AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Another revised chapter (rev. 2.0). Added ~1.5K worth of story & fleshed out existing text.

Thank you once more to the fabulous 'Unseenlibrarian' for beta-ing revision 1.0 of this chapter and providing excellent insight into characterizations and plot furtherance! Without her help, I'd have been in a rut with this one. :)

CHAPTER 9A: 2ND SECOND CHANCE

Wednesday, July 9th, 2031 (late-morning)

Rose paused with her hand raised to rap on Eleri's door, and shored up her courage. This visit was necessary. Confronting her friend on her affair with Scorpius was important, if for no other reason than to address the issue of El's betrayal.

The two women had been good friends from the very start of their Hogwarts adventures. They'd shared first year Potions class together; Eleri had generously offered to divide up her ingredients when Rose had accidentally taken one less rat tail than required. They'd both flunked the lesson, as they'd halved the tail, thus making both of their potions inert, but it had cemented their friendship. From that point forward, they'd hung out, studied together, crossing House lines to sit with each other at meals and in the library and in the classroom. In many ways, Rose considered El a sister.

But was such a close connection enough for them to work through the issue of Scorpius coming between them?

Sighing, she considered the problem in a very rational and logical manner, as her Ravenclaw brain was wont to do when faced with an issue of such great magnitude…

On the one hand, did she feel sympathy for her friend, who was clearly torn up by the fact that Rose was going to end up mated to the man she loved? Yes. If the situation were reversed, Rose thought she might be devastated by it. She wasn't sure she'd be able to watch her guy marry her best friend. It would kill something inside of her.

On the other hand, did she accept that Eleri had gone behind her back to not only sleep with her Veela mate (fully accepted or not), but to also snitch on her to Malfoy? No. That was a betrayal of trust that ran deep. Some things, no matter the reason, were not so easily forgiven and needed to be addressed.

Rose kept that reminder at the forefront of her thoughts as she brought her fist down and knocked three times. Nervously, she straightened her clothing, waiting.

After several minutes and no answer, she knocked again.

The light through the peephole was blocked for an instant, then she heard the door's lock turn, and the portal opened…

"Oh, my God! Eleri, what have you done?"

Her best friend looked an absolute fright. Her usually immaculate hair–that long, beautiful, raven-soft curtain that had been the woman's pride and joy since they'd been teens–had been hacked up by haphazard scissoring. It was now as page-boy short as it had been at the start of their second year at school. Actually, 'butchered' seemed a more apt description for it now.

That wasn't the half of it, though. Eleri's unusual, violet-coloured eyes, normally glowing with life, were now dull, red-rimmed, and dark-circled from an obvious combination of sorrow and sleeplessness. Her cheeks were pale, her lips swollen and red as if they'd been bitten, and her expression was haggard and pinched. And her clothing… She wore too-big, raggedy, stained clothing – something she only wore while painting one of her famous masterpieces.

Rose took in the sum-total picture of what her friend had become in just the days since they'd last seen each other, and her heart dropped out of her. Eleri looked to be in the deepest mourning of her life – looked zombie-like, only half-alive. Resigned. Rose had never seen her like this, not even when Eleri's mother had abandoned her and her father.

"El, what have you done?" she asked, tears wavering before her eyes, her voice catching.

Hesitantly, she moved into the flat, forcing her friend to step back and let her in.

If she'd been surprised before, it was nothing to what she felt when she took in the state of Eleri's apartment. It looked like the storm of the century had blown through. Furniture was overturned, books scattered over every surface, El's hand-made sculptures and paintings were broken, and shards of glass decorated the hardwood floor. Trails of blood and shorn hair made a path from where Rose knew the loo to be to the front door. Her eyes followed the trail to Eleri's feet.

"Merlin!" she cried out, noting the pooling blood. "You're… Eleri… you…" She shook her head. "This is too much."

With a wave of her wand and a serious mental push of her magic, she required the room to repair itself. Furniture turned upright, glass reassembled, books returned to their homes on shelves, and all of that beautiful art was restored to its original glory. With another wave, she cleaned up the blood and hair, Scourgify-ing the stains from the large rug in the middle of the living area and from the floor. Pushing her friend against the door, closing it at the same time, she bent and lifted one foot after the other, healing the wounds made by walking over the shattered glass. She then bandaged them.

