Some of you won't like the way I handle this part of the story. If you don't, then ignore it, pretend this part doesn't exist. But I do hope that the majority of you will like it.

Going back to school after such a great Christmas break wasn't easy, but it had to be done.

As she unpacked her bag, Rose chuckled when she found inside the book Ron had been supposed to read all along. It had been a while and she had hoped he'd read it, even late. He had placed on top of it a small note saying "Read the first chapter 5 times, couldn't finish the second one. Sorry, not my thing."

He must have snuck into her room to put it into her bag without her seeing it, or even asked Ginny to do it.

Well, she couldn't force him, but she'd have to find another way to get him to grow up and admit his feelings for Hermione, unless her friend started to develop feelings for someone else, like maybe Draco, as it often happened in people in their position. At least he tried. If he had truly read the first chapter 5 times, then he had given it a true try.

It was mid afternoon and everyone was busy enjoying the last afternoon of vacation before class started again the next morning. She was looking for the parchment in which she had written all of her magical socks idea, to give to Fred. It had fallen at the bottom of her trunk and, next to it, she found a folded edition of the Daily Prophet, the one where her kidnapper spoke up and said everything that had happened. She had kept it to read at a later date, she hadn't been ready back then, but now, she figured that she'd never be completely ready and that if she didn't ready it now, she'd probably never read it.

Rose took it with her along with the parchment she wanted to give her boyfriend. She found him on one of the sofa's in front of the fireplace, his brother on the armchair right next to him and he had kept a place for her right next to him. He smiled when he saw her, as he always did, and happily took her scroll, eager to look over it with George.

"Are you okay, love?" He asked her, concerned at how serious she looked.

"Yes, I just need to do something I kept pushing back." She shook her head, showing her what she was going to read.

"I'm here for you." He told her and, as she started to read, he looked around the room, making sure Harry wasn't far in case she needed her brother.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were catching up on their History of Magic homework. Well, it looked like Hermione was helping Ron finish his while Harry managed to do his own by himself. Apparently, Rose's presence in his life had helped him do his class work better and without much help. Discreetly, Fred sent small sparkles to get Harry's attention without Rose finding out and, once Harry looked at him, he pointed to what she was reading. Harry frowned but nodded, keeping an eye on his twin sister to be able to get to her if she needed him.

Rose took a deep breath in before she started reading.

The beginning wasn't very interesting, Jenny was just saying how much she loved James and why she took the opportunity to steal one of his babies, that since Lily Potter was having troubles delivering, it was her only chance to ever be able to play pretend. She listed in great details the things she love about James Potter and the stories she had prepared in case someone asked where the baby's father was. She added that since Voldemort had been responsible for the death of the closest members of her family, she didn't see the need to stay in line anymore. She described how she did it, which spells and curses she used and how she traveled to the other side of the country with her new child to be sure they'd never be discovered.

After that, it became more interesting for Rose.

"At the question, 'Did you love the child?', Miss Collins' response was: No, not really. I thought I would. I did care about her at first, like one cares about a kitten taken in, and I took care of her, I did my best, but the more time passed, the less I was able to care about her. She was supposed to help me pretend James had loved me, but she looked nothing like him. Her hair were red, like Lily's, and even if she had his brown eyes, it wasn't enough for me to forget, every time I looked at her, that he had chosen Lily Evans over me. It took me a few years but I eventually realized that I hadn't taken James' child but Lily's. That's what I regret, I should have taken the boy."

Reading this was hard, but Rose didn't take it too badly, she knew about this already. She kept reading.

"I realised what a mistake I had done one day, she was 7 or 8 I think, I don't remember, I had stopped celebrating her birthdays when she turned 5. Anyway, we were at the supermarket, a muggle place to buy groceries, and a woman asked me if I was her babysitter or her aunt or if I had adopted the girl, because I didn't look like her. I already didn't love her, she was a thorn on my side, nothing more. I couldn't abandon her, someone could discover the truth about her and then they'd chase me, I'd go to jail, or worst. I couldn't have that. We started by moving to France, further away from anything Potter, and I decided that if she couldn't help me pretend her father had loved me, she'd be useful in another way. I started getting her to do the cleaning, the cooking, gardening... Anything I didn't feel like doing, really. I grew to hate her so much, I couldn't help but bully her, call her mean names, hurt her even sometimes. I definitely regretted taking her. I saw a picture of her brother once in Witch Weekly, taken in a supermarket without his guardians noticing and I couldn't help but regret my choice. I should have taken him. He would have been better. She was useless."

