I woke up screaming.

The racing of my pulse was in my ears and my body was thrashing around on its own accord, desperately seeking escape from whatever was threatening me.

I was dead asleep. I couldn't remember my dream, even when it was occurring. The only thing I remembered was blackness and a dark figure moving around. I knew who the figure was, he reminded me of someone, but I couldn't put a finger on his name. Instead I just stood there and watch him shift his weight from one foot to the other. That was when my screaming started in the dream.

I was still thrashing around on the bed, kicking around the covers when my door was thrown open instantaneously, banging against the wall which it hit with great force.

"Rose," he said lowly, as if trying to gauge my sanity.

My voice was hoarse from screaming as I responded, "Yeah?'

"Nightmare?" His voice was soft, low, but yet somehow still held the clipped tone that I had been so used to associating with him.

"I guess so," my voice had become shakier by the moment, remembering the vague dream.

"Tea?"

I almost appreciated the fact that he didn't want to talk a lot, talk about it. I certainly didn't want to. Just his presence made it a little better.

"No, thank you. I think I'm going to try to go back to sleep."

My voice hardly sounded like my own, it was gravelly, husky, as if someone had put my vocal cords through a blender. Coupled with the screaming and the fatigue, I knew it was very likely that my voice could be gone by tomorrow when I (hopefully) woke up again. The interrupted sleep certainly wasn't helping any.

"Are you sure?" Dmitri seemed hesitant, as if by leaving me alone I would erupt into a fit of bloodcurdling screams. Judging from the past few minutes, I honestly couldn't blame him for his uncertainty.

"I'm fine, Dmitri, honestly."

But as I closed my eyes again, I was very far from fine. I was still shaky, the adrenaline in my system had yet to work itself out and I felt unsettled, like I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. I pushed these thoughts aside and again snuggled into my warm covers, pretending like the past five minutes (was it really so short?) had never happened.


When I awoke again, it seemed like a normal morning. The muted sunlight shone through the window of my bedroom, the slight drizzle of the London rain was heard from the outside world, and my entire flat smelled like the sweet aroma of tea. Living with bodyguards did have its perks.

I spent a little longer time in the shower than I should have, watching the soap suds run off my body, feeling the warmth of the water beneath my fingers and on my back. Wary of talking, I barely said a word to Dmitri as I bustled around his silent form.

I momentarily wondered how strange he must feel, as I was barely beginning my day, his was just ending. He hardly looked fatigued, but with his limited facial expressions, Dmitri hardly ever looked anything at all. He didn't even have bags under his eyes, which led me to question what exactly he did during the time he wasn't occupied with guarding my life. Looking at the large, burly man in front of me I shuddered and decided that it was probably for the best that I didn't know.

Miraculously, the normally constant teetering pile of things I usually held condensed itself into a much more manageable pile—probably Cooper's neat freak doing—and nothing was dropped or misplaced. When I reached the ministry, I ventured out to find Tori before I headed to my respective department.

"Tor, you won't believe what happened last night."

"Did you final nail Wes the Distress?" Came her bubbly, upbeat reply.

Tori had this insane habit of nicknaming my boyfriends, especially the ones she didn't like. And none of the names were particularly flattering, but to credit her creativity , they always rhymed. For instance, there was Zane the Insane, Frank the Tank, Jake the Flake, and Chuck the um…Clusterfuck (his name was particularly unflattering due to his particularly unflattering personality that I had been temporarily blinded to because he offered to pay my way around the seven wonders of the magical world) just to name a few.

"Ah, no. And Wes the Distress, really? That's what we're going with?

Tori smiled mischievously at me, widening her eyes in a way that made her look slightly crazed.

"Wes the Distress is perfect, Rosie. I'm Distressed that he seems to be a thirty year old virgin who apparently has no plan to even attempt to get into your pants. What's up with that? Do you think you're his beard? Maybe he's totally into one of your family members!"

Sadly, this had actually happened before. Tori had never come up with a clever nickname for Jared but he had sadly no interest in me anyway. He was actually interested in James, someone he really had no chance with seeing as James loved women all over, all the time, everywhere he could get. His goal remains to love a girl in every country he's ever visited. But anyway, that did not last long to say the least, and I loathe being reminded of such an embarrassing instance. At least I hadn't done anything with him, he probably would have been imagining James instead of me and that just wigs me out.

"Ew, Tor. Stop."

"I'm just saying. Past experience has shown—"

"Yes, that my boyfriends suck, thanks for reminding me. But I think Wes might be the one."

