"(A Long Time Ago) We Used to Be Friends" - A Gift for liliths_requiem
Title: A Long Time Ago) We Used to Be Friends
Author: a_shadow_there
Gift For: liliths_requiem
Summary: Rose and Scorpius were friends, until their fifth year at Hogwarts when Scorpius realised he wanted more.
Rating: PG
Warnings: fluff, and a very generous helping of teenage awkwardness and longing.
Word Count: 2010~
Lyrics/Quotes Used: "I would like to be the air/that inhabits you for a moment only./I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary."- Margaret Atwood "Variations on the Word Sleep."
A/N: Many, many thanks to the Mods for their patience - you guys have been amazing. This was my first time writing Rose/Scorpius, so I'm crossing my fingers and toes that you enjoy the fic.
With an exasperated sigh, Scorpius collapses onto the bed.
He thought he would never get away from it all.
His parents' party: a goodwill gesture for this year's graduating class. It is hosted by the Malfoys every year - has been, every year since the cessation of the second war - and this year is no different.
Except that it is Scorpius who is one of the graduands; one of those young witches and wizards who are standing, tremulously poised at the precipice of what will be Their Life.
Their Life.
Not his, he thinks; even now, when it is his, it isn't.
It is theirs, always theirs. It is their power and money and influence and it is merely he who is paraded out in front of the guests as proof of their good work.
A self-congratulatory pat on the back: look what we've done.
A perfect Prince to the Malfoy throne.
“Ugh,” Scorpius groans. His upper lip curls contemptuously at the thought and, as he does, Scorpius catches sight of his reflection in a nearby floor-length mirror.
“Ugh,” he reiterates, as he realises his curling lip is the same as his father's. With an effort, Scorpius attempts to re-arrange his features into a more appealing expression.
Or, at least, one that doesn't irk him so.
In that moment, Scorpius' efforts are interrupted by a gentle rapping on his bedroom door.
“Who is it?” Scorpius calls out. He gets to his feet and smooths the front of his trousers.
The door creaks open, admitting the raucous sounds of his parents' party - chatter, laughter, and music; all the festivities that exhaust Scorpius.
“It's just me.”
Notes of a hoarse yet lilting voice are carried on the air; they cling to the music and echo in the warm, stifling atmosphere of Scorpius' bedroom.
It is a voice that is not only familiar, but one that has been missed.
“Rose,” Scorpius says, his eyes widening in surprise, “what are you doing up here?”
“It's nice to see you too, Scorp,” Rose says. She slips into Scorpius' room, between door and architrave; a narrow gap bathed in the amber glow of the hall lamps.
She looks, Scorpius thinks, ethereal.
“Oh, right,” Scorpius says, recalling his manners. “Come in.” But as he speaks, Rose is already easing the door closed.
"What's up, Rose?"
Rose shrugs. "Nothing really. Just needed a reprieve from Albus. That boy is insufferable."
Scorpius laughs. "He's not that bad, surely."
"Oh, Scorpius, you've no idea. I swear, if he weren't sodding family ..."
Scorpius raises his eyebrows in unison. "Yeah," he says, "family; tell me about it."
"Ugh, I know right?" Rose says. She takes a few hurried steps toward Scorpius, gesticulating with her hands as she does.
God, Scorpius thinks, she's so beautiful.
"Scorpius?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you alright?"
Scorpius nods. "Yeah; of course. Just ... family, right?" His voice strains, as though struggling to wrap itself adequately around the last spoken syllables.
"Right." Eyes wide, Rose nods emphatically; like there's no possible way that she could be more in agreement with Scorpius.
It is perhaps because of this very gesture - perhaps because of its certainty, its definitive no-bones-about-it nature - that the silence that follows seems increasingly uncertain. Awkward, it fills the space in Scorpius' bedroom at an astronomical rate: and as he stares at Rose, nodding like a puppet whose strings are in the hands of some terrified, trembling puppeteer, he panics.
Shit, he thinks; it's too much now, it's too big and awkward and she's going to leave and -
"Scorp," Rose says, her voice impinging on the nervous ramble of Scorpius' thoughts.
"Yes, Rose?" he manages to choke out.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Scorpius shrugs. "Sure," he says, trying in futility to instil in his voice something that at least resembles a care-free attitude.
Rose takes a deep breath. She runs her tongue, with a barely perceptible flick, over her lips, wetting them before she speaks again. At the sight of her sudden, darting tongue caressing plush lips, Scorpius can feel his breath hitch in his throat.
