Sam had now been in St Mungos, with Rose as his primary Healer, for over two weeks.
They were both still confined to quarantine so the Scrofungulus didn't spread, and so far it hadn't, but Sam was still incapacitated and not healing as well as she'd hoped by now.
He wasn't getting dramatically worse, but he also wasn't getting better.
Rose guessed that the Scrofungulus might be spreading to his other internal organs and had upped his dose of the potions to try and root it out.
Whenever the discussion turned to his health, Sam always tried to lighten the topic.
"Okay, so I'm not better, but on the plus side we've been trapped in here for two weeks and the building is still intact."
"Oh ha-haa, you're hilarious," Rose responded dryly, after she'd outlined his new treatment schedule.
Sam's parents had also been quarantined in another area, received some treatment and didn't have any symptoms thanks to early intervention.
They'd exchanged memos with Sam through the quarantine zone and were now back home at Malfoy Manor.
.
Sam and Rose had been spending their days talking and playing games, and Rose had even managed to smuggle in one of Sam's favourite muggle inventions: a TV.
Copious amounts of TV, constant debates about Quidditch (Rose still had a steadfast love for the Chudley Canons that Sam would never understand) and rapid catching up on all they'd missed in the last seven years filled most of their time.
.
"You know, what I really want to know is," Rose asked, "What is the absolute worst escaped magical creature situation you've ever had to deal with."
They were both sitting on the couch in the living room vaguely playing a game of Exploding Snap.
Suffice it to say the couch cushions were singed.
"Well, I was flying my carpet through the streets of Bangalore - don't worry I cast a Disillusionment charm - and we were looking for this Re'em that had been stolen from our sanctuary. Now the good thing is that although the Re'em's blood is what people are after, that means they have an incentive to keep it alive."
.
He paused for dramatic effect, "Now - have you ever heard the muggle phrase 'bull in a china shop'?"
Rose through her head back with a guffaw, "No, I don't believe you-"
"The bloody poachers were keeping this Re'em, I shit you not, in a shop selling plates and cups, which granted were made of metal, but still!"
"That's not a china shop then"
"Close enough! You're ruining my story," Sam whined.
Rose through her hand of Exploding Snap cards into the air and they cracked off with a bang and a few sparks, "Well I wouldn't be able to ruin it if you weren't spewing untrue and hyperbolic tales".
"Hyperbolic? HYPERBOLIC?" Sam cried, definitely hyperbolising how outrageous he found her claim of hyperbole.
They both sniggered, the banter definitely hadn't been lost in the years since they'd been apart.
Rose's hand darted out to pinch his nose but Sam grabbed it before she could reach him. He didn't let go and his other hand reached up to her fringe, "I can't let you pinch me, you don't have braids for me to tug anymore, so it's really not fair."
As his fingers ran through her fringe they shared another intimate moment, which seemed to be happening more and more lately…
.
Sam broke the silence, "You know I can't stop thinking about how you got your memories back. How'd you do it Rose? I thought my Forgetfulness Charm was pretty good."
"Oh please," Rose shrugged her shoulders, "It was easy. I just pulled all my memories out of the flask with my wand and placed them back into my head, and then I had Al help me break the Forgetfulness charm… albeit with some questionable techniques," she admitted.
"What does that mean?" Sam responded sharply, feeling himself start to panic over the realisation that Rose might have hurt herself to break the charm he placed on her.
"Yeah Al wasn't too happy with me for a while. The way to un-repress memories properly is usually through another witch or wizard seeking to break the first charm, but you've got to really carefully tread the line between recovering the memory and doing permanent damage to the mind. Seeing as I had all these memories back in my head, it didn't take Al much, just a little needling."
.
"Ugh," Sam sighed in disgust at himself. "Needling? He had to hurt you."
