Chapter 7

A/N: Hello readers! There's mention of a sign in this that actually made me cringe to write. Just so you know. I'm betting reading it might make a few of you cringe as well. I share your pain, but it amused me so it's in here.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

~Frosty

Sometimes, Rose knew, persuasion and bribery just couldn't convince someone to change their mind. She had numerous other options for such ornery individuals, but sometimes drastic measures needed to be taken.

While Rose was confident that it would be a long while before someone came to search her house looking for the captive rock star, she needed to be rid of him. Talking her way out of trouble was a skill of Rose's, and she could probably get away without doing any time in Azkaban, but the criminal record would completely ruin her credibility in the event that she ever again needed to keep someone in her basement for a while.

As a general rule, Rose tried to avoid Knockturn Alley. She was the daughter of two war heroes, and no matter how well she fit in with the shady people of the dark alley, to them, she would always be the glowing daughter of two people who represented the law and everything it stands for. This, combined with her bright red hair, made it a little difficult for her to properly blend in with the crowds in the alley.

A long, dark cloak with a hood pulled practically pulled down over her eyes made it a little more difficult for people to recognise her, but she still got a few strange looks from anyone who happened to catch sight of her face.

It was easy enough for her to fix.

She scanned the people passing her, eyes stopping on the biggest, angriest looking man in the crowd. Almost compulsively, he kept patting the breast pocket of his robes, where there was something large making the fabric bulge. Whatever was there was important to him.

Luckily, he was close to her, so she only had to pretend to stumble to get close enough to pick his pocket. Rose didn't even take a look at the object before slipping it into the pocket of one of the people glaring at her and whispering.

"Thief!" she yelled, pointing at the former whisperer. Now the man just stared at her, stricken and bewildered.

Predictably, the paranoid man she'd stolen from patted his pocket and then panicked when he found it missing. Rose smiled and continued down the alley unobserved as Mr. Paranoid tackled the smaller man behind her.

The shop she entered was, on the outside, one of the least welcoming places on the entire street. With grimy windows and somehow more caked on soot and assorted grime than all the rest of the businesses surrounding it, Poshuns fer Evry Okashun was a place that Rose only ever visited when she needed brews that one couldn't exactly purchase from legal vendors.

"Your sign is all wrong," someone was telling the proprietor of the store when Rose entered.

She moved towards one of the more interesting aisles at the front of the store. It was stocked with ingredients for potions, but these ingredients were still alive. Large bins were filled with various different coloured insects, from the jewel bright to flat blacks and boring browns. The grasshoppers were her favourite to watch. They were just so bouncy.

"That's your opinion," the shopkeeper calmly replied.

Rose didn't really know much about the man as she'd only interacted with him on a few occasions. She did know that he'd been a few years ahead of her at Hogwarts and that there were still rumours going around about the time he brewed an Amortentia potion so strong that just looking at it too closely was enough to create the illusion of love. She believed his name was Griffin something.

"Spelling is not an opinion! I'm telling you that every word in the name of your store is spelled incorrectly."

Rolling her eyes, Rose peeked around the shelf at the woman abusing the shopkeeper. She clearly wasn't in a hurry. Something was going to have to be done if she was going to get back to the office before the work day ended.

Conjuring a scrap of parchment and a quill, Rose tapped the woman on the shoulder and handed them to her. "Why don't you write down the correct spelling and you can be on your way."

The woman huffed, looking like she was going to object. A stern look from Rose had her reconsidering. Eventually, she did as Rose suggested and then left the store with her nose in the air.

"Thanks for that," Griffin said once they were alone.

Rose glared at him. "I don't believe for a second that you can't work out how to spell those words. If you want to play stupid so people let their guards down around you, try not to let it interfere with business."

He looked surprised for a moment before smiling. "I'll take that into consideration, Ma'am. Now what can I do for you?"

"I want a baby but my fiancé is violently opposed to the idea. I need a potion that makes him more... open to suggestions."

