Here We Go Again
Chapter 38: One and Only
POV: Scorpius
There was a sense of excitement ticking inside the walls that composed the Great Hall. It was the sort of excitement that infects every single person in sight; it makes one person smile, then the person next to them, until there's a chance that everyone is going to break out into a musical number and fireworks are going to take up the sky. It was joy, clearly, and it all had to do with the fact that it was the final, full day of being at Hogwarts. Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn, at the first sight of sunlight, the summer holidays commenced. Everyone was living off each others thrill to be going home.
I don't think anyone looked more relieved that the holidays were right around the corner than my group of friends—and with bloody good reason. All of us had taken a fall down a deep, dark abyss. We were lost for so long in the pitch black hole that we ended up becoming blind. Not only did we lose sight of our own values, worth, ideas, and the sort, but, most importantly, we forgot about the connections we have with one another. This year was so twisted we ended up fighting with one another, barking like rabid, three-headed dogs at each other. Not only were our own demons the enemies, but one another as well.
It was dark times, that is certain, but things are starting to look up. Usually I hate being a sap, but I'm happy that progress is being made. These are my friends, a second family of sorts, and it's fucked up to see us fucked up.
After having one of the worst breakups in the history of relationships, Al and Nia managed to bury the hatchet. I was sort of skeptical about the entire situation because, be it as it may that Potter's my best mate, I didn't think he deserved a second chance with Nia. At least, not until a very long time from now. Nia hated me, as she had all the right to be after I became an unwilling accomplice in Al's affair, but I wanted her to be happy. And as much as I thought time needed to pass between them in order for things to fix themselves, I couldn't deny that Al now looked like his soul came back to his body, that his eyes were brighter than ever, and that he was becoming that bloke I knew like the back of my hand. Most importantly, however, Nia was starting to become herself again. She'd spent such a long time secluded or intoxicated after Potter broke her heart, but now she was glowing again. She was a true beauty, that was definite, but with her head held high now, with a confidence and strength about her, she was a true gem. They were just friends, Al and Nia, but it wasn't hard to miss that they only had eyes for one another. Sparks of romance were going to ignite like a wildfire soon enough.
Emily and James Potter were quite the opposite than Al and Nia (and that was a bloody good thing or else I would've hexed Potter's bits off without a second thought). As much as I enjoy the petty rivalry between James and I, I couldn't deny that he deserved my respect for keeping himself sane and strong for the sake of Emily. No one ever said it was easy to be in love with someone who has mental problems, but Potter never quit. Many thought he should've, many wanted something different for him, but his love for Emily kept him right beside her. I suppose his only mistake was thinking that he could fix her instead of having her fix herself. After an almost successful attempt on her own life, Emily made it out with James helping her every step along the way. Emily was like my sister, and as I said, as much as I love hating Potter, I know that she's safe in his hands. There's something about the way she melts to his side, and the way that she seems better, full of life, a sparkle to her eyes, when she is near him that is comforting to those who love her. It cannot be denied that their love is something that should be written in the stars, something that should be rewarded with forever.
Completely different than the other two relationships mentioned is the one that used to belong to my cousin Liam and Lily Potter. Those two ended their romance and have not since become friends, spoken to one another, let alone contemplated on getting back with each other. It is not to say that hadn't want to; Liam spent the first few weeks desperate to have Lily back, but rumor was that she was with Octavio De la Cruz. So, Liam did the only thing that he could do: he moved on. He started seeing Gracen Goyle, a very lovely and sweet girl who is perfect for him. If I were to be honest, I preferred Gracen over Lily as my cousin's girlfriend any day. As it is in the nature of people to want something that you can't have, I heard from Rose (who was told by her cousin Roxy, the biggest gossip in the world) that Lily wanted Liam back, but she understood, as I did and many people did, that Liam was better off with Gracen.
As for Rose and I? Well, that was something else.
"Why are you grinning? You shouldn't be grinning! The end of the world is coming, mate!"
I turned to see Zabini looking mortified as his hands gripped and balled a parchment. "What are you on about now?"
"Our marks for this year!" he almost screamed with desperation. "You butchered your exams for Potions and Divination. You're screwed. I know for a fact Draco said that if you failed Potions again he was going to send you to a camp for two weeks in the summer. And me—" he started to hyperventilate, "I managed an Exceeds Expectations in Herbology, but a Troll for Defense. Mum's going to murder me. I've never gotten anything less than Acceptable in all my years!"