When she was done, she looked up into her best girlfriend's face. This is what real heartbreak looks like, she thought, dread pitting her stomach. She'd thought her sorrow over losing the life she might have had with Corwin had been great, but this level of suffering was nothing she'd ever personally experienced before.

She pulled her friend into a hug. "It's going to be all right," she whispered, closing her eyes and holding on. "We promised as children, remember? No man and no House will ever come between us. I still love you. We can talk about this, can't we?"

Eleri's body began shaking, and then she was clinging to Rose and wailing against her shoulder.

X~~~~~X

It took a while for the initial storm of emotion to break, and by then, Rose had her own tears to wipe away.

"You've made quite a mess of things," she gently chided her friend, running fingertips over Eleri's shorn hair. "We'll fix it."

There was a double-meaning there, and when she met her friend's gaze, she knew the other witch understood.

Rose took Eleri's hand and led her to a bar stool that stood by the island in the middle of the kitchen–slash–living area of the open flat. She directed her friend to take a seat, and then marched into the adjoining bathroom to find a pair of scissors, a towel, and a comb. Thank the Founders Hugo had always insisted that Rose go back over the haircuts her mum would give him when they'd been children, as it had taught her how to fix a messy, ugly cut right up.

As she came back to El's side, she draped the towel over her friend's shoulders. She then strode into the kitchen to fill a pot with water and dipped the comb. Bringing it back to her impromptu barber chair, she wet Eleri's hair and began cutting. "Pixie cuts are all the rage now," she tried to downplay the disaster. "You're lucky that with the shape of your face and that cute nose, you can get away with it. I would look a fright with one."

The clipping sound of the scissors was loud as she fell into silence to concentrate on her task. Eleri just sat there, unmoving, like she didn't care what became of her or her hair.

"This reminds me of second year, after mum left us and went back to Greece to be with her relatives. I hacked my hair then, too. Remember?"

The emotion in the room was so fragile, so Rose tiptoed around it as best she could. She spoke softly, gently. "I remember."

"It's just the same," Eleri whispered. "It hurts just as much."

When Rose came around the chair, she surveyed the damage to Eleri's bangs. Internally, she winced. "I think we should flip your part to the right side to make the front appear even." She demonstrated by combing the bangs in the direction she wanted them to go and nodded. "That looks good."

As she raised the scissors to trim up some hair around El's ear, her friend finally turned those amazing amethyst eyes on her.

"You're angry with me."

Rose paused mid-clip. There was no sense in lying, was there?

"Yes."

Eleri nodded, accepting the censure. "I'm sorry." She began crying again, and her sobs wracked her thin, bird-like frame. "I'm sorry for being a selfish, disloyal Slytherin bitch, and for how that's hurt you."

Lowering the scissors and the comb, Rose met her friend's gaze. "You love Scorpius, don't you?"

Her best friend's dark head dipped up and down. "From the beginning, I knew I wanted him to be mine. Something inside me… came awake that day on the train platform when we were all going off to Hogwarts for the first time." Her eyes glazed over as she turned inward to that day, recalling events that were mostly a blur for Rose now, but apparently had been important to her best friend. "We were all being herded onto the train as the conductor blew the last-call whistle. Packed in like sardines, jammed together and shuffling forward to get on board quickly, it was all terribly suffocating. I waited for my turn to get onto the train, not wanting to make a scene, though. Mother always lectured me that it wouldn't do to be so emotionally volatile in public, even though she had the most explosive temper of anyone I knew."

Eleri's lips twisted with bitterness, but her cynicism lasted only a second before burning out. Her friend was excellent at compartmentalising emotions, so when she returned to her tale a moment later, her feelings for her absentee mother had been neatly folded and put far, far away into the back of Eleri's heart… again.

Rose felt sorry for the woman, knowing how awful it was to constantly shunt aside pain. She'd done it herself all through her teenage years, between Scorpius' continual taunting and her parent's marriage so obviously going into the toilet.

