A/N: This has mature content & topics, so please don't read if you're squeamish. It's pretty disturbing. It's a bit confusing because there's a ton of pronouns tossed around, but I think the central idea/plot should be clear. It's SM/RW and D/Hr.
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Fairytale Endings
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Once upon a time…
There is a girl…and a boy…
He whispers to her as she sleeps – promises of love, of eternity, that echo in the air around them and linger in the crisp spring breeze as it rustles through the silk curtains of the four-poster. The silver rays of the crescent moon peek illuminate her creamy skin as he traces nonsensical patterns down her slender arm.
He threads his fingers through her silken chocolate curls, and then traces the warm contours of her cheek, in awe that anything could be so perfect. She stirs in her sleep as his thumb brushes over her long eyelashes, but she does not wake.
He wants to give her everything, sweep her off her feet like Prince Charming, yet he has nothing to offer. He is afraid. His heart aches so, and he knows he will break without her. Soon school will be over, and then it will be summer, and then everything will be lost. Forever.
For he is meant for someone else, a girl whom he hardly knows whose family name is as immaculate as his own. There is no other path, no choice left in the matter - his father would not understand, his mother would be powerless to help. He studies the sleeping beauty beside him with a sense of loss and laces his fingers into hers, relishing their warmth.
Scorpius Malfoy closes his eyes and dreams of better days.
-x-x-x-
Rose Weasley stares blankly out her window.
She counts the days, weeks, months with an impending sense of dread.
She is late again.
She doesn't know what to think. All she can feel is fear. And there is no one to comfort her.
The minutes tick by.
She waits for him. Like Rapunzel, gazing dreamily out of her high tower as she waits for her prince's return. She waits for him to find her, claim her, love her - to kiss life back into her as she waits here, so desolately, for him. And then the two of them will ride off into the sunset, into their glorious future, and everything will be all right.
-x-x-x-
It is too late when Hermione Weasley discovers the abandoned room, the empty drawers, and the hastily scribbled note her daughter has left her.
After all these years she still cannot forget the gentle caress of his hands on her skin or the beat of his heart against hers as they made love against the rising sun. So many sunrises spent together, clutched against each other, hearts racing. The whispers of love, happiness, eternity – that unfolded around them, that became the very air which they breathed. Words that had meant so much to both of them. Forgotten.
The room spins around her and she can hardly think straight. She crumples the note in her hand and clutches the side of the desk to steady herself. It is all her fault, she knows. Her weakness. And now her daughter must pay the price.
-x-x-x-
"Where did he take my daughter?" demands the red-haired man.
The man with sad grey eyes sighs. "Just let them go," he says. He thinks of all the wrongs he has committed, all the promises he has broken, and he hopes that perhaps all will be forgiven if he gives his son the chance he himself never had. "They are just children."
"He's your son – your only heir!" weeps the frail blonde woman.
The red-haired man presses on. "My wife and I will never allow them to get away with this disrespectful, childish act of defiance," he says.
There is a long pause, drowned with the quiet sobs of a woman who has lost her only child.
Then the grey-eyed man says solemnly, "Can I speak to her?"
There is no question as to who he means.
"She doesn't want to see you."
"She will understand."
The red-haired man shakes his head. "You are mistaken. She is the one who implored me to come here, to tell you this: They must not be together."
Steel grey eyes melt. "Why?"
-x-x-x-
Draco Malfoy sees Rose Weasley for the first time and now he knows why.
Those eyes.
The nose.
That mouth.
He stares at her, noting the distinct features that glare back at him. His heart races at the sudden revelation, and so many unanswered questions sprint through his mind.
"You can't stop us," says the pretty, young girl as she clutches the handle of her trunk. A train whistles nearby, and she shifts her feet impatiently. "We're going to be married, mum, and love each other, forever."
"I will never let you marry a Malfoy." The brunette woman's voice is cold and unrelenting.
"So this boils down to some personal vendetta you have against Scorpius's dad?" the girl says disbelievingly. "Aren't you too old to hold school-days grudges, mum?"
Whap.
The young girl's eyes brim with tears at her mother's boldness as fresh red prints appear on her pale cheek.
The grey-eyed man, who has been watching quietly in the shadows, steps into to the scene.
"Father?" whispers the young boy with platinum blond hair, who has his arm around the pretty, young girl. He glances toward the girl at his side, who is just as bewildered as he is.
"Hermione!" The grey-eyed man takes brunette woman by the shoulders and shakes her, his eyes questioning, pleading for answers.
She melts in his touch, and for a moment she reminisces to nineteen years ago when he is just a boy and she is just a girl, and the feel of his skin against her turns her legs to jello. Before she can wring herself away from the heat of his touch, the very way she molds into his hands, aches for the heat of his body, gives her away.
The young girl's eyes travel from her mother to the tall, handsome man at her side. A tendril of chestnut curls falls into her eyes, curls that are not the familiar shade of red every one of her siblings possesses. And then suddenly everything becomes clear. Her gaze settles on the boy beside her, whose arms are wrapped protectively around her.
Rose Weasley looks at him differently now - it's as if she's seeing him for the first time. The comforting arm around her becomes foreign. Disgust racks her body. She doesn't know who to hate, who to blame. Her mother? Her father? Or perhaps herself. She is raw, numb, bleeding.
"Rose! Rose? Rose?"
"We have grey eyes…both of us… Scorpius," she manages. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a red-haired man standing toward the side, hands placed gingerly in his pockets, watching the scene unfold with sad brown eyes.
Her gaze turns toward the woman she has known as mother, and the blond-haired, grey-eyed man at her mother's side.
"I hate you – the both of you," she chokes, her eyes brimming with tears. She stumbles as she fights her way out of the boy's touch. She feels bile rise in her throat, disgusted with herself, with him, with who they really are, with what they have inadvertently done.
The red-haired man whom she knows as father catches her in his warm embrace, and she weeps against his chest. He places a reassuring kiss at the top of her head, on her thick mass of brown curls. She is five years old again, crying from a fresh scrape she has earned falling off the swing, seeking solace in her father's arms. He squeezes her, conveying tacitly to the distraught girl that everything will be all right.
Scorpius looks at his father, and then at Rose's mother, and something finally clicks. He sees the way his father watches her, with the same expression of longing he himself has known before. He thinks of the endless nights he lay wide awake as a child, aware of the slamming doors, yelling, weeping. The nights his mother had crawled to his bedside, cradling him to her, and he could feel her hot tears seep through the fabric of his shirt even when she thought he was sleeping. And now he knows what made his mother's heart ache all these years.
Ron holds his daughter close.
Hermione closes her eyes and weeps.
Draco stares in horror and disbelief, floored by the revelation.
Scorpius's eyes meet Rose's – grey against grey – and there is an unspoken understanding, so agonizing that neither can do anything but stare back at each other.
And she doesn't know whether to cry or scream, but everything is caught in her throat and she can't make a sound, and the world freezes around her, and she cannot think, cannot breathe, cannot feel.
There are no fairytale endings.
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