Chapter Thirteen

...
November 3rd
Coach Hendrix's Office
09oo hours
...
Rose was surprised to see Rhoda Mantis leaning against the wall a the back of the office when Coach Hendrix yelled for her to come in. Though admittedly the surprise Rose felt was a fraction of the shock that flitted across Mantis's, and to some degree, Coach Hendrix's face, when Rose, without saying a word, slammed thirteen listening runes onto the desk between them.

'I need permission to put dispelling wards around our changing rooms', she said without greeting or preamble. 'I have already placed a number of precautionary deception detectors in place, but I want to increase security to a level that I deem acceptable.'

It had taken most of Rose's extensive ingenuity, and the best part of three hours to find all the listening runes. Some had been carved with intricate camouflage runes, others disillusioned. One memorable one had been in liquid form, and sat in the puddle caused by the overflow from the showers. Some, like the one Alex had found, had been so obviously visible that Rose was certain they were decoys, or perhaps a test of intelligence. Either way, it was humiliating that it had taken her so long to become aware of this particular issue. Damn Hugo and his covetous need for her sneakerscope!

On a positive note, the team had been too busy planning the most painful ways possible to kill the secret listener to continue their own fights, and peace was once again restored. At least that was how it would appear to any sneaky bugger listening in. After all, there is nothing worse than letting the enemy know about disharmony within the ranks.

Coach Hendrix and Rhoda Mantis exchanged looks as Rose pulled the charms from the pockets of her robes and slammed them down, but she ignored this, instead focusing on the charms which were vibrating slightly, a gentle him emanating from them.

'I've already tried using tracking charms on them', she continued. 'Whoever procured them took care not to touch them with their skin, or I would have been able to track the perpetrator through DNA recognisable flash-memory sensory charms.'

'That's very advanced magic, Miss Weasley', commented Mantis, gazing inscrutably at Rose, who shrugged.

'My family is made up of aurors, and curse breakers and most dangerously, reporters. There's not much I don't know about security and tracking.'

Mantis thought that, had it been anybody else, that statement would have sounded like boasting. But Rose Weasley spoke so matter-of-factly that it seemed as blasé as saying that the grass is green and the sky is blue, and that fire crabs and manticores should not be bred together. One grew to expect the unexpected around the Gryffindor captain, Mantis was noticing.

'I give you permission to employ whatever security you are capable of producing.' Hendrix said finally.

'Cheers Coach.'

'Now, to the reason I actually arranged this meeting.' The coach continued, opening a drawer in the desk and extracting a file held together with spellotape. Hendrix tapped it with his wand and the sheaves of parchment spread themselves neatly across the desk as the spellotape wriggled aside.

The file, Rose knew, was a dossier of the Gryffindor quidditch team and all facts pertaining to this. Rose also knew that within the same drawer (protected against alohamora, but not a hair grip) were three identical dossiers for the other house teams. She knew this, having successfully stolen, duplicated and returned two out of three of these files in previous years. The information inside had been sold to Hugo for a years supply of industrial strength stamina potions.

Rose didn't bother to try and read the notes upside-down. She'd written most of them in the first place, including a few juicy misleading pieces in case she wasn't the only one sneaking about.

'Succession?' Rose hazarded.

'Indeed.' Coach Hendrix affirmed. 'Your recommendation?'

'Lily Potter', Rose said without hesitation. 'She is incredibly dedicated, the best flyer on the team with the possible exception of me. She has a natural charisma which makes her ideal for a strong leadership position. But mostly she cares about the well-being of the team and is experienced enough to be the natural choice.'

'There is no familial bias present in this decision?' Mantis asked from where she was propping the wall up.

'She is the logical choice', Rose said, her voice level.

'And you would still choose her, despite your disagreement yesterday?' Mantis questioned.

Rose steepled her fingers. 'I would have thought', she said with a bite of impatience in her voice, 'that the staff would have better things to do with their time than listen to idle gossip.'