"Scorpius," Rose begins, "why did you stop talking to me?"
Taken aback, Scorpius blinks. He opens his mouth to reply, and closes it again.
"Scorpius?"
He takes a deep breath. "What're you on about, Rosie?" he says, trying to maintain a jovial tone, "what do you call this then?" He offers a wan smile and gestures with a hand to the space between them; to the words being passed back and forth.
"Not now; we're talking now, obviously but ... before. I mean ..."
Rose pauses, mid-sentence. She steps toward Scorpius and, extending an arm, reaches for his hand. Cold fingertips glance the warm flesh of Scorpius' palm, and he must suppress a sudden, shuddering sigh.
"I mean," Rose resumes, "before. When we were friends. Or, I thought we were. But then you - I don't know, Scorp it's like you just stopped talking to me. Like I'd done something wrong." Rose furrows her brow in thought. Her mouth curves up at one corner, causing her face to appear somewhat scrunched; at least, on the one side.
Scorpius wants only to reach out and cup that part of her: that crinkled smile and scrunched cheek; he wants only to tilt her head skyward and bring those lips - such lips! - to meet his, and lose himself in the tenderness of the touch that he not only longs to feel, but to be.
That is what he wants to be: not a Malfoy, nor a wizard, nor, even, a man: he wants only to be the barely-there and yet always-there touch that will always hold Rose close.
But that is exactly what he isn't. He never has been and, he fears, never will be.
It is that same fear that drove him from her at the beginning of their fifth year at Hogwarts. He had been watching the Ravenclaw team's Quidditch practice when it happened. It had started to rain and the team, having been out for an hour or so already, decided to call it a day. As Rose's team mates departed the pitch for the change rooms, she headed for where Scorpius sat, waiting and watching at the edge of the pitch.
Grinning, Rose hoisted her broomstick over her shoulder. "Well," she called out, "how do we look out there?"
Scorpius looked up from the Transfiguration textbook he was half-reading and promptly wished that he hadn't: Rose stood over him, her freckled cheeks flushed with exertion, hair swept at awkward angles across her forehead and flecked with mud, and her eyes; her eyes glittered in the low light of the early evening, like stars too impatient to wait for the coming of night to burn in the darkness.
Truly, Scorpius realised, she was, in her dishevelled state, one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
And he, he was her friend; just - no, only - her friend.
He couldn't bare it.
"Scorpius," Rose interjects, recalling Scorpius' wandering attention from the borders of his memory, and the all-too-familiar feeling that rose in his chest whenever he thought of it.
"Scorpius," repeats Rose; "what did I do?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing, Rose; nothing."
Daring, Scorpius squeezes her hand in his. "You did nothing. It's fine. We're fine." Rose returns the gesture with a smile.
Scorpius watches as the tension fades from her face
He watches, as Rose moves before him: stepping back, she lowers herself to the edge of Scorpius' bed, holding Scorpius' hand all the while. Rose pats the vacant space beside her on the bed.
"Sit," she says to Scorpius; hesitant, he does so. He can feel the mattress sink beneath his weight; fabric rustles gently as he shifts against it.
And there it is again: the silence.
Scorpius opens his mouth to speak, to say something - anything will suffice at this point, but Rosie beats him to it.
"Rosie," she says quietly.
"What?" Scorpius asks, confused.
"Rosie; call me Rosie."
"I - did. Didn't I?"
Rose shakes her head. "No," she says. "Rose is what you said. And you always used to call me Rosie. And I - well ..."
Rose trails off. She looks away: at the floor, at the door and, finally, at a patch on her dress where a thread has come loose. It seems, Scorpius thinks, as though she cannot lift her head. Or she cannot bring herself to do so.
"Well, what?" Scorpius asks. He is intent on knowing what it is that she was going to say.
Rose takes a deep breath. She straightens her back and looks up; she exhales. Scorpius watches, and he almost thinks he can see the breath passing between her lips; he thinks that, if he were to close his eyes and concentrate, he could almost - almost - imagine what it feels like, to skim the surface of that skin, pink and glossed with saliva.
"I was just going to say," Rose continues, turning now to face Scorpius; to look him full in the face, "I was just going to say, that you always called me that - Rosie - and that, well, I missed it. I missed you, Scorpius. I mean, there was even a time when - no." Rose shakes her head; she blushes, and looks away again.
"What?" Scorpius blurts. His mind cannot even keep track of all the imagined possibilities that are rushing through it now.
