Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series, any its character or settings, all you recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling.
A/N: Here you go, people! Chapter number 4, second to last for this one. So, as I promised, this next instalment is written in Rose's POV. It has a couple of small twists that I hope will surprise you in the good way. I will warn you that this ends sadly, but don't give up on me! I still have one last chapter to make you happy! I will not throw away something that took me 20 chapters to achieve in MLWSWY, so bare with me!
Anyway, thanks to everyone who has alerted, favoured and reviewed this story, I really appreciate it, and once again, Happy Reading!... And don't forget to review.!
"That's The Truth"
I stared at the woman in the mirror, all dressed up in her wedding gown, her hair and make up done, looking back at me with a rather cold pair of hazel eyes. I tried not to hold against her the way she felt, because she had all the right to feel as troubled and scared as she did.
"Oh, Rosie!" Mum then said while she stared at me with watered eyes. "You look beautiful."
I smiled at my mother's comment, trying to focus on the dress and not the big unsettling feeling that had been drowning me since tea-time.
The dress the now aged Madam Malkin had personally offered to design for me, was truly breathe taking. The white organza, the A-line and strapless bodice, the flirty, delicate cut of the skirt and the detailing and barely noticeable beading at the waist were magnificent. The dressed looked like the cloak of heaven and I felt honoured for being allowed to wear such a master piece.
"You really do," Lily agreed with mum and then turned her red head to the witch that had created the dress. "You have to make mine too, Madam."
I stared at my own reflection again, and smiled at the fact that the girl standing in the mirror did look gorgeous. I took a deep breath and stepped down from the small stool I had been standing on to go change. I thanked Madam Malkin for the dress before I going back to the changing booth. I unzipped the dress with my wand and put back on the summer dress I had been wearing earlier. By the time I came out of the booth, my mother had already paid for the dress and was thanking the older witch for her service.
"I didn't have the chance to ask you with your mum there, but how are you feeling?" Lily asked me by the time we sat down at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.
Soon after we had gone back to the busy Diagon Alley, Lily suddenly fancied an ice cream. Mum offered to take back the dress to the Hotel while we ate, and reminded us to be back by seven for the rehearsal dinner before Dissaparating in the middle of the street.
"I'm fine," I replied distractedly as I slowly ate my lemon sorbet and watched all the late-afternoon shoppers go from store to store.
"You don't look fine," my cousin then insisted.
"How do I look, then?" I looked up at her.
"You look like you wished to drop dead," she replied as casually as if I had asked for the weather, while she kept abusing her cherry sorbet.
I didn't say anything else. It wasn't like I could deny it. I did wish I could just drop dead.
I never really thought Scorpius would show up at my wedding. I didn't expect him to. I thought he would be too upset and would most like me hate me for never saying anything. I didn't quite know the reason I didn't bother contacting him again, even if it was just to say hello. I guessed the damage was too great and the silence too long. What right did I have to interrupt his new life, and probably happiness? Who was I to remind him of my existence when he was probably over me? Over us?
"You should have seen that coming," Lily then said, bringing me back to reality. "You sent him an invitation."
"Claude did, not me."
"Why would he do that?" my cousin looked away from her almost finished ice cream to me.
"Because he needed to prove himself something, I don't know."
I let the conversation die there. Lily didn't need to know what Claude was planning back then or even now, and truth be told I didn't need to either. No, actually I didn't want to know.
...
"You did what?"
I couldn't believe what had come out of my fiancé's mouth. I tried not yelling there, in front of the rest of the Hospital staff that was having lunch at the lounge room with us.
"I invited Scorpius Malfoy to the wedding," Claude said again, while he kept eating his tuna salad, as if what he had told me wasn't such a big deal.
"Why on Earth would you do that?" I whispered angrily.
"I wanted to."
He wanted to... Was he joking with me?
"Why!" I tried not to raise my voice any higher than a whisper, but it was getting harder with each of his words.
"Just because."
I stared at Claude not believing my ears. Why would he want to know Scorpius? Which groom in this Earth ever wanted to know their bride's former lover?
"Just because is no valid reason for putting me through the discomfort his presence will be."
"Why would it be uncomfortable?" Claude then looked at me, his dark eyes even darker in curiosity.
"Are you joking?"
"No. I am not," he replied dead serious, and then I understood what it was he wanted to get out of me with all this. "I sincerely want to know, Rose."
"I'm over him, you know that," I spat at him.
How dared he suggest I had an ulterior motive to avoid meeting Scorpius again, or from keeping him to know the blonde wizard?
"You're acting like you didn't," he replied coldly as he went back to his salad, completely ignoring my outrage.
"There's a reason I'm marrying you, you know?"
After that, I just stood up from the table and went back to my rounds, even though I still had another hour before I had to go back to work. The conversation had left me without one single desire to eat anything else.
For the rest of the day, I tried avoiding running into Claude at work, which had been rather difficult seeing as he worked there too. It wasn't until I had finished my hours, that I could finally run back home while he finished his.
