by cassie123
His fist had barely reached the door for a second knock when it sprung open. Before him stood a young woman wearing a black dress that hung far too loosely off her thin frame. He knew her face, but didn’t care to match it with a name. She frowned at him for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, and then stepped back to allow him inside. As he glided past her he kept his eyes on hers. He noted that the girl seemed remotely surprised to see him there, but was soon consumed by a large group of people that were moving to the quick beat of a song he didn’t recognise.
He peered through the crowd in search of something, someone, who was familiar. With little luck, he shoved his way through the dancing bodies and soon broke free into a wider, less crowded space. Staring around at the room, his lips pulled up slightly into an almost unnoticeable smirk. Despite having arrived alone and not yet found anyone he knew, Scorpius Malfoy made a convincing attempt to show that he was the finest person in the room.
He did not, however, know exactly why he stood there, in the middle of a birthday party that was both lively and elegant, especially when it was for someone he hardly knew. As he strolled along the room, slowly turning his head from side to side in the hope of finding a familiar face, he realised his first mistake. He had not brought a present. Walking over to the far wall of what he guessed was the living area, he reached a long table and began to feel the immense pressure of the amount of gifts that were settled on top of it. Scorpius sighed. Who would bring presents for an eighteen year old? he wondered. Surely, by now, he can afford things himself.
Pushing aside the urge to roll his eyes, he began to inconspicuously scan the cards of each elaborately wrapped present, hoping to find one from a name he recognised. With a smile, he noticed something that made him end his search. A present at the back of the table was wrapped in paper that he immediately found familiar. Scorpius had been given a gift for his last birthday with the exact same paper, brightly coloured with a ridiculous print of cartoon animals. He snatched up the box and brought it towards him, opening the card. With love, Daniel, it read. Scorpius chuckled. The gift, which was strikingly similar in box size to his, was probably bought and signed by Daniel’s mother.
Scorpius took his wand out of his pocket and quietly said, ‘Accio quill.’ He then held out his hand expectantly and felt the cool, thin touch of the quill arriving. Leaning down over the box, he quickly added ‘and Scorpius’ to the bottom of the card.
He was careful to remove the smile from his face before he turned back around, but as he did, his body hit another, one that was slightly taller than his. ‘You know,’ said the young man in front of him, ‘you should probably stop doing that. Someone is bound to see it and think we’re together.’
Scorpius stepped back slightly from Daniel, smiling in relief of finding someone. ‘Oh, Daniel,’ he said in a voice that was the most feminine he could muster, ‘I wish you wouldn’t care what people thought of us.’
His friend kept his face stern and pushed on Scorpius’ shoulder with an accidental amount of force. ‘Bring your own bloody present next time.’ Both men grinned, and Daniel joined Scorpius by facing the other way and leaning on the table of gifts. ‘Bit of a joke, this is.’
They observed the party together, Scorpius grunting in agreement. They’d both been invited here for reasons incomprehensible to them. The party was for a Hufflepuff they’d been at school with the previous year, and he strongly believed in the value of inter-house unity. ‘We’re only here because we’re the nicest Slytherins they could find,’ Scorpius pointed out.
Daniel laughed. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
Scorpius watched the vivacious crowd and found that he didn’t much want to be a part of it. ‘You say that like it isn’t.’
He soon noticed that their weight on the table was adding to the pressure its thin legs were under, and he pushed himself away from it. ‘Shall we venture outside?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s freezing out, but I think if I watch any more of this my head will implode.’
Together they bumped past various strangers and people they could have recognised if they tried, finding the doors to the large balcony at the back of the house. As soon as Scorpius stepped outside he was reminded of why he had been so quick to enter the house in the first place. Cold air hit his face and wind billowed through his open coat. He quickly buttoned it up, though it didn’t do much but restrict his breathing. He and Daniel reached the railing that overlooked the land owned by the parents of the Hufflepuff, who had so kindly leant him the house for the weekend.