Mantis raised an eyebrow, her face inscrutable.

'Fine', Rose huffed. 'Yes, we argued last night, but what does that have to do with anything? Personal preference has nothing to do with this decision. It is a decision about what is best for the team as a whole. Lily has proven herself a thousand times over, on the pitch and off it. She will be the most experienced flyer on the team next year and I have complete faith in her.'

Both Hendrix and Mantis were surveying her now, but Rose refused to be cowed. She stared coolly back until the coach spoke.

'I'll take it under advisement. Don't forget to close the door on your way out.'

…

The Hogwartian Underground Recreational Club

11oo hours

…

After a diversion to the kitchens for a late breakfast, Rose and Scorpius headed along the corridor, down a flight of steps, and promptly lost themselves in the warren of tunnels and hallways beneath the school. Finally, they arrived at a solid wall that was only pretending, and gained entry to the most exclusive club Hogwarts had ever known.

Celia Raventhorpe was sat by the fire playing poker with a number of stern-faced sixth and seventh years. Scorpius joined the table, conjuring a chair from thin air as quickly as his gold transfigured into chips. This left Rose free to pursue her business. As she passed the table, she couldn't help but feel sorry for them. She might have been good at poker, but she had nothing on Scorpius who had once doubled his shares with nothing more than a pair of fours and a very straight face.

Hugo's office was immaculate as always, and her brother, seated among the intimidating sets of shelves reaching up to the ceiling gave him a Mephistophelian aura. It was hard to explain really; there was a deep, almost inhuman humour that emanated from Hugo's general sneakiness that made people instinctively like him, even when he was fleecing them of their hard earned (or, more commonly, easily inherited) galleons. It was in the chuckle from down at the base of his spine that made him seem more tricky than Loki and somehow as dependable as a house-elf all at once. It shouldn't have been possible, and yet it was.

The fact that Hugo deliberately cultivated a Mephistophelian act was only exacerbated by the dim lighting in the windowless underground room that made his light brown eyes glow amber through the gloom. It cast his features into deep shadows, so that the length of his nose (something Rose had always teased him about when they were little and therefore had time for such nonsense) became Roman and hawkish. His dark robes, the grin that was so accommodating – too accommodating – you would soon realise. And yet people always came back. That was the real art of playing Mephistopheles: the seductive enticement of more.

Rose knew her brother was a good person. He was the kind of small child to rescue flies with a cup and piece of parchment and set them free at the bottom of the garden, rather than condemn them with the swish of a rolled up Daily Propher. And yes, his morals might be slightly on the grey side – but then, whose weren't these days? Her own talents included picking locks and intimidating stuck-up quidditch players with ego-complexes too large for a broom to take off with. After all, was ambition wrong? No, of course not!

Rose well remembered her own sorting, though many years had passed. Unlike much of her family, she hadn't wanted to go to Hogwarts, but the Victor Krum training school of quidditch in Morocco. This had always been a long shot, and was vetoed immediately by, well, everyone. So Rose had gone to Hogwarts with reasonably good grace, which was fortunate really, because otherwise she might never had met Scorpius, and then were would she be?

The hat had slipped over her eyes, only being held up by the tangle of ginger curls that had - Thanks-be-to-Merlin – faded to a much darker red over the years. She had jumped when a little voice had echoed around her head.

'Hm, a sound mind, plenty of determination and, my, such ambition! I have not seen such ambition in a great many years. Then where to put you? Slytherin would be the most obvious choice - but what is this?'

'I can't be in Slytherin, Mr Hat.' Rose thought firmly, as though telling a small child that poking a sleeping dragon was the best way to loose fingers.

'Slytherin would help you, they prize determination, stubbornness, ambition – things that you have in abundance.'

'Mr Hat, I simply cannot be in Slytherin. Their quidditch team is simply appalling. With the Gryffindor gene pool of the current generation, statistically they are the most certain choice.' Rose thought matter-of-factly. 'I simply will not threaten my career by playing with substandard players.'

