I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for your unending patience. I give you, the last piece of this far longer than expected puzzle.

Tending Roses - Chapter 7

The two malicious and conniving gits I call my best friends strung me along for three entire days after Scorpius's botched Bonding Ceremony, and I have yet to forgive them for it.

I waited, in tense and strained silence, for three days, waiting to hear something, waiting for Scorpius to come talk to his best friend about whatever had gone down, waiting to hear anything really, determined not to go after him and pester, determined to let him live his own life in his own time and include me when he was ready. But man was it frustrating waiting for him to be ready.

Well, you might ask, did Scorpius know he was putting me through this inner turmoil? Why, yes. Yes, he did.

Finally, after 72 hours of silence, I received the following letter:

Eternal and Compulsive Meddler,

Tomorrow. 1 pm. Fortescue's. Don't be late.

It wasn't signed, but it didn't need to be. I knew who had sent it. And so, the next day, I showed up at Fortescue's ice cream parlor, nervous as hell because I honestly didn't know how this was going to go, but I was willing to let Scorpius say whatever he needed to say.

So imagine my surprise when, I see, sitting at an outside table, not Scorpius, but Rose, whom I had also spent three days leaving alone. It could, of course, have been coincidence that she was there at the exact time I was supposed to meet Scorpius, but somehow, I didn't think so.

"Rose," I said, crossing to her. She looked up and greeted me with a smile which I was in no state to return. "Are you meeting Scorpius, too?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound as nervous as I felt.

"I'm sorry?" she asked with a frown.

"Scorpius," I said. "He sent me an owl telling me to meet him here. He asked you to meet him, too?"

"Oh," she said, then hesitated slightly before saying, "Yes, you could say that." I should have picked up on that hesitation. I didn't.

"I wonder what it's about," I said, sitting down, and again, I should have wondered why she didn't seem more concerned about the prospect of the meeting, and yeah, maybe that should have been a clue, but I wasn't quite thinking straight.

"I imagine that will be made clear soon enough," was all she said, and looking back, I can't believe how thoroughly I was swindled by the pair of them.

But if I'm going to tell this story, then I have to tell all of it, even the embarrassing parts. And so I will tell you that when Scorpius walked up to the table a few minutes later, I looked up at him and said seriously, "Rose and I are both here. So what did you want to talk to us about?"

There was a long pause in which Scorpius looked between me and Rose, slightly befuddled, then sat at the third seat of the table, saying, "I think you've got your pronouns wrong, Al," and then it was my turn to look befuddled.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking to Rose to share in my confusion, but instead, she answered me.

"He means," she said slowly, exchanging a look with Scorpius, "that he didn't invite us here. We . . . invited you."

That took far longer to sink in than it should have.

"You . . . invited me," I repeated slowly. They nodded. "As in, both of you, together, invited me?"

"Yes," Scorpius said, drawing out the word and looking at Rose, who returned his glance with a smile she was having trouble suppressing.

I looked back and forth between the pair of them, noting how they seemed much more at ease with each other than I had seen them since the end of our seventh year. I took in how, despite it being a small round table with only three chairs, they were both sitting much closer to each other than either one was to me. And, my powers of observation making a late entrance to the situation, I finally noticed the angle of their arms to one another, making it almost 100% likely that they were holding hands under the table.

"You conniving little gits," I said to the pair of them, and because they got great pleasure out of infuriating me, I saw both of them smirk or suppress smiles at that. I continued my tirade. "Three days! Three days, I've been good! I haven't asked any questions, I haven't pestered either one of you, I've just sat, quietly, in my house, waiting to hear something following that – that — theatrical fiasco —"

"Theatrical fiasco?" Scorpius repeated, one eyebrow raised, thoroughly enjoying my displeasure.

"Yes!" I said firmly, sticking to my guns. "That little show that you and Honoria Ridgeton put on for everyone, the scared first time bride show, the shocked and jilted groom show, but if she actually had a sudden change of heart and fled the chapel without you knowing she was about to do it, I will eat my hat!"

