Amortentia

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A Scorose Fanfiction by Goldensnitch18

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Rated M for Scenes of a Sexual Nature & Language

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Summary: In their sixth year, rivals Rose and Scorpius

have a moment of terrifying clarity when they

both inhale the sweet smell of Amortentia.

One year later, Rose is finally single and Scorpius is

determined to snog the crazy out of her.

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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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Beta Magic: Many thanks to harpersbizarre and dragonjess

for their time and work on this story.

Chapter Seventeen

His mother was the first one to notice he had returned. The size of the gathering had diminished in his absence, and she saw him walk into the room, the grimace he had inherited from his father on his lips. She had put her hand on Draco's elbow and leaned in to whisper, "Scorpius," softly into his ear. Her husband had looked up at the doorway and stiffened. Unlike her, he clearly hadn't expect to see his son again that day. She had known Scorpius would be back. The boy she had raised was turning into quite the man.

Astoria moved away from Draco and towards her son. He watched her approach, his grimace shifting into a scowl. "Mother," he said shortly when she was next to him.

"Darling." She leaned in, placing her arm under his, looping them together. He kissed her cheek coldly. He hadn't forgiven her part in all of this. Her part of keeping secrets, his and his father's. "So good of you to come back."

"You knew I would be back," he told her as they watched Draco cross the room to Lucius' chair. His grandfather was staring at the window with glossy eyes.

"Yes, well, still good of you. How is Rose?" She felt him stiffen in her arm, and she nearly smiled. He was so protective of her, this girl that had completely enraptured him.

"Quite upset still." Scorpius kept his eyes on his grandfather as his father placed his hand gently on the older man's shoulder. Lucius looked up at him, his eyes not really seeing, lost. A tremor of grief ran through Scorpius at the sight. They weren't perfect, far from it actually, but his grandparents had loved one another. They loved their son. They loved him. Narcissa had taken so much of Lucius with her that it was hard to imagine the older man ever returning to anything near what he had been before.

"Waiting for you at your flat?" Scorpius turned to his mother, confused for a moment about what she was asking and then nodded.

"Yes." He had hated leaving Rose there alone, but he belonged with his family today. It didn't matter what was happening between them, family came first. He needed to be standing beside them when Narcissa was laid to rest.

"If you had told me things had changed," his mother started, and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Lucius had stood and was walking towards the back door, out towards the garden. Draco was saying his goodbyes to someone Scorpius didn't know.

"Well, I'm sorry you weren't the first owl I sent after Rose and I got together, Mum. Didn't realize Dad's secret relationship was on the line."

"Scor …" She actually shook her head, frowning at him. "Darling, there is no possible way you can understand what that woman means to your father. If he doesn't love her, I would die of shock." She didn't sound bitter or upset, or resentful, more matter of fact.

"You mean…" Scorpius frowned at his mother, trying to understand.

"He was broken. His life was over. His parents were facing criminal charges. She was the first person to show him genuine friendship and affection. In the beginning, our marriage was arranged. He certainly didn't love me then." As she spoke, Astoria led him out of the room and toward the gardens in the back of the house where Lucius had disappeared not long before them.

"So, you think Dad is in love with Rose's mum?" Scorpius knew that he had not been able to veil the disgust in his voice.

"No. I know that your father is in love with me and has been for many years, but I would guess that there was a time when he was in love with her, and, now … Hermione is his best friend."

"His best friend that he never told me about," Scorpius said sourly, holding the door open for her as they walked outside. He didn't want to think about what his dad had gone through so many years ago that made it okay for him to have lied for so long. He didn't want to forgive him right now. Rose was at his flat, probably sobbing into his sheets, and he wanted someone to be mad at.

"Do you think things will get harder for you and Rose now or easier?" His mother asked, shifting the conversation, pulling him along gently.

