Chapter 4

A/N: Hello readers! I'm doing pretty well with this consistent updating.

As always, thanks to the wonderful people who review! Not only do you make fanfiction more fun, you also inspire me to write better or at least spend more time screwing with word order to make things sound less awkward.

~Frosty

"Here's how this is going to work," Rose said to her cousin as she fished around in Lily's pockets for her and Scorpius' wands. "I'll write the letter to get Davis sent back here, but only because I now see that distancing you from him isn't going to make you understand what a giant wanker he is. Also, I recently discovered that the number of people consumed by snakes in the Amazon isn't as high as I had originally thought."

Scorpius shook his head at her and tried to suppress a grin while Lily just changed some interesting colours in anger. Together, Rose and Scorpius herded Lily over to a sofa where they made her wait while Rose wrote and posted the letter that would bring Dr. Davis home.

"There," Rose said once everyone had their wands back. "Can you leave now? I've had a busy day and I still have an antidote to hunt for."

"I can take care of myself, Rose," Lily snapped. "I'll leave, but if my husband doesn't write to me that he's coming home in the next few days, I'm going to be back here and I won't be as nice with my demands next time."

Once she had stormed out and slammed the door, Rose sagged into the sofa and Scorpius joined her.

"We're definitely having the wards exclude her specifically form setting foot anywhere on our property," Scorpius commented.

Rose hummed her agreement with her eyes closed. Her day had been a perfect example of why she didn't have a job. There just weren't enough hours in the day to handle everything her family threw at her and earn money. It couldn't be done.

"Do you want to explain the half naked rock star in the basement?" Scorpius asked, jolting Rose out of the little doze she'd fallen into while leaning against him. He was just so warm and it was so cold outside. It was enough to make anyone drowsy.

"Hy either needs to get control of her temper or stop sleeping with arseholes. He's going to stay in the basement until he either agrees that there's no need for him to press charges or I can think up a decent plan that doesn't end with Hy in jail." She yawned, her jaw cracking. "I told my mum today that we were getting married. I think she's agreed to help your mum plan the wedding. If we play our cards right, neither of us will have to give our input for anything."

"We can only hope," he said. Grabbing her hand, Scorpius pulled her to her feet. "Come on, let's go find that antidote before I start showing symptoms."

"What are you doing?" Scorpius asked the next morning, surprised that Rose was awake and moving while he got ready for work.

Rose emerged from the bathroom fully dressed in the respectable brown suit and heels from Hy. She'd even put on some makeup and wrestled her hair up into a bun on top of her head. If she squinted her eyes right, she almost looked like a serious businesswoman, the kind who definitely didn't have an angry rock star trapped in the basement.

She made a mental note to ask Hobitha to feed Amp. People would get the wrong idea if Rose forgot to feed him and she suddenly had a dead rock star in her basement.

"I'm going to work," she said with great dignity, an illusion that was ruined somewhat when Scorpius snorted.

Rose threw back her shoulders and glared at him. "Is it so hard to believe that someone would hire me?"

"Of course not. If you wanted to, you could get anyone to hire you and probably not even by using underhanded methods. It's the actual working that I don't think you can do. You'll get bored and start playing mind games with your coworkers." He scanned her from top to bottom. "Plus you only have that one work outfit, and I remember seeing it on Hy a few months ago. If you had a serious job, you'd buy your own clothes instead of borrowing Hy's like you do for schemes."

Most people were wary around her because they were never sure what she was really thinking. Sometimes it was frustrating for her to live with Scorpius, the one person who didn't see her as a threat and could almost always figure out what she was up to.

Scorpius put a hand on her cheek and then threaded it back into her hair, using the grip to tilt her head up for a kiss. She let herself lean against him and enjoy the kiss. With everything she had going on with her of late, she just hadn't had time for them to enjoy each other. They were recently engaged and Rose couldn't recall if they'd even properly celebrated their engagement. She added some alone time with Scorpius to her mental list of things she needed to do.

"I love you," he said when he pulled away. "Have fun at work and try not to get fired."

"Hey, I can have a real job for a while!" she yelled after him as he fled the room laughing at her.

She was widely feared, her name cursed in some parts of the magical world. At home though, she was mocked! Scorpius' next meal was definitely going to contain a heaping helping of cleverly concealed cinnamon.

When she emerged from the fireplace in the Ministry, she was still frowning. She could hold down a soul crushing, boring job for a while if she wanted. This one time, Scorpius was wrong.

"Do you have something for me already?" Ron asked when Rose pushed open the door to his office. A confused expression washed over his face when he saw what she was wearing. "Did someone die? Is there a funeral I don't know about?" He stood from his desk and started gathering his robes. "I'm always the last to know these things!"

"No one died," she snapped, annoyed that her dad didn't think she was any more capable of holding a job than Scorpius did. "I'm here to look into your problem. The easiest way for me to do that is for me to blend in with the other bureaucratic minions to get an idea of how things really work around here."

"Rose, I don't have the budget to hire you."

"You don't need to actually hire me, just let me pretend that I work here until I can find the missing files."

Ron leaned back in his chair and studied his daughter. "You're not to cause unnecessary trouble in my department."

"I know, I know. Get in, find the information I need, and get out again. This isn't the first time I've done reconnaissance, Daddy."

"What else have you - never mind, I don't really want to know." He shook his head and visibly urged himself to move on to other topics. "Your mother tells me you're getting married."

