Here We Go Again

Chapter 31: What Feels like Fate

POV: Scorpius

There was an echo of a groan taking over the little huddle of students that was gathered in Professor Longbottom's greenhouse that night. Students were there in order to finish separate projects for Herbology, but it usually just became a little common room for all classmates to come and waste time when they wanted. And currently that's exactly what they were doing.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Lucas Zabini shoved his way through the crowd that was looking past the glass walls of the greenhouse. "Spring is right around the bloody corner and we're having a storm? That's unfair!"

Surely enough, to torment and tease the Slytherin, thunder cracked against the darkening sky. More groans left the students with their noses pressed up against the glass walls.

"Earlier today in Divination class Professor Trelawney promised me clear skies all Easter holiday!" Zabini marched back to our table, lowering himself on the stool left of me. "Bloody bint lied! I was looking forward to playing Quidditch with Dad and my cousins! Mum will never let us now."

There a was a light giggle on my right and I was almost tempted to turn and lose myself in it. I needed a distraction, but for the life of me, I couldn't be torn away from looking at the redhead girl that worked on her own at the furthest table by the doors of the greenhouse. Her red curls were a bit frizzy, courtesy of the moistness and electricity that had abruptly plagued the air, but I still wanted to run my fingers through it; I knew that her hair would still be silky. I still wanted to cup the sides of her pale face, lift her chin up so that her brown, beautiful eyes could look deep into my silver ones and never look away. I wanted to pull her into a hug and hold on until the rain turned to sun and the sun turned to the endless moon.

But she didn't want me near. For two weeks she hid in the shadows of the castle. For two excruciating weeks, I had not seen the golden flecks of her brown eyes, nor had I smelt the vanilla scent that radiated off her skin.

"Trelawney promised me a horrific incident happening today, but I made it out of Care of Magical Creatures intact." On my right, Emily stretched her pink palms to wiggle her fingers as close to Zabini's face as possible.

My fellow Slytherin's previous annoyance faded as he chuckled at Emily. "What happened, Em?" he questioned as he traced the fingertip of his index finger over the scabs that were scattered on the girl's palms. "Did the Blast-Ended Skrewts get you again?"

"They were crabbier than usual, pun intended," offered Emily with another giggle that somehow became music in the greenhouse. "The professor said they were sedated enough, but obviously that was a lie. I was lucky I left with all my fingers."

"It could have been worse, Em. Imagine if our nutter Divination professor was right and they ended up burning you into a pile of ash?" Zabini pinched the unscathed skin of the girl's hands. "What if that was the horrific incident and you just cheated fate?!"

Emily laughed again as she pulled her hands back. She rested one hand on the surface of the worktable as the other went into the pocket of her robes. She pulled out a little vial and unstoppered it. "I think she was referring to the time I tried killing myself," she dabbed a yellow paste on her scabs, Zabini and I turned to her, our eyes wide, "and she was just a few weeks behind with the news. You know, maybe the spirits were on vacation and just barely informed her that I tried drowning in the Black Lake."

"Okay, let's not be talking about that like it was nothing," I growled at her.

"My Healer said I should stop feeling ashamed about it," Emily replied, looking up at me with a sort of glitter in her eyes that she never had before. It was the type that gave evidence that maybe, just maybe, she was going to be okay. "What better way to get over it than with a bit of humor? You've got to admit, Scor, my joke was pretty hilarious."

Zabini let out a little laugh and I punched his arm.

Before Zabini could complain or Emily could turn around and scold me, a loud round of laughter entered the greenhouse along with a group who came stumbling in. Their schoolbags were drenched, along with their robes, and it was leaving puddles and mud marks behind them.

"Can you believe this weather?" It was Louis Weasley. "How dare they take my wand when the grounds are practically flooding? I am defenseless!"

Freddie Weasley rolled his eyes as he shook his red hair out like a dog after its shower. He sent more water flying about. "Oh, ease up, mate. When's the last time you enjoyed a good stroll in the rain?"

"When's the last time you acted like a bloke?!" hissed Louis as he peeled off his robes and tossed them on a table currently occupied by three studious Ravenclaws. They protested and shouted offenses at him, but he ignored them as he fumed at his redheaded cousin. "The world is going down the loo and all you can do is act like a bloody, poetic prat!"

The redhead witch on the table by the entrance of the greenhouse turned to the direction of her cousins, who happened to be a few inches away from my table. She faintly smiled at them, but there was also a faraway look in her gaze. It still made my heart skip a beat.

