"All every boy wants, is a girl to protect from dragons." -Atticus
"Do you think your parents will buy you a dragon if you asked them?" said Rose randomly.
Draco looked at his cousin weirdly, "What do you want?"
"Nothing, honest." Rose replied with a sweet honeyed smile. "I was just wondering. You have white peacocks in your lawn, but won't dragons be more appropriate? It could be like a tribute to you."
"What did you do?" asked Draco Malfoy in reply, looking at the younger girl with narrowed eyes.
Rose looked at him with guilt ridden eyes, "Nothing terrible, but-"
"-What. Did. You. Do?" repeated Draco Malfoy slowly, pausing at each word.
Rose looked at his now reddening pale face for a few seconds before letting out extremely nervous laughs, "Remember when we visited Draconus Tribe?"
"How could I forget? I almost died." Said Draco dryly.
"Yes, that." Rose said with a nervous smile. " ." she said hurriedly.
Unfortunate for her, Draco did understand what she had said and he was definitely mad.
"You WHAT!?" exclaimed Draco, before running a hand through his previously neatly styled platinum coloured hair. "Rose, there is a reason that Wizards do not keep dragons as pets! Are you crazy? What were you thinking?"
"I thought it was cute." Mumbled Rose.
"Cute? Cute!" said Draco with a scoff. "Puppies are cute. Babies are cute. Dragons, fire breathing dragons are not cute. What's next? Are you going to adopt a hippogriff because you think they are cute?"
Rose's eyes lit up, "Can I?"
"NO!" exclaimed Draco before letting out a tired sigh, "Lead me to it. I want to see it."
"Him." Corrected Rose. "And he has a name. It's Snuffles."
Draco cocked an eyebrow, "You named a large, fire breathing dragon with very sharp claws, that the Ministry classifies as XXXX creature and that can kill you in a second, Snuffles?"
"Of course." Replied Rose happily.
Draco sighed, "Only you, Rose. Only you." He said before adding, "And perhaps Hagrid."
Before Rose could open her mouth to ask who was Hagrid, Draco was already heading to her room.
"You're an idiot." Came the drawling voice of Draco Malfoy as he stood in front of Rose's bedroom door a few minutes later.
"Is that right?" asked Rose Potter from beside him. "And what exactly have you accomplished in your life time that makes you Einstein?"
Draco frowned his eyebrows in confusion, "Who's Einstein?"
Rose looked a little shocked that somebody didn't recognise the name before realising who she was talking to and replied, "A muggle scientist. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He is most famous for his Theory of Relativity."
Draco looked even more confused, "The theory of what?" and upon seeing Rose's eyes light up and face looking so eager to explain, he quickly added a "I don't want to know."
Rose pouted cutely at his reply, and Draco was very tempted to let her explain.
However, his mind pulled out the memory of the almost four hour long lecture that he was presented with when he had asked why did a rainbow occur, and suddenly, the pout wasn't cute to him any more.
"Before I open this door, so you can see Snuffles," said Rose, ignoring the ungentlemanly snort let out by Draco upon hearing the dragon's name. "you should know that he gets a little freaked out, so just act natural, okay?"
"Rose, you have a DRAGON in your bedroom. For this kind of situation, the most natural thing would be to panic, so technically I can panic." Draco replied.
"No, that is not what I meant! Just act like it's a normal day." She suggested.
"Thanks to you, my 'normal days' of late consist of a ton of panic."
"Would you just cooperate?"
"When a person is panicking, they are not apt to cooperate very well."
Rose rolled her eyes at his reply before opening the door. She headed straight for her closet and opened it before making baby noises, "Who's my pretty Snuffles? You're my pretty Snuffles. Yes, you are. You are so cute I could eat you up."
"I think 'Snuffles' would eat you up first, quite literally." Draco commented.
Rose shot him a glare.
"Let's go." Said Draco. "And bring Snuffles with you."
"Where? Why?" asked Rose, still cooing at the young dragon that was already half a foot large.
"To go to the Dark Lord, of course." Replied Draco. "I'm only responsible for your education. Your messes, however, are his head ache."
Lord Voldemort looked at Rose Potter cuddling a baby dragon and still glaring at the spot where her cousin was previously standing on before he quickly abandoned her.
"Rose, why?" he simply asked her.
He wished that he would have been more surprised upon hearing the fact that Rose had stolen a dragon and was secretly raising it in the Manor, but he had known her for quite sometime now, and she was the granddaughter of Charlus Potter, so it was bound to happen. He would have personally been more surprised, if something strange hadn't happened.
"Mum hated dogs, and I always wanted a pet." Rose replied simply, as she lovingly pet the dragon.
"You realise you cannot keep this thing, right?" Marvolo asked.
"Why not? It's cute."
"It's a dragon." He replied, like it explained everything. To anybody who was not Rose, Charlie Weasley or Hagrid, it definitely would have.
Rose shrugged. "So?"
"It can burn down the Manor." He said pointedly.
"Technically, it can't. Seeing as it's a Manor made of stone, I don't think fire is going to do much damage." She replied swiftly. "Besides look how cute he is! Are you hungry? I'm hungry. I wonder what we are having for lunch? I wish it's-"
"Rose."
"-French food. It's been a long time since I had French food. Although I wouldn't mind-"
"Rose."
"-Italian either. I love lasagna and pasta. Speaking of pasta, do you know what a law-breaking pasta is called?-"
"Rose."
"-An impasta! Isn't that hilarious? Janice is the one who told me that joke and-"
"ROSE." He said firmly, making the younger girl stop mid rant. "I am trying to have a serious conversation with you."
"And I am trying to subtly avoid it." She spoke.
He glared at her. She flinched before giving a nervous smile.
"Marvolo, I would like to introduce you to Snuffles. Snuffles, this is Marvolo. Marvolo is scarier than he looks. But personally, I'm not that afraid of him, and I don't think you should be either. I have had worse nightmares about failing AP Cal." She told the dragon with a breath taking, beautiful smile.
Lord Voldemort lifted a perfect eyebrow at her words, but did not say anything.
He gave a mental sigh before speaking, "How did I not know about it-"
"Him" She corrected.
"-sooner?" he finished.
Rose shrugged casually before petting the dragon once again, "It wasn't that difficult to hide him, actually."
"Please tell me how hiding a dragon was easy." He said leaning forward.
Rose shrugged once again before replying, "Nagini helped." as if that explained everything.
And strangely enough, it did.
Rose had been remarkably well behaved from the past three days. That should have been the first reason for him to suspect that she had done something.
"So..." came her melodic voice, effectively breaking his thoughts. "Can I keep him? I promise to feed, bathe, clean and play with him. I'll treat him properly, I promise. Please? Please? Pretty please?"
"Rose, dragons are classified as XXXX creatures for a reason." He said trying push some sense into her.
"So is Nagini, but you keep her anyway." She replied pointedly.
He couldn't argue with that, it was true.
"Please, Marvolo? Nagini sides with me. Dragons and snakes are reptiles; they can communicate with each other. Nagini can finally have a friend –who isn't two legged- to play with who won't end up as her lunch later." She said, trying to make him sway to her side by bringing up his beloved familiar. "Please Marvolo, please?"
Lord Voldemort sighed before looking at the pleading blonde beauty and the half foot tall dragon she was cuddling.
The things he did for his horcrux!