But this moment wasn't about her. It was about Eleri, and Rose had vowed before coming over here that she would stop making everything about herself. It was time to truly observe and listen, so she could learn to be a better friend. "Was that how you met Scorpius?" she asked, prompting her friend to continue her story. "You were getting on the train together?"

"In a manner of speaking," El confirmed. "You'd already boarded the train with James and Albus. I was on the edge of the pile-up, my face shoved against Corwin McLaggen's back. The twins and Alicia were right behind me, pressing into me. I didn't know any of you then, of course. Someone, I think it was Teddy Lupin trying to catch up to your cousin, James, rushed forward to cut the line, and they shoved the entire swarm of us aside. I was so much smaller than everyone else, built like an eight-year-old rather than eleven, so when the ripple of bodies shifted quite suddenly, I was pushed away from the group and almost slipped off the platform and onto the tracks below. Scorpius was suddenly just… there. He'd been smart enough to be on the outside of the pack to avoid being squished, and he reached out with a quick snatch and caught me before I could go over the edge. He helped me get my feet back under me, and then grabbed my hand and escorted me onto the train. I was shaky, but I felt safe with him. It was because people took one look at that trademark Malfoy head of his and moved aside. He intimidated people even then just by virtue of his family's reputation and that helped me to be less frightened."

Her nostalgia, which had burned so brightly a moment before, now left Eleri sad. "He left me, though, once he found me a compartment and bullied Malcolm Macmillan into giving up his seat for me. I'd wanted him to stay, but he said he had to catch up to someone else and promised to see me later. He was following after you, although I didn't know it at the time. Even then, he was like some lovesick puppy where you were concerned, Rose." Her smile returned briefly, gentle with memory. "Regardless, I never forgot his kindness that day. I've always told him I think the Sorting Hat did him a great disservice when it assigned him to my House. He should have been a Hufflepuff, like his mother." She trained her astute, violet gaze on Rose. "I think you would have been more receptive to a friendship with him had he been a Badger, rather than a Snake. Your acceptance, Rose… that's all he's ever craved."

Rose's hands began shaking. God, her friend spoke of Scorpius like he'd been some kind of dark hero, worthy of worship and high praise. She really was completely smitten. How had she, Rose, never noticed something as important as that in all the years since she and Eleri had first met? Had she truly been that wrapped up in her own life?

"When did you know you were in love with him?"

She had almost backed out of asking such a personal thing, but she and Eleri were clearing the air, so it might be best to know everything, no matter how painful the revelation. Get it all out at once. Leave no stone un-turned. Put all the cards on the table. Behave like a Gryffindor, like most of the rest of her extended family. That way, Rose could never say she hadn't been told the facts.

Her companion took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "That's harder to pinpoint."

"Summarize your relationship for me so I can understand the history, at least. That'll give me a good framework. But… wait until I'm done with the haircut."

That way, Rose wouldn't accidentally snip off something vital when Eleri revealed something shocking.

"Okay," her friend agreed.

It took another half-hour's concentrated work, but Rose tidied up Eleri's new hairstyle. Given what she'd had to start with, she thought it had come out quite well. The new style made her friend look chic, like some haute couteur runway model. She ran to the loo and grabbed a cosmetic hand-mirror, showing off the change with a "ta-da!"

Eleri reached up and touched the side of her head. Her lower lip trembled at first, as if she'd just then realised what a terrible disaster she'd made of herself, but a moment later she sniffed back the threatening tears, raised her chin and nodded. "I like it. It's much lighter this way. I look…"

"French," Rose supplied with a grin. "Now all you have to do is pick-up social smoking and eat a single leaf of lettuce every day, and you'll have the fashion down pat."

Her friend's lips twitched as she fought off a smirk. She grew almost immediately somber again. "Ten years. Scorpius and I have been together for ten years, off and on. He was my first lover, my only until… until just before we graduated from Hogwarts." Her cheeks pinked with a private memory, and Rose wondered who the other man was that had charmed her friend during the last days of their schooling. "I slept with others after that to try to let him go, but Scor has a way of charming a girl. I could never say 'no' to him."

Rose blushed. She understood the man's charisma all too well, and had fallen for it more than a few times already.