"When's the last time Fred acted like a bloke?" repeated James Potter incredulously as he made his way to his girlfriend's side. "You're upset about the rain because your hair got wet and you claim it clogs your pores!"

"It does!" retaliated Louis for his own defense. "Don't blame me for caring about my appearance just because you and Freddie are used to looking like a pair of ghouls!"

"Well, nor James and I have veela genetics, so we accept the fact that we are not always put together," Freddie interjected with a light teasing, surprisingly not becoming angry (which was a usual for them during one of their petty arguments). "We're real men that handle nature as it is, unlike you part-fairies."

"Refrain yourself from using the term fairy when it comes to a veela," the blonde Weasel quipped, "because it will be the last thing you ever do. We refuse to be associated with those winged midgets! Secondly, I am prone to frizzy hair due to Dad's genetics!"

Potter roared with laughter, causing others around us who were listening to his blonde cousin's rant to laugh too. "Settle down, fairy, settle down."

Louis attempted to launch himself towards James, his palm already in a fist to punch him square on the jaw. I would've loved to see it, Potter (th git) deserved a good hit, but the other person who'd walked in with the Daft Trio was my other best friend, Al, and he reached for his cousin's right arm before anything actually happened.

"Louis' actually upset because Dominique is moving out of Shell Cottage," informed Freddie to the small group gathered in my table, as if anyone asked or cared. He grabbed onto Louis' other arm, holding him back as James gave him the finger, unmoved by his frustration. "Rowle's family has a flat in the center of London so that's where the new happy family is going."

The blonde Weasley stopped trying to attack James and instead put in his efforts to shake off his other two cousins. "I don't bloody well care that Dominique's moving out with that git," he hissed. "She's an idiot for doing so, but that's her bloody business, isn't it? What I care about," he struggled some more, "is that she's taking my magical trunk! Dad gave it to me!"

"He's clearly a little sensitive about the issue," supplied Al to the conversation, speaking for the first time and what I thought was years. He hadn't been acknowledging anyone's presence before, not mine or his relatives. All this time he was doing what the guilty did—hide. He avoided everything and everyone.

Emily put a hand over her chest and awed at the blonde.

Louis aimed a frown at her. "I just want my trunk! Dominique can do with her life whatever she pleases, that's why it's hers! She can go ahead and ruin her bloody life if she wants! I'm not going to be there for her when that fucking tosser leaves her like he—"

Blonde Weasel stopped talking as his eyes bulged out of his sockets and a hazy, odd look took over his blue eyes. By his reaction, Red Weasel and Al turned to look at what he was and both gained different reactions. Freddie seemed to be about to slobber, his jaw opened and Potter looked like he was about to hurl himself off a cliff and then set his body on fire in order to escape the pain.

Nia Harper and Evanna Nott had just marched through the entrance of the greenhouse in nothing but their undergarments. Nia's bra and underwear were red like the emblem of Gryffindor house, lacy and provocative. Nott was clad in a plum color. Their usual pale faces were flushed pink and their hair was wet and stuck to the skin of their necks.

"Are you two insane?" Gracen Goyle appeared from the back of the greenhouse where she had been conversing quietly with Liam. The poor git was dragged along with her, and when he met Nia's almost naked figure, his face turned bright red and he attempted to look everywhere else but at her. "Have you two not heard of Shielding Charm? It would've kept you dry!"

Evanna laughed at the scolding look her fellow Ravenclaw was giving them. She swung an arm across Harper's shoulders and grinned widely at her. "Gracie has never enjoyed a semi-naked walk in the rain, Nia. She doesn't know what she's missing."

"Merlin, Nia, are you drunk?" Liam finally looked at his best friend, worry replacing a shyness that I believed connected with what Freddie had accused him of a few days ago (about him leaving Harper's dormitory with disarrayed clothes).

Nia tilted her head to the side and gave her fellow Gryffindor an unusual look. "And what if I am?" That ignited more giggles from the semi-nude Ravenclaw next to her. "Is it a crime for a girl to enjoy a glass of firewhiskey?"

"Or two? Or three? Or an entire bottle?" supplied Evanna Nott, laughing some more.

Liam yanked the school-robes that were folded over Nia's left arm. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at the clothing item; a spell left his wand and the robes became dry. "That's enough," he hissed at her, marching up and throwing the robes around her.

"Says who?" Nia sounded angry, but she regardless let Liam cover her up.

Gracen copied Liam's actions and dried Evanna's robes for her. With one firm look from the latter, Nott didn't complain either as she put on the robes and covered herself up.

