A/N: …Well shit.

I really didn't mean of it to go this long without an update; over six months is much too long. I feel like a douchebag. It's just really hard to find time to write these days, and my muse has almost completely transferred to original stuff, so I've been working on that more than fanfiction. But, I will state this: THIS FIC WILL BE FINISHED. It breaks my heart to see so many fics go on hiatus to never return, and I will not let it happen to this one. It's almost over, anyway.

…I think so, at least. It sort of depends on whether or not I get a stunning idea before I write the next chapter.

But anyway, enough excuses; on with the chapter!

…

Tomorrow, I will be gone.

Scorpius did not mean "gone" as he once had when he'd slid down onto the ornate bathroom tiles of Malfoy manor, but meant it in the actual sense that he would be removed from St. Mungo's the following day. All sorts of connotations went with that word, though—it meant he was taking another step towards normalcy, living with his parents again, getting out of the stuffy hospital air… leaving Rose.

For someone who'd only known her for just over a week, Scorpius was awfully attached to the girl that he'd kissed the night before. It seemed as though it wasn't as much of a folly as he thought it would be the second that the thought, I'm kissing Rose Weasley, entered his head. It had been a rather quick one (definitely not a snog), over in a matter of seconds. Scorpius was glad that it was dark so she couldn't see how goddamned red he was becoming, but it wasn't dark enough to completely mask Rose's smile before she took a deep breath and dove right back in.

…That last one was most definitely a snog.

And then they'd gone to bed, though it took Scorpius a very long time to get to sleep after that whole ordeal. The first few minutes afterward was spent digging his nails into one of his scars and trying to focus on anything but the bulge in his robes. After that was taken care of, he still was too hyped up to sleep.

Eventually, he got there, but only for a few hours, as he awoke to darkness and thoughts of tomorrow. It only was a few minutes before they turned on the lights, though, so it wasn't that early. Stretching, Scorpius sat up in his bed and glanced over to his roommate; she was curled up under the covers, the only thing not completely hidden by them being her fiery shock of hair. The boy smiled slightly before getting out of bed and heading to the restroom.

Despite being early, the hospital was already bustling with activity, and Scorpius doubted that the clamor of it rarely stopped. It was like the large beehive at the edge of Malfoy property: constantly buzzing with busy workers, going in and out of rooms and making potions and salves as they went. The boy nodded politely to a few of them who made eye contact with him as he passed, turning corner after corner until he finally made it to his first destination, and then to the garden.

Sadly, it was busier than it had been when he'd come to it before, which resulted in his stay lasting for only a couple of minutes. Instead, he made his way to the front of the hospital, where a small shop was situated. He sifted through the books (all of which he'd already read) and settled on one titled, The Miraculous Mysteries of Minotaurs. After paying for it with a few spare coins from his pocket, Scorpius went back to his room.

Rose was awake, and she smiled at him as he entered. Under the happy expression, though, was the tiniest bit of fear, which Scorpius supposed he should get used to seeing from those who knew the truth of what he did; it wasn't like they could help it.

"Good morning," she said from her position, sitting with her legs folded under her on his bed. "I was wondering where you went. New book?"

"Yeah," he said, and then read her the title. "A decent one; I read it a year or two back. And as much as I love quidditch, there's only so many times you can reread a book on it in a week."

"I understand." She patted the spot beside her. "Want to sit? My family isn't coming until lunchtime."

He did so, leaning back against the wall as he did so. Placing his new book on his bedside table, he turned to face her. "How long have you been awake?"

"Only about ten minutes," she responded. Upon closer inspection, it did seem like she was still a bit sleepy. "One of the mediwizards dropped a tray outside, and the sound woke me."

"They should be more careful," Scorpius said. "Or at the very least cast a couple of noise blocking charms on the rooms at night."

Rose rolled her eyes a bit and squelched the urge to tell him to lighten up. It'd been a hard time for him, and a cessation of a great deal of his seriousness would come with time, she was sure.

This led to thoughts of what he'd tried to do, which led to even more thoughts of how he'd been treated at Hogwarts, by her especially. She hadn't really been cruel to him, but the whole rivalry fiasco (which she still felt embarrassed about) hit her anew. He'd said that he had seen is as her wanting to beat him in everything because of his blood, not his level of academics, which was something that hadn't even occurred to her after her first year.

And then it hit her like a ton of cauldrons full of cold potions falling on top of her. Oh God. Part of this is my fault.

The thought nearly crippled her (no pun intended). Of course, there were lots of factors in a suicide attempt: home life, reputation, brain chemicals, treatment by peers. It was the last one that hit her the hardest; what she'd thought was harmless could've been one of the things that pushed him over the edge.

