Now that the reveals are up on smrw_ficafest over on Livejournal, I can post this here! Originally written for anysomething, this piece was voted Favorite Fluffy Fic and Favorite Overall Fic by the community (as well as tying for Favorite Quote for the second to last paragraph, but as that was awarded due to a poll mixup, I'll let you all decide for yourselves). Thanks so much to all who voted for me, and thanks to anysomething for her winderful prompts!
DISCLAIMER: As always, I own nothing.
Enjoy!
"What has happened between us has happened for centuries. We know it from literature. Still it happens. There are books that describe all this, and they are useless." -Adrienne Rich
"There is no them, just facets of us." -John Green
Facets
June 15, 2030 - an hour before the wedding
It seems fitting somehow that this enchanted journal that I've carried around for 10 years should reach its limit today, on my wedding day. When two people get married, everyone likes to look back, to see the progression of when and how and why, and everyone likes to offer comparisons. I've heard the two of us held up to just about every star-crossed lover in Muggle and Wizard literature alike, and it's silly, really. As humans, we misremember, and overplay the romantic and dramatic, when in reality, it's just like I told him all those years ago, before I even really understood what I was saying. There are books that describe all this, and they are useless. Because we're real people, not characters, and we all have hidden facets. The full truth of our story cannot ever be truly known. But it's important that we try to capture as many of those facets as we can.
Notice everything. That's what I've always tried to do. Notice everything, record everything. It's a skill that comes in handy as a reporter, but it's important on many more levels than that.
I was given this journal when I started at Hogwarts, a gift from my Aunt Ginny, and unknowingly, I set down our story. Anyone who wants to know my side of the truth can find it here. As for his, well. You'll have to ask him.
I remember things in snapshots. It comes with being a photographer. When asked to remember an event, I pull up a mental photograph, and if it's the one I want, I bring it into the Wizarding forefront of my brain and let the scene play out.
And here I am on my wedding day, and I find myself bombarded with snapshot after snapshot, playing out the ways in which I – in which we – got here. It's not the story some people expect, and to be honest, I don't know that it'll even make that good a story, told out loud. I don't have a throughline. I don't have a narrative. I have single events, mental photographs capturing moments in time, and not always the important ones that people expect. But they're important to me, and to us, and if you want to hear about them, you're going to have to accept what you get. I'm a photographer. I'll show you the snapshots as they come, but connecting them into a story is your job.
OOO
August 24, 2023 - Shortly after the arrival of Hogwarts letters
Rule #1: Notice everything.
This has always been my rule number one, ever since I was little. Notice everything, and more importantly, remember everything. These are the rules I live my life by, despite the snide little comment Lydia would insert at this point about beating Scorpius Malfoy, were she here. I have trained myself diligently, since birth practically, to take note of everything in my life and everything happening in the world around me.
So, it comes as a very upsetting shock to learn that one of the most prominent and inherent parts of my life for the past six years changed at some point without my noticing!
What I know for sure: I will be Head Girl this year. Scorpius Malfoy will be Head Boy. There are no surprises here. I have earned this; I have spent six years earning this. This moment should, in all rights, be my crowning glory. So why isn't it? Why do I not feel the sense of pride and achievement I was anticipating?
It has to do with Scorpius somehow; I know that. Scorpius Malfoy, who has been my academic rival for six years now. There's just something about seeing his name next to mine that is unsettling me in a very strange way, even though it absolutely should not because who else was going to get Head Boy? Derek Jacobs, who lets everyone walk all over him because he's entirely too non-confrontational for a Gryffindor? Alexander Turpin, who cannot for the life of him relate to people? No, it had to be Scorpius, plain and simple. I knew that. There is no reason for me to be unsettled at the prospect of him being Head Boy – I've seen it coming for at least the past year.
But I am. Somehow, I am. Because somehow, something has changed. Scorpius isn't holding the same place in my mind has he always has.
Okay. I need to take a step back. I need to look at this objectively, evaluate the situation in a calm, composed, and logical manner. Everything has an answer; I just have to have the patience to find it.
OOO
Snapshot: Rose Weasley, age eleven, perched on the very edge of a stool in the Potions classroom, hand straight up in the air, trying not to look as if her entire world will implode if she isn't called on to answer the question. This is the first moment I ever really saw Rose. I'd seen her before, of course. On the platform, at the Sorting. But I'd never really seen her, if you understand the distinction.
Anyway, she was called on, and she answered the question correctly, of course – something about secondary names for wormwood – and when Professor Cathay gave Gryffindor ten points for her answer, she looked as if nothing could have made her life better in that moment. She went on to answer the second question correctly, and the third as well, but then she blanked on the fourth and looked positively stricken.
I have no idea what it was about her, but I kept glancing back as Professor Cathay asked repeatedly if anyone knew the answer. And something about this girl and the look on her face prompted me to do something I never thought I'd do. I raised my hand.
Now, don't get me wrong. I knew the answer. I'd known all of the answers. I just wasn't about to raise my hand and actually volunteer any of them. The one rule that I lived by steadfastly at age eleven was this: avoid notice. There were a lot of reasons for it, but the simplest one is just that I knew my life was going to be a lot easier if I avoided attention as much as possible while at school. That was one of the main reasons I had asked the Sorting Hat to put me in Slytherin – life was going to be hard enough for me at Hogwarts without adding the stress of being a Malfoy in any other house.
And yet, for all that my rule was to avoid notice, there I was, on the first day of class, sitting in a room with my hand raised, all because of this girl.
Professor Cathay called on me before I even had the chance to realize what I'd done and take it back, and then she was looking at me expectantly, and everybody else's eyes were on me, too, and I had no choice. I gave the answer – belladonna, though I honestly don't remember the question anymore. Professor Cathay gave me an approving look, awarded ten points to Slytherin, and moved on with her lecture.