"It was more like digging around, just trying to find the initial job. Seeing as I wanted Al to do it, I didn't offer up any resistance and because he's done a little Legilimency, he found your charm pretty easily and he broke it-"
"Just tell me the truth." He stared piercingly into Rose's deep brown eyes, he desperately needed an honest answer, he was burning to know - he needed to know if he could live with himself, "Did. It. Hurt?"
Rose tried to look away but Sam pulled her back with the hand that never let go of since she had tried to pinch his nose, "Please tell me Rose, I need to know."
.
She looked back up and the hurt in his grey eyes let her know he already knew the answer. He just needed her to confirm it.
"Yes, it hurt."
A toxic combination of anger, disappointment, shame and sadness that he had been trying to control, suddenly hit him.
Pain swirled through him and he felt sick to his stomach, and for once it wasn't related to the Scrofungulus.
He squeezed his eyes shut trying to compose himself, but at the same time, he knew that he deserved the pain of the emotions he was feeling for all that he had put Rose through, not just emotionally but physically now.
"Sam please don't beat yourself up about this - I asked you to Obliviate me. I hurt both of us so much, I was the one who took things too far, I did that." Rose could see how torn up Sam was over learning that she had hurt herself to get her memories back, but she had no regrets - she would do it again in a heartbeat.
She wrapped both her hands around his, "Do you really think I could stand to not have my memories back? The pain was nothing I couldn't handle - and the feeling of release when all the memories stopped feeling second-hand and were finally a part of me again? It made me whole again."
Sam took a few slow breaths and met Rose's eyes again, "How long ago was that?"
.
She didn't break eye contact, even though she was ashamed to reveal how long she'd had her memories back, he deserved that much.
"It happened two years ago. I am so sorry Sam, I should have told you straight away but I was so ashamed of myself and what I asked you to do. I should have contacted you and said you could come home, but I didn't want to face you. I was a coward - again. And what's worse is I made Al keep it from you and I kept you two apart."
"It's funny actually. He's been asking me to come back to Britain obsessively since around that time actually, but I kept making up excuses until I couldn't anymore - that's kind of why I'm here, but I wanted to surprise him."
.
Rose shook her head, grimacing, "Of course you did, guess that worked out particularly well - he hasn't even been able to visit you here."
Sam smiled ruefully, their affection for Al had always been one of the only things that brought them together.
He had missed Al when he'd been living in India, but seeing as Al had an Aunt with connections in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and being the son of Harry Potter and all, it wasn't too hard for him to be approved for floo travel or portkeys to India regularly (or if he was feeling reaallllyyy brave Apparating across most continents of the world).
Speculating, Sam paused for a moment, then pondered "You know if I hadn't gotten sick I would have just seen Al and left Britain again, I honestly wasn't planning on coming here, to Mungo's. I didn't want you to see me, I wanted to respect your wishes-"
She cut him off, "Screw my 17-year-old self and her selfish wishes. I'm glad you came back, and I am so thankful you came to St Mungo's so that we got to re-connect. We never got closure, we were just living with this huge hole in our lives where the other used to be. It's kind of amazing to see how much you've grown. You're not that kid I used to know, you have a great career and… Don't you think it's time we moved on and started making new memories?"
Sam smiled crookedly, he had never let himself dream of new memories with Rose, she'd been so locked up in his past. "Do you really think we can do that? I just feel like this whole quarantine thing has us cooped up in this weird time capsule and we keep going back to all the mistakes we've made and all the trauma we caused each other."
.
Rose gently placed her head on Sam's shoulder and gripped his hand firmly again in both of hers, interlocking their fingers, "Maybe that's what we needed to do to make things right between us. Process, acknowledge, and then move on to new experiences, and probably new mistakes"
Sam leaned his chin in Rose's wild mop of red curls and took in a deep breath, getting a whiff of her coconut shampoo and a smell that was distinctly Rose that he'd almost forgotten, "Yeah, maybe. New memories sound amazing."
They stayed like that for a while, in a gentle embrace on the couch, soaking in the possibilities of all the new memories they would make.