A/N: I wrote this for a competition over at the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Dialogue Center. Hope you enjoy it as it's my first Scorpius/Rose story!

Out of the Ordinary

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Scorpius Malfoy slipped out of the ballroom and hastily made his way down the long hallway that led to the balcony. He doubted he would be allowed more than few moments to himself once he reached his destination, given the fact that close to three-hundred guests currently filled Malfoy Manor, all there for his graduation party. However, even a few seconds reprieve sounded wonderful to Scorpius, what with all the thoughts rushing through his head.

He stepped out onto the balcony and froze as a clock chimed nine times from inside the house. Rose would be saying farewell to her guests now. She had invited Scorpius to her graduation party, but he had had to decline as his was scheduled for the same day and required much preparation. Now he found himself full of anguish. He should have just gone, if only for a few moments. Rose had attached a brief note to Scorpius's invitation, and he reached into the pocket of his dress robes to feel the parchment between his fingers. He did not pull the letter from his pocket to read it, however. He knew what it said by heart already. If I see you there, I can tell you what I really meant. I want to do that more than anything. –Rose

Each time Scorpius thought of what Rose's note said, he remembered the last time he'd spoken to her. It had been the night before school let out, and the two, Head Boy and Girl, had sat on their common room floor, talking like old friends.

"We've gotten along so well this year," Rose noted, smiling her bright, brilliant smile. It was the very one that Scorpius had fallen in love with just a few short months before.

"We did," Scorpius said. "I didn't expect that."

"Neither did I," Rose agreed, and she giggled as she did so, her curly auburn hair bobbing up and down as her body shook with laughter. Scropius felt as if he was flying every time he heard that laugh. "But here we are now," she continued, her voice suddenly becoming serious. "I think we've gotten rather close this year, Scorpius."

Scorpius wanted to kiss her then, but he refrained, unsure of what she meant. A stray strand of hair fell in her face, and Scorpius reached forward, wanting to push it behind her. He nearly touched Rose, but then pulled his hand away before speaking. "Yes, we have," he noted, his voice quavering slightly. "We must keep in touch. I'll write to you this summer. I couldn't bear if we didn't." He was rambling now, but had no control over himself. He couldn't stop speaking, for he feared that if he did so the spell would be broken. Rose would stop smiling and laughing with him and would instead turn around and walk off, determined to ignored his existence as she had up until this year.

He paused briefly and Rose gazed at him. She lifted a hand to the strand of hair at her face. Her hair was short and the segment curled slightly below her chin, ending in a whorl against her neck. She didn't fix her hair, though, as if doing so would cause her to miss the next thing Scorpius said.

It was at this point that Scorpius made a fatal mistake. "I really think," he blurted out, though it wasn't what he wanted to say, "that we've become good friends."

Rose had looked bereft, Scorpius remembered now has he inhaled the warm night air. Her hand had fallen from the side of her face to her lap, a dying bird. She had stood up and crossed the common room, headed for her dormitory, calling behind her, "That's not what I meant at all."

And now Scorpius stood alone, gazing out at the Malfoy's land—what would one day be his land, he realized. The sounds of music and chatter wafted from inside the mansion and he grimaced, realizing that from here on out, his life would be completely the same. It always had been rather mundane, though being at Hogwarts had spiced things up. Endless evenings danced before his mind. He'd attended many ***** and dinners over the years. He'd had many pureblooded girls, often snobby at best, distantly related at worst, danced before his eyes in ball gowns and even school robes on their first day at Hogwarts. Scorpius even knew what the future held for him: He'd dine with the same families, dance with the same girls, and one day end up in a loveless marriage just as his parents had, spending his evenings with a bottle of firewhisky, mulling over documents and complaining about disloyal houselves and careless groundskeepers.

For a moment, he'd had the chance to change this all. He'd held Rose in his arms many evenings at Hogwarts, and yet he had never been able to make the next step—to kiss her, to tell her how he felt—even when she had been willing to help him do so. The clock struck again and he realized that it was quarter after. Perhaps Rose had already finished cleaning up from the party now. Maybe she was laughing with her cousins or friends who had stayed, looking at old pictures and reminiscing. Possibly she had had a bit too much celebratory champagne and was dancing with her cousin Dominique, spinning about like a whirling dervish amongst leftover fairy lights that winked on and off, the light playing softly against her skin. Or maybe—and he wanted to scream at the thought—some boy or another had stayed behind and was kissing her in the orchard behind her house that she had always spoken so fondly of.

"Scorpius?" a voice called from the doorway, pulling him from his thoughts. Reluctantly, Scorpius turned around to see Clarissa Flint, one of the girls who would have been paraded before him, if it wasn't for the fact that she didn't need parading. She was two years younger than Scorpius and had spent all of her five years at Hogwarts hanging on his every word and following him about like a rather bloodthirsty parasite, despite the obvious fact her sentiments were not returned. Scorpius had kissed her once in his fifth year, but she seemed to forget that he hadn't so much as brushed up against her since by the way she had continued to follow him about and tell anyone willing to listen that they were an item.

"Yes, Clarissa?" Scorpius replied, heading towards her. He knew he had to. Though what he wanted to do was Apparate to Rose's house, a place he had never seen before but desired as if it was his own home, he knew that he lacked the courage to do so. If he left now, he'd disappoint so many people. There was his mother, who claimed to want the best for him. There were his grandparents, who had always expected so much of him and had yet to be disappointed.

"Everyone is wondering where you are," Clarissa replied, smiling at him in what Scorpius assumed was supposed to be a beguiling manner.

"I'll be inside in a moment," Scorpius said with a sigh. "Don't wait for me."

He turned around after she left and gazed back out at the grounds once more. He would probably marry Clarissa one day. She was everything his parents approved of, and perhaps the most tolerable of the few girls that they accepted. She wasn't completely ugly, after all.

I can't disappoint them, Scorpius thought to himself, but it was with shocking jolt that he realized who "them" was to him. His parents did not jump to his mind as he thought the word. Instead, an image of Rose came to him. She was stepping off of the Hogwarts Express and grinning broadly, for she spotted her family. She paused for an instant and turned her head to the side and in doing so her eyes met Scorpius. It had been the last time he'd seen her, and he'd noticed her wipe at the sides of her eyes before running off towards her parents, grinning once more.

A breeze blew through, rustling the trees and smelling of the night—excitingly curious. Suddenly, Scorpius pulled his wand out from his pocket. He braced himself, knowing what he had to do. It was as if a certain knowledge or revelation and come blowing in with the wind. I can't disappoint her, he thought, and I can't disappoint myself.

He took a deep breath and spun on the spot, knowing that from this point forward his life would no longer be measured. For nothing with Rose Weasley was ever mundane.

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For I have known them all already, known them all: -
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot