A/N: And here we are, at the final chapter *sobs*. I cannot tell you how much I've enjoyed writing this story. In a world that barely makes sense anymore, it's been nothing short of wonderful to have had this as a project and a distraction, and to hear from you all that you've been enjoying it too! It's actually the first thing I've been able to finish in a number of years and your encouragement has rather a large part to do with that, so thank you.

Warnings(/spoilers): The more observant amongst you may have noticed a change in the rating of this story. We head into mature territory here (there is smut), and I know that's not everyone's cup of tea.

For everyone who has read, favourited, followed and reviewed: you've filled my socially distanced heart with glee.

The Rumour Mill – Chapter 12

When Rose stumbled out of the fireplace into Scorpius' living room, the first thing she noticed was that the whole place felt like him. That was a fairly stupid thing to think, of course, because it was his home, after all – and yet, for some reason it momentarily stopped her in her tracks.

Firstly, it smelt like him: like sage and sandalwood. Rose had assumed it was whatever cologne he doused himself with that had got stuck up her nostrils like an olfactory memory these last few weeks but perhaps that was just his scent, seeping out of him like pheromones, infecting the air and her good sense. Then, as she turned to survey the room, she realised it looked like him too. Everything was in shades of dark green, blue and grey, the furniture looked expensive and plush with hints of mahogany. It almost looked unlived in – too nice to be touched – apart from the little hints here and there that she only spotted on a second inspection. Like the man himself, there were secret facets to be uncovered: the wall of photographs that brought some life and movement to the room (Rose spotted a familiar crop of unruly black hair made an appearance in a number of them), and the stack of records – a surprising mixture of wizard and muggle artists alike – beside a modern looking gramophone. A framed, vintage Quidditch poster occupied the wall above the sofa, and an overstuffed bookshelf that could make a Ravenclaw jealous stood proudly in the corner. A large globe occupied one on the shelves, seemingly made of cork and with what looked like porcupine quills stuck into various countries. Were they all places he'd already visited, she wondered, or places he wanted to go?

Maybe they could go together, she thought, before immediately discarding the notion with a shake of her head. Best not to get ahead of oneself, and besides, she was still feeling fairly outraged at all the new information she'd gathered. Just because she might reciprocate whatever feelings he had towards her (and even on that point she couldn't be certain – Albus hadn't been particularly precise with his slip of the tongue), didn't mean that she appreciated being manipulated into getting there. Being kept in the dark, lied to and frankly put through the emotional wringer, was not something she was here to thank him for.

She was about to head out into the hallway in search of the flat's occupant, when she spotted the open copy of Witch Weekly lying beside the sofa. She didn't need to inspect it closely to recognise the double page spread of photographs taken at the Summer Gala. Her heart gave a miss-skip at the thought that Scorpius might have come to the same conclusion as she had from looking at the pictures of the two of them:

That she was quite clearly besotted with him. Even if she hadn't realised it at the time.

With a double take, she noticed a stack of similar magazines poking out of a basket in the corner. Oh, Merlin - she knew the prat had a subscription to the vacuous rag! She scoffed aloud, feeling the gleeful smirk that crept up the corner of her mouth at having such wonderful weaponry to use against him for evermore.

"Rose?"

She whirled round, smirk faltering, to find Scorpius stood in the open doorway. He had a simple white t-shirt on and dark grey sweatpants, and there was a toothbrush literally hanging out of his startled mouth. Slate coloured eyes stared at her in a mixture of alarm and suspicion. In hindsight, she supposed it probably was a little odd to find her stood there, uninvited, in his home which she had never before deigned to visit. But she was not to be deterred.

Fixing him with a grim smile, she marched back over to the fireplace: "Well, isn't that interesting," she slapped her palm against the mantlepiece. "For a Floo that supposedly doesn't work, I got here rather unscathed, wouldn't you say?"

Scorpius narrowed his eyes, glancing quickly between her and the dormant fire. He cautiously lowered his toothbrush, "Er, yes. Well, I actually had that fixed just this morning, so -,"

"Really?" Rose's exaggerated surprise sent her voice up a few octaves. "In that case you absolutely must give me the name of your Floo man! It's so hard to find a reliable one, never mind a bloke that'll come out on a Saturday, no less!"

Scorpius' expression darkened. She saw the subtle shift in his stance, the stiffening in his shoulders. He was on the defensive. "What are you doing here, Rose?" he muttered crossly, possibly because he didn't like the direction the conversation was going or maybe he'd just remembered that the last time they'd been alone together, he'd been rather angry with her.

Rose folded her arms across her chest and held his stare. "Albus is drinking again."

He shrugged, uncaring. "So? Must be a day ending in a 'Y'. Anything else?"

She valiantly resisted the overpowering urge to sneer at him. "Albus is drinking, because he is distraught. That 'other shoe' you seemed so concerned about, well, it's dropped. Dropped, disappeared, been blasted off the face of the Earth, however you want to put it."