By the time I Apparated back to our cottage at the outskirts ofChipping Campden, my stomach was demanding the food I had deprived it from at lunch. I tried making dinner, without thinking in what could possibly happen when Claude came back home, but I failed miserably.
I couldn't stop thinking about it all. I couldn't fathom what it was that Claude was trying to prove inviting Scorpius to our wedding. It was such a ridiculous request anyway. I seriously doubted the former Quidditch player would bother. It seemed to me, when it all ended, it had no repair. I was sure that his disappearance meant something greater than what most of the magical population thought. And I didn't think he'd come back to his own world. He had left us all behind and decided to move forward hidden from familiar eyes.
No, I didn't know what Claude wanted, but I surely knew Scorpius was not buying into it. He wasn't coming. He had long ago decided he didn't want to have anything to do with me. We hadn't spoken in three years, that said something.
He wouldn't bother with me anymore. He hated me, probably with all his might, and I guessed he had the right to. I didn't think I was the only one to blame for whatever went wrong with us, but I was certain that I played quite a part, maybe even bigger than his. I gave my career such an importance that I had forgotten about his. His was important too, he needed support and I denied him that when he needed it the most. I had been a terrible girlfriend, and maybe that was why he never asked me to marry him, why he decided to give up on me.
But I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. I would be for Claude what I hadn't been for Scorpius. I had learnt my lesson.
So what if I didn't really get what reasons my fiancé had to meet Scorpius Malfoy? I didn't really need to know. I just had to try to understand and support him if he needed me to. Yes, it would most likely be the most awkward meeting I would ever have to go through, but maybe something good could come from that too. Maybe, seeing each other again could let us both forgive one another, and in the best case scenario, become friends again.
"I just want to know him," Claude said as soon as he came home and got into the bed with me.
He had left the Hospital rather late, I was sure he had taken a couple of hours more to delay himself. I knew he only did that when he felt that I needed a little more time to calm down after a fight.
"I need to make sure I'm better than him. That you were right to choose me," he then told me, while he swung his arm over me and held me softly.
"You don't need to prove anything," I replied, holding his hand.
"I believe I do."
We didn't say anything else. I just let him think what he wanted. Soon enough he fell sleep and I felt comfort in the way his breathe brushed the back of my neck.
Despite what he told me, I was sure there was another reason for him to prove he was better than Scorpius.
Ever since we started dating two years ago, he had had a tough time getting my family to approve of him. He never really knew the reason until one awful night he had an argument with Albus. I didn't know what exactly they had told each other, but I was certain in which side Albus' loyalty had remained. With the years, my cousin had grown fond of Scorpius. I guessed that they went there, and Albus told Claude how much better he thought Scorpius to be than him. Maybe that was the reason Claude felt he had something to prove... because my own family had pushed him into it.
It wasn't easy being accepted by such a large, protective family like mine. Scorpius had fit in surprisingly well, which had been probably caused by the differences he had with his father. For some reason, to my family, Scorpius couldn't be anything else but part of our clan, seeing as how like his mother he was. My Aunt Ginny had been rather good mates with Astoria Malfoy, when her surname had been Greengrass. They hadn't been in the same House, but they had maintain a rather civilized relationship, which later explained the fondness my aunt felt for the Malfoy boy.
As hard as it was to comprehend, the same society that had brand us all as the predictable offspring of war survivors, was starting to believe that what Scorpius and I had was the end of centuries of hatred between two long lasting wizarding families. For them all, it marked the end on an era and a new beginning, where enemies didn't have to be and real bonds of peace could be formed.
My family probably felt the same, but refused to admit it out loud. They wouldn't put such pressure on us. But I knew that they too wished my relationship with Scorpius had lasted forever. That was why they didn't like Claude, that was why they kept testing him and making him believe he needed to prove himself to them.
I guessed I understood why they did that. It wasn't all Scorpius' fault, Claude was also to blame.
The French wizard wasn't exactly the most outgoing person in the world. He was rather reserved and trusted very little in people. He was, though, very good at hiding that. Sometimes it would seem like he was being false and misleading. Most of the times he would put up an act to make sure people had a certain impression of him. He could be very charismatic when he needed to, and very arrogant and annoying when he saw such personality fit the occasion. He was like a chameleon, changing his colours depending on his surroundings.
I never really understood why he was that way. He once told me, he liked making a strong first impression to make sure people judged him by that, and not bother getting to know him any further. In that aspect, he reminded me a lot of a blonde wizard I had first disliked for being a closed book.
He had never acted with me though. Yes, he was a magnificent actor, but when he was genuine, one could tell, because his eyes would look darker and his face would turned as serene as if he had all the time in the world. That had been the face he had always shown me. That was the reason I had chose to spend the rest of my life with him, because I knew he loved me enough to always be honest with me. I knew he wouldn't hurt me like most people thought he would. I knew him, and accepted him as he was.
