Chapter 10

A/N: Hello readers! I know I haven't answered reviews yet, but I only had time this morning to either post a chapter or answer reviews. I thought you'd prefer the new chapter.

As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. Special thanks to Dramionetruelove, who took the time to review every chapter.

~Frosty

Rose woke up to someone knocking on the door. She padded down the stairs muttering about unwanted guests invading her peace and her desperate wish for stronger wards. The irony that the person who was interfering with her sleep turned out to be the ward technician there to redo the generic spells that kept her house safe didn't escape her. Fortunately, she as tired and irritated enough that she didn't have to acknowledge it.

Knowing what the paper said about her that morning, Rose thought it best that she be difficult to find for a while. She really didn't want anyone finding her and asking uncomfortable questions before the story had served its purpose.

She made sure to dress in clothes that were tighter and frillier than her norm. In addition to this, she stopped in front of the mirror and transfigured her hair into a shiny blonde bob. It looked terrible with her skin tone, but it made her look a lot less like herself. She barely recognised her own face, so it was unlikely that someone else would.

Rose was sitting in a booth in the back of one of the newer bars in Diagon Alley when she looked up to see that Quinn had just entered. Sipping a drink, she watched as he searched the room multiple times, not able to recognise her without her signature hair.

She took pity on him when he started to look uncomfortable. She wanted him to feel awkward, not leave entirely. With a finger raised, she gestured him over to her table.

"I thought for a minute I'd done something to annoy you and this was going to end in an ambush of some sort," Quinn said with a grin as he sat down on the opposite side of her booth.

Rose hopped up and slid into the booth beside him, trapping him between herself and the wall.

"And now you're uncomfortably close to me. This really is some sort of ambush, isn't it? You get a little too close and then Scorpius comes in and has an excuse to hex me." He tried to lean away from her, but it was as futile as trying to merge with the wall using only the power of his mind.

"I need to know something and you're going to tell me," she said. They were touching from knee to shoulder and Quinn was darting glances around the room like a cornered animal. If there was a chance it would free him, he'd probably attempt to gnaw off an arm.

"If this is about the extortion charges in the paper, I had nothing to do with it. I'll be a character witness for you if that's what it takes for you to let me live."

Rose didn't know why he was so afraid that she'd kill him. She'd never killed anyone and had no plans to start. If that made him more willing to do what she wanted though, Rose was willing to go with it and didn't bother correcting him.

"The man in charge of the gambling den that was recently raided, I need to know where he lives."

The Ministry files hadn't actually said much about the man. It seemed like he was still something of a mystery to them.

Quinn stopped staring around the room and looked down at her. Suddenly, he was a lot less fidgety. It was clear that he was more afraid of a real criminal than Rose, someone he'd known since he was eleven. Rose was going to have to work harder on her image.

"You and Scorpius could destroy me, but those people will literally tear me to pieces. I can't tell you that."

"There's a good chance they're never going to find out that you told me where he lives. In fact, the only way he could possibly know it was you would be if I told him, and that would never happen. If you don't tell me though, you'd incur my ire, something that's guaranteed to make you miserable."

Quinn tried to hold out a little longer. He managed to resist her most intimidating stare, even when she leaned even closer to him to magnify the effect. Clearly she'd spent so much time trying to intimidate him that he'd developed something of an immunity to her. Well, she would just have to try a different way to intimidate him.

Wrapping an arm around the back of his neck, she pulled him closer. Her intention had been to threaten him once they were nose to nose, but his eyes widened and he leaned his head as far away from her as it would go.

"Okay," he shouted. "I'll tell you what you want, just stop that."

She had the feeling that he'd thought she was going to kiss him. Strange. She was perfectly willing to let him think that if it worked. It was a much better solution than arranging for a weekly delivery of his favourite muffins charged to her. Less work.

Rose wrote down the address as he recited it.

"For the record," he said once she'd finally freed him from the booth. "I don't like you when you're blonde. It makes you mean."

She bared her teeth in a shark smile. "I've been fixing everyone's problems for long enough. Apparently people are starting to forget what I'm capable of."

For Merlin's sake, Henrietta had practically cried on Rose's shoulder. Clearly she was doing something wrong. Her name was supposed to be accompanied by curses, not used as comfort. She worked for her own benefit, not everyone else's.

She was on her way out of the bar when someone grabbed her arm Disapparated before she had a chance to get a good look at the person. She wasn't concerned though; there was only one person who could have hunted her down when she was wearing a disguise and intent on avoiding everyone.

She'd been expecting him.

Something went wrong with the spell. It felt like they hit something that flexed and then flung the both of them in a different direction. It hurt.

Rose landed flat on her face in the middle of a field somewhere, scratching herself in several places as she hit the ground. There was dirt in her teeth and she wasn't happy about it. She peeled herself from the suctioning power of the mud and used her wand to clean off the mud and grass suddenly covering her.

"They're working on our wards today," she told Scorpius, who had somehow managed to land upright and was completely free of mud.

He remained silent, watching her, waiting.

"Did you have a good trip?" She didn't even try to make her inquiry seem genuine.

Scorpius pulled a crumpled scrap of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it to show the article Hy had written about her in the newspaper. "I had to cut it short. I had a feeling that you'd found out something I probably should have explained to you."

"You didn't think I could actually be arrested for extortion?"

"I may have thought that for a moment, but then I received notification from Gringott's. Apparently in light of new information they've recently received, I've been suspended for two weeks until they can further investigate the claims."

