Chapter 12: discussions
Rose sat in her kitchen feeling very nervous. Did she make the right decision in letting him come over? How would Scorpius react if he found out? She didn't want to hide it from him but she didn't want him to be mad at her either. She glanced at the clock, 1:55. If he was coming he would be there soon.
Just then Rose heard a cry from upstairs. Emily was up and had probably fallen over. She ran up the stairs and, sure enough, found Emily awake and crying on the floor.
"Emily, what happened, sweetie?" she asked picking her up and sitting on her bed with her.
"I fell over and hurt my knee," she sobbed.
Rose cradled her in her arms until she heard a soft knock on the door downstairs. She looked out of the window and saw that unforgettable mop of red hair. Hugo was here.
"Emily, shall we go downstairs to see your uncle?" she asked taking her hand. Emily nodded and slid off the bed. They walked downstairs together hand in hand.
Hugo knocked again.
"I'm coming," rose shouted. She picked up Emily and walked the rest of the stairs quicker. She then put Emily down and took hold of her hand again. She opened the door to find Hugo standing there looking both happy and slightly unnerved. "Hi," she said standing back for him to enter.
"Hey, how are you?" he asked giving her a hug.
"I'm good thanks, what about you?" she asked letting go of Emily's hand to hug him back.
"Coping, it's been hard without you at home."
"I'm sorry for leaving without saying goodbye to you Hugo; I've missed you so much."
"I missed you too. Who is this?" he asked gesturing to Emily.
"This," she said picking her up, "is my daughter, Emily. Emily this is your uncle, Hugo."
"Who go," Emily tried to say.
"Close enough," he said smoothing her hair. "So, can we talk?"
"Sure, we can go into the living room." Rose led the way and put Emily down with some toys, and then she sat on the sofa opposite Hugo. "So, what do you want to know?"
"Well, what happened after you left for starters," he said. He felt as though he had missed out on so much.
"Okay, well I went to meet Scorpius in the park around the corner, and then we came here. There isn't much to tell really. The only exiting things that have happened are that we got married and I had Emily a few months after. There really is nothing to tell." She was telling the truth but she really did not want to run through every detail of what had happened in the last two years. He seemed satisfied enough though as he asked another question.
"Why did you leave the way you did?"
"I told you in the letter. We had been together ever since 6th year and we loved each other a lot. He proposed three days before graduation, and then we tried to work out how to tell mum and dad. I know that your curiosity would have gotten the better of you. Did you use extendible ears?" Hugo shook his head. "Wow, Hugo, you actually gave us some privacy." She truly was amazed.
"I said I didn't use extendible ears, that doest mean I wasn't listening. Actually it was a bit hard not to listen when you and dad were shouting the house down. It was like you were having a competition to see who was the loudest." He gave a small chuckle. "so, yes I do know that dad didn't take the news well and decided to flat out refuse to let you see him."
Rose nodded slightly. Even the memory seemed to make her angry. Hugo's next question caught her off guard.
"Why did you run away from them when they tried to find you again?"
"What?" she was not ready for this, she hadn't even sorted it out in her own head.
"Why did you run? Why not just let them find you?"
"I-I- I honestly don't know Hugo," she said looking out of the window.
"In your first letter you said that you couldn't face them because of what you had done. Yet, you are facing me now, how am I different to them?" he asked.
"Hugo, you're different because the last words I said to you weren't 'I hate you', besides I have always been close to you. I guess the other reason is that I'm not ready to go home. I like it here; I like the life I have here. It may not be perfect but it is good enough, its simple I guess. I also did it for Scorpius, he has no home to go back to, sure his mum might be looking for him but his father hates him!" She didn't know what to say, what could she say?
"So, rather than doing what was right you did what was easy?" He sounded a bit angry.
"I guess," she said, her guilt increasing.