And that wouldn't change, whether my family accepted him or not, whether he was never able to prove himself better than Scorpius. None of that would matter to me.
I would still marry him.
...
"We need to go Rosie, it's 7:00 already," Lily then said, bringing me back to reality once again.
"Right."
We stood up just as the skies decided to turn dark blue in a blink of an eye. Lily paid the ice cream, insisting that it was her treat to the bride, and we walked out with our arms linked together. We walked slowly through the now less busy street of Diagon Alley, talking fashion and other vanities. Lily was indecisive as to what to wear to the rehearsal dinner tonight, but after talking it through she decided to wear the yellow dress I had given her the last Christmas. She hadn't really had the opportunity to wear it yet, and it seemed like my marriage was her excuse to finally letting the piece of clothing be worn for the first time.
We Disapparated back to the Infinity Hotel right after Lily made up her mind. We Apparated by the front gardens of the Hotel and walked in. We meant to go straight to the Green Wing, but Lily ran into some of her friends that were attending the dinner. I greeted them quickly and thanked them for coming before I went ahead.
I walked over to the end of the hallway and as soon as I opened the Wing's doors I regretted it.
"Hi," Al said as he walked towards me.
I walked ahead to meet him halfway, but not in an attempt to listen, but to make sure he knew I was in a hurry.
"I can't talk right now, Albus. I need to get dressed."
I tried walking past him, but he didn't let me. He grabbed my wrist swiftly and asked for a word. I sincerely did not want to talk to him now, nor any time soon for that matter.
Ever since Claude and him got caught up in that silly argument about Scorpius, I had been having a hard time getting along with Al myself. Every time we were left alone, my cousin kept ranting about how Claude was fake and about the fact that I was acting like an idiot pretending that I was over Scorpius.
Which I was, and that made Albus the idiot, for pushing me into admitting something I didn't feel.
My entire relationship with Claude had tensed things up between Albus and I. Since they first met, my cousin had been very persistent on his feelings about the French. It was obvious he didn't like him, but he didn't even try to get along for my sake. And that's was just incomprehensible.
How on Earth had Albus Severus Potter been willing to make a truce with his entire school-life 'enemy' for me and not at least try to get along with someone he had no reason to dislike?
It was plain ridiculous. The worst part wasn't how much he disliked my fiancé though, it was his constant speeches about how I was still in love with Malfoy but was too blind to see it.
I had once thought my cousin had common sense; I certainly didn't think that anymore. He had no business telling me what I felt or not, like I couldn't sense it.
I didn't give Albus a chance to start. I pulled my wrist free just when he thought I had given in and walked quickly to the staircase. I knew he wouldn't follow me. We were past running behind each other at this point in our lives, but I still walked upstairs as fast as I could in fear he might want to relive the old days, when everything ended in one of us chasing the other.
"Are you alright?" Claude asked me as soon as I arrived to our room and closed the door behind me.
"I'm fine," I replied, slightly out of breathe.
He stared at me from the suite's living room with a amused smile, before going back to the mirror in front of him and tried fixing his tie.
"Albus ambushed you?"
"Sometimes it scares me how you know those things," I replied smiling back at him as I walked over to him and took his tie from him and fixed it.
"Hello," Claude then said, trapping me in his arms before kissing me lightly in the lips.
"Hi," I replied and kissed him back. "You're dressed rather early."
"Yeah, I have some guests arriving now."
"I still have to shower and get dressed."
"I'll distract them for you," he whispered in my ear like when a little boy asks someone to keep a promise.
Claude kissed me once more before dropping his arms and putting his jacket on. He turned smiling still, winked at me and walked out of the room.
I stared at the silver lined door for a couple of seconds. I later turned to walk into the bedroom. I unzipped the summer dress and disposed of my underwear to take a shower. About forty minutes later, I stood in front of the same mirror Claude had been earlier and looked at my reflection. After checking my turquoise dress was properly placed and my hair and make-up were perfect, I took a pair of heels that matched the dress and put them on before walking out of the suite.
By the time I came downstairs, the ball room was filled with large tables set up for dinner. Most of the guests were standing around still though, greeting each other or catching up in loud chitchats. I smiled at the guests as I walked by them, searching for my fiancé. I tried not to keep an eye out for a certain blonde head, and realized later, when I spotted Louis and felt myself flustered, that I had been looking for Scorpius unconsciously anyway.
I pushed Scorpius out of my mind just as I reached the table Claude was sitting at with James and Teddy. They were starting to talk about Quidditch as I sat myself down and Claude placed one of his arms around me. At the motion, I noticed both of my cousins look at us slightly colder, which gave birth to a short, but still very awkward silence.
Sometimes my entire family's attitude got to me. They never glared at Scorpius when he showed me affection, but Merlin forbade Claude barely touched me and they would get on alert mode.
