Rose POV
It started when we got on the train. Dom and Al had met us in the foyer and we all rode to the train together, which was fine. They've both come and hung out at the Heads Dorm, and Dom has totally fallen for Lottie's charms (not hard to do, especially when she's not keeping you up at night howling.). Then we got the train, and the three of us headed straight to the compartment we always all pile in, with Scorpius trailing behind. Al and Dom, with Charlotte, went in and I followed them in, only to realize that I didn't have someone behind me, where Scorpius was supposed to be. I poke my head out and find him staring at the door a few feet away with his hands shoved in his pockets and a lost look on his face.
"Are you coming?" I ask, flashing a smile.
"Oh, yeah; I'm coming," he said, looking vaguely uncomfortable and surprised at the turn of events.
"Whoa. How do you all fit in here?" he exclaimed as he tried to follow me in. Okay, so maybe, looking at it objectively, it looks a little crazy. And tight. Dom, Al, and Roxy were on one bench seat, and the other side of the compartment was packed with Luce, Molly and Lily, who looked put-out about having to sit next to Molly. Hugo was sitting on the floor leaning against Lily's legs, and Louis was doing the same with Dom.
"We just do," I said, plopping down next to Al and pulling Scorpius down with me by his wrist.
"Oh," he said, wiggle in the seat, trying to get comfortable. We were pressed up against each other from shoulder to knee, there was no room to move, and the contact was doing strange, fluttery things to my stomach. Dom would just love hearing about this. I can hear her now…"You two obviously have chemistry, and you know,it's okay to trust someone again. Besides, he isvery hot." She always spoke a mixture of French and English when other people were around and she didn't want them eavesdropping, and she would have liberally peppered her helpful little speech with her own brand of French, no doubt. Of course, it didn't work around the Delacour-Weasley's, but it worked like a charm on everyone else except for Al, because she and Victoire had taught us both French one long, lazy summer when the three of us were six. Not that I ever minded Al overhearing. Except when I was having a girly kind of emergency, then he couldn't ever hear, or else he'd tease me about it forever. Once we'd been out shopping and I'd whisper-yelled to Dom that "Je ne trouve pas ma lèvre brillant préférés!" because we were going into my favorite bookstore with the clerk I had a crush on. He's still teasing me about freaking out about my missing lip gloss. Keep in mind, I was thirteen at the time.
Louis twisted around on the floor and started playing with Lottie's hands and feet, and she gurgled happily. He looked at Scorpius after a few minutes and opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, because he snapped it shut. He lasted a whole sixty seconds before he was whispering at me "Can I hold the baby Rose?"
"Ask Scorpius. She's his niece."
"Oh. Never mind." He said, looking intimidated.
"He's not going to bite." I said a bit impatiently.
"I'm not?" Scorpius whispered in my ear. I peeked out of the corner of my eye to find him grinning down at me. "No, you're not." I turned and whispered back, smacking him playfully on the knee, then whipped back around after getting preoccupied with my head unnaturally close to his neck. It wasn't my fault, really, that I got distracted. He was tanner than any Malfoy I'd ever seen or heard of, and his blond hair was curling over the neck of his sweater distractingly.
"It's fine if you want to hold her…Louis?" Scorpius told my slightly cowed little cousin, voice raised at the end in question. He was still trying to remember everybody's names.
"Yep, that's Louis." I muttered, after hearing the hesitation and question in his voice. The eleven year-old grinned and took the baby from his sister, who immediately turned to Al and started talking animatedly with her hands about the "Noël énorme blague,"
I was sure the adults would be horrified if they knew about the big Christmas prank that the two of them had been planning in French for weeks. I was horrified, for that matter. It wasn't sounding too much like Christmas was going to go smoothly in any way.
The rest of the train ride passed in a blur.
: My Mum, and the rest of the crazy clan, were waiting at Platform 9 ¾ when we go there, arms out for hugs all around. Scorpius had reclaimed Charlotte, who'd been playing musical laps the entire train ride, before we got off, and was now trying to blend in with the students rushing everywhere, hanging back from the happy family reunion that was taking place. I disentangled myself from Aunt Ginny's tight grip to once again pull Scorpius along.
