January 11th, 2028 - 6am
Yellow lights painted the surroundings in eerie orange hues. Billowing clouds of tinted fog wafted over the pitch, shifting in an agonizingly slow fashion. The night was still and the world was silent... apart from the occasional sound of a bat connecting with a hissing Bludger.
Thunk.
Whoosh.
Trust Scorpius Malfoy to ruin any poetic musings about the scenario.
Thunk.
Whoosh.
Thunk.
At least he looked like he was having fun.
Rose let herself back fall onto the damp grass, her eyes still following to the madman flying against the orange sky. Every once in a while he'd swoosh low, a manic grin on his face as his feet kissed the grass before soaring right back up until he was nothing but a tiny black dot.
Had she ever seen him fly?
She supposed she had, back in the day. Looking at him now, however, she realised she had never seen him fly.
If Scorp was catty on the ground, he was cattier in the sky. Graceful, adaptable, reactive.
Beautiful.
Daring.
Different.
It was an odd development to chew on, the fact that there was this whole side of him that she'd never met. It wasn't just the flying either. It was the cooking, the cleaning, the… everything.
What had she been looking at for ten years?
Worse still, what else hadn't she been seeing?
She clutched her notes to her chest and closed her eyes, turtling into the billion sizes too large sweater she'd pinched from him. She wasn't actually sure if she'd pinched it or if he'd offered, she just knew that she was wearing it and that she was never taking it off again.
Why were men's clothes so infinitely warmer and more comfortable than women's? She was half-sure this one had a heating spell sewed into it, it was probably the only thing keeping her from freezing to death.
None of her sweaters was either as comfortable or comforting.
Whoosh.
Thunk.
Whoosh.
Thunk.
That last 'thunk' had felt far too close.
Rose opened her eyes to see a dishevelled Scorpius Malfoy peering down at her, floppy-haired, wild-eyed, the very picture of childish contentment. He had laid down his broom but the bat was still in his hand and he was leaning against it in a way that could almost be described as carefree.
"Alright, Weasley?"
There was a grin on his face as he crouched down next to her, his arms casually draped over his knees.
"Alright, Malfoy," she replied, ignoring the obvious correlation between her increased heartbeat and his smile. "You done?"
Whoosh.
"Not nearly." He got back up to his feet and carelessly swung his bat at the incoming bludger, sending it reeling back into the sky. "Just checking up on you."
There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead and his usual ease had returned.
"I'd compliment your batting, but for all I know you could be rubbish."
"I'm definitely not rubbish," Scorp said smugly. "By all means compliment away."
It was as if his soul had gotten a massage.
Therapeutic batting indeed.
Rose snorted. "I know sod all about Quidditch so I'm just going to pretend I believe you and then ask my dad about it sometime."
"You get your Quidditch opinions from your dad?" Scorp had crouched again and was caught between a frown and the obvious urge to laugh. "The diehard Chudley Cannons fan? That seems... misguided."
"That's my team you're insulting, thank you very much."
She'd never felt less offended in her life. It was difficult to be mad at a guy who kept smiling down at you like heaven was a place on earth and you were an integral part of it.
"You cheer for the Cannons?"
"Yep."
Whoosh.
Thunk.
"I'm sorry, are we talking about the same Cannons?" Scorp shook his head with the delighted look of a Slytherin who had unearthed a dirty, dirty little secret. "The ones who haven't won a game in-"
Ever. Yes.
"What can I say, I like an underdog," Rose replied, stretching her arms over her head, her fingers playing with a nearby tuft of grass. "I like the idea that they're historically the very worst of the worst. I feel like that's an accomplishment in its own right."
"No." Scorpius laughed. "That's indoctrination if I've ever seen it."
Rose stifled a laugh of her own. "Says the man who came out of the womb wearing Puddlemere merch."
Scorp's smile fell so hard and so fast that it practically dug a hole in the ground… and Rose was left wishing she could hide in it.
"Sorry. I didn't mean-"
"It's fine."
But clearly, it wasn't 'fine'. The air had shifted, heaven had dissolved into bleak reality and Scorp's posture was taut like a wire that was close to snapping all over again.
