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Chapter rated M for language and sexual content.

Chapter 19: Reckoning

One Year Earlier

I was changing by my locker when I heard the voices drifting from a few rows over. All the Quidditch players had their lockers in alphabetical order by last name, so I was stuck in the back corner away from most people. Luckily, Hugo and I were next to each other, though, so I didn't have to face this dark, abandoned corner on my own.

I was already feeling dark and abandoned enough as it was.

I recognized the voice as a girl a year ahead of me in Gryffindor and a couple other older students on the team. I didn't hear James or Hugo, so I assumed that they had bolted back up to the castle or they were still in the showers. James was always rushing away after practice so he could see his girlfriend. He never let his mind wander during practice, but as soon as it was over, it was like a switch would flip. It used to make me smile. But that was before.

I was trying really hard to be happy. I was trying really hard to be normal. But I was also tired of being a punching bag. For too long, I had let other people take advantage of me because I was smart and kind and my parents had taught me well. I would give people my homework assignments when they needed help. I would stay after class to help someone on a difficult concept even when I was starving or had a lot on my plate. I let Hadley ignore me when he was with his friends, convincing myself that if we were together after, that was really all that mattered.

But I was tired. I was tired of being the kind, sweet, dependable one. I was tired of being me.

So when I heard the voice of the girl above me saying my name, my ears perked up and I listened hard.

"I mean, really, what did she expect?" Yasmina was saying. "He's a dog, and he's always been a dog."

"Yeah, true," I heard another voice say, but I couldn't tell who it was.

"It's just pathetic the way she's always crying over him and staring at him and… ugh…"

None of the others said anything in response, but she just wouldn't shut up.

"Did you know…" Her voice lowered, and I strained to hear. "I mean, him and I hooked up last year."

My heart clenched and my stomach churned. I thought I might throw up. I sat down on the bench in front of my locker and wrapped my arms around my stomach, rocking a bit. When would this ever stop hurting?

"It wasn't much, really. Just a bit of making out at a party. But… God, Weasley is just so naïve. Hadley has always been like this. She should have known."

Luckily, thank god, the other people changed the subject and said their goodbyes to Yasmina. Apparently not everyone got so much joy out of my misery. Not everyone thought I deserved what I got. Not everyone thought I was to blame for being so stupid and not seeing Hadley for who he was. I thought that enough about myself no matter how much Albus had tried to convince me it wasn't true, no matter how much he told me that Hadley was an arse who didn't deserve me.

But I'd made a vow to myself. After crying myself sick for weeks, I had finally decided that this had to stop—that I had to take charge of my life and stop this from ever happening to me again.

It was with that in mind that I listened for the sounds of the other two people retreating before I decided to put my plan in motion. I peaked around the corner when I heard some shuffling, and I saw Yasmina walking toward the showers wrapped only in a towel. My jaw clenched in anger. I thought she and I were friends. I thought she understood that I was in pain. A lot of it.

As soon as I heard the shower switch on, I rushed quietly over to where her locker was and saw her change of clothes folded neatly on the bench in front of her locker. With angry and bitter resolve, I dug in the pile for the shirt she would put on after her shower, and I dug my wand out of my back pocket. I then pointed my wand at the back and watched as letters appeared across it. I then put a temporary concealment charm over the words that would only last for about 20 minutes—the time I assumed it would take for her to finish up and put the shirt back on—so she wouldn't see what I'd done. Smiling—which often still pained me because the muscles in my face weren't used to the action—I refolded the shirt neatly so she wouldn't notice anything different, and I walked quickly back to my locker and gathered up my things.

By the time I was all finished shoving stuff in and pulling stuff out of my locker, I swung my bag over my shoulder and headed out of the room just as I heard the shower shut off. I grinned and then ran back up to the castle.

At dinner, I was sitting with Albus at the Slytherin table, my new permanent spot now that I couldn't stand to sit at the Gryffindor table with everyone's judging eyes or sympathetic glances. That was one thing I loved about the Slytherins—they may be a proud, ruthless bunch, but they didn't care one way or another about the sad problems in my life.

I had just gotten done telling Albus about what I'd done when I felt the atmosphere in the Great Hall change.

"What did you put on her shirt?" Albus was asking me as I craned my neck and looked at Yasmina walking into the hall, unaware that eyes followed her back as she walked down.

