Rose Weasley is bold, bright, beautiful. She is not the girl that is paralyzed from the waist down after an unfortunate quidditch accident; until... she is.
- : -
She is falling.
The colors rush by and she hears some cheering - probably because Slytherin just scored again - and it hasn't really hit her yet that bloody hell she is falling.
Her rain-soaked robes are heavy, but all she feels is a lightness that seems to set her free. The adrenaline courses through her veins; her ears pound and her hands grasp at air. The last thing she sees is a flash of emerald green against rolling gray clouds, but pouring rain blurs her vision.
She's not sure who screams, herself or someone in the stands. In fact, she's not sure if anyone screams at all; it might just be her mind screaming, having finally realized -
"Rose!"
- : -
the long way home
unbroken
in pain, there is healing
- : -
"Rose!"
Eyes jolt open at the sound, open but unseeing. Slowly, she realizes what she is looking at: a completely bare ceiling.
"She's awake! Call a Healer! For Merlin's sake, James, calm down -"
"Someone needs to get Uncle Ron and -"
"Hugo, stop pushing -"
"Al, make Lucy stop whining -"
"Rose." She feels someone squeeze her fingers gently and struggles to see who it is. A flash or short blond hair, amidst a sea of gingers - Louis.
She squeezes back and pulls a strangled, pained smile, but her eyes are full of questions. whowherewhenhowwhywhat -
"All of you, out!" A matronly woman pushes through the masses, clipboard and potion in hand. "Miss Weasley needs rest. Family only. Closest family," she hastily corrects, seeing everyone about to protest. They shuffle out one by one in whispers, but Rose clenches Louis' hand and doesn't let go.
He gently pries her fingers off his own. "I'll be back," he promises, "but you need to talk to your parents first."
She'd nod if she could bring herself to, but Louis seems to understand by just looking into her eyes.
"Rosie!" Ron and Hermione hurry in as Louis smiles softly at her and slips out the door. "Oh Rosie, we were so worried -"
"Hi," she croaks, her first time speaking. "Can you tell me -"
"Quidditch accident," Hermione replies, shaking her head. "Honestly, such dangerous conditions... they should have known better than to hold a match."
"Who won?" she asks tentatively, even though she already knows the answer.
"Slytherin did," Ron says disgustedly, "but it wasn't on fair play. It only lasted a few minutes after you fell. Which by the way, we will be pressing charges for."
"Pressing... charges?" So, Malfoy caught the snitch after she fell...
"That son of a bitch Malfoy Junior..." Ron clenches his fists, but relaxes slightly when Hermione puts her hand on his shoulder.
"He crashed into you," she says softly. "It could have been anyone, though. The wind was so strong... you weren't that high up, but no one slowed your fall because Slytherin had just scored, no one was really paying attention to the other side of the pitch -"
"But I'm okay, right? No harm done. Although I'm probably going to need a new broom, huh?" Rose sits up, feeling the cold air hit her back, exposed by the hospital gown. "Let's just go home."
"Rose, wait -"
She tries to swing her legs off the bed to stand up, but nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
"I... " She looks up to her parents, who have worried looks on their faces. "I can't move my legs."
"I know," Hermione grimaces, tears already springing to her eyes. "I know."
- : -
She stays at St. Mungo's for three more weeks and starts physical therapy. Everyone treads lightly around her, although she can't blame them - their beloved Rosie, the one who was always running ahead of the pack, can't walk.
Mrs. Wood, who she insists Rose call her Katie (Katie Bell, yeah, the one that set ten different records in the League before she retired, and one of the most revered female Quidditch players in history), offers her condolences but gives the cold, hard truth - she's in no condition to join the Harpies in the fall like she originally planned, after graduation.
And just like that, her Quidditch career is over, before it even began.
She tells her parents she'd like to go back to Hogwarts, to have some semblance of normalcy in her life, but she already knows it won't happen. There is no way she can navigate the moving, twisting staircases of the castle with a wheelchair.
Her parents visit everyday, despite their busy careers. Usually, Rose pretends to be asleep so she can avoid the awkward conversations that need to happen. They sit quietly and try not to disturb her, although sometimes her mother will burst into tears and ask whywhywhy Harry was perfectly fine, third year and her father will remain silent.