I stared back at my fellow Slytherin without any sympathy. "Mate, Father knows I'm absolute shit at Potions. Might be a blow to his ego considering that he's a Potioneer himself and all, but he'll survive. You, on the other hand, need to just tell your dearest mother that a certain Weasley dumbed you down this term. I'm sure she'll understand love made you an idiot."
The dark-skinned wizard frowned at me. "Roxy did not dumb me down!"
"She kind of did, mate," interjected Al, who pulled himself away from a conversation he was having with Harper that started since they sat down to eat their plates of breakfast. "Roxy is my cousin, I love her, but all you've been doing is chasing her skirt all year."
With another second of his firm glower, Zabini buried his face into his folded arms over the table's surface. "Love hit me hard," Potter and I heard his muffled reply. "Mum likes Roxy, but she's going to disapprove when she sees my marks. She'll probably think mio amore is a distraction. Merlin," he lift his head back up to stare at me with a frightened gaze, "do you think she's capable of sending me to a monastery?"
"What's a monastery?"
"A monastery is a community of priests, religious brothers, monks and the sort. Men live and work there as an offering to their church and then spend most time praying," informed Emily as she too seemed to tear away from conversation with her other half to focus on us Slytherins mingling in the Gryffindor table. "It's a muggle thing, mostly."
Raising my brow in confusion I turned back to Zabini and said, "why would she send you there? Sounds like torture."
"Mum's religious," he replied with a tone that suggested I should've known this fact already. "She's a muggle-born, Malfoy. Most of her family is tied to the church. If she has a chance to inflict some of those costumes on me she'll take them."
"Aren't most muggle religions against sorcery?" quipped Emily again, somehow causing other conversations around us to ease and pull in attention to us. "Many heads of church have condemned people suspected of sorcery to death for many centuries. It's the primary reason witches and wizards went into hiding, after all. I only know this because my brother once joked about sending me to a church to have me burned at the stake. I don't think he was joking, now that I think of it."
James frowned, muffled a curse word, and put his arm around her shoulders.
"My mum's family doesn't know that she and I have magic," Zabini said, "other than her parents, that is. It's better this way, because, as you said, the church doesn't really smile upon those with sorcery to upstage God. Besides, it's not just magic they are against. If Mum sends me to a monastery I can't have a drink, any fun, or sex."
"Oi!" Louis glared at Zabini's direction. He took the fork he was using to eat his eggs and angrily pointed it forward. "Are you saying you're doing the deed with my little cousin, Zabini? I will murder you before your mum gets the chance!"
Lucas went red. "No!" he shouted immediately. "I'm not! I mean, I want to—"
"I'll kill you!"
"Zabini, what the hell?"
"Get near here and I'll hex your wand off!"
"—but we're waiting!" Zabini finished as Louis, Al, and James lost their cool. "I am not about to have a conversation on where I am with Roxy with you bloody lot, okay. That's beside the point. I'm just saying sex before marriage is frowned upon in most religious groups."
"Well, I'm certainly getting into heaven, then," chimed Nia with a smirk, "along with Ems, Liam, Zabini, Roxy, Lucy, Rose, Malfoy, and James. The same can't be said about Slag Numero Uno," she pointed her thumb at Al (who looked ashamed and angry that some resentment about what he did was clearly not faded from her mind), "and Slag Numero Dos," she then pointed to Blonde Weasley.
Louis grinned triumphantly. "Coral and I really can't keep our hands off each other. What can I say, it's bloody amazing. I'm bloody amazing at it, actually."
"Easy there," scoffed Coral, his girlfriend from his side.
"You'll understand one day," finished Blonde Weasley as he smacked James roughly on the back. "One day, too, you shall be a man."
"Even Freddie's done the deed," mumbled Zabini with a sad sigh. "Roxy said she and Hugo caught Freddie and Evanna Nott in a broomstick closet."
James punched Louis on the arm and glared. "I'm not a virgin, if you must know!"
"James!" Emily shouted, looking appalled.
"Shit!" James smacked his hands over his mouth, his brown eyes bulging out in self-outrage. "I'm sorry! It slipped out!"
Al started roaring with laughter immediately. "Things My Brother Says in Bed!"
