TITLE: Away With the World

AUTHOR: never-mylover (Jenna)

RATING: T, for safety. Slightly sexual situations and mentionings, language, and some violence.

PAIRINGS: Rose/Scorpius

SUMMARY: Rose and the Malfoy boy has always had a strange relationship. In their seventh year at Hogwarts, the Dark Arts begins to rise again, Death Eaters everywhere starting to communicate attack plans over the school and ministry. Rose and Malfoy's relationship takes a surprising turn for the worst, and he deems Rose as his key to stay alive. Will their affections for each other finally gain the approval of Rose's family after all, or will Scorpius ultimately fail when the truth comes out?

DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling, other than new and original characters. Those belong to me.

The lights in the brightly lit corridor seemed to have dimmed within the last few moments. Convinced it was just her eyes watering intensely with pain, Rose took a look around. Yes, the many torches and candles mounted to the walls still burned, sending off an unusual heat that Rose found both comforting and insanely annoying. Rose lifted her hand to her face and wiped away a rather large tear. Her back was still as tense as ever, pressed against the stone wall as if she was convinced she could sink away into the other room if she just tried hard enough. Her wand was still in her hand, her fingers wrapped around its base so tightly that she was nearly sure that they had turned blue. Getting over her fear of moving, Rose leaned down and clasped her free hand around her knee. It throbbed as if a golf ball had suddenly learned to Apparate and decided that its first destination would be would be the space right between Rose's left kneecap and her innermost layer of skin.

That bastard. He had ambushed her! He hadn't even given her anywhere near enough time to defend herself! It suddenly occurred to Rose that she really should have listened to her father and stayed away from Scorpius Malfoy.

Slipping her hand into the pocket of her robes, Rose dropped her wand in as she heard the distant chatter of some first years making their way to their common rooms. Remembering her responsibility as one of the Gryffindor prefects, Rose swore rather loudly and limped away, attempting to locate the source of the chattering.

Rose turned down a corridor to see a loud cluster of laughing students. Leading the crowd was none other than Albus Potter. Rose pushed some hair away from her face and approached her cousin warily, an innocent, apologetic smile playing over her lips. Albus looked at Rose from the corner of his eye as she caught up with him. He rolled his eyes and grinned at her.

"I'm sorry!" Rose blurted out, her voice cracking slightly. "I got… distracted. I – "

"Malfoy again?" Albus asked, with one eyebrow raised suspiciously. There was a loud, shrill laugh that came from a first year directly behind Rose and she twitched abruptly.

"Well, yes. But this time it was his fault, I swear," Rose retorted. Her thoughts, once again, moved back to her knee, which was undoubtedly turning multiple colours at that precise moment. Whichever hex Scorpius had flung at her, it was good and most likely illegal to be using at school, even if he was of age.

Some part of Rose had missed her always amusing encounters with the Malfoy boy. Her summer had been slightly uneventful due to his absence, although Rose would never even dream of admitting to her family that he was the reason for it.

Albus took another look at his cousin, and had appeared to notice the redness around her eyes. To Rose's surprise, this didn't seem to shock Albus one bit. He simply shook his head as a smirk grew on his face. "What did he do now, Rosie?"

"I don't know what it was, but my knee is absolutely killing me," Rose moaned loudly, as if she had been waiting anxiously to complain about it to someone, which was partially true in a way. Albus' eyebrows rose quickly, and his eyes moved down to his cousin's knees. "It's fine though. Nothing I can't handle."

Taking another sideways glance at his cousin, Albus bit his lip. Rose was aware of how uncomfortable he was about her and Malfoy's friendship, if you could call it that. It had always seemed like no more than an annoying flirtation to Rose. There were times when she didn't mind running into him in the halls, then there were moments she seriously would have enjoyed taking a beater bat to his head at the sheer sight of his pointy, pale face, although Rose could not deny to anyone… Scorpius did have a rather nice looking face, despite the pointedness and the lack of sunlight he seemed to get.

"Anyways," Albus continued, sighing heavily, "Gryffindors, I believe, have already made it up to the tower. Stop following me before I let my mini-Slyths loose on you. Bye Rosie!"