"You're not wearing a hat," Rose pointed out, as if that was a logical response. I glared at her.

"You two. Spill. Now," I said, in a voice that I hoped was impossible to disobey. My mum has that voice. I've been trying to successfully recreate it for years. And either it worked, or they decided they had tortured me long enough because after one last glance at each other, Scorpius said, "Starting where?" like he was actually planning to talk about it.

I looked back and forth between them for a moment, then said, "Second to last day of term, seventh year. You left the dorm to go tell Rose how you felt. What happened?"

And so they told me everything. I'll give them this – they left nothing out. They told me how Scorpius had poured his heart out and Rose had led him to believe that she didn't feel the same. They told me how Scorpius had become suspicious over the next two days and confronted her about it on the train ride home. They told me how that confrontation had ended, with Rose's pointed and deliberate, "How could a Weasley ever love a Malfoy?" and their searing, angry kiss.

So much fell into place as they told me their story, so many things I had only guessed at, and more than a few that I'd had no inkling of. They confirmed that Rose had left on a trip around the world to get away from Scorpius, and I learned that Scorpius had overheard all of that so-revealing conversation the night of the Auror Reception, that they spoken about it, if you could really call it speaking, and come to their hart-breaking understanding, both thinking the door was shut, but determined to live despite that, independent of each other. To do as Rose had wished and do their best to be happy.

And then he told me what had happened at the Bonding, what Honoria had said when she'd pulled him away, that she didn't want to do this, and she didn't think he did, either. How they arranged the jilting, her supposed cold feet. How he'd gone to Rose's at Uncle Ron's direction, and how he and his father had finally cleared the air after twenty years.

"And?" I asked when all this had been told. "Now, you're what? Engaged?"

Scorpius looked at Rose then, and you could feel the love pouring out of him, pouring out of both of them, and her smile lit up the air between them. "Yeah," Scorpius said, talking to me, but not actually talking to me.

"But," Rose said a moment later, dragging her eyes away from him, "don't go spreading it around. We'll announce it in a few months, but until then, we're keeping it quiet. So whatever you do, don't tell Lily?"

I laughed at that, as I was supposed to. And then I took a deep breath and started to make my apologies.

"I'm sorry," I said to them. "Really, I am, I was presumptuous and an idiot, and—"

Scorpius stopped me with a raised hand and a regretful look. "Yes," he said simply. "Maybe so. But we didn't help. I was so angry with Rose I couldn't bear reliving it by telling you what had happened."

"Which was what I was counting on," Rose broke in with an apologetic glance at him, then at me. "And of course I couldn't tell you because you'd have gone and fixed it," she said, and it was the first time my cousin had spoken of my meddling with anything like endearment in her voice. "So I left instead. I left so Scorpius moved on and so you couldn't fix us. Because you would have. You're that good at it."

"I'm still sorry," I told them both sincerely.

"And so are we," Scorpius said. Those proved to be words as magic as 'Al fixed it,' in many ways.

And over the next year, we rebuilt our friendship. Not that there was that much to do, strictly speaking, but we were all older and wiser and had learned a lot of lessons in the three and a half years we'd spent apart. That year, then, was good for us.

And the next summer, they married. I stood by Scorpius as witness, and Rose had Ivanna. The ceremony was small and perfect for them, and it was impossible to not be caught up in the love that they had for each other, a love hard won and thoroughly earned.

Watching these two unlikely families become one was a real treat, and it's hard to say if favorite part of that day was watching my aunt Hermione dance with Draco Malfoy, or watching my uncle Ron watch Aunt Hermione dance with Draco Malfoy.

Actually, in all honesty, it's not hard at all. Aunt Hermione dancing with Scorpius's father and all, the highlight of that day was watching my two best friends dance together as man and wife for the first time, completely oblivious to anything except each other. Radiating off of them, I saw fully realized what I had only glimpsed when we were 14, and though a younger me might have crowed with pride at what he had achieved, after all we'd been through, I found myself not self-congratulating at all. Rather, all my pride was for them, and what they had struggled so hard to find.

