(A/N) I just randomly came up with this plot and I know that Lovissa wanted me to write something about Scorpius and Rose's married life, but I just couldn't think of what to write for it. Hope you all enjoy this though! Oh, and this isn't exactly a sequel to Inappropriate Behaviour, but I suppose it can work too.
Let me just start off by saying that I'm not the type of guy who often appears on the front page of a newspaper or a magazine. Sure, I've featured in small sections of Teen Witch (due to my dashing good looks), The Quibbler (don't ask) and Medical Daily (being a healer and all) and this is why you can probably imagine my surprise when I was just walking along Diagon Alley and caught my face plastered to the cover of The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly and several other high profiled magazines.
I'm not saying that I'm not flattered or anything, but I just can't get my head around why they're all so interested in me all of a sudden.
The bottom half of these publications were covered by the rack of the news stand so I couldn't actually tell what the Headline was. I knew I couldn't draw attention to myself and have people going like, "Hey! It's the guy on the cover, can I have your autograph? Picture? First born child?" I know how crazy the paparazzi can get, especially since I'm dating the one and only daughter of Ron and Hermione Weasley, two established war heroes, in case you've never heard of them (but honestly, if you haven't heard of them, your only excuse is that you've been hiding under a rock for the last 20 years or so).
I formulated a plan in my head to obtain a copy of these articles. At that moment, a kid walked pass me and I instinctively drew my hand out and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"HEY! WHAT THE HELL, MAN!" The kid shouted. Kids these days just get ruder and ruder.
"Calm down, kid. I need you to do me a favour," I said.
"It'll cost you," the kid said raising his eyebrow.
I rolled my eyes, "I want you to go over to that news stand and buy me a copy of the Daily Prophet... and while you're at it, a copy of Witch Weekly too," I said. I figured that if I was going to get an accurate account of why exactly I'm the nation's top news today, I should probably get the more established publications.
"Wait, you want me to buy a copy of Witch Weekly? I'm a man, for Merlin's sake!"
Well, I wouldn't really call him a man, you see, the little fellow was about 12 years old, but I was desperate and insulting the bloke wasn't really going to work in my favour, "I'll pay you 10 galleons," I don't mean to brag, but money, I have plenty of where that came from, I'm willing to splurge a little on this occasion.
"Deal," he stuck out his hand.
It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at him and shook my head. I handed him the 10 galleons and watched as he went off.
It was quite a busy day at Diagon Alley as it was a mid-August evening. Kids were still home for summer break from Hogwarts and many of the adults were just about to get off work, so I had to wait just about 5 minutes before the kid came back.
"Here you go, a copy of The Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly," he handed me the two purchases.
"Thanks, mate."
"It was great doing business with you, Mr. Malfoy," he said with a serious tone.
"How did you know my-"
"Your name is all over the papers, congratulations by the way," he smirked and ran off to do whatever kids do in Diagon Alley these days.
Why in the world did that kid just congratulate me? Did I get promoted or something? Find a cure to Lycanthropy? Unknowingly saved the world?
I decided that the answer lies in the pages of these papers. I stood by a quiet corner on the borderline of Knockturn Alley and read the cover of The Daily Prophet.
HOLY MERLIN, CIRCE AND DUMBLEDORE, MOTHER OF-
I think I nearly fainted (kidding, I'm a Malfoy, we don't faint)
The headline read, 'ROSE WEASLEY PREGNANT WITH MALFOY CHILD?' and I had to slap myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. As a sidenote, I always thought that the Daily Prophet would report something with more global importance on its front page and this just reinforces why I'm not subscribed to them.
Anyway, I digress, I threw the paper on the ground and grabbed the copy of Witch Weekly to double check.
It read, 'WEASLEY + MALFOY = BABY?' I cringed at the badly thought out title.
Ok, I definitely felt a little bit light headed now, especially when the cover of Witch Weekly also featured a moving image of my girlfriend looking through the... well... the female section of the Wizarding Pharmacy in Diagon Alley and picking up what looks suspiciously like a pregnancy test (you would think that we would have invented pregnancy spells by now but we all thought that pigs could fly by this time but that hasn't happened yet)
I had to lean against the wall and count to 10 before I could even breathe. It wasn't that I was opposed to having a child, but hell, I never thought that we would at the age of 21. It's true that that we've been together for over 3 years now and I love her with every cell of my body, but oh Lord, what is Rose going to do? We've talked about our future together before and she always said that she wanted to wait until she was at least 25 to have a child so that she could focus on work beforehand. Shit, Rose! I should probably get back home to see how she was doing.
