Scorpius Malfoy found it much harder to decide on a life plan than he had anticipated. He only chose when Albus started pointedly asking him what job offers he'd gotten recently. There were... a lot, and in the end, he decided using a randomizer spell.

For two months, he was a potioneer; but he found that being cooped up in a lab all day drove him mad, and he was fired after calling out three too many times so he could spend the day flying with Al. He spent six months as the reserve Chaser for Puddlemere United, but he got bored on the sidelines and spent so many nights reading well into the early morning (and thus oversleeping), that he gained a reputation for chronic tardiness; he was replaced with someone more 'reliable,' or punctual, at least. He didn't even make it past the trial period at Mallowinks' Magizoo before he was let go for giving cheek when asked to perform menial tasks like mucking habitats. He spent far too long in customer service, but quit every time he was called a death eater; which happened so many times, he found himself desperate to escape the field forever.

He eventually managed to land an office job within the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, which he suspected had something to do with Albus's recent visit to Teddy Lupin, newly appointed Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. It started out as part-time, which gave him time for a decent work-life balance, and it soon became a comfort zone. It was also how Elspeth Avery re-entered his life.

She'd become something of the one that got away after that redheaded trollop dangled the possibility of her in front of his nose like a treat. In retrospect, he thought he aught to have recognized it as bait; but he'd only realized it was a trap about an hour after Weasley left, when he walked in on Elspeth and Zabini in an rather compromising position on the balcony. The worst part was that he couldn't even get his revenge, because Rose Weasley promptly became a notorious mystery. Not even Al seemed to have any idea where she'd actually moved away to. She disappeared.

For seven months, she was just... gone.

Al became increasingly irritable after the first three. It was torture, really.

Then, just when the entire Weasley-Potter clan was ready to launch a full-scale riot in search of their missing member (even Charlie had shown up for that family dinner), she appeared: on the cover of Witch Weekly. In a crowded, red-fogged room, with one hand entangled in the dark curls of a man that she guided to his knees in front of her and the other holding onto the jaw of a bloke with shaggy hair the color of sand, Rose Weasley snogged on loop, in print, for all the wizarding world to see. The image haunted him for weeks. Meanwhile, Albus was fine, downright cheery really; albeit after a day and a half of looking like he might spew at any given moment. Scorpius found comfort in the fact that he was far from the only one thrown for a loop (by a loop, no less - and yes, he thought he was quite funny, thank you very much). On the contrary, for a while it seemed the entirety of Wizarding Britain was buzzing at the first real media appearance of this particular child of the Golden Trio.

A few months later, she made The Prophet for being revealed as the founder of Glisseo Gang: a group which was considered by some to be vandals, while others regarded them as activists. Their first newsworthy action had been a large-scale prank of sorts, in which every public staircase of Wizarding London was simultaneously transfigured into a slide. According to the article, an inside source stated that Weasley herself had orchestrated the demonstration to promote awareness for Magical Beings of Diverse Ability. Another reported that she had then held a meeting to transition into leadership by committee, which agreed at her suggestion to have elections every three months to keep things fresh and fair as could be, without compromising their ability to get things done.

After that, she was a regular face on the news stand. Whether the next feature was due to promiscuity or productivity was a coin toss, and the specifics were at least thrice as difficult to predict. Al had a running pool about it. Scorpius rarely found himself brave enough to bet when Potter had that suspiciously knowing twinkle in his eye; but rare was not never.

"Earth to Malfoy." His thoughts were interrupted by the dulcet teasing of Elspeth, who was waving a stack of papers in front of his eyes from where she perched on the corner of his desk. He blinked up at her dumbly for a moment, before shaking himself. "There you are," she giggled. The warmth of her smile had his heartbeat rushing to catch up to reality. "I said, Turner asked me to hand out the two o'clock requests . Do you want the flying car sighting, rogue tarantallegra, or-" she shuffled through the pages, eyes skipping through headers, "-moving sculptures at the British Museum?"

His eyebrows shot up, hand darting toward the pile. She moved it out of reach calmly, with a smirk that he read as 'use your words'. "The last one, obviously."

She pouted at him, rather unfairly. His stomach did a somersault. "Bugger," she sighed when she handed over the paperclipped packet, "that was the most interesting one."

"That'd be why I picked it," he said cheekily. She accepted defeat far too quickly for his liking, but before she could make her exit, he continued. "I'll make it up to you?"

"Oh?" The sly smile she gave him was downright sinful.

It gifted him the gall to finish with, "Dinner. Friday night."

She looked over him for a moment, gaze thoughtful. The thought occurred to him that she might say no, which would be a backhand to his ego, but before he could backpedal into a sardonic comment to cover that wound she nodded once and lit up his world with five words. "I thought you'd never ask."

