"The Accident" - A Gift for queenb23more
Title: The Accident
Author: tudorrose1533
Gift For: QueenB23More
Summary: Scorpius and Rose are given not one, but two chances.
Rating: R
Warnings: Some sexuality, and character death (not within S/R).
Word Count: approx. 2000
Author's Note: Hope this fits the bill, and that everyone enjoys!
He stared at her naked, broken body, and thought he had never seen a girl more beautiful, or more in peril. She breathed shallowly; her eyelids flickered open and shut briefly, like pale curtains; the blood in her hair was only a few shades darker than the tresses themselves. He thought, also, that it had been a long time since he had last seen her-Rose Weasley.
Then he set about his work, readying his utensils, instructing the nurses and the orderlies, summoning as much magic from within himself as he could, before beginning. It was an arduous task, to keep a steady flow of magic linking him to the patient on the table before him, and a dangerous one; one wrong move and his life, too, would be snuffed out. But it was successful, as the other Healers had known it would be, for he was Scorpius Malfoy, the best in the hospital, and he had been working all night.
+++
There had been a tragic accident, and all the rest of the family had died: Ronald and Hermione Weasley, and their son Hugo; Harry and Ginny Potter, and their daughter and sons Lily, James and Albus Severus. Al. Rose had called him Al, in her sleep, as Scorpius passed by her room on his way to other patients, to other emergencies. The nurses had peered fretfully at the sleeping girl, slowly recovering in the scarcely visited hospital room. She had uncles, Scorpius knew; only one still lived in England, and he was a stern man with a red moustache who had come to see her still and pale body and clucked his tongue impatiently.
“She’s a grown woman, she will care for herself when she’s recovered,” Mr. Percy Weasley had said, and then he had gone.
Scorpius had known Rose in school. They had been in the same year, were the same age. She looked younger than thirty, however; she could have passed for twenty-two. Scorpius wondered if it was her fragile stage that gave her the appearance of innocence and thereby youth. He found that he stopped by more than was necessary to check in on her. He found that he was altogether too fascinated with her tale.
They had been coming back from Salisbury, Rose would say, softly. Together, all together, in a magicked car, and the car had crashed from the sky and there had been a lightning storm, too. Or perhaps the lighting storm had come first? She would shake her head, confused.
+++
It was Scorpius’s responsibility to see that she got well. Or at least, he made it his responsibility. He went into her room and saw that she was talking, and eating, and walking about. In the mornings he opened her curtains. After a month he accompanied her on walks through the hospital gardens. They often talked about school, and their childhood professors. Rose had been a professor, she said, at Durmstrang. She had not been in England for eight years before the accident. She had come back for her parents’ wedding anniversary.
As always, she grew silent when the subject of her family was broached.
On Christmas, Scorpius brought her a little gift. She had purchased one for him, as well. The card read: Healer Malfoy, Thank you so much for being so diligent in my care. I appreciate your hard work and concern. Rose Weasley. Her kiss said something different. Scorpius clutched a chair back and tried to forget the hospital protocol. Her lips were chapped. Her hair under his other hand was thick and soft.
The months after that were changed. He was more cautious in her presence. He gave fewer opinions on her recovery in the monthly board meetings. He ignored the glances of the nurses, and he brought flowers every morning.
When she was released he helped her find a flat in London. He was installed in it very shortly, although he did not move his things out of his own home. There was a toothbrush for him, and he claimed a coffee mug with time. They lived very quietly. She did not feel up to teaching. He worked odd hours, but she was always awake when he returned from the hospital.
Rose was very tender, very gentle. She spoke little but smiled peacefully when Scorpius was good to her. In bed, she was responsive, but never ecstatic. Scorpius was happy. He remembered that as a girl at Hogwarts she had been vivacious, and industrious; “intense” was the word that came to mind, both at work and play. He suspected that she had been the same before the accident, and now was a very different creature than before. But she was a comfortable creature, and a good one, and he saw no reason to interfere.
