Author's note: This chapter is told from Scorpius' perspective.


Dear Scorpius,

I miss you. I keep thinking about you and feeling extraordinarily guilty about it. Uncle Harry is missing, I should be sitting downstairs with everyone worrying not writing to you with a stupid grin on my face. I'm still at the Burrow because Mum and Dad are still constantly away. Dad thinks we're safer at the Burrow. Mum can't have a say because we have yet to see her for more than ten seconds. And James and Lily have disappeared. I'm worried about them. I'm seeing more of Potter. He is, as you can imagine, being a complete toxic waste of space.

Maybe… just… just maybe I was being dramatic. It's been a couple of weeks and the world hasn't exploded yet. Voldemort hasn't risen from the grave yet, as far as we know.

I don't think it has sunken in yet, any of it. Why do you keep asking about my dreams? Are you doing Professor Trelawney's dream reading? My dreams are okay, you were in my last one which was a nice break from blackness. We were in a broom cupboard, you were lacking a shirt… it was a nice dream. Dream, Scorpius, not reality, no more broom cupboards and stripping!

I know you've said it to me about ten times by now but can you write it again in your next letter: 'everything's going to be alright, Rosie, you're kissing thoughts aren't sending Harry Potter to an early grave.'

See you in two weeks.

Love,

Rose

Dear Rosie,

Everything's going to be alright, Rosie, your kissing thoughts aren't sending Harry Potter to an early grave.

There! I wrote it.

Here's some news you might like, Mother said I could invite you to dinner next Friday. I think she feels guilty that Father interrogated you. But she is also extremely grateful for the heads up about Harry Potter. Thanks again, Rosie, that raid could've gone worse if we didn't know what not to say.

I'm trying to get better at Defence. I'm pushing my magnificent brain to the limit. I know if you saw my amazing wand work you'd be all over me. Grandmother and I are on chapter twenty-five of Bella's Dream. All the female characters are so short they have to stand on their 'tip-toes' to do anything. That reminds me of you.

You need to stop feeling guilty. You can't do anything about it. We couldn't have done anything without ending up in an early grave ourselves.

I hope you come for dinner. Things at the manor are getting dry around here without you.

Love,

Scorpius

P.S Stop feeling guilty you can come to dinner without being selfish. And it's good to hear about your dreams especially those ones. Wink, wink.

Dear Scorpius,

Can Abby and Kenny come?

Love,

Rose

Dear Rose,

You really want to see my parents snap, don't you? I asked Mother- not Father, wasn't even going to chance my arm with that. She said not for dinner but on a 'playdate.' I then threw up and she added 'next summer.' Then I asked Father and he said the same. He's in no state to host 'parties' or more than one 'nuisance'.

Love,

Scorpius

Dear Scorpius,

Do I have to dress up? Like makeup, itchy tights, corset and heels?

Love,

Rose

Dear Rose,

No offence but my parents think half-bloods are incapable of that so if I were you I'd go for the casual look. KEEP EXPECTATIONS LOW.

Love,

Scorpius.

P.S I think you are pretty in whatever you wear.

Dear Scorpius,

I accept your invitation then.

Love,

Rosie

P.S I thought I was 'beautiful' no matter what I wear?

I stopped reading when I heard a knock at the door.

"Scorpius, may I come in?" Mother's voice came. Before I could reply the door was already open, Mother stepped in and examined the room. She tutted at the darkness before, with a wave of her wand, bringing the rest of the room life. I winced at the bright lights. "You are going to go blind if you keep reading in the dark."

I pointed to the lamp on my desk that was already on. "Light."

"A love letter?" Mother smirked, moving to my wardrobe. The hangers shrieked across the rail as she moved to the dress robe section. The section that hadn't been touched by me in over a year.

"Rose doesn't do love letters," I gave this personal piece of information to Mother because she was less likely to say something sarcastic and rude in response. "She does facts and general conversation." Only ten percent of her letters are actual material to lie in bed with but I left that part out.

"Has she accepted your invitation? She's drawing awfully close, Friday is tomorrow you should remind her."

"She's coming. She's just nervous."