A look of understanding dawned across his hard features and he started towards her and the fireplace. "What in Salazar's name are you doing here, then? Why have you left him alone?"

Rose stepped sideways to block his path. "He's not on his own. I summoned Lily, she's probably at the flat by now -,"

"Baby Potter?! You summoned -?! Merlin, Weasley, have you gone mad? The whole point was to preventthe man Avada-ing himself, not to encourage it!"

"Oh, don't be so ridiculous," she snapped, putting herself in his way again as he attempted to dart around her. "Besides, she's his sister, if anyone can handle a melodramatic Albus then she can."

Scorpius certainly didn't seem appeased, but stopped trying to barrel past her and threw up his hands in frustration. "Then what is it, Weasley? Why are you here? You made it exceptionally clear yesterday that your sole priority is the emotional welfare of your idiot cousin, and yet you decide to come and snoop around my flat in his hour of need."

"I wasn't snooping!" she cried, indignantly. "I came here to find you, you great prat." Although she was already struggling to recall why she ever thought that was a good idea. And then another horrible thought occurred to her: "Is there someone else here?" She glanced nervously at the doorway over his shoulder, remembering her earlier visions of him tangled up in his sheets with an overeager barmaid or two. Her stomach gave an unhappy lurch.

"What?" he stared down at her, cross and confused. "No. Why would there be anyone else here?"

"No reason," she muttered, eyes darting away from his, hoping that neither the panic or relief she'd just experienced were evident in them.

"Look, Weasley, either tell me what you're doing in my living room or leave me alone. I've got a headache that could rival the Cruciatus curse and no desire to get into a slanging match with you today."

Rose shot him a particularly filthy look but managed to bite her tongue before the words 'arrogant' and 'prick' could manifest themselves. Instead, she clenched her fists and sucked in a deep breath. This was not going as planned. Best to start from the beginning: "Albus is drinking -,"

"Yes, you told me that already! Sweet Salazar, we're going in circles here -,"

Rose's restraint snapped, her glare directing a caerulean sea's worth of fire at the irate blond. "Am I going to have to silence you -," she jabbed her wand at him, threateningly, "- or do you think you might manage to shut that irritating gob of yours for one second?!" Scorpius snarled at her but didn't interject again. "As I said," she seethed, "he's drinking. And when Albus drinks, he tends to forget that he hails from the Hogwarts House famous for producing history's most deceitful wizards, and that he is not meant to tell certain things to certain people."

She watched his eyes narrow almost imperceptibly but he didn't bite, not just yet.

"For example," she continued, glare locked on his, "he once told Roxanne that her new haircut made her look like Mrs Norris after he'd had one too many pints at the Three Broomsticks. And at a particularly eventful Sunday lunch, having drunk an underwhelming two bottles of Butterbeer, he accidentally ratted out James by telling Uncle Harry that he wasn't planning on going back to finish his N.E.W.T.'s -,"

"Not that this isn't a fascinating story," Scorpius interrupted, snidely, "but does this speech have a point?"

Rose flinched. He was being his old self, the git that she'd so loved to hate for the first fifteen years of their acquaintance, and she had to fight against every one of her old instincts telling her to swear and scream and curse him into the middle of next week. She had to try and remember that there was a reason she'd seen fit to storm over here (besides the instinctual urge to yell at him), because she'd discovered he was more than just a smirk and an acerbic tongue. That he was actually kind and decent, caring and funny. That he was worthy of being loved just for who he was… and that she somehow found herself first in line should he wish for someone to do so.

That was all rather hard to remember, though, when facing off against his stupid, sneering face.

"My point, you insufferably smug wanker," she felt her lip curling, "is that he told me what you told him, and what you almost told me, and now I'm here to tell you that I know, but I want to hear it from you first!"

He arched an indignant eyebrow, arms folding across his chest. "Weasley, I'm not even sure that was in English."

She let out a huff of pure fury. Why did he always have to be so difficult?! And how dare he scowl and smirk at her, acting all superior just because he could still string a grammatically correct sentence together, when he'd been treating her like a puppet for weeks. Playing her off against herself and dragging her into his web of half-truths and scheming. And – Gods! – he looked annoyingly handsome in that fitted t-shirt, shoulder muscles flexed with tension and hair blatantly uncombed. Maybe he'd let her run her fingers through it later and then -

Focus, Rose!

"Why did you lie to me?" she said after a moment of calming breathing exercises, cooling her boiling rage down to a threatening simmer.

He frowned and eyed her warily. "You'll have to be a little more specific. I've lied to you an inordinate amount of times over the years."

She rolled her eyes; well, that was reassuring. "About the Floo. You told me you hadn't got your flat connected yet, but evidently that isn't true." She waved her arm in the general direction of the fireplace she'd recently exited. "Seems an odd thing to try and hide."

Scorpius jaw twitched. If Rose had been a little clearer of mind herself, she might have spotted the faint flush that coloured his cheeks. "Perhaps I just don't like nosey Auror-types knowing all of my comings and goings," he shrugged.