"Rose, what—"

I elbowed him and jerked my head back in her direction. She had started to notice eyes on her and she was looking around, frowning, before she sat down next to some of her friends at the Gryffindor table. Luckily, her back was to our table so Albus would be able to see when she sat down. And when she did, he gasped at first and then howled with laughter.

Right on the back of Yasmina's shirt in huge, red letters was the word SLUT.

"Jeez, Rose," Albus said, turning to me. "You don't take things lightly, do you?"

I just shrugged and turned back to my plate. "Not anymore," I said. "Not ever again."

Life was good.

I'd spent most of the weekend with Malfoy. We laid in his bed, talking and laughing and snuggling against each other and fooling around. Occasionally we left his bed. He'd gone up to the kitchens to get us some food and we sat in his sitting room with a plate of sandwiches and I'd laid with my knees bent up on the couch and my head on his shoulder listening to him talk about his time at Hogwarts while his long legs were stretched out, with one ankle crossed over the other and propped up on the table in front of us.

I was wearing one of his white button downs that went down to my mid-thigh, and he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs that showed off his muscular legs and his amazingly hot arse. I would stare at it when he was walking to the bathroom, and I was overcome with want and longing for a body that was almost completely at my disposal.

I'd smiled as we sat there in front of his fire, just loving the sound of his low, sensual, sometimes raspy voice as he talked. It sounded so different than the voice he used to lecture us. That voice was firmer, clearer, more intense. But this voice was warm and it slid over me like melted butter slides over a hot muffin, making my insides feel both heavy and light at the same time. It was almost unbearable—the crazy tingling curling sensations inside me when I was around him—but it was the best, sweetest kind of pain and torture.

I'd fallen asleep on his shoulder listening to his voice after I was full of food and so content, and I'd woken up to him shifting me on my back on the couch and moving the length of his body down and burying his head in between my legs.

I'd been a bit hazy at first, still in a sleep fog, but on a particularly sensual swipe of his tongue, I'd stretched my limbs before bending my knees up and sinking my hands into his hair, begging him to never stop. He'd driven me wild with his mouth so much that weekend that I began to lose count of the orgasms he gave me this way. I started to wonder if he was tired of doing it, but he'd told me over and over how good I tasted and how he could stay down there forever, and he loved watching me come. He whispered so many dirty things while he was down there and into my ear while he was pushing into me, that my body would flush with heat and I felt as if the orgasms were just as much from his words as they were from the actual things he was doing to me.

I hadn't yet gone down on him, and he never pressured me to or seemed like he wanted me to. I'd done it a few times to Hadley before so I knew the basic concepts, but I was just too nervous to do it to him for fear that he wouldn't enjoy it. And he seemed to be enjoying everything else so I didn't want to risk it.

After a while, we were so gross with sweat and sex that a shower became desperate. So we'd taken one together, refusing to spend any time apart. It had been the sweetest, sexiest, most erotic time of my life. He'd washed me so slowly, so deliberately, washing into the most private parts of my body, arousing me and driving me insane. He'd washed by back, trailing kisses along my shoulders and neck as he did so, making me whimper and pant with desire. I'd washed him when he was finished, spending extra time on his chest and abs that I couldn't get enough of, and I'd gripped his thick length in my hands, still amazed that it had been able to make it all the way inside, and he'd hissed in pleasure, bending his head down and biting a spot on my neck where it met my shoulder.

I didn't finish him, but that was only because he wouldn't let me.

"Stop, Rose. I'm desperate to be inside you."

And then he'd taken me to his bed, rendering that shower worthless.

So, correction: life was perfect.

No one in Gryffindor had questioned my absence. Scorpius had had a staff meeting on Saturday afternoon so I'd decided to run down to the Great Hall to snag a quick lunch, and none of them mentioned anything or even seemed to notice my absence. Albus was so busy with Quidditch and classes that he didn't notice either. He'd eaten so fast that I'd barely been able to say hi to him before he was gone.

I guess it was easy to go off the grid for a weekend when your only real friend was in a different house.

Hugo had grabbed me on my way back to the dungeons and told me we were going to have a quick practice. I'd tried to protest but he had a desperate look on his face that made me feel terrible for him. We only practiced for about an hour or so, and Hugo was happy to see that we were doing a lot better, so he left happy, and I practically ran back to the dungeons.

As soon as I was in Malfoy's quarters, his hands were all over me.

"Where have you been?" he'd asked, his face in my neck. I'd leaned back by the force of his arms around my waist, and my hands had dove into his hair, and soon we had been back in his bedroom like we'd been all weekend.

