**Disclaimer: All characters, locations, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling. Lyrics and song belong to Coldplay.**

"Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard."

– Coldplay, The Scientist

The message, Rose had found, was everywhere in Muggle music. When she went home for the summer and listened to the radio, the words were repeated a thousand different ways. Some songs said it in the title, others just in the message. But she had never found someone to say it as distinctly and honestly as Coldplay.

Love was a painful, painful experience. And it didn't always end happily.

The thing that Rose had noticed about those other songs was that—despite the theme—they had happy endings. However, as reality could attest to, not every love story ended happily. They had to in the media; a love story that ended sadly truly wasn't a story at all. Sometimes, in literature, someone would have to pick between two people, but they always ended up with someone that they loved.

Just another way, Rose reasoned, that literature was so different from real life.

Real life did not always have a happy ending. For every love story that was told, there were a hundred others that never happened. A hundred boys and girls sitting around with broken hearts whose stories would never be told because they lacked the shininess of a happy ending.

So these poor people with their broken hearts walked around, hoping someday the pain would lessen and they would be able to move on.

Rose walked beside them, hoping as they hoped. The pain, she had discovered, was always worse on that one dreaded day.

February 14. Valentine's Day. The holiday to celebrate love.

Every year since she was thirteen, Rose had woken up on Valentine's Day already miserable. Some years, her family would notice and take some time to cheer her up. Of course, all of their efforts were in vain, but it was better than the years that no one said anything.

Seventeen-year-old Rose sat in a corner of an abandoned classroom. It was coming – tomorrow. Saint Valentine's Day last year, Rose's Sixth Year, had been the worst. All of her cousins were getting older – old enough to date. They had all been off with their significant others, and Rose had been left at the Gryffindor table alone. Her solitary piece of toast looked just as lonely as she felt and, out of pity, she refused to eat it.

She did not eat for a week. She claimed she wasn't hungry.

The day often stretched beyond the actual holiday. Sometimes, Valentine's Day lasted for a week. A week of snogging couples sitting on the grounds, a week of teachers giving detention to the people found in the Astronomy Tower after curfew. And then, after that, a week of heartbreak as half of the Valentine's Day couples broke up.

Then they were forgotten about. After two weeks, everything was back to normal. After two weeks, everything was forgotten, just a memory.

Rose wished, more than anything, that she could do that. Just forget about it all. But she was haunted, haunted by the first time she realized it, and haunted by the first time that she did anything about it.

Platform 9 ¾, on her way home her Second Year. Rose was trying to get her trunk off of the train, but it was too heavy. She had always been a little girl, and this year Al was trying to sneak home some sweets from Honeydukes. Her trunk was impossibly full, and she couldn't possibly lift it.

She watched as it teetered on the edge of the train, getting ready for it to fall off, probably crushing her and exposing everything she had inside to the entire world. And then it landed—inexplicably upright, closed, and perfect—right in front of her. A person came around from the back.

"All right there, Weasley?" a voice, a kind voice asked.

She knew the voice, but the tone was something she had never heard before. As Rose looked into the slate-grey eyes of Scorpius Malfoy that day, she felt something change.

"Yeah, Malfoy," she said, letting relief into her own tone. "Thanks. You know, for my trunk."

He shrugged, something Rose didn't think she'd ever seen the haughty boy do before. "No big deal."

Someone called his name, and he turned his head toward the speaker, giving Rose a full view of that beautiful white-blond hair. It truly was gorgeous, she realized. Then she remembered that she wasn't supposed think like that. Remember what Dad had said? Grandad Weasley would never forgive her if she married a pureblood.

"Gotta go," he said, turning back to her. "That's my parents."

Before she had time to react, to thank him again, to say anything, he threw his arms around her torso. "Have a good summer, Weasley."

And then he was gone. Rose was left behind with her stomach tingling, watching his head bob among the crowd and then disappear.

Sometimes he still pulled stunts like that. The closer they got to the end of the year, the more he talked to her. At the end of their fifth year, he taught her how to fly. Sixth year, he showed her some spells he'd come up with. Now, seventh year, they were at the time when Scorpius approached Rose with an idea, something he wanted to teach her before school let out.

This time, they wouldn't be coming back. This would be the last thing Scorpius would show Rose.

Valentine's Day was tomorrow. He always came up to her before Valentine's Day. And every year, she would start to hope. But there was nothing.

This year, he hadn't come. Valentine's Day was tomorrow, and Scorpius hadn't come to talk to her yet.

She could only hope that something different meant something good.

The night passed in agony. Rose did not sleep. She did not even bother to go back to her dormitory; she spent the night in that unused classroom, sitting in the corner, tearing at her hair.

As expected, Valentine's Day passed without event. Other couples kissed and gave each other flowers and there was altogether too much sappiness for Rose to handle. She did not eat breakfast; last year she had found that it was easier to brave on an empty stomach. Dutifully, Rose went to her first two classes, but after that she gave up. She made her way back to her empty classroom.

If Scorpius had wanted to talk to her, he would have done it at breakfast. Instead, he had snogged some Slytherin girl whose name Rose didn't even know. He had presented her with tulips – not roses, she noticed. Not her flower.

Picturing him presenting that other girl with a bouquet was enough to send Rose spiraling downward into depression. Muttering quietly to herself, she sunk farther into the teacher's chair.

The room had been abandoned for years, and Rose had taken it over in one of her first weeks at Hogwarts. It was her hideout, the place were she could be truly alone. Sure, anyone could walk in, but the empty classrooms on the fifth floor were so much nicer.

No, the only person she had ever brought here was Scorpius.

