Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and the associated next-generation characters. I just personalise them.

Welcome, welcome. Thanks for opening up! This one-shot was written for the Randomated Prompts and Genres Challenge OF LOVE! In the HPFC. My prompts were tumultuous, confusing, and together always. My sub-genre was hurt/comfort. Let me know how I went!

–

Without You

It started like this:

"It's just sex, we're clear on that, aren't we? None of that 'together always' romantic crap."

It ended like this:

"Scorpius, without you, I never ... I never would have-have ... I never – "

"Shh. I love you too."

So how did Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy get from point A to point B? They didn't take the straight road, powering along the highway, no they went the back way, where the roads were windy and the scenic view sometimes disappeared behind the darkness of the trees. But the destination was oh-so worth it.

They started as a fling, nothing more than meeting once, twice – seven – times a week for a steamy rendezvous. She would turn up at his door, open her overcoat to show that she was wearing nothing, or very little (it was winter; she had to cover up!) and that was enough for Scorpius to crush his lips on hers and take her to his room.

They had been seeing each other only a month or two when Rose received horrible news.

"Rose," her mother choked over the phone. Rose has been reluctant to answer, but when she saw that it was her mother calling, she knew she had to do exactly that – Hermione would continue to call until she picked up.

So there she lay, Scorpius kissing her neck and collarbone and as she waited for her mother to continue.

"Rose, I didn't want to tell you this over the phone," her voice was shaky, almost like she'd been crying; something was wrong. Quickly, Rose sat up and pushed Scorpius away from her naked body. Panic was slowly rising in her chest as she waited for Hermione's next words – words she just couldn't seem to spit out.

"Mum ..." Now her voice was shaking. She pulled the doona over her chest – it was move made to comfort her, rather than a way to keep warm.

"He's dead," Hermione breathed as though she'd been holding her breath for the past hour and was only now allowed to let all out. The only problem with revelation was that Rose had no idea who was dead. Tears stung her eyes. Fear took over every inch of her still naked body. She felt volatile, like she was at the most inappropriate place to possibly hear of death's dark calling, and it would haunt her for as long as she lived.

"Who mum? Mum!"

After pulling on a pair of boxers, Scorpius had positioned himself beside her, watching her scared facial expressions intently. He knew something was very wrong.

"Your brother." Tears finally overwhelmed her and she broke down, dropping the phone.

At first her words started as whispers, almost inaudible, but as the shock started to reach her brain, they got louder and louder until she was screaming, "No!" at the top of her lungs. The opposite of what she'd been screaming in Scorpius's bedroom for the past two months.

In attempt to calm her, Scorpius grabbed Rose from behind and held her to his body. The shock and hysteria were making her shake uncontrollably. This was a different side to anything he had ever seen from her before ... in the non-literal sense of course. Emotionally, she'd been as disconnected as possible, sharing the scarcest of information with him.

He didn't even know she had a brother.

She kept crying hysterically as they fell to the floor. Scorpius found it very hard not so succumb to his own emotions; very rarely he saw raw emotion such as this.

Where they crumpled to the floor, is where they stayed.

–

When Scorpius Malfoy turned up to the funeral of the late Hugo Weasley, Rose was more than surprised – so surprised that she was angry.

"You need to go."

"Rose, I want to be here for –"

"Go!" she spat angrily before swallowing a thick lump in her throat and closing her eyes so that she didn't have to see him walk away. "Please ... just go."

He kissed her forehead and did exactly as she demanded.

–

Two weeks went by with no contact between Rose and Scorpius, until Rose showed up at Scorpius's door wearing a lot more than just an overcoat – this wasn't going to be another rendezvous.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied.

There was an awkward moment of silence between them.

"Would you like to come in?" Scorpius asked uncertainly. She had shown up at his door, she was supposed to do the talking. He wanted to ask how she was, see whether she was coping, but he feared another fit of hysteria might arise and he couldn't handle that.

"I wanted to tell you about me," Rose said after they'd taken a seat on the couch.

"Rose, you don't have to –"

"But I do." So she did. She told him all about her crazy family, where they holidayed, her favourite food, where she went to school, and finally, that she had feelings for him.

She couldn't keep eye contact with him after she'd muttered her words, but Scorpius could. He watched her wavy brown locks fall in her face as she looked at her cup of coffee.

"I know you probably don't feel the same way, and I know that we agreed that it was just sex. But while I've been mourning my brother, I've only wanted you to hold me – okay, sometimes I've wanted my mum to hold me, but a lot of the time ... it was you. Always you."

Scorpius couldn't believe what he was hearing. He thought anything they had was over, even more so, he thought anything they could have had was doomed. Seeing her again came as a shock.

"Are you sure? This is a very confusing time for you."

"You could just say that the feelings aren't mutual, you don't have to deflect it all on –"

"No, that's not what I wanted to say, that's not what I was getting at," Scorpius argued. "I just want you to be sure before I say what I have to say."

"I'm sure."

"'Then I can honestly tell you that I feel the same," he admitted. "But when you told me to go at the funeral, I thought you meant forever."

Rose leant across the couch and touched her lips to his – it was probably the most meaningful kiss they'd ever shared.

–

Instead of meeting to make love, they met to talk, go get to know each other, to let the emotions of Hugo's death fall out, and after a month of sharing, they took the next step. It was like discovering something completely new, like they'd never been in the exact same place before.

Rose turned to the blonde and murmured: "Scorpius, without you, I never ... I never would have-have ... I never –"

"Shh. I love you too."

–

The. End.

Not my best really. I just wrote whatever came to mind. I hope you enjoyed it! If you could be so kind as to leave a review, I would be most grateful.
Au revoir
CGIL xx