And then one night he came home and found her crying. Durmstrang had finally sent over her things from her apartments there, and they had contained a photo album. She sat by the window dripping tears on her smiling and waving family and Scorpius stood in the doorway and did not know what to do. Until, suddenly, with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, he did.
+++
The Malfoy vault was deep in Gringotts, and Scorpius spent an hour traveling to the enormous cavern piled high with treasure, jewels and coins. He took everything, instructing the goblins to bundle it up. He gave them the address, and told them explicitly to ship it no sooner than four hours from the moment he walked out the door. The chief goblin eyed him, unimpressed. In his wire-rim spectacles, Scorpius was less intimidating than his father.
He strode through Diagon Alley in his neatly-pressed slacks, the Malfoy family ring prominent on his finger, unfamiliarly cool against his skin. When he entered Borgin and Burkes the shopgirl went silent, and went at once to fetch Mr. Borgin. He emerged quietly and gloomily from the dark interior.
“Mr. Malfoy,” he said, his fingertips pressed lightly together. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to purchase a Time Turner.”
“I’ll think you’ll find those are illegal, and certainly not in my possession,” said Mr. Borgin quietly, eyeing Scorpius with a steely gaze.
“I think you’ll find, in your back rooms, a Malfoy Time Turner sold to you the summer I was twelve,” said Scorpius, his lips pressed firmly together.
Mr. Borgin shot a glance at his shopgirl, who went at once to the windows and sealed the shutters. Then he jerked his head at the dark back room, and she vanished into it, returning with a small mahogany box, intricately carved.
“Here it is, then. How much are you willing to offer for it?” asked Mr. Borgin with a sigh.
“Everything,” said Scorpius.
“Not surprising. Well, then, I’ll expect the payment by six o’clock this evening.”
“It will be done,” said Scorpius, and as he spoke he knew the goblins were readying their march to Knockturn Alley.
Scorpius bundled the Time Turner away, and headed back to Rose’s flat. Of course Borgin was not excited to sell the Time Turner, as it was frequently used to change events that prevented or eliminated the need to buy the item in the first place, and in the new version of the future, the detested illegal item was still sitting in storage. This was, of course, what Scorpius was counting on. If all went as he hoped it would, on this afternoon in the new sequence of events, he would be working at the hospital, not purchasing a vastly expensive and luxurious item-albeit one that had been his inheritance before the Malfoys had hard times during the Voldemort Wars.
Of course, if all went as planned, Rose’s family would survive, and she would not find herself battered and weak in the hospital at which Scorpius was employed. And they would not meet each other. And they would not love each other. And Scorpius would lose her.
But this was a risk, Scorpius knew, that he had to take. On his honor as a gentleman, but more importantly on his good-heartedness as a lover, this was something that had to be done.
+++
Rose cried when she saw the Time Turner, and Scorpius held his ground. Take it, he told her, and she shook her head, terrified of the consequences. Take it, he insisted. I’ve paid a fortune for it-my whole fortune for it. You must.
Rose fretted. She told him that she loved him, for the first time. The words were hesitant, but sure. Scorpius felt his heart twist in knots, and he looked at this lover and smiled bleakly. If it’s meant to be, he said, trailing off, and he placed the Time Turner’s chain around her slender white neck.
I’ll do it in the other room, said Rose. I’ll find you, she said. But of course she would not; she could not. Time would change, and neither he nor she would remember. They would live their distant daily lives, and she would return after half term to Durmstrang, and he would work at the hospital and-
They made love before she went. He put his tongue to good use, licking the salt of her tears and her soft skin, covering her body with kisses, placed along her stomach and thighs and then: center, against her clit, until she cried out in ecstasy but also despair. Her body as she rode him, hands gripping his shoulders and knees locked against his hips, was tight and fierce, trying to grind into him a sense of remembrance, a sense of eternity.
This will be again, she said as they lay curled around each other.
I hope so, he said, and the next morning she had gone.
+++
Of course he didn’t remember.