"And I'm a Potion Master who can't spell the word 'potion.'"

Rose shrugged. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now do you have a potion that can do what I want or are you going to force me to find it elsewhere?"

He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing when they got to her face. Sometimes being recognised worked against her, but in this case it was in her favour. In certain circles Rose had a reputation for being ruthless in getting what she wanted. Judging by the way Griffin's eyes widened slightly as he recognised her, Rose was willing to bet that his was one such circle.

"I think I have something that may work for you," he said reluctantly. His eyes darted around the store like he expected his admittance to immediately trigger a team of Aurors to raid his shop.

"Will it be permanent? Because I don't want to have the baby and then lose him because he suddenly realizes that he doesn't want it."

"I do have something that's permanent, but you're risking brain damage. It's invasive to go into someone's brain and start shuffling things around to suit your needs."

Rose wasn't really concerned with Amp's brain cells. She probably should be, because he didn't seem to have many left, but she wasn't. Besides, going in there and making him think he'd done something that he'd probably done hundreds of times would be much less invasive than trying to chance influencing something much bigger like the decision not to have children.

"I'm willing to take that risk," she said with a perfectly straight face.

He wasn't happy about it and he overcharged her by quite a bit, but Griffin eventually shuffled back into his storeroom and came out with a potion.

"Don't get caught with this," he warned. "Just having the recipe is enough to get you a few years in Azkaban. I'm not positive on how long they'll keep you for possessing the stuff, but it's safe to say it'll be long enough that you'll wish you'd never even known of its existence."

Rose nodded her thanks and tucked it into her pocket.

Hobitha was just preparing something for Amp to eat as Rose came into the kitchen.

"Has he been eating the things you bring him?" Rose asked for the first time. If the man was contrary enough to go hungry while a House Elf was bringing him perfectly edible food, then it wasn't Roses problem. Now, however, she needed to know.

"He eats everything Hobitha gives him," the elf said proudly. "First he said no more broccolis and that he allergic to nuts, but now that Hobitha knows, he eats everything."

Excellent.

Rose dumped out half the glass of pumpkin juice and replaced it with the potion. The clear potion should have watered down the pumpkin juice, but it didn't. Once it had settled, the glass of pumpkin juice looked and smelled exactly as it had before Rose tampered with it. If it was brewed correctly – and it better be with the amount Rose paid – then there shouldn't be any detectable taste either.

"I'll be in the library reading," Rose said to the Elf. "Come get me when he's finished everything you brought him."

She ended up reading a good chunk of a book before Hobitha came to find her. "He finished all his food," Hobitha said with a bow.

Sticking a bookmark into her book, Rose wandered down to the basement. It was always nice to be far enough ahead of the Aurors that she didn't have to worry about rushing.

Amp was sitting on the floor, staring vacantly at the wall. He didn't even look towards her when she entered the room. Perfect, the potion had done its job. He was a blank canvas just waiting for her suggestion.

With her wand in hand on the off chance that Amp was trying to trick her into getting too close so he could overpower her, Rose sat on the floor in front of him.

"You're quite known for your substance abuse," she said conversationally. His only response was a slow blink. "You're going to wake up in Thailand with no memory of what happened to you. You will assume you were on a particularly bad drinking spree that got out of hand, nothing more."

He nodded with another slow blink. It was strange talking to him without him screaming insults at her. When drugged, he was almost good company.

While she had him as a captive audience, Rose decided to address something about him that had bothered her.

"When you wake up, it's going to be with a newfound respect for women. They are equal beings, not inferior ones."

He frowned and winced as if this instruction hurt him, but he eventually nodded. There was more risk of brain damage with that instruction since it went against his personality. Rose was willing to take that risk. Besides, in the long run, he'd be a lot happier if he didn't have hoards of offended or scorned women after him. Safer too. Really, she was doing him a favour.

Rose looked him over one last time. She liked him a lot better when he was putty in her hands, just waiting to be moulded. It was a shame she couldn't do more without arousing suspicion or leaving him brain dead.