I stuffed the papers into my briefcase and as best as I could, I focused on my destination and apparated to an alleyway outside of our building. After we graduated from Hogwarts, I bought a flat in Muggle London, close to the Ministry, where she works, and asked her to move in with me.
I hurried into the building, ran up the stairs to our flat and shoved the key in the lock to open the door.
After what seemed like a decade, the door finally opened and revealed my girlfriend, looking rather nervous, pacing up and down the flat. She looked adorable with her fluffy slippers and her quidditch inspired pyjamas. When she heard me close the door with a click, she snapped out of her thoughts and faced me.
"Oh, Scorp, you're back!" She came up and kissed me briefly. Somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to talk about what I just discovered, I knew that she wouldn't like it if I found out about the baby through a magazine.
"Hey, sweetheart, how was work?" I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close.
"It was okay, I'm so sorry I couldn't have lunch with you today, Lily came to see me again and it was really something urgent."
"Don't worry about it, Albus was good company, well, until he started whining about his lack of love life," I laughed as Rose chuckled at her cousin's lameness (honestly, I'm not sure why I'm best friends with that boy)
"Sounds like Al to me. Anyway, I knew I was getting really fed up with those take away dinners that we kept getting so I decided to cook a little something-something, but I didn't know what you wanted to eat, so I just randomly picked a cookbook and flipped to a page and cooked that. I don't know if it's going to be good or anything, but hey, at least I tried, right? I hope you like wanton noodle. Basically, they're these cute little dumplings th-" she said at top speed
"Rose, you're rambling. I'm sure I'll love it," I buried my head in the crook of her neck.
"Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind," she said softly.
"Want to talk about it?" I asked.
"Sure, why don't you go take a shower first and I'll get the food ready?"
I nodded and headed to the master bathroom joined to our bedroom.
I had no idea how to get her to talk to me about the pregnancy, but hopefully she'll tell me over dinner, because it would be pretty weird for me to say, "Hey Rose, I found out from Witch Weekly today that you're pregnant."
I took a quick shower and stepped out to the bedroom to change into my comfortable, home clothes. When I walked back into the living room, Rose already had dinner set up by the TV, which was playing the news in a soft volume.
She patted the seat next to her and curled up her legs as I sat down. She leaned towards me and began eating her dinner.
"So what's on your mind, Rose?" I asked, taking a bite of my own food. I'm pretty sure that if anyone other than Rose cooked this, I would have spat it out, but somehow, the fact that Rose cooked it made it taste a whole lot better.
"The thing is... Merlin, I don't even know how to say this," she seemed quite frustrated.
"Take your time," I said quietly.
"Argh, thinking about it makes me want to just... hurl," she was mad. Now I'm scared, did she really not want to have the baby? Would she consider aborting the child? My face blanched.
She continued, "My sweet innocent baby cousin, Lily, got herself pregnant and she told me not to tell anyone, but you know I can't keep secrets from you and-"
"Wait a minute," I interrupted, "So, YOU'RE not pregnant?"
"Merlin, no, why would you even think that?" She asked with a confused look on her face.
"Hang on," I untangled myself from her and grabbed the copies of Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly from my briefcase.
She read the headlines and I watched as her eyes grew wider and wider.
"THE WORLD THINKS I'M PREGNANT?" She cried.
"Well, I don't think it's the entire world, to be fair, just people in Britain," I reasoned, she is one scary woman when she's angry, I'll tell you that.
"I was helping Lily buy her pregnancy test yesterday when you were still bed and I figured that the paparazzi might be asleep too at 9 in the morning on a damn SUNDAY! Apparently not!"
"Calm down, Rose, it's going to be fine, we can just ask for a retraction."
"A retraction? Scorp, I'm betting that there are dozens of publishers who published this story by now. No wonder why I had an influx of owls coming into my office today that I had to tell Meredith to keep them in that bag," she pointed at a rather bulky satchel at the corner of the room, "I had no time to read through them."
Suddenly, she jumped up, nearly knocking over our dinner that we placed on the table, "DAD! SHIT! MY DAD! YOUR DAD! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL US IF THEY FIND OUT!"
If I wasn't pale enough before, I'm can definitely be mistaken as a vampire now. Let me just say that Ron Weasley is one scary man with ninja auror skills that can make you disappear without a trace.
"We're so screwed, aren't we?" My voice was shaking and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only part of me that was, my fingers were moving like they had lives of their own.
"I figure we should probably head over to my parent's place and your's as well to explain our situation," she said with a relatively calm voice, relatively being the key term here.
"Right, let's go," I grabbed my wand.
