Chapter twenty-five
Chapter twenty-five
She couldn't sleep, it was impossible, every time she closed her eyes she was back at the broom seeing Scorpius walk away, or seeing his expression after he had asked how she was doing, and it pained her. The look in his eyes had etched itself in her mind, and she couldn't forget it.
Rose didn't know for how long she had been trying to get some sleep, but she guessed that it was after midnight by now, and she was the only one awake. All the other girls had gone to sleep hours ago, and none of them even stirred as Rose quietly threw the covers to the side and walked out to the common room, she couldn't stand the silence anymore. Out there, perhaps she would be able to do something productive, like homework or reading some of her books to take her mind off things.
However she couldn't seem to focus on anything, and with a frustrated huff she slammed the book shut, then she winced at the loud sound, and hoped that no one had heard it. After a few minuets of intent listening, she laid down on the couch were she had been seated, and stared up at the ceiling, like there would be some written instructions with the information of what she could do next. But it didn't change anything for how long she was staring at it, she didn't get any help anyway.
She couldn't stay still for very long, it was like she had some bottled up energy, which had suddenly decided to kick in right now. Deep down she knew what she probably should do, but then again she didn't know how to do it, she was afraid, no terrified, of what te outcome might be.
"Well, if there ever was a time when you shouldn't think, I think it's now." She said to herself, then she quickly got up and left the room before she would be able to change her mind.
How could he be so stupid, so incredibly stupid, what was he thinking. He shouldn't have been waiting for her, he was supposed to be trying to saty away from her, not look for her. The excuses he tried to tell himself only went that far, then there was his thoughts about her, how he missed her and how he held no regret for his actions earlier the same day. Or he had some regrets, a part of him was screaming that he was the biggest moron in the wizarding world, no one walked away from someone like Rose, in that sense even McLaggen and Michaels were smarter than him. But the thoughts of those two, only served to make him feel much worse about the situation.
Scorpius walked into the Slytherin common room, ignoring every thing, and everyone, around him as he made his way to the dorm. His mind was in such a dazed state, that he barely noticed how Michaels was bragging about Rose to his friends who hung by his word with awe. All he could think about was the thoughts that had been floating inside his head for the past hours.
Yet he could guess what the other boys were talking about, and if he let his emotions get the control, then he wasn't sure of what could happen.
Scorpius didn't want to care, this whole thing had gone too far as it was. If he hadn't kissed her in the library, if he hadn't lost what little control he had... but what was done was done, and if he would be totally honest with himself, he wouldn't want to take that back for anything in the world.
He changed into his pyjamas while his mind was racing as he thought about Rose, every amazing aspect of her. How her lips felt against his, so soft, and how she used to sit around and play with her fingers in his hair...
Scorpius waited until the rest of the boys in his dorm had gone to bed as well before he tried to get some sleep, since he didn't want anyone to wake him from the only time when he could, in his head, truly feel like she was still with him. At this time, it was in his dreams, when he could escape reality, as he experianced the most peace.
The school was silent as Rose wandered the halls, not entirely sure of how she was planning on doing this in the middle of the night, perhaps it would have been better if she had waited until the next day, but then she might have tried to come up with some other excuse as to not do this.
She would do this now or never, and with that thought, the determination she had felt in the common room returned to her and she walked down the stairs to the dungeons, to walk towards the Slytherin common room, and in search a student who could help her, something she strongly doubted at this time. Possibly there wouldn't be anyone there, then she could go back to bed and then act like everything was normal.She shivered slightly, but ignored it as she kept on walking.
The corridor was darkly lit, and as she had suspected, empty. Despite of the dread that she had felt before, there now was clear disappointment in her head, but what could she really expect. She turned to walk back, perhaps she could get some fresh air, since after this failiure she didn't want to go back to bed. She knew that she needed something to occupie herself with or she would be stuck thinking and analyzing everything.
However she didn't get far before she suddenly felt a strange shill go through her.
"Hello there, might I enquire to what you are doing up this late at night?" Rose recognised the voice of nearly headless Nick, and realised that she must have walked straight through him before.
"Oh, nothing really, walking… I couldn't sleep."
"You shouldn't be walking around in the castle at this time, even if you are a prefect and couldn't sleep." He looked at her intently, making her turn her gaze down on the floor.
"I needed to see if I could talk to someone, it was important." Rose mumbled, not looking up as she could feel her cheeks burn with embarasment.
