I attend to her with a haughty drawl, placing weight on the insults leaking from my tongue. I watch, feigning glee, as her face falls. Noticing – hating – just how deeply my words seep and how hard she tries to hide this.

Every fabric of my existence is set on hating her, on knowing that I should. Knowing that I'm supposed to.

My mind flips, a flash of her face – those eyes – lighting in ways that I know vividly. Ways that indicate her suffering. Signifying suffering I've caused her.

My hand spasms as it reaches for her face. My mask falling, shattering around me.

Her eyes skip over mine, and I let them. Unhindered, an array of gray and blue dancing sadly together.

I know she can see it. I know I've given myself away.

"Scorpius?" she whispers into the cold air of our common room. Her eyes reciprocating the same fear mine have hidden for the past few years.

"Please, don't," I say. My voice shaking, unable to keep it steady.

"Do you…?" she starts, and stops – breaths out, and then in – her eyes straying away from mine. I know the question; I just want to hear it. That one word I've sworn never to think of when it comes to her.

"Do I what, Rose?"

Her shoulders are hitched over, and her back's to me. It takes every stitch of my effort – every will given to me by God – not to reach out to her, to take a hold of her slumped shoulders, to pull her towards me. To hold her the way I've wanted to for so long now.

"Do you… love me?"

I close my eyes, savoring the sound of her whispering love softly from her lips. I force my eyes open again, trying to gain back some of the composure I had before I let down my guard.

I sigh to myself, contemplating my options.

One hand holds Rose.

A beautiful hand, my favorite of the two. But also, that hand holds devastation. The rivalry between our parents, the restrictions that come with our Heads badges, our friends and their utmost hatred for each other, our rival houses, the absolute mess the two of us would make. The people we'd hurt in order for us to be together.

I would break my father's heart a million times if I could tell Rose the truth. Hurting others to see my wishes granted isn't something that riles me. I'm unscathed by the misery of others, as long as one of the others isn't my flower. And her father's heartbreak would hurt her more than I ever could, alas, giving a better light to the other hand.

The other hand holds an adamant denial.

I lie to her. Tell her that my heart is the ice she thinks it is. That it ticks for me the same way every other Malfoy's heart ticks for a Weasley. That I only tolerate her, that I find her repulsive, ugly, shrill. I know the outcome of this. It will hurt her, yes, but the other hand risks her losing her family while this one only risks shattering what I haven't already shattered of her pride.

"Scorpius?" I look down at her, "Answer me, would you."

I close my eyes, willing away actual tears. "I can't love you, Rosie."

Tears well in her eyes, pouring over her cheeks. She catches my eye again, and the look she gives me breaks what little of a heart I have.

"I'm not asking you to marry me, Malfoy." She croaks, "I just want to know if you love me the way I love you."

I feel a stinging in my eyes, and a tear streaks down my face. "No, Weasley. I don't love you like you love me."

Her eyes glaze and she freezes. "You don't?" she whimpers.

"No, Rosie. I love you like I love you."

I step closer to her, unsure of what I'm supposed to be doing.

She wraps her hand around my middle and lays her head onto my chest. I rest my cheek on the top of her head, breathing her in. I smile, noticing her do the same.

I've been given a Scylla and Charybdis situation. Even though this relationship of ours going public could be wandering more towards Charybdis, I'm impervious. As self-centered as it sounds and as narcissistic as it may be, I would rather risk losing everything than risk losing Rose.

I had this in Cultural Literacy. (=

I thought I'd do something fast for it.