Hello. Early update as promised.
Special thanks to a new follower, Noone297, for the PM. Great to hear feedback, as always
I really enjoyed writing this short little one explaining the last section of the previous chapter. Not much left to be said, so enjoy.
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Interlude – 11:40 Onwards
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its Next Gen characters belong to JKR; I just tinker-tanker.
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How did we get here?
As Rose felt the sharp end of Chantal's heel dig into her shoulder, she absorbed the incredulity of the situation. If anyone had told her three years ago that one day she and Malfoy would be working together to clean up an unconscious Chantal Gerhardt outside a seedy, muggle club, she would have told them to swallow some pepper-up and bugger off.
Chantal's head lolled over and her hair spilled across his Scorpius' face, causing him to swear vehemently. The sight of his mouth suddenly full of caramel-colored extensions prompted Rose to burst out laughing.
He caught her eye, his face straining with effort against the weight of his passed-out ex-girlfriend. "This isn't funny."
No. It's downright hilarious.
With some luck, they managed to find a bench that wasn't covered in pigeon droppings, overlooking a section of the main road. The lamplight buzzed above them and flickered on and off. Thankfully, it was mostly quiet, save for the occasional car whizzing by that would puncture the silence.
"She's got to lie face-down," instructed Rose, and Scorpius shot her a look that said, 'I've done this before'. She closed her mouth, silenced, and the two of them lay Chantal's limp body on the wooden surface. The girl moaned slightly at the disturbance and Rose grimaced as drool leaked out from the corner of her mouth.
"'ereee you go," she murmured, gingerly placing Chantal's head over her lap and making sure it was turned sideways so that her mouth faced the pavement. The girl's soft hair spilled over the edge of the bench. Scorpius took a seat next to Rose, lifting Chantal's legs momentarily and then placing them over his thighs as if they acted as a safety bar.
They sat wordlessly for several moments, now fully aware how comical they looked—sitting next to one another while an unconscious girl lay sprawled over the both of them—and when they finally dared to look at each other, the laughter bubbled over their lips and spilled out into the night.
Rose had never witnessed Scorpius laugh as genuinely as he did then. His face underwent a transformation. The hard lines of calculation and pride dissolved and carved new wrinkles around his smile. His eyes sparkled with never-before-seen emotion as if someone had thrust open the windows to a dusty cell. She decided this was a welcome change.
"So Weasley," he said, his chest heaving as he attempted to settle himself. The use of her surname and the formality in his voice was odd, especially considering that they had just engaged in what Rose had decreed as one of the best snogs in her life, "What now?"
AAA.
No one knew where to begin, really. Their memories were dotted with inconsistency, from snide conversations in between classrooms to hexes cast furiously at one another to discreet glances and hands brushing by firelight. How did one start a conversation about a relationship that had undergone so much polarity? There were other factors too-ego, bloodlines, and social expectations; no wonder it was so damn difficult to figure out what all this meant, what they meant.
She broke the silence. "What happened that day?"
He shifted. "You mean the day you decided to opt for a career as an Obliviator?"
"Yes." Supposedly.
"I lost my memories. That's not a lie, that really happened." He hastened to add, "In the beginning, you might have had better luck getting an answer out of a three-year-old than the shadow of a person left in my state. But the spell wasn't as potent as Astrakhan presumed, and I started to remember around…well, I suppose it was when we jumped into the lake. Reckon the cold water kick-started my memory. One by one, in a matter of seconds, I could recognize certain things—who I was, who youwere. It was like waking up from a dream but the whole experience was…bizarre. I was caught between myself and this other me, the one without my memories, and that poor bloke had no control over what he was feeling, especially towards…"
He stopped, and the word that was meant to fill the blank resonated between them. You.
He continued in acid tones. "And you believed me. Merlin, you liked me. I had to take advantage of the situation, even if it was a lie."
"You kissed me."
"Yes."
"You wanted to?"
There was a pause, and he said quietly, "More than anything."
She continued on, with slightly more effort, "So you went back and told Astrakhan there was no need to take the antidote, and you carried on pretending like you had no idea what had happened even though you did remember. You remembered everything."
"Yes."
"Did Al know anything about this?"
"No. That's not to say he wouldn't give it a rest. Stubborn prat."
"Why did you lie, Malfoy?"
