Chapter 14 - Lion Cub
An angel fallen from grace. The boy with the pretty face. One face, another. Another and another. So many he no longer recognised his own. Was there even a face that belonged specifically to him? Was there one identity that was just Teddy?
He didn't know.
He felt whoever Teddy was had died long ago. Maybe the first Teddy with his parents, and then the other; popular, ambitious Head Boy with the Veela girlfriend and the top of the class marks. Teddy couldn't tell you what had happened to him. He didn't know when he fell so completely off the tracks. He didn't want to tell you why.
All he knew was that he was digging his own grave, and it seemed he wouldn't feel content until he buried himself in it.
This girl had come along -although really he'd known her all along- and as down and out as he may have been, she had him looking to the sun once more. Laughing, joking Teddy, once kissed by fire, a laugh clear and loud, thoughts, opinions, dreams. A mind that kept him guessing, a mouth that kept him laughing.
Teddy didn't know what had first driven Rose outside, but she began to join him on his Games Keeper errands -assistant to the assistant, as it were. And they talked. First it was the family connection, but then that evolved (to everything and nothing and all that lay in between) and along with this so did their relationship, breaking into the realms of friendship and, with every time Teddy caught himself staring at her pouty lips, delicate thin fingers, or into her wide brown eyes, teetering on the edge of something more.
It wasn't dull work, his job, but while it occupied the body, it left the mind free to roam. Teddy grew to resent this, as images of this cheeky sixth year -a student, oh Merlin- lurked behind his eyes, and her words played over and over again in his mind. His Victoire may have been beautiful, but thousands of miles and two extremely different lifestyles were not an effective defense against outside influences.
Crush was the word he decided to use. Positively juvenile, he knew, but suggested also, to his relief, unable to be helped and -most importantly- quickly passing.
Then she'd stepped over the line -leaped right over it, more like- and everything had had to change.
Rose wanted to be a lion; bold and brave. Hold your head up, seize your dreams, stand for what you believe. Repeat it as a mantra. One life, one chance.
She was clawing her way through life, blind yet purpose bound. Too many died too young, left lives unlived. She never wanted to be one of them. But maybe she was just pretending, for she jumped too high and then she fell and it was like her mask had been ripped off, and she was no lion, just a stupid, scared little girl.
She'd known it was a bad idea when she'd done it, but hadn't that just been part of the excitement? She'd got that far and then no further because she wasn't that person. It had been a constant fight, pushing away the bookworm stereotype that had been passed down by her mother, and she thought that finally she'd broken it. No one walked all over her. She was strong, confident, respected. But then she'd realised that her mother was all these things too. And Rose didn't want to be her mother. She didn't want to be just a Weasley. She wanted to be Rose -only she didn't entirely know who Rose was.
Turns out Rose wasn't this fearless risk-taker she had mistaken her for. She'd taken the risk. She'd done it, she kissed him. But then he had been shocked and looked at her with what might have been pity and she panicked and she ran away and she'd been hiding ever since. Not a lion, but a mouse.
She wasn't just mourning for herself now, though, for the person she wasn't, because it wasn't until after this, when the hurt came like a hurricane, that she realised how much she actually liked him.
It was a game right up until feelings had gotten involved.
She wanted to write to him over Christmas break, a simple 'I miss you,' for she did. She missed him with what felt like all her heart, but he never reached out to her, not once, and she could only begin to imagine what he was thinking.
Teddy hadn't turned up to Christmas dinner, turned out he'd broken it off with Victoire who'd burst into tears in the middle of the main course and Rose's hopes had so selfishly risen. It was a temporary elation, however, for nothing followed this but more silence from his end and constant worry from hers.
Then, like some scheming Slytherin, she'd hatched her plan. All she had to do was weather Scorpius's company, and she had her shield. She'd thought he wouldn't be able to hurt her from behind it. She was wrong.
Rose sat in the Gyffindor common room. Her homework was open in front of her, but her eyes were glazed and her attention focussed far away.
James took the seat beside her and dumped a gift in the form of a chocolate frog on her open book. "I'm renaming this place 'The Lion Den'," he said, pulling softly at the end of her ponytail.
"Why's that?" she asked, and he looked fixedly at her.
"Rose."
With effort she withdraws herself from her revelry. "I'm sorry," she says, "I wasn't-"
James nodded like he understood. "Listening, I know. It's okay, not everyone always does."
"To you?"
"To anyone, really. They hear what they want to hear. They listen just to wait for a pause so they can talk about themselves. We're all guilty of it."
"Are you okay?" she asked her cousin, concerned. This was decidedly Un-James behaviour.
