Chapter Seven-Ron, Take 2

Rose was a Weasley through and through. She had the distinctive flaming red hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her face. On her very first day at Hogwarts, during the sorting, the hat had barely touched her head before it had proclaimed her a Gryffindor, like so many of her relatives before her. And, true to the defining characteristics of Gryffindors, she was brave and bold, and she possessed a few healthy doses daring, nerve, and chivalry. Or, at least she did most of the time.

As Rose found herself unexpectedly face-to-face with her father, she suddenly felt all of those traits promptly deserting her.

"Erm…right this second?" Rose questioned, glancing at the door and attempting to calculate how quickly she could reach it and escape, and how quickly her father could possibly catch up.

Ron just gave her a stern look and Rose quickly took a seat on the armchair next to the couch her dad was sitting on.

"Where have you been?" Ron asked as soon as she was seated, and Rose thought she could detect a hint of suspicion in his tone.

"The Burrow," Rose replied evenly.

"Doing what?" Ron asked now.

"Helping Victoire with wedding stuff," Rose said. "She owled me last night; mum said it was alright for me to go over."

"I know; I already talked to your mother. Was Victoire the only person there?" Ron fired off rapidly, and Rose believed that she was starting to see the direction her dad was going in with this line of questioning. Why, oh why had she ever brought the matter up the previous night? She could have been happy keeping this relationship a secret for the rest of her life, even if it did eventually turn into marriage…or kids. Really, it wouldn't be a big deal to keep that hidden from pretty much the rest of the world.

"Well, Gran was there, too," Rose responded, deciding to play along for the time being. As she spoke, Hugo slipped into the room and leaned leisurely against the wall behind their dad, a glass of water in his hand. Rose ignored him for the time being; she'd confront him about his part in all of this later.

"So it was just you, Victoire, and my mum?" Ron questioned, "Only the three of you? All day?"

"Yep," Rose said, internally rolling her eyes at her dad, no matter how nerve-wracking it was becoming for her as he continued putting off the subject she knew he was going to bring up.

"And how are Victoire and mum?" Came Ron's next question. If it wasn't for the fact that Rose really quite liked being alive and did not want to discuss her relationship status with her father ever again, she might have screamed as a result of him continuing to put that part of their conversation off.

"They're fine, I suppose," Rose replied, "You know how Vic can get, though; she's gone a bit crazy about all of this wedding stuff."

Although Ron's face had been pretty much blank throughout most of the conversation, Rose thought she saw him flinch slightly when she referred to her older cousin by her childhood nickname, back when none of the younger cousins were able to pronounce it correctly. For the briefest of moments, Rose felt quite satisfied for the discomforting reminder she had obviously just given her dad; payback for what he was currently putting her through (and the grounding he would shortly attempt to give her for the rest of her life). And then she realized that perhaps that hadn't been the best idea, though, because it reminded Rose of her dad's ability to hold grudges. Any second now the subject of Rose's boyfriend was going to be brought up, and she just knew her dad was going to finally snap.

She wasn't looking forward to it.

"I remember when Bill and Fleur got married," Ron said with a thoughtful nod. "It was quite possibly one of the most frightening periods of my life."

"Aunt Fleur scared you?" Rose asked dubiously.

"No, mum did," Ron replied. "Not only did she have to put up with all of the planning and then setting up and everything that went with that, she knew we—Uncle Harry, your mum, and I—were planning to drop out of school and sneak off on some dangerous mission that no one would tell her about."

"You used to be such a rebel, dad," Rose said with a shake of her head, "Running off to go defeat the darkest wizard of the day when you were barely even of age."

Ron frowned slightly as he processed what she was saying. "Rosie," He began slowly, "Is that why you're doing this?"

"Why I'm doing what?" Rose asked, knowing exactly what he was talking about but wanting him to have to say it out loud. Acknowledging it would make it real; not that she didn't want it to be real, but after her dad's initial reaction…

"D-Dating Sc-Malfoy," Ron replied. "Are you dating Malfoy as some kind of rebellious act against your mum and me?"

Now it was Rose's turn to frown. "Why would I need to do that?"

"Well…we're famous, I suppose. Is this your way of saying you want attention?" Ron asked, looking as if he genuinely believed that this had to be the explanation for his daughter's sudden announcement the previous night.

"No…" Rose said slowly. "I thought you said you talked to mum earlier?"

"Yeah, about where you were," Ron told her. "And she might have mentioned something about me just listening to what you have to say about all of this. So this is me listening. I realize I may have…overreacted a bit last night, but I want to understand what's going on, I really do."

"Dad," Rose said slowly, "I'm dating Scorpius because I want to be. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and mum. I mean, yeah, it's totally cool that you guys are famous and all that, but that doesn't really matter to me. And, it didn't influence my decision to go out with Scorpius either. And no, before you ask it wasn't his dad's idea, either. In fact…well, he also never told his parents about the two of us dating."

"You know," Ron began slowly, his expression still undecipherable, "The way you say that, it's as if the two of you have been hiding this for a while. But you haven't, have you? You wouldn't do that, would you, Rosie?"