"The Headmistress is going to have your heads if she finds out," Gracen warned the two tipsy girls. "You know that, right?"

"It was just a little..."

"Why is she hanging out with Evanna?" Whatever the drunken Ravenclaw was telling her housemate, it was drowned out by Al's voice. He turned away from the scene, anger and misery in his eyes, and he looked expectantly at Emily. He glared at our friend as if she had all the answers of what Harper was doing.

"I don't—"

"Are they friends now?" Potter demanded.

"I don't—"

"Go get her, Emily."

"Al, I can't—"

"Take her back to your dormitory and give her a Sobering Potion. Put her to bed."

"Al," Emily's voice was a little high, frustration in her emerald eyes as a means to silence the Slytherin. "Let her be, okay. Whatever it is that Nia is doing it's all her choice."

"It's all the wrong fucking choices," Al snarled at her in return. "What kind of friend are you, Emily? She's messing things up for herself and you're just going to sit back and let her?"

Al should have kept his anger on check. He should've never directed his anger towards Emily, especially when her overprotective, easily-angered boyfriend was sitting next to her. And if there is one thing that James bloody Potter was good at, it was defending Emily from anything.

"And who exactly messed her up?" James hissed at his younger brother. "Who exactly made her go off the rails? You! Don't you bloody stand there and assume you can dictate what happens in her life now. You're nothing. You have no right." He raised the index finger of his right hand, pointing it at his brother as if that demonstrated his power. "Stay away from Harper, Al, I mean it. Whatever she's doing, no matter how wrong or entertaining it is, is not of your concern. She's being stupid, but she's moving on."

Albus' emerald gaze was burning with rage, but it also had flecks of miserable understanding. He cast a long look at Harper, who was getting redressed by Liam, as well as a serious talking-to, and he sighed. He turned back to us, barely seeing us, but those who knew him well, those who knew that he sometimes cried at night when he thought his dorm-mates were asleep, knew he couldn't accept that. He didn't want to accept that. But that was the truth. There was no changing it.

Tension didn't have time to settle in from Al, but it did come full speed into the greenhouse when two girls from the very back of the greenhouse approached the front. It was a Slytherin and a Ravenclaw, both evil and ghastly just as they were pretty and phony. It was Ophelia De la Cruz and Madison Mulciber.

De la Cruz gave Al a huge grin, making him quickly look down at the floor. She said a greeting to him in Spanish and he ignored it, but for the first time in a while, Harper looked at Al's direction. Harper no longer needed a Sobering Potion, her fury and hate woke her senses and brought upon her alertness. Her hand grabbed her wand, clutching it with might, but Liam had good reflexes. He took it from her and just pulled her into him, hiding her face against his chest as to shield her vision from the Slytherin girl that had caused her so much pain.

Beside her, Mulciber didn't bother to look once at anyone. Her head was held high, though, I could see the superiority and victory in her skin that she carried with pride. She made it to the doors of the greenhouse and marched out. But her companion stopped at the table by the entrance.

"My part of the project is nearly finished," De la Cru informed the Gryffindor witch. "Madi is helping me revise it, but it should be in your hands tomorrow morning. Is that fine?"

Rose's jaw locked and anger burned in her brown gaze. She glanced at the doors that Mulciber had crossed, at the face of the Slytherin witch before her, at Nia who was being sedated by Liam, and then back at her work on the table.

"Tomorrow is fine. Goodnight," the Gryffindor replied.

De la Cruz didn't move. "Since Madi is helping me with my part of the project, I thought it only fair that she receive credit for it, too. I talked to the professor and he finds no problem with it. So, when we present our translations to the Ancient Runes class, mi querida Rose, Madi will be up there with us. But we do need to run our finds with one another. I expect you to give your share to Madi so she could memorize it."

Rose's hand clutched the fragile stem of her quill tightly. "I didn't give consent for...Mulciber to be a part of our group," she replied in a controlled tone. "I'm afraid she can't be in it."

"That's not for you to decide, Weasley."

"Nor is it yours."

De la Cruz smiled darkly, I could see it from where I stood. She turned her head to the side and carelessly, satisfactorily, aimed a smirk at Liam and Nia. "You'll find that I do things the way I want them. I don't really care for the positions of others. We're adding Madison Mulciber into our group and that's—"

There was a loud shriek echoing throughout the greenhouse that cut off the Slytherin witch and caught everyone by surprise. The shrill noise came from an unsuspecting person—it came from Emily.

"I'm sick and tired of hearing your voice, De la Cruz." She tore away from her stool, knocking her boyfriend out of his, and she made her way to the entrance. Emily pulled her wand out and pointed it at the foreign girl. "Get out."

