Here We Go Again

Stubborn Love

Here We Go Again

Chapter 23: Stubborn Love

POV: Scorpius

Bang. Bang. Bang.

This was not my week.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

This was not my bloody month now that I come to think of it. It has been one mess after another. I should have seen it happening and done something to avoid it. Instead, like the damn right idiot that I am, I watched it clutter together and then snowball out of control.

It was all my fault.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Oi, mate!" Entering the empty Transfiguration classroom, Lucas Zabini shook his head at me when he saw me splattered over my desk. "Keep hitting your head that way and you are going straight to the Hospital Wing with a concussion. That won't excuse you from the Potions exam we have tomorrow."

I frowned at him, my left cheek glued to the surface of the desk. "It's not about the exam."

"Then?"

I frowned harder.

"Oh." He cleared his throat as he carefully walked over to me. Beside me, as if they were composed to be another person, Zabini picked up one of the many books I had brought in from the library and that were piled on my bench. "What are you trying to find in these books, mate? I doubt there is an answer of why you snogged Madison Mulciber in here." If my eyes could shoot fire Zabini would be ashes on the ground. "Honestly, The Secrets and Riddles of the Human Mind won't help you. You already know what happened."

I rose up into a full sitting position and yanked the book from his hands. "I fucking know that, Lucas! But how the hell am I going to explain this to—Argh!" I stopped my rant to throw the book across the room. It landed with a thud that knocked down a goblet on the professor's desk.

Zabini rolled his emerald eyes at me. "Malfoy, that girl bewitched you. It's that simple. Tell Rose what happened, tell her that Mulciber used Amortentia on you and she will believe you. Mulciber is a foul creature, mate. Rose wouldn't doubt it for a second."

I slammed my left fist on the surface of my desk. "I don't want to believe that Madison did that to me, Zabini. How could I? We're friends. If I go doubting her I'll be just like everyone else in this bloody castle that thinks the worst of her."

My fellow Slytherin scoffed. "What would you rather believe, then, mate? That you are sincerely so enthralled with Mulciber that your hormones were incredibly out of control that you had to snog her? Come on, Malfoy! Wake up and smell the deceit, she potion-ed you right up!"

I banged my forehead against the desk again. "It honestly is impossible for me to see another girl that is not Rose. No one has ever—in the history of me being a bloke—appealed to me the way that my girlfriend has!"

"There was Emily. For a bit, you saw her."

We looked at each other, Zabini and I, and we were both reflecting the same miserable gaze.

"I'm sorry, mate. I shouldn't have brought her up," mumbled Zabini, looking apologetic as he ran a hand through his curls. "You know I've never been one to think things through before I say them."

I shook my head slowly. "No, it's fine. You're right anyway." I inhaled deeply, the image of a comatose girl in my head. It hurt my heart. It pained me that she was laying in a room inside the castle, yet so far gone in her mind. "For a bit it was Emily. For a moment I thought she could be the one for me. Obviously, I needed to sort out my emotions to figure out how I felt for her, but...But she came close."