I couldn't believe what I'd just done. I wanted to sink into my seat and disappear, but, purely out of developing habit, I glanced back at Rose Weasley.
She looked positively furious, and what was really surprising was that she wasn't directing that fury at me. Rather, she looked furious with herself, and she was taking that fury out on the parchment in front of her, writing very quickly to keep up with what Professor Cathay was saying. Which is, of course, when the professor asked her next question, and as Rose's hand flew into the air, she met my gaze. Her eyes narrowed, and it was clear that she was silently daring me to raise my hand as well. Her message was clear: she wasn't angry with me for answering the question she'd missed, but I shouldn't let myself think it was ever going to happen again. For a moment, I was taken aback. But then a little voice in my head said, So, she thinks she's going to march her way to the top of the class without any competition, does she? and I proceeded to do what I think any intelligent student would have done in that situation.
I raised my hand.
Her eyes widened in shock as I turned back to face Professor Cathay. She called on me, I answered correctly, and with that, the competition between myself and Rose Weasley was on. After another few questions answered by either Rose or myself, Professor Cathay handed out a round fifty points each to both Gryffindor and Slytherin and declared the point battle closed. However, the silent competition that had begun between myself and Rose could not be so easily stopped. It raged on, the rest of the period, her and I both keeping careful track. Honestly, it was probably just about the most fun I've ever had in a classroom. Trying to keep up with her was exhilarating. I'd been taught at home my whole life, just me and Mum, so I'd never had the experience of playing off another person. It was wonderful.
The competition ended in a draw – which I don't think Rose has ever forgiven Professor Cathay or myself for – and while I'd loved every minute of it, I told myself as I left that it was just for that one class. Avoid notice, that was my rule, and I was determined to go back to obeying it.
But that night at dinner, I found myself walking right by Rose's seat on my way to my table, and I opened my mouth to congratulate her. She cut me off before I'd gotten more than a few words out, telling me quite forcefully to please not talk to her as if we were friends.
I remember being stung for a moment, and then in the next moment, telling myself bitterly that I shouldn't be stung, as she was acting no differently than I should have expected. I shot back some bitter and sarcastic comment about how of course we couldn't be friends, since we were destined to be enemies. I'll never forget what she said then.
"Enemies?" she repeated, looking hurt, of all things, shocked that I would say such a thing. "You don't really think that, do you? We're rivals, competitors, but we're not enemies. Enemies means we hate each other, and I don't hate you. How could I? I barely know you."
She always was extraordinary.
OOO
August 24, 2023 - a few moments later
I do not like Scorpius Malfoy, and anyone who says otherwise simply hasn't been paying attention!
To clarify the above statement, it has been brought to my attention that some people are apparently suffering under the misapprehension that I am harboring hidden romantic feelings for one Scorpius Malfoy. This couldn't be further from the truth, and I am determined to make that clear.
Hugo was just in here, interrupting my review of some early journal entries. I have no idea what he initially wanted; he got distracted by the depth of my involvement in what I was doing. His exact words were, "Why are you glaring at that piece of parchment like it's done you some kind of personal wrong?"
I chided him on his use of exaggeration, of course, though I've come to expect nothing less from Hugo. He was able then to correct himself and mock me at the same time, which is a special talent he possesses.
"Right," he said. "Accuracy. So sorry. Let me try again. Why are you focusing intensely on that piece of parchment with a slight hint of a frown between your eyebrows? Better?" I didn't waste my energy glaring at him, though Merlin knows I was sorely tempted to.
"It's my Hogwarts letter," I informed him. "And it contains some . . ."I searched for the right word, "unsettling information." He frowned in mild worry.
"Don't tell me they named someone else Head Girl," he said. I gave him a look of mild condescension. It was all the communication he needed. "No, of course not," he said, holding his hands up in mock apology. "That would elicit a response rather stronger than 'unsettling,' wouldn't it?"
"Precisely," I said, returning to my work.
"So what is it exactly that unsettles you?" he asked after I had been silent for a long moment. I sighed.
"Scorpius Malfoy was named Head Boy," I said.
"And you didn't see that coming?"
"No, of courseI saw that coming," I said impatiently.
"So – what? Are you disappointed by the assignment?" I shook my head.
"No. There's no one better for the job than Scorpius. I've known he would get the position for a year now, at least."
"Okay," he said slowly. "So let me see if I've got this straight. You received a letter that contained no surprising or disappointing information, that, in fact, contained only information that you were able to predict months ago. So, the unsettledness comes from . . . what, exactly, Sis?" He crossed his arms as he leaned against my doorframe and waited expectantly. I sighed again.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I knew I would be Head Girl, and I knew Scorpius would be Head Boy. But I never thought about the fact that that meant we'd be Heads together for an entire year."
I was hoping that Hugo would be able to shed some light on the situation. Irritating as my younger brother can sometimes be, he has a good head on his shoulders. He's intelligent and usually sensible, and he sees the world far differently than I do, which means he is able at times to lend a valuable insight on situations like the one I'm describing at present.
But all that I got from him was a slightly stunned, "You like him."
It was so far from being the response I had expected that it took me a moment or two to fully decipher his meaning. As soon as I had, however, I denied it vehemently. "I do not." He clearly didn't believe me. He shrugged and said, "Okay," but he had this look on his face, so I became more firm in my reply.
"I do not."
"Okay," he said again.
"I do not like Scorpius Malfoy. We are academic rivals, but we have no relationship beyond that, nor do I wish for one. I am not looking for a relationship of any kind at the moment, nor would I ever look for one with a person with whom I am in a near constant state of adversity. Scorpius Malfoy and I have little to nothing in common beyond academics, and I don't find it likely that that will change anytime in the near future. And as for romance –"
"Rose, I said okay like, five minutes ago," Hugo broke in then. He'd been trying to interrupt for some time, but I hadn't let him. "Have you ever read Hamlet?" he asked then, which was the final straw.
