Chapter 17

A/N: Hello everyone. I'm so sorry this has taken so much time. I'm thinking I might change my updating schedule to once a month (and don't hate me if I can't stick to it)! Consider this a Halloween gift (that talks about Christmas). I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. All rights belong to JKR.

Happy Reading!

Rose had very easily avoided Malfoy for the next day or two and spent the time she would normally have spent taunting him was instead spent with Thomas, who was glad to see her in a context rather different from dancing.

A quiet study session during their free hour on Friday was used to do some holiday homework (because unlike some of her other cousins, rushing through a fifteen inch essay on partial transfiguration was not the ideal way to end her holidays) and possibly a little kissing. They had exchanged gifts for Christmas. Rose had gotten him some sweets, after a very long debate with Lizzie on what to get one's boyfriend. She had settled on sweets mainly because it had only been a little more than a week that they had truly been together and she felt much more comfortable with her easy go-everywhere sweets (also, it was the perfect time to see if he liked lemon fizzes, because Rose adored those and had to make him understand some way or another that as her boyfriend, he had better get her some of those soon). Thomas had given her a very pretty quill, even though she wasn't sure she was ever going to use it, because quills and ink just drove her crazy. She loved her simple biro pens.

Packing had been efficient, Lizzie and Rose had traded gifts (elaborate hair ties for Lizzie, and a promise of something for Rose which Lizzie insisted was 'better if she waited till the curse had worn off' and which Rose strongly suspected was something she was probably never going to wear of her volition but Lizzie was going to force her into at her next date). Lizzie had tried to get Rose to confess she had danced with Malfoy for other reasons that just proving him wrong, but had been unsuccessful. The trip on the Hogwarts Express had been uneventful apart from some very off-key singing of Christmas carols.

When the train had finally arrived, Rose had already donned some comfortable (shapeless, according to Lizzie) jeans and last year's Christmas jumper, which once upon a time been a rather lovely blue but was now an absolutely awful. She waved Lizzie and Thomas goodbye as they were slowly let out of platform 9¾ and found Hugo with his friends. She dragged him away and quickly found their father who was waving at them a couple of meters away with Uncle Harry.

"Rose! Hugo!"

They walked over to him and Rose gave him a hug.

"Hi Dad!"

"Rosie! I heard how you squashed the Slytherins."

"Yeah, that was fabulous." Especially what had happened afterwards; also known as the Malfoy Hair Incident. This still brought a smile to her face.

"But what happened to your clothes?" Her father asked.

"Long short story; Malfoy is a git."

"Well, of course," he said and she saw Harry give a very obvious eye-roll. Good thing Mum wasn't here or she would be raving about how prejudice was bad and all that and how her husband should definitely not be encouraging it. Speaking of Mum, where was she?

"Dad, where's Mum?"

"She won't be able to join us until Christmas Eve. The ministry has had a lot on their hands at the moment."

Rose grimaced a little. It was difficult having her mother less around during the holidays ever since she had been elected. Rose missed her a lot, as though she had gotten her mother's brains, she had her father's temper, and Hermione was one of the only people who helped her see reason. She was about to launch on a very detailed description of the Slytherin/Gryffindor game, but was unfortunately cut off by a less than welcome apparition.

"Weasley." He stated. Damn it. He hadn't been lying. This hadn't just been a very crafty illusion. Malfoy was standing in front of her, dressed in a neat shirt and straight pants (seriously, did the guy have to get dressed like he was going to a funeral all the time? Surely it wouldn't kill him to wear jeans and a sweatshirt from time to time), and a heavy suitcase at his arm with an owl's cage carefully strapped to it. The owl cooed.

She rolled her eyes. "You know, if you insist on calling me Weasley, it's going to start to get confusing because there are going to be a lot of Weasleys."

He didn't answer and Rose took it for a good sign and chose to ignore him. Maybe if she didn't acknowledge him it would still be an okay holiday. Roxanne and Louis quickly joined them all and they piled into the two cars Harry and Dad had brought; all over excited to get to the Burrow. Rose cleverly made sure her father and her were not in the same car as Malfoy. It was probably not a good situation, because her father often confused Malfoy elder and Malfoy. Having never met Draco Malfoy, all Rose knew about him were the stories she had heard as a child about her parents' school years (mainly told by Ron, because Hermione always seemed to want to defend everyone).