There were many guests standing out on the grass below them; Scorpius was amazed they had managed to withstand the cold for so long.
‘They’ve got a fire,’ Daniel spotted. They made their way down the stairs that led to where the other party guests were situated. As they approached the fire, Scorpius felt the heat gradually return to his body. The fire was unnaturally warm for a flame that was so small; he guessed that it had been enhanced by magic. He now understood why the amount of people that surrounded it had decided to come down here, rather than stay upstairs with all that ridiculous dancing.
The group around the fire appeared to be enjoying themselves too, but had a more casual and less embarrassing way of doing it. Some stood, warming their hands against the flame; others were seated on logs set a meter or so from the fire.
It was then that he saw her.
Her legs were outstretched, toes barely inches from the orange flame. Scorpius wondered why she wasn’t wearing shoes, considering the severe weather, but soon noticed them settled near the log beside her and guessed that the heat of the fire was enough to keep her warm. Her hands were settled neatly on her legs and her back leant over them slightly in a way that suggested bad posture. But Scorpius couldn’t help but notice that she looked comfortable there, amongst people she was clearly happy to get along with. He felt a small stab of jealousy in his chest upon realising this, because he, in contrast, had rarely felt this out of place.
His immediate reaction to seeing her was to turn on his heels and head back into the house, but it was too late for that. He and Daniel were close enough now that the cold of the night was merely a distant memory.
Daniel seemed to have recognised some people and was heading in their direction. Scorpius immediately registered them as Ravenclaws from their year, and decided it was best to join them, despite it being a fair way away from her.
The small group was standing, and Daniel slid into their circle effortlessly. Scorpius shouldered himself a spot and stood with his arms folded, not putting in great effort to catch up with the conversation. From here he could see her quite easily, and he was grateful for the fact that she had not yet noticed him.
While the conversation drifted from one topic to the next around him, he felt Daniel nudge him lightly in the ribs. ‘Didn’t know she was coming.’ He inclined his head in the girl’s direction, eyes widening in an obvious manor.
‘Shocking,’ Scorpius muttered, feigning indifference, ‘considering the whole year was invited.’
Daniel shrugged. ‘You could go and talk to her,’ he said casually. ‘I’m sure you have some catching up to do.’ His eyes remained wide and suggestive, and Scorpius breathed a laugh.
As Daniel refocused his attention to the conversation amongst the rest of the group, Scorpius couldn’t help but feel the urge to take his advice. He surreptitiously turned from the group and headed closer to the fire. As he approached her, she finally looked up. Her hair, so close to the colour of the flame before her, slid back from her face, revealing eyes that appeared to be surprised to see him.
He felt again the instinct to turn and walk away, but at the same time feared looking foolish. So he sat beside her on the newly vacated seat on the log. ‘Rose,’ he greeted her, staring into the fire in attempt to avoid her gaze.
‘Hi,’ she replied, her tone matching her expression.
He understood her reaction. It would of course appear strange to her that he had been the one to approach her, that he had been the one to initiate conversation, as brief as the initiation may have been. To her, his actions would seem out of character – he had been avoiding this very moment for little less than a year. That isn’t to say that he hadn’t known it was coming, however. He had known that, despite his best efforts, he would lose inhibitions and speak to her again.
Scorpius heard her breathe beside him, a long, slow exhale that was the beginning of her release. She quietly asked him, ‘Do you believe in fate, Scorpius?’
He tilted his head to look at her, narrowing his eyes in surprise at her question. Her face was blank, yet expectant. A part of him hoped to see in her expression signs of insecurity, signs that usually showed when she voiced an unusual question. But there, in the glow of the firelight, he saw nothing of the sort. She was intriguing him all over again. ‘No,’ he answered truthfully.
Her lips twitched for the shortest moment as if a smile was threatening to break. ‘Nor do I,’ she announced after a moment. ‘But the girl, my friend, who was sitting here before you... she stood up and walked away just seconds before you arrived. She didn’t say a word, and she didn’t look like she was going anywhere in particular.’