"Out," I said with finality, standing and pointing at the door. He grinned in an infuriating manner and slipped out, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "The lady doth protest too much."
I do not like Scorpius Malfoy. Period. The idea is ridiculous, and I refuse to entertain it any further.
OOO
Snapshot: Rose, distorted by the rippled glass of the compartment door, sitting in the head car of the Hogwarts Express, her worn brown journal open on her lap and her "I'm nervous, but I refuse to let on" look on her face. I couldn't help but smile, seeing her like that. Not at her nervousness, not laughing at her in any way, but more in recognition of that determination that always accompanied her rare moments of vulnerability. I knew immediately from where the present vulnerability stemmed. She was worried about being a good Head Girl, about living up to the expectations the previous six years had put before her. But of course, given who she was, she couldn't let on that she was nervous. At least, not in front of anyone.
I let her have a small moment before I slid open the door and strode in. "Nervous?" I asked her with a grin, and was happy to see her stiffen at the question.
"Of course not," she said primly. And though most people wouldn't believe it, the nervous energy disappeared immediately and we set about preparing for the meeting with the Prefects.
Because that was how Rose and I worked. See, when I asked if she was nervous, she knew I knew she was. But we also both knew that when she answered in the negative, she wasn't lying. Because my asking and the act of her answering my asking was all that she needed to make her nerves disappear. Because my asking communicated both that being nervous was silly and that I was nervous as well.
I know it doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but on some level, it does. Over our six years together, our intense competition had given us an interesting relationship. We'd been rivals for so long that we were almost friends, though of course you'd never hear either of us describe it like that. Calling us 'friends' would be breaking some kind of drastically important unspoken rule. We were what we were, and we spoke not in confidences but in banter. We could read each others' moods instantly, and we knew how to poke and needle at one another in just the way necessary to pull the other out of a mood.
So no, this one's not a long memory, but it's an important one because it shows how we worked. Because somehow, inexplicably, unexpectedly, we worked. Don't ask me to explain it; I can't. I just know it was true.
OOO
September 1, 2023 - on the train to Hogwarts, just after the Prefects meeting
So, the Prefects meeting I just led with Scorpius has done absolutely nothing to settle the unsettledness in my mind. I was so nervous as I got on the train this morning! Inexplicably so, as I know I have no reason to be. But as I wrote this morning, it's partly knowing I have expectations to live up to and partly this whole matter with Scorpius.
I watched him so carefully as we prepared for the meeting, but nothing about him was different. He was exactly as I remembered, and we worked together exactly as we did last year in class.
I was hoping so much that this would be answered before the new term started. I don't want this hanging over my head as I'm trying to be Head Girl, stay at the top of the class, co-captain for the Quidditch team, edit the Hogwarts newspaper, and earn my internship at the Daily Prophet. It's too much, even for me, especially as all but the Quidditch team involve Scorpius!
I was operating under the tentative assumption that it was just the prospect of having to work with him instead of against him that was causing my unrest, but I know now that that idea was foolish and had no real weight from the start. We worked together all through Potions last term without incident, and without this feeling of . . . I hate continuing to use 'unsettledness' over and over (especially as it isn't even an actual word), but I can't think of a better way to put it. I am unsettled. Thoroughly.
I hate not having answers.
OOO
Snapshot: my entire sixth-year NEWT level Potions class either openly staring at me or wishing they could turn around to openly stare at me. Moments prior, Rose had named me her second term Potions partner.
It is important, to understand this snapshot, to know that, as we went into our sixth year,
Rose and I found ourselves in seven common classes, partly because we were heading into the same field – journalism – and partly because we were both massive overachievers. But it was the division of the classes that made our rivalry in Potions so intense. Rose led in Arithmancy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Muggle Studies, almost every term without fail, while I led in Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, and History of Magic. The title of top student, therefore, generally came down to Potions. And everyone knew it.
So for Rose Weasley, when asked to choose a term-long Potions partner who would be given an equal grade on every assignment, to choose me was a thing no one expected. Least of all me. So the class stared at me, and I stared at Rose, and Rose just looked straight ahead and ignored us all.
I caught up with her later that day, and asked her what was going on. I'll admit; there was a part of me that wondered if she was trying to pull one over on me. I couldn't think of a single reason why she would so willingly give up her academic advantage – more often than not, she beat me in Potions by the end of the term. If we'd been assigned as partners, it would have been one thing, but she'd chosen me. Me. Her rival. Not her cousin, as almost everyone had believed she would. No, she'd chosen me, and I wanted to know what her game was.
She was very short with me, which led me to believe that I was not the first in the class to ask her such questions. Actually, I knew I wasn't, as I'd seen her cousin Al needling her after class. But when I asked her, she actually snapped at me, which was very rare for her, and spoke to her state of mind – for all that she pretended not to care what anyone else thought of her, she actually did. A great deal.
But as for the conversation, she just reminded me very shortly of the awful luck that the both of us had had with group projects in our time at Hogwarts. She wasn't wrong – we always seemed to end up paired with the laziest, most unmotivated of our classmates, situations that usually ended with the two of us doing all the work and our partners sharing the credit (not that we ever fully let them get away with it. I always slipped a note in with the final project, and Rose talked to her professors in person) – but the statement didn't really answer my question, which I pointed out, much to Rose's displeasure. I then repeated my initial inquiry and she got very quiet before she answered.
"I'm tired of working with people I can't respect," is what she finally said to me, and then she went on to explain that if she was being forced to work with a partner for an entire term, she would at least choose a partner she knew wouldn't ride her coattails to an A. When I asked her why she hadn't then chosen Al, she responded that she was testing a radical new concept that I might challenge her more by working with her than against her. But it's what she said next that I'll never forget.
"Also, as partners, we'll be unstoppable. No one will be able to come close to us. Which is good, because I don't want to compete with anyone who isn't you."