"Mum, Scorpius. Scorpius, Mum…er, Mrs. Weas-"
"Please, call me Hermione. I'm so glad you decided to come."
"Thank you. We're very glad we decided to come too, aren't we Lottie." Mum melted at the sight of Lottie, bundled up in the pink coat and fuzzy white hat.
"May I?" she asked, putting her arms out.
"Yeah, sure; someone, I'm not sure who, just gave her a bottle, so she should be plenty happy."
"That was me," I reminded him tartly, "and you were sitting right next to me."
"You know how I am at remembering things," he said, shrugging apologetically and flashing what I'm sure he thought was a charming smile. It was, but there was no need to tell him that.
"Dad says we're about to go," Dom said, bouncing up and taking one look around, she broke out in our mixed up Frelish, the name we'd come up for it at fourteen, "Well, well, well, isn't ce confortable. And il essaie d'être charmant. Are you tomber pour elle?"
I mentally translated, Well, well, well, isn't this comfortable. And he's trying to be charming. Are you falling for it?
"Maybeh," I hedged, then switched the Frelish with her, "Un peu." A bit.
She grinned. "I knew it! Combien? " How much, she wanted to know. Greeeat, I really wanted to own up to this in the middle of the train station. But if I didn't she'd go all Veela-temper on me, either now or later, so…
"Er….beaucoup…" A lot.
"Haha," Dom practically cackled before Aunt Fleur walked up and Dom quickly composed herself, "I knew it!" she said with a conspiratorial smile as she gave me a fast hug, promising "See you in a day or two!" before dashing off with her family, still grinning like a mad woman, racing because they were already a meter ahead.
Crap, had Al been around while I was talking with Dom? Not that I could see, but with this group, you never can tell.
It was later than night, and everyone but Scorpius and I were in bed. Mum had gone up an hour before, promising that she's "a light sleeper," and cheerfully mentioning that she "can't stand sleeping with my door shut. Hope you don't mind Scorpius," before taking her tea and going up. Our house was fairly large, and just down the road from Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur's place. When Grandmum and Granddad Granger died, Mum had inherited a fairly sizable amount of money, and used part of it to buy this place. Dad was working in America at the moment, which meant he couldn't Apparate home, which was how I'd explained his absence to Scorpius. I wasn't quite ready to get into the whole my-dad-is-a-jerk-and-I'm-still-hung-up-on-it thing yet, and Scorpius didn't seem to be interested in prying.
We were currently half way through a muggle movie that had come out the previous summer involving two people who can't stand each other being willed the same baby. Clichéd, yes, but Dom and I loved these kinds of movies. He'd seen the title, and said that's what he'd felt like after he got Lottie. I told him the premise of the movie quickly and offered other titles I figured he'd like better, but he'd wanted to see how muggles would do in the same situation, so here we were, finding out. We'd started out on opposite ends of the sofa, but he'd pulled one huge bowl out when I'd made popcorn and insisted in was silly to dirty two when we were sitting on the same couch. Then he'd followed my back into the living room with the popcorn and pulled me down next to him. I tucked me feet under me, ate the popcorn and tried to suspend my cynicism for the male gender.
"She never would have gotten together with him if they hadn't been stuck together because of the baby," he pronounced when the movie was over.
"Nope. I sure wouldn't have," I agreed. The guy in this movie is a pain in the neck, selfish and, quite frankly, an all-around jerk. Plus, he drinks, which is unforgivable in my book. But that's just my daddy-issues talking. His one redeeming quality is his love for the baby he'd been entrusted with.
Scorpius was staring musingly at the screen as the credits rolled in the dark room, and his eyebrows started puckering. At some point, my feet had made their way onto his footrest, and I poked him with one sock-covered foot.
"What's wrong Scorp?"
"Wha? Nothing. Nothing's wrong."
