They were a quiet couple, but not in the ways one would usually think. They were quiet in that their love was quiet, silent perhaps. As individuals, they were loud. Incredibly so, their friends might say with a grimace and a fond rolling of eyes. And that was true, undeniably so. They always had something to say and neither was ever afraid of announcing whatever it was. Not afraid at all. They were brave and reckless and held themselves with such confidence and yet so much poise and control and care. They were loud, yes, but if you really listened you could hear what wasn't being said and that was what really mattered.

You could try to hear it all you liked, some declaration of their feelings for each other, some way of knowing that what they were went beyond that of two people who simply appreciated each other from an entirely impartial standpoint, if that were to make any sense at all. You could try to hear that what they were went beyond what they said, but you would be unsuccessful.

Their love was a quiet love, and sometimes people assumed there was none at all, that maybe they never heard of it because it had been so long. In teenage terms, three years was a lifetime after all. A lifetime of quiet togetherness, of unspoken affection that was not in any way hidden. It was strange, perhaps, their silence that was not in any way silent. Their silence that was measured in the loud music they listened to together from the Muggle device she'd received from him for her seventeenth birthday almost a year ago, in the jokes they made about everything going on around them, in their noisy debates about tiny changes that ought to be made to some sections of Wizarding law. There was sound in all of these things, but there was silence too.

You see, the silence was in place of the words that neither felt the actual need to use. It was perhaps an old saying perhaps, but actions truly did speak louder than words, at least to Rose and Scorpius.

When he'd first told her he loved her he had said it silently, but she had understood and had responded with that same silence, and it had been that way ever since. It had always been that way. That way was the way it worked and that way meant far more than those overused three words.

Of course, it wasn't even like their way was especially original, most of the time people are always saying 'I love you' without even realising it. Maybe what was unusual about this young couple was that they hadn't ever needed to verbalise it at all, that was oddly uncommon for couples their age. It was a shame, really, it was a shame people only thought to listen to the words most of the time.

If you were wondering how to say you love someone without using any words, you shouldn't actually have to think too much. It really is simple, you just have to show them, right? And that's what they did, what you did too. She knew he loved her when his eyes lit up upon her entering of a room, he knew she loved him when she gave him that smile. Her smile. His smile. It really did belong to them both. He belonged to her and she belonged to him and just looking at each other that was clear enough to the both of them. They didn't need to say it to know it was true.

There are other ways to say you love someone, ways that involve neither words nor anything visual. You can say 'I love you' just by stroking her spine that way you know she likes and you can hear her say it back when she responds by planting a feather light kiss on your inner elbow, leaving you breathless and overcome with how much you love her, filling you both with ever more ways to say it. And that was how Rose and Scorpius said they loved each other by touching. Of course, there were numerous other ways in which one simple touch said far more than three little words and perhaps you know some of them, maybe even all of them.

You can say 'I love you' when you taste a person, placing your mouth just about anywhere on their body and gently, tenderly, getting a sense of all that they are and all that they taste like. You can taste her love on her lips in the bitter aftertaste of the morning coffee she's trying to be less dependent on, she can taste yours in the distinctive tobacco that lingers in your breath that you loudly talked about having quit just the night before. She knows you love her when you cause her to taste a certain way in a certain place and you know she loves you when she makes you taste that way in that place too. That's sometimes the scent of love as well, the smell of her coffee and his cigarettes, of his sweat and her sweat and the sweat that unites them. Of him and of her and of you and your love.

Rose and Scorpius loved silently, and maybe that was the secret. Maybe the secret to it all is to be so aware of the person you love and all the ways in which you can say it that you don't get too tongue tied when you can't say the right words at the right time. Maybe there are no right words, maybe there is no right time. Maybe by holding back from saying the words you make them all the more special when they do come out, if they ever need to at all that is. Maybe, as with Rose and Scorpius, you won't say 'I love you' in the same way you feel it and see it and smell it and taste it, maybe when you say those three words they may be a bit of an anticlimax and will seem pretty unremarkable. And maybe that will be okay because not a day went by when Rose doubted him or he doubted her, even though the last time they'd actually exchanged the words was right at the start, during that shakey transition of thirteen year olds who were best friends to being thirteen year olds who loved each other before they knew that there were far better ways to say it without words.