Rose frowned, having forgotten that her cousin was actually not in her own house. She moved to the wall so the Slytherin first years could pass. A few hissed at her, and she simply returned with a jaw-dropped lion roar, or what she thought sounded like one. A few girls screamed, and some of the boys near the back of the crowd almost toppled over with laughter. Rose smiled to herself and watched the crowd disappear towards the dungeons. It had always amazed her that despite her cousin's close friendship with Scorpius, he still stood by his uncle's disapproval of Scorpius and Rose's relationship. It made Rose feel quite special that her family really meant that much to Albus, but at times it had gotten quite annoying. Sometimes when Rose and Scorpius had somehow found themselves alone together somehow, Albus, Hugo, Lily, or Roxanne would always suddenly pop up. There were times when Rose was suspicious that they had some sort of communication system, or perhaps Albus had his father's old map with him.

"Rose?"

Turning to the sound of the voice, Rose caught sight of her good friend Clarity, who was a year younger than Rose and Lily's best friend. She was muggleborn, although there were times she claimed to be at least half-blood, saying that her great-grandfather had been a wizard and somehow the magic had just died out, which had never made complete sense to Rose, considering that mentioning the subject of Squibs to Clarity often made her tremble and begin to sob rather intensely.

"Oh, hello, Clarity. Why aren't you off with the others?" Rose asked, taking a few steps forwards, then deeply regretting it as her knee throbbed even more. She bit her lip hard, then let go at the taste of blood.

"I could ask you the same thing," Clarity replied quickly, crossing her arms over her chest. Rose frowned.

"Er – what? I was just on my way. Come on, let's walk together," Rose said happily, ignoring the sceptical look in Clarity's eye, and took her friend by the arm and dragged her down the corridor to the nearest staircase. Her knee was still throbbing uncontrollably, and the awkward tension between her and Clarity was not helping Rose's slowly declining mood.

"Alright, calm down," Clarity said, frowning at her friend's grip on her arm. Rose saw this and let go. "Gosh, a bit tense, much? Is this because you didn't get Head Girl?"

Rose bit her lip again. She had forgotten about that the moment she had run into Scorpius. Her dad had been holding it over her head for the longest time, telling her that she was going to get it, but, of course, she didn't. Her mum had been supportive, telling her that if it didn't happen, it was just wasn't meant to be. Well, screw meant to be. Rose had really wanted to be Head Girl and had lost to some random chick in Ravenclaw who had muggle braces on her teeth and a horrible complexion. She could not deny it; it really ticked her off. "Not entirely, no," Rose started. "I ran into Malfoy again."

Clarity suddenly lit up. "Oh? And… what happened?"

"Well, he hexed me. Big surprise there," Rose mumbled, an underlying groan escaping her lips. Clarity let out a high-pitched, cheery laugh. Rose moved her eyes to her friend as they reached another corridor a couple floors up from where they had started. A moment of silence fell, and Rose found herself smiling. It was funny, really, how awestruck she had been after Scorpius had done the tight little figure-eight with his wand. Whether it was his intense skill for stunning Rose in more ways than one, or the excruciating pain that erupted in her knee, she did not know, but she was sure it gave Scorpius a good laugh either way. For some reason, Rose was fine with this.

When the girls had finally reached Gryffindor tower, Rose realized she had forgotten the password. She turned to Clarity, who seemed to have everything down pat. "Lovegood," Clarity stated. Rose frowned. How did she not know that? Her parents had known the Lovegoods. Ugh. The Fat Lady swung the door open and the two girls entered. The common room was crowded, as expected, but the only person that really caught Rose's eye was her brother.

Hugo was leaning against the back of the sofa, staring at his older sister. Rose frowned rather uncomfortably and made her way to her brother, looking around the room. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Dad won't be happy."

Rose groaned loudly and scrunched her hands in her long, curly hair that she had inherited from her mother. "Hugo, really? You're fifteen; stop acting like you need to watch over me all the time. It's so annoying, I – "

"Let me guess… had another run in with Malfoy?" Hugo's friend, Nelson, asked. Rose had known for a long time that her brother's friend had a crush on her. Every time Scorpius was mentioned in one of the siblings' conversations, Nelson appeared out of nowhere. He was a dark haired boy, with honey-coloured eyes and what looked to be the beginning of puberty-induced acne beginning to form on his forehead and jaw bones. Rose knew many girls in the fifth year had crushes on Nelson; he was a good looking boy, Rose knew that, but he had always seemed so cocky and intrusive.

"Yes," Rose answered awkwardly, flinching at the boy's appearance. Nelson smiled at Rose and she tried to return it, but it came out looking like more of a disgusted grimace.