An iPod wouldn't work here, not with all the magic, but Rose knew how to get the song she needed. She pulled an old radio out from under the desk and tapped it with her wand. It spluttered to life, setting off the shrill tones of Clestina Warbeck. Cringing, Rose tapped it again, whispering the station number that she wanted. The dials turned, trying to find a wizard station that didn't exist, before finally going onto the Muggle airwaves.

The station that Rose turned to was mostly for old romantics. They played love songs, the kind that made Rose want to barf. But almost once an hour, they put on a sad song. And the DJ had a particularly soft spot for Rose's favorite Coldplay song.

Rose didn't have to wait long; maybe two minutes after she turned on the radio, the song started. Knowing that everyone else was in class, she turned up the volume.

The familiar chords rang out, and she couldn't help but sing along. Her mind drifted with the words, taking her back to the moment that had begun it all and their inevitable separation in just a couple of months. The wizarding world was small, but not small enough that they would meet again.

Rose was going to have to be able to deal with that, but at this point she didn't think that she could. As the song came to an end, she realized that she would end up like the singer. Always circling back, back to the beginning, to the start of something good.

The singer sang his final notes, and Rose with him, then she tapped the radio again with her wand, closed her eyes and snuggled further into the chair.

"I didn't know you could sing, Weasley."

Surely she was imaging that voice. He could not actually be standing there. Rose waited a moment before opening her eyes.

The doorway was empty. Rose had the nerve to be disappointed. She closed her eyes again, sinking down even more.

"I mean, really. You should have told me. We could have started a band."

Maybe she was going insane. That seemed like a logical solution. Still, she opened her eyes once more, looking at the empty doorway and figuring that she'd really gone around the bend.

"I'm mad," she muttered, closing her eyes. She put the radio on the desk, but it quickly fell, almost landing on her foot.

"Be careful," that same voice chided.

More on instinct than will, Rose's eyes flitted open. And there, standing in the doorway, was Scorpius Malfoy.

"Fab," Rose whispered. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "How many other teenage witches blast Coldplay in the middle of Potions?"

Rose winced. "We're supposed to be in Potions? Damn. That essay is due today."

He shook his head. "Not important, Rosie."

She gulped. Rosie? She had never even been Rose before.

But this was impossible. She was hallucinating. He had given tulips to someone else this morning. He did not want her.

"What are you doing here?"

Scorpius narrowed his grey eyes. "Are you all right?"

Slowly Rose nodded. "Fine. So why are you here again?"

A smile crept onto his face. "I figured it was about time for our yearly activity."

For some reason, this rubbed Rose the wrong way. Now he wanted to be friends again? Well, it was too little, too late.

"Really?" Rose asked tightly, feeling a rant building. It was something she would have blurted out in First Year, when she hated Scorpius. Never something she would have said to him now. But somehow, it came out.

"So you've deemed it an appropriate time of year for us to be mates now, have you? Why do you do this, Scorpius? You know it just makes it more painful. Can't you just ignore me all the time, instead of getting my hopes up every year, only to have to watch you ask some other girl, only to get my hopes crushed. Every year. And this year I thought it might actually be different, but no, it's the same. You're so selfish, Scorpius. And I'm not going to put up with it anymore."

At some point during her outburst, Rose had pushed herself up out of her chair and marched over towards the door. As she moved, Scorpius had walked toward her, and now their positions were almost switched. She stood by the door; he leaned on the chair, looking baffled.

"What are you talking about, Rose?"

She closed her eyes for a second. She should not say it. But her traitor mouth blurted it out anyway. "I bloody fancy you, you insensitive prick."

And with that, feeling the tears building in her eyes, Rose swept from the room. She tried to leave all the pain of unrequited love behind, but she would carry it with her for many years.

She would never speak to Scorpius again.

He watched as that familiar, lovely bronze hair bounced on her head. She was yelling, but he wasn't listening. He was watching the way her lips rubbed together when she spoke, taking in the sound of her angelic voice without hearing her words. And, for the thousandth, no the millionth time, he was thinking how impossible it was.

He would have to leave everything he cared about for her. And while he would do it in a heartbeat, she would have to do it too. And Scorpius would never let Rose make that decision. She cared about her family more than anything in the world.

So they were an impossibility, and she need never know how much he loved her.

"What are you talking about, Rose?" he asked, realizing that she was on the verge of tears. Perhaps he should have been paying more attention. He had learned how to be close to her without his feelings taking over; this moment was crucial if they were going to maintain a friendship.

He did not hear her whole response. Only a few words stood out.

I fancy you.

She felt the same way. He had never been sure, but even with it as truth, it didn't change anything. Rose would still have to give up everything for him, and he would not let her.

And so when she ran out of that empty classroom on Valentine's Day, Scorpius did not follow her.

His mind would follow her to the ends of the earth, he would keep tabs on her, but they would never meet again.

The pain of forbidden love—particularly self-forbidden love—was far more painful than the pain of unrequited love. And as Scorpius went through every day, wishing that Rose was by his side, he could not help but think of those familiar lyrics.

No one ever said it would be this hard.

AN: Just a couple of things before we part.

1) This post is for Project PULL, which is amazingly running again. Go To Kill A Mockingjay for having motivation that I don't possess. :)

2) Like it? Hate it? LET ME KNOW. Please give specifics in your review. CC is the best thing on the planet.

3) Posting this is kind of bittersweet. A friend (who I liked for quite a long time) introduced me to this song. He recently moved away, and I know I will never see him again. Although he never returned my feelings, we did have something similar to the relationship that I imagined Rose and Scorpius having. So Aaron, this one is for you. It was a pleasure and a blessing to know you.

Thanks for reading!