For Alice (watching stiricide), who is absolutely amazing.
Disclaimer: It belongs to JKR.
She's sick of her life. Sick of being the perfect child with the perfect grades and the perfect looks and the perfect behavior. And now she has the perfect career. She's right on track to become the most perfect wife and business woman there ever was. No less than one would expect from the daughter of Hermione Granger.
But she can't stand it anymore. The inanity, the insincerity. About five times a day she has to stop herself from screaming, "I don't care!" Because to do that would make her less than perfect.
Five months after he begins work at the Ministry, he finally runs into her. They nod at each other - in school they were nothing more than mere acquaintances. As she rustles past him in her perfectly pressed dress robes and perfectly pinned hair, he detects the lingering scent of cigarette smoke beneath her vanilla perfume.
One day it finally hits her: she doesn't have to be perfect. She doesn't have to fulfill anyone's expectations but her own.
She cuts her red hair, dies it violet - all the better to distinguish herself from her family - and never shows up to work on time. She stops making sure that every outfit is pressed and every hairdo is pinned perfectly.
He passes by her again, hardly recognizing her as she puffs a cigarette. Then again, he has paid more attention to her than he's realized. She's attracting a lot of stares as she stumbles through the atrium, and he can tell by the tension in her battered body that this is infuriating her. Just as the first reporter's camera clicks, she breaks. "All right, I'm not perfect!" she screams, and silences slams into the room.
He meets her eyes, defiant and threatening and terrified, and sees her vulnerability. This seems to make her more scared than anything else: the eyes of everyone fixated upon her, the flashes of cameras and scratches of scurrying quills as the press documents her every move.
She runs through the room, people sliding out of her path, to the wall of fireplaces and hurtles through one. As if on cue, the atrium bursts into shocked whispers at the scandal that has occurred.
He stands there for what seems like only a moment but in actuality is several minutes. Then he too dashes through a fireplace, throwing glittering powder as he does and ignoring the cries of his colleagues.
He tumbles out of the fireplace and immediately begins searching her flat without bothering to brush the ashes of his clothes. The flat is a mess, littered with dirty dishes, cigarette stubs, empty bottles, and broken tubes of lipstick.
He finds her on the tiny balcony, a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in another.
"Weasley," he says, not bothering with niceties, "what the hell are you doing?"
She ignores him, taking another swig from the bottle. He steps closer, smelling the sharp scents of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and for some reason, cinnamon.
"Rose," he says, much more gently, "I don't know why you're doing this, but it's hurting you more than anyone else." She doesn't reply.
"For God's sake, Rose!" he shouts, knocking the bottle out of her hand. "Why won't you listen to me?"
She makes an angry swipe for the bottle but he pitches it down into the alley below. The sudden crash as the bottle shatters seems to break Rose from her stupor.
"Malfoy, why in hell are you here?" she asks tiredly.
He considers this. He doesn't know, really. He has simply followed his instincts until now. "To save you from yourself," he decides finally.
"I don't need a fucking knight in shining armor," she says, avoiding his eyes and gazing out at the London skyline.
He doesn't respond for a long moment. "I'm not trying to rescue you, Rose. I'm not going to sweep you up on my hypothetical white horse and carry you off into the sunset. I just want you to realize what you're doing to yourself. Because you're hurting yourself-" he swallows as he finally realizes the truth that has haunted him for years now - "and by hurting yourself, you're hurting me."
She doesn't seem to comprehend his confession, simply keeps staring off into the distance, her eyes glazing over. At last she speaks, still not looking at him. "For my whole life, I've been perfect. It's what the press expects of me, what my family expects of me, what the world expects of me, and what I expected of myself, for a while. Perfect grades, perfect looks, perfect behavior. But I – I'm sick of being perfect. I can't do it anymore, Scorpius!" Her voice breaks as she says his name, but she refuses to let the tears fall. "I'm not strong enough – I'm broken inside and I just can't bring myself to care anymore," she whispers.
He doesn't know what to do, really. He settles for very gently plucking the cigarette from her hand and grinding it into the ground with his shoe. "Rose?" he says. "It's okay to be broken, love." Hesitantly he puts his arms around her, and feels her collapse into him.
"I'm shattered," she says, "and I can't find the pieces to put back together."
Tears gather in the corners of his grey eyes, but he has to be strong. He has to stay strong for her. For Rose.
"It's okay to be broken," she repeats, openly crying now. "It's okay. It's okay!"
Scorpius is bewildered by her outburst, but only embraces her more closely as she buries her face into his ash-covered jacket. Gently he presses her lips to the top of her matted, violet head, breathing in the scent of smoke and cinnamon.
"Scorpius?" she whispers after several minutes. "Will you -" Her voice crackles and fades out like a broken radio.
"Sshh," he murmurs. "It's alright. It's going to be alright, I promise."
She peers up at him with her tearstained blue eyes, and for a moment he thinks her very soul is bare to him, all her vulnerabilities, all her secrets exposed.
He poses a question to her with his eyes, and she nods once, slowly. Scorpius crushes his lips to hers, trying to piece her back together with sheer love. And maybe that's all it will take. Maybe. But for now, that's the only shard of hope she has, and she clings to it as though nothing in the world could ever be more important to her than his love.
A/N: Please tell me what you thought, and don't favorite without reviewing.
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