Okay, blatant lie. But it was only to prove a point.

"Hah. No you don't. No one would think that that boring old lump of distressness would be the one unless they were an equally boring lump of distressness which you, my dear, are not."

"Shut up, Tor."

I turn as if to leave when she interrupts the process.

"Wait, what happened last night?"

I hesitated for a moment and then shook my head; my sharing mood had evaporated completely.

"Nothing important." And then I left.

My day at work was blissfully uneventful. I edited, chatted with Iris/Mini and just focused on other, more normal things than waking up in the middle of the night screaming. When Cooper came to pick me up—I had introduced him around as a friend around the office, and everyone seemed to buy it because my family works in the auror department anyway, so they all thought we were just hanging out, they didn't suspect that he was hired to protect me—I felt relieved.

"Hey Coop," I smiled brightly at the attractive man in front of me.

"Rose," he returned the smile. "What are we eating tonight? I looked up some pasta recipes if you're feeling Italian, or whatever else you want."

Oh yes, Cooper cooked. And he was actually pretty decent. Okay, decent might be a bit of tame word. He was really, really good. And usually, if I supplied the supplies and ingredients, and offered to the dishes, he would cook without complaining.

"Pasta sounds great to me! Do we need to pick anything up on the way?"

"Nope, I think we got it all. Also, I found a really good recipe for a chocolate lava cake that I've been wanting to try out."

"Have I mentioned lately that I love you?"

"Only if you count yesterday. And the day before that. And actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the day before that too." His dimpled smile made me giggle with delight.

"Well, one more time won't hurt any, right?"

He slung his arm around my shoulder as I waved goodbye to Iris/Mini and the rest of the office and we headed back to my flat.

As he cooked, I set up the table, giving us a nice ambiance, flowers and a few candles, just for fun. I poured the wine for both of us and we were chatting nicely until I heard a key turn in the lock.

"ROSE NYMPHADORA WEASLEY!"

Cooper was immediately on edge, tense and unnervingly concerned. I just rolled my eyes. "Get ready to meet my mother, " I mumbled.

"In the kitchen, mum!"

She rushed in in a tizzy, enveloping me in one of her famously tight hugs immediately.

"RoseI'vebeensoworriedyourfatherhans'ttoldmeanythi ng,thegit,andnowsuddenlyI'mjustsupposedtoknowthaty ou'rebeingprotectedbybodyguardsandaurros." She spoke so quickly I'm positive that Coop had no idea what she was saying. "Howareyoudoingsweetie?Ihopethisahsn'tbeentoostres sfulforyou. Merlin,whatarewegoingtodo?"

"Mum. It's okay. Dad and Uncle Harry got it covered." So far as I know anyway. I heard Cooper cough behind me. "This is Cooper, I'm sure I'm in good hands."

"Are you…cooking?" My mother's concerned faced turned incredulous.

"Cooper is, mum. You know I inherited your cooking skills."

"And Cooper is…?"

"Mum, Cooper, Cooper, this is my mum, Hermione Weasley. I'm sure you've heard of her."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am." Cooper said politely, holding out his hand to shake.

My mum ignored the hand and hugged him too. Normally she wouldn't be so undignified but I suppose due to the fact that my father had just now let the news slip that I was being guarded 24/7 she might be a little emotional. But that was just my hunch.

"Oh, thank you so much. And that smells delicious, by the way."

"We have enough for one more, if you want to stay."

My mum nervously tucked her notoriously bushy hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and I watched as her eyes darted around the kitchen.

"Oh, I'd love to, really. But I'm just not hungry at the moment." She patted down her wrinkled cloak and took a deep breath, seemingly regaining her composure in a matter of seconds. "Rose, darling," she smoothed my hair down as well, "How are you doing?

"I'm fine mum." I nearly bit my tongue in my attempt to sound as nice as possible and not to revert back to the sarcastic, rude tone that I had acquired during my teenage years when asked this particular question.

"Good, good." She stood awkwardly, glancing around, no doubt noticing the dirty dishes in the sink and the laundry piled in the living area. "And your clothes are clean?"

Yep, knew it.

"Clean as can be, promise."

"I mean, if you want me to, I can put them away…"

"MUM. They're fine."

I may have gotten my nervous cleaning habit from my mother, but there are times when I really don't appreciate that fact as coming from her, it can be irritating.

"I know you're busy, sweetheart, so I just thought maybe…"

"Mum. It's fine seriously."