I tried not thinking about that either, and instead focused on the stars above, where the ceiling of the ball room had been enchanted to show the night sky. Not much later, everyone was on their respective seats and dinner had started. Surprisingly enough it all went smoothly. Neither Albus nor Hugo said anything against my fiancé in their speeches. Nobody attacked him for no apparent reason, and nobody exposed why they felt I was delusional enough to think I was in love with someone I wasn't. Which, again, wasn't their decision.
Still, I could feel every one of the twenty five pair of eyes that belonged to my family burning a whole in my face every time Claude leaned over to even speak to me. I tried to stay calm, but it was getting harder by the minute, specially when Claude himself had done an amazing job at getting used to being stared, and sometimes glared secretly, by eighteen Weasleys, five Potters and two Lupins.
By the time dessert had come, I had had enough and excused myself from the table. I walked out to the patio and sat by the wooden deck at the small lake. The night wind wasn't as warm as I had thought, but I didn't want to go back in. Something about it felt wrong.
"I don't want to hear it, Al," I told my cousin just as he sat beside me on the deck ten minutes later.
"Hear what?" he asked in his most innocent voice. "That he's suspicious, that he's fake or that you're making a huge mistake?"
I knew it. I should have pretend to feel sick and go back to my room. At least there, he couldn't have just barged in. He would have had to knock and I could have simply ignored him.
"Can't you just try to support me, just one little bit?" I asked sighing. I was so tired of fighting with him.
"No, Rosie, no," Albus replied dead serious and I knew then that he would never change his mind.
"Great, thanks."
After that, I just stood up and walked away from yet another argument. I paid my cousin no attention when he called out to me and asked me to go back. I walked into the ball room and disappointed beyond belief, left the Wing, not caring who was looking or who thought badly of me for it. I would explain my departure to Claude later tonight. I didn't owe any kind of explanation to anyone else.
I was tired, simply tired of this. I had never argued with Albus longer than a couple of hours. We had been on this trembling path for six months now, when I first told him Claude had proposed. At first I had thought he had been left speechless because he had been happy for me. But Anabelle later told me, Albus had gone home fuming and had trashed the entire garage in a tantrum. I had never known of such kind of fits from Albus, and it really shook me up. I tried talking to him about it, but he kept telling me the same thing over and over again, that Claude would never make me as happy as Scorpius once had.
It really took all my self-control not to curse the prick right then and there. He had no right to tell me who to be with. He had no right to talk to me like if I was this little girl who had been tricked with candy and lollipops. I was the one who knew how I felt, not him. And as for the new found fondness he had for the blonde bloke, he could shove it where the sun didn't shine.
"Can I have a cherry flavoured firewhiskey, please? I stared at the bartender while he poured me a drink with an annoying smile of his face.
After deciding that bailing my own dinner party was probably the best decision I had made in a long time, I Disapparated to a small pub near Diagon Alley in London. It was a new establishment a couple of blocks from the Leaky Cauldron. It seemed comfortable and with a rather nice atmosphere. It had music and some special services, like a regular muggle club, expect that the only one attending people was the dirty blonde bartender, who seemed to like to smile way too much at strangers.
"Here you go, Miss Weasley," he said handing me the drink.
I didn't say anything back to the creepy bartender, I just nodded in gratitude. I tried not to get alarmed by the fact that the man knew my name without me telling him, but then again, if life had been hectic at Hogwarts where everyone knew me one way or another, in the Wizarding World it was even worse. My uncle Harry once told me that we all would be most likely treated the same way he was when he first stepped into this world. He hadn't know it then, but it certain did know him.
"When did you start drinking?" I heard a familiar voice just when I was having my first sip.
"Not long ago."
"I thought your rehearsal dinner was tonight," Scorpius said as he took the seat beside me and sighed in a manner that reminded me of those bad days he sometimes had at the Unit.
"It is," I sighed myself as I slowly turned the glass between my hands.
"Why aren't you there?"
"I just didn't feel like it anymore."
We stayed quiet for a little while, and surprisingly, the silence we had fallen into reassembled those we used to enjoy at the Head's Common Room back at Hogwarts, when we had first started such a life-changing friendship.
"Here," Scorpius said a few minutes later, handing me a box I didn't know where he had been keeping. "I meant to give it to you earlier, but decided to get drunk instead."
"Bertie Bots?" I smiled taking the box.
"They're all lemon."
I opened the candy package and stared at the inside. They were indeed all lemon.
It's hard to explain how I felt when I realized what such gift meant. I felt rather overwhelmed by the gesture. I actually didn't expect him to give me anything when I first saw him at tea-time, let alone something like this. I had never really known the time we spent at the Hogwarts Express during our seventh year Holidays had meant enough to him to remember such details.
I smiled at the reminder of two teenagers, mad at their parents, sharing unpleasant moments with each other and forming a small 'lemon-bertie-bot' club.
"That's... that's really sweet, Scorpius," I said after the knot that had suddenly appeared at my throat loosened a little. "Thank you."