It was a quiet day at the hospital, and he looked in on the children under his care, and the elderly, and then the intensive cases-the emergencies. One man nearly dead from drink; another suffering from an internal magical wound, likely incurable. Scorpius knew his job to be depressing and it made him, in a slight way, unhappy. He knew his job isolated him, and that, too, made him unhappy, for he was very conscious of being alone.
As he thought these things the doors to the ward opened, and a young man on a stretcher was brought in, his dark hair falling over his eyes, his large family following behind anxiously. The father, who looked very much like the son, and was familiar to Scorpius just as soon as his fringe was pushed back with worry to reveal a well-known scar, said, “My son-a magicked car-lightning.”
Harry Potter glanced at his niece and said, “If it weren’t for Rosie-in the nick of time, she grabbed the wheel-”
Scorpius looked at Rosie, who was about thirty, with red hair and beautiful features. She looked tired but determined; fierce and anxious. Scorpius was struck with her beauty, so different from the austere gentility and tenderness he had known as a boy with his mother and nanny.
“I’ll see to him,” said Scorpius. “He’s not too badly struck. He’ll be awake soon.”
Rosie looked grateful, and Scorpius remembered her: a child of eleven at the train platform, a girl of thirteen in a ball gown and too-big shoes, a pupil of fifteen with her head buried in books, a teenager of seventeen drunk and roaring with laughter, a young woman teasing him on the final day of Hogwarts: “I’m going somewhere; where are you go, Scorp?” He had hated the name, hated her, hated her vibrant beauty and enthusiasm.
Yet he remembered something else, too-but no, it was invention, fantasy on his part-his mouth against her hot skin, his eyes traveling down her naked body, his hands across her breasts and hips and thighs.
“Hello, Rose,” he said, moved by the thought, and she looked at him; their eyes connected with a start; they remembered, and yet, they did not. They could not. But their bodies sensed the echo of time, and she said-
“If you can save him, Scorpius, I’ll take you to dinner.”
And the kiss after that dinner led to the future, but first to bed.
Author: tudorrose1533
Gift For: QueenB23More
Summary: Scorpius and Rose are given not one, but two chances.
Rating: R
Warnings: Some sexuality, and character death (not within S/R).
Word Count: approx. 2000
Author's Note: Hope this fits the bill, and that everyone enjoys!
He stared at her naked, broken body, and thought he had never seen a girl more beautiful, or more in peril. She breathed shallowly; her eyelids flickered open and shut briefly, like pale curtains; the blood in her hair was only a few shades darker than the tresses themselves. He thought, also, that it had been a long time since he had last seen her-Rose Weasley.
Then he set about his work, readying his utensils, instructing the nurses and the orderlies, summoning as much magic from within himself as he could, before beginning. It was an arduous task, to keep a steady flow of magic linking him to the patient on the table before him, and a dangerous one; one wrong move and his life, too, would be snuffed out. But it was successful, as the other Healers had known it would be, for he was Scorpius Malfoy, the best in the hospital, and he had been working all night.
+++
There had been a tragic accident, and all the rest of the family had died: Ronald and Hermione Weasley, and their son Hugo; Harry and Ginny Potter, and their daughter and sons Lily, James and Albus Severus. Al. Rose had called him Al, in her sleep, as Scorpius passed by her room on his way to other patients, to other emergencies. The nurses had peered fretfully at the sleeping girl, slowly recovering in the scarcely visited hospital room. She had uncles, Scorpius knew; only one still lived in England, and he was a stern man with a red moustache who had come to see her still and pale body and clucked his tongue impatiently.
“She’s a grown woman, she will care for herself when she’s recovered,” Mr. Percy Weasley had said, and then he had gone.
Scorpius had known Rose in school. They had been in the same year, were the same age. She looked younger than thirty, however; she could have passed for twenty-two. Scorpius wondered if it was her fragile stage that gave her the appearance of innocence and thereby youth. He found that he stopped by more than was necessary to check in on her. He found that he was altogether too fascinated with her tale.
