Review review review! There will be ONE more chapter after this and then I'm done! And will have finished my FIRST story EVER! What a huge accomplishment that is for me! And probably why I dragged it on so long and had so many twists and turns, because I have NEVER known how to wrap up a story.
Rambling aside. REVIEWWW! Let's see how many we can get for this story since it'll be done soon ^.^
P.S. I recently got a little message saying that I have been nominated for the Best Next Gen Fic in the Merlin Awards [see misswhiteblack] - come forth, whoever nominated me! And thank you! It seriously got me all happy and giddy that anyone would think that much of my story! ^.^ Serious love to you!
Rose was still staring at the wall when a body was rushed into the room and tossed onto the bed next to her. A number of medi-witches and wizards flooded the room and the privacy curtains were drawn so quickly that she couldn't tell who it was. She heard a lot of mumbling about how this was the only bed open in the hospital at the moment, due to some explosion during a potion-party-marathon. Most of the witches and wizards who were attending the marathon now had permanently dyed blue faces and the medi-witches and wizards had no idea what to do to fix it.
Yet.
But Rose's attention wasn't on the potion-party-explosion. No. It was on who-the-bloody-hell-was-now-in-the-same-room. The medical staff was rushing in and out - Rose saw an IV line floating in along with some other tools and bandages, gauze, and tape. After the shuffling had calmed down and the person was safely sleeping in the bed, there was only one medi-witch left in the room.
The same one that had given Rose the fictiously polite smile when she had asked about the library.
Wonderful.
"Is he okay? It is a he, right?" Rose had to remember what glimpse she saw - and the body seemed too large to be a woman.
"I am not at liberty to share this patients information." That same overly-used polite smile greeted Rose once again. Rose only scowled at the woman.
"You can't tell me if it's a male or female?" Rose questioned blatantly.
"Is there anything that you need, ma'am?" The witch asked, clearly dodging the question. Rose bit her bottom lip in frustration and shook her head. The medi-witch left the room in a hurry.
Rose didn't need to take but a moment until she was out of bed and peeking around the curtain. The other half of the room was nearly pitch black - and all she could see was a dark masculine figure lying in the hospital bed. For the briefest of moments, she felt pity for the individual lying in the bed. His face was horribly swollen, purple, and bruised. She felt wrong, standing here, overlooking him while she was just fine and healthy.
That was until she saw the name of the person on the charts, attached to the foot of the bed where she was standing.
Nott.
She inhaled quickly and clutched the base of her neck, and hurried back behind the privacy curtain and into her own hospital bed.
What the bloody hell was he doing here? What had he done to get himself in such a shape as that? Who would do such a thing to him?
Unanswered questions flooded her mind, but before she could entertain a single one of them, the annoying medi-witch cracked open the door and peeked in.
"Miss Weasley...you have a visitor." She scowled. Rose glanced at the clock and knew it was far past visiting hours.
"I don't want to see any visitors. Besides, isn't it past curfew?" Rose replied curtly.
"He insists." The nurse pursed her lips together and moved out of the way to allow a tall figure in. Rose immediately knew who it was, her eyes didn't need to adjust and study his features. His expensive cologne was giveaway enough.
"Scorpius..." Rose's breath hitched in her throat. The simple sight of him still took her breath away at times, and this was one of those times. And it wasn't because of his dashing looks...it was because of the blood stains on his shirt and the swollen lip he sported.
"Don't ask any questions - just get your belongings. We're leaving." Scorpius commanded and Rose knew better than to pry him with all the questions flowing through her mind.
"I don't have much..." She fumbled around and grabbed a few of her necessities - wand, robes, and the picture of her family that was resting by her bedside.
Without another word, she followed Scorpius out of the blackened hospital room, through the now-deserted hallways, and into the cool night.
Hermione didn't know what to think of her daughters current situation. She was clearly messing around with the Malfoy boy - it didn't take a genius to figure that one out. Not with the way he watched over her while she was unconscious - the clear lines of worry etched in his face, and the undoubted malice of revenge painted in his eyes...
