Author's Note: Fic is rated M for a reason. There are some references to acts of an adult nature, if you aren't old enough turn back now.

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is a product of J.K Rowlings wonderful imagination. Title belongs to the wonderful Kings of Leon.

Hot as a fever, rattling bones
I could just taste it, taste it
If it's not forever, if it's just tonight
Oh, it's still the greatest, the greatest, the greatest

The wind was howling with the storm outside. Inside all that was heard was the gentle dripping of wet fabric on hardwood and the ticking of the kitchen clock. Scorpius looked up from his cold tea and into the blue eyes of Rose Weasley.

It had been five years since he had last looked into those eyes, and still to this moment couldn't believe that they were real. He shifted in his seat and his wet clothes clung to him, adding a sense of reality to the moment. Yes, he truly was here, in Rose Weasley's tiny flat in London, five years since she last said goodbye to him.

It all started with that damn invitation.

His mum had somehow tracked him down in India and managed to guilt him into coming to London for a few months. It was his cousin Annabel's wedding to Barham Zabini, and his mother seemed to think that him being there was of utmost importance. He wouldn't have come back if she hadn't guilt him into it. And if there was one thing Astoria Malfoy knew how to do, it was how to pull at the right heartstrings and ensure that her way was the one that was taken. So he had begrudgingly packed up his life in India and returned to dreary London skies.

Currently he didn't know whether to thank his mother for her pushiness or blast her for it.

Rose opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out. She turned red and closed her mouth, eyes once again focusing on her tea.

How had he ended up here? Sitting in this minuscule sitting area, sipping tea with the one woman he had been trying to forget for the past five years?

Well, first there was the errand.

Mother, at first overcome with glee with his sudden reappearance in England, had welcomed him back with open arms. She set the house elves about, tidying things and preparing his old room, while Scorpius had shuffled his way into his Father's office.

The respect that Scorpius had once felt for this man had long since worn off, and his correspondence with him had been scarce after leaving Hogwarts to roam the world. Draco Malfoy had not been pleased to hear that his only son had no career path in mind and in fact intended to wander about the world until something "sparked some passion into him". The resulting row had been loud, unforgettable, and had only ended when Scorpius had packed his bag, and left the house.

But now he was back. Scorpius didn't know if his father was going to apologize for the things he had said that night five years ago, he didn't know if his father expected an apology for the things Scorpius had shouted at him in his fit of temper. He didn't know if he wanted to apologize.

"So," Draco drawled when Scorpius appeared in the doorway with his proverbial tail between his legs. "You're back."

"Yes." The answer was dry and emotionless.

"Your mother has missed you." Draco's eyes traveled over Scorpius' shoulder. Scorpius didn't turn to see if his mother was there, lurking in the shadows, witnessing this awkward and cold reunion.

"Yes."

"Very well." Draco gave the tiniest of smiles at his only son and went back to his paperwork.

Very well indeed. Dismissed, Scorpius returned to the parlor to retrieve his rucksack before ascending the stairs to his old bedroom.

Scorpius wondered what dear old dad would say if he saw him now. Soaked to the bone, sipping tea with a Weasley.

Three days after Scorpius' return, he could feel his welcome begin to wear out, as his mother became short with him, and his father retreated further into his office. He could tell the distance between his parents was his doing. He found himself looking forward to the wedding so that his self-imposed sentence of visitation could be lifted. Where would he go next? He spent his days fantasying about the next country. Italy perhaps? Greece? He hadn't been there since he was a boy after all...

In the midst of white stucco buildings and blue ocean daydreams, Scorpius heard his mother call for him. She must've been frazzled. She only called out for him when she was feeling stressed.

"Darling. Head to Diagon Alley and grab me a few things."

She was sitting at the Drawing Room desk looking over piles of fabric and seating charts. She shoved a list of items in his hands and continued her work. It wasn't a request.

He had donned his muggle leather jacket (something he had picked up in America) and headed out the door.

Things were going well enough. He had decided to walk through Muggle London, enjoying his freedom from his parents house. Whistling to himself and enjoying the brisk fall wind, he wasn't paying attention to where he was headed when he ran into her.

