glared at her.
"No, I don't want to hear it." He said with a voice that could have frozen hell.
With that he turned to the spot and disappeared into his room. Rose felt the hot tears ran through her cheeks, as she realized just how much she really loved him, and just how much her heart ached when he promised not to repeat his love for her.
She realized now, a week too late, just how much she needed him, and knew she could never forgive herself for letting him go.
That Sunday, she woke from a restless dream, where she was falling down a rabbit hole, and a hatter was yelling "YOU LET HIM GO? ARE YOU MAD ALICE?" Then she hit the hard ground and a Red-haired Dormouse, muttered in his sleep something like "when I'm with him I'm thinking of you". Then she came face to face with a real life do-do wearing a lime green wizard hat that was looking down at her as if she was a naughty girl and said "you thought you didn't anymore, but you know you do. What are you going to do about it?" and suddenly he took a wand and a green light erupted from it, directed right at her chest.
Rose woke up with a start, covered in cold sweat with tears in her eyes. Funny how that was, she had only really cried 6 times in her whole life, and three of them were because of Scorpius.
She lay on her bed, letting the tears fall freely, soaking her pillow for fifteen more minutes and then decided that the best thing to do was to get herself ready for her day.
It was incredible how all these little paces she didn't knew she had, ached as if they were going to burst open at any minute.
She skipped breakfast, her stomach was too clenched with guilt and regret to let food enter, and sat on her four poster bed thinking and thinking and thinking and cursing her ability to think and analyze anything that was remotely related to books, but not being able to get herself out of that situation.
She cried for two more hours and then become dehydrated of all the crying and the entire skipping breakfast thing. Cursing her luck and cowardice under her breath, she pulled a Weasley jumper over her head and headed towards the kitchens.
Being cousin to Albus, James and Lily Potter, niece to Harry Potter, Gorge Weasley and daughter of Ron Weasley, she knew all the hallways and secret passages of Hogwarts; so she knew the way perfectly well.
She reached the portrait with the giggling pear, opened it, asked for some water and sandwiches and sat inside to eat and drink.
She was thinking of everything that had just happened to her long the weak and suddenly a melody she had never heard before, started playing in her head. Suddenly, some lyrics came along, and fitted perfectly with the music.
She had felt this way before, she was composing. Not the entire song, but some loose lyrics and music.
Afraid she might forget it all she ran back to her heads dorm, flung her room door open, seized her guitar and sang the chorus of her new song to try and remember the melody.
Cause when I'm with him
I am thinking of you
She tried once, twice, and the third time she got the melody. Grinning broadly, she searched for a piece of parchment, a quill and some ink and begun scribbling, scratching, correcting, and re correcting a new song that was in her head.
Ten minutes later Rose had song and lyrics for a broken-hearted melody that had occurred to her while eating a pumpkin tart in the Hogwarts' kitchen.
She took her time to admire her work, then took her guitar and sang it.
A/N: for better understanding, listen to the son "thinking of you" by Kathy perry while reading these lyrics.
Comparisons are easily done
Once you've had a taste of perfection
Like an apple hanging from a tree
I picked the ripest one
I still got the seed
You said move on
Where do I go?
I guess second best
Is all I will know
Cause when I'm with him
I am thinking of you
Thinking of you
What you would do if
You were the one
Who was spending the night?
Oh I wish that I
Was looking into your eyes
You're like an Indian summer
In the middle of winter
Like a hard candy
With a surprise center
How do I get better
Once I've had the best
You said there's
Tons of fish in the water
So the waters I will test
He kissed my lips
I taste your mouth
He pulled me in
I was disgusted with myself
Cause when I'm with him
I am thinking of you
Thinking of you
What you would do if
You were the one
Who was spending the night?
Oh I wish that I
Was looking into...
You're the best
And yes I do regret
How I could let myself
Let you go
Now the lesson's learned
I touched it I was burned
Oh I think you should know
Cause when I'm with him
I am thinking of you
Thinking of you
What you would do if
You were the one
Who was spending the night?
Oh I wish that I
Was looking into your eyes
Looking into your eyes
Looking into your eyes
Oh won't you walk through
And bust in the door
And take me away
Oh no more mistakes
Cause in your eyes I'd like to stay...
She finished the last part and her voice broke, fresh tears reached her eyes, and before she could stop them, they run down her cheek and splashed on her maroon Weasley jumper – she didn't care much, maroon wasn't her color.
"Stop crying you stupid cow!" she said to herself, annoyed at the whole situation of her being hopelessly heartbroken and only being able to cry her heart out "you screwed up, and then you realized you screwed up but it was too late, so what did you do? You-"
"Wrote a song?" a male voice suggested quietly from her doorframe.
She stared dumb-struck at the blond resting against her door frame, looking glorious as ever but broken all the same. How unfair, he was heartbroken like she was, and he still looked like a witch weekly model, while she was a mess in a maroon sweater.
"About a girl, who thinks of one while snogging the other" he said as calmly as his emotions let him.
She stood up, placed her guitar on her bed and walked towards him. Placing her hands against his hurt face she said "Scorpius Malfoy, I love you. I loved you all along. Just had to lose you to figure it all out. And I know that I acted like an idiot, and that I hurt you, and said things that I didn't mean, and I acted like a hypocrite, and I just can't live with that anymore. Would you forgive me?"
He smiled at her quoting him, but it quickly faded, so she added "I only said that to the idiot of Silvester because he was annoying me, and I was confused. I was confused and scared. Scared because when you kissed me I knew I wanted to be with you forever, and I'm SUCH a coward I believed I'll never be able to stay with one person forever. I know I was wrong because I found my forever. I'm afraid, Scorpius, can you understand that?" she took one of his hands, entangled their fingers together while the other still rested against the side of his face, and took it to her chest, resting against her heart. The whole time he had watched her silently and not uttered a word "but the minute I lost you, like the idiot I am, I realized I could never live without you, because you had already showed me how like was with you. Believe me when I tell you I never thought of you as my Voldemort, I thought of you as my half."
"Yes, but you still snogged that Griffindore idiot of silvester pauls" he pouted, like the five-year-old he was feeling.
"And you snogged Katherine Nott!" She replied indignantly, but laughing slightly at his retort.
"That was different" he replied "I was just testing your jealousy"
Never releasing neither his face nor his hand, she looked at him. She looked directly through his grey cold eyes and saw the hard candy and the surprise center, and she remembered who this boy was, and exactly why she had fallen in love with him and his eyes "Sil-looser kissed me, and I was thinking of you the whole time. I pulled back and explained how he was an idiot and only my friend, and then came here to tell you how I really felt after my date, but couldn't find you, so I just waited for you."
"How do you feel now Rose?" he said, coming closer.
She whispered "I feel…" and closed the space between them.
Ground shaking, butterflies in her stomach, and the feeling that she was going to stay like that forever invaded her, and this time she welcomed it with open arms.
This was exactly how she wanted to spend the rest of her free periods and Hogsmade weekends; with him, joined by the lips. Each one telling the other, not in words, but in kisses, how much they meant for each other.
When they pulled apart to catch their breath, she stepped back, pulled her hair up in a pony tail and walked towards the door of their common room.
"Where are you going?" He asked, rather alarmed.
"To look for Silvester, we have an appointment with the giant squid." And grinning from ear to ear, she left her now laughing boyfriend behind.
A/N: so? Who wants to be my first ever reviewer? I solemnly swear I'm up to answering all reviews. Mischief managed.