Four down, two to go.
I thank you all for your patience. I know I make you wait a long time for the pieces and parts of this story, and you're amazing for putting up with it. That being said, I have signed this story up for the Write That Fic big bang, so I SWEAR, this will be finished and posted in its entirety by the end of May. Scouts honor.
Enjoy!
She reminded herself of all that, and her resolve hardened. She shifted her focus from Al to Rose and Scorpius, keeping her winning smile firmly on her face. Rose was watching Al with the corners of her mouth turned down and a frown creased between her eyebrows. Scorpius, though, was giving her much more of the reaction that she'd hoped for.
After a pause or two of silence, Scorpius gave a breath of shocked laughter, his eyebrows up near his hairline. "Al," he said, looking back and forth between the two of them for a moment before settling on Honoria. "Al is the guy you've been seeing? The one who was supposedly shy about meeting us?"
"The very same," Honoria said.
"But Al hates you," Scorpius said, looking delighted.
"Mmm, that's not the impression I've gotten over the last four weeks," Honoria said coyly, and Scorpius laughed again.
"Four weeks?" he repeated. "This has been going on for a month? Why am I just hearing about it now?"
"I really couldn't say," Honoria informed him coolly, choosing to ignore the tightening of Al's arm under her touch, which she could only assume indicated he had clenched his fists in discomfort. "You'd have to ask Al that question."
Scorpius shifted his attention to Al, a smirk on his face. "Well?" he asked his friend expectantly. "You want to, uh, shed some light on the situation, Al?"
Al still refused to look at Scorpius or his cousin, but he did turn his gaze sharply on her. "Can I talk to you?" he asked in a voice that was quiet and hard, as tension-filled as every inch of his body. She could practically feel the fury radiating off of him, but she refused to be cowed. She met his gaze and shrugged her agreement with the tiniest possible movement. He pressed a hand firmly against her back and steered her away toward the entrance before he let his anger out, but quietly, to avoid causing a scene. "What the hell-" he hissed at her, but she didn't let him get far.
"If it were up to you, I'd have been stuck in your flat until Christmas. I decided I didn't want to wait that long," she informed him, her voice level and unyielding.
"You had no right-" He broke off, breathing hard through his nose to maintain his control. "I was having lunch with him tomorrow -"
"No, Al," she interrupted, losing her cool. "You were having lunch with him on Thursday. Before that, it was Monday. Before that, it was twice last week, so forgive me if I no longer find 'I'm having lunch with him tomorrow' credible."
His eyes flashed. "How dare you-"
"I analyze the evidence in front of me, Al, I'm very good at it, so please do not insult my intelligence by assuming that it has escaped my notice that you tried and failed four times to make this happen, but on my first attempt, here we are. I gave you two weeks. Then I got tired of waiting. I told you before, I don't appreciate feeling like I'm being kept a secret, like I'm something to be ashamed of. So I decided that if you weren't going to tell him, I would. You had plenty of time and plenty of chances, and you chose to ignore them all, so don't for one second assume that you have anyone but yourself to blame for your current situation."
And without waiting to see his reaction, she strode back to Scorpius and Rose. Rose's frown had deepened, but Scorpius looked like he was holding back laughter. She smiled at them and said, "Sorry about that. We'll let him snit for a little, and then hopefully, he will be able to get over it and join us."
"You know," Scorpius said thoughtfully, "I think you may be the best thing to ever happen to Al Potter. Someone who can give him a taste of his own manipulative medicine." Scorpius grinned at her and she grinned back. And then the sound of the door made them turn.
Al was striding out of the restaurant. Honoria rolled her eyes, and Scorpius echoed the gesture. "Al!" he called after his friend. "Come on, Al, we're joking!" But Al didn't slow, turn around, or acknowledge them in any way. Scorpius sighed and shook his head. "I should probably go talk to him," he said indulgently. "Give me a sec, would you?"
And finally, Rose spoke. "No, Scorpius," she said, staying his movement with a hand. Her voice had an odd quality to it. "I really think I should go."
"And why is that?" he asked his wife with a laugh. But Rose just fixed him with a suddenly heated look that startled both Scorpius and Honoria.
"Because at the moment, I'm the only one who isn't laughing at him." And without a backward glance, she followed her cousin outside.
Honoria rolled her eyes again, but for the first time, Scorpius looked uneasy. "They're both just overreacting," she told him.
"Yes," Scorpius finally agreed, tearing his eyes away from the entrance. "You're probably right. Al always has been sensitive about his love life, but heavens knows he meddled enough in ours." He attempted a smile, but he still looked uncertain, which made her feel briefly uneasy once more.
Remember the excuses, she reminded herself forcefully, and the unease slipped away. A waiter appeared then and led them to their table after they assured him that the rest of the party would be joining them soon.