I smiled at the blonde wizard and he smiled back at me before letting his silver eyes fall from my face back to the box.
"I was thinking that maybe we could..." He started looking back at me, and I wondered when had his eyes become so soft. "I know we've gone through a lot and that our time ended abruptly and on a very soar note, but maybe someday we can be friends again."
He then looked back to his drink and after a couple of seconds, continued.
"Because I've missed you," he said, and I suddenly felt like an invisible fist had closed around my heart. "And despite everything, I want you to be happy."
"You do?" I felt the knot at my throat drowning me again.
"Yes,"
He hadn't said it right away. He said it like it took him an actual effort to just say 'yes', like if he needed to say something else, but backed up at the last second.
"But?" I knew that was what he wanted to say. 'I want you to be happy, but..."
"I don't think he's right for you," he said after a couple of seconds more staring at his drink, which was nothing more than an empty glass now.
"Of course you don't."
I should have seen that coming. How could I had been as stupid as to think that he would approved of Claude, when my own family openly didn't?
Not that I needed his approval, or anyone else's for that matter.
"I know that I have no right to tell you who to be with, Rose" No, he did not. "But I honestly think he'll make you miserable."
"Like you did?"
I couldn't help myself, and I knew I probably shouldn't have said that. Not now that we finally spoke again to each other, not now that we had taken the first step into forgiveness.
But I couldn't just stay sitting there and listen to the one person who hurt me the most tell me that what I chosen to do with my life wasn't going to make me happy. I couldn't just bare letting this guy, tell me that I was making a mistake. Who was he to do such thing. He had no right, he had said it himself, and still pretended I was going to listen to him. Listen to him? Him who left me?
I didn't think so.
"Rose!" Scorpius called out to me later, after I had jumped off from my seat and made my way to the door.
I walked out of the club into a chilly night at a dark, empty London alley way. I didn't know what time it was, but I was sure it was late. At the end of the alley I could see one of London's main Avenues. I thought that maybe getting lost was probably what I needed to find enough peace of mind before going back to the Hotel. I couldn't just show up as upset as I was.
"You were the one who left me!" I then heard behind me and suddenly stopped walking.
That brat...
"How dare you?" I turned to face him.
"How dare I? It's the truth!" He yelled standing about ten feet from me. "You took a bag, packed your clothes and left!"
How could he say that? How could he blame me for something that never happened? For something he did.
"I went to my cousin's wedding, you prick!" I yelled and I could feel my face getting hot in anger. "I came back to you three days later and you were gone!"
"What?" he asked dumbfounded.
I stood there with my face red, my fists closed tightly and my eyes burning, watching the blonde wizard realize he was accusing me for his crime. I tried to breathe evenly, but the anger wouldn't let me.
"No..." he said then, his voice only a fraction as loud as it normally was. "I-I didn't think you'd-"
"But I did, I did and you were gone," I replied, not really wanting to keep talking about it.
It had been the worst time of my life. I had been heartbroken before, when we all thought my father would be forever lost in a different time, but nothing, absolutely nothing had ever felt so horrible to me than Scorpius disappearing.
It took all my self-control not to let my eyes water at the reminder of a empty home.
I had actually thought back then that all he needed was time. Time to calm back down and come back to me, but he didn't. He had left, leaving me no trace to follow him. He had deserted me, it was as simple as that: he had given up on me. I cried seventy nights in a row, I counted them. I lost my appetite, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything but to stare at the same spot by the door, hoping he would appear there any second.
He never did.
I lost myself in despair. I tried everything I could to locate him, but he had vanished like smoke. They told me at the Unit that he had just quit, they didn't even know the real reason. They said he had left a note saying he couldn't do it anymore, cleared his locker and left. I paid his father a visit, but he didn't know either. I contacted everyone I could. I called his cousin Thatcher, I called Luke, I called Elle, I even called Charlotte, and none of them even knew he had gone away.
I gave up eventually, by the time his pillow didn't smell like him anymore.
"Rose," I heard Scorpius call out softly when I turned around to walk away, like he had. "Rose!"
I felt his hand close around my wrist in his attempt to stop me and make me face him again. When I did turn, I saw his eyes so clear, like if he was fighting the tears just like me. But I tried not to care. It would have been silly of me to give him that much importance at this point in my life. I could see in his face that he needed an explanation, a story, but was too unsettled to ask for it.
"I waited six months for you to come back," I started, determined not to cry, though I wasn't able to hold my determination all the way. "But you disappeared from the face of the earth. You were nowhere to be found."
I felt the tears suddenly falling down my cheeks. I knew my voice would crack if I spoke again, but I needed to end it. Tell him what he needed to know and finally be free of the burden all that pain had caused.
"You didn't leave a note, you didn't send a message, you left me to rot in uncertainty."
"Rose," he said in the softest of tones, and I could tell he was slowly breaking.