It was a good job he was out of arms reach, Rose mused, as she had a rather vicious urge to try and punch him in the nose all of a sudden. "Or perhaps you're just full of absolute hipprogriff shite, Malfoy," she growled. "You lied about it when I found you in my bed, and again after we'd been to the pub, and again at the Gala, and I want to know why."

"A shame, then, that you and I both know that 'I want' never gets. Or didn't that brilliant mother of yours ever teach you any manners, Rosie?"

The use of the overly familiar nickname sent a jolt of something though her. She looked at him properly then, trying to see through the red mist of her annoyance. He was being an evasive git, although that was nothing new and she really ought to have expected it. She'd come here hoping for an apology and confirmation that her new found feelings were reciprocated, and hadn't really considered the eventuality that she might not get either. The thought ignited a burning near the base of her throat, reminiscent of bad indigestion, and she swallowed thickly.

"The night you and Albus had been out drinking, and I woke up with you in my… room," she couldn't bring herself to say 'bed'; the word alone conjured up images of entangled limbs and breathy moans and long, pale fingers dragging over her skin. She blinked them away quickly before they had chance to distract her. "Did you - … I mean, were you coming to tell me something?"

Scorpius stared down at her, his expression stony and impassive. "Why would you think that?"

"Albus said -,"

He clenched his jaw tightly and looked away, "Right, well, I think we can both agree that Potter has become somewhat mentally unhinged these last few weeks. Probably best not to take anything he says too seriously."

Rose's heart gave a dull thud behind her sternum. She stared up at him, blue eyes wide and unsure of themselves, and watched the tendons in his neck grow taut. She imagined she could even see his pulse point, jumping almost erratically as hers. This entire conversation felt like standing on a crumbling cliff edge, hundreds of feet above a rocky outcrop, or a shark infested sea, or a pit of volcanic lava, or some other equally implausible yet excruciating way to die.

For all Malfoy's assertions, Rose knew Albus hadn't lied. Her cousin wouldn't do that to her, no matter what state he was in, not about something like this. But she supposed it was possible that Scorpius had simply changed his mind. Just because he had felt something a few weeks ago didn't mean he felt it now. Maybe spending all that time alone together had caused him to re-evaluate his feelings. She knew she could be difficult at times and, well, it wasn't as if she'd gone out of her way to be nice to him for the last fifteen years, now was it? Maybe he regretted saying anything at all to Albus. Maybe he regretted kissing her. Maybe he wanted nothing more from her but to go back to their previous arrangement of badly hidden mutual dislike.

She felt a sudden prickling sensation behind her eyes. Oh, Helga's tits, she bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. This was bad. She really wasn't a crier. Time for evasive manoeuvres.

She almost ran for it immediately; the thought that Scorpius simply didn't want her was not one she wished to have to process with him standing right in front of her. But if there was a single lesson that she'd had drilled into her in life – as a future Auror, as a Gryffindor, as a Weasley – it was that, sometimes, you had to be the brave one.

"Perhaps you're right," Rose muttered, dragging a hand through uncooperative curls and trying not to let her dwindling courage totally evade her. "But the thing is, you once told me that there has to be a grand gesture… you know, in order for a bloke to win over the girl of his dreams," she shifted awkwardly and found she could no longer look him in the eye. "And, well, if that had been it: you bursting into my room in the middle of the night to talk to me, absolutely hammered and probably being a self-important tosser…" she shrugged and fixed her gaze on an unassuming spot on the ceiling. "Against all the odds, I think it might have actually worked."

Scorpius stared at Rose. Rose stared at a lighting sconce as if it were the single most interesting thing she'd ever seen in her life. The air between them fell deathly quiet.

She managed about thirty torturous seconds of hearing nothing but the rush of blood in her own ears before Rose found she could no longer hold it together. She needed to get out of this room that looked and smelt like him. She needed to get away from the man that she'd irrationally pinned her hopes of future happiness to, and who was now offering her little more than a rude stare. She turned on her heel, making quickly for the same fireplace that was partly to blame for all this mess in the first place.

Perhaps she could go into hiding, she thought miserably. Perhaps she and Al could move to a deserted island or a remote mountain top and live as celibate, love-less hermits for the rest of their lives? They could start a retreat, where other idiots who loved too much and thought too little could come and recuperate from heartbreak.

She snatched up a fistful of Floo powder just as a strong hand enclosed around her wrist and hauled her back into the living room. Rose stumbled over her own feet, staring up into an intense grey stare the colour of armoury silver. Her lips fell open, as did her hand, the powder making a mess on the expensive looking rug.

"What does that mean?" Scorpius practically shouted at her, his face suddenly very close to hers, her arm held aloft in his grasp.

Her base instincts took over and she scowled at him. "What do you think it means, you great prat?!"

"Pretend I'm an idiot -,"

"Not a particular stretch for the imagination."

"- and spell it out for me," he narrowed his eyes at her. Rose could feel his breath, heavy and warm on her cheek. She swallowed thickly.