'You are an interesting girl Miss Weasley, and stubborn to the point of arrogance', the hat responded.

'Can it not be argued', Rose returned, 'that courage is merely to the stubborn determination to see a goal through to the end?'

'A scholar too', the hat mused. Then: 'Very well – GRYFFINDOR!'

A roar of noise, and she was seated between Scorpius and a gangly boy with glasses who introduced himself as Keegan. Now, judging by the fact that Slytherin was at the bottom of the house tables, Rose thought she'd made a very good call.

…

'Ah Rosie', Hugo said now, looking up from his parchment. 'My favourite sister. I thought I might be seeing you.'

'I'm your only sister Hugo', Rose reminded him good-naturedly. 'And you're right of course about why I'm here, though I would like to know how you knew.'

'My informants stay anonymous', Hugo answered, 'Or I would soon find myself without informants at all.'

'In other words, Lily told you.' Rose laughed. 'And you were trying to make it sound more dramatic.'

'Something like that', he smiled, then pressed his fingertips together. 'Now, to business. I have a large shipment arriving in-' an ornate pocket watch was extracted from the robes, examined, and replaced, '-six and a half minutes.'

'I need three.'

'Very well. I thought that you should know that at the beginning of the year I sold a large shipment of listening charms to an anonymous buyer. I did not connect it to this competition until later however as my sources are, alas, not in the same league as those the ministry use.' He smiled ruefully.

'Give it time', Rose said absently. She mused a moment. 'You know nothing about the buyer at all? What about payment? You could track them using flash-memory recognition?'

'No can do. Only the goblin who minted the coins in the first place were there.'

'Curious.' Rose lent forwards, surveying her brother. Despite quidditch rivalry, the siblings both knew the rules: Family first. It was because of this rule that Rose felt safe enough to expound a theory.

'I'm questioning why they bought them from you. When I first found them I thought Rhoda Mantis had hidden them to gain extra Intel on the competition, but a ministry officiated scout would never come to you. The ministry has far more reputable means of getting what they want.'

'So you suspect someone at Hogwarts? A student?' Hugo surmised.

'Very few students could get through my wards. It is a conundrum.'

A moments silence and neither spoke, but both knew they were each wondering the same thing. Was Rose really as clever as she thought she was?

…

The Hogwarts Grounds

19oo hours

…

'I don't remember signing up for this', Erin puffed as the seven scarlet-clad members of the Gryffindor quidditch team jogged alongside the banks of the Black Lake, running parallel with the Forbidden Forest.

'It's a three kilometre warm up run', Rose answered. She alone wasn't breathing hard, or even sweating. She was running backwards as well, merrily bouncing over the tree roots and small stones that caused her team so many wobbles. 'You should be able to do this in your sleep!'

'At least it's only three kilometres', Scorpius murmured to Keegan who was running beside him. 'I wouldn't put it past our dear captain to enforce mandatory ten mile runs every morning!'

'I still might!' Rose joked, 'If you don't stop nattering.'

'The end is in sight', Lily crowed, as Rose cut away from the main path. 'But a lot more will die before we finally win-'

'Shut up Lily!' Erin groaned, and sank onto the frozen ground.

Finding the incriminating charms the previous evening seemed to have eased the tension within the team. Lily and Rose had awkwardly looked at each other, their feet, and each other again before deciding to stop being so silly and apologise. Since then, Scorpius, too, had reverted back to his usual affectionate self, sniggering at her jokes and impassioned speeches about quidditch, slinging an arm around her shoulders as she lent into him. They'd spent last night in the comfortable chairs by the fire, playing exploding snap and watching the first flakes of snow begin to fall.

Though Scorpius might have felt that things were back to normal between them, Rose did not. But she valued their friendship far too much to risk scaring him off again by asking what had been wrong. It seemed almost shameful, not to mention weak, to admit how her heart raced with every distracted touch. Instead, she stored these secrets away, and focused on better, more important things instead, like quidditch.