She presented her left hand, now sporting the beautiful engagement ring Scorpius had given her. It had belonged to his great grandmother and Scorpius said that he suspected the ring had some magical properties, but wasn't sure exactly what it did. It probably wasn't going to kill her and finding out was part of the whole adventure. Maybe it would magically plan the wedding for her so she didn't have to deal with the trouble.

"I'm happy for you, Rose. It's about time you two got married."

She smiled. "We would have done it as soon as we graduated, but neither one of us wanted to deal with the actual wedding part of the occasion."

"Giving your mother and Astoria the reins was a good idea. You two are going to be lucky if you get to pick what you wear on the day."

"Of course it was a good idea, it was mine." She stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me, boss, I have to get to work."

"Go easy on my employees, they're not used to you," Ron called after her.

Go easy on them. Rose shook her head as she exited his office; she didn't go easy on people, they either got used to her or she bowled them right over.

Only the high level Aurors got their own offices, everyone else was in the middle of a very large room with the occasional half wall giving some semblance of privacy. Rose scanned the room and found her target quickly.

"Albus, so wonderful to see you," she said as she perched on the edge of his desk.

He looked up from the form he'd been scowling at and didn't change his expression. "Why are you here sitting on my desk and what in the world are you wearing?"

Hopping off the desk, Rose did a little twirl. "This is my business attire. I'm wearing it because I have a new job. Here."

"Rose, whatever you're actually here for, don't mess up this job for me. I'm barely out of my Auror training; I can't afford to have you making trouble as soon as I get my own desk."

"Stop being such a worrier." Rose dragged a nearby chair to the edge of Albus' desk and looked over the forms he'd been struggling to complete when she found him.

Always with an abundance of energy, the paperwork side of his job had to be killing Albus. She grabbed his forms and flipped them around so they were right side up.

"You tell me how to fill out these forms properly and I'll do the writing for you."

She knew she had him when Albus sagged in relief. He pushed his chair back from his desk and started spinning as he recited information, already looking a lot happier.

Rose and Albus quickly worked their way through what Rose suspected what months of paperwork, much to her cousin's relief. This exercise benefitted both cousins in that Albus got a little reprieve from his paperwork and Rose got to look like she was busy while actually learning a wide array of the office's paperwork and filing system.

"Why are you really here?" Albus asked as she filled out the very last form. Rose had learned enough that she barely needed any input from her cousin to finish it.

She moved to the unoccupied desk beside Albus' and started going through the drawers. Upon finding a bag of candy, she stole a handful.

"My boring life of stay at home girlfriend was starting to get to me. I needed to get out and keep my mind sharp."

"I know for a fact that you're busier unemployed than most people are with jobs. Don't eat those." Albus watched her for a moment with resignation as she continued to munch on the snack. He gave up on scolding her and tried a different topic. "Have you heard from my sister lately? I know she was pretty upset when she found out that you had something to do with the long absence of Dr. Davis." He said the Doctor's name with as much contempt as Rose usually did. No one in their family really liked the arrogant arsehole.

"She broke into my house last night and tied Scorpius to a chair with poisonous ropes, holding him hostage until I wrote a letter to have Davis brought back here."

Albus blinked, surprised. "Lily brought poisonous ropes?"

"No, we had those lying around."

"Do I even want to know?"

"Not really." Rose glanced around the office to see if anyone was paying her any attention. It appeared that most of the office had disappeared on their lunch break. Clearly she'd found the perfect time to go through everyone's desks. Maybe there'd be more snacks.

"Tell me everything you know about how this office runs."

Albus nodded his head towards a desk that was bigger than the others and had a view of the entire room. "That's Carol's desk. She's the one who processes all of our paperwork and is in charge of the filing room."

He then moved on to describe everything he knew about everyone at the office.

Rose mulled over what she had learned from her cousin as she walked out of the Ministry. She hadn't lasted very long after her lunch break, but it wasn't her fault. Astoria had sent her an urgent owl asking for her to come and meet her at a new cafe in Diagon Alley.

While Rose had her suspicions about the meeting, she was more than willing to get out of the office. She'd been there long enough to have a few theories about what was happening there.

From what Albus had told her, Carol was the one who ran the office behind the scenes. She was middle aged, slightly overweight, and judging from the many pictures on her desk, owned more than one cat. What Rose had learned from watching the woman was that she was also having an affair with one of the married Aurors and that they liked to do inappropriate things in the file room. Rose wasn't sure if this was something that would interest her father, who only cared about his files being returned to where they should be, but it was definitely a start.

When Rose passed the window of the cafe and saw that Astoria was accompanied by Hermione, she knew that her suspicions about this meeting were correct. It was some kind of wedding planning ambush.

She entered the cafe, the jingling bells of the shop drawing the attention of the two women intent on forcing Rose to take part in the planning of her own wedding. It was like they were punishing her for something.

Standing at the edge of their table, Rose crossed her arms. "I'm not sitting down until the both of you give me your word that there will be no fabric samples or bridal magazines pushed on me or even brought out into the light of day."

"You're actually dressed presentably," Hermione observed as Rose pulled up a chair. "Is it possible you have a job?"

Rose glanced down at her outfit and then smiled at her mum. "Only because the rock star I have locked in my basement is costing me more than I anticipated and I need to be able to support him long-term. It's important to have goals. You taught me that."

"Please tell me you're kidding," Hermione begged, pale with dread. Astoria just sat there shaking her head.