"There was a time," Rose says, "when I thought that maybe - maybe - Merlin's arse, I can't even ... I mean, it's ridiculous to think of it now, but I thought that maybe you, I don't know, fancied me. Or something. Maybe." As the last disjointed words pass from Rose's lips into actuality, she takes her bottom lips between her teeth, gnawing at it nervously.
"You thought that I -"
"Ugh, I know!" Rose throws a hand back, dismissing the suggestion. "Can you even believe it? I mean as if you - you, Scorpius Malfoy - would ever -"
"Fancy you?" Scorpius interjects, arching his eyebrows in unison.
"Right?" Rose lets out a nervous laugh, somewhere between a titter and a guffaw - if that titter and guffaw had both been stumbling drunkenly down a narrow corridor and collided, fallen heavily to the ground in a tangled mess and series of slurred curses. For a moment, it is this sound that Scorpius mistakes it for some sort of distorted hiccup.
But it isn't - what it is, Scorpius realises, is nerves and in another moment, he wonders: why? Why is Rose - Rosie - so ... nervous?
She looks, he thinks, the way he feels inside: the way he has felt since she knocked on his door this evening; the way he has felt since he saw her that day at Quidditch practice.
"Me; fancy you," Scorpius mumbles under his breath as Rose's words still echo in his ears.
"Crazy, right?"
Scorpius shakes his head. "I can't believe you knew, back then," he says to no-one, to himself, and to Rose all at once.
"What do you -"
"You knew. I can't believe that all this time you knew." Scorpius says the words slowly, wrapping his mouth wholly around every syllable of every word.
"Knew what?" Rose asks, unsure as to what, exactly, is happening.
"That I fancied you!"
"What?! No, I thought that maybe you did but come on, Scorp. You? Fancy me?"
"But I did, don't you see Rosie?"
"You ... did?"
"Yes!" Scorpius says, "of course I did! I ... Christ, I still do."
"You -"
"- do, yes." Scorpius, grinning wildly squeezes Rose's hand. With a deferential inclination of his head, he raises it to his lips and as he allows his eyes to flutter closed, he presses his mouth to the back of her hand, caressing the smooth, sweet-smelling skin with his dry lips.
When Scorpius opens his eyes again, he sees Rose staring back at him - returning his wild smile, teeth flashing, and her eyes glittering.
And for the first time since that day at the Quidditch pitch, he feels like he can breathe.
Author: a_shadow_there
Gift For: liliths_requiem
Summary: Rose and Scorpius were friends, until their fifth year at Hogwarts when Scorpius realised he wanted more.
Rating: PG
Warnings: fluff, and a very generous helping of teenage awkwardness and longing.
Word Count: 2010~
Lyrics/Quotes Used: "I would like to be the air/that inhabits you for a moment only./I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary."- Margaret Atwood "Variations on the Word Sleep."
A/N: Many, many thanks to the Mods for their patience - you guys have been amazing. This was my first time writing Rose/Scorpius, so I'm crossing my fingers and toes that you enjoy the fic.
With an exasperated sigh, Scorpius collapses onto the bed.
He thought he would never get away from it all.
His parents' party: a goodwill gesture for this year's graduating class. It is hosted by the Malfoys every year - has been, every year since the cessation of the second war - and this year is no different.
Except that it is Scorpius who is one of the graduands; one of those young witches and wizards who are standing, tremulously poised at the precipice of what will be Their Life.
Their Life.
Not his, he thinks; even now, when it is his, it isn't.
It is theirs, always theirs. It is their power and money and influence and it is merely he who is paraded out in front of the guests as proof of their good work.
A self-congratulatory pat on the back: look what we've done.
A perfect Prince to the Malfoy throne.
“Ugh,” Scorpius groans. His upper lip curls contemptuously at the thought and, as he does, Scorpius catches sight of his reflection in a nearby floor-length mirror.
“Ugh,” he reiterates, as he realises his curling lip is the same as his father's. With an effort, Scorpius attempts to re-arrange his features into a more appealing expression.
Or, at least, one that doesn't irk him so.
In that moment, Scorpius' efforts are interrupted by a gentle rapping on his bedroom door.
“Who is it?” Scorpius calls out. He gets to his feet and smooths the front of his trousers.
The door creaks open, admitting the raucous sounds of his parents' party - chatter, laughter, and music; all the festivities that exhaust Scorpius.
“It's just me.”
Notes of a hoarse yet lilting voice are carried on the air; they cling to the music and echo in the warm, stifling atmosphere of Scorpius' bedroom.