No, it was clear they were more than just friends.
And wasn't it interesting that Nott would show up at St. Mungo's as well; a fellow student in Rose's year and one of Scorpius' 'closest' friends. One that somehow had to fit into this whole equation surrounding Rose.
Hermione stood over the sleeping boy, all bruised and battered. A small and tidy mediwitch stood by Hermione's side, watching her every action, ensuring that she did no further harm to the boy.
"You said he came in tonight?" Hermione whispered softly to the mediwitch.
"Yes. Sometime around midnight." She replied easily.
"Where was he found?" Hermione asked solemnly.
"Um, Hogsmeade, I believe." The mediwitch replied and cleared her throat, "I think it's time we leave him to rest."
Hermione didn't need anymore time here. She headed out of the room and past the bed where her daughter was supposed to be laying.
"The head witch on the shift prior to mine said you checked Rose out. How is she doing?" The mediwitch questioned.
"She's fine." Hermione whispered and then headed down the long hall, to the nearest exit. Hermione didn't check Rose out - but she had an inkling of who did.
Once she was outside the hospital, she reached for her Muggle device - a cell phone, and dialed her husband Ron as fast as she could.
"Honey, I have a lead." She muttered into the mouthpiece as softly as she could, "I don't want to say much more on here in case someone is listening. Meet me at the usual and we'll go from there."
With a soft click, the phone had been shut and tucked neatly away in her purse. With one last fleeting glance around, she apparated away.
"Nobody enters this home, do you understand?" Scorpius forcibly spoke to his hoard of house elves. They all nodded in conjuction with a terrified look in their eyes and fingers nervously fiddling.
Without another word, Scorpius sailed past them and further into his family's mansion. Rose weakly followed, this was her first time in the Malfoy Manor and there were so many things to look at and be in awe of. Clearly his family thoroughly enjoyed collecting ancient artifacts and other strange objects. Rose wanted to get her hands on each and every one of them, and learn their history.
But clearly, now was not the time.
"Please keep up." Scorpius commanded from the end of the hall. Rose scurried along after him, not wanting to lose him in the maze of hallways and secret passages.
She caught up quickly, and just in time to enter a dark and pristinely decorated bedroom chamber. The door closed automatically behind her, and she could hear the locks click into place.
Before anything more could be said, or done, Rose had to get this straightened out and with a quickness.
"You know, I've been forced to put a lot of trust in you, Scorpius, and you haven't been telling me what I need to know." Rose eyed him carefully as he stood in front of a lengthy mirror, examining the cuts on his face.
"Bollocks." Scorpius fingered a seriously sore spot on his cheekbone and cursed.
"You're impossible. Come here, sit down." Rose ordered and Scorpius opened his mouth to protest, but Rose cut him off - "Sit!"
With a slight grin at her forcefulness, Scorpius crossed the room and relaxed on the silky green bed in front of Rose. "What is it that you absolutely need to know?"
"Everything." Rose sighed as she hovered in front of Scorpius, hands tracing lightly over the purple bruises on his face. "Start from the beginning."
"Ouch." Scorpius grimaced as Rose tightly squeezed his forearm to check for broken bones. "I'm sure Nott poisoned you, to use you to get to me. He wanted to marry you, somehow 'bridge the gap' between 'good and evil' wizarding families, and gain fifty percent of my business funds by allowing us to still see each other on the side."
"That doesn't even make sense." Rose murmured with her eyebrows squished together, intently studying a deep cut above Scorpius' lip. "Do you have any gauze?"
"Wouldn't magic suffice?" Scorpius questioned easily. "Or we can do it the old fashioned way - kiss it and make it all better."
An airy laugh escaped Rose's lips. She really missed his witty remarks and constant come-ons.
"Isn't that something that mothers do?" Rose pushed herself away from Scorpius and crossed to his oversized on-suite bathroom.