Mother sighed. "Poor girl, did you see the quote her father gave to the Daily Prophet? It made the front page. Absolutely ghastly."

"I'm not allowed read it. Father's orders after last week." I copied her sigh.

Mother rolled her eyes. "We just don't want you reading anything with your name in it." Mother took out a set of dress robes and admired them in the mirror.

I leaned my face against my palm. I was scared to ask about the dress robes and I was set on avoiding the answer to Mother's sudden interest in them. A visit to the ministry? I swallowed. Could last week's front page, 'DEATH EATER FAMILIES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? ACTIVE AND ALIVE', cause that much of a stir?

That sounded like a question a naive Gryffindor would ask. The answer was a big fat yes.

Father threw it into the fireplace when he saw it. It was tied to Harry Potter theories. The wizard had yet to show up. And Rosie had yet to leave the Burrow. Even though she didn't pour it entirely into her letters I knew she was upset. Abby even wrote to me telling to get over there immediately and hug her.

"What did Ron Weasley say?"

Mother cleared her throat. "'I will look under every last toad stool until Harry is found. The wizarding community can't live without him. I have my suspicions…' It's making me and your father nervous- you are not to get nervous, leave that to us." She laid out the dress robes at the end of my bed, dusting them down with her hand. "Try these on. I have a feeling the trousers need an extra inch or two."

"Why?" I asked the dreaded question.

Mother pressed her lips together. "You want to look nice for your girlfriend, don't you?"
The corners of my mouth twitched. "Rose will laugh at me."

"Might do her some good then." Mother said, still not giving in.

"This is just a normal dinner," I said. "It's not like I haven't had dinner with her before…" I trailed off. I was thinking of the Great Hall. It was easy to forget about the great 10 foot divide between us when I constantly stared at her.

"Does," Mother said gently. She walked over to me and put a hand over mine, reassuring, comforting actions. She was about to say something sensitive. Great just what this night needed. "Rose know about your boggart or the Pollycolly?"

I frowned. "Mother, I don't want to talk about that."
Mother squeezed my hand. "But we are talking about your girlfriend. It's a yes or no question. Honestly, Scorpius, I'm your Mother, not a stranger."

I shut my eyes. "Kind of… she knows about my boggart in Defence but not at home. She doesn't need to know about the Pollycolly. She knows about the nightmares though. She's very nice about it."
"That's good."
"Not really. It's kind of sickening. I don't know why." I shrugged. "She's not going to find out anytime soon anyway."
"So much like your Father. I swear to Merlin sometimes I'm seeing double." She shook her head.

I bit back a retort. It wasn't going to get me anywhere with Mother.

"Mother, can you be nice to Rose tomorrow?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I was the one who proposed the idea in the first place." Mother moved back to the dress robes.

"But Father-"
"Ask him yourself. He's fonder of you than he is of me these days."

I sighed.

"Don't sigh. I taught you better than that. Use your words."
"Father only wants to talk to me about the boggart." I didn't want to cry in front of him, I didn't want to tell him about the dreams or what I kept seeing in the mirror. Grandfather, father and son looked too alike.

"That's because he cares."

I gave her a look.

"And talking it through is good for you." Mother added. "If you talk to him, maybe he could help you with the hexes and curses you are so suddenly interested in. He's better at it than I am unless you want to learn Transfiguration- we could always learn that."

"I hate Transfiguration."

"Keep that in mind then." Mother said. "And if you are practising with your father, I might be more inclined to lend you my wand."

Mother had me there.

"And I will give you my wand for a half an hour if you try on these robes."

I stood up feeling like I had no choice.


"You look nice, Scorpie."
"I feel dreadful," I grumbled. Rose's cheeks were turning red from trying to hold back laughter. "And don't mess with my tie unless you want my mother to kill you."

Rosie turned her attention to the crisp cut of the shirt of my dress robes, running her fingers along it. I could feel my cheeks heating up and my mouth was starting to water. Thank Merlin Mother left us alone in her parlour to speak to Father in his study. The wizard chess board in front of us remained untouched and the door to the parlour was almost hanging off its hinges it was so open. Mother wasn't stupid.