To his credit, she wasn't paying attention either.

In a mass of limbs they had tumbled to the cobblestones.

"I'm sorry miss-"

"So clumsy of me-"

"Wasn't paying attention-"

"Preoccupied-"

Then they had looked at each other and the apologies had ceased.

Somehow they had managed to get off the ground, and collect her books and papers. He didn't know how long they had stood there staring at each other. Minutes? Days? Years? It had felt like an eternity, as all the memories he had spent the past five years suppressing had come back in a rush.

The smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, her sighs, the murmured 'I love you's, their fountain, dusty books with dusty covers, green grass, smeared lipstick, ruined mascara, streaming tears, tinkling rings, freckles, and red toes. Every memory a punch in the gut, each one opening a wound he had lost himself to heal.

And then the bloody rain had started.

Scorpius was struck with the knowledge that his and Rose's past relationship had begun and ended in the rain. Starting with the day by the lake and ending the day she had ruined them both. He didn't know what the rain meant now. At the moment all he could think was how bloody cold it was.

And then somehow she was foolishly inviting him to her flat to warm up, dry off, and weather the storm, and like an idiot he was accepting and holding out his hand for her parcels, his errand forgotten.

That's how he had ended up barefoot and freezing in Rose Weasley's flat, sipping on tea that had long since gone cold and avoiding conversation. He was also trying desperately to avoid looking at Rose's wet cleavage.

He looked around for a distraction, something to spark his interest before he did something foolish like fall in love with her again. Her papers, wet and bearing the St. Mungo's emblem, were dripping on the counter.

"You're a healer?"

Rose's head shot up. "What?" She asked, her eyes wild.

Scorpius pointed to the papers.

"Oh... That." Rose clenched her cup with two hands and glanced at the tabletop. "I'm doing an internship in the Pediatrics Department. It's great. Ah... I..." She trailed off and bit into her bottom lip. The action looked familiar but Scorpius had spent too long trying to forget her habits to know if she'd always done it.

She ruffled her damp hair, sending it's scent across the small table. Scorpius forced himself to stay in the present. The memories associated with that scent were strong. Lilac and rain and hope...

"You?" Rose asked, interrupting his memories. "I mean, what are you up to? You were always so clever that I was surprised to hear that you didn't end up at the Ministry."

She was beginning to sound a bit like her old self, and Scorpius felt his control slip a notch. He was holding on to his calm, detached facade with both hands, but with each blush and exhale he felt it slip.

"I've been traveling." He was aiming for cool and unconcerned. He didn't know if he pulled it off.

"Really?" She sounded excited. "I've always wanted to travel. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Anything exciting?"

"I've been all over really." He relaxed the grip on his cup and leaned forward. He could do this. He could have a nice light conversation. He could not fall in love with her. "China, Japan, America, Spain, Portugal, Brazil. Last I was in India."

"That's amazing." She was leaning forward now too. Their faces closer than they had been in five years, since that day in the Room of Requirement. "What was it like?"

"Brilliant. One of the most interesting countries I've ever been to. Beautiful too." He thought back to his time in India, remember the colors of the scenery, the smells of the markets.

"Wow." A soft exclamation brought his mind back to the present. Foggy London, grey skies, and the blue eyes of Rose Weasley. "I'd love to go."

"Go," Scorpius said, not focusing on her soft lips and the way her wet fabric clung to her just right. At least he was trying. "It comes highly recommended."

She laughed quietly at that and looked in the depths of her tea. "So why have you been abroad? Business or pleasure?"

"I've just been looking for something." He replied before he thought about it. She had always been able to do that. Make him say things before he thought them through. Word vomit, that's what he had called it back then.

"Something?"

There were those disarming blue eyes again. Forcing himself to think, it took him a moment to reply. "Something. Something with some passion."

"Passion?" She was leaning in again. Oh boy.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat when he heard how rough his voice was. He leaned back in his chair. His wet clothes sending a cold shock through his body. "But what about you?" The distance helped clear his head. As did looking at something that wasn't her. He chose the scab on his left knuckle. Earned from a punch up in a bar two weeks ago. "Pediatrics huh?"