"I was foolish enough to think it was just a silly argument. I was stupid enough to think that it would all be fine after a couple of days," I cried, not really caring anymore if I seemed weak. "I even convinced myself that I didn't have to marry you. That marriage wasn't going to make me happy, that you were."
I didn't really want to go on, so I turned my back to him one more time and meant to keep walking, but he spoke again.
"I'm so sorry, Rose," he whispered desperately.
I didn't turn to face him. I knew that if I did, I would never let it all go. I knew that if I stared at his silver eyes, suddenly nothing would matter, and I couldn't do that. Because I was getting married, I was now loyal to someone else. He had lost me the moment he decided not to turn back.
"No," I replied, my back still to him, before I walked out of him for the last time. "You don't get to be sorry."
.
OOO
.
"You look beautiful, sweetheart."
I looked up at my dad and saw him smiling down at me with those intense blue eyes of his. I smiled back as I could. I had felt rather nauseous all morning and I couldn't quite understand why.
"Thank you, dad."
We stood at the closed doors that lead from the ball room to the patio, where the wedding was taking place. Apparently all guests where already sitting and waiting for us while we waited for my mum to let us know when to come out.
"Dad?" I ventured after a few seconds. "When you married mum, were you scared?"
I heard him sigh in endearment while I stared at the still closed doors, feeling like someone had cursed me with a shaking spell.
"No, I wasn't," he replied sincerely. "After a war, getting married was nothing close to being scary."
"Was there a moment, in all these years, that you thought that it could end?"
"Plenty, actually," dad replied and I could hear discomfort in his normally comforting voice. "Every time we went to the Hospital, I felt that she would be better off without having to take care of me."
I then looked up at him to find his eyes on the same doors mine had been seconds before. I guessed I understood why he said that. If I had been on his place, I would have probably felt like I was ruining my family's lives. But being on the other side of the line, I never wished him to feel that way, not back then, not ever.
"Your mum and I used to fight a lot when you were just toddlers," he confessed smiling sadly at the memories while he placed a hand over the arm I had hooked to his. "It was hard for us to get along, and I honestly didn't know the reason for that. It wasn't until you turned six that after one terrible fight, that I found the answer."
I stared at him while he found the words to say something he probably never said out loud.
"We didn't know peace, we grew up during a war and suffered the aftermath quite nastily. So, I thought that maybe what we were doing was coming up with any excuse to create conflict between us, to fight purposely" he said. "To bicker was what brought us together in the first place. And maybe, somewhere within ourselves, we thought that bickering would keep us together."
"How did you fix it?"
"We just talked it through," he said smiling as he looked back at me, "And decided to get used to peace, instead of waiting for another tragedy to happen."
I stared at my father's blue eyes and I could swear that for a second they looked watery. He then looked away and kissed my hand before addressing me again.
"Are you worried?" he asked. "Of that happening to Claude and yourself?"
"A bit," I replied, but had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I wasn't being truthful.
"Or are you trying to figure out the reason Scorpius and you never got back on the horse?"
I looked back at him and saw him still smiling, thought his smile didn't inspire me to smile back, it only made me feel like crying.
"I don't think we could have, even talking it through," I said looking away.
"I'll tell you a secret, Rosie," dad whispered in my ear, probably smiling still. "Malfoys are very good with words, until it's time to talk feelings."
At that I finally found it in myself to smile. But I didn't feel any better inside.
What my father had just told me, only made me realize he too thought I was meant to be with Scorpius. And I honestly didn't get it. How could that have been true, when it all turned to ashes so quickly? We never had the will to work things through, did we? We couldn't even talk about it without making another fight out of it, it seemed.
I tried not to think anymore about what had happened the night before, as the doors to the patio opened up and my dad and I started walking ahead.
I put a fake smile on my face as my eyes ran through the guests' faces, all turned to look at us. I didn't find his blonde hair, or his silver eyes. I couldn't spot his slightly upward cornered lips, or his dandy nose. He wasn't there. It seemed he had taken our last conversation for what it was and left again.
But this time I wasn't crying his absence, this time I wouldn't miss him. This time I would be happy he left. I would he happy with someone who loved me enough to stay with me always. Because I was sure Scorpius did love when he left, but not enough to fight for what we had. Claude wasn't like that, I knew he would do anything for me, even loving me when I didn't deserved it.
Soon I stood in front of Claude, just after my father had given me away. I looked at his handsome face and smiled. This was it. I would only have to say 'I do' and then it would be over, I would have been married and finally ready to be happy. I looked at my mum as a tear fell down her cheek while she smiled at me and clutched my dad's hand. But just as we were about to turn I caught a glimpse of silver.
There he was, standing further behind the last row of seats, looking straight at me with those cold silver eyes of his. I tried reading the expression of his face, if he was angry, sad or just didn't care, but I couldn't. Claude had gotten hold of my hand and was motioning me to turn. I smiled at him once more as he touched my hand to his lips and kissed it, before we turned to face the priest in charge of marrying us.