She didn't mean anything by it, not consciously, and I'm pretty sure I didn't read anything into it, not then, but the phrase stuck with me, for whatever reason.
And it must have triggered something, and I must have been staring, because the next thing I knew, Rose was giving an angry sigh and bringing her brusque tone back in full force as she said that she hadn't thought it would be a problem, but since it clearly was, there were probably plenty of other partners willing to switch.
At 16, I was still a little slow, so it took me a moment after she turned to walk away to register the hurt in her voice. I think she had expected me, of all people, to understand her motives, and when I didn't, she took a big risk in opening up to me to explain them. And then, instead of saying something to show I understood, I hadn't said anything at all, and in my silence, she'd heard negative judgement, which she could ignore from anyone except me.
I couldn't have put it into words like that at the time, but I understood it, and so, a moment belated, I ran after her, grabbed her hand, and told her I would be honored to be her Potions partner.
Wrong word choice. Even now, I cringe remembering it. She got a very uncomfortable look on her face and pulled her hand from mine, saying I didn't have to be so weird about it, saying it didn't change anything, as Potions or no Potions, she was still going to kick my arse in class standing that term.
I may have been a little slow, but I got things eventually, so I was able to do for her what she needed in that moment – I got us back on script with a, "You and what remedial Transfiguration professor?"
It worked. She gave a delighted (and slightly grateful) laugh of disbelief and asked if that was a challenge. I told her it had sounded kind of like one, hadn't it, and then we were fine. And we continued to be fine, through that year, and into the summer. Right up until we began serving as Head Boy and Girl together.
OOO
September 1, 2023 – on the train to Hogwarts, five hours in
Well, if I thought talking to Lydia about the whole Scorpius thing would help, I was sorely mistaken. I'm more muddled than I was before.
I told her about the letter, and what Hugo had said – that I like Scorpius Malfoy – and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Well, do you?"
"Of course not!" I said immediately, indignant at the very suggestion.
"Are you sure?" she asked me, and when I stared, open-mouthed and speechless, she held up her hands. "I'm asking genuinely," she said. "Have you actually thought about it, or have you just dismissed it immediately as an impossibility?"
I had to pause at that. But the conclusion that I came to was the same one I'd come to before. "Yes, I'm sure," I said finally. "Ours is . . . a complicated relationship, to be sure, but there's nothing of romance in it." That statement was inexplicably awkward, so I hurriedly continued in a different direction. "All I want to be sure of is that I haven't been giving that impression."
Lydia considered this for a moment before she answered. "I don't think you have," she said. "But I think it's something people see because they want to see it. You're kind of a perfect fairy tale, Rose."
"What?" I asked, slightly horrified by this statement.
"Think about it. Children of opposite sides of the war, from feuding families, meeting at school for the first time and falling into a passionate, intense competition with one another. In most people's minds, the two of you are destined to be together. You're star-crossed lovers. Romeo and Juliet. Lancelot and Guinevere. Merlin and Nimue. Psyche and –"
"We don't fit that mold, Lydia," I interrupted, uncomfortable with the picture she was painting, because it certainly made sense.
"I know," she said then. "But to people who don't know you, who only glance at you? In their minds, you fit it perfectly."
There was something very disturbing about that statement, and after some analyzing, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is the hint of truth that it contains. We do indeed seem to have the start of some kind of fairy tale. But the particulars don't fit, and that's what I'm holding onto right now. The particulars don't fit, and when I fall in love with someone, I'll know it. I'll know it.
Lydia and I talked a bit longer about the situation, and then, bless her, she changed the topic slightly, seeming to know as she always does that I was uncomfortable. Instead we talked about plans for this year, plans as Head Girl and co-editor of the school paper. It wasn't a complete departure from the topic of Scorpius, as both of those activities involve him – seeing as how he is Head Boy and co-editor of the Hogwarts Weekly. But those are safe topics. I'm really excited to work with Scorpius in both capacities.
I just wish I wasn't so muddled about him otherwise.
OOO
Snapshot: Lydia Finnegan, posing for the camera. Not a mugging pose, but a professional pose. A Muggle headshot pose, if you will. Lydia did them wonderfully – she was an actress, off to the Wizarding Academy for the Dramatic Arts as soon as she finished at Hogwarts. She looks stunning in the snapshot, but then she always does. I have never known her to take a bad picture. She has a classic beauty – rich brown hair with red undertones in the right light, bright green eyes that were never without a twinkle, pale freckled skin that gave away her Irish roots. She was stunning, in photographs and in real life, yet I was never attracted to her. So why, you might ask, is she the subject of a snapshot? Because Lydia Finnegan was Rose Weasley's best friend. They were all but joined at the hip, and to know Rose was to know Lydia.
Lydia, again betraying her Irish roots, was incredibly passionate and fiercely loyal. A wrong done to her friend was a wrong done to her, and without restraint, Lydia would have flown into every battle as soon as it arose. Lydia was a true Gryffindor, in every rash, pig-headed definition of the house (which isn't to say that Rose wasn't a true Gryffindor as well; just that she was a true Gryffindor in other ways).
Rose tempered her, mellowed her, as much as the word 'mellow' could ever be assigned to Lydia. In turn, Lydia got Rose out of her head every so often. They were well suited to each other, and they were inseparable.
As I said, the snapshot is Lydia posing for the camera, but Rose is in it, too. She's in the background, rolling her eyes, but there's a smile playing around the corner of her mouth, and you know she really wants to laugh.
The scene took place in the library, fourth year. Rose and Lydia were studying at one table (well, Rose was studying. Lydia was pretending to but actually finding more interest in seeing how far back she could balance in her chair), and I was a few paces away, studying at another. I wasn't paying attention to much of their conversation, but I caught the gist of it eventually.
It was no secret that many of the boys in the school would have liked to have Rose Weasley as their girlfriend – some because they were actually attracted to her, and some because she was the niece of Harry Potter – but she never dated any of them. Part of it was because she was legitimately uninterested. The rest of it was Lydia.