The Slytherin witch eyed the wand-tip carefully. Pride made her stare back at Emily unmoved, but fear was also underlined beneath all that arrogance. "Put your wand away," she answered in what could've been a warning. "You'll hurt yourself, amor. We know how unstable you are, you demented freak."

Nia shoved Liam away from her. In a fluid spin, the blonde girl was now with her wand out and moving her way to the Slytherin.

"I fucking dare you," Harper hissed. "Insult her again. Do it. Give me a reason to blow a hole through your head, De la Cruz. Do it!"

Emily extended her left hand out and grabbed a hold of Nia's right wrist. With a tug, she lowered the other girl's wand, all without looking at her.

"You're right, De la Cruz," Emily spoke again, "I am unstable. But you know what else you'll find? That I do things the way I want them. I don't care for the positions of others." Her wand-tip began glowing. "Go."

At Emily's command, De la Cruz wasted no time in scurrying off. She might be all talk, but she must've noticed the audience around her. If she dared move, if she dared attack Emily back, she had a greenhouse filled with people who would turn her into dust.

Emily turned to face the rest of us. James was about to call for her, but she silenced him. "That's it, all of you out."

No one moved.

"I said out!" she yelled. "Everyone inside of this freaking greenhouse get out or I'll send a well-aimed Bat-Bogey Hex that'll scar you for a week."

People began to gather their belongings and ease out the doors of the greenhouse. Emily was such a violent-less person, so fragile, so friendly, that no one saw her as a threat, but that didn't mean they didn't know that she was intensely loved by Ginny Potter. The redhead woman would forever be down in Hogwarts history for being the person to perfect the Bat-Bogey Hex to the point of wounding. If Emily knew it, then there was a gigantic chance that no one stood a chance if she decided to use it.

"No, not you." She put a hand up at me, halting me from gathering my things. "And definitely not you." Her wand spewed sparks at the redheaded girl from the entrance table.

Rose look outraged. She tried to stand from her stool but couldn't move. She struggled multiple times, and the retreating students didn't look back at her in attempts to help her out.

"What are you—?"

"I'm tired of this," Emily cut in before Rose could finish her yell . "I'm tired of my friends hating one another. There so many rifts among us that I don't even recognize our friendships anymore. I know that some things can't be fixed so easily or at all," she chanced a look at Nia and we all understood what she meant by that, "but some things are ridiculously easy to fix. You and Scorpius are one of those. Talk it out, fix it, and please spare us all from your angst. There's enough of that from me to last a lifetime."

With that being said, Emily grabbed a hold of Nia's wrist once more and tugged her along. That was the signal that the last remaining people needed to leave after her.

And when Freddie threw a thumbs-up at us, the doors of the greenhouse closed and I was finally alone with Rose after what seemed like ages.

She was struggling against her stool again. She huffed, she cursed, and she tried reaching for her wand that was conveniently a few inches out of her reach. I wanted to laugh at the scene, but refrained from doing so. Instead, I reached inside my pocket and pulled out my own wand and pointed it at her. In less than a second she was released from her prison.

Grunting, Rose frowned at me. Her silence was deafening in the greenhouse. She jumped off the stool and stood over her worktable. Roughly, she gathered her belongings and shoved them into her schoolbag. She grabbed her wand and turned on her heels.

"I'm sorry," I said through a knot in my throat.

She halted her path.

"I should've told you about Mulciber," I added. "I should've...I should've believed you. You were right. You were right and I was bloody wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't...I was wrong."

Slowly, hesitantly, she turned to me. Her brown eyes roamed me, searching, looking between angry, miserable, and righteous. She settled on angry in the end. "I don't want you to grovel," she snapped. "Not now and not then. I didn't want you to have to prove me right, Scorpius, I wanted—You know what? It doesn't even matter anymore."

"Then what do you want?!" I asked loudly, unwilling to believe that it in fact didn't matter. "You wanted me to acknowledge that I was wrong, well I am! I was wrong, Rose! I made a mistake! I should've known Mulciber was up to no good, but I refused to believe it! And I'm sorry! I'm sorry because it took you away from me!"

She groaned loudly. "You don't get it, Scorpius, do you? It's not about being wrong, about knowing or not knowing that Mulciber was a bloody demon—it was the lack of trust! You didn't trust me, me out of all the people in the world, the one person that would've believed you anything, that loves you more than the bloody stars! You didn't trust me when I told you she was evil or to tell me that she kissed you!"