So much for therapy.
Rose got back up to her feet and took her sweet time wiping the dirt off her jeans while she gathered her scattered thoughts.
What was she doing? What was the plan here? Was she going to-
Whoooooooo-
The sound sent her brain reeling just as her eyes registered the Bludger fast incoming.
Move.
Move.
Now!
Shhhhhhhhh-
Rose found herself rooted to the spot, her panicked commands not quite reaching her limbs.
Thunk.
The impact never came and, rather than getting her face bashed in as she expected, Rose realised she was pressed against something warm and soft and not-at-all Bludger-like.
Her heart was still hammering in her throat as the arm around her slackened. When her brain finally regained the ability to process thought, she opened a single eye to discover that the warm, soft thing her back was currently being held against was a chest.
A very fine chest. Scorp's chest, to be precise.
Oh, wow, Penny was right: he was fit.
Wait, why was she shocked? Of course he was fit, she'd seen him naked, for crying out loud! She knew he was fit!
But had she cared...? How had she not cared...?
She was caring now, very much so. She was also noticing that up close his jaw was-
And then the jaw stepped away, throwing a bucket of cold water over any considerations she was planning on making about it.
"If you're going to stand," Scorp said calmly, as if dodging death were the most normal thing in the world, "I'm going to move the hell away from you. That or we can just leave."
"No."
"What do you mean 'no'?" Scorp's eyebrows shot upwards. "It's just going to keep coming back, that's how Bludgers work."
'No', don't let her go.
'No', going away was a terrible idea.
'No', this was nice and she was happy.
That was what 'no' meant.
Fortunately by then her brain circuits had managed to somehow realign themselves into something resembling normalcy, which was a shame. Normalcy was apparently bleak and boring and completely devoid of Scorpius Malfoy's arms around her.
"I meant 'no' we don't need to leave," she said, collapsing back to the ground and clutching her notes with an unsteady hand. "The goal of this was for you to get some batting done."
"I'm good."
"Oh really?" Rose let herself fall onto her back, crossed her arms behind her head and glared at him in all her I'm-Not-Moving glory.
"Really."
"Two seconds ago you said you weren't nearly done," she said, her tone accusing. "You go back to your silly batting and I'll go back to my miracle notes."
Then the world might make some sense again.
"Well yes, I was having fun. But now..."
"Now you're not anymore?"
All because of some stupid comment?
Scorp rolled his eyes, threw his bat to the side and flicked the open case next to him with his foot.
Whoooooosh.
Before she could protest, he'd already caught the Bludger and slammed it shut into the box.
"That was..." Rose braced herself on one of her arms to look at him. "You didn't need to-"
"You're right, I didn't need to," he deadpanned, letting himself fall back next to her on the grass. "Are you quite done beating yourself up? Or do you need a minute? I have a bat you can borrow if you want to do some real damage."
Her eyebrows shot upwards and he shook his head.
"Merlin, you are an idiot," he said, rolling onto his side to look at her. "Yes, I was having fun, and yes, you single-handedly ruined it. How dare you?"
There was nothing reproachful about his tone whatsoever. If anything, he sounded like he was poking fun at her.
Also, Morgana, he was close. He was so very close and he seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that he was about to give her a heart attack.
"I already said I was sorry," she mumbled, leaning a little backwards in a desperate attempt to put some room between them. "It was misguided and-"
"It was a joke, Rose," he said, tugging a rogue curl that had been dangling (rather annoyingly) in front of her eyes and tossing it aside. "Just a joke."
It was extremely difficult to produce coherent thought when the bloke you fancied seemed to get a kick out of playing with your hair.
Fancied?
Oh, Merlin.
Rose sat back up, her eyes wide and her heart beating erratically.
Oh god, she did, didn't she? Not just as a Boredom Crush either, was it?
Shit.
Shit, shit, shitty, shit, shit.
Shit.
Rose awkwardly turned away from him, aware that her face was either beet red or had already exploded.
Oh, Merlin.
"Alright, Weasley...?"
"Alright, Malfoy." Rose was sure that she'd never spewed a bigger lie. "If you're not going back to batting, we should go home. It's freezing out."