But Louis and Albus are different. They've been her best friends - Louis especially, seeing as they're in the same house and all - through thick and thin, and this is no exception. They visit as often as they can ("Well, the Headmistress wasn't too happy with us, but she loves you too much to actually stop us from coming," Albus whispers conspiratorially, making her smile for the first time in days) and sometimes they manage to sneak in some Hogwarts food, unlike the disgusting gruel here they call "edible".
Once, they bring her Honeydukes chocolate.
She knows there's a reason why they're her favorite cousins.
Two weeks in, they try to sneak her out of there, using Mobilicorpus to levitate her out of the hospital bed and quickly getting her to change into some robes. They make it into the elevator before the nurses come shouting after them, but Rose is laughing, really laughing,and the boys lose their visiting privileges for three days ("It was worth it," Louis winks, right before they're marched out of there. "Anything to see you laughing again.").
We miss your smile, her friend Alice writes in one of her many letters (because she's not actually family, so McGonagall refuses to let her come). We miss you constantly asking questions in class, too, but it's mostly your smile. Because they were always so real.
So she does. It's hard the first few days, especially when it's quiet, with Albus and Louis banned from visiting, but she really does try. She stops avoiding her parents, starts chatting with her nurses more. The wooden pieces of what was once her Nimbus 3000 are swept away from the little corner of her hospital room, for good.
"Don't push yourself too hard, Rose," Louis (always the sensitive one) says softly, when they're finally allowed back in and Albus (always the happy-go-lucky one, how he got into Slytherin she has no idea) is looking for the restroom again because he keeps forgetting which floor its on.
"What do you mean?" she asks, smiling (again. Good god, her cheeks are starting to burn). Louis just shoots her a look (do you really think that's going to work on me?) but keeps his mouth shut after Albus returns, loudly announcing his bladder has been relieved ("I did not need to know that, Al! Mental images, mental images!").
And so life goes on.
- : -
She is released the Sunday of Easter Break, so naturally the whole family decides they must throw a Welcome Home party for her. She's glad, she guesses, that they care so much, but at the same time she just wants time to adjust to not having legs that are, you know, functional.
It is extremely awkward for everyone, she realizes, not just herself. For example, she and James have always bonded as the best Quidditch players in the family, and now he has to avoid the topic in fear of having her blow a gasket (she appreciates it really, but can they just stop tiptoeing around her?) and now she realizes they really don't have that much else to talk about. Of course, some of them do their best to treat it nonchalantly, like Dominique, who always gives Aunt Fleur a heart attack with her swearing ("You lucky bitch! I want to get pushed around all day in a wheelchair!", making her laugh for thirty seconds straight) and Fred, who passes on to her a box of Puking Pastilles 2.0 even though he knows she would never use them to skip class (at least, not before).
But her mother is the most teary-eyed, with proclamations of I am so proud of you! and That's my baby girl, things she hasn't really heard since she rejected the Head Girl position in order to focus on her Quidditch Captaincy. It's a relief that her mother will probably feel too guilty to hold it against her anymore, but at the same time she feels guilty herself, for getting out of it so lightly with just one, unintentional, disastrous accident.
But she digresses.
Apparently, her mother has been working for the past few weeks on a magically controlled levitator, which should make it much easier for her to manage the staircases of Hogwarts. One glance at it, sitting right there in the middle of the living room, makes her break down in tears.
Of fear or happiness, she doesn't really know.
Rose Weasley is going back to Hogwarts, bitches. In style.
- : -
So this is a bit of a new style for me, but I've been reading some beautiful, beautiful pieces lately and they inspired me. But I had to return to my OTP, Rose/Scorpius :) I wrote half of this and then left in on Google Docs for a good two months before returning, so I like the second half much better than the first, but whatever. This'll be a four-shot, and don't worry, Scorpius will be appearing next chapter. I published something a bit similar to this (His Green Eyes) a few months ago but took it down because it wasn't angsty enough for me, so we'll see how this works.
Review if I should continue?