The ride to the Burrow was uneventful (except if you counted the moment where her father used a confundus charm on a passing police officer who seemed very interested in how old the tires were). They tumbled out of the cars and ran into the kitchen where Grandma Weasley smothered them all into a hug.

"Oh my Merlin! You've grown Louis, and wash your hands for goodness' sake! Roxanne you're becoming such a pretty young lady but tie up your hair. Is that some makeup is see Lily Luna. Go take it off! Hugo, why is your shirt untucked? Oh and surely you're growing a beard now. Rosie darling, what happened to your clothes?" She babbled at them.

Malfoy oddly shook her hand and said something along the lines of: "How do you do Mrs Weasley?"

But she laughed and responded: "Scorpius, there are far too many Mrs Weasleys here for you to call me that. Really, you must call me Grandma Weasley."

He looked uncomfortable. The way Malfoy was behaving was slightly puzzling Rose. Of course, she knew the way he acted around teachers and all that, but seeing him like this around her family was strange. She was so used to his taunts and tricks that anything remotely polite and conform to basic social etiquette seemed… unnatural. She quickly shook him off, reminding herself that the holiday was not meant to be spent thinking about Malfoy (or only when he wasn't there at least, lemongrass was dangerous, remember).

The bunch was greeted by the rest of the members of the family and Rose was pleased to see her cousins, aunts and uncles who were present. Dinner was absolutely hectic as the dinner table in the Kitchen only had enough space for 15 people (and that was a very tight fit). So, given that they were 16 so far, the missing members coming the next day for actual Christmas, it was far too many people. And since it was winter, they couldn't really put the table outside like they did in summer, so everyone was crammed inside and fed whatever was on hand; which basically meant a mix of different cakes and soup for everyone.

The only sit-down meal Grandma Weasley insisted upon now these days was Christmas lunch.; the only thing about these meals were that she really should have made places, because it generally ended up with two people who had a couple of things to discuss very vocally (read: argue) who were begrudgingly sat next to one another if they didn't pay attention. It was very well to have a Christmas without people in tears (who had generally made up by New Year's) or an epidemic of influenza. But despite all that, it was still a lot of fun.

Rose used up this time to catch up with her cousin Lucy Weasley (and take her mind of Scorpius Malfoy). Lucy was a real sweet-heart, an absolute angel and the absolute favourite of every adult around who would regularly say: "Why can't you be like Lucy?" Of course, no one held that against her, because everyone loved her. Plus, the bonus was that Lucy had not inherited the Weasley temper and probably wouldn't pry into subjects that made her uncomfortable, which made it a safe bet that the conversation was going to go pleasantly.

Lucy, by four years her elder, was preparing to become a teacher and hoped to open a school for magical children who couldn't handle home-schooling. She was super invested into her project, and it was clear it was the right job for her when one saw her with children. She was just so sweet and understanding.

"So, how's the project going?"

"Oh, thank you for asking! It's going rather wonderfully. I've managed to convince a couple of friends to help me found the school and we're having regular meetings about the logistics of the project."

"Dom wasn't up for it, then?" Dominique Weasley was the same age as Lucy and had been her best friend from the day their cribs were first placed next to one another's.

Lucy laughed, "Oh no! You know Dominique. She couldn't possibly stay settled long enough for such a job as this. She needs to travel the world." That was true, Dom was actually in Japan right now and only coming tomorrow, "but she promised if she met anyone rich she'd convinced to give them funding."

"Money is a problem?" Rose asked taking a sip of soup on one of the multiple sofas in the living-room.

"Yeah, Gringotts is really not cool with loans," she paused, "which of course I understand, given our history with goblins. Frankly if I were in their place, I wouldn't loan anything to us either." Oh bless Lucy. She was always one to defend everyone. See, if that had been Rose, she would have kicked down the door and demanded they give her a loan. "But I've been thinking about going around the pure-blood families."