"I don't buy that," I informed him.
"Too bad," he started getting up, and I grabbed his arm. He let me pull him back down, and sat there looking at me.
"What's bothering you?" I tried again.
"What if the same thing happens to me?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Say I meet this great girl, but she only likes me because of Lottie. Or maybe she won't give me the time of day because of Lottie."
I wasn't sure what to say to that, but I tried anyway, "There's a girl out there, somewhere, who'll love you and Lottie."
"How can you be so sure? I figured I'd have plenty of time to date, and it seemed like it was less stressful to stay out of the whole dating fiasco at Hogwarts. But now, I wish…I wish I had a girl I knew cared about me, just me, but could handle Lottie too." he heaved a sigh and dropped his head onto the back of the sofa.
"You'll find her. When the time is right, you'll find her," I encouraged, propping my elbow on the sofa back by his head.
"Right now, I'd settle for getting rid of all the bimbos hanging around wanting to play mummy with Charlotte," he muttered.
I smirked and smothered a laugh. They were kind of obnoxious and creepy, but I, personally, just found them really, really annoying. One Fifth Year girl actually tried to take Lottie away from me one Saturday in October while we were out by the Great Lake waiting for Scorpius to finish Quidditch practice, telling me it was " Time to give everyone else a turn with the baby…and Scorpius," That was just strange.
"Really," he continued, oblivious to my trip down memory lane, "why do they think I need their help so bad? Maybe if you weren't around," here he cracked an eye and grinned sheepishly at me. I'd discovered the last few months that the trademark Malfoy smirk was mostly for show. I preferred his genuine grin much more, anyway. "But I think we do alright.
"You aren't getting tired of us, are you?" he asked, but cut me off before I could say anything when I opened my mouth, "Because, if you are, I could accept some more help," he said, grin gone, all seriousness.
"Ha! And let those bimbos get their grubby hands on poor little Charlotte? Not a chance. You guys are stuck with me, at least until school lets out.
"Now, the big question is, bed or another movie?" I finished, effectively changing the subject.
"Did I see something about assassins earlier?" he asked, giddy grin coming back to his face.
Guess that answers that question.
It was two days later, on Christmas Eve, and everyone had slept in late. Mum was had just finished feeding Lottie a bottle when she started screaming for seemingly no reason. Scorpius started to get up from his breakfast, but I put my hand on his knee.
"It's okay, I'll get her, I'm finished anyway," I told him, and walked over to Mum. "Hey baby girl, what's wrong," I asked, tweaking her sleeper-covered feet. She continued bawling, but held her arms out to me. "I know baby," I cooed, bouncing her and patting her back. We settled back into my chair next to her uncle and she started quieting down. By the time the knock sounded on the front door a minute later, she was happily patting my arm and watching Scorpius eat French toast and drip syrup all over his plate.
"We'll get it," I said, walking with Lottie through the hall to the door. I opened it to find Dom and Al, plus Roxy, James, Fred, Lily, and Louis standing on our porch, every one of them already dressed, and staring at me in my flannel pajamas like I was a crazy person.
"You have any plans?" Dom asked, barging in. I opened my mouth to answer, but James cut me off. "Cancel them! We're going to Diagon Ally," he informed me.
While I gaped at them, Dom spun around and wrinkled her forehead. "What are you guys waiting for?" she asked, speaking to her brother and our cousins, still standing on the step, "it smells like Aunt Hermione's been cooking!"
"It's never too late for a second breakfast," Fred agreed, leading the pack into my house. Mum wandered out of the kitchen, pulling the belt on her robe tighter. "Oh, good morning. Help yourselves, I'm going to go get dressed."
"Aunt Hermione," Dom yelled, once she was half way to the kitchen and Mum was almost at the top of the stairs, "can we kidnap Rose and Hugo? Oh, and Scorpius and the baby?"
Mum raised an eyebrow, "Dominique, what would you mother say?" she asked, continuing up the stairs. We could hear her muttering to herself as she went, "Yelling? Honestly…"
Mum leaned over the top railing, and speaking in a normal talking voice, "Oh, and dear, kidnap away."
