Thursday 9th March

When Scorpius took the time to pull his head out of his own arse, he was unusually observant. Albus forgot that though his best friend only dabbled lightly in the popularity stakes, he had a natural charisma that people were drawn to, and a name that some people would like to use him for. Because of these reasons—as well as an above average brain—Scorpius was scarily good at reading people.

The only thing that stopped Scorpius from being a consistent and reliable purveyor of people, was that the aforementioned head was in the aforementioned arse more often than not.

So when Albus finally hunted his friend down after dinner, cornering him in their dormitory and shooing the others out, he should've acknowledged that the conversation wasn't going to go the way he'd planned in his mind.

"Look," Albus found himself pacing, trying to outrun the jelly sensation in his knees, "I know I should've told you a long time ago, and I'm sorry."

Scorpius was silently watching Al walk the room with a crease in his brow, but didn't say anything, so Al continued,

"We're meant to be best mates—we are, don't get me wrong—but this was something I needed to figure out for myself first, before I could tell you. I was worried about how you'd react, because we're so close and I didn't want you to think—"

"You're dating that pretty boy from the Three Broomsticks."

Al froze, "Wha—what?"

Scorpius shifted on his bed, kicking off his shoes and setting his feet up. The crease was still between his eyebrows, but Albus knew it was out of concern, not judgement.

"The one from your birthday drinks, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

Scorpius predicted Al's next question, "I know I can be a self-absorbed prick sometimes. But when I went in there, thinking he was with Rose, I saw the way he reacted—and while I was too angry to acknowledge it at the time—he was there for someone, and it wasn't Rose. Then I thought about all the times you'd talked around who you were seeing, and you always use 'they' or 'them' when you talk about potential partners. I was just too deep in my 'Rose' bubble to put two and two together."

Albus was flabbergasted, and struggled to form a coherent sentence, so Scorpius continued,

"But I know you, so I know you've planned a little speech in your head, so keep going and I promise I won't interrupt."

Albus spluttered at that, "I do not plan speeches when I—"

"Yes, you do." Scorpius replied.

Albus huffed, not wanting to get into that argument, "Well, I'm gay. And I'm telling you because I talked about it with Taki, and he said that if you were my best friend you would support me either way."

"Which I do. And I also apologise for assuming you were straight."

Albus found he didn't need to pace anymore, and threw himself down on his bed, "Apology accepted."

There was a little pause in the conversation, and Albus sat up again, "But you only decided to figure it out now?" He felt annoyed that this conversation could've been entirely avoided.

Scorpius was now rustling around in his bedside dresser, probably looking for the last few chocolates his parents had sent him last week. He didn't know Albus had already eaten them.

"No," Scorpius was digging through scrap parchment and Quidditch magazines like a frantic hamster, "I told you, I only just recently freed up more brain space, because I'm not moping over your cousin anymore, and my fantasies about shagging her take up less room."

"Ew."

Scorpius shrugged, "I know I'm a self-absorbed git, but if you haven't figured that out by now, that's your problem."

Albus felt a thousand times lighter, but also a tad annoyed with Scorpius for forcing him to briefly consider the boy's sexual fantasies involving his cousin,

"I ate the last of your chocolates while you were in the shower last night."

Scorpius' gaze snapped up from the drawer, meeting Al's eye with venom.

"You prick."

"I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry."

Scorpius' eyes narrowed further, "You owe me."

Albus rolled his eyes, "Are you five years old?"

"And I'm redeeming it now." He paused, and Albus didn't like how his mouth turned up with gleeful sadism, "You like boys so… did you ever have a crush on me?"

Albus found himself spluttering for the second time that evening, "You are so pretentious, you—!"

"But you didn't say no!" Scorpius cackled, and Albus responded by lobbing a pillow at his head.

Wednesday 22nd March

Scorpius didn't want to even think about how Rose managed to acquire a pass for the restricted section, but she proudly flashed it to Madame Pince all the same. He forgot she could be a greasy swot sometimes, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't the same.

"Bit of Gryffindor favouritism get you that?" he asked, indicating Professor Longbottom's signature on the note, because he couldn't resist some light antagonism.

She huffed, "There is no such thing as Gryffindor favouritism. The Slytherin victim complex, however? Very real."

"Funny."

Rose led the hunt through the much smaller collection, "I wonder if we should start in the blood purity records, or the blood curse section?"

They stumbled upon the former first, and Rose skimmed through the titles, pulling down anything that loosely related to the Sacred Twenty Eight. Scorpius cringed, recognizing a few titles that also graced his grandfather's library in the Manor.

"I don't like it here." He muttered, feeling a strange prickle across the back of neck.

"We won't be long." Rose told him absent-mindedly, already drawing thick and dusty volumes from the shelf, muttering titles to herself.

He watched her work, quick-skimming through the pages and looking for any mentions of curses or kissing. Scorpius watched her open books titled, 'Feats of The Pure' and 'The Moste Sacred Eight and Twenty' and found himself flushing, wanting nothing more than to avert her eyes and finish the whole section with a neat incendio.

"Do you feel like helping?" she pressed him, and he huffed under his breath, but grabbed the nearest book all the same.

He was barely three pages in, and already Muggle-born births had been coined 'a strike against the pure' and 'a plague of underestimated proportions'. It wasn't as though he hadn't heard it before—if Lucius consumed too much Pixie Cognac he tended to make speeches on the 'dire' state of the world—but knowing Rose was beside him, reading similar sentences and probably thinking of her mother, and it made his stomach twist.