‘Are you trying to say that you’ve suddenly changed your opinion on fate because your friend vacated a seat that somebody soon after occupied?’ he asked, bemused by her seriousness.
She shook her head, staring at him with hints of intent in her brown eyes. ‘I’m saying that, for nearly a year, I’ve been keeping the seat beside me unoccupied in the hope that you might take it, and the moment I allow it to someone else, something drags her away.’ She stared at him as if she expected him to understand. ‘I’m saying that perhaps I should have let someone take your seat long ago, Scorpius.’
Her words, as strange as they were, left an odd feeling inside his chest. As the feeling slowly grew, spreading through his limbs, he recognised it as guilt. He wanted to be rid of it immediately; he began to regret ever sitting with her. Scorpius swallowed as if trying to push the feeling away. He looked at her more closely. ‘How much have you had to drink tonight?’
Rose laughed. ‘Not much.’ Her gaze slipped away from his, the intensity of the moment going with it. Her laugh, light and honest, had comforted him. He did, however, doubt the truth in her response. It was so unlike Rose to fully express to him what she was feeling. Although he did understand that a year allowed plenty of time for change.
Scorpius soon realised, having finally noticed the other people by the fire with the absence of her gaze, how easily he had fallen again into what he found most comfortable a year ago. He was used to having her make him forget every other person in the room. There, sitting as two silhouettes against the fire, she had done it again. So quickly that it was disconcerting.
He felt his body shifting away from her just slightly, as if his subconscious was afraid of the things she could evoke in him. He had been wrong to sit by her, it was only stirring up emotions that had long since settled.
They had been wrong together, he’d decided, but in that moment, and in the memories of others just like it, he couldn’t remember a time that had felt more right. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, it only represented his regret. Regret for leaving her and allowing her to become this way; both honest and obscure due to the alcohol he could almost taste on her breath. He knew it was selfish to assume that it was their brief relationship that had been the cause, but selfish was all that he knew.
‘You look conflicted,’ Rose told him. He hadn’t noticed she was watching him again.
Scorpius sighed. ‘Because you worry me.’
‘You think I’m drunk.’ Whether or not she was asking him was unknown to him, but she appeared to have her answer; she let out another laugh. ‘I’ve had not half the amount of alcohol as the rest of the people here. If I were drunk, why would I be sitting down and talking to you?’
‘Because this party isn’t any fun,’ he told her, ‘and you’d freeze to death if you went to sit anywhere else.’
A smirk appeared on her ruby lips. ‘Until you arrived and my friends all seemed to disappear, I was having quite a lot of fun, actually.’
‘Oh,’ Scorpius said, slightly affronted. ‘Well, I should leave, then.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But you won’t.’
He stared at her for a moment, her expression indecipherable. This wasn’t the Rose that he had once known so well. The mystery was there but with it were now cynicism and a sense of distrust. But perhaps they had always been there, perhaps he hadn’t really ever known her at all.
They both glared into the fire, and Scorpius was unsure of whether the heat he felt was a result of the flame or from the tension between himself and Rose. A new feeling had arrived and it wasn’t something he’d anticipated, at least not with Rose. He found that he was uncomfortable to be with her. It was as if a year apart had done nothing but create a build up of energy that was waiting to ignite once they joined again. But Scorpius knew he had only himself to blame for that.
There was a shout from above them, Scorpius barely acknowledged the words spoken from the balcony to the groups around the fire. He glanced around, people appeared to be leaving. Daniel caught his eye as he began to leave the safety of the fire area, a disgruntled look on his face. ‘The birthday boy wants to make a speech,’ he informed them.
Scorpius gaped at his friend. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said loudly, causing people to glare down at him. ‘I suppose he wants us all to sing him Happy Birthday, too.’