She was proud of herself and the fact that her voice didn't betray the screaming that was happening inside her head.
"You're cold? That's a lie if I've ever heard one."
His voice practically oozed disbelief. It was also not stationary and was clearly moving closer until its owner finally popped back into her peripheral view. As if his closeness and his shoulder against hers weren't enough to send every one of her senses into overdrive, a cold hand reached out to find her own.
That was when her heart really gave out.
"You're definitely not cold," he said, in an accusing and detestably unfazed tone. "If anything I am."
He seemed to think this was perfectly normal, holding girls' hands in Quidditch pitches in the dead of night. Maybe for him it was, who knew...?
It was unreasonable, they were just hands. Hand holding was something teenagers fussed about and this was barely hand-holding. If anything it was hand touching and hand touching hardly qualified as something to fuss about.
Yet there she was, a Fourth Year Healer-In-Training... clearly fussing.
"You're not cold, you're freezing," she said, giving his hand a brave, experimental squeeze. "Are we trying to get an encore on the Shivers debacle?"
His hands weren't soft, by any reasonable measure. They were hard, rough and calloused. They weren't the sort of hands you wanted to hold, they were the sort of hands you wanted-
"Don't act high and mighty, you're the one who nabbed my sweater."
Rose gently tried to extricate her hand from his before her mind really became a cesspool.
Unfortunately, Scorp had picked that exact moment to squeeze her hand back and she really couldn't go through with it on account of having melted into a feckless pile of goo.
Why was he so damned tactile? And how on earth did he make this feel like it was the most natural thing in the world? Like of course he was holding her hand, in what bizarre world wouldn't he be holding her hand?
"Scorp, you have a million different sweaters," she protested. "You have more sweaters than Al, and that's saying something."
"That one's enchanted and you damned well know it."
Well, she had suspected it.
"Do you want to trade, then?"
"You really do have a death wish." Scorp snorted, letting go of her hand and jamming his own back into his pocket. "That sweater's probably the only thing keeping you from freezing."
His breath was shallow, clouds of smoke coming from his mouth in the desperate cold.
"Want to go back?"
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
He turned to face her with a slight frown on his face. "Avoidance?" He shrugged. "Chatting with Al helped with the whole existential pit of despair, but it doesn't fix my day-to-day. I'll just send a bunch of letters but that won't fill up nine hours."
"You're afraid of getting bored ?" Rose snorted. "Think of it as a holiday."
Quoting her barista now, how hypocritical.
"Says the girl who skipped all the way to work this morning." His brow furrowed up at her. "The only reason I didn't go batty these two weeks was because I had your sorry arse to worry about."
"Didn't know you cared so much about my arse."
What was she doing?!
"Every man needs a hobby." Scorp picked at a nearby tuft of grass and sighed, a small smile curling his mouth. "Except now you and your arse won't be around."
"No. We won't. Not always anyway."
They sat in amiable silence for a few minutes, as Scorp aimlessly destroyed the poor patch of grass in front of him and Rose wondered why, oh, why she'd thought this was a good idea. Al was far more qualified to deal with this and yet there she was, out of her depth, making half-hearted jokes about her arse.
"Are you still scared of flying?" Scorp finally broke the silence, chucking a small leafy stalk at her. "I thought you'd've gotten over it by now."
Not-so-smoothly changing the conversation to something personally embarrassing: what a terribly Slytherin thing to do.
"That obvious, huh?" Rose snorted, indulging the new thread. "I wonder what gave it away...?"
"I think the first clue was you almost biting my head off when I offered to lend you a broom," Scorp said, rolling his eyes. "So I'm guessing the answer is 'yes', then."
"It's a half-hearted 'no'." He looked at her expectantly and she continued: "It's not that I'm scared of flying. I'm good with the flying."
"What then?"
"It's the whole 'falling at 9.8 metres per second squared and getting intimately reacquainted with the ground' that I don't fancy."
"Let me see if I get this: you're not scared of flying." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "You're scared of Physics?"
"I don't have beef with the entire field, it's just gravity I have a problem with." Rose shook her head and threw a bit of grass of her own at him. "Every time I'm on a broom all I can think of is 'if I fall now, I'll meet the ground at x meters per second'. Really takes the romance out of it."