"Oh yeah. Well I've always liked children, and being a Healer seemed to come naturally so..." she trailed off again and Scorpius got the feeling she wasn't particularly happy with her career choice.

He was about to ask her why she didn't just leave if she was unhappy, when he remembered that it was technically none of his business. After all who was he? Not her friend surely. They had spent the past five years in silence. Meeting today was only a freak accident. It made no sense to get too involved in her life now. He was leaving in a few months anyway. The second that blasted wedding was over he was packing his bags and heading to Greece.

Seeing the sad smile on her face, he suddenly wasn't as eager to leave as he had been before.

They fell back into silence.

The wind and rain were still going strong outside. Scorpius knew that if he really wanted he could leave, apparate to Diagon Alley, and be done with his errand in a few minutes. But he didn't know if he could force himself to say the words that would end their meeting.

Being here, so close to her, was agony, but the thought of leaving and possibly never seeing or hearing from her again was worse. So he stayed and sipped his freezing tea and squirmed in his wet clothes.

The silence was beginning to get to him. All the things unsaid between them was louder than the deafening silence, and the pull he felt for her was tearing him up. Somehow her soft words and quiet laughter had destroyed his carefully crafted facade. He was exposed and he hated it. Suddenly he was seventeen again, staring at her between classes and thinking about her all day.

He was abruptly furious. With her, himself, the heat between them, and the stupid storm. In his anger, he lashed out. "How's your family?"

She raised her chin defiantly, with only her barely quivering bottom lip to give her away. "They're fine Scorpius." It was the first time she had said his name since running into him on the street. But he was too angry to feel the swoop it gave his stomach.

So she wasn't going to say anything. She wasn't going to rise to his bait. She wasn't going to go on about her precious family. The reason she broke him all those storms ago.

"That's good to hear." His voice was cold and clipped again.

She blushed and looked into the depths of her tea once more. She felt guilty, he could tell. He had made her feel uncomfortable and that was a start. He wanted to hurt her. Make her feel as lost as he had felt, still felt. It didn't make any sense, but this fire that he felt toward her right now was the strongest thing he had felt in ages.

"Your father? Still at the Ministry?" He truly didn't want to know, but he wanted to remind her of the reason she left him. It would hurt her, and he would feel better.

"Yes," She replied with a heavy sigh. She hadn't looked up from her cup. "He's due to retire in a few years."

"How lovely."

"Scorpius..." She breathed, eyes still down.

Scorpius just looked away from her. He could begin to feel the pangs of guilt that came with hurting her, and he refused to let himself feel them. She deserved it, whatever pain she was feeling now. She deserved it.

"I'm sor-"

"Don't." He didn't want to hear her apologies. It was too long ago for her remorse to be relevant.

"Okay." She stood, collected the cold tea and moved to the kitchen. He heard her damp feet sticking to the linoleum.

He sighed and watched the storm.

The clock ticked and he heard the rushing of running water in rusty pipes. He just sat there, staring at the old, scraped wooden table and thought about nothing. He didn't think about how much he wanted her, how badly he wanted to get up and follow her, how much he wished he could make her smile again like he had before. No. He certainly did think about that.

He got up out of his chair and shuffled off in his wet clothes to find her.

Her back was to him, as she bent over the small sink in her light blue kitchen. "Rose?" He asked, feeling how right her name felt on his lips.

She turned to him, her eyes were moist but she wasn't crying. Rose rarely cried, in fact he could only ever remember seeing her cry once. That day, that storm...

Despite his attempts to the contrary he was brought back to that day. He had been thinking about it far too much today and it managed to sneak through his carefully constructed walls.

