Raindrops on Roses

Chapter 40: Seventh Year Part 8: Please

2025

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Ding dong merrily on high.... the angel bells are ringing...

...Not this again.

He hadn't dreamed the dream in weeks. He shook his head, trying to wake up, trying to end it before it began. No -

Screaming. Rose was screaming and they were dragging him away from her.

"Come away, lad."

"No!" Why did they always make him leave? He needed to be there with her, to help her, to save her... he had saved her before, he could do it again, he could!

"You can't do any good."

"I should be there with her!"

"You'll only be in the way."

Gloooo-ooooo-ooooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooria, Hosanna in Excelsis!

Someone make that damn song stop, why wouldn't it stop? Why couldn't he see Rose? Why was her father always making him leave? He had never wanted them together... and it was all his fault, she was in pain because of him, again... again...

"This is all my fault."

"Yes."

He woke up, sweat beading on his forehead, heart pounding. For a brief, confused moment, he had no idea where he was.

"Scorp?"

He groaned and blinked in a flash of wandlight as he looked up into Albus' face leaning over him. "What?" he mumbled, blearily.

"The alarm went off," Albus said, his voice oddly sharp. "You okay?"

Scorpius belatedly remembered the intricate charmed alarm that they'd put on the bed to make an alert if his heart rate spiked, after the last time. They'd never needed it until now. Albus, Scorpius saw now, had his wand gripped tightly in his hand, his glasses were slightly askew and behind them his eyes were wide with panic.

"Fine," Scorpius muttered. He felt guilty for waking Albus for no reason, but he wasn't quite awake enough to be properly apologetic just yet. "Just the stupid dream again."

Albus' shoulders relaxed a little and he ran his hand through his hair, which was in an even worse state than usual. "The hospital one?"

"No, the one with the fluffy bunnies climbing all over me," he replied sarcastically. "Of course that one." He sat up stiffly and rubbed his face. He was always grouchy in the morning; the dream hadn't done anything to improve matters. "Sorry I woke you."

"S'okay. It's nearly six anyway. Want to do some last minute Charms revision?"

Scorpius groaned. "Oh, hell."

It was the first day of the NEWTs. Of all the nights to have his favourite recurring nightmare. Albus was already picking up his notes and coming to sit on the bed. For someone who said he didn't care about his NEWT results - with the exception of Charms and Potions - he had gotten rather antsy about the exams since the wedding.

They settled opposite each other, textbooks and piles of notes spread over the covers. Albus sat leaning against the opposite bedpost, his brow furrowed behind his glasses as he tried to wake up enough to read his own handwriting.

Scorpius stared down at his own notes - some of which were still in Rose's neat, loopy writing - for a minute or two without really seeing them. His thoughts were still foggy with the dim lights of the hospital corridor, and the distant sound of screaming. "You don't think it'll happen, do you?" he asked quietly after a while.