Aria: Please let me know what you think of this story so far and any thoughts or ideas. I am happy to hear all :). And are we all liking the dates being put on the chapter?

I don't own HP, just my OC's and plot.

Enjoy :)

Chapter 8 – Bad timing or unlucky?

~ 27th October 2027: Monday ~

"Ms Weasley," Will Wallace started, he was a member of our research team and was a year or two older than Rose. He was tall and extremely thin with black hair and glasses. He often kept to himself, so she knew very little about him. "A message came and asked that you report to Head Auror Potter's office immediately."

Rose turned to Esme and raised an eyebrow and she shrugged. Rose turned back to Will, "Thank you, Mr Wallace." He nodded and left, leaving Rose a little anxious about the sudden summons.

"It's probably that someone needs something edited, it should be fine," Esme comforted Rose patting her shoulder. Keyword: Should. Rose sighed as she started to leave the office.

"I'll be back soon," Rose called out and Esme waved.

What could it be? Did she do her recent report wrong? Was there a major problem with the experiments? Am I getting promoted? Nah it's definitely not that. She had to squeeze into a crowded lift of wizards and witches to go up a floor. The elevators were one of Rose's least favourite thing about the ministry, particularly because the elevators could go sideways and horizontal. In fact, event going vertical gave her a bit of motion sickness.

She knew the way to Harry's office off-by-heart, not just because he was family but because of their relationship people often sent Rose up there to deliver news so that Harry wouldn't be too harsh if it was bad news. The door had: Head Auror: Mr Harry Potter. She was about to knock but then she heard yelling coming from behind the door and she immediately knew it was her father. It appeared he was back from his holiday. Rose sighed as she knocked.

"Come in."

As she had predicted, it was her father along with her mother and Lyra. It's a good old family get together, Rose though and chuckled at her own sarcasm. Lyra immediately ran over to her and Rose closed the door behind her. She was not ready to let her daughter lose in the Ministry.

"Uncle Harry, what's going on? Why are Mum and Dad and Lyra all here?"

"The paparazzi came to the house again and were quite determined to get an interview or even a picture of Lyra," Hermione explained.

"Yes! And I want to charge them with trespassing on private property and harassment!" Ron exclaimed.

Ah, that makes sense of the yelling.

"And I wanted to know why that slimy Slytherin bastard working with my daughter." Ron clenched his fist and waved it in the air.

Here we go again.

Rose took a seat on the couch provided and sat Lyra on her lap. Lyra was noticeably getting too heavy to carry around for too long and she was walking excellently. She's growing so fast.

There was another knock at the door and when they opened the door, Scorpius halted completely as he saw not only Rose but Lyra, Ron – who he had been tactfully avoiding – and Hermione. Rose couldn't figure out whether Scorpius just had bad timing, or he just was unlucky.

"You bastard why are you here?" Ron snapped, and Harry had to calm him down for the next five minutes. Scorpius looked like he was ready to run if need be.

"It's ok Scorpius come in," Harry assured Scorpius, though he didn't look completely convinced, he still managed to close the door.

"Now, Ron, Scorpius has transferred here from the American Branch and is an excellent Auror, I will tell you the details later. About the paparazzi You can't charge them with anything yet because they weren't technically on your property, however, I will file a warning to them about harassing you and Rose, but keep in mind that we all are followed like that Ron."

He admitted defeat to Harry but Ron was stubborn and you knew it wasn't going to be the end of it.

"Rose, I called you here as there is a report the needs fixing, the team from the other department wrote it but it still needs fixing my Wednesday. I was hoping you'd take up the challenge."

She considered it and weighed the time at work and the valuable feedback to move up in the ranks, with the time for Lyra. She concluded that it could be done, only just.

"I'll do it."

"Good that's settled. Scorpius what was your issue?"

He looked startled at suddenly being asked a question. Rose smirked at how cute his reaction was.

"Oh, it was just-"

Lyra decided to slip off Rose's lap and walk over to Scorpius. She held her arms out and said, "Um! Um! UM!"

Scorpius turned to Rose for help interpreting what she wanted. "She wants to be picked up Scorpius." Rose chuckled to herself. Scorpius was so puzzled and confused how to figure out what his daughter wanted.

Lyra became more insistent and Scorpius picked her up and held her. She fell asleep hugging his neck.

"She has certainly taken a shine to Scorpius," Hermione stated surprised, "Is it the first time they have met?"

"No, they met at Albus' housewarming party," Rose replied trying to sound indifferent, "though I don't think she understands who he is to her quite yet."

"That would make sense," Harry nodded.

"So, Ron let's go back home," Hermione started leaving and dragging Ron with her.

"But 'Mione." Ron protested but he was already out of the door.