Finally, when he read a passage on 'holding one's breath' while passing Muggle-borns in public, he snapped the book shut.

"This is bullshit." He growled, "We should just move onto the curses section—"

"No, we need to make sure we've exhausted all of our resources—I don't want to risk missing anything—"

"Or," he glared, "we could jump to the part where you realize your boyfriend is a walking endorsement for blood purity, with no available cure, and most other guys in this castle could make you far happier with far less work."

This argument had been threatening for weeks now—they could feel it lingering behind them as they haunted the aisles, waiting to rear its head.

Rose reacted to Scorpius' increasing resignation with more optimism, and they continued to clash, "You don't know, there's no cure. We're so close, I know we are, we just need to keep—"

"How do you know that?!" Scorpius exploded, his mounting frustration felt egged on by every minute they spent in the library, "What if there's not?! What if this is forever—what then?"

"I don't know! I don't have all the answers, Scorpius! But you know what's worse than the thought of that? The fact that you're not even willing to try!"

"Because it's a waste of fucking time!" he roared.

It was a good thing they were alone in the restricted section, because his volume even surprised him. But Rose was used to his anger, she didn't even flinch, instead seeming to draw strength from it,

"You know what I think the truth is?!"

"Enlighten me." He hissed.

"You're terrified of losing something to mope over. You like wallowing in self-pity—god forbid we get rid of the curse, what will you sulk over then? The millions in your family vault? Your fantastic grades? Your enviably straight teeth?"

He scowled, she'd stepped closer to him during her rant, stabbing a finger in the centre of chest to punctuate each sentence.

"You want the truth?" he asked, his snapping and growling not carrying the same fire now, for some reason. Maybe it was her proximity. But the truth was, it was getting harder and harder to get mad it her these days. Now that he'd earned positive attention from her—affection, almost—her wrath fell short in fulfilling him.

"I do."

He counted to seven before speaking, trying to arrange the words,

"Because the more research we do, the sooner we may realise there is no cure. And when that's irrefutable, backed by our research, will you stay? Once we've exhausted all our options, and we're forced to resign to the idea that I'll never be able to kiss you, what are you staying for? Fuck knows I'm a prat—I'm self-absorbed, pig-headed almost all of time. I used to harass and bully you, so you wouldn't have the opportunity to get rid of me.
"And what about the future? If we manage to get past my significant daddy issues, I carry a last name and ancestors that have no respect for our relationship and—lest I speak too soon—the legitimacy of our potential children. And I'll probably leech off my significant inheritance, because who wants the hire the son of a Death Eater?"

Rose didn't look angry anymore. She was watching him carefully, a crease between her brow that reminded him strangely of Albus, of all people.

"Do you want my truth?"

Her voice seemed even quieter after his frantic outburst, her tone measured and even. Scorpius nodded.

"You're talking about these things like I haven't considered them. And you're talking about it like I have everything to lose. Scorpius," she huffed a half-laugh, half-sigh, "you come with baggage. Everyone comes with baggage. But I've been in love with you for as long as I've been in hate with you. Somehow, through all your maliciousness and cruelty, I managed to find someone I care deeply about, even if I didn't realize it until recently.
"So, do you really think something as benign as not being able to kiss you is going to stop me now? Or what your grandparents might say? For Merlin's sake, Scorpius, you charmed mashed potato to fly at me and I still managed to find a way to care about you. Because you're not defined by the curse, or your enduring pig-headedness. You're defined by your intelligence, and your wicked sense of humour, and—under everything—your surprising kindness. So, no, you prat, I'm not going to drop you. We'll find a way to make it work, we always do. But until I see it, written on paper and verified by, I don't know, the bloody Minister of Magic himself, I won't give up. Fair?"

If things had been different, if Malfoy bore any other name and ancestry, he would've kissed Rose. For a moment, he indulged himself by mapping it out in his mind. He'd press her against the bookshelves, hoping nothing was knocked off, and he'd meld his mouth to hers, just to earn a little gasp of surprise of her, before feeling her yield against him. He'd nip a line across her jaw, sucking the sensitive pulse where it joined her neck, and inhale the hum of approval he'd likely earn from his attentions.

But what was a kiss without lips, tongues?

It was resting his hand on Rose's lower back, feeling her arch and press against him with miniscule encouragement. It was sneaking a hand up her waist, feeling the warmth of skin under the creases of her blouse. It was feeling her head nestle against the crook of her neck, nosing the skin that peeked out of his colour, and resting his chin on her head and letting himself by overwhelmed by her.

So they stood like that, enjoying the intimacy of a kiss without one, until he spoke,

"Could you deal with one more truth today?"

She hummed, it tickled,

"You know when I found you on the Quidditch pitch?"

Her arms were locked around his neck, running her fingers through the delicate hair at the nape of his neck so gently Scorpius could've fallen asleep standing up,

"It wasn't as accidental as I pretended." He paused, sensing the attention in her heartrate, "I may have been watching you on the Map."

"Prat." She huffed against him, but she didn't move away.

A/N: They've been fighting for six years, you think they're going to stop now?
Also, thank you for the lovely reviews. While I went through a bit of a slump in inspiration there, I've finally got my fire back and am churning out these last few chapters.
(Very belated birthday to Bridget Vo, hope you had a great day!)