Her steps ringing louder that the thunder as she walked away from him. That last kiss, hard and passionate. She had tasted salty and sweet and she had wrapped her arms around him so tightly that he had thought that maybe, just maybe, she had changed her mind. But then she had pulled away, breathing his name the way she always had. "Don't." she had begged him. "Don't make it harder." and as she slid away from him he felt it. That wrenching in his gut that he would feel for the next five years, that no amount of travel or distraction would ever make go away. He had pleaded with her one last time. Whispered that last quiet proclamation. He hadn't said those three words since. She had responded with a cold and harsh "I can't." and he had felt his heart break.

He came back to the present as Rose turned away from him, breaking eye contact. He could feel the twisting in his gut, the cracks in his heart. Largely he was able to forget about them. Mostly he pushed the pain away and lived his life. He laughed, he dated, he traveled. But he could feel them now. Those ancient injuries that apparently had been festering while he had ignored them. They were now so painful he didn't know if he was ever going to be able to forget them again.

He took a deep breath, looking down to the cracked linoleum and his own bare toes. His muggle jeans were drying off. They were now only slightly damp. His time was running out.

Rose turned the water off.

"Scorpius..." she breathed again. Like she was sighing and pleading with him at the same time. His gut clenched. He looked up. Her eyes were no longer wet.

He could feel the static in the space between them. The pull that had always been there. He warred with his desire to run from it and his desire to close the distance. Each equally compelling. Each equally dangerous

And then she moved.

Two sticky steps toward him, her wet shirt clinging to her, her chest heaving with her uneven breathing. He couldn't take it anymore. He collapsed onto her.

When their lips met it was like fire. And Scorpius felt every nerve in his body give him a jolt. And then she was wrapping her arms tight around him again. He deepened the kiss wanting to consume her. He would never be close enough. Not until he could feel all of her. He picked her up easily. She always had been a little twig of a girl. The result of too many hours in the library and not enough physical activity.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and as he felt her tighten them around him, the spark ignited in his chest. The passion. That spark of something he had been looking for came rushing back to him. That passion that he had lost that rainy day years ago sprung up inside him and as it did, he felt it mend his chest and his gut and everything else she had injured.

She was both the disease and the cure.

She was tugging his damp shirt over his head, making small grunting sounds as it stuck to his wet back. He attacked her neck, kissing that sweet spot he had found ages ago that he knew would set her off. She moaned and her fingernails scraped along his back.

This wasn't the same as it was all those years ago. Yes, he still remembered exactly where to kiss and where to nip and where to caress to get her heart pumping, and she could still make him whimper with a mere swipe of her hand, but those were just memories coming back to them. Memories of first times and abandoned classrooms. But now... now things were different. More. More passionate, more experienced.

She was no longer a girl and he was no longer the seventeen year old boy in love with her.

He took her there, in the kitchen, up against her light blue cabinets. Each moan, sigh, touch, an apology. A homecoming.

Outside the storm raged.

Later, after they had tumbled into her cotton sheets and the storm had quieted to a dull roar, Rose spoke. "I've missed you."

She was lying on her stomach, her face away from him. He was on his side facing her, connecting freckles on her back with his fingertip, a thousand constellations blooming in his mind.

Her soft words brought his ministrations to a stop. Rose stiffened from the lack of movement. Scorpius didn't know what to say. What did she expect?

She turned her face toward him, her long red hair splaying across her celestial back with the movement. He could feel the silky strands on his hands and couldn't quite help himself from running his fingers though the length of them. Her eyes met his and he found himself blurting out the only thing that came to mind. "I've missed you," he whispered tenderly. Ah, so it seemed as if the word-vomit was back.

She pushed herself up on her elbow, laying on her side to mirror his position. His hand mourned the loss of her hair. "I know you don't want to hear it, but I am sorry." Her eyes were the brightest of blues as she mumbled her way through an apology five years in the making. "I was a fool. I should've never left you. I know it doesn't mean much, but I really did love you." Her eyes could no longer hold his it seemed as she whispered "I still do."

Scorpius felt strangely numb. He had longed to hear these words for five long years, and now that he was, it seemed as if he was having an out-of-body experience. His head knew that he needed to hear these words, to understand them, to force her to understand what exactly she had done to the both of them. But his heart didn't need to hear it. It forgave her entirely. It understood why she had done what she did. Growing up forced understanding upon him, even about things that had hurt him.