Really Mum, did you have to let her? And how could that normal volume seem so loud from that distance? I followed Dom into the kitchen and sat down by Scorpius with a sigh. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I cut my eyes over to Dom, who was loading up along with the rest of my family at the counter.
"What's she up to this time?" he asked quietly.
"Let me put it this way," I said, "how do you feel about a shopping trip?"
"No. No."
"Too bad, Mum just gave her permission to kidnap us," I smirked at the look of shock on his face.
"Kidnap us?" he paled.
"That's what she said," I confirmed.
"All of us?"
"Yup."
"Crap."
"Uhuh.," I agreed in a sugar-sweet tone, grinning innocently at Dom as she sat down across from me and tossed a suspicious look my way.
"Noooo…" I muttered at the sight of another white-haired figure in a long skirt walking down the sidewalk at us. Scorpius grinned at me, "it's not that bad," he insisted. "Yeah, cause she's not strapped to your chest," here I punctuated with a jab at the body-part in question, "so it's not your face they're in," I ranted.
"They just want to say hello," Dom offered helpfully from behind.
"Zip it, Miss Cheerful,"
"I'll take her if you want," Scorpius naïvely offered.
"Ha. Guy with a baby? The old ladies will stick around twice as long, and any woman over eighteen will start bugging us too. I think not."
"Oh, what a sweet baby," said the fourth old lady to stop us in the last fifteen minutes.
"Yes, she is," I said, trying to edge away without being impolite (I blame my mother for the compulsion to always be pleasant and sweet to people. Ugh. Just once I'd like to chew someone out and not feel guilty.)
Scorpius was looking at Charlotte fondly, his shoulder pressed against mine, and the old lady noticed, grin spreading ever wider as she took us in. My cousins had fallen back, and were pretending to look at a Christmas shop display. In hindsight, I should have seen the next words out of her mouth coming.
"Such a beautiful family you have," she informed Scorpius, and, seemingly without pausing for breath continued, "Your wife is lovely," here she switched her grin to me, and kept going, "you look charming together. So hard to find couples anymore who look like they're made for each other." She muttered the last bit seemingly to herself, patting Scorpius' cheek and my shoulder before toddling off before we could correct her, oblivious to the blush she'd caused to spread over my face
"Hahaha…" Dom walked up, clearly beside herself with the insanity she'd just heard out of someone other than our family (a not-so-minor miracle).
"Classic!" Fred and James said at the same time, before going off into "Jinx," "Double jinx," "triple jinx," "double-double jinx,"
Lily stood there scrutinizing us, before turning to Hugh and whispering "They do kind of look good together, don't they?" I growled, and Scorpius had the nerve to come out of his stupefied state to look amused.
"You know," Dom said, "you really can't blame her, anyway,"
"And why's that?" I asked sharply.
"A), you guys do look good together," Dom whispered in my ear, "and b)," here she raised her voice, which took on the wait-for-the-punch-line quality she'd perfected over the years, "it's not her fault you wore your rose ring on your wedding band finger!"
At this, my cousins all craned around to stare at my hand. I looked down, and sure enough, the silver, rose shaped ring sat on the fourth finger of my left hand, the small sapphire embedded at the center sparkling and mocking me.
"Humpf," I said, yanking the ring off and switching it to my other hand before marching into the Leaky Cauldron with Charlotte, trailing a most of the youngest generation of Weasleys behind me, still in stitches from their amusement at my expense.