Her pulse pounding in her ears and fluttering beneath his fingers, Rose tried to think through the fog of confusing feelings. She didn't want to be the one to cave in first, to make herself vulnerable, but as she'd learned in her hostage negotiation lectures: sometimes you had to give a little of yourself, to get something greater in return.

"It means," she started, tongue darting out nervously to dampen her lips, "that I have recently discovered that you're not a total waste of skin and oxygen." He growled something unintelligible and tightened his grip on her arm. Rose mentally scalded herself, she was really going to have to work on that urge to constantly insult him.

"What I mean is," she tried again, closing her eyes to gather her thoughts, "You… You work hard, and you care about your job, and you're actually very good at it."

Scorpius frowned. "Are you trying to headhunt me, Weasley?"

"I'm trying to say you're smart," she snapped at him, "and you're not wasting your talents. You do have ambition. You're also intuitive and… and kind. You care about other people even if you don't want them to know it; like Albus, and your parents, and girls that get stood up on dates and are in need of alcohol and fried foods."

He was staring hard, fixated on her face, his brow determinedly drawn into a scowl.

Rose pressed on. "You're quick-witted. You make me laugh even at my own expense, and you're never boring to be around. You might be the most infuriating git on the planet but you always keep me on my toes."

The grip on her arm relaxed a little. She felt his thumb stroke absentmindedly along her inner wrist.

"You're apparently the type to offer your coat to a girl in the cold. You're on a first name basis with House Elves and muggles who own fish and chip shops, and you make the most delicious breakfasts I've ever eaten in my entire life -," her cheeks coloured a little as she realised she was rambling. She fixed her gaze on a spot near his collarbone and tried to focus on what was most important. "You take problems in your stride, places and things are just more interesting with you around, and you make me feel on edge in the best possible way."

She chanced a look at his face and found his eyes had turned the colour of molten metal. The scowl was gone, no sign of a smirk or a sneer or anything cruel. Rose took a deep breath and steeled herself for the final hurdle:

"It means that, despite my better judgement, I find myself in love with you."

And at that, her courage finally gave out. In the seconds of silence that followed, Rose felt her knees grow impossibly weak, until she was sure it was only Scorpius' hold on her that was keeping her upright. She was just wondering if it was possible to wandlessly Avada herself, when he finally spoke.

"Weasley, I've been in love with you for two years. About time you caught up."

Rose blinked up at him, even as her blush deepened, before rolling her eyes, "It's not a competition, Malfoy, for Merlin's sake." And then she looked at him, slyly, "Two years? Really?"

His own cheeks made a valiant attempt to match hers for colour, and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Maybe a bit longer," he muttered, sheepishly.

"Longer?!" Rose's eyebrows made a break for her hairline. "When -, I mean, what…why?"

He shrugged, guiltily, and suddenly it was his turn to study the lighting fixtures. "The 'when' is straight forward: at that stupid party I threw for Al's twenty-fourth birthday. You were yelling at me about something unimportant and I realised that had been the best part of my whole night. Then you went home with Matthew Boot – Hufflepuff wanker – and I sulked for three weeks," he grimaced at the memory. "The 'why' is less simple, because I almost don't understand it myself. Obviously, you're brilliant; brutally funny and annoyingly beautiful. You're the most exciting person I know, in fact. But you're also a nightmare, who seems to have made it her life's mission to loathe me. Bloody fucking frustrating to not be able to stop thinking about you, if I'm honest."

Rose let the back-handed sentiment wash over her. She had questions, lots of them, but her heart was hammering so wildly she couldn't form any of the important ones coherently. "So, when you said you'd been trying to seduce me since we were seventeen…?" she eyed him, suspiciously.

"I was just trying to wind you up. I really did find you incredibly annoying at school. Fit, obviously, but an absolute harpy, nonetheless."

Rose realised, with a snort, that that should have made her angry, but oddly she just felt relieved. It had been bad enough feeling as though she'd been strung along for these last two weeks. If all their many years of high school animosity had also been a lie, she might've had to obliviate herself.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked, frowning when Scorpius immediately scoffed at the suggestion.

"Weasley… You are aware that, before this month, we'd barely had a civil conversation in almost ten years, right? Even when I knew how I felt, any time I tried to approach you, you would just roll your eyes and call me a tosser!" Rose felt a little abashed at that and bit the inside of her cheek – that sounded exactly like her and she knew it. "Then all this ridiculous rumour nonsense started and, suddenly, you were the one coming to me. You turned up at my work, let me take you out for dinner…" he shrugged, "I was hardly going to try and put a stop to it when it kept delivering you right to my doorstep."

"So, you just kept lying?" she shot back at him.

"About the Floo, yes," he nodded, cheeks flushing pink, "but only because I knew you'd never admit that you actually wanted me to stay. I didn't lie about the rest of it, I had nothing to do with McLaggen or the articles in the paper. I just… didn't exactly mind people thinking there was something between us."

