Title: Like Water
Summary: Scorpius/Rose. We work through the differences that have haunted their families for generations. Set in their 7th year, 26 years after the war. Rated M for a reason.
Author's Note: I've had this one in my head for a while, and I'm finally getting around to it. I'm really excited about this pairing because it feels like it can go anywhere. Prologue basically begins from the platform, and ends with a little background info that will become important in later chapters. I really love this pairing and I hope that you all like it too. All reviews are welcome.
Prologue:
February, 5th Year
What she remembers about those moments was the noise: an odd creaking groaning sound from beneath her which turned into the terrible crack that sounded louder than a thunderbolt. And then there was cold. Such an icy deep penetrating cold that shot through her to the marrow. She remembers struggling, but she was dragged down under the ice by the amount of layers she'd put on to ward off the cold before she went ice skating. Eventually it was all too much and it sucked her under into blackness.
A train whistle blew nearby. Rose was practically shaking with nerves and excitement. She clutched her mother's old book close to her chest and tried to remember to breathe. Though her brother, Hugo – and her father, truth be told—had made fun of her for it all summer, she had reread it three times. Her dad kept telling her it was pointless, but he never said it within earshot of her mother, and if Rose knew her parents, she knew that that was a sign that it was important.
She fingered the tattered edge of the hardcover. If anything, Rose believed in the book, and in some way she believed that it would help her make her transition into a brand new life easier.
"Hi."
Rose looked up to see her cousin, Albus, who looked like his nerves were way worse than her own. She gave him a reassuring smile. While her parents spoke with her aunt and uncle she knocked her elbow into his, briefly releasing her hold on her book, and murmured "Alright there Al?"
He tried for a smile but it fell flat. Because they were only a month and three days apart of all her cousins she was closest with Al, and she could tell that he wasn't in a mood to talk about it.
Her father drew her away from her worries over Albus by addressing her. "Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains." Rose looked for the boy her father was mentioning and she found a short, white-blond haired boy with a pointed chin and bright blue eyes. He caught her gaze for a moment before looking away at something his mother, a woman with dark hair piled on her head and an expensive coat was saying to him. Rose gave her father a cheeky grin. Despite the fact that Hugo liked to torment her some, Rose was the child who had gotten her fathers acerbic wit.
But he wasn't looking because her mother was admonishing him, again. "You're right, sorry," he said with a quick grin. He looked a Rose again, "Don't get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood."
Later, she and Albus tried to find a seat as far from James as possible as he was being his usual git self. They stopped at an empty compartment and let themselves in. As soon as Rose sat on the plushy red seat she opened her book to page one and began to read. Albus groaned, "You're reading it again? Haven't you got it memorized yet?"
"Not quite," she said wryly. They paused in their conversation as they heard the door slide open.
Standing in the doorway was the boy from platform 9 ¾ looking a little green around the edges. "Can I sit here?" he asked weakly. Rose and Albus gave each other a look and almost instantly agreed.
"Are you alright there?" Albus questioned as Rose made room on the seat next to her.
"I'm a little motion sick actually," he said his hand clutching the wall "If you two don't want me to stay, it's ok. It wouldn't be the first compartment was I asked to leave." He tried to smile like it was a joke, but he seemed to be steeped in a wave of nausea which marred his pretty features. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
"Have you taken any potions to help with it?" Rose asked, concerned.
He shook his head slowly, "Nah. Didn't want my parents to think I couldn't handle going away. Mum was a bit of a wreck as it was." Shakily he ran a hand through his blonde hair.
"I've got something that should work," she told him as she got up and pulled out one of her bags which had her school robes folded neatly inside and a few extras her mother had packed just in case. Rummaging around, she found it, a small blue bottle of Miss Quick's No-Sick Fix. Her mum had given her the last of the bottle, so there wasn't much in it. She handed it to the boy. "Sorry it isn't much," she offered lamely.
"S'ok." he mumbled. Carefully he unscrewed the cap and drained the last bit. A few minutes later and the green had left his face.
"Thanks for that," he told her, giving a real smile.
Rose returned with her father's trademark grin. "No problem. Rose Weasley, by the way." She held out her hand for him to shake. The boy had a look of something on his face, but he hid it quickly and shook her hand. It was a little stiffer than she had expected.
"Scorpius Malfoy." He seemed to be waiting for a reaction.
Rose had heard of the Malfoys of course. It was why her father's earlier comments about pure bloods made sudden sense. Mr. Malfoy, Scorpius's father worked at the ministry with her mother and he occaisionally made a petition that her parents frowned at. Other than that, she didn't know much.
"Albus Potter." Al was currently leaning over and offering his own hand.
"Good to meet you," Scorpius told them. At this Rose was surprised. Not everyone had a comment about her last name and family, but most people made a bit of a fuss of James, Al, and Lily's last name. A thousand questions about their famous father tended to pop instantly into their minds.
A lull rose in the conversation and the train compartment became a little awkward. Rose pulled out her book again.
"What are you reading?" Scorpius inquired. Albus snickered at her as Rose blushed a little. It was one thing if her family poked fun of her, quite another if a virtual stranger did it.
Straightening her shoulders and pulling on a haughty look, Rose got ready to defend her mother's book. "It's Hogwarts a History. It's my mums," she told him, her eyebrow quirked waiting for the inevitable response.