Now, it was Sunday. I'd spent Saturday night with Malfoy again—making love, getting to know his body and soul—and it was well into the afternoon on Sunday when I rolled off him, sated and out of breath and collapsed onto my back next to him.

"I think you're bad for my health," Malfoy said, panting. I laughed and turned onto my side, propping my head up on my hand. He reached over and pinched one of my nipples, making me gasp before I swatted his hand away.

"I think I'm good for your health," I said with a smile. "I've had that heart rate up since Friday."

He growled playfully and dove over, pinning me onto my back, his body half on top of mine. I laughed and put my arms around his neck before pulling him into a kiss. He pulled back after we were both out of breath and when he buried his face into my neck, making me smile contentedly, a sudden bolt of fear shot through me.

It's too much.

The feelings I was feeling for this man buried in my neck were too much.

Malfoy and I had only known each other for a month—literally only knew of each other's existence for a month, and I was already feeling like he was a part of me. I didn't want to leave his bed or his side ever. I wanted to tell everyone that he was mine, and I didn't even know what that meant. Was he my boyfriend? Was I just some girl he was sleeping with to occupy his lonely time at Hogwarts? Did he like me or did he just like having sex with me? What did he want? What did he expect? How could this end other than with a broken heart for me?

I wanted to ask him all of this. I wanted to know everything, but then something occurred to me. Something that made me just momentarily forget my troubles and made me smile like crazy.

"Hey guess what?"

Malfoy turned his head but kept it in the crook of my neck before pulling a piece of my hair in between his fingers.

"Our first kiss was three weeks ago last night."

Scorpius tilted his head so he could look at me. "Happy three week first kiss anniversary," he said with a smile before stretching up so he could place a sweet kiss on my lips.

My heart hurt. The agony of feeling this strongly about him felt so good and yet so incredibly painful. He couldn't say things like that when I was so confused about what was going on. He couldn't say things like that when he had my head spinning every time he touched me and my fingertips tingling every time he looked at me. I had to get out of here. I had to have time to think. I had to—

"I have to go to the library," I said.

He looked back up at me and frowned. "The library?"

I nodded. "Yeah, you see," I kept my tone light. "I've got this really mean potions professor, and he doesn't like it when our assignments aren't up to scratch."

"Sounds like a right little prick," Scorpius said with a grin.

"A right big prick," I corrected, making Scorpius grin. He kissed me again and then sighed, rolling off me and onto his side. This time his head was propped up on his hand and he was looking down at me, looking gorgeous and tousled from sex, his gray eyes bright and incredible. I had to look away but I couldn't.

"You're beautiful," I said suddenly.

He laughed. "You're going to make me blush," he said.

I slapped his chest. "Don't tease me." He smiled and put his free hand onto my stomach so he could draw light circles with his index finger while his palm rested on the flat of my stomach.

"Do you really have to go?" he asked.

No. "Yeah."

"Will I see you tonight?"

I can't see you. I'm too confused. "If you want."

He arched an eyebrow. "If I want?"

I shrugged with a small smile.

"I want to see you," he said, his hand coming up so he could brush my cheek with the back of his knuckles. I leaned into the touch, my heart racing. "Why don't you tell that dick professor to shove his essays up his arse?"

I laughed. "I would, but I kind of have a crush on him, and I want to impress him with my brains."

He ran his fingers down my neck. "A crush, huh?" I nodded, feeling my cheeks heat. "Should I be jealous?"

"Why would you be jealous?" I asked quietly.

His eyes were on my neck as he fingered it. "Well, seems like some old fogey is trying to steal my girl."

My chest clenched painfully and I felt a burning sensation at the backs of my eyes like I was going to cry. I blinked a few times, but I didn't say anything. I was too scared that I would spill my guts if I opened my mouth.

Then he looked up and his eyes met mine. His eyes looked stormy. "And I'm sure he's already impressed with just about everything about you." He leaned in so his mouth was right above mine. "Awed, even."

I closed the gap, pressing up into him and clutching his waist to pull him down to me as our tongues met. I sighed, trying to suppress the riotous feelings inside me as we kissed deeply, his mouth consuming mine and lighting me on fire. Panting, he bit my lower lip and pulled a bit before releasing it. "If you keep saying things like that I'll never get to the library," I said against his mouth.