Rose huffed, blowing an errant curl out of her face. She could hardly claim he didn't have a point. She'd been nothing short of atrocious to him whenever he would come around the flat or they'd cross paths on an evening out – though, in her defence, she had always assumed the loathing was mutual. And he was frequently a tosser. That part was entirely justified. A tosser who just so happened to make her feel as if she were missing an internal skeleton whenever he looked at her, or that she might explode with rage, or happiness, or unadulterated sexual need at any given moment they were together.

Scorpius cleared his throat, reclaiming her attention, and fixed her with the faintest of smirks. "Can we go back to talking about how you're madly in love with me, now?" His thumb brushed across the back of her knuckles.

Rose turned beet red but couldn't hold back the bubble of laughter that popped in her chest. Staring up at him then, this ridiculous man who made her feel everything from one end of the spectrum to the other, she found herself beaming. His own face split into a boyish grin, of the variety fully intended to make a girl swoon. Rose had to admit it was very effectual.

"So," she mumbled, cheeks warm, realising they were once again smiling at each other like idiots. "What happens now?"

Scorpius blinked and ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair. "I honestly have no idea. In my many imaginings of this conversation, you've generally punched me in the face and stormed out by this point."

"I'm sure you were fully deserving of it."

Scorpius nodded, grin widening. "Oh, definitely. However… if you'd be willing to forego the grievous bodily harm this time, I can think of a different type of physical activity we could try, instead." There was a predatory glint in his eye that sent a rush of heat straight to Rose's lower abdomen. She bit her lip, revelling in how his gaze was drawn to the movement.

"I'm not sure you can guarantee me the same sense of satisfaction, Malfoy," she mustered a smirk of her own, even as a firm arm coiled itself around her waist.

Scorpius scoffed against her neck, "Cheeky bint," causing gooseflesh to erupt along her arms and a shiver to ricochet to the very base of her spine. He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye – heady mercurial grey on lustful azure blue – and licked his lips rather unsubtly.

"For the record, I am completely obsessed with you, Rose Weasley," his voice deepened to a rumbling timbre. Rose became acutely aware of how many unnecessary items of clothing they were both wearing.

She dropped her gaze to his mouth, "Bizarrely, the feeling is entirely mutual."

Scorpius dipped his head and Rose went up on her tip-toes, and it took less than a nanosecond for their lips to meet forcefully in the middle. They each let out a moan of longing that would have mortified the pair of them, had they not been otherwise engaged trying to physically meld themselves into one solid being. She eagerly parted her lips for him, her hand sliding into his hair, as he pulled her tightly against him, crushing her against his chest.

Sweet Helga, Rose sighed into his mouth, it felt as though this was all she'd been living for these last few weeks.

His tongue caressed hers, encouraging and exploring, as he held her firmly in place against him. It was slower than their other kisses, saying more whilst doing less, but it was no less capable of making Rose become weak at the knees. His nose felt warm against her cheek, his light layer of stubble grazing her fingers as she brushed along his jaw line. He bit down on her lower lip gently and she pressed herself against him with a contended sigh.

"Gods, Rose…" he uttered a noise from somewhere deep in chest and she could practically feel the vibrations of it beneath her fingertips.

Scorpius began to pull her towards the doorway, at the same time as Rose made to steer them towards the couch. He grinned against her lips and she pouted, sliding her hands beneath his t-shirt and hoping he got the message that she was in no mood to wait. He reciprocated in kind, his cool fingers making her shiver as they slipped beneath her clothing and up over her waist. Within seconds, she felt the pad of his thumb brush over the cotton of her bra, and an aching need – one that she'd temporarily doused and forced to abate since their fight at the flat – came roaring back into life, making her toes tingle and a surge of want to pool between her thighs. She rolled her hips against his and he finally acquiesced, staggering towards the sofa, his mouth still staking it's claim on hers.

Suddenly, Scorpius paused and pulled his wand from his pocket, waving it over his shoulder towards the fireplace. Rose heard the faint click of a locking charm and arched an eyebrow.

"If you think I'm taking even the slightest chance of Albus or anyone else Floo-ing in here and interrupting whilst I'm fucking you senseless, then you are sorely mistaken, Weasley."

At his words, it was as if a tightly wound ball of lust finally uncoiled within her. She let out a desperate moan at the same time as she grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt, dragging him back towards her. They collided, limbs reaching for each other, chests crashing together, and toppled backwards onto the sofa, his wand clattering to the floor.

Rose wriggled out of her jumper, Scorpius' t-shirt quickly followed, and they both paused for a moment, chests heaving, to stare at one another. Rose took in the expanse of pale skin, taut with muscle and sinew, the defined 'v' of his obliques disappearing beneath the waist band of his trousers. He caught her eye and smirked, Rose's cheeks flushing with colour as he dropped his gaze to her chest, his own pupils growing wide. She couldn't get his hands back on her soon enough.