It is a voice that is not only familiar, but one that has been missed.
“Rose,” Scorpius says, his eyes widening in surprise, “what are you doing up here?”
“It's nice to see you too, Scorp,” Rose says. She slips into Scorpius' room, between door and architrave; a narrow gap bathed in the amber glow of the hall lamps.
She looks, Scorpius thinks, ethereal.
“Oh, right,” Scorpius says, recalling his manners. “Come in.” But as he speaks, Rose is already easing the door closed.
"What's up, Rose?"
Rose shrugs. "Nothing really. Just needed a reprieve from Albus. That boy is insufferable."
Scorpius laughs. "He's not that bad, surely."
"Oh, Scorpius, you've no idea. I swear, if he weren't sodding family ..."
Scorpius raises his eyebrows in unison. "Yeah," he says, "family; tell me about it."
"Ugh, I know right?" Rose says. She takes a few hurried steps toward Scorpius, gesticulating with her hands as she does.
God, Scorpius thinks, she's so beautiful.
"Scorpius?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you alright?"
Scorpius nods. "Yeah; of course. Just ... family, right?" His voice strains, as though struggling to wrap itself adequately around the last spoken syllables.
"Right." Eyes wide, Rose nods emphatically; like there's no possible way that she could be more in agreement with Scorpius.
It is perhaps because of this very gesture - perhaps because of its certainty, its definitive no-bones-about-it nature - that the silence that follows seems increasingly uncertain. Awkward, it fills the space in Scorpius' bedroom at an astronomical rate: and as he stares at Rose, nodding like a puppet whose strings are in the hands of some terrified, trembling puppeteer, he panics.
Shit, he thinks; it's too much now, it's too big and awkward and she's going to leave and -
"Scorp," Rose says, her voice impinging on the nervous ramble of Scorpius' thoughts.
"Yes, Rose?" he manages to choke out.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Scorpius shrugs. "Sure," he says, trying in futility to instil in his voice something that at least resembles a care-free attitude.
Rose takes a deep breath. She runs her tongue, with a barely perceptible flick, over her lips, wetting them before she speaks again. At the sight of her sudden, darting tongue caressing plush lips, Scorpius can feel his breath hitch in his throat.
"Scorpius," Rose begins, "why did you stop talking to me?"
Taken aback, Scorpius blinks. He opens his mouth to reply, and closes it again.
"Scorpius?"
He takes a deep breath. "What're you on about, Rosie?" he says, trying to maintain a jovial tone, "what do you call this then?" He offers a wan smile and gestures with a hand to the space between them; to the words being passed back and forth.
"Not now; we're talking now, obviously but ... before. I mean ..."
Rose pauses, mid-sentence. She steps toward Scorpius and, extending an arm, reaches for his hand. Cold fingertips glance the warm flesh of Scorpius' palm, and he must suppress a sudden, shuddering sigh.
"I mean," Rose resumes, "before. When we were friends. Or, I thought we were. But then you - I don't know, Scorp it's like you just stopped talking to me. Like I'd done something wrong." Rose furrows her brow in thought. Her mouth curves up at one corner, causing her face to appear somewhat scrunched; at least, on the one side.
Scorpius wants only to reach out and cup that part of her: that crinkled smile and scrunched cheek; he wants only to tilt her head skyward and bring those lips - such lips! - to meet his, and lose himself in the tenderness of the touch that he not only longs to feel, but to be.
That is what he wants to be: not a Malfoy, nor a wizard, nor, even, a man: he wants only to be the barely-there and yet always-there touch that will always hold Rose close.
But that is exactly what he isn't. He never has been and, he fears, never will be.
It is that same fear that drove him from her at the beginning of their fifth year at Hogwarts. He had been watching the Ravenclaw team's Quidditch practice when it happened. It had started to rain and the team, having been out for an hour or so already, decided to call it a day. As Rose's team mates departed the pitch for the change rooms, she headed for where Scorpius sat, waiting and watching at the edge of the pitch.
Grinning, Rose hoisted her broomstick over her shoulder. "Well," she called out, "how do we look out there?"
Scorpius looked up from the Transfiguration textbook he was half-reading and promptly wished that he hadn't: Rose stood over him, her freckled cheeks flushed with exertion, hair swept at awkward angles across her forehead and flecked with mud, and her eyes; her eyes glittered in the low light of the early evening, like stars too impatient to wait for the coming of night to burn in the darkness.
Truly, Scorpius realised, she was, in her dishevelled state, one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
And he, he was her friend; just - no, only - her friend.