Charlotte did remarkably well, but after four hours of going into the various stores on Diagon Ally, she was getting fussy. I was actually kind of surprised to remember that she could be anything other than angelic, actually. We'd been into Uncle George's shop, which had made many weaker babies bawl, and she'd merely cooed in delight at the mayhem (I wasn't sure the adults would be quite so rapturous tomorrow when Dom and Al let loose the prank they'd been picking up supplies for. Roxie had noticed the large amount of strange things they were buying and cornered Al, refusing to un-corner him until he'd agreed she could help. He told me afterwards he didn't know why they hadn't enlisted her sooner. And they had James and Fred in on it…). She'd been as quiet as a church mouse in Flourish and Blots, and resignedly put up with her uncle setting her into no less than four rocking brooms at Quality Quidditch Supplies (the owners had realized that they could pull parents in even earlier than they got them for the toy brooms if they anchored the things to a stand and added a bucket seat and belt.). I'd dragged Dom and Al into the menagerie, after everyone else had started to peel off on their own to do last minute Christmas shopping, to stare at the kittens, but walked out empty handed.
Charlotte jerked me out of my thoughts about the small fuzzy bundles, but before I could suggest a trip back to the Leaky Cauldron for a feeding Dom lifted her out of my arms, unclipped the baby carrier, snagged the nappy bag from Scorpius and cheerfully informed us that "I'm tired of walking, I was going to go sit down anyway. We'll catch up with you guys later, bye!" before dashing off.
"Want to get a drink?" Scorpius asked, pointing at the café that had sprung up in the last few years, the Wizarding World's answer to the designer drink craze.
"Sure," I said, smiling. It wasn't often we were around each other without Lottie, and the silence felt a bit awkward. Soon enough, however, we were aimlessly wandering the streets and chatting like we'd know each other forever.
"So, why didn't you get one?" he asked after I showed him the same picture on my phone of the basket full of ragdoll kittens for the third time.
"I had a Siamese boy until Fifth Year, you might have seen him stalking around the castle, he loved getting out. And he was this huge chocolate point, kind of hard to miss, especially when he was yelling at you," I started.
"Bat-ears was yours?" Scorpius said incredulously.
"I'm sorry, Bat-ears?" I asked, aghast.
"There was this Siamese that used to come down to the Slytherin Common Room and demand attention. I thought he'd never stop growing, I was actually kind of surprised when he wasn't the size of a tiger when I came back for Fourth Year. Anyway, we kind of adopted each other and I didn't know what his name was, so I called him Bat-ears."
"Henry. His name was Henry. And I called him Bat-ears too. Only I called him Ol' Bat-ears. And Batty. Well, anyway, at the end of fifth year, he got out, snuck into a classroom some random guy was practicing spells for O.W.L.s in, and, well, it didn't end well for Batty. And I never could bring myself to get another cat and 'replace' him." I explained.
"Oh. Do you think you'll ever want one again?" Scorpius wanted to know.
"Of course. I loved Crookshanks when I was little, and Mum has Bennie now, I'm sure he's planted herself on your bed at least once,"
"Yup," he affirmed.
"Those little ragdolls were really sweet, I might go back and get one before we go back to school if I have time. I just want to be really sure, you know? I hate rushing in to things," "Or," I mumbled to myself, "not knowing what's going to happen next,"
Just then a witch with a long gray braid passed us, and after doing a double take, stopped and said, "Rose? You've gotten so big! And Scorpius, you look like a man now!" I stared at her blankly, sure I should know her, and equally sure I had no idea who she was. Luckily, Scorpius did.
"Mrs. Panneiros, so good to see you," Scorpius said, ever the perfectly smooth gentleman.
"Yes, lovely to see you too," she told him, before turning to me, "how is you father, Rose dear?"
Great. One of those people. Who feel the need to poke and prod and ask questions I never could answer completely or truthfully. "Oh, he's fine," I said, hoping she'd leave it at that.
No such luck. "It must be so hard to not have him around," she continued.
"We're managing," I stated, perhaps a bit sharply, hoping she'd take the hint.
"Is he going to be home for Christmas?" she doesn't take hints very well, does she?
"No, he's not," I said, "excuse us," I continued, reaching for Scorpius' wrist and pulling him away.
He gave me a confused look, so I explained, "I don't like snoops."
"And that's all? Her questions seem innocent enough," he prodded.
