I know it’s her standing under the bridge before I’m close enough to make out any details“ height, hair colour, clothing. After watching her for all these years, I think I probably could make her out in a crowd of thousands. All by herself, even from such a distance, I don’t have to look for more than a millisecond to know it’s her.
I want to run over to her, or better yet, Apparate to her side, pull her towards me, and… But I can’t. Under the bridge in this obscure corner of the park has always been her place. True, it’s also the place where some of the most important events in our relationship have taken place “ our first kiss, our first fight, and so many heart-wrenching discussions about the future. More often than not, though, Rose comes here to be alone “ to cry, to brood, to dream. It’s been that way since she was a child. I came later, and I always feel like a bit of an intruder under the bridge.
“Rose?” I softly call before going under the bridge, wishing to give her some privacy if she needs it.
“Get out!” She sounds as if she’s trying to be strong, but the tremor in her voice is enough to give her true emotions away. Then she turns towards me, and I can see that there are indeed tears streaming down her face.
“Rose “”
“Leave!” she orders, pulling out her wand as though to hex me. “You’ve hurt me enough already.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, bewildered.
“Magdala,” she hisses.
Magdala. She found out about Magdala. Bollocks!
“How do you think I felt, Scorpius?” she shrieks. “I was in St Mungo’s for six months with Vanishing Sickness. Six whole months! I almost died “ died! Thankfully, I had a nice young trainee Healer who kept me company, and we started to become friends. One morning, she comes in and tells me about this handsome older man she met at the Leaky Cauldron the night before. Can you even understand how I felt when I realised it was you?”
“Rose, I never meant to hurt you,” I protest. It’s the truth. I wish I could protect her from all harm all the time, yet here I am, obviously causing her such pain.
Looking worn from her tirade, Rose leans against the wall of the bridge and sinks downward to the ground, then wraps her arms around her knees. I realise how weak she still must be from her illness, and that this argument is only making things worse. I wish I could scoop her up, kiss her, and make it all well “ her body, and our relationship.
She may seem exhausted, but she’s not done with our argument. “Scorpius, all you’ve ever done since we met is hurt me,” she yells as the tears start coming down even harder. “I’ve always been your secret, never good enough to you’re your family about. You always promised that we could really be together “ publicly be together “ next week, next month, next year. I stood by as you dated pureblood girls, married a pureblood woman, and even had pureblood children.
“I waited, Scorpius. I believed you. I got a job, got married, bought a house, had children, but I was ready to leave it all at a moment’s notice for you.
“You established your own business. It thrived. You became rich and you didn’t need nepotism or an inheritance from your family. Yet it still was next month, next year.”
“Rose “ ”
“No! Let me finish!” she interrupts, beginning to look quite deranged. “I turned my eye when you had one-night stands. A pretty girl here, a pretty girl there. It didn’t happen that often, so who was I to complain? Anyway, what right did I have to control who you slept with? I was just the mistress. Maybe that was the point? You knew that Tansy was the proper pureblood wife, who’d let you do whatever you wanted, sleep with whoever you wanted. If you left her for me, I’d demand more of you. Maybe you meant for me to be the other woman all along “ be the mistress forever. You could have a pure-blood wife for image and status, and a mistress and one-night stands, too. You could have the best of everything, just like you’ve always been accustomed to.”
“Rose,” I reply fiercely, “you know that isn’t true. I love you!”
“Do you really?” she asks quietly. It is a dangerous quiet, a quiet of an emotion beyond mere anger. “Sometimes I wonder. I got sick six months ago, and not once did you bother to visit, or even send an owl.”
“I didn’t want your husband to catch me “ catch us,” I interject. “As soon as I heard you were out of St. Mungo’s, I started coming here every day in hopes of seeing you.”
“You knew I had Vanishing Sickness, which is usually lethal. If you loved me, wouldn’t you have wanted to see me again before I died?” she cries.
“Rose “”
“Really, I just don’t care what you have to say for yourself anymore,” she snaps. “I’m sick of excuses. That’s all I’ve had from you; over two decades of excuses. Right now, that’s all I have to look forward to for the rest of my life. Getting sick made me realize how short that time may be. I want more from the rest of my life.”
“So, what are you going to do?” I inquire slowly, trying to keep my dread at bay.
“Merlin knows I have hardly been a perfect person,” she tells me. “Joe has always been so in love with me, and I married him, letting him think that I felt the same way about him. I’m not worthy of his love, but I’m going to try to be.”
“So?”
“It’s over, Scorpius,” she says. The words are simple, slow and clear, yet I find that I have trouble comprehending them. “I’ll never love Joe like I love you, but I’m glad. Nobody will have the power to dictate my life like you have, to make me so miserable. My love for you has made me do so many things that I thought I was above, and yet I will never know if you truly love me. At least I know Joe does, and that he, at least, will always be there for me.”
Then she walks away from me. I want to stop her, because I know she’s walking out of my life. I can’t, though.
Rose Weasley has been my obsession since I first saw her on Platform Nine and Three Quarters the day I departed for my first year at Hogwarts. Something about the little redhead fiercely glaring at me caught my attention. I know you’re not supposed to fall in love at eleven, but I did.
Though I was the one besotted with her, she was the one who first had the courage to talk to me. There is a reason why I’m the Slytherin and she’s the Gryffindor, after all. Following the one of the double Potions class the first years of our houses shared, she cornered me and told me that we were going to be friends, whether I liked it or not. She threatened to curse me if I didn’t comply, despite the fact that she couldn’t even perform Wingardium Leviosa yet.
It turns out that she was furious with her father because he was trying to dictate who she could spend time with at Hogwarts. She decided to befriend me, the worst of the worst in his view, simply to spite him.
From this incident, I learned two extremely important things. The first was that it is never wise to get a Weasley woman mad. The second thing is that once Rose makes up her mind, trying to convince her to see your point of view is only serves to push her further away.
So I watch her until she so far down the path that she is a pinprick, her fiery hair blending into the reds and oranges of the fall leaves. Once she is gone “ truly gone “ I look down at the roll of parchment in my hand, the one that I was planning on showing her “ my divorce papers.
The Breaking Point by sorrow_of_severus
Story Notes:
I'd like to dedicate this story to Emma in celebration of her win as Best Beta in the 2009 Quicksilver Quills. As the beta of this story and many others, Emma has been a tremendous force in improving my writing skills. Therefore, I can say with great confidence that the award was wholly deserved.
Chapter Endnotes: The title comes from the Title Library on the Beta Boards.