Rose couldn't keep the tears from falling at that moment.

"Rose? Maybe you shouldn't read that... It's rubbish anyway, none of what she says counts..." Fred tried to argue with his girlfriend, looking at her with concern.

"I need to... I need to know." Rose whispered and he nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

After that, Jenny described the things she used to say to Rose, how good the girl was in school and how it only reminded her that Lilly had good grades and was well behaved as well. She explained that as soon as she realized that the girl, that she called by her full name all the time to remind herself why she hated her, was happy at Beaubaton, she moved to Bulgaria and had her transferred to another school. Then she explained what happened when she saw Dumbledore on her doorstep and Rose stopped reading. The rest was just interviews of people Jenny Collins had worked for, who had no idea how deranged the mother was.

"Earlier, you compared her to a kitten taken in. Some people drown unwanted kitten. Did you ever think of just killing her off? Miss Collins replied: I did, and I often fantasized about the different ways I could do it but I wasn't a good enough potion maker to poison her, I wasn't wealthy enough to buy a good poison and I didn't want to end up going to jail for her, she wasn't worth it. She was so well behaved, so loved by the people around us, no matter how hard I tried to make her look bad, people would have noticed her death. I often thought of making her trip as we crossed a bridge, making her fall in water, but there was never an opportunity where I wouldn't have been noticed and I'm not good enough at enchantments, I wouldn't have been able to erase people's minds. I imagined her being run over by a truck (a large and heavy muggle transportation vehicle), a rock falling over her head the time I had her get the groceries on her own and forced her to take a street where they were destroying buildings... I definitely thought about it a lot, I just never found the guts to act on it on my own and she's always been lucky enough to escape the accidents she could have had."

This was a shock to Rose, a true shock. Never had she thought it had gone this far, that the one she had tried to please for so long would think about killing her.

"Rosie? Are you okay?" Harry asked her.

While she was reading, Fred had gotten his attention and showed him his sister, crying over THE article Harry had hoped she'd never fully read.

If she had read only the headlines and the beginning of the article, the summaries, she'd have been fine, but the details, the smaller parts, hidden further in the article, he knew would have hurt her, like the part where Jenny Collins stated that Rose Lily Potter was 'nothing but a waste that shouldn't have existed in the first place'.

"I knew all of this already, but seeing it, written like this... Knowing that everyone has read it... It hurts." Rose admitted.

"Nobody thinks like she does, Rosie, I assure you." Harry told her while Neville, who hadn't been far, nodded his agreement.

"I did. For so long I cared about her affection, her love, her approval... It was all in vain... It was all pointless." Rose shook her head.

Fred, not sure of what he needed to say, just wrapped his arm a bit tighter around her.

"Do you want me to get Sirius? Or Remus? Would it help to speak with them?" Harry asked her.

"I don't know... I... I think I need to confront her... To speak with her." Rose declared, in a tone that showed that she was afraid of her own words.

"What?" Fred asked, surprised and definitely doubting it was a good idea.

He hated the idea that Rose could speak to that woman who was able to hurt her so much, even with just her words.

"I need it, I think this is what I need to put her behind me, to move on." Rose insisted.

"Then you should speak to Sirius and Remus about it, they'll organise it. Dumbledore did offer to organize it for you this summer. They'll do it." Harry told her, understanding that there was nothing that could convince her otherwise.

"Smiling through the tears, Rose took her mirror out to ask Remus if he could organize it for her. Of course he tried to make her change her mind, he checked if she was sure of herself, but when it was obvious that she was, he agreed to organize it for her.

I hope you liked it anyway.

Review please?

Lorelei Candice Black