"That's the plan," he said huskily. He brought the tip of his tongue out and ran it along my upper lip, making me squirm. It was like all the nerve endings in my entire body were hyper sensitive and hyper aware of everything he was doing to me. I couldn't take it as his hand slipped down and gripped my hip, his lips open and just brushing against mine. "You're trembling," he whispered.

"Just kiss me," I said because I didn't want to think anymore.

It was another two hours before I was able to make it to the library.

It was late afternoon, and my hair was still damp from the shower Malfoy and I had taken together right before I left. My whole body was still on fire with the memory.

I didn't have any clean clothes at Malfoys, so he had shrunk of pair of his sweatpants and given me a gray v-neck t-shirt to wear. I asked him for a pair of his boxers, but he had just grinned and stepped close to me while I was standing at his wardrobe so he could whisper in my ear.

"I'd rather picture you without them."

I had shivered so violently from the words and his breath in my ear that I had almost ripped the clothes off and pushed him back into his bed. But I'd resisted by sheer force of will. He had only been in a pair of boxer briefs, lounging on his bed when I'd left. And when he asked me to come back when I was finished, I obviously had no choice but to say yes.

It took me twenty minutes of twirling a quill absently in my fingers and staring at a spot on the table my things were spread out on before I was finally able to concentrate on doing some work and stop thinking about Malfoy. It was next to fucking impossible, but I knew my work situation was pretty desperate. And as much as I knew that Malfoy was sleeping with me and he was also my teacher, I still wanted to do my best work for him.

I finished my Transfiguration and Charms assignments and banged out about three-quarters of my Potions essay when I decided I'd done enough work. It was crazy the amount I could do in such a short time when Malfoy was my motivation.

My doubts were still there. I was still terrified about my feelings for Malfoy, and there was still that niggling thought at the back of my mind that this was all going to end badly for me, making me even worse off than I had been after Hadley, but for now, I wasn't going to worry about it. For now, I was just going to go cuddle with Malfoy and let him kiss me so senseless that I forgot all my worries.

It was dark when I left the library, so I lit the tip of my wand and walked quickly down to the dungeons. The anticipation of seeing Malfoy was seeping into my veins, making adrenaline shoot through me.

Why had I ever doubted anything?

I made it to the dungeons in record time. Instead of going through the Potions classroom, I walked up to where I knew Malfoy's door was and I pressed my palm to it. He had charmed the wall to recognize my touch yesterday after I'd gone to Quidditch practice so that I could come back without going through the classroom.

The wall opened at my touch, and I walked into Malfoy's quarters but he was nowhere to be found. I had thought he would be laying against the headboard of his bed, his legs stretched and crossed in front of him while he read a book or something, waiting for me. Or I hoped that. I walked toward his sitting area, but he wasn't there either. I checked the bathroom right before I walked through the door to his office.

There he was, in all his beautiful blonde glory, a crease in between his eyebrows and a quill in his hand. He wasn't in his robes, but he was wearing jeans and a button down. When I walked in, he looked up at me. I saw a startled look pass across his features before coldness settled there. I frowned.

"Hey."

"Hey," he said before looking back down at what he was doing.

I was terribly, terribly confused. When I had left he had kissed me goodbye, rubbing his nose against mine and saying he couldn't wait until I got back. He'd send warm tingles all over my body with that goodbye. And now it was like the last couple days had never happened.

"What's—"

"Look, I'm really busy," he said shortly.

"Oh," was all I could manage to say.

"I've got a lot on my plate, Rose, I don't have time for this."

He sounded like a stern parent telling his child that he didn't have the time to play catch outside because he was just trying to make a living for the family. Or something. I was hurt, but the hurt was masked by the extreme confusion.

"Don't have time for what?"

He looked at me. I thought I saw something pass over his features but I couldn't recognize it. "You," he said. He jerked his head toward me. "This."

"I don't know what—"

"I'm busy," he snapped again.

And then it hit me. This was what had always been my biggest fear with Hadley. He had suggested about a month into our relationship that we should have sex. I had a good excuse because I had only been fifteen at the time, but my biggest fear was that thing that happened in movies and on television and even to some people I knew—that as soon as a girl slept with a guy, he lost interest. I had adored Hadley at that time, and the idea of him not liking me anymore had been unbearable. So I kept putting it off. I put it off until he couldn't take it anymore and then he stuck it in something else.

Suddenly, I was horrified—my biggest fear was steadily becoming a reality.

"Is this really happening?" I said, mostly to myself.

He looked up at me with a frown but didn't say anything.

