• • •
In the darkness,
He was the only one she could remember.
• • •
Adrian Pucey wasn't as mad as everyone in his life liked to remind him. Sure, he fancied Rose, but not enough to call himself mad over her. Unlike Avalon Morgenstern, Adrian didn't spend all his waking days looking for Rose; he already knew where she was. Adrian had paid off the owner of the Leaky Cauldron to tell him if Rose was staying there, and sure enough, she was.
He kept close tabs on her, popping into the floo of the Leaky Cauldron every once in a while to make sure she was alright. However, he never approached her, he knew better than that. If she was hiding, then she had a good reason for doing so.
Instead of working through late nights trying to find Rose like Avalon was doing at that very moment, Adrian sat in his couch with a book in one hand and a glass of firewhisky in the other. He had already tried to knock some sense into Avalon, but he wouldn't listen, so Adrian dropped the subject as fast as he had brought it up a few weeks ago. Soon he would be returning to Hogwarts for his final year, which meant Rose would be there too and he would be able to protect her more easily.
As he sunk even more in his couch, he heard the unmistakable sound of apparition right outside his door. Adrian's eyebrows furrowed as he looked down at his watch; it was barely eleven, Avalon wasn't supposed to be home until well past two in the morning and the other two people who had access past the wards were Rose and Amara. Something didn't feel right, his instincts were telling him that.
He knew he was right when he heard the weak knock on the door, neither of his friends knocked the door so weakly; something was terribly wrong. He swung the door opened, and his arms immediately reached forwards to catch the red head in front of him as she fell almost deliriously towards him.
Adrian looked down at Rose carefully, guiding her towards the couch as she heaved loudly. She was covered head to toe in blood, a few bruises were starting to form on her neck and wrists.
"Rose?!" he cried frantically, watching as her dull green eyes begun to shut. "Rose, wake up!"
He dropped her on the couch, trying to remember anything he knew about healing charms; his memory failed him when he needed it most. "ROSE!"
"It was him; he was trying to steal my bracelet," Rose could barely speak, but she weakly hung out her arm to him, showing off said bracelet. He didn't think there was anything peculiar about it; it seemed like a perfectly normal charm bracelet. "He knows what the bracelet does; you can't let him have it."
She was heaving again, her breathing was becoming more and more ragged as she spoke. Adrian passed a hand through his hair and sprinted to the cupboard when a thought suddenly struck him. He tore the Adrenaline potion from the cupboard as fast as he could before he went back to Rose's side and almost shoved the potion down her throat.
As soon as she drank it, some color began to come back to her features. He sighed, leaning back against the couch as he pulled out his wand to conjure some help.
"What did you give me?" Rose asked, starting to sit up on the couch but she was still losing too much blood.
"Adrenaline potion," he mumbled, trying to conjure the Patronus charm. "It'll give you enough energy until Cass gets here."
Rose's eyes went wide and she clutched her throat before she started coughing up blood uncontrollably. "Not Cass," she said between coughs. "He will tell You-Know-Who."
"Rose, what's happening?" Adrian fuzzed, holding back her blood soaked hair as he watched the small framed girl cough up much too blood. He tried to run over the ingredients of the adrenaline potion in his head before his blood ran cold as he realized the main ingredient of the potion; mandrake roots. "Shit!"
"I'm taking you to St. Mungos," Adrian said, holding onto her whilst also holding his wand. But before he could apparate them both, she weakly knocked the wand off his hand with a flick of her fingers before she went back to coughing what could be half her body weight in blood.
"He'll find me," she chocked out, the edges of her mouth sprayed with fresh blood. She fumbled with the bracelet in her hand weakly and handed it to him. "You-u can't let him have it, A-adrian."
"I can't let you die!" He choked out, taking the bracelet but sending his Patronus straight to Cassius with a call for emergency help. "I promise Cass won't get your bracelet. I won't let him."
Rose had stopped trying to fight him on fetching Cass, and that scared Adrian half to death. If he knew anything about her it was that she was a fighter; a fighter that wasn't fighting the blood that was spilling out of her anymore. He didn't know what to do, but he knew that if she died in his arms, he'd die right there with her.
"Rose, please," he cried, turning her face so she could look into her almost closing eyes. "I love you."
Rose weakly grasped the side of his face, her green eyes dulling even more as she seemed to take what was her last breath before she spoke, "I think I might love you too."