They had been coming back from Salisbury, Rose would say, softly. Together, all together, in a magicked car, and the car had crashed from the sky and there had been a lightning storm, too. Or perhaps the lighting storm had come first? She would shake her head, confused.
+++
It was Scorpius’s responsibility to see that she got well. Or at least, he made it his responsibility. He went into her room and saw that she was talking, and eating, and walking about. In the mornings he opened her curtains. After a month he accompanied her on walks through the hospital gardens. They often talked about school, and their childhood professors. Rose had been a professor, she said, at Durmstrang. She had not been in England for eight years before the accident. She had come back for her parents’ wedding anniversary.
As always, she grew silent when the subject of her family was broached.
On Christmas, Scorpius brought her a little gift. She had purchased one for him, as well. The card read: Healer Malfoy, Thank you so much for being so diligent in my care. I appreciate your hard work and concern. Rose Weasley. Her kiss said something different. Scorpius clutched a chair back and tried to forget the hospital protocol. Her lips were chapped. Her hair under his other hand was thick and soft.
The months after that were changed. He was more cautious in her presence. He gave fewer opinions on her recovery in the monthly board meetings. He ignored the glances of the nurses, and he brought flowers every morning.
When she was released he helped her find a flat in London. He was installed in it very shortly, although he did not move his things out of his own home. There was a toothbrush for him, and he claimed a coffee mug with time. They lived very quietly. She did not feel up to teaching. He worked odd hours, but she was always awake when he returned from the hospital.
Rose was very tender, very gentle. She spoke little but smiled peacefully when Scorpius was good to her. In bed, she was responsive, but never ecstatic. Scorpius was happy. He remembered that as a girl at Hogwarts she had been vivacious, and industrious; “intense” was the word that came to mind, both at work and play. He suspected that she had been the same before the accident, and now was a very different creature than before. But she was a comfortable creature, and a good one, and he saw no reason to interfere.
And then one night he came home and found her crying. Durmstrang had finally sent over her things from her apartments there, and they had contained a photo album. She sat by the window dripping tears on her smiling and waving family and Scorpius stood in the doorway and did not know what to do. Until, suddenly, with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, he did.
+++
The Malfoy vault was deep in Gringotts, and Scorpius spent an hour traveling to the enormous cavern piled high with treasure, jewels and coins. He took everything, instructing the goblins to bundle it up. He gave them the address, and told them explicitly to ship it no sooner than four hours from the moment he walked out the door. The chief goblin eyed him, unimpressed. In his wire-rim spectacles, Scorpius was less intimidating than his father.
He strode through Diagon Alley in his neatly-pressed slacks, the Malfoy family ring prominent on his finger, unfamiliarly cool against his skin. When he entered Borgin and Burkes the shopgirl went silent, and went at once to fetch Mr. Borgin. He emerged quietly and gloomily from the dark interior.
“Mr. Malfoy,” he said, his fingertips pressed lightly together. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to purchase a Time Turner.”
“I’ll think you’ll find those are illegal, and certainly not in my possession,” said Mr. Borgin quietly, eyeing Scorpius with a steely gaze.
“I think you’ll find, in your back rooms, a Malfoy Time Turner sold to you the summer I was twelve,” said Scorpius, his lips pressed firmly together.
Mr. Borgin shot a glance at his shopgirl, who went at once to the windows and sealed the shutters. Then he jerked his head at the dark back room, and she vanished into it, returning with a small mahogany box, intricately carved.
“Here it is, then. How much are you willing to offer for it?” asked Mr. Borgin with a sigh.
“Everything,” said Scorpius.
“Not surprising. Well, then, I’ll expect the payment by six o’clock this evening.”
“It will be done,” said Scorpius, and as he spoke he knew the goblins were readying their march to Knockturn Alley.