I was in the midst of all this contemplation during their first dance when a voice interrupted my thoughts, saying, "He never looked at me like that."

Startled, I turned to find a familiar looking blonde woman standing beside me, looking out at Rose and Scorpius, and for a moment, I thought I had imagined the voice. But when I said, "I'm sorry?" she glanced up at me, a half-smile on her face.

"Scorpius," she clarified. "He never looked at me the way he looks at Rose. Not once."

I frowned, puzzled, trying to place her. "Should he have?" I asked, confused.

"Ah, how quickly we forget," she said with a theatrical sigh. "Nice to know I left such an impression." At that, she smiled at me, and with that, she slid into place in my head.

"Honoria Ridgeton," I said. She nodded.

"The almost bride," she said, and I couldn't help but feel that every word out of her mouth was teasing me somehow. "That's me."

"Do Rose and Scorpius know you're here?" I asked then, and she laughed.

"Relax, I'm not gate crashing," she said. "They invited me."

"Ah," I offered then, because I didn't really know what else to say. But that didn't stop me from saying something anyway. "So, what, you're here regretting your decision?"

"Are you kidding me?" she asked then, as if what I'd said was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. "Look at them. Why on earth would I regret a decision that helped that to manifest? Al Potter, you're supposed to be intelligent. Don't let your determination to dislike me get in the way of that."

'Sputtering,' is, perhaps the kindest word to describe my reaction to those words. I mean, yes, Rose and Scorpius were that blunt with me all the time, but I had known them most of my life. This woman was a stranger, and up until she'd said my name, I hadn't been certain that she'd even known who I was. Apparently, I was mistaken in that regard.

"What makes you think I had any sort of determination to dislike you?" I asked when I could properly form coherent thoughts again.

"Please, Mr. Potter," she said, making it very clear that she felt the question beneath me. "I know for a fact that Scorpius invited you to meet me countless times, and you always, without fail, found an excuse to refuse the invitation. And I certainly can't say I don't understand why. You were, I assume, working toward this eventuality, after all, and I stood in the way of that. I understand completely. But I hope you can now realize that the situation was very much out of my control, and if I'd been aware of it, I would certainly have moved to rectify it sooner."

There are less than a handful of people who have ever rendered me speechless, but she achieved it. "How do you know who I am?" I finally asked, and she snorted, distinctly unladylike.

"Al Potter, in the time I have known him, Scorpius has managed to talk about you at least once in nearly every conversation we've had. It's enough to set a girl to wondering." I ignored that implication. "Who else would you have been, standing witness beside him today?" She didn't give me time or opportunity to answer. "No, Mr. Potter," she said briskly instead. "I do not regret my decision; I rejoice in it. Seeing them? I want that," she said, her tone growing more earnest and longing. "Never let it be said that I settled. That's what I told my parents, when I had to face the inevitable confrontation after our failed Bonding. Never let it be said that I settled. As a very wise fictional character from a Muggle novel you probably haven't read once said, 'Only the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony.' Well, her film counter-part said that, anyway, and please don't ask me how I've come to see a Muggle film of any sort. It is a very long story and not a terribly interesting one."

I was staring by this point, and this utterly unfathomable woman standing beside me, speaking frankly and openly as if we had been close friends for a very long time rather than unofficial acquaintances of only a few minutes, rattling off more words in a minute than even my younger sister was capable of.

"Despite the way I talk, I have never done anything truly crazy with my life, Al Potter," she said simply, and the number of times she was saying my full name was a little off-putting. "But love . . . well, that's something altogether different. And I want, so badly, to experience the craziness of love. To lose my mind and my reason and my senses. To speak once with a young man, and have him possess my thoughts and my daydreams for days afterward. To act on impulse and be utterly unable to exert control over my emotions. I want to be swept up in the tide of love, to be overwhelmed by it because I have been overwhelmed by very few things in this world, but this seems important. That is what I want – insane and inexplicable passion. And it was never going to be with Scorpius." She turned then, and looked me in the eye.