"Rose, you cant keep running from this forever, dad came back really pissed yesterday. Mum practically had a breakdown; dad had to give her a sleeping potion. All they want is to have you home. Everyone misses you, especially Kimberly, Albus and Lily. When you left we were the people most affected, we tried to stay strong for each other but that didn't mean that we stayed that way behind closed doors." The truth in his voice told Rose that Hugo was the one who cried behind the closed doors. Though she didn't doubt the others would have done too.
"Hugo, I feel guilty enough as it is, please don't add to that anymore. I want you to know that I love you all but what's done is done, I can't go back and change it and neither can you."
"I know that Rose, but you can make amends for it." he paused looking over at Emily who was still playing quietly with one of her toys. "They wont give up you know."
"Huh?"
"They wont give up on you. They will always hope that by some miracle you will come home. No matter what you have done they will always love you. Just remember that." He really wanted her to come home, so they could be a proper family again. But she wouldn't, she couldn't.
"Mummy, I'm hungry." Unnoticed by either of them, Emily had come over to where they were sat.
"Okay sweetie, how about some apple?" Rose asked.
"Banana!" Emily replied excitedly. Rose giggled and walked into the kitchen. Hugo got up and followed her. Rose decided to ask him a question or two.
"What did you do after I left?"
"Well, what can I say? To deal with all the pain and loss I went out to wild parties almost every week with Lily. Mum and dad had no idea until she got a call from Hogwarts to say that I had come back to the castle early in the morning drunk out of my head. That earned me a nice howler in the morning when I had an awful hangover. Thankfully she never found out about the tattoo I had done." He had a hint of bitterness in his voice.
Rose was incredibly surprised. "Okay let me get this straight; you got hammered every week for a year and got a tattoo? What the heck did you get it of?"
"Just a Celtic one, I was pretty drunk when I got it. Lily has one too."
"Are you serious?" She could not believe little Miss sweet, innocent Lily got a tattoo.
"Yep, a lily on her right shoulder. Her dad found hers though and went up the wall." He smiled slightly.
"Yeah, I can imagine what Uncle Harry would have said to her." She said giving Emily her apple and banana. She offered an apple to Hugo too.
"I think she got grounded for a month by Aunt Ginny, Uncle Harry just had a go at her." He took the apple she offered him.
"I can imagine. So what is going on between you and Summer Green?" she asked. It wasn't that she was nosey, just curious.
"Well, she finally took notice of me after I got that howler from mum. I think she felt sorry for me because you had gone and the only way I was dealing is to drink my feelings away. Anyway, we finally fell in love and started dating at the beginning of 7th year. Now we have been going strong for a couple of years now so I am thinking of asking her to marry me," he said with a grin on his face.
"Hugo that is great! How in the world you ended up with a girl like Summer Green I will never know but I am still happy for you." She gave him a big hug. "Do mum and dad like her?"
Hugo laughed. "Yes, they have met a few times. I would really like you to meet her, she has changed a lot since you last saw her."
Rose's smile fell. "Hugo, I would love to but…"
"But you don't want to come home, I know, I know." Hugo sighed and glanced at his watch. "Blimey, I didn't realise that was the time, I had better be going. My shift starts in twenty minutes. I guess I will see you later," he said hugging her goodbye.
"I guess so," she said a little sad that he was going. "Say goodbye to Uncle Hugo, Emily," she said once she had stopped hugging him.
"Bye bye, who go," she said waving a sticky hand at him before going back to eating her banana.
Hugo laughed. "Bye bye Emily. I will see you both again soon, I hope. I will see myself out. Think about what I said Rose, we all want you home."
"I will, see you soon."
Hugo left the kitchen and out of the door. He caught a quick glance of a blonde haired man apparating a couple of feet away before disapperateing himself.
AN: okay guys please give me reviews, i have 37 of you on alerts and i only got 8 reviews for the last chapter! you guys can do better than that!
this chapter didnt come out the way i wanted to at all but hopefully it expliained about how Hugo felt and what he did after he found out Rose left and how he coped with it.
also i have a new fic that fills in the gap i left in the first chapter of this fic, it shows how they fell in love and finally got together in 6th year : ) it is called LOVE if anyone would like to check it out