"You two can have a longer lunch break and spend some time with Lyra if you wish, and you should probably use the floo network in here instead of the main hall." Harry gestured to the chimney off to the side.

"We'll take you up on that offer, Harry sir," Scorpius grabbed Rose's wrist with his free hand and started walking.

"Wait where are we going?" Rose asked. Scorpius stopped in his tracks.

"How about your place?" Scorpius smiled. Rose remembered her place was a mess, but it was one of the few places they could talk privately about topics.

"Fine," Rose replied.

Once they dusted the light layer of ash off their clothes, Scorpius asked, "Where should I put her?"

Rose lead the way into Lyra's light blue room full of toys. "Put her on the mat on the floor sometimes she sleeps better there rather than on the bed."

Luckily putting the child to sleep was fairly easy, although Scorpius had to hold her a couple of times more before she fell into deep sleep.

"Finally," Scorpius commented as they walked into the kitchen. Typical male response, Rose rolled her eyes.

Neither of them wanted to address the Elephant in the room as the silence grew, Rose couldn't stand it anymore. "Scorpius, you don't have to be here."

He narrowed his eyes, "What do you mean?"

Idiot I'm giving you a way out. Just take it.

"I mean, you don't have to be involved with Lyra. We'll be fine as we have been so far. There's no need to suddenly feel fatherly responsibility. Feel free to go back to America or go anywhere else for that matter." Rose had her back to Scorpius as she blinked rapidly fending off tears.

"Why would you even say that Rose? I can tell that you are not coping with this current set up. You always look tired and zombie-like, working yourself to the bone at work and then with Lyra too. I'm not going anywhere, and I don't intend to go anywhere."

Rose almost jumped around with hope and happiness. "I see." She had to contain herself because she couldn't easily forgive him for up and leaving.

"Rose, I'm going to get to the bottom of why my dad took us to America, and if you need me to watch Lyra anytime, you know where to find me." With that Rose heard footsteps walking away.

She turned around and said, "Scorp wait…" but he was already gone.

...

~ 28th October 2027: Tuesday ~

Rose was thankful that Scorpius hadn't appeared all day at work. She honestly had no idea how she is supposed to interact with him. She felt all the feelings of their time together resurface and the confusion of the whole situation. She was hesitant to give him her heart again after her trust was broken last time.

"Are you staying back late?" Esme asked turning around from her desk.

"Maybe, this report is due tomorrow and I still need to use the archives."

"Hmmmm," Esme thoughtfully tapped her chin.

"Are you staying back?"

"Maybe if it will get you out of here faster," Esme grinned as she took the papers out of Rose's hand.

"Hey-" Rose was about to protest until Esme started working on the document.

"You go to the archives, I'll finish this part," Esme commanded in a mock stern voice pointing at the door.

"Aye aye captain," Rose saluted and laughed. The kind of laugh that released some of her negativity and made you feel lighter. Esme smirked and made funny faces as Rose left.

The passageways felt quite deserted at that time of the evening, despite it only being 6:30. She allowed herself to remember Hogwarts and how she snuck out after curfew to read in the library. Her partner in crime? A certain brunette that was currently working on her report. Esme has always been the type you wouldn't pick to be academic, but she is full of surprises. She technically is higher than Rose in the structure of the teams. She's even been picked to lead certain projects occasionally. Why has she stayed back with me though? She could have started a full career by now. I have no idea why. I feel guilty about it like I'm dragging her down with me. Even though without her support I don't think I'd be where I am today. I should tell her if she wants to be ambitious she can be, and not to worry about me. Rose resolved to do so when she got back.

The archives door has a window that has always been hazy, as if it knows there are old records kept behind the door. Rose walks in and starts searching the many rows of bookshelves. It was a relatively small room for so many documents and easily felt claustrophobic between the bookcases. She had made sure to prop the door open a bit to stop it from completely closing. As strange as it sounds there were enchantments on the inside of the room to protect the books and to prevent any enchanted books from flying away; with this, unfortunately, came the problem of the lock on the door. You could access the room easily from the outside but if you're on the inside it locks you in, leaving only three options for escape: dissolve the charms, read the passage of the week from the enchanted book collection, or wait for someone else to find you. Keeping in mind there are one-hundred and five volumes of enchanted books. Usually option 3 is used.

Soon Rose's heels were the death of her standing, she kicked them off and was relieved to pace on the flat ground. She turned to face the door engrossed in the book, but she saw something in her peripheral. The abrupt appearance made her visibly jump and drop the book.

"Ow, Crap."

With a double take she saw, Scorpius standing with a little-amused smirk on his face. She had the urge to slap that smirk off his face. He remembered why he appeared and stepped into the archive room pulling the door shut behind him.