She revelled in the weight of him, pushing her back into the sofa cushions, as he set to licking from the shell of her ear down to her collarbone. She gasped and tugged sharply on his hair as he suddenly sucked on her through the fabric of her bra. Gods, if he didn't take the rest of her clothes off soon, there'd be nothing to remember her by but a puddle in her knickers, she was sure of it. She was vaguely aware of him kicking off his sweatpants, leaving him in only his boxers above her, before he brought his mouth back to hers. His intense fascination with her lower lip – nibbling, sucking, biting – distracted her until she was momentarily startled by the sensation of cool air on her chest, alerting her to the fact that he'd already divested her of her bra. He palmed her greedily, thumb ghosting over her nipple till it peaked to attention.

"Scorpius, please," Rose panted his name against his shoulder, the sound turning into an involuntary whimper when he replaced his thumb with his mouth. She bucked against him and he groaned, releasing her nipple for the briefest of seconds before seeking out the other, tongue circling lazily before he sucked it into his mouth. Rose writhed beneath him – oh, bloody fuck, since when had jeans been so unbearably hot and uncomfortable? She needed them gone, like yesterday.

Pushing against his shoulders, Rose wriggled out from under him just enough so that she could shuck off the offending clothing. Scorpius grinned wolfishly at her almost naked form, and Rose made to swat him on the chest but he grabbed her wrist, pulling her back with him so that she had no choice but to clamber into his lap. They both let out a ragged groan as they connected again, the new position aligning the heat of Rose's core with the hard swell of his boxers in the all the right ways.

His lips were on hers again in a second, his tongue exploring her mouth as his hands explored the rest of her – running over her waist, her breasts, tangling in her hair and gripping at her hips. The ache at Rose's centre had begun to pulse with an urgency she'd never experienced before and she ground herself against him, trying to create some of the friction her body so desperately craved. Scorpius let out a guttural noise and tightened his grip on her thighs.

He dipped a hand between them, dragging a finger across the wet patch in her knickers, making Rose cry out. He grinned, smugly, and muttered against her neck: "Shh, Rosie. Whatever will the neighbours think?"

If she hadn't been so intensely focused on his fingers, now rubbing in teasing circles over her underwear, she would have glared at him ferociously, honestly she would have.

Scorpius swiftly tugged her knickers to one side, sliding a finger into the wetness he found there. "Oh, fuck," he groaned, watching as Rose's eyelids fluttered shut, her hips rolling of their own accord. Rose was too far gone to even consider being embarrassed. She'd been thinking of very little else for over a week; the fact that she was so physically ready for him was of no surprise to her. Scorpius, on the other hand, was mesmerized. He couldn't take his eyes off her: he stared at her face, her lips, her chest. He watched hungrily as he slid another finger inside of her and she moaned and dropped her head to his shoulder.

"Tell me that you want me, Rose," he muttered into her curls, his breathing coming fast.

Rose whimpered against his neck and rocked against his hand. "Oh, Merlin…. Scorpius, please… I want you."

Suddenly, his wonderful fingers were gone, and Rose almost cried out in frustration before she realised that her drenched knickers were slowly being slid over her thighs. There was a movement below her and they, along with Scorpius' boxers, were long gone. She felt him against her, hot and hard and nudging at her entrance, and spread her legs a little wider. Scorpius grabbed a handful of hair and brought her mouth back to his, gripping her thighs as he aligned them, before thrusting up into her with one hard snap of his hips.

His hiss of pleasure was lost amongst the string of unintelligible sounds that Rose had begun to make. He pulled back, till almost his full length was out of her, before he slid himself back in to the hilt and held himself there. Rose gasped, literally gasped, at the sensation of being filled with him. For all of her fantasising, she had never dreamt that anything could feel this good. She looked down, and his eyes – so dark she could hardly tell what colour they were anymore – locked with hers. They both moaned as he jerked inside of her.

Their breathing coming fast and shaky, Rose began to move. Scorpius head fell back against the sofa as she fell into a steady rhythm, hips rocking up and down, her inner walls gripping him tightly. He raked his fingernails over a sensitive nipple and she cried out, losing her concentration. Scorpius smirked at her and, sweet Helga, if that wasn't the sexiest thing she'd ever seen in her life. Rose retaliated by sucking on the spot just below his jaw. He growled and grabbed at her hips, using them as leverage to thrust up deeply inside of her.

"Oh… Fuck, Scorpius," she gasped. Scorpius groaned, watching himself disappear within her, over and over.

Rose could do nothing but grip onto his shoulders as he drove up into her again and again, making her cry out in pleasure with each snap of his hips. She was close, had been from the moment he'd first laid a hand on her, and she could feel her release building with every stroke. As if sensing she was near, Scorpius brought his hand back to her centre, lightly circling her most sensitive nub with the rough pad of his thumb. The sensation was in stark contrast to his fast, forceful thrusts and Rose's brain short-circuited.