Malfoy smirked. "I have the latest version in my trunk."
This had been unexpected. Albus looked surprised. Rose tried to determine if he was making a barbed comment about her older copy, or if he was just making conversation.
She didn't have time to find out though. Her cousin Victoire Weasley pulled open the door, a shiny prefects badge attached underneath her Ravenclaw insignia. "Hey you lot, get your robes on, we're almost to Hogsmeade." Despite her summer trips to France with her parents to visit her mother's family every year since she was one, she still had a thick British accent like her father. She nodded her head to Albus, "And you tell that brother of yours, when I find him, his arse is mine."
"What for?" Albus asked, ignoring her language.
"Oh, he knows," Victoire said, her one-eight part Veela blood glittering most strongly in her blue eyes. "And he is going to pay, understand?"
"Got it."
"Rosie, love the hair," she told her other cousin as she whipped out the door. Rose blushed and fingered her auburn locks. About two years ago, the last time she'd really spoken to Victoire, she'd stupidly hacked it off with her grandmother's magicked sewing scissors. Her mother was unable to grow it back out for her, or even make it even because of the spells and she'd had to let it grow out naturally. It was finally about an inch below her shoulders and she wasn't planning on cutting it short any time soon.
Scorpius Malfoy was looking at her with an interested expression.
Feeling more confident after a compliment from her inhumanly beautiful cousin she said, "You ready for the next year?"
Rose snapped awake. Her vision was bobbing and she was shivering uncontrolably. So cold, oh God, it was like she was being bombarded with needles. She let out a tiny moan while trying to force air into her bruised and frozen lungs.
She was wrapped in something dry, or dry in comparison to what she was wearing and she realized her vision was bobbing because she was being carried. She turned her head a faction and her nose bumped against Scorpius Malfoy's marble carved jaw.
"M-m-mmamam- al—f-f-f- oy," she tried to talk, but her teeth were chattering so badly she could barely speak.
His jaw was set and his normally cold blue eyes were darker and more frigid than she'd ever seen him. He's angry, she realized. And dripping. Malfoy too was wet from head to toe, his blond hair which normally flopped over his forehead and was barely an inch off of his shoulders was hanging in thick dregs and pasted to his scalp.
"Don't say anything," he told her, his voice rigid. "Your body is in shock. You won't accomplish anything by wearing yourself out trying to talk.
The next few minutes were a blur as Rose was carted to the hospital wing. Her vision went back and forth between almost completely black and color. Even when placed in dry clothes and under large blankets she couldn't stop shivering. She felt like she would never be warm again.
She caught snatches of conversation, "fell into the lake," "can't stop shivering," "poor thing," "Mr. Malfoy not much better," "better give her something to put her asleep."
A blurred figure came up to her and held something liquid and warm to her lips while helping her sit up. "Okay Miss Weasley, drink up," the voice said soothingly.
Rose swallowed obediently, feeling liquid fire slide blissfully down her throat. Her vision darkened again and her eyelids became heavy. She yawned as she succumbed to the dark once more.
When she woke next, she could see perfectly again. Her shaking had subsided. Slowly she tried to sit up, testing to make sure she wouldn't go to fast and make herself dizzy. Her parents and her grandmother especially had made her careful and attentive to her health and healer over the years.
It was as she sat up that she felt a warm hand against hers. She raised her head to meet the blue eyes of Malfoy. She opened her mouth to speak and coughed.
"Alright there Weasley?" he asked, something like concern in his voice. He grabbed a steaming cup off of the side table. "Madame Longbottom told me to give this to you if you woke up."
Rose sat up more fully and took the cup. She sniffed before smiling and raising it to her lips for a taste. Perfect. She took another gulp of Mulkin's Stay Hot Hot Cocoa. Almost as good as what her mum made.
She realized that her hand was still in Malfoy's, though he wasn't doing anything to it. He was simply holding it, not tightly, but not like he thought she'd break either. And he wasn't tickling it the way her boyfriend Maxwell often did while they were together. Sometimes she wondered why he just couldn't be still. And now Malfoy was being still and she was wondering exactly what he was doing or even thinking, when the door to the hospital wing flew open. Malfoy dropped her hand like it was a hot brick and the two of them turned towards the crowd that had entered, all carrying various loads of sweets and get well cards. It was her copious amounts of cousins, who all quickly lined themselves up around the bed, and her friend Mirabelle McCleary.
They all started speaking at once, and by the time she'd assured them all that she was feeling much better, Malfoy was gone. Rose looked at Albus. His dark hair was messy as if he had just risen from bed not too long ago, but Rose knew that was its normal state. As always they had an uncanny ability to read each other, and with Al's odd way of observing every little imperceptible thing, he knew exactly why her gaze was falling on him. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Just because he's in my house doesn't mean I know where he is." Rose sighed and buried herself back into her pillows, letting her attention become captured by Mirabelle and her older cousin James who were both ranting about how dead Maxwell was about to become for convincing her to go out onto thin ice in the first place, even though everyone knew that she wasn't a strong swimmer. Casually she drank her cocoa as she opened her chocolate frogs. Let them rant, she thought briefly, she'd deal with her soon to be ex-boyfriend who hadn't even shown his cowardly face soon enough. And after swallowing down a few of her favorite chocolate treats, Malfoy was all but forgotten for the moment.