Chaser 2: Write about Ron's relationship with one of his children. Optionals: object: skull; Dialogue: "Is that the amulet he/she gave you?"; Dialogue: "You have a kind of aroma about you."
…
Rose stares at the skull.
The skull stares back at her.
She pokes it in the place where the nose would be.
The skull does not react.
Rose sighs, rolls over on her bed, and takes another drink from her flask.
There comes a firm knock at the door.
Rose tucks the flask under her mattress and yells out, "Come in!"
Her father pushes open the door. He blinks at the skull.
The skull does not blink back.
"Rosie?"
"Hmm?"
"Is that a skull?"
"Yup."
"Er. Why do you have a skull?"
Rose shrugs, her muscles loose.
"Do I want to know where you got that?"
"Borgin and Burke."
He sighs. His face says that's provoked more questions than it's answered, but he's not sure he should continue this line of questioning.
In the end, he appears to decide not to ask.
"How drunk are you right now?" he asks instead, eyes narrowing at her.
She rolls her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You have a kind of… aroma, about you." Her father's tone is tight. Rose doesn't want to talk about this. She's fine.
"I might've had a drink," she says, waving a hand flippantly.
"It's noon." His voice is careful, not accusatory, but she can still hear the tension.
"So it is. And I'm nineteen and it's legal. Your point?"
Rose looks back to her skull. Her father sighs, and turns away.
…
Rose doesn't have a problem.
She just likes a drink.
She likes the way it makes everything a little less urgent. A little easier to forget that she's nineteen and living with her parents and jobless.
She could stop. She just doesn't want to.
…
"Play with me," says her father, and he gestures toward the chessboard.
Rose stares at him.
"Why aren't you at work? It's Tuesday."
He always works on Tuesdays.
He looks at her, his gaze piercing with a weight it doesn't usually carry. "Play with me, Rose."
It doesn't sound like a question.
She sits down at the board. He's set her up to play white, the way he always does.
She moves a pawn and then glances up at him, but his eyes are fixed on the board.
He picks up a pawn, rolls it between his fingers for a moment, and then he puts it down two squares forward.
She asked him, once, why he played with Muggle chessmen as often as his beloved set of wizarding ones.
He'd smiled at her sadly and told her that they belonged to her maternal grandfather, once, and he saw the way her mother smiled when he used them.
Now older, Rose sometimes wonders if maybe he just likes the tactility of the pieces, some days. But other days she's seen him flinch at the collision of pieces.
Most days Rose forgets her parents fought a war, but sometimes it shows.
Rose pushes her bishop forward and watches her father's face.
"It's Friday," he finally says.
Rose blinks. For a moment she believes it's a non sequitur, but then she remembers how the conversation began.
Oh.
Her father doesn't say anything else, just pushes a rook forward.
Rose doesn't know how to respond.
She lifts another pawn and then places it down.
Her father steeples his hands and eyes the board for longer than she knows he needs to.
"Rosie," he finally says.
He sighs.
"Is this an intervention?" she asks, because she can't stand the silence.
He finally looks up at her. "Do you think you need one?"
"No!" she says.
It doesn't matter that her fingers are itching to reach for her flask, her brain is buzzing and she just wants to let it all melt away.
She's fine.
She's fine.
Her father looks at her face, inspecting her expression. Then he looks back to the chessboard, finally moving a piece.
"You're too much like me," he says. "Your mother learned when to ask for help. Us? We're too stubborn. We walk away from the people who love us rather than ask for help." He laughs, short and bitter. "I think the worst part of being a parent is watching your children make your mistakes, and knowing you have to let them."
Rose doesn't know how to respond, so instead she just moves a piece.
Her father sighs again.
"I'm always here," he says. "Just… when you're ready to ask for help, I'm here."
"Checkmate," Rose says in response. She stands and turns toward her room.
"Thanks, Dad," she says, just as the door closes behind her.
…
She remembers when her father taught her chess.
She was five, barely old enough to reach the board, sitting on her father's lap.
He'd been grinning at her, his smile wide, tugging gently at the necklace around her neck.
"Is that the amulet your mother gave you?"
Rose had grinned back, pulling the locket out of his hands. "Mummy said it will keep me safe."
"Do you think it'll keep you safe from losing?"
Rose had giggled. "Yes!"
"Let's find out," he'd said in return.
...
Rose wishes she could just be happy, like her childhood memories.
She has a great family, and her parents are still together, and she has cousins she genuinely likes and Hugo isn't a complete irritant all the time.
She got her NEWTs, mostly. She graduated.
She has no trauma. No tormented past.
On paper, her life is good.
But that doesn't explain the gaping, aching, sucking void inside of her.
It doesn't explain why she hates herself.
It doesn't explain why every time she's sober her brain is a whirl of self-deprecation and thoughts about how everything is terrible and her hands tremor and her muscles shake.
She doesn't even want to want it. Not anymore.
But she needs it. She needs to drink to stave off the depression that creeps inside her bones.
But it's just a coping method.
She could stop.
Right?
Right.
She could stop.
Probably.
If she wanted to.
…
She knows she's a mess. She hasn't looked in the mirror because she doesn't want to see the mess that her dad is looking at right now.
She knows that she has mascara on her cheeks from her tear tracks, and her lips are chapped and bleeding from where she's been biting them.
She braces herself anyway, and steps out of her room, and says the words she knows she needs to.
"Dad... I think I need help."