I have no idea how long Lydia and Rose have been friends – since long before they came to Hogwarts is the extent of my certainty – but I do know that the minute boys started being interested in Rose is the minute that Lydia became Rose's protector. Not that she needed one – I'd seen her let the nicer boys down as gently as a heartbroken teen could hope for and cut the arrogant ones down in no more than six well-placed words – but it was a role that Lydia took very seriously, and Rose . . . well, Rose let her.
This day in the library, Rose and Lydia were having a conversation about Geoff Goldstein and whether or not Lydia had "scared him away" by glaring at him all through Charms and making threatening motions with her wand. Lydia denied doing anything so pointed, and they bantered back and forth on that for a while before Lydia pointed out that if Geoff Goldstein got "scared away" by so little, he would never have survived a relationship with Rose in the first place. Which I kind of had to agree with. I mean, Geoff was a nice enough guy, but so not ready at 14 to take on Rose Weasley.
Rose didn't agree, exactly, but she also didn't argue the point, choosing instead to point out that Lydia really didn't have to scare guys away, as Rose was 14 and not terribly interested in dating anyone at the moment.
"Nor do I have the time," she said to Lydia, finishing that thought with, "Scorpius perfected the transfiguration of his water goblet a full three days before I did. Three days!" She closed her eyes and shook her head at the personal failure."I've got to close that gap."
From my own table, I heard that loud and clear, and I couldn't help but hide a satisfied smile. Whatever you may hear from others, Transfiguration was one of the few classes where I bested Rose Weasley each term without fail.
I thought I'd hidden the smile, but it's possible I did not, for the next thing I knew, I felt Lydia's eyes on me, and heard her say, "Ah, yes, Scorpius Malfoy," with just a little too much glee in her voice. She went on to say that I was the one man she would allow to be part of Rose's life, and when Rose, humoring Lydia, asked why, she was told it was because I was the one man Rose would actually fight for.
It made me blush in the way of fourteen-year-old boys, and even then I wondered what Lydia was playing at. That thought, however, was driven out of my head by Rose's response. "Yes," she said, her focus returning to her work, "my life would be a little less complete without Scorpius Malfoy."
Lydia's eyes on me became pointed then, and to cover the uncomfortableness suddenly creeping over me, I turned around in my seat and said, "You two do realize I'm sitting right here, don't you?"
I was rewarded with the snapshot mentioned above: Rose's amusement mingled with exasperation and Lydia's gleeful grin and ill-masked mischievous twinkle. Looking back, I probably should have been a little more wary of Lydia than I was, after that.
OOO
September 30, 2023 – just after lunch
After a little more than a month of struggling with things, I have finally had a realization! I don't know why it took me so long, but I was standing outside Flourish and Blotts in Hogsmeade this morning, watching Scorpius photograph the opening of a new clothing line in the village. I love watching him work – he's a very talented photographer, and he clearly loves what he does. He can capture anything, things most people would never see. His photos really bring out the truth of a moment.
Anyway, it was in watching him that I came to my realization. I barely glanced at him, and instantly I knew what his level of stress was, where his focus was, how he felt about the photos he'd taken so far, and how well he thought they would fit the story I had been taking notes for. Just from a glance. Because that's how we work, and that's what I realized! I know him so well, on a level of intimacy usually reserved for romantic relationships. But our relationship lacks that romance, and that's what makes it feel so unsettled! I've grown up reading stories and believing that I wouldn't achieve that level with anyone unless I loved him, but here I have.
It's still a little unsettling realizing how well I've come to know Scorpius, and how well he must then know me, but I also feel a great relief at finally having solved the mystery. There's nothing to worry about anymore, and I can continue working with him this year without any further complications.
I have to find Lydia and let her know. And then I have to get Scorpius' photos from him and start putting together this story for Wednesday's paper. And while I do that, I can finally,v finally, breathe a huge sigh of relief.
OOO
Snapshot. Double exposure. One of my favorite photography techniques and one that is impossible to achieve with Wizard film. Muggle film lets the photographer overlay two images to bring a deeper level of meaning to both. In Wizard film, the overlapped moving images just get confused. It's one of the many advantages to Muggle film, to be perfectly honest.
The two images of the memory are overlaid because one evokes the other, for reasons I can't really express. The first, calligraphy on parchment, reading You, Mr. Malfoy, will be serving alongside Rose Weasley, this year's Head Girl.
Overlaid on this is the most frequent image I have of Rose. Every age, every year, I have a thousand different memories of this pose to choose from. She sits, at a table, on a sofa, at a desk, bent over a worn brown journal, scribbling away with a Muggle pen, because, as she explains, having to stop to refill a quill halts her train of thought. Just as I am never without my camera, I have never seen Rose without that journal. She writes down everything and constantly chronicles her life. I try not to think about how often I must appear in there.
These overlapping images are the closest I have to a snapshot of the moment I fell in love with her, and the reason for that is simple – there was no one moment. Seeing her name next to mine on that letter that names us both Heads was the closest I came to a realization, and even then, it wasn't a realization so much as a recognition. I saw our names listed together and thought, Maybe now I'll get the chance to tell her.
And then, Tell her what?
And then, That I love her.
And after that, no sense of surprise, no shock, even though I'd never named it in that way before. I just thought, Ah, yes. That.
And that was it. I think I set off on my way to loving her the first moment I met her. It was a gradual process, not a defining moment.
It was in the way she so diligently recorded every moment of her life, collecting her own story just as she collected every story, Muggle and Wizard alike, that she could get her hands on. It was the way she ran her thumb over the ink-stained callous on her third finger without thinking whenever her pen stilled. It was in the fact that, for all our banter back and forth, when there was ever an instance when I genuinely held the advantage over her, she never begrudged me the victory. It's in how I could tell what kind of day she'd had just by the way she dropped her bag and sat in her chair at the start of class, the way her eyes lit up when she successfully remembered a piece of information for a professor, and the way she held herself to a higher standard than any of her teachers did.