"Hell no." Scorpius chortled.
"We need to clean and stitch up that wound before it festers." Rose called from the bathroom. Scorpius could almost envision every move she made by the sound of the ruckus she was making in the bathroom. Cabinet doors slammed, little glass bottles on his vanity were moved about noisily, and her padded footsteps resounded all across the cold tiles.
"Check the closet, I think the House Elves keep a medical basket handy in there." Scorpius returned quickly and laid fully back on his bed. With his feet, he pushed himself to the head of his over-sized king bed - the deep satin green sheets melted beneath his warm skin.
"Got it." Rose countered as she came around the corner, black basket in hand, but paused at the sight of him sprawled comfortably across the bed, hands behind his head, legs crossed, shirt unbuttoned...
She cleared her throat loudly, more in an effort to bring herself to reality than to announce her clear discomfort. Scorpius gazed at her, his eyes sparkling a keen silver as he studied her in the dim light. Even after the mess they had gotten themselves into, he still found her to be absolutely stunning.
"Um, tilt your head more towards me." Rose finally took a seat on the edge of the bed, her ass against his stomach. She folded her legs neatly beneath her, and placed the black basket in her lap. Silence spread between them as she searched the basket for the items she needed. Scorpius never took his eyes off of her.
Finally, "You know, you'd make a great medi-witch." He whispered with a smile as she placed the items before her, neatly spread out in the order that she needed them.
"I don't think so." She shook her head with her lips pursed together, trying to hide her evident smile. The compliment was small, and it touched her. Seeing as becoming a medi-witch was one of her childhood ambitions.
But not anymore - not after spending as much time in the hospital as she had, lately.
"What do you want to do, then?" Scorpius reciprocated quickly, nuzzling his face closer to her body. Needing to close the distance between them.
"I want you to finish telling me why you're so bruised and battered." Rose replied without missing a beat, loading some antiseptic cream onto a square gauze.
"If you think I'm bad, you should have seen Nott." Scorpius countered easily, smug and apparently proud.
"I did." Rose leaned forward and lightly pressed the medicated gauze against the swollen cut above his lip. Scorpius held back a wince of pain, wanting to appear stronger than he felt.
"He was trying to escape Hogwarts, and hide out in one of his family's underground bunkers. Ones that have been left unseen and un-located for decades." Scorpius' eyes never left Rose's face, even as she worked on cleaning the cuts on his face.
"Go on." She urged softly.
"I couldn't let him escape - we would never have found him and justice wouldn't have been served." Scorpius gritted his teeth - Rose couldn't tell if it was in pain, or anger.
"So you served your own version of justice? Couldn't you just have let the Auror's figure this out? That's their job, after all. You know my parents would have found him and made him pay."
"Clearly the Aurors don't know it was him who poisoned you. So I infiltrated Hogwarts and followed him through one of the underground passages to Hogsmeade. He was planning to escape from there, obviously. But before he could reach any underground basement and apparate, we got into a fight. First, it was by magic only. But soon, both of us were disarmed. So I resorted to old-fashioned fighting and I threw the first punch."
"Figures." Rose scolded lightly. "Your face is done, now tell me where else you're hurt."
Scorpius slowly moved his hands to his shirt, lifting himself off the bed ever-so-slightly, just enough to slip his shirt from his shoulders and drop it to the floor. His eyes never left Rose - those piercing, sinful silver eyes of his.
Rose swallowed hard as Scorpius lowered himself once again onto the refreshing sheets. His skin glimmered in the candlelight, casting light shadows where his muscles bulged and dipped. His pecs were strong and defined - smooth and tanned. His stomach was a washboard of chiseled muscles. A defined V dipped towards his trousers - and that's where Rose stopped herself.
"Where did you say you were hurt?" She tried to refocus herself.
"I didn't." Scorpius replied, eyes locked with hers. Rose chewed her bottom lip in distinct discomfort before forcing herself to look away.