Rose nearly choked on her soup. "The pure-bloods?"

Lucy laughed at her. "Yes, Rose. Surely you've heard the concept. Most of the members of this family are purebloods."

"I'm not," Rose retorted.

"Well, if you marry a pureblood, your kids won't be."

"Ha, that will never happen," Rose snorted.

"Never say never," she suggested softly.

"Anyway, the aristocratic purebloods?"

"Yes, I think they might be interested in educating their children in a school because governesses are growing scarcer and scarcer in our society. I was thinking of talking to the Parkinsons, the Greengrasses, the Malfoys-"

This time Rose actually spit out her soup, spraying an unfortunate Lily who was sitting at her legs, apparently engrossed in a game of Exploding snap Uncle Fred, Roxanne, Aunt Ginny and she were playing. "Malfoy?" she practically screeched.

"No need to sound so shocked. They're actually investing quite a bit recently so there's a fair chance they'll consider my project."

"Oh please. Malfoy? Children?" Rose laughed. "No, just no."

And that's of course when her evening started to go bad. Can you guess why? Yep, that's right. Malfoy decided to show his ugly (you mean handsome, corrected Irrational. Umm, did Rose ask for it's opinion? No. So shut up) face.

"I heard my name."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Wow, well done Malfoy. We may have said your name. Doesn't mean you need to come and interrupt our conversation."

She saw him prepare to say something ironic but Lucy interrupted: "Oh, no Scorpius, you're not interrupting at all. Quite on the contrary, if you could come and talk." Oh curse Lucy. Why did she have to be so sweet and kind all the time? Now here was Malfoy, ready to ruin their conversation. Hopefully she could steer the subject away from Malfoy so that he would get bored and leave.

"What was the conversation about?"

"None of-" Rose started but was interrupted.

"Well, I have this project of opening a school for magical children who couldn't be able to be homeschooled."

"Wow, that's a great project." Malfoy replied enthusiastically. Wow. What a faker. He could really lie. That was some really good acting if he could manage to have that much of a look of genuine interest. She could definitely add 'liar' to the list of undesirable faults Malfoy has. But are you sure he's not being genuine? whispered Rational. That made Rose splutter slightly (a lot of weird things were going on in her mind) and much against her own will she decided not to add 'liar' to the list. Clearly Rational and Irrational were ganging up on her, trying to make her appreciate Malfoy. You know, like when those little shoulder angel and devil decide that they have the same purpose and it gets scary? Yeah, that was about it. But Rose was going to prove them wrong.

"It doesn't concern-" Rose tried again; but once again, Lucy in all her sweetness and kindness and general goodness was engrossed in the conversation.

"I'm glad you think so. I was wondering if perhaps your father would be interested in investing in it."

"I'm probably going to join him in business when I graduate so I can probably put in a good word for your whole school."

Rose snorted. Malfoy being genuinely kind and doing that? As if. "Not planning on doing any studies Malfoy?"

Malfoy turned back to face her. "As a matter of fact, I am. But Father insists on gradually giving me more responsibilities on the Malfoy holdings so that I can eventually take over from him."

Rose was about to reply something but Lucy cut in. "Wow! That's great! Are you interested in education and children?"

Ha. Right. Malfoy and children was not a good combination if you asked her. The kids he tutored were probably scared stiff of him. And really, what sort of a role model was he anyway? Someone much more suited for the job was Thomas if you asked her. That's right, her boyfriend was awesome with kids, she was sure of it. She couldn't wait to hear his response, but unfortunately was cut off short by a cry from the kitchen: "Rose! Come wash the dishes!"

"Ugh, Grandma!"

"Don't argue young lady!" Rose begrudgingly got up and left her cousin and Malfoy in deep conversation. Oh damn Malfoy for stealing all of Lucy's attention. Even if acted a teeny tiny bit nice, he still managed to ruin everything.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed Christmas. It's about to get hectic. I might add that Character Age list I promised some chapters back to the next chapter. Please tell me what you thought, reviews are to the muse what triple chocolate chip cookies are to the soul. Have a lovely day/evening/afternoon and stay safe out there!

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