She felt nauseous. She wanted to run away (even though she'd likely fall after the first couple of steps) and never have to think about that again. She wanted to know just how much of it was her fault, how much of the blame was hers to shoulder.

…Perhaps, one day, she'd be able to gather the meager amount of courage that she had and ask him outright. But today was not that day.

"Rose?" Scorpius questioned; she'd been zoning out for a while now.

She blinked, coming back to reality, and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," she sighed. "Lost in thought."

That seemed to be an acceptable answer. Scorpius knew something had happened, though, as there was a slight shift in her demeanor; all of those years of watching and not speaking left him with a decent understanding of how people acted. But he decided to let it go.

They talked for a good three hours, even when breakfast was brought in and they could only speak between bites of bagel and eggs. It was perhaps the longest Scorpius had ever conversed with a person, and it felt amazing.

However, Rose's family came in around noon. Instead of just her parents and brother, today it was the Potters too: Harry, Ginny, James, Lily, and Albus, all together. This resulted in a bit of an overwhelming atmosphere, even though they didn't speak to him.

"My family is so boring sometimes. I have no bloody idea how I'm related to any of them."

…Wait a second.

A weight appeared at the side of his bed, causing the cheap mattress to sag. James Potter sat near the end before falling back across Scorpius's legs. "You've got bony shins, mate."

This was a strange thing to be occurring, as Scorpius couldn't remember ever talking to the seventh year before. And now he was on his bed, lying across his legs and calling them bony.

He tried to come up with a coherent response. "Well, I'm a skinny bloke."

"Yeah, you are." James tried awkwardly adjusting his position, but he couldn't really get comfortable. "You're Scorpius, right? Like the constellation, except without the part where Artemis sent you to kill Orion?"

"Um… yeah?"

"Nice. We should go do something interesting. What's interesting around here? Is there a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes branch?"

Scorpius was beginning to draw the conclusion that this kid had an extremely short attention span. "I doubt it. And the only places that aren't rooms or off limits are the garden, the gift shop, and the cafeteria."

"Food," James said dreamily, thankfully ignoring the "off limits" areas. "That sounds wonderful." He sprung up from the bed. "Off we go, then." When Scorpius didn't move, James quirked an eyebrow. "What're you waiting for, you want me to offer you my hand like you're some dainty damsel?"

Scorpius blinked. "Um. No."

"Well come on, then."

This was perhaps the most confusing thing that had ever happened to Scorpius in his entire existence. He got up, making sure his robe covered his wrists as he did so. "Scorp and I are going to get some food," James announced to the room. "We'll be back later." He walked across the room, opened the door, and strode out, leaving Scorpius looking on bemusedly.

"Don't let him drag you all around St. Mungo's," Harry Potter (the Harry Potter was speaking to him without even the smallest bit of contempt) said, smothering a laugh. "He'll drain anyone, if you let him."

The boy really had no idea what to say. He settled with, "Thank you for the warning, sir."

"Can you bring me back some butterbeer?" Rose asked hopefully, mirth hidden in her eyes; spending some time with James was definitely going to be a completely new experience for him.

"Sure," he said, smiling softly at her as he walked out and shut the door behind him.

James was waiting impatiently outside, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "You're slow," he complained before taking off in the opposite direction of the cafeteria. Scorpius was tempted to let the other boy get himself lost, but his moral compass wouldn't let him. "The cafeteria's the other way!"

Turning on his heel, James strutted (there really wasn't another way to describe his walk) back towards him, grabbing a handful of the Slytherin's robe as he passed to make sure he'd be keeping up with him.

A few minutes later, they were sitting down at one of the sturdy wooden tables of the cafeteria, with pumpkin juice (plus Rose's butterbeer in a to‐go cup) and some sort of mystery meat. While Scorpius ate carefully, as there were known to sometimes be stray bones hidden in the strange brown mass, James sucked up his food ferociously, shoveling it into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. "So Scorp," he began around a mouthful of carrots, "what do you like to do?"

"Um," he said eloquently, once again completely lost for words. "I play some quidditch?"

"Ugh," James scowled, putting down his fork and leaning away from the table. "I am so sick of quidditch. It seems like everyone in my family is bloody obsessed with it. There are much better things in the world than flying around on a wooden stick and trying to catch a tiny yellow ball, thank you very much."

Scorpius was a bit taken aback, but tried to come up with another answer anyway. Seeing as James had mentioned some information about the blonde boy's name when he first plopped down on his bed, there may be a safe answer. "Astronomy is pretty great."

It turns out that Scorpius's answer was a good one. James resumed eating with a grin on his face. "I knew you must've had some sense. Astronomy's the best subject taught at Hogwarts. So I've heard that all Malfoys are named after constellations…"

And so began the friendship of James Potter and Scorpius Malfoy.