Scorp took a deep breath and snorted once.
Then again.
Then another time until he was chuckling.
"Yes, yes, mock me all you want," Rose huffed, tearing a handful of grass and tossing it at his face. "You of all people wouldn't get it."
Him of all people. Him, the walking contradiction of rationale and recklessness.
"No, I get it," Scorp said, spitting out a grass blade and brushing off a series of green projectiles from his hair. "Flying's dangerous. Every Quidditch player worth his salt knows that."
"Then why do it at all?" She hesitated before reaching out and brushing a piece of greenery that was still lodged in his hair. "No, wait, that's the wrong question."
"Oh yes?" He tilted his head and grinned obnoxiously back. "What's the right one then?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Ah." Scorp rolled his eyes. "Well I could waste my breath all I want, but you still wouldn't get it."
Rose sniffed disdainfully, like there were no miracles of flight she could not comprehend. "Try me," she said, the picture of self-assurance.
His lips pressed into a thin line and he brushed his pants before pulling himself to his feet. "Get up."
"No." Rose's mouth went dry and she could immediately feel her heart pounding in her throat. "No, no, no."
"You were the one who asked." He walked a few feet toward the discarded broom and shouted over his shoulder: "I'm just explaining!"
"I meant with words, Malfoy!"
"Yes," he cried back, laughter in his voice as he picked the broom by the handle, "but isn't a picture worth a thousand words?"
"Then take a damned picture!" Rose firmly gripped the grass around her as Scorp stalked back, grinning like the cat who ate the canary. "It's not happening, you delusional idiot!"
Her heart was now hammering against her chest and she could feel her palms starting to sweat as Scorp crouched next to her.
"Come on," he said, the smile never faltering. "I promise I won't drop you."
He seemed to be under the misguided impression that she was going to say 'yes'. And when he held out his hand, Rose realised… there was a dangerous chance he was right.
Because the way her heart was hammering now? That wasn't all due to her fear of impending doom, no. It had a lot to do with the impending doom scenario, but also… his face. And the outstretched hand. And the concept of being close enough to him that him 'dropping' her would be a possibility.
Recipe for disaster if she'd ever seen one.
"I'm not scared of you dropping me, you idiot," she said, clearing her throat and eyeing his hand warily. "I can fall all by myself, no help required."
Her hands bunched the grass around her as a sort of tether to sanity, to restraint, to that ground that should always be close to your feet.
"Unless you're really keen on it, I promise I won't let you fall."
"Such an overabundance of confidence," Rose said drily, her clenched fists burying themselves further into the grass. "What if I scream? Or kick? Or-"
"Or panic like a ninny like you are now? I still won't let you fall," Scorp said gently, before finally giving up on his crouching and taking a seat next to her. "I draw the line at biting though - if you chomp on my arm I'm just chucking you off and letting nature run its bloody course."
He sounded so… earnest.
"You're a pushy brat," Rose muttered between gritted teeth. "I'll topple the both of us over."
"You?" Scorp snorted with disdain. "I'm a professional player and you're lighter than a bludger, for Merlin's sake. I think I'm capable of keeping you in check if your suicidal tendencies kick in."
"This is a terrible idea."
"I was the one who came up with it," Scorp said, sniggering and holding out his hand again, "did you for one second expect it to be good?"
"Terrible, terrible idea."
"Oh, I concur," he agreed, laughing. "It's horrendous. What could I possibly have been thinking?"
The outstretched hand was sitting there on his knee, quietly screaming to be taken. The calloused hand that promised it wouldn't let her fall.
Of course sometimes hands lied, as did the people they were attached to.
"You really won't let me fall?" Rose said, hesitating before letting go of the grass she'd been clutching for dear life. "Even if I bite you?"
"Depends on whether or not you do it nicely," Scorp assured her, his entire demeanour one of seriousness and dependability. "I could be into that."
"Oh, shut up," Rose scolded, pressing both her hands against her temples. "You're ruining whatever little courage I've managed to assemble."