"I - I guess you're all fixed up, then." She tossed the remaining items back into the black medical basket and stood up quickly - anything to distance herself from the overly-masculine, testosterone-flaring, absolutely-gorgeous boy laying on the bed, shirtless, in front of her.
One that she failed to admit to herself that she was unequivocally in love with.
"We'll stay here tonight. The house-elves won't let anybody near the house. We're safe here." Scorpius broke the awkward silence. Once Rose had returned the basket to the walk-in closet, she stood by the bedside once again.
"Erm, are you going to show me to a guest room?" She nibbled her bottom lip once again in an awkward state - Scorpius couldn't help but notice that she was only making her lip plumper - swollen, bitten...ripe for kissing. Nibbling.
"You don't want to share the bed with me?" Scorpius flashed her his version of puppy-dog eyes, causing Rose to chuckle.
"What if your family finds me here?" Rose failed to think about that earlier. It wasn't as if Malfoy's and Weasley's were on friendly speaking terms. They were tolerable to each other in public places, but they were far from welcoming each other into their homes.
"First of all, they reside on the west wing of the house. We're on the east. And 16 bedrooms, lofty dining rooms, living rooms, and one oversized ballroom separate us from them. They won't even know we're here - that's how they like it." Scorpius contested smoothly. "If you would like a guest room, I could easily take you to the guest quarters. Closer to where my parents reside. Or, you could stay here with me, unbothered, unseen."
"What a choice." Rose couldn't help but frown at the thought of his family being so distant from each other. Didn't they value family? Didn't they have large dinners, filled with laughter and noisy cousins, Aunts, Uncles..."I suppose I have limited options. I want my own sleeping palette across the room, away from you."
"Fine. I'll have the house - "
"Enough with the house elves - you can make me a bed to sleep in." Rose interjected calmly. Scorpius lifted an eyebrow slowly, and then patted the empty space in the bed next to him.
"There's enough room in this bed alone, that you won't even know I'm here." Scorpius cracked a smile and continued to pat the space next to him.
"I think I'll take the guest room." Rose rolled her eyes playfully with her hands on her hips. Scorpius tilted his head back and returned to his usual position - hands behind his head, feet crossed, eyes closed, face towards the ceiling.
"Suit yourself." He stifled a smug look and feigned like he was going to fall asleep, bored.
"So...what now?" Rose asked as she moved her arms from her hips and crossed them over her stomach.
"You can go search for one of the 16 guest bedrooms."
"No, I mean...what's going to happen now? With everything..."
"Nott will end up in Azkaban." Scorpius shrugged easily, as if he was talking about Sunday dinner or something. He showed no emotion, whatsoever. Not a care.
"How does this not bother you?"
"Because he attacked you. Poisoned you. Tried to blackmail me - caused you to go into a coma for days. And then tried to cast the killing curse on me in the underground tunnel. He deserves time in Azkaban." Scorpius' voice was hollow and empty.
Emotionless.
"Yeah, but he's the one in St. Mungo's, not you. So won't you get into some sort of trouble?"
"Maybe a slap on the wrist for hospitalizing him." Scorpius looked smug, "I had to attack him in self-defense. He tried to kill me, and in order to ensure my own safety, I had to make sure he wasn't getting up anytime soon."
"Right. And you couldn't just call for help? Find somebody to help subdue him? Use your wand?" Rose questioned.
"No. We were alone in an underground passageway, forgotten since the Great War. Nobody was going to help me, and I wasn't about to die down there, never to be found. I-needed-to-get-back-to-you."
The last part slipped out of Scorpius' mouth, unplanned, but still spoken. Silence spread between the two as the realization sank in.
"Why did you need to get back to me." Rose finally spoke, more of a statement than a question. The air between them was thick with unspoken words and feelings. Unhealed wounds.
"I just did." Scorpius countered softly.