…

After about an hour, they went back to the room so Scorpius could give Rose her butterbeer and then set off for therapy. James sent him off with a, "See you at Hogwarts, mate!" which put Scorpius in a reasonably good mood; James was actually a pretty decent wizard. Being friends with him would probably be all right.

Therapy went as it usually did, with Scorpius saying the right things and making sure what he said was almost exactly what Miss Reyes wanted to hear (he couldn't be too obvious in his ploy to get out, especially when he was so close to release). When he arrived back at the room, the Weasley‐Potters were gone, and he had Rose to himself.

The girl seemed to be a bit melancholy, though. She was skimming through his book when he entered, and gave him a weak smile as she tossed it across the room and back onto his nightstand. "How was therapy?"

"Alright," he said, sitting down next to her. "I still have her wrapped around my finger."

Rose was quiet after that. Sighing, she laid back against the wall, refusing to meet Scorpius's gaze even when he mirrored her position. After a moment, she began to speak.

"I heard them talking," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. Her hair smelled faintly of fruity shampoo, and it felt soft against his cheek. "I know you're getting out tomorrow. Scorpius, I know you don't like to talk about it but please…" If Scorpius hadn't known better, he'd say she was getting choked up. But everyone knew that the great Rose Weasley didn't cry (except on that first night at St. Mungo's, but that was out of frustration and despair). "I don't want to see you back in here again. It… it makes my stomach hurt to think that if you'd… done what you planned to do, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. We wouldn't be friends."

He knew she hadn't meant to strike an uncomfortable cord in him, and that it had to be discussed eventually, despite how adamantly he wanted to avoid it; with his impending release, why not now? After taking a deep breath, he began speaking. "The sorts of feelings that drove me to where I am right now just don't disappear in a week, Rose. Don't talk," he snapped as she opened her mouth, and then changed his tone as he realized the harshness of it, "please just let me finish.

"A lot of what I think about myself and the world around me hasn't changed very much; hell, it's been a week, Rose. A single week. A complete shift in perspective takes time. This kind of loathing doesn't immediately dissipate when you get a failure; if anything, a failed attempt increases the bitterness and animosity towards yourself and the world. I mean, I couldn't even bloody kill myself correctly; what does that say about my accomplishments?" There; he'd said it bluntly, out loud, for the first time, and he could never take it back.

She sounded even closer to tears this time. "Scorpius—"

"Please don't cry," he said quickly, afterward swallowing a couple of times to get the lump out of his own throat. "Please."

It was silent for a few moments before he continued. "I hate a lot of things in this world of ours, myself included. But I'm sure you knew that. There are things that I don't hate though: the sky, some classes at Hogwarts, the sea, Quidditch, you. I'm going to try to focus on those for now, and see if that does something to help. I'm on some sort of muggle medication that I'm told will start to kick in after about a week or two, and it's supposed to help some. The big step here is that I'm trying to get someone to understand my perspective a little bit. I mean, you already know more about my situation than most because I'm comfortable enough with you to embarrassingly blurt out my pathetic life story every time we sit down. So, I guess my point in this is… well, I'm not going to get over it in a day. That's not how it works. But you're helping, Rose. You really are. And I will be back in here, because I want to visit you until you get out next week. If that's all right."

There was an incredibly long pause while they both thought. Eventually, Rose giggled a bit awkwardly. "It seems that a lot of our nights end with these sort of monumental talks." Before he could get a word in, she started speaking again. "I'd love it if you would come and visit. I think James has taken a liking to you as well, so you've got two friends that hang out around here now."

A small smile graced Scorpius's face. "Talking to James is like playing with a hyper puppy: fun, but exhausting."

This time, she full on laughed, and the sound was music to his ears. "Exactly! The exhausting part is sort of why I've always gotten along better with Albus. But James is great, too."

Scorpius mentally thanked whoever was listening for the change in topic; he'd had enough emotionally draining talk for the night. This thought led to him remember that last night when they'd been semiserious, there'd been snogging involved. A slight thread of disappointment jolted through him, but he cast it away as teenage hormones and paid no other attention to it.

"Maybe we should go to bed," Rose sighed, shifting a bit on the bed. "It's late, and you've got a big day tomorrow."

"Oh yippee, my big return to Malfoy manor," he said dryly. "I can barely contain my excitement… Do you want to do some practicing first?"

Rose thought of saying no before remembering that he would be gone tomorrow, and they probably wouldn't have another chance. "Sure."

After half an hour of that (and no falls to the ground for the first time), they settled into their separate beds. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, and neither wanted to be half asleep through any of it.

…

A/N: Well, there you have it. Sorry if this chapter isn't up to my normal standard; it was really hard for me to write, as I couldn't really get the flow of it. Reviews would really help in that area, and constructive criticism (or anything else you have to offer) is appreciated. Thanks for reading!