"No matter whether I was in a relationship with someone else or not, whenever he came around, my door opened to him," Eleri continued. "Each time he showed up on my stoop, I hoped that Scor would come right out and tell me that I was 'The One' for him. But… that never happened. And then when he confessed to me that he was a Veela and you were his mate-" She bit her bottom lip and sniffled again. "I tried to play it cool, offered him advice on how to win you… and a deal to continue seeing me until he'd won your compliance. I made it seem that I was only into him for the sex." Her lips twisted with lemon tartness, and her eyes modeled dreadful resentment like it was going out of fashion. "It was the performance of my life. But I couldn't keep it up. Each time we met, it got harder and harder to fake the façade. He talked about you incessantly when we were together, and I knew–"

Her angry, hurricane-like momentum abruptly collapsed, and her sigh became one of final resignation. "I knew. He's always loved you, Rose. From day one, he'd made that clear; leaving me behind to go find you that day on the train sort-of set the tone of our bizarre love triangle, if you think about it. Then, all through school, he could never take his eyes off you, and he could never stop provoking your temper with his juvenile attempts to get your interest. He was always after you. You were his obsession. I thought that's all there was to it, though – just a hormonal teenage boy's lust. I was wrong, though. It was always going to be you for him. I just never wanted to believe that there wasn't a chance that I could somehow fit in his heart, too." She shook her head slowly. "Yesterday, he shattered that last hope, too. He came here to tell me that we were really through, that he was going to court only you and claim you his mate. He'd made his choice, and it wasn't me."

Eleri's gaze returned to the mirror. She touched her shortened hair again, running fingers through it to familiarize herself with the tactile sensation. "Thank you," she whispered, and shut her eyes. "Thank you for saving me from myself."

Placing the mirror on the countertop of the island, Rose reached out and grabbed her friend's hand. "I recall a certain night in fourth year when you snuck into the Hospital Wing to stay with me after my very first Quidditch match. I was on the verge of quitting after having had both of my legs broken and my jaw dislocated by Gryffindor's beater that afternoon. Remember that?" Eleri nodded and huffed out a sad laugh. "You talked me down, El. If not for that, I wouldn't be playing for the Harpies today. And then there was a certain incident in seventh year involving alcohol and Malfoy. I can't remember it, but you kept my secret so I wouldn't be embarrassed by it. You saved me from myself both times. It's what friends do for each other."

"How can you still call me that, after what I've done?" her companion cried, pulling her hand away and putting it and its mate up over her eyes to hide them away in shame. "I betrayed you. I cheated with your fiancé-"

Rose took a step back, shocked at that thought. "Wha-? No, no. Scor is not my fiancé!"

Eleri wiped at her tear-filled eyes. "He's your Veela mate. You have to marry him by law. You're the bride, he's your groom. 'Til death do you part."

The truth of El's words made Rose's stomach drop into her shoes. Rowena's Bane, she was affianced, wasn't she? Oh Merlin…

"I deceived you. I was disloyal," the other witch continued. "I'm so sorry, Rose. So, so sorry!" She burst into another round of tears. "My only excuse… no, it's not even that, it's just an explanation: I've loved him from the first time he held my hand. I love him until I want to die from these feelings." She hopped off the stool and backed up until she pressed into the opposite wall. "And you said you didn't want him, and that you were going to try to find a way to break the mating. I thought that maybe I could still have a little bit more of him… just until you finally accepted the truth. I was never going to let it go further than that, no matter what was offered. It was totally selfish, I know. I know how horrible I am, but… God…" she clutched the area over her heart and slid to the floor, sobbing. "I love him! Why didn't he pick me for his mate? Why didn't he want me after everything we've shared? What's wrong with me?"

Listening to the pain in her friend's voice broke Rose's heart. She literally cried for Eleri's suffering.

"I'm sorry too, El," she admitted around a choked sob and knelt at her friend's feet. "Sorry that I took this from you without ever meaning to. Sorry that I never noticed your feelings for him. Sorry that you're hurting." Rose reached out and took Eleri's hands in hers. "I feel so awful. You're one of my best friends, and yet I didn't even see this coming. How could I have missed something this important for ten long years?" She shook her head. "I know how: I was too wrapped up in my own life to notice. Too caught up in the pathetic adventure of Miss Rose Eleanor Weasley, that's how." She bent forward and touched Eleri's forehead with her own. "I'm so sorry for all of it."