"I don't …" he stopped talking and frowned, thinking. Rose's father had no idea, and they hadn't really given Hermione or his father the chance to share their feelings. "I suspect … they will be a little harder, at least for awhile."

"A little?" Astoria laughed softly as they walked next to each other on the cobblestone path. "Do you think you will miss those moments you had when no one knew? When it was just you and her and nobody else mattered? My opinion didn't matter? Or your father's? Or the Weasley's?"

Scorpius' frown deepened as he thought about Rose's words in the library. He had known that she was worried. He had known that she didn't want to tell them, and that she wanted them to get to see him as her friend first, but the actual depth of what she had been feeling about her parents finding out about them had been kept from him. She'd said that she had been dreading it. That she had fought against loving him, that she was terrified. "Yes," he admitted. A not-so-small part of him already there, wishing he could hide from all of this with Rose in his bedroom and never come out.

"Then you understand, darling, why your father would want the same thing with this woman, his best friend who would have likely been dragged through the mud for associating with him." Astoria was smiling softly at him when his eyes found hers, and he sighed. He could see the connection, but it wasn't exactly the same. There may have been a reason for Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger to keep their friendship a secret, but now? Now they were both established, both respected, both adults. There was no longer a reason.

"Rose is livid," he informed his mother, as if that was the secret to the universe. A secret she surely had already figured out when she watched his girlfriend run from their house.

"She's hurt," Astoria admitted, "rightly so."

"I don't know if she will be very quick to forgive." Scorpius had been on the other side of that rage. He had seen Rose Weasley in this state so many times before he couldn't possibly count them. He had been the cause of it so many, many times. Seen her cheeks flush, her hair flare out, her hands thrown into the air as she shouted at him. He had thrived on those moments before. Now, it made him sick.

"She will. She loves you and her mother. We all make mistakes. Even she makes mistakes." Astoria stopped walking. They were both standing in the grass now in front of his grandmother's coffin. Scorpius could hear footsteps making their way towards them, and he could see his grandfather in the distance sitting on a bench alone. For the first time that day, Scorpius wondered what in the world they were going to tell the eldest Malfoy once his Calming Draughts had worn off. How was he going to deal with all of this on top of losing his wife, his love, his everything?

"Scorpius." He heard the voice behind him, and he turned to face his father. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to. He knew that Rose was still so damn hurt and that caused a pain to flash through his chest, but after his mother's words … he couldn't be angry. He felt sorry for his father. He felt sorry that he had felt it was necessary to hide his best friend for twenty five years. He himself had hidden Rose for nearly seven months and that had been … excruciating at the end. It was going to be hard now. He wasn't exactly looking forward to meeting Ron Weasley as Rose's boyfriend for the first time, but at the same time, a huge weight was lifted off his chest. He was in love with Rose, and his parents knew. "I'm sorry." His father's eyes pleaded with him as he spoke softly, and Scorpius could see that his tie was slightly off center, and his hair was sticking out in several place from his hand running through it. It was a habit he had picked up from him over the years.

"It's … well … it's not okay, but I understand," Scorpius replied. "I don't … I know I didn't get to talk much back there, but … I just need you to know that I know she's a Weasley, but I love her, and she isn't going anywhere."

"Scorpius, I don't care that she's a Weasley." Draco held his hands up in surrender, his voice earnest. "I just want you to be happy. If I had known, I swear I would have told you. I thought you were just friends."

"We were never just friends," Scorpius admitted.

"How long has this been going on?" His father asked, looking between his wife and his son.

"I kissed her the day after we went back to Hogwarts for seventh year. I wanted to do it for nearly a year before that, and so did she."

"But …" A mask of confusion spread across his parents faces. He knew they were remembering the several owls they had received during his sixth year about the two of them fighting.

"She was still with Rowan Wood until last summer," he explained, and they exchanged a look. He looked back over at his grandfather and heard his dad sigh behind him.

"We should get over there." His dad clapped his shoulder with his hand, and the three of them made their way down to the bench.