I knew her better than I knew any other living soul, more intimately than I had ever known was possible, and there is no one snapshot because my love for her was in every snapshot. She was the first person in that school to look at me and see anything other than my family or my name, and that made loving her possible. Everything that happened between us afterward made loving her inevitable.
OOO
September 30, 2023 – just after dinner
I don't – she has to be wrong, that's all there is to it. Lydia has to be wrong. No – Lydia is wrong. She's wrong. And I can prove it! I'll ask him! Yes, that's exactly what I'll do.
He'll be in the Heads Study – he always is after meals on the weekend. He'll be in the Heads Study, working probably on our Ancient Runes translation project due Friday, and I can ask him for himself and then I can prove that Lydia's wrong!
Because there's no way she's right – none at all. Scorpius Malfoy is not in love with me. He couldn't possibly be.
That's what she said, when I told her my grand revelation. I mean, she said more than that, too, but that's what it all amounted to. She looked doubtful after I told her what I realized this morning, and I asked her why.
"Do you think I'm lying?"
"No," she said immediately. "I don't think you're lying, exactly. It's more that I'm not sure this solves everything as neatly as you think it does."
"What do you mean?" I asked her, and she got this really hesitant look on her face like she didn't really want to talk about it, so I pushed the issue. "Lydia?"
She sighed. "Look, ever since you mentioned it on the train, I've been watching closely. You and him. To see if I could spot something to help you out."
"Yeah? And?"
"All you just said? About knowing each other without romance getting in the way? It may be true for you, maybe, but it's not true for him."
"What are you talking about?" I asked then. Dumb, I know, as it was fairly obvious, but I wasn't allowing my mind to go in that direction.
"The boy's in love with you, Rose," Lydia said gently then. "Head over heels. Completely gone." I just shook my head.
"No," I said. "He's not. Scorpius wouldn't. You're wrong." She gave me a look that was slightly pitying then.
"No, Rose," she said then. "I'm not."
It floored me. How positive she sounded – it still does. Because it's just not possible, but Lydia is absolutely convinced! I told her that – that it wasn't possible that Scorpius was in love with me, and that I would prove it to her – and she got this very strange look on her face that I couldn't quite decipher.
"Why are you so bothered by the idea?" she asked me then. "It's not like this is a new thing. You've had plenty of guys have feelings for you in the past; you've always been able to let them down easy. Why is he any different?"
"Because he's Scorpius, he's not supposed to—" The words burst out of me before I could stop them, and by the time my brain had caught up with my tongue, Lydia had this sly half-smile on her face just like Hugo's when he stood in my doorway a month ago. But I shut down that notion immediately. "Don't even go there, Lydia Eilidh Finnegan!" I warned her. "I know what you're going to say, and you're wrong. I am not in love with Scorpius Malfoy, and he is not in love with me."
"Yeah, a month ago, I would have said the same thing," she shot back. "Because a month ago, I wasn't watching you. But this month? I have been. And let me tell you something. I don't know why, and I don't know how, because you absolutely shouldn't, but the two of you work. You work, Rose. He fits you better than anyone I could have hand-picked! He gets you, he understands you, he challenges you the way not one guy in a million could! If you throw this away, waiting for the ideal man you've created in your fairy-tale-influenced imagination –"
That stung, and I didn't really want her to finish the sentence, so I broke in. "Lydia, it's not like that! If there's anyone here being influenced by fairy tales, it's you, falling into the trap you laughed at people about last month. You're wrong. About Scorpius, and about me.
You're wrong."
But she just looked at me, and said, "I'm really not, Rose."
She sounded almost sorry, and I had to leave. I had to.
It's insane. And it's not possible. But as much as I know that those things are true, I can't get her words out of my head. About how well we fit, how well we work. Because to blatantly deny the truth in those words is to become the kind of close-minded individual I abhor. But just because certain aspects of what she said are true doesn't mean that the rest of it is.
Right?
Oh, this is ridiculous. Now she's got me doubting myself, doubting something that I know without a shadow of a doubt, and –
I'll ask him. To his face, I'll ask him. And he'll tell me it's mad, and that will be the end of that. And it will silence Lydia, once and for all.
OOO
Snapshot: a blur. If you study it long and hard enough, you might be able to determine that the blur is actually a person, moving very quickly toward the camera. It's a Muggle style snapshot, obviously. I can play it out like a Wizard photograph, but honestly, I prefer the blur. It more accurately captures that moment. The speed of it, the suddenness. The unexpectedness. Because it was certainly unexpected.
I know you want more coherency, but I honestly can't give it. Normally, I'd send you to Rose and that journal, but believe it or not, this event, out of all of the events in her life, does not have an entry. She didn't write one. I've heckled her about that numerous times, about the fact that what might be the most important moment of her life is not chronicled. And as for me, well, for me, it came so completely out of the blue that if you really want to know what happened, really want a clear picture, we have to cheat.
Cheat according to Rose, that is. Show you all the memory itself, in a Pensieve. She says it's cheating. That's when I remind her that for us mere mortals, who don't have the gifts of eidetic memory, perfect pitch, and exact recall, using a Pensieve isn't cheating; it's an often necessary tool.
So, no snapshot. Instead, a real, moving memory:
Sitting in the study space reserved for the Head students is a young man of about seventeen, meticulously translating an ancient scroll covered in half-illegible runes. After carefully checking his work, he blows gently on the wet ink and moves the parchment aside. Leaning back in his chair, he stretches and rolls his shoulders, working out the kinks in his neck and back. Then he closes the book of Rune translations and pulls a History of Magic textbook toward him and reaches for his bag for a new roll of parchment. He has just uncapped his ink bottle and dipped his quill in when the door to the study opens.