I brought my mouth to her ear, "You look pretty." I murmured to her, making sure to brush my lips against her earlobe. She shivered just like I was expecting before raising an eyebrow and saying,

"In my Weasley jumper- no correction, the thirty year old jumper I found in my dad's old room." she crossed her arms across her chest covering the 'R' on the maroon wool. We looked a right pair together. "The jumper your mother called traditional and cute."

"Yeah who doesn't love traditional?" I teased her, running my hand along the expose skin of her thigh, she was wearing grey socks-

"And one of my Grandma's old skirts from the early seventies. You can't tell, can you?"

"Would you prefer the truth or a lie?"

"Lie."

"No, you can't. It's stylish."

"Great." Rose tightened her ponytail. "All my clothes are disgusting-"

"Having a teenage crisis?"

"No," Rose shook her head. "Never. No one's washing anything. And Dad only gave me what was in my trunk, my uniform and my clothes from last year. My normal ones are in my closet and I'm forbidden from going home."

"Underwear?" I asked her just to see her cheeks go scarlet.

"I can get by washing my limited stock in the shower. My larger clothes can't handle it. They need magic, not soap. And Hugo spilt some cure for boils on my one good jumper, didn't I complain to you about that five letters ago?"

"Poor Rosie." I hugged her with one arm. "And you still came. You love me that much."

"It feels like I'm being suffocated at the Burrow," Rose said, resting her head on my chest. "Grandma Molly snapped at me for asking for her wand to clean my clothes."

"What about your Grandfather?"

"Order of the Phoenix duties," Rose said sadly. "My duty, according to him, is keeping an eye on the self-heating toaster. That's a fire hazard."

I grinned. I knew this one. "That's what muggles use to make toast."

"Exactly." Rose peck my neck. "But my job is quite pathetic."

"Someone has to make sure the Burrow doesn't burn down." I twisted a strand of her hair around my finger.

"How are you?" Rose changed the subject.

"Fine."
"Really?"

I sighed. "Yes, Rosie, fine."

She didn't say anything for a second and that's when I knew, oh crap, she was sensing something was wrong.

I cursed mentally and changed the subject again.

"Have you seen your parents?"

"Briefly."

"Lily?"

"Not at all. I'm worried about her." Rose buried her face into my shirt. "You were right about the Diagon Alley incident. I'm warier but the world hasn't gone completely dark." She groaned. "I did it again."

"Did what?" I half-laughed.

"Behaved like an entitled snob again in one sentence."

"Would you prefer to be in some dark place?" I poke her in the ribs. "We have a basement slash dungeon I can lock you in."

She poked me back in response. "How are you taking the whole Diagon Alley incident. You keep asking me how I am but you never say anything about yourself. It makes me suspicious."

"It doesn't feel like it happened," I said, honestly. A second later I got more honest. "Mother says to be careful that could mean it hit you deep. But Father says it's normal."

Rose nodded. "Maybe you can come to the Burrow sometime."

I made a choking noise in the back of my throat.

Rose sat up and laughed. "Not inside. The place is surrounded by a field we could go for a walk, I do that a lot. You could see Pumpkin again, he must miss you. No one looks too closely at what I'm doing at the Burrow anyway."

"My Father did my school shopping." I raised my eyebrows. "That would tell you what state of mind my family is in and how inclined he is to let me run around a field."

"I did mine at the start of summer," Rose said. "Thank Merlin. And I thought you wanted me passionately, Scorpius." She teased, leaned in closer to me and ran her thumb over my bottom lip, painfully slow. I pretended to bite it. She pushed me playfully.

I pulled her back to me, closer this time. "I'm just trying not to plan past the next five seconds." I murmured. Then paused, listening for the click-clack of Mother's heels. I kissed her quickly, she grabbed onto the back of my neck.

She smiled when we pulled apart. I smiled back at her and her lips curled back down.

"Rosie," I said lowly. "Stop feeling guilty."

"I'm just worried about uncle Harry, I really am." She said.