XXX

Alice was wandering.

She knew it was meaningless, and she should really just go home, but she didn't want to. Her parents were worried about her. They had been ever since she and Albus had ended things, but she'd never told them what had happened. Almost three months later, Al finally seemed to be returning to some semblance of the person he used to be, and she was just … wandering. Her parents were perfect. They would never really understand what she had done, how stupid she had been. Her father never would have treated her mother the way that James had, and her mother never would have let him.

And, then after that she had tried so hard to fall for Al. To feel something truly right with him, and it just hadn't been. It had been nice. She had felt safe, and loved, and wanted, and she had lied to herself for a very long time, but Al wasn't James. James had made that very clear, very fast the last time that she had seen him. She knew it had been awful. She knew that she was awful, but she had tried so hard to tell Al to leave her alone, and he had just kept being amazing, and she had decided to try and that had been the worst decision of her life. A decision she just couldn't tell her parents about because how would they possibly understand something that she didn't even understand herself.

And, on top of that, she kept remembering those moments with him behind the Burrow, and it was the worst kind of pain. She missed the smell of him, smoke, chocolate, and broom polish. She missed his stupid smirk and the way she felt when he touched her, and every time she remembered the way his voice had sounded when he had finally told her that he loved her, she would feel her chest clench painfully, and a lump formed in her throat.

It was so hard.

It sucked so bad.

And, it was all her fault.

It was her mess.

Hers to live with because there wasn't really any cleaning up at this point.

At some point, probably around the time she had starting thinking about how James had smelled at Christmas, she had stopped in front of the broom polish in Quality Quidditch Supplies. She was biting her bottom lip and staring. She knew which one it was. She had watched him fawn over his broom so many times that she couldn't possibly forget. She considered not grabbing it, not letting herself be tortured with the smell of him on her own broom, but she couldn't resist. She reached out, grabbed the tub, and walked towards the register to pay for it. A few minutes later, she left Quality Quidditch supplies with a small bag and an even worse mood. She was ridiculous. She knew it. She knew that it was miserable, and desperate, and sad to buy a stupid broom polish that reminded her of him, but she did it anyway, and that was worse.

Alice sighed as she walked into Flourish and Blotts. She could always use a book, she supposed, or at least waste time looking at them so that she didn't have to go home. She walked in, and the woman at the desk looked up, gave her a small smile, and then returned to the stack of texts she had been sorting. Alice tried to smile back, but it was probably a grimace. She wasn't good company today. She made her way to the back of the store where she knew she could hide for a while amongst the stacks. She drifted into the section designated for Healing, and ran her fingers softly over the spines.

She had been considering applying to St. Mungo's for awhile now. Her mother was an excellent Healer, and her father had passed down his love for herbology. She was good with potions, and she enjoyed helping people when she wasn't ripping their heart out and destroying it. Plus, Rose, Scorpius, and Albus were all considering careers at the Ministry, so she wouldn't have to see them during the day if she went this route. It wasn't that she didn't still love Rose, but sometimes she felt like she had to pretend to be feeling something she wasn't around her. She didn't want to be too hurt or too okay around her because she knew that Al was the one who had the right to be hurt, and sad, and move on first. Rose was really trying, and she had been a great friend to her the past few months, but it would be nice to have some time away from the people that knew what she had done. It would be nice to have a little space.

"Alice." The word was a whisper, barely a breath. She spun around, pulling her hand back from the shelf, her eyes locked on his in an instant.

"James." She felt her heart thud rapidly in her chest as her mind went empty, and her fingers tingled. He was wearing jeans and a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled. She could see half of the Bulgaria tattoo on his forearm, peaking out under the shirt, reminding her of the past.

"What are you doing here?" He looked over at the books on the shelf, and she followed his gaze.

"Just looking around." She licked her lips and tried to think of something else to say. Nothing came to mind.