"How did this even happen?" Scorpius asked once they were seated. "You and Al? I never would have thought, not in a million years . . ."
"We met at the wedding," she answered with a shrug, trying to keep the goofy smile off her face. "And it was . . . Gods, Scorpius, it was like Fate. I've never felt anything that strong for anyone before. And the first two weeks were amazing, just phenomenal."
"I'm gonna stop you there," Scorpius said with a grin. "There are some details I really don't need. But I'm glad to hear that."
She smiled, but it didn't last long. Thinking about those first two weeks . . . well, it was hard, given how tense the most recent couple weeks had been. Given how angry he'd been with her when he'd stormed out. "It's been . . . rougher lately," she admitted to Scorpius. "Because he wouldn't tell you."
"Which I really can't wrap my head around," Scorpius said, frowning. "I can't imagine why he hasn't said anything about this."
"Can't you?" Both Honoria and Scorpius jumped, caught off guard by Rose's return. Her voice was hard and her eyes were blazing. "I hope you two are happy with yourselves," she said when she had their attention. "I really do. I hope you're pleased."
"Where's Al?" Scorpius asked. Rose's reply was short and to the point.
"He's gone home."
Honoria rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"
The blazing in Rose's eyes intensified. "Yes, he decided he'd rather spend the evening alone than stay here and be ridiculed."
"Oh, please, no one was ridiculing him-"
"No? Let me grab the nearest Pensieve and see the evening from your perspective. Sounds like it would be unrecognizable."
"Rose," Scorpius said in an undertone, reaching up for her hand, but she moved it out of reach.
"I really can't believe the pair of you," she continued. 'You are supposed to be his best friend," she said to Scorpius before rounding on Honoria, "and you are supposedly in love with him, but I wouldn't guess either from the way you've treated him tonight."
"Rose, he's overreacting," Scorpius said, trying to reason with his wife, but she just gave a short, humorless laugh.
"He's really not."
"Rose-"
"When was the last time Al had a serious girlfriend, Scorpius?" Scorpius seemed caught off guard by the question, and Honoria realized with a start that she didn't know the answer.
"I, um . . ." Scorpius looked away, frowning as he tried to come up with an answer.
"The answer is never," Rose eventually supplied for him. "He's never had a serious girlfriend. Since we hit puberty, the closest he's come was that girl Caroline, who he dated for two weeks about two years ago. Do you remember why he ended it?" Scorpius's eyes stayed on the ground and his mouth stayed shut. Rose just waited, and eventually Scorpius spoke.
"She was using him to make a move on James."
"That's why most of his relationships have ended, you'll recall. Because they were a ploy to get close to James or the girl wanted to capitalize on Uncle Harry's fame and Al's connection to it. Usually Al susses it out in a matter of days, but Caroline, now, she was better at the act. Better at lying, better at manipulating him. So it took him longer to spot the signs. But when he did, when he ended it with her, he was back to his old self in a matter of days. Al has never had a serious girlfriend. He's never been in love before, and you and I both know that's not the easiest confession to make to someone under the best of circumstances, let alone when the person you've fallen in love with is the girl your best friend used to be engaged to."
The silence was deafening. Something hot and uncomfortable had landed in Honoria's stomach, stealing warmth from hands she found herself knotting together to keep from shaking. She was having troubling processing everything Rose was implying, but the gist of it was starting to seep into her brain - the knowledge that she had missed something huge and made a massive misstep.
"Honoria and I were never - Al knows that."
"What the hell difference does that make to him?" Rose demanded. Honoria could feel herself growing smaller by the moment, and she searched desperately for some slip of her righteous anger to hold onto, some reason that had driven tonight that was still standing. But they were slipping away fast. "Romantic or not, she was a huge part of your life, and after years of being determined to dislike her, Al goes and falls in love as soon as he meets her. Could you possibly exercise some empathy and try to understand how much Al was struggling with figuring out how to tell you? Knowing that telling you would bring on this reaction? Knowing that telling you would set him up to be teased and ridiculed? He was dreading it with every fiber of his being, Scorpius."
"Dreading it doesn't give him the right to put it off," Honoria said softly, too soft to really be heard.
"What?" The word was short and clipped, and Honoria had to force herself to push through the flush of shame and meet Rose's eye.
"Dreading it doesn't make putting it off okay," she said, louder and clearer. "Courage is in facing unpleasant things head on."
"Like talking to your boyfriend about your frustrations instead of sneaking around behind his back to put him in his place?"
The comment was a slap to the face, and the worst part was, she deserved it. She flinched away as if the words had been a physical attack. When Rose spoke again, that feeling only intensified.
