Never Be The Same {SCOROSE}

Chapter 9 - Rose [UPDATED]

"I know something now I didn't before"

After leaving the Room of Requirement, I retreated to the library to hide behind a book for a while. I was already overthinking everything that had just happened, and I wasn't sure what I'd say to my friends if I saw them right now. I knew I'd have to tell them something, considering I'd said yes to another date with Malf... Scorpius. But did I have to tell them I'd slept with him again? I'm not sure why it bothered me, I wasn't ashamed, I just... I don't know.

I may have been the slightest bit angry with myself. I'd done well the past week, avoiding him. Avoiding the way I was feeling. And then, somehow, he'd conquered me with a few phrases. A short apology -- and I was begging for him. In the moment, it felt right, but curled up in the darkest corner of the library a few hours later, I wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I'd made my decision; told myself he wasn't worth my time. And then I'd promptly let him convince me otherwise. What was I doing?

He was a fuckboy. A plague that withered everything he touched. This was going to end in disaster. There was no way around those facts.

But I was attracted to him. I enjoyed his company. He had an effect on me that nobody ever had before. There was no way around those facts, either.

I let my book fall into my lap, squeezing my eyes shut. Libraries had always been my safe place, probably because my mother was always happiest in hers and that feeling rubbed off on me. When I was younger, I would run to Mum's study anytime I was frightened or confused or upset about anything. Being surrounded by books... it calmed me. Helped me think. Helped me process whatever was going on in my life.

Admittedly, it'd been years since I'd spent any time in that room at home. Few things about our house provided me the comfort at age seventeen that they had at age seven. My family wasn't as close-knit now as it was back in my youth. Mum and Dad... they didn't have problems, exactly, but there was strain. It wasn't them as much as it was the whole Weasley clan, which had been fraying at the edges for most of my teenage years. Or maybe it had always been frayed, and only with my own developing maturity had I begun to notice it.

Either way... my home was a fragile place, more often than not. So Hogwarts, and its own library, had become my retreat in the past few years. But now... somehow the familiar shelves seemed to loom over me, mocking me with their wisdom because I had none. The walls felt more suffocating than protective. This room didn't feel like a friend anymore; it just felt like... well, a room. And I just felt lonely.

Shaking my head, I stood up and set the book I'd been reading -- a study on unwanted emotional connections -- down on the seat cushion. It wasn't giving me any of the answers I needed. I didn't think anything was going to give me the answers I needed. I was just going to have to figure this out on my own.

---

As the staircase up from the second floor slid to connect with the one leading to the third, I encountered an unexpected, but not unpleasant, sight: Albus Potter. His eyebrows lifted in surprise when he saw me, and then he smiled half-heartedly. "Hallo, Rose."

I returned a smile that was equally lacking in enthusiasm. "Hi." I looked him over, and found him much more put together than he'd been last week. But his green eyes were rimmed with red, and I couldn't help frowning. "Are you alright?"

Al looked away, grimacing. "I'm... decent."

"Did something happen?" I asked gently. My cousin was generally very good at putting on a happy face, something I'd learned from many years of watching him struggle with himself. If he was stepping out into public while in such evident pain... he was hurting badly.