Thank you so much to everyone who has read/favorited/followed/reviewed! You guys are all wonderful. (This is the last obliviate scene I promise.)

Scorpius had shoved the machine on the other side of the room. They were about to start the unit on muggle music, which was completely pointless to study, and his homework was to listen to the song Professor Dawning had assigned and compare it to wizard music. But he didn't feel like doing the stupid project right then. He could be reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the 39th time. Which, admittedly, had been the plan until Vinton strutted into the dorm and began loudly and vividly describing his date with Carol Notwix to Bernie. It seemed the only way he could escape the unnecessarily detailed description of how Carol kisses was to find a way to block out his ears to the sound.

Scorpius stormed across the room, grabbed the machine and flopped onto his bed. He pressed the button as the professor had shown them, but nothing happened. He was about to throw it across the room because he doesn't feel like dealing with this right then when he remembered he was supposed to put the squishy things at the end of the strings in his ears. Muggles were so strange.

The song started with just guitars, shouts, and singing. Nothing exceptional. But as he listened, he began to feel like the voice was singing right at him, in his head, to the point where it got tangled and confused with his own.

"I belong with you, you belong with me my sweetheart," he felt himself mouth. He had the urge to scrawl these words down his arm, write Rose's name all around them, maybe even try to draw her eyes.

Merlin, this song made him think of Rose. As if she were tangled up with the voice in his head too. He felt a determination seep over to him, and he felt tired of running, tired of not feeling. So when the song ended, he pressed the button again, and again, and again until he planted his feet on the ground and set off, machine left on the bed but the song still playing in his head.

"I've been trying to do it right," he mouthed down a hallway.

"I've been living a lonely life," he hummed, his feet in time.

"Sleeping in my bed." He hoped Rose was in the library and not off with a friend. She always seemed to be doing one or the other.

"So show me family, or the blood that I would bleed." He imagined how it would feel to say those words to his dad.

"I don't know where I belong, I don't know where I went wrong." Merlin, he wanted to scream those words at the top of his lungs.

By this point be was mumbling the lyrics under his breath.

"I belong with-" and then he saw her across the hallway with a couple of Ravenclaw boys. He was struck by the movie-like cascade of the window light on her hair, and between that and the chorus of the song Scorpius found himself shouting a little louder than intended.

"Rose!" he yelled from across the hallway, a grin splitting his face, his hand drumming on his thigh.

Rose looked startled—mainly by his public smile—but she matched it all the same, naturally as ever. She waved goodbye to the Ravenclaws and walked over to him.

"Hey Scorpius, how are you?" she said, a giggle tinging the edge of her voice.

"I'm fantastic," he said as grabbed her arm and pulled her along back in the direction he came, eyes a little wild. "You weren't going anywhere important, were you?"

Rose shook her head, not appearing to mind the dragging. She simply raised her eyebrows as Scorpius opened the door to the janitor's closet.

"Good," he murmured, waiting only a second before kissing her.

They were in that closet for a while, until Scorpius finally found his nerve.

"Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"What?! Are you—"

"Stupify," he whispered, catching her as she fell. He tried to concentrate on the spell but every time he attempted to focus on what she needed to forget, he got distracted by the stupid feelings.

How her mouth felt. Her voice. The way her eyes looked right before he said it—mischievous, excited, happy. Her eyes right after he said it—confused, shocked, affectionate.

Get it together, Scorpius.

"Obliviate," he whispered, and sank to the ground, Rose still in his arms. He leaned her against the adjacent closet wall.

That was one more memory he'd have to keep secret the rest of his life, and it was one of the best he'd experienced. That was also one more memory he'd stolen from Rose, although it surely didn't mean as much to her as it did to him. It was still her memory, and he couldn't help feel the added guilt from all he had stolen from her so far.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to Rose, even though she couldn't hear him.

Where was he supposed to go from here? He couldn't keep doing this, and it was clear he wasn't going to get over her any time soon, as he originally thought. It wasn't likely Rose was going to stay single much longer. In fact, it wasn't likely she'd stay single for the next month, what with the ball coming up. He'd have to respect that, and how was he supposed to go on without her, now that he'd begun?

Maybe she'll wait for you, whispered a small voice. He couldn't really deny that she must like him—she had kissed him, several times. And she'd mentioned dating before. Her reciprocating his affections wasn't the problem.

Now that he thought about it, what was the problem? What was he so scared of he kept obliviating Rose rather than attempting a normal relationship?

He could survive any teasing his peers would dish out.

This was worth any torture his father or hers would put him through.

Was he scared of the ending? Yes, he was definitely terrified of losing her. But not nearly as terrified as he was of loving her.

He loved her. And he could hardly keep himself from storming across the castle and kidnapping her to a closet as it was. If he actually gave her a chance to love him in return…he'd be out of control. That was hardly proper behavior, especially for a Malfoy.

His dad raised him better than that.

So he checked to make sure the coast was clear, carried the unconscious Rose to the door of Hufflepuff and waited in the shadows until one of her housemates found her.