"Are you seriously…" I laughed a short, humorless laugh. "Wow." He looked at me like he didn't understand, which just made me angrier. "You took my fucking virginity," I hissed at him. "You fucked me on this fucking desk"—I slapped it—"and now you're just tossing me aside like I'm nothing." He opened his mouth. "Don't bother to justify yourself!" I said loudly. "I can't believe this is happening to me." I turned to go but then thought better of it. "You're a dick, you know that? You—" I was cut off when I turned back around. He was right there. And he grabbed my shoulders and looked at me for a long moment before pressing his mouth to mine in a hard kiss.

I shoved him off.

"Don't fucking kiss me!" I shouted. "DON'T TOUCH ME." I felt tears sting my eyes and I wiped my eyes angrily. "You got what you wanted! You—you fucking got what you came for, and now—now you're just, what, over me?"

"It's not—that's not what this is about."

"Oh?" I said with another laugh. "What a fucking RELIEF!"

"Rose—"

"I trusted you, you bastard!" I shoved at him again, but he hardly moved. Why did he have to be so fucking solid? "I gave you—I gave you fucking everything! I—" A choked sob came out of my throat, and I tried to shove him again, but he grabbed my wrists.

"Stop it," he said quietly.

"FUCK YOU!" I screamed in his face. "I'm not going to let you just toss me aside! I'm better than that! I'm—"

"Rose, goddammit." Scorpius grabbed my shoulders and shook them. "McGonagall came to see me."

"I DON'T CARE—"

"Stop," he growled. I breathed in sharply, and he looked at me for a hard moment. Then he spoke in a low voice. "She got a letter from somebody saying that I was sleeping with a student."

Fear gripped my heart.

"What?"

He pushed me away and turned away, running a hand through his hair. "Shit," he said. "I don't know how this could have happened."

I did. I knew exactly how it could have happened.

"So, I think we have to cool it," he was saying. There was a roaring in my ears. I thought I might faint. "I just don't want to get too reckless." He turned back to me. "I mean, obviously I care about you. You're… God…" His eyes slid over me and heat pooled in my stomach. "But I love this job, and you could get expelled, so—"

"I sent it."

"We just…" He looked stunned and confused. "What?"

I blinked slowly and took a deep breath, steeling myself. "I sent the letter to McGonagall."

He took an angry step forward. "Rose, why the hell would you do that!"

"I did it—I—it was before everything—before us—I don't know—"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

I took a step back, afraid of the anger I saw on his face an in his eyes.

"I was mad at you," I said. My voice sounded so small. "It was after the concert. I… I was mad that you gave me detention."

"I fucking let you go!"

"You let me go after you felt—fucking—guilty about what you did! You knew I didn't put that fucking telescope in your desk—"

"ROSE!" He roared.

"I was mad!"

"You're going to make me lose my fucking job for a fucking detention!"

"That was a once in a lifetime opportunity that you took from me!"

"Are you INSANE?"

"I—"

"You came back," he said loudly. "After that concert, you came back like everything was okay—"

"Yeah and you fucking rejected me!"

His face fell. "Is that…" He took a step forward. "Is that what it was about?"

I shrugged and turned away angrily. "I don't know!"

He grabbed my elbow and turned me back.

"Someone hurts you and this is how you respond?" He gave me a moment to respond but I didn't say anything. "By, what, trying to ruin someone's life?"

I yanked my elbow out of his grasp and turned around, crossing my arms over my chest. "I don't like getting hurt."

"This isn't the way a normal person responds to getting hurt, Rose!"

"Who are you to tell me what's normal?" I yelled, turning around. "You've been fucking one of your students all weekend—"

"Stop." His jaw clenched angrily and I promptly closed my mouth. "I think you should go." He turned.

"Scorpius—" I tried to reach out for him but he shoved my hand away. "Scorpius, please."

His head was bent and his back to me when he spoke. He shrugged helplessly. "If this is the kind of person you are…"

"It's not, Scorpius, I'm sorry—I don't know what—"

"Go, Rose," he said. His voice was so quiet I almost hadn't heard him.

I felt the tears falling down my cheeks. I couldn't go. I couldn't leave now, not with him hating me like this and thinking I was this awful person. I made a mistake, but surely he could forgive me, right? He'd said he cared about me.

"Scorpius—"

"I said go!" he shouted.

And without another word, I turned and fled.

Next chapter:

Rose can't quite make amends with Scorpius yet, but she can make amends with someone else...