"Why can't you just tell me how you feel. Why does it always have to be riddles and guessing games with you?" Rose was becoming frustrated, "Why can't you just tell me..."
"Tell you what?" Scorpius sat up, propped on his elbows, "What can I possibly tell you that you don't already know, about how I feel? Don't my actions tell you what you need to know?"
"No..."
"This is me, Rose. I don't run around, declaring my undying devotion to you in front of everyone that walks by. I don't throw cheesy rose petals at the doorstep, leading a trail to a steaming hot bubble bath with pink champagne. I'm just not like that." Scorpius huffed as he sat up completely, hands gesturing wildly, "I tell you all I need to, all I can, by staying true to you. Standing by your side, sleeping next to you in the hospital. Avenging you and protecting you from your enemies. These are the ways I show you how I feel."
Silence.
Rose looked away blankly, pretending to look at the objects in his room. The decorated Malfoy crest hung boldly above his king-sized bed. Slytherin-green paint adorned the walls. Espresso colored, heavy wood furniture sat about room. Two oversized dark leather chairs stood by the window to form a sitting area.
She brought herself back to reality - here he was, in front of her, having just poured out the truth of his emotions the best he knew how. In his own way, he just told her everything she needed to know.
Almost.
"Why did you get yourself expelled with Anna?" Rose asked the final question. The past two months had been a whirlwind of emotions and unanswered questions.
"She was a threat to us." Scorpius admitted, running a frustrated hand through his short flaxen locks. "I told you. I protect you from your enemies - and this was the best way. I get expelled with her, ensuring that she will never come back. And I can start my own business, move into my loft, and when you graduate, you can move in with me."
"Wait, what?" Rose looked startled.
"Forget it." Scorpius sighed, standing up. He plucked his crumpled shirt from the ground and began to dress himself.
But Rose stopped him. She was standing in front of him in the blink of an eye, warm hand on his chest. He exhaled deeply; her touch calming him to the core.
He had gone too long without her touch and the air between them was immediately heated - thick with an unspoken need for each other.
"You want me to move in with you? As if we were truly serious about each other?" Rose questioned further, keeping her hand on his chest. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to touch him - she just had to. And his warm skin sent surges of fire through her veins. She wanted him like she had never wanted him before.
"As if?" Scorpius arched an eyebrow, "I've always been serious about you."
It was Rose's turn to arch her eyebrow.
"Okay, not always, but you get the point." Scorpius attested with a small grin. Before anything further was said, Rose closed the distance between them one swift move. She pressed her lips against his - so soft and wanting. Scorpius parted his lips in a breath and pressed forward for more - desiring her every move, taste, touch. He wanted all of her, but would settle for a good snog.
Before anything could escalate, Rose pulled away. Vulnerable eyes staring up at him.
"Are you sure you want me?" She whispered as she angled her head towards his, lips gently grazing against his.
In an instant, Scorpius had her on the bed, his body pinning her down, his hands boxed around her cascading curls. His darkened eyes gazed into hers - lust oozing out of his veins, his skin on fire for her.
"All of you." He admitted softly as he pressed his lips against her in a fiery passion. Here she was, underneath him, and conscious of where she was. She was here, with him, willingly. And he could see the vulnerability in her eyes - she was scared of being hurt by him.
So he did the only thing he knew how, to show his feelings. And his kisses relayed his message to her.
Their lips parted to allow the kiss to deepen - tongues tangling, rolling with each other. Hips surging, wanting more, wanting to be closer.
Rose's fingers raked up his neck and coiled in his silver locks, causing Scorpius to break the kiss and groan deeply.
"Rose. You're tempting me." He nipped at her bottom lip expertly.
"I've made my decision." Rose smiled as she playfully nibbled his own lip, "I'm staying here with you tonight. In this bed. Make it worthwhile."
Now that was a challenge. And Scorpius loved challenges.
"Oh, you know I will." With a growl, Scorpius kissed her once again, deep and true.