He couldn't bare it.
"Scorpius," Rose interjects, recalling Scorpius' wandering attention from the borders of his memory, and the all-too-familiar feeling that rose in his chest whenever he thought of it.
"Scorpius," repeats Rose; "what did I do?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing, Rose; nothing."
Daring, Scorpius squeezes her hand in his. "You did nothing. It's fine. We're fine." Rose returns the gesture with a smile.
Scorpius watches as the tension fades from her face
He watches, as Rose moves before him: stepping back, she lowers herself to the edge of Scorpius' bed, holding Scorpius' hand all the while. Rose pats the vacant space beside her on the bed.
"Sit," she says to Scorpius; hesitant, he does so. He can feel the mattress sink beneath his weight; fabric rustles gently as he shifts against it.
And there it is again: the silence.
Scorpius opens his mouth to speak, to say something - anything will suffice at this point, but Rosie beats him to it.
"Rosie," she says quietly.
"What?" Scorpius asks, confused.
"Rosie; call me Rosie."
"I - did. Didn't I?"
Rose shakes her head. "No," she says. "Rose is what you said. And you always used to call me Rosie. And I - well ..."
Rose trails off. She looks away: at the floor, at the door and, finally, at a patch on her dress where a thread has come loose. It seems, Scorpius thinks, as though she cannot lift her head. Or she cannot bring herself to do so.
"Well, what?" Scorpius asks. He is intent on knowing what it is that she was going to say.
Rose takes a deep breath. She straightens her back and looks up; she exhales. Scorpius watches, and he almost thinks he can see the breath passing between her lips; he thinks that, if he were to close his eyes and concentrate, he could almost - almost - imagine what it feels like, to skim the surface of that skin, pink and glossed with saliva.
"I was just going to say," Rose continues, turning now to face Scorpius; to look him full in the face, "I was just going to say, that you always called me that - Rosie - and that, well, I missed it. I missed you, Scorpius. I mean, there was even a time when - no." Rose shakes her head; she blushes, and looks away again.
"What?" Scorpius blurts. His mind cannot even keep track of all the imagined possibilities that are rushing through it now.
"There was a time," Rose says, "when I thought that maybe - maybe - Merlin's arse, I can't even ... I mean, it's ridiculous to think of it now, but I thought that maybe you, I don't know, fancied me. Or something. Maybe." As the last disjointed words pass from Rose's lips into actuality, she takes her bottom lips between her teeth, gnawing at it nervously.
"You thought that I -"
"Ugh, I know!" Rose throws a hand back, dismissing the suggestion. "Can you even believe it? I mean as if you - you, Scorpius Malfoy - would ever -"
"Fancy you?" Scorpius interjects, arching his eyebrows in unison.
"Right?" Rose lets out a nervous laugh, somewhere between a titter and a guffaw - if that titter and guffaw had both been stumbling drunkenly down a narrow corridor and collided, fallen heavily to the ground in a tangled mess and series of slurred curses. For a moment, it is this sound that Scorpius mistakes it for some sort of distorted hiccup.
But it isn't - what it is, Scorpius realises, is nerves and in another moment, he wonders: why? Why is Rose - Rosie - so ... nervous?
She looks, he thinks, the way he feels inside: the way he has felt since she knocked on his door this evening; the way he has felt since he saw her that day at Quidditch practice.
"Me; fancy you," Scorpius mumbles under his breath as Rose's words still echo in his ears.
"Crazy, right?"
Scorpius shakes his head. "I can't believe you knew, back then," he says to no-one, to himself, and to Rose all at once.
"What do you -"
"You knew. I can't believe that all this time you knew." Scorpius says the words slowly, wrapping his mouth wholly around every syllable of every word.
"Knew what?" Rose asks, unsure as to what, exactly, is happening.
"That I fancied you!"
"What?! No, I thought that maybe you did but come on, Scorp. You? Fancy me?"
"But I did, don't you see Rosie?"
"You ... did?"
"Yes!" Scorpius says, "of course I did! I ... Christ, I still do."
"You -"
"- do, yes." Scorpius, grinning wildly squeezes Rose's hand. With a deferential inclination of his head, he raises it to his lips and as he allows his eyes to flutter closed, he presses his mouth to the back of her hand, caressing the smooth, sweet-smelling skin with his dry lips.
When Scorpius opens his eyes again, he sees Rose staring back at him - returning his wild smile, teeth flashing, and her eyes glittering.
And for the first time since that day at the Quidditch pitch, he feels like he can breathe.