"Rose Weasley," he said, rolling his eyes and letting himself fall on his back on the fluffy, grassy ground. He stretched his arm again and, once more, held out his hand in an overdramatic fashion, waving it right in front of her face. "I hereby swear that if I let you fall, I'll spend the rest of my life atoning for it by way of coffee, baked goods and fresh laundry."
"You already do all that. What else you got?"
Gingerly, she tried placing her hand on his and he immediately clasped it, sitting up, confidence renewed, obnoxious grin back with a vengeance.
Oh, good, now she'd done it.
"I could always stop doing it if it's of so little consequence to you."
"Blackmail, Malfoy?" Rose tried to pull her hand away and he gripped her fingers tightly right before they managed to slip from his grasp. "Isn't that beneath you?"
"I'm flattered you would think so," he replied happily, getting up to his feet. "Think of this as therapy."
"Therapy for whom, exactly?"
"Let's say me, shall we?" He snorted, giving her hand a 'come-hither' tug. "You're just acting as emotional support in these trying times I'm facing. You know how desperately miserable I'm feeling, how-"
"Graduating to emotional blackmail, I see."
"Oh, the bleak future that nears with every passing second! If only I had something to distract myself with-"
"You're fine, you Shakespearian wanker," Rose grumbled, adjusting her hold on his hand and letting him pull her to her feet. "You just want to see me suffer."
"That's part of the appeal, yes," Scorp said thoughtfully, giving her hand a tug that might've been misconstrued as supportive before letting go. "But I also want to show you what you're missing by being landlocked."
"I get it," Rose protested, "it's high above and the wind flowing through your hair and all that rot."
"Just because you're terrible at flying that doesn't mean that flying is terrible."
"I'm not terrible at flying."
Even she was aware of how weak that sounded.
"Beg to differ," Scorp said, his eyebrows shooting upwards. "I was there for the debut and it's still the hardest I've laughed in the past ten years."
A PTSD slideshow of their first year flying lessons rushed through her mind.
"You're not doing yourself any favours right now," she said, glaring at him. "It's not my fault I'm not…"
"Aerodynamically inclined...?" Scorp shook his head and clamped his heels around the bristles of the broom. It hovered an inch or two above the ground and he smiled to himself. "Fortunately for you, I am."
She scowled again as the broom once again hovered and circled her once ever so slowly before landing in front of her.
"And I'll be the one doing the flying. You're just... coming along for the ride."
"This is peer pressure," she said, sniffing indignantly. "It's tawdry and frankly unethical."
"Like you've ever succumbed to peer pressure."
He said it like the very concept was absurd. Like there were no lattes and blueberry muffins she couldn't dodge, no shifts she couldn't refuse. Like being incapable of saying the word 'no' was something that happened to other people, never Rose Weasley.
"You'd be surprised." Her words were soft, a rueful smile on her face. "I'm very, very bad at telling people to fuck off."
"You tell people to fuck off all the time." Scorp's eyebrows were knitted together in a display of clear disbelief. "Up until a few months ago all of our interactions were riddled with it. They still are."
And that's when it hit her: she'd never had problems telling Scorpius Malfoy to pretty please go fuck himself.
Not once, not ever.
"Well, yes," she said glibly, in an effort to hide the fact that her brain was working a million miles an hour to process this monumental breakthrough. "But then again you hardly qualify as 'people'."
"I'm not sure whether I should feel insulted or not." Scorp's laugh was clipped. "Who are these... 'people' then? Most importantly, do you suppose they take membership applications?"
"You've never been 'people' and you never will be," she said. "It's not a bad thing, Scorp. It just means-"
It just meant that she'd felt comfortable around Scorpius Malfoy for years.
Except that 'just' wasn't just a 'just', it was a massive fucking deal.
How had she never noticed it?
"It just means you'll never care for a damned word I say, the same as you don't care about a damned word Al does. Is that it?"
He sunk into silence, looking anywhere but her, clearly planning his exit. Kind of like that day when he'd left, sulking like a precious idiot.
Except this time, she wasn't about to let him.
She placed her hands on her hips and scowled fiercely at him. "Do you have any idea of how many people I can talk to like this?"