"I thought the time off would give you plenty of time to explain what's been going on. You know how I hate being left out of a perfect chance to exercise my plotting skills."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "From the little I've heard about what you've been up to while I was gone, your plotting skills definitely don't need the extra work."

"It's interesting that you know so much about what I've been up to, yet I know very little about what's been happening with you."

He sighed and sat down on a low stone wall after a quick search around the area for somewhere clean to rest. "Aren't you going to sit?"

Rose crossed her arms. "I think I'd prefer to stand."

With his lips pressed together, Scorpius looked her over. He kept coming back to her blond hair though, so Rose returned it to her normal tumble of red curls. She wanted his entire attention on her while she spoke with him.

"The Ministry contacted my father not long after we graduated from Hogwarts. They knew that, while his business was legal, he still occasionally associated with people of interest to the Aurors."

As she started to see where this was going, Rose's eyebrows drew together. "The Aurors were doing to your dad the same thing that they did to us when we were in Hogwarts. They wanted someone on the inside to gather information for them." She studied Scorpius intently. "You've gone on more than one business trip with him. Were any of them actually because he wanted your assistance with the business or are you there as some kind of liaison with the younger criminals?"

"He's never needed my help with business."

Really, she had known that. It was just that Scorpius lied to her so rarely that she'd automatically accepted his story at face value. She was going to have to re-evaluate her trust in him.

"Don't get that look, Rose."

She ignored that comment. In fact, if her expression was making him feel bad for lying, then she was going to wear it more often. "What I want to know is why you didn't just tell me what you were doing. I wouldn't have had any problem with what you're doing. In fact, I could have helped."

"That's the problem. You would have wanted to help. You live for this stuff and it can sometimes be dangerous."

Rose had been watching Scorpius as he shifted, mostly so that he would see how upset she was, but she noticed the slightly crooked way he was sitting. Normally, that wouldn't peak her interest, but he was seated with one of his arms pressed tightly to his side. Something was off.

"Exactly how dangerous was this trip of yours?" She shifted on her feet while he watched her suspiciously.

"While Father met with the man who is the Ministry's main interest, I was to keep his daughter company while seeing if I could learn anything from her. Apparently she had a boyfriend who didn't appreciate me spending time alone with his girlfriend."

"Did this woman happen to have exotic looks and a fondness of sequins?"

She better have. Rose wasn't jealous, but she liked to think that her fiancé didn't spend all of his time away from her out with other women and then return to lie to her about it.

"I knew the Aurors were taking pictures," he said with a frown. "I'm assuming someone showed you one of these pictures that the undercover Aurors accompanying Father and I assured us weren't being taken?"

While he was distracted with trying to solve a puzzle in his head that Rose didn't even have all the pieces for, she lunged forward and pulled up his shirt. His pale skin was one huge bruise up his side. If he were a peach, Rose would have thrown him out because he would be more pulpy mass than actual fruit.

"Why hasn't this been healed?" she demanded.

"I was going to see a healer as soon as I got back here, but I decided to find out what was going on with my fiancé first. I was almost certain the paper was lying, especially since it was Hy who published the story, but I had to check."

She was the tiniest bit touched, but mostly annoyed with him for his double standards. He wasn't willing to let her in on what was happening with him because he didn't want her to get hurt, yet when he was actually injured, possibly bleeding internally, he put off getting medical attention and rushed home. Men. If she had done something similar, he would have thrown a fit.

Being bounced off of the wards probably hadn't helped with his injuries.

"Come on," she said as she tugged on him until he stood. "Don't think you're off the hook just because you're injured. I still haven't asked you the most important questions yet."

"And what would those be?"

"Nice try. You're getting that bruise looked at and then I'm asking you my questions. I'm not letting anything distract me from your answers."

Rose didn't bother knocking when they appeared in front of Hugo's apartment. He was her younger brother; what's his was theirs and all that. When he finally married and moved in with Henrietta, she'd consider knocking out of respect to her sister in law, but that was only going to be when she was in a giving mood.

With Scorpius beside her bruised and leaning a good portion of his weight on her, she was not in a giving mood.

"Rose?" Hugo said with a yelp as he scrambled to pull his shirt back on. Henrietta was there as well, her cheeks bright red as she quickly tried to straighten her clothing.

"Trying a different tactic to find out what's been bothering him?" Rose asked Henrietta. Blushing even darker, the Muggleborn rushed from the room.

"Was that really necessary?" Hugo demanded.

Rose shrugged remorselessly. "Maybe it'll stop her from crying all over me while she fishes for information about you. She'll be family when you marry her, but I still don't trust her entirely, especially when she tries to pry information from me." Hugo, still frowning, tried to interject something, but Rose put a foot behind Scorpius' ankle and nudged him with her hip, throwing him off balance. He fell on his good side right beside Hugo. "You owe me for looking into remedying what happened on your night of stupidity. Make yourself decent and fix Scorpius, Mr. Healer Trainee."

She could have brought Scorpius to the hospital and had him healed properly, but there would have been a wait involved. Paperwork as well, and being around sick people. Rose hated being surrounded by the ill almost as much as she hated actually being sick.

"What's her problem?" Hugo mumbled to Scorpius under his breath as the blond removed his shirt to show the extent of his injuries."

"She's decided that she's too nice and that she needs to work on remedying that."

Hugo paled. "Merlin, she's going to destroy us all."