"Then perhaps I can be of some assistance, who would you want me to wake up?" Nick smiled at her slightly surprised face, as her eyes shot back at him once again.
"I don't know… it doesn't matter, it can wait." She thought about perhaps she should get back to the tower after all, to get away from all of the questions.
"No, you needed to speak to this person, and it was urgent enough to bring you down here, now who is it?"
"Malfoy." She said reluctantly while she crossed her arms over her chest.
"I'll see if I can find him." With that Nick disappeared into a wall and left Rose alone with her racing mind.
After a minute the ghost reappeared with a mix of a frown and a smug smile.
"That boy isn't a very polite person to wake up."
"Yeah, I know… oh, you woke him up?"
"Do you think the whole castle is up and running like this?" He smiled at her and then floated down the corridor.
Scorpius had felt serenity and peace in his dreams, holding Rose in his arms, but then she had begun to blow cold air in his face. And then suddenly he was holding a creature he had once seen in an article written by one of the professors' wives, Luna something. He dropped it at the same time that he woke up.
"Bloody hell!" He had started to wave his arms around, as if he tried to fight something off, but then he realised that he was awake and he stared at the Gryffindor ghost, who wore an expression which showed how insulted he was, but Scorpius was barely awake, so he didn't really notice.
"There is someone waiting for you out side. And I would advice you to not act like that when you get there." With that the ghost went through the wall, and Scorpius was stunned, why would someone come down here at, he glanced at his watch, two forty in the morning.
As silent as he could, he got up and slowly walked out of the room, and then as he came to the common room he started to mumble to himself about the idiot who dragged him up like this. He would surely give them a piece of his mind.
A door appeared in front of Rose and a groggy Scorpius walked out, his eyes was barely opened and his hair was sticking out in every direction, she noticed that he was beginning to speak when he looked at her and did a double take.
"Oh, I think it was the wrong person who was forced up." He wasn't expecting to see Rose, and his rant was forgotten immediately.
"No, it wasn't. Sorry about that." She made a grimace as her face heated up, and her voice made him stop mid stride, as he was thinking of going back in to bed.
"You should be sorry; it's before three in the morning."
"Don't you think that I'm aware of that? I couldn't sleep."
"So decided to wake me up as well?" He hadn't moved, he wanted to hear her out to why she was there, but he didn't trust himself to get to close to her.
"Yes." Her blunt answer surprised him, what was she thinking exactly, he saw her squirm a little before she straightened up and looked him in the eyes. "Can we go somewhere else?"
"Ok, sure." Rose tried not to think too much about the suspicion in his gaze, but she was happy that he had agreed to come with her.
They walked in silence, neither one of them knew what to say to break it without starting another fight.
Scorpius tried to force himself to be more alert, he had to stifle several yawns, but he got tired of it, and in the end he didn't bother to do so.
Rose felt like she was very aware of everything Scorpius did, and she couldn't deny the fact that he was only in his pyjamas, a muggle t-shirt and a pair of soft pants, something that could have surprised her, but instead she looked down on her own, she was wearing a too big t-shirt and regular pyjamas pants. She regretted that she didn't take her cloak with her as she could feel goose bumps on her partly bared arms.
Even if she tried to rub her arms as discreetly as possible, Scorpius still noticed her attempts, and without a word he brought her closer to him and rubbed her arms too, all while continuing walking and not turning his head towards her. At first his sudden closeness made her tense up, but then she relaxed against his touch.
Scorpius was content with having Rose this close, and he couldn't for his life think about what ever reason he had thought he once had had to not be with her, then it hit him, almost like the bludger at the fateful quidditch game, what if she were to ask him to stay away from her. Quickly he let go of her, almost as if she had burned him. She looked up at him, wondering why he had stopped.
"I think we can talk now." His abrupt changes were beginning to grow more annoying and at first Rose couldn't do anything but stare at him, what was the matter with him. He went from cold to warm, almost loving to indifferent in seconds, and she was getting fed up with it.
"I think that we have some things to get straightened out." She returned his cold stare with one of her own. "We should have talked this through just after… we-we broke up." Rose had never felt this vulnerable and exposed, and she inwardly cursed him for just standing there without saying anything.
Scorpius was sure that this was it, she would never want to see him again, he didn't know what to do. Would it be better if he spared himself the pain of hearing her utter those words, and just walk away from her and never look back at what he had lost so long ago.