He started with a poem Claude's mother, Amelie, had chosen for us. I tried paying attention to the old bold wizard, but knowing, no, feeling, Scorpius' gaze on my back was getting me nervous.
Why was he there? Did he really have to make us both go through this much discomfort?
"Do you, Claude Dubois, take Rose Weasley as your eternal partner, in sickness and health, to protect and love, until death parts you?" The priest then said sooner than I had expected.
"I do," Claude replied.
We turned to face one another and he then took my wedding ring from his best man and placed on my finger. We watched along with our guests for a couple of seconds before the priest spoke again. The ring had stayed put, which showed every member of my family that the French bloke and I did love each other, and that we were not making a mistake. But wrongfully enough, I didn't feel relieved, in fact I felt even more nervous than before, which was completely mad.
"Do you, Rose Weasley, take Claude Dubois as your eternal partner, in sickness and health, to protect and love, until death parts you?" the priest spoke to me before I could find out the reason to my growing anxiety.
"I do," I replied, taking Claude's ring from Lily and placing it on his finger while I tried to keep a smile on my face.
I didn't feel any relieve then either, and I was more confused than ever. I knew that a magical marriage was tense at the time of the exchange, but the pressure and the tension that should have been relieved by now, only felt like they were building up.
Before I came out of my room, my hands had been cold and shaky, now they were sweaty, I had goosebumps and felt the need to take many breathes in a short amount of time.
"Now, by the power invested in me by the Magically United Community, I pronounce you, husband and wife," the priest concluded by drawing out his wand.
Just as he touched the wand to our holding hands, were our rings were placed, I thought to myself that maybe I was probably still nervous because it wasn't over yet. The priest had to seal the rings with magic and bond us in unity.
But the old wizard didn't have the chance to.
The very second his wand touched our still clutched hands, both rings shattered completely and fell to the floor in one small rain of dust.
I knew people had reacted in a collective gasp. I knew they were all staring at the scene in horror. But none of that mattered.
Because it suddenly made sense to me. I now knew why every step taken throughout the ceremony hadn't felt like it should have. It was simply because it had been a meaningless act. The vows weren't taken through magic, they had just been empty promises. The rings had been false, and therefore the spell that was supposed to bond us had broken them. Only artefacts made by goblins could survive such powerful spells.
Why? Why weren't the rings real? Who had exchanged them for the muggle-fabricated ones that were now scattered across the floor like glitter?
I looked up to Claude expecting to find just as much confusion dressing his face, as I knew mine wore.
"Let me explain," he let out the most desperate whisper I had ever heard, and then I understood.
I dropped his hand trying to maintain myself calmed, but it had been useless. As the crowd of very confused and outraged guests started standing up and asking each other what the bloody hell was happening, I started walking back down the aisle, in a desperate attempt to be left alone. Those ten seconds that took me to get from one end of the narrow space between two row of seats, to the other, felt like ages. It even seemed as if time had decided to go by slower, making my humiliation last longer that it should have.
I opened the doors that would take me back to the ball room, completely unaware that the blonde wizard that should have never come back watched me go in, desperately lost for words. I walked as far as my feet would go, and unfortunately it hadn't been far enough. I felt myself stop at the middle of the room, now decorated to hold the reception for the ceremony. I heard someone walk in after me and closing the doors, keeping all the chaos locked behind us for a little while.
"How could you?" I asked Claude as I heard him approach me.
Yes, I knew it was him. The way his footsteps echoed lightly was rather unique and too familiar not to be his.
"I-"
"Why?" I cut him off, turning slowly to face him. "Why would you do something like that to me?"
He sighed heavily and took a couple of steps more, standing at least ten feet from me, before replying.
"I just wanted us to be together forever," he replied so sadly that a tiny part of my brain was screaming for me to forgive him and go back out there to get married. But the rest of me was stronger, and its anger was greater than any sympathy I felt.
"Under fakes vows?"
"My vow wasn't fake, Rose," he said, as I was starting to think that maybe Al had been right all this time, maybe he never had really loved me.
"Do you even love me?"
"Yes, I do, with all my heart."
"Then, why did you do that?"
I couldn't understand. If he loved me, then why did he give me a fake ring, one that would never prove anything at all. Or maybe he thought I had something to hide, something no one would ever know if its only apparent prove was fake.
"If I had given you this, your real wedding ring," Claude then said, taking out a silver ring from his suit's pocket. "We wouldn't have married anyway."
He really thought I... That I...
"I love you, Rose and I want to be with you, even if you don't love me back."
I stared at the brunette French wizard standing in front of me, not wanting to believe what he looked so sure of.
"How can you say that?"
"It's the truth," he said. "You know, I know that you know it somewhere deep inside."
I kept looking at him in disbelief as he took another step towards me.
"You've never told me," he said in a voice so sadly desperate that my heart ached for him. "You always reply 'me too' when I say it, but you never say it yourself. You're still as distant now as you were when we first met, back when you still hoped Malfoy would surf up from hell."
