Silence
Rose had always wondered how you could be "alone with someone." If you were with them, weren't you, by definition, not alone? But she felt entirely alone now, for Scorpius seemed to be somewhere else completely. He had the hollow, vacant look in his eye that one could only have from losing a parent.
He leaned against the wall by the door of his mother's bedroom and yet he seemed as insubstantial as a ghost.
"Scorpius," she whispered as she approached him.
He did not seem to hear her. He was numb, his body stiff with strain and tension.
"Scorpius," she repeated, more loudly.
"She never spent them, you know. The knuts," he indicated to the jar sitting on his mother's dresser. "I always teased her, but she collected them, let them pile up day after day. There's probably five galleons here. Five galleons she'll never spend..." His voice trembled and cracked as he looked at her with an expression she could only describe as heartbreakingly helpless and lost.
These were the first full sentences he had managed all morning, and they broke her heart. She couldn't think of a response.
There wasn't anything she could say that would make things better, though she was tempted to try. Instead she simply took his hand, and tried to provide any level of comfort she could. There was no way for her to soothe the tension of his muscles, his whole body was stretched and stiff. She saw the waiting tears welling in his eyes, she imagined them burning him like an acid. But he still refused to cry.
He had been a stone all morning. Stone, while he looked at the flowers. Stone, while he received condolences. Stone when he gripped Rose's hand so tightly she thought her circulation would be cut off. Stone, while he told his mother goodbye. And now that he's gone into his mother's room and opened a crack in the stone, it all threatened to come pouring out. He rested his head against the door frame, trying to regain control before facing the rest of the room.
Astoria's bedroom could fool you. The rumpled bed, the pile of unwashed robes in her hamper, the smell of her perfume which still lingered, no one had touched anything. It could fool you into thinking nothing had changed.
Scorpius, who had been wandering around in numb pain for days, didn't seem to understand what was happening around him. He didn't want to understand. He didn't want to see or hear, he couldn't gather his thoughts and his mind. These thoughts – they zipped through his synapses, escaping the stark reality that sprung up in front of his eyes. It got to him, empting him of every emotion, leaving a dense clot of nothing in his chest. It was becoming harder to bear the smarting pain pressing against his temples. His gaze became vacant, as if he was actually looking at nothing.
Picture frames lined the rest of the dresser. He couldn't bring himself to look at them. He moved on, knowing that if he focused too long on one thing, the little fissure in his heart would turn into a cavern.
He turned towards the bed, as though it could offer solace from the sight of the dresser. The bed, complete with rumpled blanket and dented pillow was untouched too. The new dress robes Astoria bought last week lay at the end. Robes she would never get to wear. He picked them up, unfeeling, unaware of the depth of his denial and pain.
"It's okay to cry you know," Rose whispered.
These seemed to be the magic words. It was as if she had opened the floodgates and he couldn't stop the tears. He cried until his whole body hurt, until he couldn't feel anything anymore. He cried until he trembled. He cried until his eyes are dry and there were no more fluids inside his body. The sorrow and pain has crept into his bones, into his muscles, and it was slowly getting into his lungs. She rubbed his back in an attempt to soothe him. He continued clutching the robes and she continued to clutch him.
He was forever grateful that Rose was there. While he tried to hide his pain from others, he didn't have the energy to hide it from her too. He was particularly thankful that she didn't try to tell him everything was going to be okay, or that she knew what he was going through, or that his mum was in a better place. He knew people said these things in an attempt to comfort him, but the words meant nothing to him right now.
Scorpius preferred when people said nothing, and Rose's silence spoke volumes. A friend who could be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who could stay with us in an hour of grief, who could tolerate not knowing, not healing, not curing, that was a friend who cared. And no one cared more than his Rose.