Daniel let out a short cackle and received almost as many cold stares as Scorpius. It struck Scorpius that perhaps the owner of this home had quite a lot of friends, perhaps a lot more than he himself had. He was suddenly conflicted with the choice between remaining there with Rose, as she appeared to have no intention of joining the party at that time, or to be embarrassed by emotional speeches about the importance of continuing Hogwarts unity long after graduation. He felt almost nauseous at the thought of the latter.
Scorpius watched Daniel climb the stairs and pull his coat closer to his chest and he knew he had made the right decision to stay by the fire. He turned to look at Rose, who was staring almost wistfully up at the house. ‘Go,’ he told her. ‘You don’t want to miss out on the fun.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s much too cold.’
‘Not inside.’ He frowned.
Rose appeared not to be listening, and Scorpius watched as her face tensed before she spoke. ‘Scorpius, I apologise for behaving so strangely.’ As she let the words rush out, she didn’t look him in the eye. ‘You’ve got to understand how confronting it is for me, for you to suddenly start speaking to me again. I was finally used to the idea that you were never going to, and here you are.’
She looked up at him through her eyelashes, and with her words came the nerves he had expected to see the entire time. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands were clenched white against the wood of the log. She was Rose.
The smile that had been waiting to break the surface the entire night finally burst onto his lips. ‘Is it awful of me to prefer you as a nervous wreck than when you’re being so confidently honest?’ he asked her, deciding to avoid discussing his sudden attempt at armistice.
‘I’m never confident,’ she said. ‘Not when I’m with you.’
Such words demanded more questions, but Scorpius was too afraid to ask. He guessed that she couldn’t know what to expect from him, not when he had decided to finally speak to her after a year. At that moment, he didn’t even know what to expect from himself.
They were in dangerous territory, with such honest expression on her part, and Scorpius felt all he had remained strong to until this point begin to slowly unravel. Rose was tearing down the barriers that he had built and he didn’t have the strength to stop her. They were both slipping into what they had almost had in that final year of Hogwarts, neither acknowledging that the same things could break them apart once again.
But it had been Scorpius who had broken it the first time, despite the things he told himself in the hope that they would ease the guilt. The guilt hadn’t subsided and the truth was set before them. They could put this back together if they could set aside the past.
Rose stared at him with unease as he tried to put together his thoughts. But his head felt heavy with the weight of the emotion that had resurfaced and his mind refused to clear. One thought amongst the tangled mass of others stood out, if only he had the courage...
Kiss her, it said. And so, he did.
She was momentarily frozen by his abrupt action, but he soon felt her react with passion that precisely matched his. She trembled in his grip as her lips melted into his, and he longed for it to never end so the consequences would never have to be faced. They remained entwined until their lips had almost bruised and the sounds from above were impossible to ignore.
They stared at each other with shock settled in their eyes. Neither had expected a night like this, nor did either know what would be the result of it. As their eyelids sunk down and their lips rejoined, Scorpius knew he’d be lying to say that it had simply been a kiss and nothing would come from it.
As they held onto each other, he noticed that she held him with desperation; she feared that he would leave her again. But Scorpius had the advantage of holding the truth inside of him and it gave him the confidence he had lacked before. As unstable the road would be should he chose to take it with her, he couldn’t fathom a life at the end of any other path. Scorpius was aware of the possible outcomes, reasons for the unfavourable needn’t be said aloud. But he kept his mind set on the ending for he and Rose that he desired and wondered if he was being unrealistic, or possibly foolish to imagine that this ending could only involve Rose.
After some time, the two stood and walked away from the fire that had continued to burn without falter and made their way towards the blurred sound of the party above. They felt the warmth slowly dissolve from their bodies and the cold return in a sudden forceful wave. With the cold came a trickle of fear that slightly subsided the confidence that had formed within the kiss. But Scorpius acknowledged the fear as something that would naturally occur in a reconciled relationship, and he took each step beside Rose with a lightness that was new to him, feeling that whatever was to come was something within his power to accept.