"Well, there's Albus-"
"Oh, no, no, no," she interrupted, snapping her fingers when Scorpius tried to continue. "I mean people I don't share a gene pool with!"
"From what I recall, you talk to people you don't share a gene pool with just fine," he said coldly, letting the forgotten broom fall to the ground. "In fact, you tend to be nicer to them than to the people you purportedly love and care about, which in my humble opinion, is fucking insane."
That was low and also terribly inaccurate. She wasn't 'nice', she was feeble. She was brittle and hesitant and meek.
Rose laughed humorlessly. "I suppose you'd rather hang out with the spineless, stuttering mess I am around the general population, then, is that it?"
"You're the least spineless person I know," Scorp said, scoffing disdainfully. "You-"
"Scorp, I can't change my breakfast order." Rose could feel herself colouring with anger. "I can't tell people to sod off when they try to dump work on me. If a complete stranger offers me drugs I'll probably fucking take them because I. Can't. Say. 'No'."
He was eyeing her with a mix of disbelief and wariness, quietly waiting to see where this was going.
Good.
She tilted her chin with defiance and bit her lower lip. She could already feel tears prickling at her eyes and she gritted her teeth.
"I apologize when people bump me on the street. If I order a sandwich and they give me a salad, I'll eat the damned salad."
She couldn't even look at him.
"I've had a gym membership for four years that I can't cancel it because they're nice and whenever I try I always end up renewing it and buying a bunch of Zumba classes that I know I'll never fucking take!"
Damnit, she was going to cry wasn't she?
"Scorp, the fact that I can tell you to 'fuck off' is nothing short of a miracle," she spat, blinking and praying to every deity out there that he wouldn't see the fat tear rolling down her cheek. "So don't go around thinking things would be much easier if I rolled over and lolled my tongue."
After a few seconds of quiet as she tried to steady herself, he finally broke the silence.
"You don't complain when you get the wrong order?! Ever?"
That was it?
"Somedays," she said, discreetly wiping her moist cheeks with the back of her hand. "But no, most of the time I don't."
He was giving her an easy way out. She glanced over at him and realised he didn't look particularly fazed about this, more… amused. Kind of like when he'd discovered she was a Cannons fan.
"You have a gym membership? You?"
He had seamlessly gone back to mocking her and she was incredibly thankful to him for it.
"Showed up a grand total of five times," she said, incapable of suppressing a small smile. "Every single one was horrible."
"And you'll take drugs from a stranger… but you won't listen to a damned thing I'll say."
"Not as it pertains to my well-being or otherwise, no," Rose said, shaking her head. "I like to exert my free will where I can."
"Oh, Merlin." Scorp shook his head and brushed a hand through his hair. "Never, ever?"
"I might sometimes if it's not something I'm particular about... but I'll be damned if I let you bully me into doing anything I don't strictly want to do, no."
"So I can't convince you to eat more greens, then?"
"If you tell me to finish my peas, I'll just tell you to fuck off." Rose shrugged. "I work long hours and I barely sleep. I'm not eating any bloody peas I don't want to eat."
There was a pause in his rapid-fire of mocking questions and Rose took advantage of that to turn a little sideways and properly wipe her eyes.
His next words were so soft that she almost missed them.
"So you're here... because you want to be."
"Yes."
"Not because Al asked you to."
"I'd have told him to sod off otherwise."
There was something sunny in the smile he threw her... like spring had come a little early, just for her.
The nice moment was only ruined by the fact that his teeth were chattering like maracas and that he looked very, very cold indeed.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the man-child she fancied.
Rose rolled her eyes and pulled her wand from her pocket. "Calidum Corpus," she intoned, carefully waving her wand in a rounded motion.
There was a shocked look on Scorp's face as his teeth stopped their dance. A warm glow lit his cheeks and Rose stared smugly at him as he pulled his hands from his pockets and stared at them and then back at her.
"Emergency heating spell," she said, offering him a careless shrug as if it wasn't one of the most finicky spells she'd learned this entire year. "You may or may not be sweating like a pig in five minutes."
"You're telling me I could've been this warm and toasty for the past hour?"