Eleri hugged Rose again and the two women cried over each others' plight and for the hurt they'd done each other.

X~~~~~X

An hour later, they were off the floor at Rose's instigation, and into the magicked freezer, pulling out some of Florean Fortescue's raspberry-strawberry sorbet. Since the man's death during the Second Wizarding War, his nephew had taken over the business and expanded it to include new ice cream and sorbets of every flavour, pastries and cake slices, as well as coffees and teas from all over the world. He'd also adopted the Muggle invention of take-away pints for the frozen treats, which in Rose's opinion, had been a brilliant business decision, as it allowed her and her friends to enjoy such yummy desserts in the comfort of their homes, if they wished.

And every witch worth her hide knew that nothing cured heartache faster than sharing ice cream (or in this case, sorbet, since Eleri was lactose intolerant).

The two women helped themselves to generous portions of the berry treat and then sat on the sofa and talked about Scorpius. They shared secrets, and Eleri offered her advice on how to best go about the whole mating game. Some hard truths had come out in-between, too.

"So, you do care for him?"

Rose felt skewered on Eleri's knowing gaze. She took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm beginning to… more than care for him, I think. I'm actually beginning to like him and his Veela, even trust them both a little."

Eleri snorted around a spoonful of dark berry-flavoured ice. "Sounds like more than a little to me. You said you let him go down on you and you wanked him. Rose, you're a prude by nature, so there's no way you would have done such a thing if you didn't trust him more than a little bit."

Caught in the web of truth, Rose sighed. "It's just lust, though."

Her friend's indigo-lavender eyes stared straight into her soul. "Is it? You were obsessed with each other in school. Ever wonder why that was?"

Rose bit her bottom lip.

"I'll tell you why," El continued on, pointing her spoon at her. "Because he's devilishly smart, sinfully handsome, is generally likeable, a bit sneaky, and doesn't let you bowl him over without paying for it. He gives you as good as he gets from you, and he never backs down from a challenge. You respect him for that part, especially. He's your equal in every way, Rose." She dipped into her pudding again, blushing once more. "Unlike Corwin, who's certainly handsome, rather well-to-do, but is too gallant when it comes to women, and seems gullible and easily manipulated. That combination of traits wouldn't appeal to someone like you, who needs constant intellectual stimulation, likes to fight, and doesn't care much about money."

"But Cor's candy to an ambitious Slytherin who has a thing for gorgeous, naïve blonds just waiting to be properly trained, right?" Rose joked.

Eleri's cheeks burned red hot. "Right up Holly or Shannon's alley, then."

Rose considered her friend's words as she shoveled another spoonful of her own dessert into her mouth.

"But we weren't talking about McLaggen," Eleri stated, corralling the conversation back into line. "We were talking about Scor… whose cock should honestly be considered the eighth modern wonder of the world."

Berry-flavoured sorbet spewed from Rose's mouth to spray the arm of the sofa. Using her napkin to clean up, Rose continued coughing, even as her friend kept talking, pretending she hadn't just shocked the ever-loving-shite out of her.

"Did you know he knows how to fuck better than any guy I've ever been with? He's a master at foreplay, and he does this thing with his hips as he enters you–"

"Okay, I get the picture," Rose choked, her face flaming red. "Unfortunately, I really do."

And she did. She'd been envisioning sex with Scorpius since she woke up that morning. In fact, she'd gotten herself off in her bed to thoughts of him. It had been the first real-life orgasm she'd experienced in almost a week, and it had left her thoroughly sated and floating on air. She'd even hummed in the shower afterwards as she'd washed up.

"The point is," Eleri relentlessly continued, "you're obviously sexually compatible without the Veela thing going on, from how you tell it. And because he's your mate, you know he won't ever physically hurt you. That's a good basis for a start. All you have to concern yourself with is–"

"–being emotionally crushed by him once the initial mating is over and the Veela part is satisfied, leaving the man to cat around as he pleases," she interrupted her friend. "If he were to cheat on me… if I caught him in bed with another woman… The truth is, I'm afraid to end up like Daneetzah."