"Have I frightened you away yet, Al Potter?" she asked me.

"Surprisingly, no," I said, because strange as she was coming off, there was something captivating about her as well.

Just then, the band moved smoothly into a new song, and other couples were invited to join the bride and groom on the dance floor. Honoria arched an eyebrow in my direction. "Well?" she said expectantly. "Are you going to stand there like a lump all night, or are you going to ask a pretty girl to dance?"

"Why? Have you seen any around?" I asked, feigning interest as I peered past her. She laughed, delighted.

"I like you, Al Potter," she declared then, and her grin was infectious. "So dance with me."

And so we danced, one dance, no more. And after that, she disappeared, and I didn't see her again that night.

But something about her stayed with me, and in the coming days, I found myself captivated, my thoughts and daydreams possessed by her eyes and smile and the teasing tone of her voice. I found myself unable to get her out of my mind, my emotions no longer fully under my control, my mind and reason and sense lost to the remembrance of the dance and the banter we'd shared.

But that story is not this story, and this story is long and cumbersome enough as it is, and so, I will leave the bewitching Honoria for another time.

For the story of Rose and Scorpius came, in many ways, to a close that night. And as I stood before the assembled party, a flute of champaign in my hand, and gazed at my two best friends, struggling to find the right words to say to toast their future happiness, I could help but be bombarded with how far we come and how much we'd been through. And so, in the end, I think, my toast was not what people expected.

"I think a lot of you who know me are expecting me to say 'I told you so' at any moment now," I said, the words greeted with a smattering of laughter. I smiled in acknowledgment. "I think Rose and Scorpius themselves are expecting that, actually." At that, Rose lifted her glass slightly and Scorpius lifted an eyebrow. "But I'm not going to," I said, and I could hear the shift. Rose and Scorpius looked momentarily surprised, and I plowed ever firmly onward. "I'm not going to take credit for this, because in all honesty, I really had very little to do with it. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to be able to take credit. When you see something this right, this perfect, playing out in front of you, you want very much to be able to say, 'I had something to do with that! I'm the reason that exists!' But I'm not. Rose and Scorpius have walked a long and hard road to get to this place, but they've walked it on their own, without my help."

I paused there, collecting my thoughts, looking down and trying to ignore the shocked looks on many of the face before me. "Aunt Hermione," I found her in the crowd, "has this rose garden, and she's had it as long as I can remember. And when we were little, I think she desperately wanted one of us to like them as much as she did, so she would teach us all about them. I don't remember much of those lessons, but I do remember being told that tending roses was a lot about knowing when to actually tend them and when to sit back and leave them well enough alone. I would have been an awful rose tender, because the art of knowing when to leave something well enough alone is one I never quite mastered."

Again, a smattering of laughter rang out after that, most of it coming from Rose and Scorpius, and I smiled, accepting it. Things were okay now. I could be self-deprecating. "But there are a number of things in this world that thrive best when left alone, and the more you try to meddle, the less progress you make. So I can't claim credit for this." I turned once more to Rose and Scorpius. "Because if this had been left entirely in my hands, I don't know that we'd be sitting here today. This grew without my help. In many ways, this grew in spite of my help. I did a little. But not enough to claim credit.

"I have known Rose my whole life, and I might as well have known Scorpius that long. And there are no two people better suited to one another than these two. So here's to them. To Rose and Scorpius, and all they have the potential to become."

And the glasses were raised and the words were echoed, and my two best friends started their life together.

And while there is more I could certainly tell, every story has to end sometime, and this seems as good a time as any. I was asked for my story. But my story is inexorably linked to theirs, so I hope this will suffice. If not, you have my deepest apologies. But such is life, sometimes. I hope you will not walk away too terribly disappointed. For this is the most important story I have to offer: the story of my two best friends and how they finally came to find each other. If you look close enough, it's my story as well, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Fin