"Oh." He seemed to be surprised and shocked into silence as well. Both of them stood there, two feet from each other, staring dumbly.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, realizing that this was a ridiculous place, the last place really, to ever run into James Potter.

"I … uhm …" He looked over at the books again, and then back at her, and then stammered something incoherent.

"What?"

"I needed a book … for … work," he rubbed his hands together uneasily, and she felt her jaw drop.

"What?" she repeated.

"For work, you know, that thing people do to earn money." He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace.

"I know what work is, James. I didn't realize that you were doing it," she snapped in return.

He looked over at the shelf again. "Errr, yes."

"What are you doing?" she asked even though she was pretty sure she had figured it out.

"Eh …" He reached over to the shelf and pick up a book on healing potions, holding it up uneasily.

"You're .. a … wow." She stared at the book and then back at him, her mind racing. James wasn't supposed to have a job. He was a rock star. His band was going to top the charts and all that. He had a two year plan. He wasn't supposed to be training to do the same exact job that she had been considering. So much for that getting away from everyone plan. "How long?"

"Uh, well, I applied after … well I started in December." He looked even more uneasy now.

"That was before we saw each other," she said, as if he didn't know this.

"Yes," he agreed.

"But, you didn't say." It hurt. A lot. He had made a huge choice, and he hadn't told her. She was a non-factor in his life now. He could step in and kiss her, and tell her that he loved her, and ask her to break things off with Al, but he couldn't tell her he'd gotten a real job.

"Well, really only my parents know. They kept asking where I was going all the time."

"Oh. Why … the band?" she asked softly, and he shrugged.

"I realized … our stuff … it … made me look at some things." His voice was wrong. The normal sureness that was usually well past bordering on cocky was gone. Now there was a hesitancy to his words she had never heard before and a reluctance to answer her questions, as if he didn't want her to know what he was doing. Her chest did that painful clenching thing again as she realized he could have moved on. She hadn't seen him in over three months. What if he was … he could be seeing someone.

"Oh." Alice bit her lip, trying not to think what she was thinking. She was imagining him with someone else, some faceless woman who made him laugh, and who he didn't hide in broom closets. Even with this thought eating away at her, she wanted to move forward the two small steps it would take to press her body against his and kiss him. She wanted to feel his arms around her again and taste him. She wanted to forget that she was awful, and she had ruined everything, and he had been a prat, and that he could be with someone else by now, and just be with him. But, she couldn't push away the image of Al's face when he had made her say the words, I love James. "Well … I guess I should go …" she told him, and she quickly turned and walked down the aisle closest to her towards the front door.

"Have a good day, miss," the woman called after her, but she just pushed the door open and moved away from the shop as fast as her feet would carry her.

XXX

It was way past dinner when Scorpius went home that night. He used the Floo, and the moment he arrived his mouth began to water. Rose had clearly been busy. The entire flat smelled like cookies.

He loosened his tie and dropped it into the couch, followed by his robes, and then he walked into the kitchen where he found her still wearing just his undershirt over her knickers. "Merlin," he whispered as he watched her sway to the music coming out of his wireless. She hadn't realized he was home.

When a flick of her wand, she cleaned a bowl and sent it zooming into a cupboard. Scorpius moved over to her, unable to hold back a smile and delighted in the way she jumped as his hands reached to wrap around her waist. "Scorpius," she said after a moment and fell back into him.

"Sorry I'm so late."

"You're right on time." She reached onto the plate in front of her and grabbed a cookie. He leaned into her back, his body responding to the definition of her bum against him. She held the cookie up to his lips, and he bit down, chocolate chips filled his mouth.

He moaned. He couldn't help it. It was the best damn cookie he'd ever had in his life. "Damn," he told her.

"You like?" She spun in his arms, taking a bite herself, smiling. He was so glad that she seemed to be in a much better mood than she had been when he left. He was equally glad that she hadn't seen a reason to put on trousers, and he was pretty damn sure this was the best way to come home ever.