"You ungrateful brat," she said, meeting his indignant look with a smile. "It's an emergency heating spell, not an 'I'm feeling a bit nippy' heating spell."
"And you're the one who gets to decide what's an emergency I suppose," he whined, pulling off his sweater and fanning himself with his hand. "How unfair."
Rose had to resist the urge to fan herself too. Not because she'd caught a glimpse of his stomach and the light blonde hair trailing down to…
No, the fact that it had become a little hard to breathe was totally unrelated to Scorp's treasure trail.
"Oh, sod off. It's relatively difficult to cast," she admitted, swallowing hard. "There was a small chance that it'd soft boil you instead."
"You can't send back a salad but you're fine with casting spells that might-" Scorp ran his fingers through his hair. "You really are a mess."
The way he said it, you might've thought it was a good thing.
"I'm sorry if I care about your well-being," she huffed. "Next time I'll let you freeze to death."
"If we were flying like I'd planned," he puffed back, "I wouldn't be freezing in the first place."
"Were you planning on leeching off my body heat, that it?"
"That was very much the plan, yes," he said with a small smile. "It is my enchanted sweater, I should at least second-hand profit from it."
"I suppose now that you're essentially melting, it's okay if I go back to my notes, then?"
A heavy silence sneaked up on them and it was a few moments before Scorp carelessly swatted it away.
"No, it's not. I mean…" he said, before quickly correcting himself. "If you need to study I'd be a wanker not to let you just because I'm enjoying this."
"This," she repeated drily. "What exactly is 'this'?"
An undefined 'this' that made her chest feel tight.
"The two of us," he specified, like it was obvious. "Judging by how much I saw you pre-Shivers, I'm guessing we'll go back to not seeing much of each other soon."
He didn't mean it the way she wanted him to mean it. And so Rose did the only thing she could do, which was to smother the resentment she felt and shrug it away. "Can't be helped."
"Only if you're lacking in imagination," he said. "I've half a mind to catch another horrible disease and saddle you with it."
Idiot.
"Please don't," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not going to vanish off the face of the earth. And you'll be around the house all the time now, so..." Her words trailed off and she grimaced.
It was Scorp's turn to roll his eyes. "I'm not made of glass you know? You don't need to wrap me up in cotton wool and-"
"Yes, but I'm supposed to be distracting you, not-"
"Distracting me? What in the world gave you that impression?" His eyebrows furrowed upwards. "I'm not a child, I'm not going to conveniently forget my problems just because you're entertaining me."
Rose's eyebrows shot upwards. "No? But you looked-"
"What, you expected me to be a depressive shit?" Scorpius shook his head. "Merlin, you are a lovely idiot."
"Pot meet kettle." Rose scoffed. "So you've been running around-"
"Look, I already had my mental breakdown… well, breakdowns earlier today. I'm not aiming for an encore," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and giving her a light, friendly shake. "I'm fine."
Rose's lips pursed into a thin line. "That's what you said when you got home."
"Yes, but back then I was obviously lying," he said brilliantly. "Now I'm obviously not."
"So you're not terribly sad?"
"Oh no, I'm heartbroken," he said, letting go of her shoulders and letting out a flippant laugh. "I've just decided I'm not going to worry about it anymore."
He said it simply with an ironic aftertaste and that in itself was heartbreaking - because somehow Rose knew it was true. Her hand twitched, every fibre of her being itching to reach out and touch him.
'He won't mind it if you hug him.'
Al's words rang treacherously through her brain and Rose clenched her fists.
"Arms up, Malfoy," she said, wondering whether she should voluntarily commit herself to a mental institution. "I'm going to hug you and you're going to like it."
"I'm sure I will." He followed her command, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Is that your solution to everything?"
"Not everything," Rose replied, sniffling indignantly and hesitating before taking a decided step toward him. "But there's nothing more I can give you."
"You're here now," Scorp said gently, dropping his arms. "That's more than enough."
"Is it?"
"It is."
Rose had to shrug herself out of the vice grip that had just taken hold of her heart.
"Not to me, it isn't," she scoffed. "I want…"
"You want...?"
What did she want?
To feel useful? To help?
Instead, she turned to face the pitch, struggling to sort through her brain to distil the specific feeling.