Eleri gave her a curious look. "Who?"

Rose imparted the story that Scor had told her of the female Veela who had damned the entire Malfoy line because her mate had abused her so terribly. Her friend was silent the whole time, listening and learning, cataloguing the facts and turning them over in her mind. When Rose finished, El shook her head.

"Different thing entirely, Rose," her companion debated. "Daneetzah was the Veela in that story. It was her mate who had all the power, despite her claim. He was the one who hurt her, not the other way around."

That thought stopped Rose cold.

"That… that's true, isn't it?" she murmured in dawning understanding. "It was the mate who held all the cards in their relationship. Theodosis was able to resist the Veela's draw by the power of his magical will."

Eleri shook her head. "Rose, I don't think that's a good idea to try. You and Scor, you were meant to be together from the start. Even Ihave to admit it. You're soul mates, if such a thing even exists."

"Then why was he with you for all these years?" Rose argued. "If I was meant to be his all along, we would have gotten together much earlier than this, don't you think?"

"But you were together before now!" Eleri disputed. "In seventh year - don't you remember? You shagged him that night you were drunk on Zabini's Firewhisky."

Rose felt the pit of her stomach drop out. "We… no, we didn't shag then. We snogged…pretty heavily, actually, but there was no actual penetration except with fingers. You said so yourself."

Her friend put a hand over her eyes and shook her head. "Obviously, I lied, Rose. To protect you. I kept your secret from everyone, even Alicia and the other girls, because I knew it would embarrass you worse than what they'd already known, but… it's true. You shagged Scor. The two of you were down in the dungeon, and I guess all that pent-up angst over the years had finally exploded."

Rose was sceptical, regardless of the source. "And you saw this, for yourself?"

Nodding, Eleri dropped her hand into her lap. She toyed around with her melting sorbet with the other hand, swirling it in circles with her spoon. "I saw it all. I was hiding around the corner in the dungeon, having followed you down from the party. I was insanely jealous that Scor had finally gotten up the nerve to make his move on you," she admitted. "It was like a tragedy playing out in front of my eyes, but I couldn't look away. You were kissing, very hot and heavy, and you started groping each other. A few minutes into it, he went down on you. He had your skirt over his head as he went between your thighs. Not long after, you two said something to each other, and then he stood up, undid his belt and trousers, lifted you off the floor, and took your virginity right there, against the wall."

She narrowed her eyes, seeming to consider some important detail. "In retrospect, he was clumsy at it, moved too fast, too hard. He was clearly desperate to be with you like that, and you were definitely on-board the whole time. It wasn't rape."

"Oh, my God," Rose whispered, astounded by what she was hearing. She'd let Scorpius Malfoy fuck away her virginity – like that?! And she had no memory of it?

"When I heard him shout out that he loved you as he came, well, that's when I hurried away," Eleri said. "It was too painful to listen to anymore." She sniffed and shoveled a bit of melted sorbet into her mouth. After quickly swallowing it, she followed up with, "Macmillan saw me running up from the dungeons and caught me in the Entrance Hall, demanding to know why I was crying. I refused to tell him, and ran past him up to–" Her eyes went glassy again and her cheeks rouged, as if what came next was a memory she was embarrassed to confess. She bit her plump, bottom lip rather hard.

Rose was ruthless in her need to know, however, and Eleri owed her this much, she thought. "Where did you go after?" She needed to know if something more traumatic had happened that night, which would account for the blank spot in her mind far better than a drunken blackout.

"I went to the Room of Requirement to… to think for a while. I stayed there… all night," Eleri explained. Her blush spread down her throat, though, and her eyelids fluttered. She swallowed heavily, as if the memories of that night haunted her for some reason.

Rose put a steadying hand on her friend's shoulder. "El?"

With a shaky smile, she gave Rose an apologetic nod. "In any case, I think that's why Macmillan ended up in the dungeon that night. He must have gone down to find out what had upset me, and caught you and Scor gearing up for round-two."

Rose's mind was a cacophony of buzzing noise and her heart raced under her ribs. "I don't remember any of that. Not a single moment of it. Why didn't you tell me?"