"Move in," he said suddenly, unable to stop the words, and the cookie Rose had been holding slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.

"What?"

"I …" He racked his brain, trying to find something that made this make more sense than he liked coming home to her in his undershirt. "I love you."

"I love you, too, but … that's … I don't …" She stammered, and he backed away, giving her space. She immediately crossed her arms over her chest and backed into the counter.

"We've basically been living together for the past seven months." He knew it wouldn't be exactly the same, but it was the best argument he had.

"Uh, no, actually, we haven't. House-elves make our food, and do our laundry, and we don't share a room, and we don't pay bills and we don't have jobs and we don't have our families breathing down our necks about living together."

"We can figure those things out. It will be fine." He tried to smile reassuringly, but she just stared at him like he was crazy.

"No, I'm sorry, I really am, but I'm not ready for that." She finally uncrossed her arms and reached out for his hand. " I love you, but I want to be on my own for awhile. Al is probably moving in here, and I'm going to live somewhere else with my friends, and we're going to have our own places for at least a little bit."

Scorpius frowned and closed the space between them again. "You really don't want me in your bed every night," he asked softly as he rubbed his thumb down her cheek. His other hand moved slowly up her thigh.

"We can always stay over at each other's places if we want, but if we don't want, this way, we still have our own space. We can still have time to get to know how this is going to work. Give my dad time to not murder you, which I promise you is exactly what would happen if you told that man we were moving in together."

"Rose …" he groaned as his hand reached around to cup her arse.

"Scor …" she feigned a whine, and he pouted, but she just laughed back at him. "I love you." She kissed him softly, her lips brushing against his, and he pulled her into him.

"You realize you're going to end up paying for a place you're never going to use, right?" Scorpius asked, and she couldn't really argue with that. She had her intentions, and her intentions were great, but at the end of the day she couldn't really imagine them spending most of their nights apart. Even knowing this, she knew that she needed to have her own flat. She had been so ready to live a life that was designed around Rowan's plans, and now she was going to live her own life. Scorpius was a part of that life, but he wasn't the whole thing. This thing between them still had a lot to make it through before she could commit to living with him, to telling her parents that they were sleeping in the same bed every night.

Instead of arguing, Rose just kissed him again. She let him lift her up onto the counter and sighed softly as his lips traveled down her jaw to her neck and shoulder, sucking softly as he left a trail of kisses on her skin. Just as she was beginning to moan softly, and his hand was sliding toward her knickers, a knock on the front door startled them both.

"Are you expecting someone?" she asked, her voice heavy with desire, and he shook his head.

"I'll go see who it is." He kissed her one last time and walked out of the kitchen to the front hall. A moment later, he rushed back into the room with his eyes wide. If Rose hadn't been worried, she would have laughed at the sight. "It's your dad!" He hissed, and she felt a cold shot of dread stab through her heart.

"Oh my … oh, fuck." She looked down at her clothes and jumped down off the counter and grabbed her wand from it. "Don't let him in!" She told him and padded quickly back to Scorpius' bedroom. "Shit, shit, shit." She rifled through Scorpius' closet and came up with a pair of too large sweat pants and a sweater. She waved her wand and managed to make them sort of fit. She pulled them on as she hobbled back down the hall, just as the knock came at the door again, louder. "Go … just … just go over there." She waved at him, and he didn't move. Scorpius stood in the hall behind her as she pleaded at him with her eyes. "Scor, please."

"No," he told her resolutely. "We're out, and now we live with that."

"Scor, damnit!" She hissed, and the knock came again, more insistent this time.

"Rose? Please just … just open the door." She heard her dad's voice, unsteady and desperate. Scorpius stood in place, not moving.

"Fine." She glared at Scorpius one last time and took a deep breath as her hand turned the knob.

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear what you think of this chapter!

XOXO

Meg