"Hello, Grandmother," Scorpius greeted, his right hand in mine and the other on the door pushing it open. "Rosie," He turned to me and said quietly. "I can hear you thinking."

"Yeah, Scorpie," I muttered. "Red bra, red bra."

My stress was reaching maximum levels.

"What was that, Dinky?" A shadow in the centre of the dark room asked. Great, to top it all off, I sounded like a house elf. No offence to Dinky.

Scorpius chuckled despite our current situation.

"No, Grandmother, it's the friend I've been telling you about." Scorpius led me deeper into the shadowed room. The air was stale but almost covered up completely with flowery perfume. The perfume smelt expensive but not as expensive and skunk-like as the fancy French stuff that polluted the rest of the house.

Scorpius turned on a lamp on a small table at the end of the couch opposite his grandmother. "You shouldn't be sitting in the dark."

The woman's face was lit up. She squinted at the sudden light, her wrinkled face crumpling.

"You sound like Lucius. Always telling me what to do, how to act." Her eyes were suddenly on me. "Scorp, you didn't warn me we were having company. I don't have my proper clothes on or my jewel-" She broke off to cough.

"Rosie doesn't care, do you?" Scorpius pulled me down on the opposite sofa beside him. I was suddenly aware I was staring. That was probably a subtle 'cop on' from Scorpius. Well, we rarely got to meet new people together, especially not relatives.

I flushed, "No, I don't. It's nice to finally meet you." Awake. "Scorpius talks about you all the time."

Scorpius' grandmother didn't offer up a smile to that just a, "No, he doesn't."

Scorpius shrugged, "It's true."

"Tell me, Draco,-"

"Scorpius, Grandmother." Scorpius chimed in.

"Why is your 'friend' a girl? Or am I hearing wrong? Are you just an unnaturally high pitched boy? What's your surname girl?" Scorpius' grandmother was now peering at me or the space above me. Her sight must have been nearly gone.

I shifted uncomfortably. Maybe in the 1800s, 'Weasley' would've been okay to say but I didn't think her memory was that bad or she was that old.

"Travers." Scorpius offered up.

"That line's dead." Granny Malfoy sniped. "If she is your 'friend' she should be able to speak for herself."

"Grandmother," Scorpius said gently. "Everyone thought the Travers line had died out but they were actually in hiding."

"In Europe," I added helpfully.

"With the vampires."

I kicked Scorpius under the coffee table.

"Half-breeds," Narcissa snapped.

"Not her." Scorpius wrapped his arm around me. "Completely and utterly pureblood."

"When are you to marry?"

Scorpius grabbed a book from the side table. "We're friends. Did you want me to read to you?"

Narcissa waved him off with one bejewelled finger. "Oh, this is much more interesting. The most interesting thing to have happened in a while, Draco. You see, Astoria-"

"Scorpius," he pointed to himself. "Rosie." He pointed to me.

It didn't make a difference.

"Don't interrupt me. What was I saying?" Narcissa smoothened out her dark green dress.

Scorpius waved the paperback, "Don't you want to find out who Lucy chooses. You've been waiting all Easter for this."

"It's clearly Darren. He comes from a good, pure family and has money. Otherwise, the girl is stupid."

"But she didn't kiss Darren, she kissed Chad," Scorpius argued. I grinned up at him. What a romantic.

"Imperius curse?" Narcissa suggested then sadly she added. "Lucius…" she looked down at her lap. My heart filled with pity even though these were 'bad' people. "Lucius was skilled…"

"Okay, Grandmother," Scorpius jumped in. He flicked opened the book. "Rosie can't wait to be blown away by my mad reading skills."

Narcissa was still looking down. She was swaying a little in her spot now.

"It's easy to follow," he told me, putting his free hand on my thigh. I bit my lip and said nothing, some moments were meant to be appreciated. I set my head on his chest. The book in his hands was yellow with age and torn at the binding. All the pages looked about one tug from falling out. "'Chapter 7- The Secret.'"

How fitting.

I glanced at Scorpius' grandmother. I was worried she would start glaring at me for being so improper with my 'friend' but she was leaning back now. Her eyes were shut in meditation, all her focus on Scorpius' voice.

I didn't care about how 'mint' smelling the farm Lucy lived on smelt and I really didn't care how up his own ass Darren was. Give me a solid answer to what happened to the red bra and I'll scream at Dinky and Narcissa I'm half Weasley or half the muggle Granger family.

I suppose you can't track the owner of the bra down by the size or the Aurors would recognise it was mine- okay, Rose, time to stop you're going into the realm of crazy.

The bra didn't have anything to do with me if you took a step back. Where it was located was the problem. Scorpius' room. Someone's room is quite an intimate space, completely different from a laundry room.

It was Scorpius who had to worry. Scorpius had called Dinky from downstairs and asked him, point-blank, the who, what, when, how about the bra. Dinky confirmed the start of our fears: It wasn't there before the raids but it was there afterwards. Dinky left it on the desk. The innocent elf thought nothing of it. "It's underwear, isn't it?" Dinky shrugged, no big deal like it was another one of Scorpius' shirts.

"'Lucy's hair matched the golden sun… And they most certainly didn't go up into the barn attic.'" Scorpius added, awkwardly flipping two or three pages forward in the book. I giggled. He started rubbing soothing circles with his thumb on my inner thigh.

"Smart girl," Narcissa responded to the line Scorpius added to avoid the dirt. "Are you listening to this, Astoria?" Her eyes were still closed. "Lucy wears proper clothes and doesn't go anywhere alone with men. You ought to burn that blue dress you're wearing. The neckline is distasteful. Draco, darling, I don't know how you could accept something you would find in Knockturn Alley."

I looked down. I had changed into pyjama bottoms and one of Scorpius' t-shirts I had picked out from his drawers. He approved. But that didn't mean I wasn't guilty of 'being alone with men' and more. I had changed in front of Scorpius again, quickly and almost catching on fire every time he looked at me- not my face.

"I'll tell father you said that," Scorpius said unbothered, scanning another page for any hint of dirt.

"Don't bother Lucius with such nonsense. Simply let me organise a date with that Parkinson girl. She has a ladylike laugh. Astoria, must you laugh with your mouth open?"

"Is there any other way?" I got carried away even though Scorpius' mom wasn't my favourite person in the world.

"No," Narcissa said firmly.

"Scorpius and Rose... ie." Scorpius reminded her almost slipping up. Rosie Travers wasn't close enough to Rose Weasley to cause trouble. "Anyway, Lucy and Darren are walking away from each now-"

"Good!"

"'He strolled to the opposite side of the yard, the gravel crunching under his feet. Lucy's hair- messy to a sensible degree- was blowing in the wind. He thought he could smell the flowery shampoo from her hair in the wind…'"