Hugo leaned forward eagerly at this, and Rose frowned slightly at him; he appeared to be enjoying all of this a bit too much for her liking. She forced all thoughts of her brother out of her mind, however, and focused on her dad, taking a deep breath. This was it. He hadn't killed her the night before when he found out about her boyfriend, but this next piece of information might just make him snap.

"Dad, we've been dating for about a year already," Rose finally said as calmly as she could manage, resisting the urge to turn around and run away and pretend like she hadn't ever said a word about her relationship with Scorpius Malfoy to anyone.

Her forced-calm trance was broken however when the glass of water Hugo had been holding slipped from his hand, fell to the ground, and shattered. The expression on her younger brother's face was one of wide-eyed disbelief.

"About…a year?" Ron repeated forcefully, the tips of his ears going bright red.

"Well, technically it's one year, one month, three weeks, and five days, give or take a few hours," Rose rattled off, her nerves finally getting the best of her. "Not that I'm counting or anything."

Ron closed his eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself down at least a tiny bit. "Your mother didn't mention that part."

"Ah…yes…erm, that would be because I kind of, sort of, maybe didn't share that little tidbit with her…yet," Rose said hesitantly.

"Why?" Ron questioned.

"It never came up?" Rose offered.

Ron exhaled sharply at this, and Hugo, behind him, gave a disbelieving snort.

"Dad," Rose began tentatively when Ron didn't immediately make an attempt to verbally continue the conversation. "Are you still…angry with me?"

Ron sighed now and, although there was still a pink tinge to his complexion, he appeared to have overcome his brief moment of incredulity. "No, Rosie. I suppose now I'm more disappointed than anything. Why wouldn't you tell your mother and I about this before?"

"Well…honestly dad? I kind of expected you to react exactly the way you did yesterday. Can you really blame me for wanting to put it off?" Rose questioned rationally.

"But for an entire year?" Ron replied.

"I suppose that was a bit much," Rose admitted. "But in my defense I was at school for a majority of the time, and you've met your nieces and nephews. They can be a bit…intense. I feel like things could have turned out badly if they had known about Scorpius and me."

"It would've made me feel better," Ron muttered under his breath. "And it's only going to be Al, Lily, and Hugo left next year, too. James and Fred would have kept him in line, although Roxanne could have probably handled him all by herself."

"Da-ad," Rose groaned, "You know you've liked Scorpius whenever he came around Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry's to see Al."

"That was before I found out that he is your boyfriend," Ron informed her. "I'm not so sure about that kid anymore."

"But you said you aren't angry anymore!" Rose protested. "You've never had a problem with him before…well, not since Al became friends with him, anyway. And we've already been dating for a year; can't you just give him a chance?"

Ron just gave his daughter a look. "Rosie, I'm your father. I'm not supposed to like any of your…boyfriends."

They lapsed into a brief silence—during which Hugo looked as if he was going to leave the room—before Rose spoke up again.

"Dad," she began tentatively, "I just need to know: you are one hundred percent, positively, absolutely, without a doubt, no questions asked sure that you aren't angry anymore about me dating Scorpius? Minus the whole thing about me being the biggest disappointment in the history of disappointing children, because I waited a year to tell you, of course."

Ron cracked a small smile at that. "No, I'm not angry; your mum would have my head if I still was. I was just a bit…caught off guard last night, that's all. And don't worry, Hugo's the bigger disappointment: he's a Tornadoes fan."

"Hey!" Hugo protested from his place leaning against the wall behind the couch.

"Thanks dad," Rose said with a grin.

Ron smiled back briefly, before his expression became stern once more. "So, when am I going to officially meet your boyfriend? I need to work up my intimidatingness."

"'Intimidatingness'? Really, dad? Really?" Rose questioned with a slight grimace at her father's apparent disregard for the English language.

Ron didn't reply and merely gave his daughter an expectant look.

"I've invited him to Teddy and Victoire's wedding," Rose replied. "And before you say anything, I've already told Vic, and she's already thrown a fit about changing the seating plan—which she's already done—so yes, he is definitely coming. Well…if he's still alive. I'm not entirely sure how things went down with his parents."

"Malfoy always was rather violent," Ron said eagerly, causing Rose to roll her eyes.

"Mum was the one who punched him," She reminded her dad, before standing up. "Now, is there anything else you wanted to talk about, or can I go? I want to see if Scorpius wrote back yet."

"You can go," Ron said with a wave of his hand. She was across the room and about to step into the hallway before he spoke again. "Oh, and Rosie?"

"Yeah?" She said, looking back over her shoulder.

"Next time you get your first boyfriend tell me about it in a timely fashion, would you?" Ron requested.

Rose grinned. "No problem, dad."

Ron gave a satisfactory nod, and Rose resumed her course to her room, the dulcet sounds of her dad and Hugo 'discussing' Quidditch teams following her down the hall and all the way up the stairs.

a/n-Writing this chapter took a bit longer than I expected it to, sorry. And, unfortunately, now that classes have started again, my updates probably won't be quite so frequent. I do believe this story is nearing it's end, however. I have a couple more reactions planned, but if there are any people whose reactions you would like to see, just let me know and I'll see what I can come up with :)