Eleri sighed. "I already said. Because once Alicia, Lucy, Shannon and Holly approached me and told me that Macmillan knew all about your little tryst, but that you seemed to have no memory of the event, we all made a pact never to tell you. We didn't want you to be any more humiliated by something that had the potential to really hurt you." She fiddled with the spoon in her hand. "The others seemed to know only what Marshall had told them of the situation: that he had caught you and Scor mutually masturbating, but I knew how far you'd really gone before he'd ever arrived on the scene to break you two up that night. I kept my mouth closed to protect you. I've never told a soul… until now."

Touching her forehead, Rose tried in vain to remember, but a wall existed in her memories from that night. She didn't even remember the party or drinking Zabini's contraband alcohol. It was as if that entire night was a complete blank spot in her head – like the memory had been…

"Son of a bitch, he Obliviate'd me, didn't he?" she whispered, horrified.

Eleri gently gripped Rose's arm. "Don't make assumptions."

Rose shook her head. "Then why don't I remember any of that night? I don't remember attending the party, or drinking, or going with him into the dungeons, much less fucking him. I don't remember how I got back to my dorm room, or falling asleep that night. All I remember was waking up the next morning in bed. I was in my pyjamas and felt like I'd slept well. No hangover. I should have been hurting all over the next day if I'd consumed so much alcohol and had my cherry popped, right? So why wasn't I? I never got pregnant either, but it sounded like from your description neither of us cast any kind of a Contraceptive Charm that night. And I bled the first time I had sex – at eighteen. I told you about it, remember? How could I have lost my virginity to Scorpius the year before, when I clearly still had an in-tact hymen?"

Her friend's dark head shook back and forth. "I admit, the facts don't add up. Maybe you took a hangover and a pain potion the night before, when you got back to the dorms. Maybe you magicked your hymen back into place – Holly and Shannon swear it can be done, and if anyone's tried it, it would have been them. Maybe they told you how to do it and you did. As for losing those memories, you could easily have Obliviate'd yourself once you got back to your room because you were embarrassed by the whole thing, or pulled the memories out of your head and put them in a vial somewhere for safe keeping. Anything is possible. Don't accuse Scor until you've at least heard his side of things."

"And how am I supposed to do that? Walk up to him and ask?" Rose demanded, angry and exasperated. If that slick bastard had fucked her as Eleri had said, she'd kill him!

Eleri tilted her head a bit. "Maybe that's exactly what you should do – only, not so accusatory."

Rose made her feet and stalked into El's kitchen, washing up her dish and spoon, letting her mind wander over scenarios to determine a solid course of action. "I think you're right," she finally concluded, turning off the water and looking up at her friend, who walked into the kitchen, her posture cautious and her expression carefully neutral. "I think it's time Scor and I had a true heart-to-heart and aired everything – from first year to now. I want the truth, and if he's hiding it from me…"

"Maybe he forgot, too?" Eleri offered. "Give him the benefit of the doubt either way, Rose."

Rose took a deep breath and let it out nice and slow, letting the storm of her emotions pass over her and regaining her calm center. "Right, I'll just see him tonight in the dreams, most likely. We'll chat then."

Eleri gave her a small smile. "A month ago, you'd have blown your fuse and marched off to find Malfoy, hexing him six ways from Sunday before he could open his mouth. This new you… I like her. She's definitely more Slytherin."

Squaring her shoulders, Rose gave her friend a wry smirk. "It seems we've both turned a corner today."

Her companion nodded. "Looks like. Question is: where do we go from here?"

Reaching out, Rose took El's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm not sure, but as long as we stick together, we'll make it."

Her friend laced their fingers together and nodded. "Thank you for giving me a second chance."

Rose shook her head. "You, too."

"Do me a favour," El pressed, "and try to be this forgiving if Scor turns out to disappoint you, too. I'm absolutely positive that he's mad for you. If he did Obliviate you, he has to have had a good reason."

Rose's smile dropped. The hand of sadness reached out and gripped her heart, giving it a good squeeze. "Do you really think so?"

Because, truly, how could Malfoy say he loved her if he was willing to steal away pieces of her very soul?

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note:

Please review!