She cried out, her body going rigid above him as a tidal wave of pleasure crashed over her, rippling out from the point at which they were so intimately connected until every cell of her body felt engulfed in the most intense, wonderful fire. Scorpius continued to drive into her even when she fell limp against his chest, his fingers digging into her hips in a way that was bound to leave bruises, until his thrusts became erratic. He shouted her name into her curls, along with a sting of other expletives, driving into her once, twice, three more times before he lost himself completely within her.

They were a heap of limbs and sweat and satisfaction. The air was a heady mix of him and her and sex. Rose and Scorpius lay entangled, catching their breaths and letting the aftershocks of the last few minutes wash over them in the quiet of the room. She listened to the regular thump of his heart, racing beneath his sternum, and wondered if she'd ever felt so utterly content in her whole entire life. Twisting in Scorpius' arms, wrapped tightly around her and absently stroking along the length of her shoulder blade, Rose peered up at him from beneath thick lashes. He opened one eye and grinned at her, lazy and sated.

"You cannot imagine how long I have wanted to do that," he muttered.

She snorted into the skin, slick with sweat, at the base of his neck. "Two years, apparently."

He chuckled, and she listened to it reverberating through his chest. Merlin, she loved that sound. "Longer, if we're being totally honest. I said you were annoying at school, not that I didn't fantasise about shagging you in every other broom closet. I like to imagine it might have knocked you off that infuriatingly high horse of yours."

She swatted him in the chest, "Git," but couldn't fend off her laugh or the blush that warmed her cheeks.

She could have stayed there for hours, warm against his skin in the aftermath of what was almost certainly the best shag of her life, but as her heartbeat began to slow and the rest of the world crept back into her consciousness, she realised – with a whine of annoyance – that she actually wasn't done confronting people for the day. Shifting from his lap, she made to disentangle herself from his limbs but he coiled his arms more firmly around her, pulling her back on to him. He planted a kiss on her forehead, her nose, both of her cheeks, and then grinned at her like an idiot.

"Give me ten minutes and then we're going to do that again. And then again, and again, until one or both of us passes out from sheer exhaustion."

"Actually," she bit her lip, "I have somewhere I need to be, believe it or not."

You'd have thought she'd just slapped him in the face with the indignant scowl he gave her. "I certainly don't believe it. Impossible. Preposterous. There is nowhere else in the world you could possibly want to be right now."

Rose grinned as she rummaged on the floor for her discarded clothes, pulling her jumper over her mane of red curls. "I said need, not want, Malfoy. Trust me, there really is nowhere else I want to be but here."

He narrowed his eyes at her and huffed, evidently only marginally appeased. "Fine. You've got one hour. And if you're not back in this flat, naked in my bed by then, I'm coming to find you and dragging you back here."

Rose stared at his smirk and felt something stirring again behind her navel. No, she wasn't quite done with him either, it seemed.

"You have my word," she bent down and kissed him deeply, lingering far longer than she intended to, and had to wriggle out of his grasp again almost five minutes later. She'd made it halfway towards the front door when she tripped over the sodding copy of Witch Weekly, discarded on the floor. Picking it up, her eyes darted across the various photos of them together, and she found she had to hide her stupid smile, fearing Scorpius' inevitable gloating.

A pair of arms snaked around her waist and she felt the warmth of a bare chest pressed against her back. Mercifully, he'd deigned to put his trousers back on, at least. "I was wondering if you'd seen that already," Scorpius muttered over her shoulder. "I'll send some owls, get them to print a retraction about the 'girlfriend' comment. Can't imagine that'll go down quietly at your next Sunday lunch."

Rose bit the inside of her cheek, watching the various printed versions of herself practically glowing with happiness. It was sickening, really. "Or, you know…" she shrugged, nonchalantly, "you could not." She turned her head, catching the hopeful, wary look in his eye and grinned. "I'd say everyone's got to find out sooner or later, but I'm fairly sure they already think we've been going at it for weeks."

"Better late than never, I suppose," he had the audacity to wink at her.

O

To avoid making the national newspapers for a third time that week (this was a predominantly muggle neighbourhood after, all), Rose apparated to a secluded spot a few streets away from her intended destination. She didn't mind the walk; the cool evening air felt gorgeous against her flushed and sensitive skin – who knew declarations of love could give a girl such a glowing complexion – and with each step, she felt the delicious ache in her core confirming that she had, in fact, just been royally shagged. She felt positively glorious.

She stepped up to the familiar green door, knocking purposefully, and bounced back on her heels as she listened for movement from within.

The door opened just a slither and a pale face peered out. "Rosie?"

Rose stared at her friend, her eyebrows shooting skyward. Maria Thomas had not been exaggerating: the poor girl looked like absolute hippogriff shite. There were deep purple bags beneath her eyes, the tip of her nose looked red from over use of tissues, and there were clear signs she hadn't eaten a proper meal in over a week.

"Emily," Rose sighed, smiling kindly, and privately reflecting on the idiocy of the human condition. "I think you and I ought to have a chat, don't you?"

Eighteen months later

The Three Broomsticks had never looked so festive.