"You never stopped." It was neither a question nor an accusation. Merely an observation. She answered it anyway.

"Yes."

His heart was soaring and he was moving before his mind had processed this strange familiar feeling. He leaned toward her, capturing her lips with his own. "I love you," he murmured when they broke apart for breath. "I love you."

He pushed her back and she wrapped her arms around him pulling him close. He made love to her then. And they whispered their love for each other between gasps and moans. His lips moved over every inch of her body. Caressing her and healing them both. Rose kissed him deeply and passionately, as if she were trying to make up for the past five years of missed affection.

"I love you."

Scorpius was watching the storm fade. He was leaning out the bedroom window that lead to Rose's iron fire escape, puffing on a lit cigarette. It was a foul habit that he had picked up two years ago, and he thought that this might just be his last. Rose was asleep, in the bed to his back. Her lips swollen and her hair matted. He had been watching her but he found that he couldn't quite think straight when he did, so he left the bed. When that didn't help, he found his cigarettes in his jacket pocket, and headed to the window.

The pouring rain had let up and the clouds were breaking up slowly. If it kept up at this rate he would be able to see the sun set. Inhaling, he closed his eyes and let the brisk breeze wash over his skin. He felt good, better, whole. And it was undoubtbly her fault. And he wished it could last.

But he didn't know if it was going to. All the reasons for them to not be together were still there, and while he would've loved to stay here in this darkened flat and make love to Rose until the end of time he knew that this couldn't last. This secluded afternoon was a rare gift, now he would have to face the real world.

Now the only question that remained was if he and Rose were going to face it together or not.

He took another drag, and tried to think objectively. A difficult task seeing as Rose's scent still clung to his skin.

He wanted to be with her, without question, but was he willing to sacrifice what little peace there was with his parents in order to do so? Was he willing to put up with the prejudices and narrowed glares that were sure to follow him, if he were to leave his family and join Rose's? Would they even want him? Would Rose want him?

That there was the real question. What did this afternoon mean to her? To them? To their future as she saw it? Was she willing to give it all up if he asked? Travel far away with him like she's wanted to? Get lost at the edge of the map, having limited contact with her family, and her friends?

What was next?

"I didn't know you smoked," Rose murmured from behind him. He flicked the butt away before turning to her. She was wrapped in the top sheet, and her red hair was knotted and tangled.

"Awful habit." Scorpius muttered. He grabbed the end of her sheet, and ran his fingers through the fabric. He didn't pull her forward, and she didn't pull back. Rose's eyes were scanning his face. What did she there? Did she sense his questions? Did she have a plan in place so he could stop thinking in circles?

She took a step forward. She pushed the blonde hair out of his eyes and ran her fingers though his locks. She dragged her hand down his neck, stopping to run her thumb across his lips, before continuing down his chest before it settled over his heart.

He removed his hand from the depths of the sheet and moved it to the back of her neck. Anchoring himself to her. What ever her next step was, she was taking him with her.

"What's next?" she whispered.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully.

To his surprise, she smiled. A radiant smile, the kind he remembered from back before. "Me neither." She started chewing on her swollen bottom lip, but it couldn't quite hide her smile.

"We have plenty of time to figure it out."

"Together."

He pulled her forward and kissed her sweetly. And she tasted of honey, and sweet tea, and hope.

Outside the sun broke through the clouds and the wet pavement glinted gold with the setting sun.

END

A.N:

I've had this one on the back burner for a while now, and I hope you all like it.

General Playlist for this fic:

Sex on Fire: Kings of Leon
Hands on Me: Vanessa Carlson
Collide: Howie Day
Lazy Eye: Sliver Sun Pickups
Untouched: The Veronicas

I found that the tone of these songs seemed to help me get into Scorpius' head.

This is the final installment in my Malfoy/Weasley Trilogy.

Leaving it at...

I-Dusk & Summer
II- so long, so long
III- What's to Transpire

I hope you all enjoyed it, and if you did (and even if you didn't) I'd love to hear all about it.

So leave some reviews!