With a sigh at the missed opportunity, Rose stood.

"Follow me, we're going to smuggle you out of the country."

He trailed after her as she led him to the fireplace.

"Hobitha," Rose called as she was about to throw her Floo powder into the flames. "I need you to erase any trace of Mr. Krafton from the house. There may be Aurors here looking for him in the near future."

The elf squeaked and then rushed to the basement, muttering about "Nasty Aurorses" the whole way.


Rose returned to the office just as most people were leaving to take their lunch.

"Rose, I need to see you in my office," Ron said at the sight of his daughter. He led her to his desk and took a seat behind it as Rose shut the door.

"What's the problem?"

"You can't just take an early lunch and disappear for half the day. People will think you're getting preferential treatment because you're my daughter."

"Feel free to tell them you've docked my pay."

Ron rubbed a hand over his face, looking like he wanted to pull at his hair. With the way he was balding though, it wasn't worth the risk. Rose tried not to snicker as she suppressed the urge to comment.

"You didn't go home to dispose of a rock star, did you?" he asked with dread.

Taking pity on him, Rose handed over the bag of goodies from the bakery she'd stopped at on her way back to the Ministry. She'd made sure to get all of his favourites and was rewarded by his face brightening slightly upon peeking into the bag.

"Those are the kind of questions you can't ask if you want Weasley dinners to be without arrests, Daddy."

Ron nearly choked on a cookie while she smiled innocently.

"Besides," she said while she patted his back, "I clearly just came from the bakery, where the staff will say I've been for the last few hours."

"They'll say," Ron said when he managed to dislodge the cookie that had tried to go down sideways. "But that's not what actually happened." He didn't need her to confirm anything, Ron knew.

Rose grinned at him and moved towards the door. "I'm complaining to human resources about this unfair treatment," she called over her shoulder, louder than necessary. "It's unprofessional to dock my pay for no reason."

"You skipped half the day!" Ron shouted after her. Rose had a feeling only half of the frustration in his voice was an act for the few people who remained in the office.

She headed towards the file room, having seen Carol head out of the office with everyone else when she was on her way in.

The filing room was exactly what Rose would expect, a room full of filing cabinets and shelves of boxes. It was a little dusty and a lot boring. Rose was definitely starting to regret agreeing to help her father find out what was happening to the files. Her talents were being squandered on the most boring detective work possible. The things she did for family.

Finding a corner, Rose made herself comfortable leaning against a filing cabinet. After casting a charm over herself to keep anyone from noticing her, Rose drifted to sleep.

She woke up every time someone came into the room and kept a close eye on everything that happened. While she learned a few interesting things, there was nothing that conclusively proved what had been happening to files.

"Where have you been all day?" Albus asked when she stopped at his desk after emerging from the file room.

"I was taking a nap with all those dusty files."

"Your life is so difficult," Albus grumbled.

With almost everyone having already left, Rose was free to speak to Albus without fear of being overheard.

She wandered over to the desk she knew to have a stash of peanuts in one of the drawers and helped herself to a handful. Albus gave her a disapproving stare, but had given up on scolding her for invading their co-worker's privacy and stealing from them.

"It's not like I'm here to do actual work." She looked at the paperwork on his desk. It had multiplied since she'd last helped him work his way through the pile. For obvious reasons, Rose had never followed in her dad's footsteps and becoming an Auror. Her short time spent in Auror offices was serving to reassure her that she'd definitely made the right decision.

Albus stared at her for a while. "You weren't... crying in the file room because Scorpius is cheating on you, were you?"

"Do you not know me at all?" she demanded. "If I actually thought Scorpius was cheating on me, I wouldn't cry, I'd destroy him."

"If you were ever without Scorpius, I think you'd fall into a downward spiral that would end in Azkaban."

"Don't make me angry, Albus." She was already not in the best mood, and she'd hate to have to answer to his parents if she made him disappear.