Strings of golden fairy lights (that Rose's mum had been assured did not contain actual fairies), were strung from the rafters, trailing down from the balcony and wrapped around the banister. Streamers of white and gold interlaced amongst them and a smattering of confetti littered the floor, churning up under people's feet like glittering flecks of snow.

Rose surveyed it all from her perch at one end of the bar. The room was aglow, and not just with the decorations but also the people within it. The pub was currently closed to the public for a private function, and try and she might, Rose could feel nothing but joy for this room full of her nearest and dearest. Even James seemed less annoying than usual, although that might have had something to do with the fact that Fred and Dominique had been spiking his drinks all evening and he was currently passed out in the bathroom.

Earlier that day, Albus Severus Potter and Emily Alice Longbottom had been married in the Hogwarts memorial rose garden. Rose had found the setting a touch too nostalgic for her tastes, but she supposed it made sense when the groom's father had literally saved the place from being burnt to cinders and the bride's father was its newly appointed headmaster.

Emily's mother, Hannah, had pulled out all the stops to make the family pub the perfect venue for the following celebrations. Rose watched on, happily, as her family and friends swung each other round to an enthusiastic ceilidh band. Ceilidh apparently being the Scottish word for 'physically hurl one another across the room, incurring multiple minor injuries in the process'. It was magnificent chaos.

Through the jumble of legs and arms, Rose spotted a familiar smirk making its way towards her. It split into a wide grin as its owner caught her eye, sliding onto the stool beside her, seemingly out of breath.

"Having fun?" Rose laughed at him, instinctively resting a hand on his thigh.

Scorpius grinned back at her. "Your mother is an absolute menace on the dance floor. Also, your dad tripped me during the 'Gay Gordon', and I'm not sure I believe it was accidental."

Rose pressed her lips together, "Oh, almost certainly not," she barely contained her laughter.

Scorpius mock-glared at her then, looping an arm around her shoulders and stealing a quick kiss, before nodding out at the sea of various bobbing red-heads. "So… fancy having one of these soon, then?"

Rose almost fell off her barstool. "Beg your pardon?" she stared up at him, blue eyes blinking quickly.

Scorpius shrugged casually, a familiar glint to his eye. "Seems like fun. Everyone gets to dress up in their fineries, we'd make pretty speeches and then drink copious amounts of alcohol. Plus, you look particularly ravishing in white," he smirked at her.

A wave of light-headedness reminded Rose of the fact that she needed to breathe. "Scorpius…" she eyed him, warily. "Are you -?"

"Also, I found this lying around the other day, thought you might like it," he ignored her startled expression and fished a small, velvet box from his pocket, tossing it casually towards her. Rose caught it with shaky hands, making quick work of the delicate silver clasp, and gasped at the contents.

"Scorpius Malfoy," she chided him, incredulously. "You did not find a ring with both of our initials on it and an emerald the size of my fist just 'lying around'!"

Scorpius sniggered, and tutted at her in amusement. "You're too clever by half, Weasley; you see straight through me, as always. I had it made. For you, if that part wasn't already clear."

Rose shot him a filthy look, her lips betraying her as they quirked into a wide smile. She stared at the ring lying in its velvet cushion. The light from a nearby candle caught one of the delicate jewelled facets and the bloody thing almost blinded her. It really was ginormous, and astonishingly beautiful.

"So? What do you say?"

She glanced up at him just in time to spot the flicker of uncertainty as it darted across his face. He stifled it quickly beneath another smirk, but she knew him too well. She'd stared into those eyes across too many rooms and too many pillows over the last year and a half. She'd become something of an expert in the secret emotions of Scorpius Malfoy.

"I say," she muttered, lips curling into a teasing smile, "that you should ask me again in an hour." Scorpius frowned but she distracted him by leaning over and kissing a very particular spot just below his ear. "Because, right now, I'd like to take advantage of one of the several empty guest rooms upstairs. You see, some idiot once told me that it is tradition – neigh – their solemn duty, for the Best Man and Maid of Honour to get drunk and shag at the reception. And I'd hate to stand in the way of tradition, wouldn't you?"

Scorpius's gaze darkened, his eyes trailing from her face and down across her curves, coveting as they went. Rose slid herself (in a way she liked to imagine seemed elegant) from her stool, urging him to follow her with a gentle pull of his hand. They'd almost made it to the top of the stairs – and most importantly, out of sight of her parents – when she felt his hands ghost across her bum, coming to rest possessively on her hips.

"Just for the sake of my quietly fretting ego," he muttered against her ear, making Rose's heart beat a little faster, "When I ask you again in one hour, you are going to say yes, right?"

Rose snorted, "Yes, Malfoy, you impossible git," she rolled her eyes and grinned at him, "I'm going to say yes."

Fin.

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Thank you for reading.

For those who are looking for a little more ScoRose, I will be posting the first chapter to a new story in the next day or so. It's a little darker, more angsty, but I hope you'll join me for the next ride!

ET