"Because…." Pause. "Because I couldn't quite understand my own emotions." Her silence felt reproachful, as though she couldn't accept that for an answer. He exhaled. "Bloody hell, Weasley, you know what we were to each other. Half the time I still wanted to hex you every time your opened your mouth, and the other half of the time I would have been glad to drag you to the nearest broom closet and snog you to death. Baffling, as you can imagine."
"And there was Chantal."
"Yes." His voice was heavy now. Tired. "There was her."
Rose placed a gentle hand on Chantal's face, feeling the girl's hot cheeks pulse as the girl continued to sleep. "How did the two of you start going out anyway?"
"She wasn't my girlfriend." A snort slipped out of Rose's lips as she recalled the countless occasions they'd all heard him say this. "Her father is a respectable lawyer and the Gerhardts have represented the Malfoys in court a number of times. Our families became close, and then Chantal was forced to leave Beauxbatons because…"
The sentence halted rigidly. "No. I won't say. It's her private business." Pause. "At any rate, she was in a troubled state when I first met her. She needed a friend and over time, I suppose, I became more to her than that. I liked her—no, admired is a better word.
"We did try to date. After awhile she was persistent on wanting more, and every time I attempted to put my foot down, she had a knack of making me see things her way. A master of manipulation, you might say, which was charming until it wasn't. She and I…" He struggled to find the words. "We understood each other well—too well, and that was the problem."
"She didn't deserve to have you going off and snogging other girls."
"I didn't deserve to be kept around as a pretty-boy plaything for her entertainment."
"That's not what she felt for you. Agrippa, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel sorry for her."
"Don't." His voice was sharp. "I wasn't just a slimy git, Weasley. I cared for her and I still do, in a way that most people don't understand. I just…couldn't do it anymore."
"Just like that?"
His tone softened. "I had a better reason."
"What?"
"I already told you."
Silence.
He reached out and touched her gingerly on the arm. "I don't pretend that I was a saint in all this, but if there is a time to say it, then it's now. I genuinely like you, Weasley. Merlin, that doesn't even begin to cover it. I…" He took a deep, shuddering breath and his voice lowered. "I think you're incredible."
She stared at him, the seconds ticking by. And then, with careful precision, she blurted out:
"Bollocks."
AAA.
Scorpius wasn't quite sure he'd heard right.
"Sorry?" His jaw hung incredulously.
She laughed and the sound, lovely as it was, contained a tinge of mockery. "You think I'm incredible? Don't make me vomit."
He stiffened and slowly rose to his feet, taking great care not to disturb Chantal. He looked as if he were considering heading back to the club, but then he turned around, and towered over her, his expression livid.
"You're a snob, Weasley. You're fine with poking fun at my pureblood tendencies and my icicle of a personality, but you—you're something, aren't you?" His sneer reappeared, only this time it contained nothing of the self-assured arrogance that was regularly present. He seemed quite violently shaken. "I've done nothing but share my feelings in a manner that I've never done for anyone else. Anyone else."
Then he paused, and added bitterly, "And with you of all people."
She threw her hands up, her face twisting triumphantly. "Ah, there it is."
"What?"
"You." She jabbed her finger at him. "You've never shown me any respect."
"Not bloody true."
"Isn't it?" She fired back. "Let's see. From the first time we met, you've had me on the receiving end of a never-ending list of insults—banshee, know-it-all, frizzy-haired cow, whatever you can think of—I've heard it all from you, Malfoy. Now I know I'm not stupid, but you always wanted me to think that I was, didn't you? Never mind that I was always top of the class along with you, you never could give me credit when it was due. Constantly accusing me of cheating or foul play. I still haven't forgotten when you knocked over my potion during a bloody exam!"
"I was twelve."
"And Quidditch. Oh Quidditch. I don't know how many bumps and bruises I've gotten from you over all the times you played your sly tricks and loopholes whenever Hopkirk wasn't watching."
"Right. Says the Gryffindor on the team that poisonedour entire reserve in our fourth-year."
"That's not the worst part. I can forgive the whole memory loss episode and the fact that you carried on going out with someone while stringing me along at the same time. The worst part is this…" She leaned forward and her voice trembled. "Even now, as you're standing there pouring out all your so-called secrets, you're still lying to me."
"I'm not."
"Then explain to me why you're still sleeping around."