"Al knows that courage is in facing unpleasant things head on, Honoria, believe me. You clearly don't know him very well, but he is fastidious about doing things the right way. Being fair and unselfish and not taking the easy way out to spare himself trouble or discomfort. He wanted to do it right." Her focus was back on Scorpius, a relief to Honoria because with Rose's anger directed at her, she felt she couldn't breathe. "And that meant talking to you face to face, in person. Not in a letter. Not dumping it on you over the mirror as you were being pulled away. In person. And the fact that he hasn't been able to is not his fault. How many lunches have you cancelled in the past two weeks?"
Honoria snuck a glance at Scorpius. His eyes were closed and he swallowed painfully before he answered in a voice so quiet she almost couldn't make it out. His answer made her stomach plummet. "Four."
"Four," Rose repeated. "Do you know what he said outside? He said he wished he'd known two weeks ago that he was the only one who gave a damn about treating the situation with respect because he'd have saved himself a lot of anxiety and anguish. But instead, do you remember what he did, Scorpius, every time you cancelled on him? Instead of saying, 'I know you're busy, call me when you have time,' like he's done every other time something cropped up at the office, Al rescheduled with you each time for your next available afternoon. Do you remember that? Do you remember me telling you three nights ago that he actually called the house looking for you? Do you remember the look of panic in his eyes tonight when we said we were meeting Honoria? Do you remember the desperation in his voice when he asked to speak to you privately? Remembering all that, do you think that maybe there was something important he wanted to tell you?"
She was shaking with the force of her anger, it came through in her voice as she lost the calm composure that had carried her this far. Honoria's eyes were firmly on the table, and she didn't think she could raise them to meet Rose's if she tried. She certainly had no words to offer in her defense. Scorpius apparently felt the same, for there was only silence from his side of the table.
"He was scared stiff of your reaction, Scorpius. And then he wasn't allowed to control how you found out. He was blindsided, tricked into a meeting by someone he trusted, and then? Instead of taking two seconds to think about what he was going through, you mocked him. Made all this his fault. And until I came back to this table and spelled things out for you, you sat here believing that he was overreacting. That he deserved what happened to him tonight. And you." Honoria could feel Rose's focus shift to her and seriously considered Apparating away from the table, anything to make all this stop. "You love him? You love him, but you orchestrate something like this?" Tears stung her eyes at the incredulity and disgust in Rose's voice. "I am so ashamed at the pair of you."
The silence stretched between the three of them, thick and heavy and oppressive until it was broken once again by Rose. "I'm going home," she said simply. "I'm not hungry anymore, and frankly, I can't stand to look at either one of you a moment longer."
Honoria had never been so berated in her life, never gone from triumph to self-disgust so quickly. She closed her eyes against tears of shame, willing herself not to start crying in the middle of the restaurant. Rose had spoken quietly enough throughout to avoid causing a scene, but Honoria still felt as though the eyes of the whole place, the whole world, were on her, heavy and piercing with judgement and scorn. And it wasn't that she didn't feel she deserved it, but . . .
"I thought . . . I thought it was just more excuses." The words came out in a whisper.
"What?" Scorpius's voice sounded as hesitant and lost as hers did.
"Before, when he didn't want to meet me, he made all those excuses," she said, forcing herself to look at him, because he would remember. He would know what she meant. He knew her, he'd been there, he'd know she hadn't entirely been in the wrong. "That he was busy with work or family stuff, and this was just, it was more of the same." He was shaking his head before she had finished, which twisted her stomach even more.
"Hell," he said, bringing a hand up over his eyes. After a moment, he dropped it and met her gaze, apologetic and guilty. "Those weren't Al's excuses," he said, and it took her a moment to understand what he was saying.
"What?"
"Those weren't Al's excuses," he repeated.. "They were mine. I would invite him and he would ask if you'd be there. I wasn't going to lie about it, he'd have killed me, but he was always - upfront about the fact that he was saying no because he didn't want to meet you. I was the one who made excuses for him, to soften the blow. He didn't ask me to, I just . . . felt awkward revealing how much he disliked you. But it was me, Honoria. Not him."
She felt as though someone had pulled a rug out from under her. She felt like her world was imploding. She pressed her eyes shut and couldn't stop the sting of tears this time. "How badly have I messed this up?" she asked in a whisper, her voice ragged and desperate. Suddenly, Scorpius's hand was on hers, an energy filling him that he hadn't had since his wife had returned from her conversation with Al.
"Go to him," Scorpius said earnestly. "Tonight. Right now. Go to him, apologize, explain the misunderstanding. Be sincere. He'll respond to those things."
"Positively?" When Scorpius didn't answer, fear stabbed at her. "Scorpius, what if that doesn't work?" she asked, hating how young she sounded, how terrified.
"It's over for sure if you don't try."
