Chapter 2: Rose
"Rose Weasley!"
Rose made an effort of noticeably ignoring the voice. It persisted.
"Why aren't you packed yet? We're leaving in five minutes and you're not going to have time to do so afterwards!"
"I'm not packing," she replied, calmly, not looking up from the book she was reading.
Her mother, Hermione, snapped back her retort. "That much is obvious!"
Rose dropped the book. "I'm not going back," she said. "I've told you that."
Her father appeared beside his wife in the doorway to Rose's room. "Don't start this again, Rosie," he sighed.
"If she's not going back, then I'm not going back!" called Hugo from his room across the hall, in the way only a little brother could.
"No one is not going back!" Hermione just about screeched, sounding seconds away from ripping her own hair out. Or possibly her daughter's. She took a deep breath. "Rose, we've discussed this. You're going back to Hogwarts and finishing your education and that's final."
Stubbornly, Rose crossed her arms across her chest. "Stop trying to control me."
"Stop trying to control you? Rose, you're sixteen! What would you even do?"
"I have plans," said Rose, avoiding all eye contact.
"You're impossible!" fumed Hermione, throwing her arms into the air in frustration. "Ron, you deal with her."
"But- what? No! Hermione!"
But Hermione had left, apparated away with a loud crack.
Ron looked over at his teenage daughter sheepishly. He didn't like taking the main role parent-wise and Rose knew it.
"I'm sick of it, Dad," explained Rose, flopping back further into her pillows and hoping for a more sympathetic response from her softer father. "I hate it there. Mum doesn't get it. She loved school."
Ron crossed the room and awkwardly took a seat next to his daughter; he knew as well as anyone that it wasn't particularly safe to be so close to Rose once she started to get worked up like this.
"Rosieā¦" he began, hesitantly. Rose glared at him. "Rose," he corrected, "If you were older, and actually had a job or some other way of supporting yourself then maybe we'd consider it, but you don't. At least wait until you're seventeen, I mean, what's the rush?" He gave a hopeful smile.
Rose knew exactly what the rush was. The memory came flooding back, causing her cheeks to redden and her heartbeat to increase rapidly. She buried her face into her pillow. She was so stupid. So, so stupid. She punched at the mattress a few times.
Yeah, here was no way she was going back after that.
"Besides, you've always loved Hogwarts!" Ron continued, "It was until you came home for Christmas that you decided you hated it."
Rose scowled, yep, he could stop now. She thanked Merlin that he wasn't her mother however, and wouldn't see through that there just may have been a trigger...
She mumbled sulkily into her pillow, "Not true."
"It was a bit too sudden to be believable, Rosie," laughed Ron, ruffling her red hair. Angry, Rose attempted to swat his hand away and Ron shook his head fondly, still laughing softly.
His face quickly grew serious though as he continued. "You can't just run away from your problems, Rose. You have to face them head on. You're brave enough to do so, I know you are. You're a Gryffindor after all."
Gryffindor or not, Rose was pretty sure she'd rather spend the rest of her days hiding out in a broom cupboard than "face" him.
If she was a more rational, less stubborn person then she probably would have reacted to this piece of advice, well, any way other than how she did.
"I am not running away from anything!" she lied, pushing herself into a sitting position, her eyes flashing dangerously. Angry that he was right, angry that she'd been called out for it. With Gryffindor-rashness and not-ready-to-grow-up immaturity she exclaimed, "I'll pack when I get home and I'll go back to school, but as soon as I turn seventeen I am out." Rose stormed to door.
Dammit, she needed a new plan.