Scorpius bundled the Time Turner away, and headed back to Rose’s flat. Of course Borgin was not excited to sell the Time Turner, as it was frequently used to change events that prevented or eliminated the need to buy the item in the first place, and in the new version of the future, the detested illegal item was still sitting in storage. This was, of course, what Scorpius was counting on. If all went as he hoped it would, on this afternoon in the new sequence of events, he would be working at the hospital, not purchasing a vastly expensive and luxurious item-albeit one that had been his inheritance before the Malfoys had hard times during the Voldemort Wars.
Of course, if all went as planned, Rose’s family would survive, and she would not find herself battered and weak in the hospital at which Scorpius was employed. And they would not meet each other. And they would not love each other. And Scorpius would lose her.
But this was a risk, Scorpius knew, that he had to take. On his honor as a gentleman, but more importantly on his good-heartedness as a lover, this was something that had to be done.
+++
Rose cried when she saw the Time Turner, and Scorpius held his ground. Take it, he told her, and she shook her head, terrified of the consequences. Take it, he insisted. I’ve paid a fortune for it-my whole fortune for it. You must.
Rose fretted. She told him that she loved him, for the first time. The words were hesitant, but sure. Scorpius felt his heart twist in knots, and he looked at this lover and smiled bleakly. If it’s meant to be, he said, trailing off, and he placed the Time Turner’s chain around her slender white neck.
I’ll do it in the other room, said Rose. I’ll find you, she said. But of course she would not; she could not. Time would change, and neither he nor she would remember. They would live their distant daily lives, and she would return after half term to Durmstrang, and he would work at the hospital and-
They made love before she went. He put his tongue to good use, licking the salt of her tears and her soft skin, covering her body with kisses, placed along her stomach and thighs and then: center, against her clit, until she cried out in ecstasy but also despair. Her body as she rode him, hands gripping his shoulders and knees locked against his hips, was tight and fierce, trying to grind into him a sense of remembrance, a sense of eternity.
This will be again, she said as they lay curled around each other.
I hope so, he said, and the next morning she had gone.
+++
Of course he didn’t remember.
It was a quiet day at the hospital, and he looked in on the children under his care, and the elderly, and then the intensive cases-the emergencies. One man nearly dead from drink; another suffering from an internal magical wound, likely incurable. Scorpius knew his job to be depressing and it made him, in a slight way, unhappy. He knew his job isolated him, and that, too, made him unhappy, for he was very conscious of being alone.
As he thought these things the doors to the ward opened, and a young man on a stretcher was brought in, his dark hair falling over his eyes, his large family following behind anxiously. The father, who looked very much like the son, and was familiar to Scorpius just as soon as his fringe was pushed back with worry to reveal a well-known scar, said, “My son-a magicked car-lightning.”
Harry Potter glanced at his niece and said, “If it weren’t for Rosie-in the nick of time, she grabbed the wheel-”
Scorpius looked at Rosie, who was about thirty, with red hair and beautiful features. She looked tired but determined; fierce and anxious. Scorpius was struck with her beauty, so different from the austere gentility and tenderness he had known as a boy with his mother and nanny.
“I’ll see to him,” said Scorpius. “He’s not too badly struck. He’ll be awake soon.”
Rosie looked grateful, and Scorpius remembered her: a child of eleven at the train platform, a girl of thirteen in a ball gown and too-big shoes, a pupil of fifteen with her head buried in books, a teenager of seventeen drunk and roaring with laughter, a young woman teasing him on the final day of Hogwarts: “I’m going somewhere; where are you go, Scorp?” He had hated the name, hated her, hated her vibrant beauty and enthusiasm.
Yet he remembered something else, too-but no, it was invention, fantasy on his part-his mouth against her hot skin, his eyes traveling down her naked body, his hands across her breasts and hips and thighs.
“Hello, Rose,” he said, moved by the thought, and she looked at him; their eyes connected with a start; they remembered, and yet, they did not. They could not. But their bodies sensed the echo of time, and she said-
“If you can save him, Scorpius, I’ll take you to dinner.”
And the kiss after that dinner led to the future, but first to bed.