Dinner went by uneventfully. Thank Merlin, the questions were confined to school. I probably had Mother to thank for that but Father was usually quiet when he ate. It's like when he brews potions he goes off into his mind. Rose, of course, was able to win Mother over with Transfiguration. They bonded over the complexity of turning a bird into stone. Rose would send me a shy smile across the table every now and then but I knew what she was thinking. She voiced it as soon as we left the table to go back to our game of 'wizard's chess.'

"Is there any need for such a big table?"

I shrugged and she nudged me. I led her down one of the more shadowy corners of the manor. She didn't want to kiss me instead she said.

"Don't get mad but you're behaving differently."

"Too pureblood for you?"

She tilted her head at me. "I don't think it's that. You haven't been behaving like your usual self as of recently."

"Rosie…" I tried but failed to think of anything to make her laugh. My brain felt slow 'as of recently.'

"You've been very serious since Diagon Alley." She said, her brown eyes wide and knowing. "Normally you'd been the one to make some bloody comment about the table or something else. You usually can't help yourself."

It took me a tense second to realise I was frowning at her. I shifted uncomfortably.

"Can we not have this conversation?" I said, unable to shake the irritation from my tone. "Things will be normal at Hogwarts."

"I'm worried about you."

"Who are you not worried about?" I tried to soften my tone and relax my face.

Rose glanced off to the side. "You most of all for some reason."

I sighed. "Because I'm so brilliant?" I tried.

Rose pulled at her jumper. "You can talk to me, you know. I can usually help you. I tell you everything but lately, it feels a bit one-sided."

"There's nothing to know."

"Scorpius," She looked me sternly in the eye. "I thought at first it was because I didn't thank you for saving my life-"

"What in Merlin's name? Why would you think that for?"

"It was the only logic I could put on your foul mood at the time. I thought you were mad at me."

"I find it very hard to be mad at you for very long."

Rose pressed her lips together. "Scorpius, let me remind you I was there when the boggart happened. I listened to you-"

"You think I'm not listening to you?" I snapped.

"No!" she said defensively. "I think you're forgetting how close we are and how you can tell me anything." Her brown eyes were going wide. "You know I won't laugh at you or bring it up later."

Without thinking about it, everything came out in a rush. "Fine. My bad dreams have been getting worse. I'm taking a potion to make them stop. It was great until Father found out I was robbing his stores. Now he's up my arse about it and Mother too. They're treating me like a bloody baby. They won't let me take the potion without one of them in the room. And now they know about my boggart and I have to practice with Father. He knows. He constantly wants to talk about it."

I was breathing hard at the end of all that.

Rose waited for more.

I added, "Don't ask 'why didn't you tell me?' I wasn't going to go piling my stuff on top of you with everything that's going on. You didn't need to know about the potion."

Rose nodded. "I wasn't going to ask you that. It's done now anyway. I was going to ask did you want to practice boggarts with me when we go back to Hogwarts?"

I blinked. Not believing what she was saying. It sounded too pure and good to be true.

She then wrapped her arms around my middle and hugged me. "Thank Merlin, I thought you were never going to tell me." She murmured into my chest.

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

"I'd like that, Scorpie." She beamed.


I crouched down.

"What are you doing?" Rosie giggled. Everything somehow felt lighter.

"Obvious, isn't it? When was the last time you were on my back."

"What if your parents see?" Rose crossed her arms.

"They can watch if they want but they'll just have to deal with it," I said feeling a stupid grin crawl across my face at the thought of Rose kissing my neck, the feeling of her bare thighs in my hands… "We'll be fully dressed unfortunately so what's there to complain about."

Rose let out an overly dramatic sigh. Without much of a warning, she attempted to tackle me to the grass. Easily, I put my hands on her ribs and pinned her down, both of us were snorting with laughter.

She moved a stray strand of my hair back off my forehead. After a minute of staring into her brown eyes and counting her ribs with my fingers, she decided to get on my back. We started off shakily, her gripping my shoulders and my neck for dear life, her legs tight around me, but we easily got into a groove. She tugged affectionately at my hair, her breath heated up my ears.

"Don't you dare drop me." She squeaked, I knew she was looking at the ground.

"I haven't yet, I have?" I smirked.