"Sleeping around? I haven't even-"
"I saw you!" She shouted, her hands wringing in the air. "I saw the stain on your neck. Explain to me, then, why up until barely forty-eight hours ago you and Selma were getting extremelyfriendly."
Scorpius opened his mouth, and then closed it, resembling a goldfish caught out of water. "That…was an accident."
"Oh, pardon me for not realizing. Did you bump neck-first into a door that just happened to be wearing bright red lipstick?"
"You always think the worst of me, don't you?"
"I don't think. I happen to be right."
"It was her grandmother," retorted Scorpius, and his eyes held a dark, angry haze. "Her grandmother had just passed away and I happened to walk by the prefect's room just as she was reading the letter."
A palpable silence descended upon them. Rose's hands dropped back to her lap.
"I thought I'd offer my condolences, and maybe—I don't know-in the midst of her crying all over me I might have forgotten to make a quick excursion to the powder room to check my reflection."
He shook his head in disbelief. "You're unbelievable. The problem isn't my lack of respect for you. The problem is your lack of trust." He spat out the last word. "You should have stayed with Carter McLaggen."
Silence again.
"I'm sorry." Rose's voice was hoarse. "I jumped to conclusions."
A moan stirred from Chantal, prompting both of them to jump. "Mmf. Je me sens mal…" The girl rolled over on Rose's lap, opening her eyes blearily. "Pourquoi…?"
"You better take her back," said Scorpius tonelessly, his eyes sliding away from Rose. "I've got to go check where Gareth is."
"I don't know how to get into the Slytherin-"
"Dungeons. There's a statue of Ravolo Slytherin next to the tapestry of Arvuld the Giant. The password is potentia vero."
"Malfoy, can we talk about-"
"I said everything I had to, Weasley. So did you."
And with that, he walked off.
AAA.
Potentia vero. Truth is power.
The statue of Ravolo Slytherin nodded and the wall behind him slid open, revealing the entrance of the Slytherin Common Room. It was not quite what Rose had envisioned. There was a geometric, clean-cut elegance to the room that vastly contrasted that of Gryffindor. Smooth, black tiles, forest-green armchairs, and a soft, crackling fireplace…she had imagined impenetrable, blocky stones and manacles hanging from the wall, remnants of Hogwart's ancient, bloody past. Yet another thing she'd been sorely wrong about.
Chantal clung to Rose, still mumbling to herself, and Rose whispered, "Nearly there." She wasn't quite sure if Chantal recognized the pathway to the girl's dormitories, or whether Chantal had even realized that Rose was the one chaperoning her home. To her surprise, the girl pulled herself upright, rotated on the spot, and faced Rose with a weariness that looked like death.
"That isfar enough," she mumbled. It was the closest Rose was going to get to a thank you. She raised her eyebrows in question and Chantal nodded drowsily. Then, she turned and lumbered towards a black marble archway on the right side of the room, her black pumps dangling by her fingers.
There was a faint glimmer of red in the darkness and then a clang resounded, signaling that Chantal had vacated the premises. Rose stood alone in the dim, spacious common room, feeling exhausted and yet deeply perturbed. She knew she ought to have started heading back to her own room, but the image of Scorpius' aggrieved expression crept up on her like an itch under her skin, and she found herself being steered by her own two feet to a marble archway opposite of the one under which Chantal had disappeared to.
She knew instantly by the effervescent scent of freshly done laundry and pumpkin soup that this was the boy's dormitory. Quietly she crept by the closed doors, reading the letters that had been engraved into the wood in silver: "First", "Second", "Third". On the seventh or eighth door she stopped. "Sixth" it read. The door was left open, as if no one was inside.
She entered and the certainty that this was Al's room—and Scorpius'—washed over her. She could spot the enormous poster of the Holyhead Harpies—Aunt Ginny's team—pasted on the emerald wallpaper. Al's glasses lay on the nightstand, next to a copy of Quidditch weekly and a half-eaten cracker that was crushed by several textbooks.
Al was clearly the messiest occupant in the room, followed closely by Gareth Nott—whose place was easy to spot by the countless pairs of socks scattered over his bed, each embedded with the Nott crest at the ankle. Lucas was the neatest and most unguarded. His bedsheets was perfectly folded to the slightest crease, and his four-poster curtains parted completely for everyone to see. Then, of course…
She paused, the backs of her hair prickling as the revelation hit her that what she was doing might be considered intrusive. Every aspect of Scorpius' living space indicated towards his affinity for secrecy. The bed curtains were completely closed and his nightstand was bare, save for a few sheets of parchment and a black leather wallet. She walked over to the nightstand, her feet shuffling over the carpet, and her eyes made out the first few lines of writing on the topmost sheet of parchment.