Laughter echoed around the Gryffindor table at Al's comment that made Emily's cheeks flush pink with embarrassment and her idiot boyfriend sputter.
"Shut up, Albus!" James hissed before turning back to Emily. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"Merlin," I breathed, scrunching my face in disgust, "Em, how could you? You deserved much better than Potter."
My best friend sighed tiredly. "Can we please stop talking about our sex lives. I know we are all best friends here, but this is honestly a bit too much."
"James isn't going to get it again," taunted Al gleefully. "Priceless."
I very much agreed with Emily, though—our intimate lives with our significant others is meant to be private. I know the Potter/Weasley family has this sense of always being open with one another (willingly and unwillingly), but the rest of us just didn't want anything to do with that.
"Oi, what's with the long face?"
I turned to the left to see who Zabini had spotted and was now speaking to. It was Liam and Rose. Rose was holding my cousin's hand tenderly as she gazed at him sympathetically. He looked terrible.
"Gracen has been avoiding me for three days now," mumbled Liam sadly. Nia pushed Al as far to the right as he could go, causing me to almost slip off the end of the bench, so she could make room for her best friend. Liam then sat down beside her and put his head on her shoulder. "I was waiting for her outside of the library earlier and she told me to stop following her. I don't know what I did wrong."
Nia gently combed her fingers through his hair. "You didn't do anything, Liam. You've always been a class act with her."
Al looked at the two best friends with a glint of jealousy. He said things with Harper were slowly getting better but that she still refused to have him touch her. It must be hard for him, then, to have her show such rare affection and know that he has to patiently wait for his turn.
"Yeah, mate," added in Al after a moment after clearing his throat. He put his hand on Liam's shoulder and squeezed. "Nia's right. You've been a fantastic boyfriend to her, and we all know she loves you. Maybe something happened and she just needs time."
As Nia wrapped her arms around my cousin for support (something she clearly was doing to help him feel better, but we all knew it was also to help him ease into the fact that Nia decided to forgive Al, something Liam was not keen on), I stood from my seat and outstretched my hand to my girlfriend.
"Walk with me for a moment?" I asked.
She smiled as a response and laced her fingers through mine.
This year has been particularly rough on everyone, but being as it is that I live my life, I feel like I've had it the hardest. This year I got a taste of what life would be if I lost Rose, and I absolutely abhorred it.
I don't know how she became such an important part in my life. I remember being eleven and seeing her for the first time: she was tiny compared to my height, with hair the color of a dragon's breath, curled and bouncy and somehow wider than her frame, she had brown eyes that were warm like tea on a winter's night, and a pale face that was sweet, confident, smart, scared, thrilled, and shy all in one. I stared blankly at her, and her confused expression as she roamed me, identifying me as a Malfoy, and I decided there and then that she would never be involved in my life. I was set on leaving her behind, avoiding her, so that I wouldn't be accused on what my family had done to hers.
But it's funny how life works, isn't it?
I was eleven years old when I was given the answer on who my soul mate was. Of course, I didn't know it just then, the magnitude of this feeling, but I knew that Rose Weasley was something special. As far as I can remember, I would watch her day and night whenever she was around and pay attention to every movement she made. I don't know how I found interest and the patience to study her, but I did. There was something about the way she hummed when she collected ingredients for Potions class, how she smiled at everyone, no matter who or what House they were in, how when she laughed she tossed her head back and her red hair would fall like waterfall of lava, and how she wrinkled her nose when she studied. I was eleven, but I knew that she was the one person who was going to take my heart.
And she did take it. She took it the first moment I saw her, but I hadn't realized she stole it until I was fourteen and there were rumours that Lysander Scamander fancied her. Those rumours, I came to find out Fifth Year, were true, but it created a territorial, overprotective monster inside of me. I didn't want any bloke near her. It sounds crazy, it was crazy at the time, to want to have her beside me at all times, but I couldn't help to shake off the feeling that she was mine. She had to be. She had to be mine with the way that she enchanted me with one smile, one look, one word, one fleeting touch.
Truth is that I was always hers. I am all hers. Anything that Rose wanted I would give her if she so desired it. She hadn't stolen my heart, I had carved it out myself, bowed, and offered it to her. I found a way to capture my soul into a jar and also gifted her that. My mind only ever matched hers, and my body would be hers in an instant. I am all hers.