During this time, Cooper had stealthily returned to preparing our meal, a wise move on his part seeing as we could begin fighting at any point in time. Mum and I had a bit of an explosive relationship.

"Okay," mum still looked uncertain but I gave up trying to reassure her and took a sip of wine instead. "I'm just going to use your bathroom then." She smiled at me and I saw the fragility of her emotional state at that moment, her pale face was strained, her eyes were red as if slightly irritated from crying and her smile looked forced.

"Okay, mum." I went up and hugged her tightly. "Love you." I whispered in her ear and heard the rush breath as a sigh in my ear.

"Love you too, Rosie." Her voice broke at my name and I squeezed her tighter.

When she left the room, I swigged the rest of my wine and watched Cooper look at me incredulously out of my peripheral vision.

"I know. Shut up. She's my mother."

People were constantly shocked at the manner in which I approached Hermione Weasley, but after all, they didn't grow up and call her mum, so I don't think they have any particular say in how I should handle her.

"I didn't say anything," came the rebuttal.

"I heard you thinking it."

Cooper just raised an eyebrow at me, in a way that was strikingly similar to the way Scorpius would react and I rolled my eyes.

"You're coming to Nana's on Sunday, right?"

I sighed at the prospect my mum brought up, but knew that I would be in huge trouble if I didn't attend family brunch.

"Of course. Is Freddie finally bringing his one true love?"

We had all yet to meet Fred's new love interest. The ever-elusive Laurel seemed to be almost avoiding meeting the family. Well, either that or Freddie was avoiding introducing her to the family. Either way, I'm not sure that I blame them. All I did know about Laurel was that she was a pub owner in Diagon Alley, but Fred never did tell me which pub.

"Well, I'm not certain," my mum furrowed her brow in thought, "I doubt it, though, your cousin usually does have some excuse to give to Auntie Angelina."

I nodded in agreement and then reached in for another hug from my mum. Her warm, petite, figure and her familiar smell engulfed me, and I felt my self relax immediately, even though just minutes ago we had been sniping at each other over the state of the laundry in my living area.

"Thanks for coming over, mum. Are you sure you don't want dinner?"

"Well…" she hesitated only a second, and looked at Cooper's wonderful creation longingly, "I can't. I promised your father that we'd get takeaway from a place of his choice tonight."

"Invite Dad over too!" Suddenly the idea of having an almost family meal sounded extremely appealing. "Coop and I always make extras anyway."

I ignored the snort that came from my bodyguard's direction as he no doubted objected to the 'Coop and I' portion of my previous statement.

So that was how Cooper got to have an almost-family meal with the Hermione and Ron Weasley family.

It wasn't until much later, after my parents had left with full stomachs and some of the leftovers, when I went down to get the mail with Cooper that we learned the news.

Viv had just been clearing out when we came in to the lobby, heading straight towards the letterboxes.

"Oh, Rose. I have an interesting tidbit of information for you."

"Oh yeah?"

"You know the flat across the hall to you and to the left, next door to Mrs. Wimberly?"

I immediately pictured the flat in question, noting that it had been vacant for quite some time now as Mr. Brown evaluated potential tenants.

"Sure."

"Well it's finally been rented."

Cooper stiffened beside me and I could feel the tension radiating from his body, but I decided to ignore it. There was probably a whole new set of protocols that had to be followed to check up on this new tenant, and I had no interest in learning any of them at the moment.

"Rented to whom?"

Viv ran a hand through her short, dark hair before responding.

"Can't tell. Privacy contract."

"Seriously?" I gaped in response, probably unattractively. I'd heard of privacy contracts before, but usually those did not apply to other tenants in the building.

"Well," Viv looked around uncertainly before confiding in me, leaning over her desk, "it only applies to you. The ah…tenant…preferred to introduce themself to you personally so it's only temporary."

"And who is so special that they have to introduce themselves to me and needed a privacy contract in order to do so?"

"That would be me." Said a familiar voice from behind as I spun around to face my new neighbour.


A/N: Okay, confession time: I've actually had this chapter written and mostly finished for a little over a week now. I know, I know, it's inexcusable because I've waited so long to update (another two months, I'm terribly sorry-I have usual excuses: life, etc. etc.) But anyway, I'd just like to say that I love this story and I hope you do, too. Sorry for the delay, but my brother was on a very long trip and when he got back today, I realised that apparently I needed to wait until he got home to finish/update this chapter. Very odd, I've never had this happen to me before. But now that I'm happy he's back, the words flowed a lot more easily. Go figure.

As always, let me know what you think!

~wwccd