He doesn't look up. He writes his name on the top of the parchment as a red-haired blur strides into the room in a state of great agitation.
"Scorpius Malfoy!" she demands in an agitated voice, standing imperiously in front of his table. He glances up at her.
"Rose," he says cordially, unperturbed by her tone. "What can I do for you?"
"Tell me that you are not in love with me!"
He stiffens almost imperceptibly as the room rings with silence and a tension that wasn't there a moment before. The muscles around his mouth are tight as he responses, "May I ask from where the question stems?"
"It wasn't a question." She corrects him automatically, sounding almost distracted.
"Then may I ask from where the demand stems?" he asks, maintaining a calm composure.
"Lydia has gotten the ridiculous notion in her head that –" She stops mid-sentence and takes a deep breath. "Look, Scorpius, just confirm what I already know to be true, and we can both be on our way."
There is a long and pregnant silence before he replies softly with, "You hate it when people lie to you."
Her attitude changes almost immediately at those words. "I don't think she was lying," she says, softer and less abrasive. "I think she's just operating under a misunder–"
"No, I meant –" He smiles a little and shakes his head before steadying himself with a deep breath. "I can't tell you that I'm not in love with you, Rose, because you hate it when people lie to you."
It takes a moment for his words to sink in, but once they do, her demeanor changes all over again. She takes a step back from him, shrinking into herself as she does, and visibly searches for something to say. She looks stunned and uncertain and scared, and what eventually comes out is, "Wh– why would you tell me that?"
"Rose," he says gently, reaching out to her, but she shrinks back from him even further, retreating a few more steps.
"No!" she says, interrupting. "Why would you say that to me?" The uncertainty disappears and anger takes its place. "Why would tell me something like that? I came here to prove her wrong, and you –"
"Hey," he says sharply, standing. "Don't get angry with me for answering a question that you asked," he says in a hard voice. "You asked the question, Rose. I gave you an honest reply. The second most important rule is don't ask questions if you're not prepared for the answer. You know that, so don't get pissed at me."
His words have a visible effect on her. She loses her fighting edge and looks instead lost and pained. He softens.
"Look," he says, gentler. "I know you're scared. I know this is a difficult reality to face. If it had been up to me, you wouldn't have found out this way. So I'm not looking for you to reciprocate. It's not going to change anything. I've been in love with you for years; I'm not going to treat you any differently, nor ask you to treat me any differently. I know I'm not what you want, Rose. I know I'm not your ideal man. I know this isn't the story you want." A hint of bitterness creeps into his voice with those words. "You don't even have to let me down easy," he says, sitting back down and pulling his barely-started essay back toward him. "I've already done that for you."
He isn't watching her as he speaks, so he misses yet another change in her stance. Her jaw tightens with every word, her hands curl into fists, and her eyes narrow, fierce and fiery. He misses all that as he sits back down, and so when she speaks, her voice hard-edged and quivering with anger, he is startled, taken aback. And that doesn't change as he hears what she has to say.
"You think it's that easy?" she asks. "That simple? What do you know? You think that because you have some kind of understanding of how I work, it's that easy to dismiss what I feel? How dare you! How dare you stand there and act like I'm the only one who's afraid! Stand there and pretend like you're not shaking in your boots! Telling me that I'm scared? Acting like your mind isn't going over what happens when your parents find out? Your grandparents? The rest of your family and your friends and anyone who's ever heard you name? Like you don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into, falling in love with the child of the enemy! Like you're not worried sick about how you're supposed to prove that this is real, not just your form of teenage rebellion, since you've never indulged in any other! Don't you stand there and tell me that I'm the only one who's scared!"
There are tears on her face as she says all that, but she doesn't notice them at all. He does, though, and the tears in combination with her words leave him frozen, silent, unable to respond.
"And how do you know what my ideal is?" she demands next. "How do you know what kind of man I'm looking for? My ideal is someone who gets me, who understands me and knows how I work and think, who fits with me and challenges me, and that's you, Scorpius Malfoy! That's always been you! I'm not looking for something out of a storybook. Because what has happened between us has happened for centuries, and we know it from literature, and still it happens. And there are books that describe all this, and they are useless! Because we're not storybook characters! We're real people, and if you think I don't know that, if you think I'm waiting for a knight on a white horse to ride by, you're insane. And so am I, if I throw this away! We've been raised to believe that we're two completely incompatible people, that we shouldn't work, but guess what? We do! And do you know why? Because we're not different; we're exactly the same!"
He is staring at her by the time she finishes, and the look on her face clearly communicates that, were it possible, she would be staring at herself as well. Her own words seem to stun her into silence, and she looks away from him, inwardly, and repeats in a much softer voice, "We're exactly the same." He moves toward her then, concerned by how unsteady she seems. He reaches her side just in time to hear her whisper, "And I am in love with you," but she isn't speaking to him.
He reaches out a lightly touches her elbow, asking, "Are you all right?"
She looks up at him without really seeing him, and repeats, in that same voice of stunned wonder, "I'm in love with you."
"That doesn't exactly answer my question," he points out.
She focuses on him then, looking at him like she's never really seen him before. "Yes, it does," she says, and then she smiles, and he can breathe again. He lets out a little laugh, and before it begins to fade, she has moved faster than he can register, and is kissing him.
If he is taken aback, he doesn't show it. He just gathers her to him, and lets the rest of the world fade from view . . .
Snapshot: My parents, seen from above through a stairway bannister as they sit on a sofa in our sitting room. My father's face stands out particularly clearly. It is prematurely aged, his hairline receding, a worry line permanently creased between his eyebrows, the other lines of his face made harsher by the flickering fire that is the only light in the room.
I was ten and supposed to be asleep, but I'd sneaked out to beg a snack from our house elf Hildy – our paid house elf, I feel the need to mention – and was on my way back to bed when I heard my name and stopped to eavesdrop.