"Scorp, you're wearing your man-jamas" I looked down and blushed as I saw that I picked out the set of matching Quidditch inspired pyjamas as Rose.
We quickly changed and decided to go to the Weasleys first, as they were related to half of Britain's Wizarding population, therefore more likely to hear the news.
I sort of hid behind Rose as she knocked on the door of the Granger-Weasley house in Godric's Hollow.
"For Heaven's sake Scorp, even if you hide behind me, they can still see you," Rose said, rolling her eyes.
"Fine," I stepped out of her shadow as Hermione opened the door.
"Oh, hullo, Rosie dear, hullo, Scorpius," she greeted, giving Rose a brief hug and smiled at me, "Come in."
"So, Mum, did you read the Daily Prophet today by any chance?" Rose asked. I swear Rose is probably one of the most tactless people in the world.
"Why don't we talk about that together, with your father," Hermione replied.
I swear someone up there was trying to give me a coronary. I mean, my heart stopped for the god-knows-how-many times that day as I saw my father and mother sitting opposite a rather red looking Ron Weasley.
"Ah, children, right on time," my Dad said, his tone rather sinister, I must add. Quite creepy. Quite creepy indeed.
"Take a seat," Hermione told us.
"So, I think we all know what you're here for today," my Dad continued.
It kind of felt like an interrogation, the moment we entered the room, all 4 pairs of eyes were on us. Gingerly, we took a seat on the sofa in between the two where our parents were sitting on. I couldn't help but inch closer to Rose.
There was a moment of awkward silence as no one really wanted to begin the conversation.
And then.
"MALFOY! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Ron Weasley bellowed and got out of his seat, took out his wand and disarmed me.
Now, I know I could have just explained the whole situation calmly, but let's face it, he was going to kill me in about 2 seconds.
AND HE TOOK MY WAND!
"Rose, if anything happens to me, know that I love you, ok? Mum, Dad, love you guys too!" I shouted and within a second, I bolted out of the living room and ran up the stairs and went into Hugo's room.
"Hey Scorp, what... what are you doing in my room?" Hugo Weasley is actually the coolest kid on earth, he never gets mad at anything.
"Hey Hugo, how's it going? Your dad's coming to kill me so I'm hiding out here."
"What did you do this time?"
"He thinks I got your sister pregnant," I panted
"YOU GOT MY SISTER PREGNANT?" Ok, I take back the whole Hugo is cool thing because right now, he has his wand pointed at my chest.
"No, no, no. Seriously, no. She's not pregnant! I swear, Merlin save me," this was really getting embarrassing.
"You sure?"
"Absolutely," I replied.
Within the next second, three things happened. 1) Ron Weasley came into the room, with Hermione, Rose and my parents behind him. 2) I hid behind Hugo. 3) Ron casted stupefy and the spell hit his son instead.
"RON WEASLEY!" Hermione yelled.
"Shit," Ron mumbled.
Hugo collapsed into my arms and I let him down gently on the floor, he did kind of save my life after all.
"Oh, Hu, are you ok?" Rose knelt beside his unconscious body, "Enervate"
Hugo bounced up and clutched his head, "Ow, don't you ever do that again," he looked at me.
"Ok, children, go downstairs while I finish Scorpius off," Ron said with a determined voice.
"Weasel, I'm not letting you kill my only son," my father said. You tell him, dad, you tell him.
"He got my only daughter pregnant!" Ron exclaimed.
"Dad, please, will you listen to me?" Rose said, standing in front of me. Merlin, I do love her, "I'm NOT PREGANT!" She continued.
Again, there was a moment of silence until my mother said, "What did you say, darling?"
"I'm not pregnant," Rose replied, breathing heavily.
"Then why did-" Ron started.
"It was a mistake, I went to buy the test for someone else, not me."
"So I'm not getting a grandchild?" My mum asked, sounding rather disappointed.
"MUM!" I protested, she's so embarrassing sometimes.
"So none of this is true?" My dad lifted a copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Nope," Rose and I replied together.
"Oh, thank Merlin, I'm not sure I'm ready to be a grandfather yet," my dad sighed.
"Hear, hear," Ron grumbled.
I mean, did they really expect any differently? We're always careful.
Suddenly, everyone looked at me.
Shit, I say that out loud, didn't I?
"Scorp, I think you basically just told my dad that we have sex," Rose whispered.
"Fuck," I swore under my breath, "Should I run?"
"I think that's a good idea," Rose whispered back.
The last thing I heard before running out the room was, "MALFOY!"
I think I've done enough running to last me a year.
(A/N) Hope you enjoyed that, reviews = virtual hug + more stories
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