"Are you?" he asks.
There was genuine concern in his blue eyes and she sighed. "Am I a lion, James?"
"You're a Gryffindor."
"But am I a lion?"
He seems to deliberate this for a moment, twirling her hair around his fingers and watching it catch in the light. "You're just a cub," he says, eventually. His face lights up with a grin and this is James. "But you've got potential."
"I want to be a lion," she admits, voice firm with honesty.
"Then be a lion."
"It's not that simple," she objectives.
"First lesson, little lion: It is."
"Thank you, James."
"You're welcome, Rosie." He ruffled her hair.
Lying in bed that night, Rose made a decision.
Teddy's t-shirt stuck to his chest with sweat, his hair stuck upright and his breathing fell heavy. Early morning sun beat down upon him, relentless, and in the Black Lake, the Giant Squid splashed tentacles idly. His circuit completed, he collapsed onto the giant lakeside rocks, obscured by trees and distance, sunning himself like a snake or lizard.
Through closed eyes he heard her voice.
"How was your run?"
His eyes sprung open with a jolt. "What are you doing here, Rose?"
She hesitated at the edge of the rock, half hidden by shadow. "I don't want to be scared anymore."
"You didn't have to run away." He couldn't help the hurt that crept into his voice.
"You could have let me know that."
That she allowed him to hear her own vulnerability meant more than he could say. "I know," he said.
She clambered up onto the rock beside him, so they were both sitting up, staring out across the lake. Rose turned and looks at him. "Which is it?" she asks.
His eyes meet hers. He doesn't grasp her meaning, but feels apprehension at the question nonetheless. "What do you mean?"
It was obvious she didn't want to say, but what he admires about Rose is that she'll fire through her doubt and say it anyway. She doesn't let him down. "Was it something about right or wrong, or did you just not want to kiss me?"
Teddy could hear the hurt and that only hurt him. She was never meant to feel like this. He opens his mouth although he doesn't know what words he means to say, but she ploughs on, like now she's started she's simply unable to stop.
"I don't mind which, I just need to know. I'm so sorry I ruined everything, I never meant to-"
He broke her off. "Rose." She looked up and away, like you might do when desperately trying to fight back tears. Gently he lifted a hand to her face, turning her slightly so to look at him. Her brown eyes were wide and he had to work to keep his emotions in control. "Rose, listen to me."
She nodded and didn't say a thing, like the words had died out inside her.
"I want to," he said, voice thick with emotion. "You can't know how much I want to. I-" he broke off, unable quite to express what he was thinking. He shook his head. "I want to. I wanted to kiss you then, I want kiss you now. As far as I can tell, I'm always going to want to kiss you."
"But?" she asks, like it's inevitable. Which it is.
"But I can't."
"But you can." When she looked at him then, she was all Gryffindor. "Anything's possible, Teddy. You taught me that once."
"I don't know why you want anything to do with me," he says, honestly. "You shouldn't."
Her lips quirked up in a tiny smile that is all her own and like she didn't care that he was sweat drenched, hopeless and inconsistent, she slung her arms around his neck and pulls him close to her. "Don't tell me what to do," she murmured, but allowed him to close the distance between their lips.
He only feels a little guilty as he does so.
Scorpius is a frozen lake in Winter, Rose fierce fire. They both burn in equal measure, their arguments scorching. Rose isn't blind to the irony of seeking out Teddy after her argument with her 'boyfriend,' but she doesn't like it.
"This secret is going to eat me alive."
"None of this would be possible otherwise."
"I wish things were different."
"I feel the same."
There was comfort in each other's arms. They could lie and pretend this would last.
If pressed maybe Rose could have admitted that they're doomed to crash and burn, but not even she thought everything would fall so soon.
"Isn't this scandalous?" asked Scorpius with malicious glee.
Louis looked on, confused. Teddy paled like he might faint, his hair, face, eyes, switching out of his control. Rose felt the anger she was never meant to feel with Teddy so near brew up inside her. No, no, no. This wasn't meant to happen like this. Everything was perfect.
"Maybe you're somewhat interesting after all, Rosie Posie. Been fooling me all this time?"
"Isn't she your girlfriend?" asks Louis, and yes, isn't this just so very complicated?
Scorpius glanced back at him, shrugged. "Not a very good one, apparently."
Her cousin still looked confused, but he was angry too. "What is wrong with you people?"
"Louis..." It's Teddy who spoke and he stepped towards the Ravenclaw, his movements awkward, uncertain.
Louis stood still frozen in place. "Both of you..." he shook his head, seemingly unable to finish his sentence. "What about my sister?"