I dropped myself onto the nearest stool. I wanted to blast something into smithereens, but I refrained from doing so. Rose wasn't an advocate for violence. She would never forgive such barbaric display, even if I was angry.

"I wanted a friend," I told her, using the one that she valued: sincerity. "I wanted a friend who...Who had a history like I did. You and your relatives are...No one can understand being prosecuted as a Death Eater descendant when they haven't been treated as one. I know that...I know that you're always there, that I've got Em and Al and Zabini and...I just wanted one friend who was struggling with their family's past mistakes who could understand me. I'm not a bad person, Rose, and I didn't want to think she was one either..."

My eyes looked down at my hands. They were shaking, but not because what I had confessed, but because of what was going to come out next.

"I didn't tell you about the kiss because I didn't want to lose you. There could have been the smallest chance, Rose, that you wouldn't have believed me...That a part of you thought I could be capable of cheating on you, but...My greatest fear on the planet is losing you, Rose. How could I possibly find sense in my life if you're not in it? But you aren't anymore and I'm lost. My fears came true. You're gone and...And I can't...What's the point?"

I heard something drop and when I looked up she was already making her way to me sans her heavy bookbag. There was determination in her walk, but those beautiful brown eyes of hers looked at me like she couldn't contain her sadness.

"I cannot be with someone who doesn't trust me, Scorpius," she said as she stopped a few inches before me. "Do you understand that? It's not that I blame you, it's not that I wanted to be right about this—though I bloody well knew I was—but I just need someone with me who trusts me enough to admit their mistakes, fears, or whatever else. I love you, Scorpius, with all that I have."

My heart wanted to leap out of my chest. "Do you forgive me, then? Can we...Can you be my girlfriend again?"

She frowned. "Do you love me?"

"With all my heart."

She reached forward and smacked me across the face. "Don't you ever lie to me again, then." And before I could raise a hand to soothe my cheek, she grabbed my face with her hands and pressed her lips against mine.

She was home.

I knew I was too young to know about epic romance and eternal love, but I was sure that what I felt for Rose Weasley was the type of things people wrote stories about. I just knew it in my heart that she was the rest of my life. She's the best part of me. I know that now as I did back then, but now, now after having had lost her for a week, I knew that life is in fact unbearable without her. I needed her.

My hands went to her waist and I stood from the stool. I grabbed on like she was my lifeline and I turned us around. With no strength at all, I picked her up and pushed her onto the worktable. Her hands grabbed my tie and yanked me down with her.

Our lips kept moving and our hands kept exploring. It was like coming home after years of being away, it was like tea on a winter's night, and like solving the hardest question of all time. It was perfect, right, and necessary.

Unfortunately, nothing filled with this amount of passion lasted long when there were Weasleys and Potters near.

"—Woooooooo!"

"—Freddie, I told you not to!"

"—Woooooooo!"

"—Oi! Oi! Release her, Malfoy! That's my cousin, back away!"

Rose and I reluctantly ended our kiss to find Emily, James, Louis, and Freddie at the doors of the greenhouses. Again, Weasley was sending me a thumbs-up as Emily smiled with overjoy and her boyfriend and his blonde cousin looked thoroughly displeased.

My girlfriend (fuck did that sound bloody amazing to refer to her as again) frowned at the Gryffindors. "Don't you know it's rude to interrupt someone while they're having a conversation? Honestly, you lot don't know manners."

"What conversation?" snapped Potter.

"Don't you be getting mad at us," interjected Blonde Weasel, "we know what comes next. Snogging leads to touching, then that leads to locking yourself in broomstick closets, then you two are on a bed that's not yours and that's never been blessed, and then you announce to the entire world that you're pregnant, and then that fucking twat leaves your sister, and next thing you know he comes back like nothing bloody happened and he decides to take her and little Louis Jr. far, far away!"

The relatives in the greenhouse looked at one another skeptically.

"Louis, what are you—"

Before James could question his cousin's sanity, the greenhouse gain another Potter drenched in rain. Lily was screaming, crying, and shaking as she slammed into her brother.

"Lils," gasped Rose, jumping off the worktable and heading for the Fourth Year Gryffindor, "what happened? Are you okay?"

The youngest Potter cried and almost fell to her knees.

"Lily," it was James now, "you're scaring us. What happened?"

"Dad," she sobbed. "It's Dad. James...Dad..."

Emily and I looked instantly at one another when Lily broke down and could no longer speak. Trelawney, we knew, had predicted a fatal accident to happen that night. And the woman's predictions were only ever absolute when they involved Harry Potter's fate.