"Yup, that's all,"
"I don't buy that," he informed me, throwing my words from our late night, post-movie talk back at me.
I eyed him hesitantly over my hot chai before answering him, "Things aren't exactly good with me and dad. I don't like talking about him to people I don't know really well, I never know what to say. And it's none of their business, anyway."
"Oh,"
"I just don't really like getting into the whole crappy saga," I told him.
"Oh," he said again.
I was tired of not telling him about it, sick of him not knowing. Sooner or later, I was going to need to trust people with my story, and men with my heart. And since the organ in question had developed the annoying habit of jumping whenever Scorpius walked in the room or smiled at me, it seemed like the time to try trusting someone new. "He started drinking when I was little. But old enough to remember how good things were before. And he had anger issues, he'd yell…he loved to say 'you're wrooong,.' when you'd argue with him. It's easier if I don't think about it"
"I'm sorry," he said, looking at me intently. I offered up a small smile and kept walking. After a few minutes, Scorpius broke the silence that had fallen.
"So, the whole 'he's in America' thing is what?" he asked.
"The truth. He is in America. He was offered a job in New York, and…it was best for us for him to take it, so he did. He's alright when he's sober…except when he lies. And he does that a lot. 'Oh, I'm not drinking anymore.' At this point, it's like, yeah, sure you're not. But now we're lying…kind of anyway. It's not that hard having him gone. It's not hard at all, actually." I tossed my empty cup in a can, and continued, "I'm more at peace now than I was for years when he was at home. I'd camp out at Al's; Uncle Harry's felt more like home than our house." I was kind of surprised I'd told him that, the only people who really knew what had gone on had been around while the while thing was going down, and I'd felt to bruised and raw from it I couldn't help but talk to them.
"The hard part is I can't really trust him, ever." Tears were threatening, and I tried to blink them away. I detested my 'everything's fine' façade being broken any time, but it bothered me the most in public. I ducked down a side street and blinked faster, my back to Scorpius. I felt him walk up behind me, and I took a set forward. I barely let my Mum see me when I was like this. I might call Dom and talk, but didn't even to that very often, and I hated anyone actually seeing me like this.
"Rose…" his voice was gentle, and I felt his hand settle on my shoulder. I stiffened, but I didn't pull away, and he came around to stand in front of me. Scorpius looked a me for a minute, then pulled me into his chest, rubbing the same circles on my back he'd picked up from watched me with Charlotte.
I gave up trying to stop the tears and sobbed into his shirt, wrapping my arms around his back under his coat.
"You know you don't have to be strong all the time, right?" Scorpius whispered into my hair.
"I do, because if I'm not, then I feel horrible, and people pry even more," I sniffled, and relaxed a bit more into his embrace.
"Well, you don't have to be strong with me,"
"Okay."
"Seriously, a rocking broom?" I teased as we bustled into the house two hours later, my tears forgotten.
"Why not?" Scorpius fired back, trying to magic the thing though the door. He couldn't manage to Leviosa it and have it turn sideways at the same time.
"I don't know, what's wrong with a nice classic rocking horse? Or failing that, a rocking hippogryph maybe?
"But it's cute. Besides, she's going to be a great little Quidditch player." He fired back, finally getting the object in question into the house.
"Yeah, yeah. Now, what's in the bag?" I'd been pestering him for the last hour. He'd left Lottie with me right before we left Diagon Ally, claiming to have some last minute, private Christmas shopping to do, and come back with an unmarked canvas bag, bulging out around some sort of square shape. He's refused to tell anyone what was in it, which really wouldn't be that weird, but he had some sort of whispered conversation with Dom right before he left, and when he'd returned Dom had grabbed the bag and run off with it for five minutes, coming back grinning and obnoxiously closed-lip about the contents.
After waiting ten whole minutes for him to volunteer the information, my curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I'd asked who it was for. He wouldn't tell me. He also wouldn't tell me what it was, where he'd gone, and refused to give me a hint.
Now he smirked at me on his way up the stairs. "You'll find out tomorrow!"