"You're being pensive," I heard her soft voice beside me as she used her right hand to trap mine that was already holding her left. Rose smiled beautifully at me, her brown eyes became honey with the help of the sunlight and her face lit up like it was dusted with glitter. "Are you upset about your final marks?"
I shook my head as I continued to lead her down a hill. "I'm not. I knew I was going to fail Potions, and Divination is a joke. My parents will understand."
Rose rolled her eyes at me, clearly annoyed at my carelessness with my grades, but she let go of that subject before it could be further developed. "It's nice, isn't it? Everything coming back full circle. It's just lovely to see that we didn't all end up loathing one another, or worse, alone."
"I don't know where I would have ended up if you never forgave me," I told her as we reached the tree we often laid underneath to enjoy its shade and watch the Black Lake gleam. "I am sorry for what happened, Rose. I just think about it for a moment, and I feel terrible. Malfoys are prideful bastards, the lot of us, and I would've hated it if that was what ended up keeping us apart."
"Yes," she said, "you were prideful about it, but so was I. I'm Ron and Hermione Weasley's daughter, Scor, I understand pride. I refused to forgive you for a while because I knew that I was right and I wanted you to admit it as well. You believed Mulciber, and in the end—"
"In the end you were right."
"No," she corrected quickly, still clutching onto my right hand with both of hers, "in the end she ended up doing what she set out to do. You didn't tell me about her kissing you because you didn't want to hurt my feelings, and I didn't want to forgive you because I knew I was right about her. We both let her win. If we would've talked it out, if pride wouldn't have gotten in our way, we would have never broken up."
I cupped the side of her face with my free hand and looked deep into her brown orbs. "You do know that I'll beg from now on, right? I will clutch onto your legs and never let you go. Fuck pride. All dead Malfoys can roll around in their graves for all I care, but I will be the first one to plead a Weasley to stay."
She laughed. "I'm sure there are Weasleys that would rejoice in that."
"I just want you to know how much I love you, Rose," I added in before the conversation could fade away into laughs and unimportant chatter surfaced. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to show you just how much I do, because frankly, I don't think there is enough time in the world or words big enough in any language to express it. All I know is that I never want to lose you. I don't know where my life might head from here on out, but all I want to be absolutely sure about is that you're going to be right there beside me."
Her previous humor diminished and a glisten took over her gaze. "What are you saying, Scorpius?"
"You thought that I asked you to marry me because I wanted to hide the fact that Mulciber kissed me, but that wasn't it at all, Rose. I always knew that I was going to do it some day. And I don't care about our age, I don't care about what your logical mind is thinking about even now," still holding her hand, I knelt before her and stared up at her seriously, "all I care about is for you know that one day I want you to be my wife. We don't have to get married today, tomorrow, or in a year from now, but I want you to know that I am committed and willing to wait forever for you."
Inside the pocket of my trousers was a ring. My left hand reached into that pocket and pulled it out: it was a silver band with an emerald gem rimmed with small, detailed skulls. It wasn't exactly romantic, it wasn't exactly the type of ring a bloke bought when he proposed to his girlfriend, but it was mine.
The ring belonged to my father. I found it stashed away inside a drawer of his home office one night, and when I asked him about it once, he said he wanted to destroy it for so long but that now he kept it hidden as a reminder of the terrible things being a Malfoy meant. Without his consent, I kept it. I bore it with me from that day forward, so that I too could remind myself the penalty my family had to carry for their sins.
But with Rose, with her kind soul and loving heart, I didn't feel like I needed to repent. I wasn't my family's past, I was just Scorpius. And the ring no longer should represent darkness, but the light of a new beginning.
"Will you marry me someday, Rose Weasley?"
Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I honestly hoped they were the good sort. She glanced between my face and the ring multiple times. And with her bottom lip quivering, she said, "Yeah, someday."
Holding my grin, I slipped on my ring onto her finger and watched the sun hit it and send tiny bits of green light dancing out.
"We probably should get started practicing on the honeymoon," I said as I continued to look up at her.
With a rolling of her eyes, she shoved me backward. As my back hit the grass, Rose launched herself onto me and wrapped her arms around my middle. "I love you."
In order for forever to play out the way I hoped, I counted on that.
[The End]
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NOTE: Hey, guys! So this was the last official chapter to 'Here We Go Again'! HOWEVER! I have an epilogue for this, and it will be split in 4 chapters. So be ready for that!