When Rose heard the click of the door she asked in disbelief, "Scorpius what did you just do?"

He shrugged, "I shut the door, aren't we supposed to keep it closed?"

Rose face-palmed, that's right, he hasn't worked here for very long and probably was never told. "No Scorpius, that's if no one is in here. The door locks on the inside if you close it! Now we're stuck in here!"

"Shit," Scorpius cursed as he ran his hand through his hair, his very attractive hair. Rose smacked her cheeks to physically drive away the thoughts. Not the time Rose Weasley.

"Pfft," Rose breathed slowly not to explode at Scorpius and focus on getting out of there.

"How do we get out?" Scorpius asked looking for a second way to open the door.

"We either have to read a passage from the enchanted books or we wait for Esme to come and find us."

"Which is more likely?"

"Esme. Because there are one-hundred and five volumes of enchanted books and it has to be a specific passage."

"Crap." After a pause, he said, "I guess we wait."

Rose nodded. There was a growing awkwardness in the silence. Rose leaned against the wall at the end of the row of the shelves. Scorpius spent several minutes debating how to start a conversation.

"How's Lyra?" the question slipped out and he instantly regrated asking the question.

Rose looked at him, eyes wide with shock, he voices heavy with sarcasm, "So now you try and act like a father?"

"Rose don't shoot me down like that, I was genuinely asking about the health of my daughter."

Rose felt a little guilty, he had a point, he did only just find out about her, supposedly.

"Rose…"

"Scorpius?"

"I found out today that my father was burning any letters that you guys sent me or that I sent while I was in America. I promise you if I had gotten them I would have sent replies. In fact, I still don't even know why my father dragged us all to America in the first place." Scorpius walked closer slowly, and he did seem more dishevelled today.

"That might explain…" Rose started in a quiet voice, but she stopped herself.

"What did you say?" Scorpius inquired having not heard it properly.

"Nothing," Rose sighed.

"No Rose, please tell me, I feel like I've been kept out of the loop for three years now."

Scorpius sat opposite Rose, looking at her expectantly. She sighed, "I got a letter from your father…" Scorpius eyes widened, and Rose continued, "I didn't tell many people about it, just Esme and Victorie."

"What did he say?" Scorpius was filled with dread about what exactly his father had told Rose.

"He said that you didn't have time for me because you were going to be engaged to Chelsea Nott. He then advised me to keep that fact that you were the father of my baby a secret," Rose's voice started trembling and she sniffed a bit while looking at the floor, "and finally he offered to give me money, which I refused, to support whatever decision I made." Rose looked up and could see the pained expression that Scorpius was making, no doubt for a number of reasons.

Scorpius was dumbfounded and speechless. A wired mix of anger and sadness with a couple of other indescribable feelings. Most of all he was mostly in denial that his father would do such a thing, especially to the mother of his grandchild. It was that moment were something occurred to Scorpius. "How did he find out you were pregnant?"

Rose stared into his silver eyes, oddly calmly, and replied, "I was…" she hesitated, "I wrote you a letter telling you about it. He must have read the letter. It was my very last letter to you."

They sat in silence while Scorpius processed the information. Rose closed her eyes and sighed in relief, finally being able to tell someone. Oh Merlin, did you plan this? Me and Scorpius Malfoy sitting on the floor of the archives room at 7 pm at night? Because if you did, well played on your part.

Rose opened her eyes to find Scorpius extraordinarily close. "Hey-" She then realized that he was hugging her tightly. His head resting on her shoulder, "I'm sorry Rose."

Her eyes prickled, and she let the tears roll. She returned the hug as she shook with sobs, who knew that I had repressed so much pain? After sniffling a while Rose said with a croaky voice, "Scorpius, I'm ok now."

When he didn't move, she could sort of tell he needed this hug also. He must have had a fight with his dad. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were slightly red.

There was a click that sounded like it was the door, it was also what made them realise how close they were. They both turned red and Scorpius jumped back.

Esme opened the door and smirked upon seeing the pair, "You know, that's how this who predicament started three years ago?"

"No we weren't doing anything Esme," Rose whined bitterly quickly getting to her feet and putting on her shoes again.

Scorpius noticed how cute and small Rose's feet are, what on earth am I thinking?

"Whatever you say," Esme gave them a knowing smile and a shrug.

"Scorpius you could at least deny her claims," Rose stated.

Scorpius looked at the both of them and chuckled, "Now why would I do that?"

Great, now he's back to being an arse. Rose couldn't help but smirk.

"Come one Rose, there's a little one waiting for you to get home remember," Esme put on an old lady voice impression.

"I know I know." Rose chuckled as they all left the room and were in the passageway "Scorpius…"

He turned to Rose, "Yes?"

"Why did you come to the archives?"