I'm not sure why this memory has occurred to me now, especially as it has nothing to do with Rose, at least, not directly, but I guess it's important to know, if you want to understand why our first meeting was so extraordinary.
My parents were talking about schools. My father had received a letter from Hogwarts' Board of Governors informing him that my inclusion in Hogwarts was currently under review, and that he would be notified of their decision by the end of the month. And no, that is not a letter parents usually receive.
See, my father had made enemies in the war, lots of them, on both sides. The DA and Order of the Phoenix hated him because he'd been a Death Eater and because his father had done horrible things to them and their families, and because my father had walked away from the war without punishment. The former Death Eaters hated him because he'd switched allegiances halfway through, and because his mother had lied to Voldemort about Harry Potter's death, and because my father had walked away from the war without punishment. Dad had enemies, whichever way he turned. Even those who didn't outright hate him certainly didn't like him very much, and those feelings had bled over to his family for almost 20 years. It aged him, and it made him a little distant as a father, but I could never blame him for that. Everything he'd been through would have made anyone distant.
So my father had received this letter calling into question something that should never have been called into question. My mother was furious, and adamant that the best thing they could do was immediately pull my application and enroll me elsewhere. If I wasn't going to go to Hogwarts, she argued, it should be becausewe'd said no to them, not the other way around. She also suggested that another school might be better for me anyway, free from the prejudices that those at Hogwarts were bound to have toward me.
My father listened closely to her arguments, and once she had finished, he stated quietly but firmly that I would go to no school but Hogwarts.
On the things that he believes in strongly, my father has an iron will, and when he speaks in that tone of voice, it is useless to argue. Which isn't to say that my mother didn't try; just that she didn't get very far. I think she got out four words – But, Draco, why, if – before she was very forcefully cut off.
"Because they do not get to judge my son!"
It wasn't very often that I was frightened of my father, but in that moment, I was. I had never heard him so angry, and I would never have dreamed, given his calm exterior, that he was even more incensed by the letter than Mum was. I remember the tirade that followed with perfect clarity.
"They can judge me however they like. They can punish me for my wrongs every day for the rest of my life, but they do not get to judge or punish my son because of his name, his father, or his bloodline. They fought a war to eliminate that kind of discrimination, and if it is the last thing I do, I will make sure they remember that. Scorpius will go to Hogwarts unless he chooses not to because that is his right, and they do not get to take that from him!"
So I went to Hogwarts. And my mother had been right. I was surrounded by people who hated me on sight with no reason beyond my name and the fact that my father was Draco Malfoy. Without a single word exchanged or interaction taken, they hated me because their parents hated my father.
And yet, there was Rose Weasley. "I don't hate you. How could I? I barely know you." Rose Weasley, who had, perhaps, more reason to hate me than most – my family had tortured her parents, after all – told me that. She was the first person in that whole school who judged me solely on my own merit, on what I had done. More followed, eventually, but she was the first. And you know what they say. You never forget your first.
I assumed for a long time that my father had gone to the Board of Governors and repeated his tirade to them, and that that was why I'd gotten my Hogwarts letter the next year, but after I graduated, I found out differently. My father's tirade was indeed said to the Board, but not by him. Not even prompted by him. It was delivered with just as much fury and passion and righteous indignation right before the same person put every governor on legal review for abuse of position. And that person was the highest ranking member of the Department of Magical Law – one Hermione Granger-Weasley.
So maybe Rose's words weren't quite so extraordinary as they first appeared. But she was extraordinary nonetheless.
OOO
June 15, 2030 – continuation
When I was thirteen, I asked my mother a hypothetical question – what would her reaction be if I brought home the son of one of her enemies? She told me that she made it her business not to have enemies. That calling someone an enemy meant allowing yourself to hate another person, and that hatred was never, under any circumstances, acceptable.
"I've told you before, Rosie," she said to me. "Don't have enemies. Not if you can possibly avoid it. Don't hate other people. Hatred separates the world into 'us' and 'them.' But in reality, there's no such thing. There is no 'them.' Just–"
"Facets of 'us,'" I finished for her. "I know, Mum." She'd used that line before. It was an old song with her, one I'd heard throughout my childhood. "But you didn't answer my question." She laughed.
"Because it was a question wrongly put," she said. "So why don't you try it again."
"Okay. What would you do if I someday brought home a boy whose family you didn't particularly like? Like . . . Scorpius Malfoy, for example," I said, naming someone more or less at random. My mother considered her answer.
"From what I know of him, Scorpius is a talented wizard," she finally said. "One who challenges you and acts as your rival, but who also respects you and allows you to respect him. Also, I've seen Scorpius's magical aptitude charts, and he's a match for you."
"Wait, when did you see Scorpius's magical aptitude charts?" I demanded, and those were usually only seen by Unspeakables who monitored magical aptitude in the Department of Mysteries and sent out Hogwarts letters.
My mother smiled a secretive smile and said only, "I'll tell you that when you're older. For now, focus on that issue of respect, Rosie. If that respect is true of the hypothetical boy who you someday bring home, it is enough for me, whatever his last name might be."
Today I marry Scorpius and become Rose Weasley-Malfoy, and my mother held true to her word when I first wrote her about Scorpius and I. Said she had even slightly been expecting it. Dad was even okay with it in the end, though I do have to wonder how much Mum had to talk to him to keep him from completely flying off the handle.
It's been a long and interesting road that has led us to this point, and ours is a story for the ages. But I would like to remind everyone who hears it that it just one story. There are thousands like it. It holds some truth for everyone, I hope, but it only really defines the two of us. Your own story must be uncovered by you, for yourself. What I want people to take away from our story is not the level of romance or anything like that, but that idea of facets. Of connection. That, to me, is what is most important, more than the fairy tale ending.
Good luck to you. Whoever you are, from the both of us. May your story come to as happy an ending as ours has. But more importantly, may you find pleasure and fulfillment and understanding in telling it.
Thank you for reading. Please review.