She had come across the clearing on one her early morning runs, found it reasonably enclosed and, best of all, surrounded by tall spruces. It had proved virtually in-discoverable, unless you had nothing better to do with your time than hike for miles through uneven terrain.

Despite their good-humoured groans, the team flew better than they had in weeks that night. It was as though the threat of external enemies had brought their own arguments into perspective and proved that they were mole-holes, and not the mountains once thought. Still, Rose was mindful of Lily's words the night before, and decided to not give homework that night, something which reduced her teammates to a shocked silence.

As they returned, Rose and Scorpius carrying the heavy trunk containing, and in two cases, restraining, the balls, Rose caught a glimpse of movement through the trees. After sending the others onwards towards the school, and more importantly the showers, she and Scorpius set the trunk down and went to examine the source of the disturbance.

It turned out to be Findley, a large, gently squirming sack slung over one shoulder.

'Hullo', he said. 'What are you doing here?'

Rose smiled at him, and Scorpius managed a brief grimace of greeting.

'Training.' She answered. 'Endurance, stamina, that sort of thing.'

'I see.' He replied. 'Look what I've got here.'

Rose stepped forwards.

Within the sack was a large black egg, about the size of a quaffle. All over the smooth surface were raised silvery-blue veins which writhed across the surface like river snakes. The egg itself rocked backwards and forwards, despite the confines of the sack. It seemed to tremble, then fell still.

'But that's a dragon egg!' Rose gasped. 'Hagrid's taught us all about them, they're really rare in this part of the world.'

'This one is', Findley grinned. 'It's a Swedish Snort-Snout, and they're not indigenous to this part of Europe at all.'

'I wonder how it got here', Rose breathed. She reached forwards, then froze. 'Can I?' She asked, and Findley nodded.

The egg was heavier than she had anticipated, and was smoother than silk against her skin. She nestled it against her chest, feeling the unborn dragon's fluttering heartbeat vibrating through the shell into her hands.

'It's near hatching', Findley said. 'A few more days, that's all.'

'Don't the mothers usually breathe fire on their eggs to encourage them to hatch?' Scorpius asked. 'How has it come to be here in the forest?'

'You're right.' Findley said, though Rose noticed he spoke more to her, than to Scorpius. For some reason, she found this annoying. 'But obviously we would know if a full-sized Short-Snout was living in the forest. I expect another creature found the egg and raised it as part of their brood, then abandoned it when it didn't hatch immediately. I think it was most likely left behind the last time a nesting female was at Hogwarts, when your parents were at school here.'

He gestured for \rose to place the egg back into the sack, but she hesitated, suddenly not wanting to let the fluttering heartbeat go.

'What will happen to it?' She queried.

'I'll contact the ministry, and they'll send a team along to export this little guy to the sanctuary in Romania.'

'Isn't that where your uncle works Rosie?' Scorpius asked, and she nodded.

'I'll have to write to Uncle Charlie, get him to keep me updated.'

Findley again gestured to the sack, but Rose turned to Scorpius.

'Do you want to hold it?'

He nodded, and she gently dropped the egg into his arms.

'Imagine if we played quidditch on dragons!' Rose whispered to Scorpius who chuckled.

'You're lethal enough in the air, my dear!'

They stared at the egg for a few moments more, then unwillingly gave it back to Findley, who carefully placed it back into the sack. Then they picked up the trunk and began to jog back across the grounds towards to castle.

Behind them, Findley gave a low chuckle, amused at the lengths Rose Weasley was willing to go to win.

Sorry this is twenty-fours late! I can only apologise, and hope this makes up for the wait!

What did you think?

Is Rose finally getting the message? I certainly hope so, homework as well as training – I ask you!

As for you guys who were questioning the whole Rose/Scorpius or Rose/Findley dynamic, I hope this gives you your answers, albeit in a subtle way!

Thanks to all the wonderful guest reviewers who I can't thank directly – You guys rock!

Review!

Love and hugs

A.A.A.