I wanted to tell him that wasn't true, but even thinking about it felt like a lie.
After what I had gone through with Scorpius, it took me quite sometime to put myself out there again. It took me so much effort to trust anyone again, or to put my heart in the line. Though, apparently, I never really had.
Claude took a few more steps towards me, until he was only a foot away.
"You can't let go of what you had with him," he said taking my right hand in his. "I'm not an idiot. I know when I'm not someone's reason to stay up at night thinking of good memories."
"I lov-"
I never got to finish that sentence, for the French had tricked me. I had let my guard down, letting him take my hand. He took advantage of that and just as I had started to say what he claimed I had never said before, he slid my real wedding ring onto my finger.
And I felt it fall off.
"No, you don't," he stated what the clinging noise on the floor proved. "You love him, that's the truth."
I felt myself lost for words as I watched Claude take two steps backwards and smile at me one more time before a single tear left a wet trace down his cheek. Then, he turned on his spot and Disapparated to only Merlin knew where, away from me, away from all of this, leaving me at the middle of the ball room by myself. I stared at the spot in the air where his face had been seconds earlier and felt the need to cry.
But nothing would come out of me. It almost felt like I had dried completely and was unable to shed any more tears ever again. Although that was most likely my imagination. Maybe I couldn't cry because deep inside there was nothing I needed to mourn. Maybe, unconsciously, I felt I hadn't lost anything.
I tried not believing that, because it would only have meant that Claude had been right. And maybe I had known it all long, but refused to admit it to myself.
Failing to cry yet another abandonment, I turned my back to the empty spot I had been staring at and started walking ahead. I didn't know where to go, I just needed to get away from all this rubbish.
"Rose?" I heard behind me, and came to a halt once more.
"Go away," I told the voice I wished I could just forget.
"No," he said softly.
I closed my eyes in a broken gesture and felt them sting with upcoming tears. Of all the things I wanted to do right now, talking to Scorpius was the last. But I couldn't put it away any longer.
So I took a deep breathe and turned, hoping for the tears to sting but not to fall.
"What do you want?" I asked, my voice breaking at the very end of that question.
"I just want to know if you're alright," he said shoving his hands in the pockets of his trousers and looking down at the floor.
"Well, I'm not," I cried, the tears falling without my consent.
"Do you want me to get him?"
"I'm certain you're the last person he'll want to see," I replied, feeling this aching feeling in my chest and a sudden need to scream my lungs out.
"Do you want someone to get him?"
He then, finally looked up at me. I stared at his silver eyes and for a fraction of a second, they took me back to those days when I felt that I could stare him forever. I watched him watch me, and with every inch of his face that my eyes walked through, the more my heart ached.
"What for?" I asked the blonde wizard and smiled sadly at what I knew was true. "He's right."
I watched Scorpius blink twice as he tried to understand the conclusion of a debate he hadn't been part of. A debate that had been going on within myself without even me knowing.
I had loved him too much to replace him. Looking at him standing right in front of me, I realized that I still did, and I would never stop.
Because he was beautiful, inside and out. Because he had been there for me when no one else knew I was in need. Because his silver eyes had stolen my heart since we first kissed. Because his smile made me happy. Because his frame had been the only one that ever fitted perfectly with mine in an embrace.
Because I truly loved him, and true love never died.
"I could never let go of you," I admitted out loud to both him and myself. "I could never forget the way you made me feel, how happy I had been with you."
I felt the tears come one after the other, giving me no chance to dry them off. My heart ached more than it ever had as I realized that I really wanted to hold him and kiss him again, but couldn't.
"But I don't think I can forget how much you hurt me either," I told him against my deepest wishes.
I turned my back to him for what I believed would be the last time and meant to walk away for good, but he didn't let me.
"Rose, wait," he then said, closing the distance between us and trapping me in his arms before speaking against my bare neck. "Give me another chance, I beg you."
"Let me go Scorpius, please," I cried but had no will to make him release me from his ever so comforting grip.
"No," he breathe against me just as I felt a tear land on the shoulder he had placed his head on. "I've done that before. I am not making the same mistake."
"Scorpius, please," I begged him, feeling his blonde hair stick to my damp cheek.
"I love you, please, let me make it all better."
"You can't!" I couldn't take it anymore, he was killing me slowly. "You can't, don't you understand!"
I finally got the will to slip from his hold and meant to keep walking, but Scorpius took me from the forearm softly.
"Rose," he whispered one last time with such a desperate look on his face, I could feel my heart breaking for him.
I tried to tell him that I couldn't do this, not now, but the words wouldn't come out. I could barely breathe, a knot had formed in my throat again and my heart was beating so quickly, I thought I would die. His grip was so gentle, that one quick pull freed me from him.
I looked at his handsome face once more, twisted in misery, and wished to die, before I turned on the spot and Disapparated away.