"You know when you're sad and someone goes and says something to you and it's exactly what you needed to hear?"
Scorp nodded, hooking his fingers into his pockets and closing the distance between them. His bare arm was brushing against hers and just that single point of contact grounded her more than anything else in the world.
She slipped a hand into the crook of his arm and melded into him because somehow it would be weird not to.
"And your heart feels lighter," she continued, ignoring the way her own heart was hammering in her chest at the feel of his skin, "because that's what you wanted someone, anyone to tell you but you couldn't ask them because that'd be silly and it'd be cheating and you'd never know if they meant it or not?"
He nodded again and this time she could've sworn she'd glimpsed a shadow of a smile.
"Well, I can't give you that." Rose sighed, her cheek resting against his arm. "But what I can do is hug you and offer you a bunch of platitudes like 'there, there, it'll be alright' and 'those assholes don't know what they're missing' and maybe that'll make it a little better."
Scorp's arm shook with laughter. "Those assholes don't know what they're missing?"
"Standard breakup comfort," Rose said, shrugging, "but you'd be surprised how well it applies to other things."
"Yeah, I see what you mean," he said, shaking his head.
None of them said a word, slipping into an easy quiet that Rose felt almost loath to break.
"Can I, then?"
"What, hug me?"
Rose nodded into his arm. "Even if you don't feel better, I definitely will."
"So this is all for your benefit," he scolded quietly, his voice dropping to a lower register that made every hair on her body stand at attention. "How terribly selfish."
In spite of his words, he did wrap his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into his arms. And Rose Weasley, an experienced hugger, who claimed she had more hugging talent in her pinky finger than most people did in their entire body, became at a complete loss for words. Because one thing was hugging Scorpius Malfoy... but being hugged by Scorpius Malfoy was another matter entirely.
It felt familiar and somehow new.
Careless yet completely purposeful.
Reassuring and utterly, utterly crushing.
"But-" Rose swallowed hard, unable to say anything coherent. "You-"
What she did know was that she somehow had to extricate herself from this, to say something that would remove her from whatever this was, because honestly?
Scorp's hugs should be banned, declared a matter of national safety. They were a fucking health hazard.
"But I was supposed to-"
Just when she was about to complain, to say words, any words that would make this less intimate, less personal... he pressed his lips against her hair and whispered a mocking, "There, there, it'll be alright," which had the effect of shutting her up, perhaps forever.
And then, like the profound and consummate wanker that he was, he nonchalantly let her go and stretched his arms over his head. The self-satisfied smirk he was flashing her was something she hadn't seen in a while and it made her heart sink - or swim, she wasn't sure which.
"You're right," he deadpanned. "I do feel better."
He then bolted for his broom, leaving a speechless and completely stunned Rose behind.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I can only imagine Scorp screaming on his broom at the end of this chapter going "WHAT THE HELL? SHIT SHIT SHIT". I myself was screaming the entire time I was writing it. I had to slam the laptop shut a few times going "oh god, oh god, oh god, it's HAPPENING".
I know I said there was going to be flying, but apparently I'm a liar because Rose didn't go along with it at all. I know for a fact it does happen in the future tho and that eventually Rose gets over it and becomes a decent flier.
Chapter 21 is already written and proofed (shocker, I know, I'm actually being productive for once) and I was planning on posting it in another two weeks. Maybe. Probably. Is it better if I post it now and you guys get two chapters and then spend a month with nothing or should I post it in two weeks and then the next one in a month? Hmmmmmmm.
(Next chapter we meet dun dun dunnnn Kate Towler!)
Special thanks to RonsGirlFriday and justawillowtree who were absolute dolls and indulged me when I was writing it and sending them prints of the text just low-key panicking! If you haven't yet, you should check out their writing, they are INCREDIBLY talented! Thanks to fearinourminds and Dani Prongs for their super consistent cheerleading! I'd also like to thank youveforgotten and all the lovely guests who keep leaving the nicest reviews that I can't reply to.
Anyway, lemme know what you thought of this. Thoughts, screaming, just gushing, etc. Is it everything you wanted? Is it good or is it goooood?