The stab of fear flared bright and sharp at that. "Over?" she repeated, dumbfounded. Was that really what they were talking about? The end of this amazing relationship, because of one stupid mistake? Was it really that bad?
But of course it was. Of course that was what they were talking about. She'd heard Rose, she'd seen how angry Al had been. She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and stood. Scorpius looked at her sorrowfully, with pity and compassion. "Good luck," he said, which didn't make her feel any better.
Apparating to Al's was the easy part. Bringing herself to knock on his door was much harder.
When she got no answer, she knocked again. Then she called his name. "Al?" She knocked again. "Al, please open the door." She hated how desperate she sounded, but then, maybe desperate was good. But when more knocking failed to bring any sort of response, she faltered again. Was he even here? Rose had said he'd gone home, but had he? Would he really let her pound away at his door without giving any sign that he heard?
When she cast a silent Homenum Revelio and learned that he was, in fact, inside, part of her desperation turned to anger, one hot, hard little flare of anger. "Al!" she said, pounding harder. "I know you're in there." No response. "So you won't even talk to me now?"
That brought him to the door. "Bit rich, that, coming from you."
He was angrier than she'd ever seen him, angrier than he'd been at the restaurant. He had opened the door just enough to stand in the opening and fix her with a fiery, iron stare. The open door was not an invitation to come in. His comment was a barb, not the beginning of a conversation. It took everything inside her to keep from snapping back at him because being angry was easier for her by far than being contrite.
"Can I come in?" she asked, keeping her voice soft.
"No."
The anger flared up in her again, and she tamped it down. "Al, please. I think we should have this conversation in private."
"Me too, but that courtesy wasn't extended to me, and I don't feel like welcoming you into my home, so say what you have to say out here or leave. Those are your choices."
She swallowed. "I know you're angry-"
"Do you? Managed to figure that out?" he interrupted, his voice harsh with sarcasm. "But with or without Rose's help, that's the real question."
Honoria flushed, shame-faced and embarrassed. "I made a mistake," she said to the floor through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, you did," Al agreed, and with that she lost the hold on her temper, Scorpius's advice be damned.
"They sounded like excuses!" she snapped. "Four cancelled lunches? That sounds like an excuse, and an unoriginal one at that. What do you want from me?"
"Trust." He flung the word at her. "I have never lied to you, Honoria, not once. I am sorry if the truth doesn't sound truth-like enough for you, but that is not on me. You asked me why I hadn't told him, and I told you the truth every time. And I was more than happy to explain it as well, to tell you what's been going on at the Ministry to keep him so busy and to explain why it was important for me to do it in person, but you stopped that from happening. You refused to have the conversation."
"You could have forced the issue," she pointed out, and his eye blazed.
"I'm not in the habit of forcing women into situations that clearly make them uncomfortable," he replied. She couldn't gain an inch of high ground, and it was destroying her. Apologize, Scorpius had said. But the words stuck in her throat. Angry as Al was, would he even believe them?
"I'm uncomfortable right now," she said to the floor, which was true. She hated the thought of his neighbors behind the doors lining the hallway, listening to the argument. She thought maybe the admission would convince him to let her inside, but when she risked a glance at him, there was no softening in his eyes. If anything, he looked angrier.
"Don't do that. Don't you dare. You cannot put this on me. What was it you said earlier? Don't for one second assume that you have anyone but yourself to blame for your current situation?"
"Al-"
"Why are you here?"
She faltered, over-thinking it, trying to find the words that would sway him. "I want to fix this," she finally said, hoping that if she used his phrase, if she appealed to the idea that drove so much of his life, it might get through to him. It might open the door to conversation that she had unwittingly shut.
But when he spoke, his words made her blood run cold. "Well, I don't," he said. She stared.
'You don't - you don't mean that," she whispered, desperately hoping the words would turn out to be true. A breath of harsh laughter escaped him.
"You lied to me," he said, his voice pointed and unyielding. "To my face. You didn't trust me, or believe that I was telling you the truth. And when you had a problem with me, instead of talking to me about it, like an adult, you went behind my back with the intention of setting me up to be humiliated in front of my best friends. The first two, I could forgive. But that last? Why would I spend my time and energy trying to rebuild a relationship with someone so vindictive and callous and petty? Why would I want to be with that person in the first place?"
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, this wasn't happening, it wasn't.
"Al." The word came out a breathless whisper, half a sob, but he was unmoved.
"Goodbye, Honoria."
He took a step back and began to close the door, and she couldn't let that be the end. She stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, desperate, pleading. "Al, please. I'm sorry."
He looked down at her with something almost like pity. Almost.
"If you'd led with that," he said, "it might have carried some weight."
He removed his wrist from her grasp and shut the door with a firm and final click.
To be continued...