To Whom it May concern:
My name is Scorpius Malfoy,
My name is Scorpius, and I am writing on behalf of my interest to join the Auror Early Acceptance Program in my final year at Hogwarts. I understand that my letter has come early, but I hope
She stopped reading then. Lack of trust. Scorpius' heated words echoed in her mind and she found herself unable to swallow a wave of emotion that had risen up from within her. When she touched her cheeks, she discovered that they were wet. I was wrong, so wrong…
How long Rose waited, she wasn't quite certain. The next moment came to her as a sudden banging and uneven footsteps that yanked her to consciousness. Merlin! Her hand clutched her chest as the door flew open and the sound of two voices, one sharp and the other barely conscious, permeated the room. They were back. She realized at some point during the night, she had pulled aside Scorpius' bed curtains and dozed off on his bed.
"You're definitely going to feel that in your liver tomorrow, Potter." Her heart thudded in her chest as she heard his discontented voice through the curtains barely meters away. Oh god. Was he going to be furious that she'd snuck in and raided his privacy? She could see his silhouette through the burst of white light that radiated from his wand.
"Oi, you awake?" Scorpius called out. She heard Al groan, and then there was a thump of a body falling onto a soft surface and a mutter of something obscene. Scorpius chuckled softly. "Poor bastard. Nox."
The light extinguished itself. She heard his footsteps tread toward her and her heart sped up instantly. When he drew open the curtains, she got up instantly to her knees, parting her mouth to explain. There was a clatter as his wand fell to the floor.
AAA.
"I'm sorry." Rose's voice wavered but she looked surprisingly determined. "I put Chantal to bed and then, um, curiosity killed the cat."
Scorpius thought for a moment that his eyes might have bulged out of their sockets. Quickly he pulled the bed-curtains shut and climbed onto the mattress, taking great care not to upset the balance between them.
"Well," he said, keeping his voice hushed. "Usually when a girl surprises me in my bed I try to ensure Potter knows about it, but I reckon this time I'll make an exception."
She nodded and inched backwards to allow him more room. He settled warily into cross-legged position across from her. "What are you doing here?"
She looked at him wordlessly. Without another second's thought, she closed the distance between them, her arms clasping the back of his head and her lips colliding with his. Scorpius inhaled sharply, his own words clearly forgotten. For a few long moments they held each other, not daring to move. Then, his arm closed around her waist and slowly, so that they wouldn't make a sound, they fell down together and pressed into the mattress. She lay almost on top of him, her legs in between his own, her nose touching his.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and in that moment, the words contained all the sincerity she could muster. "Truly I am. I've only been able to see the bad and none of the good. You called me names and that only made me stronger. You never let me win anything and that made me want to win all the more. You helped me become a better person because you are a better person, better in the way that you've dealt with your life and made me grateful for mine. And even though you've lied and hurt people, I can understand that it was only because you were scared, just as I am scared now."
His throat bobbed as she pressed her lips to his again, and she emitted a small chuckle against his mouth.
They broke apart. "You really think I'm incredible?" She said this with soft incredulity.
"Merlin, Weasley." His voice was rough with emotion. "I lost my memories all because you were furious with me."
"I suppose that's as good of a reason as any."
"You have to understand that the only reason why I'd ever sock McLaggen in the mouth is because…" His blue eyes fixed on her unfalteringly. "I think that you are far too clever, too kind, and too bloody incredible for him or anyone else. I respect the hell out of you, Rose Weasley."
The way he said her name made her ears tingle with pleasure.
How did we get here?
If anyone had told her three years ago that one night she and Malfoy would be lying in his bed, their bodies coiled like tree-vines around one another, looking at each other the way they did now, she would have flat-out hexed them all the way to the Hospital Wing, possibly without their memories.
She prodded his cheek gently. "I hope you know this means that I'm staying over tonight."
His mouth quirked. "I'll lend you a shirt."
And then they stayed in each other arms till the sun rose, happy that they had finally figured out what they meant to each other.
AAA.
With love,
~MissusWitch