"We never really… Are you feeling ok?" Rose wanted to get it off of her chest as fast as possible, but then she saw his face, and she was filled with concern. There was an evident pain in his eyes, and for a moment she didn't know what to do.
"I'm fine, just tired." He tried to sound reassuring, make her do what ever she had come to do quickly.
"I now how you look when you are tired, it's not like that."
"Just tell me what it was you wanted to say." She began to fidget with the hem of the shirt, when she thought about how she wanted to say it.
"We sort of just left it, and perhaps we shouldn't have done that. Perhaps we should have gotten more closure." Suddenly Rose realised what the look on his face was, it got worse for every word she spoke, almost like she was physically abusing him. She couldn't take it anymore.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" She could almost feel tears beginning to well up in her eyes, as the lump in her throat grew and made her voice crack a little.
"I-I… don't know what to tell you. If that… is what you want, then perhaps we should…" He stopped; he couldn't bring himself to utter the words he thought about.
"We should what?" He didn't answer, just looked at her, hopelessness radiating from him. "We should what?!" She raised her voice, but didn't seem to realise it, he sighed before he opened his mouth.
"Perhaps we should… just stop it. Meet others and go on with our lives." Now she was sure that she had tears in her eyes, but she didn't know if he was aware of that.
"Do you want that?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper now, and Scorpius felt horrible, neither of this was what he wanted.
"No, I don't want that. But it might be for the best. You will have it better, if you could have an easy life with your family… and someone…"
"Don't, don't say it. Do you realise what you mean, I don't want that life." Her voice broke in the middle, but she fought to keep going. "What about you, would that be the best for you?"
"Rose, I-I…" He could hear her struggle to breathe through her muffled sobs, and then he was right beside her, pulling her close to him while stroking her hair as he tried to comfort her.
"Everything will be ok, don't cry."
"It will not be ok, don't you understand that?" He could barely hear her response since she was talking into his shirt, which now had damp spots on the front.
"This isn't the time to be stubborn Rose, it will be ok." She tipped her face up towards him with a small, sad smile.
"Not when you talk like that. Like you will leave me…" The words shocked him, but as he thought about her actions tonight they seemed like they made slight sense. He took a deep breath before her spoke; he could smell the faint smell of roses.
"I want you to be happy. You will not be that with me, Rose." What she did after he said that was highly unexpected, she smacked him, hard in the face, and when he looked down at her in confusion she did it again.
"Don't you dare say or think anything like that again. Where have you been these past months? You broke up with me because of that, didn't you, you idiot!" Scorpius didn't know what to say, it was true, her assumption, but he had done it because he thought that it was best for her, even though he had seen how she had acted afterwards.
Rose couldn't believe him, why would he even consider something like that; she grabbed a hold of his hand and pulled him to one of the benches by the wall. There she pushed him down but remained standing in front of him.
"Those things you said that day, did you mean them?" Instead of answering as Rose had expected, he pulled her down beside him.
"Just listen to me now." He waited for her agreement, and then continued. "I thought, and still think that you deserve better. I want you to find someone who is able to make you happy, but without taking away things that means a lot to you, someone who understands you."
"Why are you telling me that, I have already found someone who is all of those things." She saw him visible cringe at her words.
"Yeah, Michaels…"
"Not him, how could you think that, after what you said?" She snorted at how thick headed Scorpius could be at times.
"Are there more…?" He couldn't finish the question before he had Rose's arms around him, he didn't understand why she would suddenly just hug him, and laugh.
"Merlin, Scorpius, do you have a brain or not? I think that it sounded like you were describing yourself before." She looked up and snickered at his obvious bewilderment. "You know that you understand me and make me happy, and for the record, I would never let you take things away from me, things that are important to me."
"Rose, I don't think you understand."
"No, it is you who doesn't understand, you want me to be happy, something that I am with you, but then you say that I can't be with you. But you know, I think that we have gone too far with this, with you trying to kill yourself…"
"I'm not trying to kill myself!"
"Sure, you're not, who doesn't do all the things that you do on a regular basis." He actually smiled at her sarcasm, and for a moment they just stared at each other, weighing their options.
"Do you still think that this won't work?" Rose had a small smile on her lips as she asked him, and he smirked at her.
"Oh, it's doomed from the start." But before she could argue with him, she could feel his lips on hers, and she quickly deepened the kiss, she didn't care about anything else, as long as she had Scorpius with her.