Rose Weasley dreamed big. From the time she was in nappies, she was determined to be the greatest witch the world had ever seen. It was no wonder, really, with her mother being the Brightest Witch of Her Age (tm), a member of the Golden Trio, a war hero, and Minister of Magic, amongst other wonderous things. Some- scratch that, many- of her classmates had always questioned how she had ended up in Slytherin (every one of them a moron, as far as she was concerned), though there was much debate over which of the remaining houses she should have been sorted into. They weren't entirely wrong; she had been a hatstall for a reason. She was fiery, fearless, frantic like a Gryffindor. She had the insatiable curiosity, boundless creativity, and obsessive study habits of a Ravenclaw. She was loyal beyond measure, brutally honest, self-motivated and possessed strong moral values (questionable as they may sometimes be), so she would have been perfectly at home in Hufflepuff.

However, she was also quick-witted, unrelenting, capable; she knew how to get what she wanted, and she'd be damned if she was willing to let anything stop her from getting it. That was what people forgot about her: the driving force, her core defining trait, what got her out of bed in the morning and had her working away into the night. Ambition.

Sure, she had been mildly disappointed when Malfoy of all people had made valedictorian over her, but that had more to do with her opinion of him than it did her self esteem. She'd always cared more about practical results than grades, anyway. Standardized testing was an inferior method of measurement and could quite frankly shove it, in her expert opinion. Besides, she'd secured a summer internship at the Ministry before her test scores had even been announced.

By the end of said internship, she had come to the realization that a career in politics was an ineffective method of growth. It was, simply put, too slow. It took less than two months for her to become fed up with red tape and bureaucracy. She'd never been one for rules, anyway, other than the ones she set herself. A government job would do nothing but hold her back, she decided. So, at the end of the summer when her internship ended, she turned down the offer of a full-time position; much to her mother's dismay, but alas. Hermione's policies may have been considered radical to their generation, but Rose's goals were so much more.

So, she sold the utilization rights of her patented communication stones, used the royalties she earned from that to travel the world in pursuit of her next project, and the rest was history. Her life became a series of mysteries, and she thrived on every one. She discovered a new species of peryton in the Altai Mountains. She invented a variation of rictumsempra that caused tingling instead of tickling, which she found had interesting applications in the bedroom. An altered recipe for her favorite party potion (which produced wonderful hallucinations) became a breakthrough treatment for memory loss.

Most of her work was done as far from the public eye as possible. She gained a reputation in certain circles as someone who could do anything, and would with proper motivation. A hearty enough helping of mystique and monetary compensation, and Rose Weasley could solve all your problems. When Abigail Fawley-Krum went missing, she was the private investigator who found her - and the assassin who rid the world of her kidnapper-turned-murderer. When Wilma Warbeck came down with an especially nasty strain of spattergroit, she was the doctor who cured her. She was the tomb raider who acquired a collection of antique time-turners, which were then sold at an anonymous auction in Antarctica. She was the curse-breaker that saved Alistair Yaxley when he made the mistake of putting on the wrong ring from his father's vault.

A freelancer, she called herself.

She never stopped moving.

It was the time of her life, really. For three years, she kept to the shadows; only surfacing with a scandalous morsel on occasion, when she began to worry that the media might be nearly starving enough to start poking at her. As long as she kept it fed with regular peeks into her life - a sordid affair here, a clever invention there - she was free to live her life, one passion project after another, silly rules be damned.

Eventually, though, she had to admit that she really... really missed her family.

So, when the holiday season of 2027 arrived and she found herself between projects, Rose Minerva Granger-Weasley went home.

Scorpius strolled through the back garden, the raucous din of Christmas at the Burrow thrumming through his bones. After the most recent round of Exploding Snap, he'd fancied some fresh air. The smell of singed hair followed him, unfortunately, but it was nice to have a moment of peace and quiet to himself amongst the trees that crowded the garden wall. He dodged several chickens and a gnome that wasn't as sneaky as it thought it was on his way back, which distracted him enough that he almost didn't notice the figure leaning against the door to the kitchen. Almost.

"Red," he called out as he neared, eyes wide in surprise.

She turned to him with the strangest smile. "Scorpion."

"Fancy seeing you here," he said as he sidled up to her, taking up the opposite edge of the doorframe.

"In my own home, you mean?"

"I spend more time here than you do."

She sighed. "Fair."

He lifted his eyebrows. "What? No quippy response?"

The smirk she gave him was in no way fair, nor did it make a lick of sense. Shouldn't she be hexing him or something? "I hear you and Avery are an item now." Here it comes, he thought. "Took you long enough."

He stared, open-mouthed and temporarily stunned away from anger. He snapped out of it when she had the audacity to laugh. "Beg pardon?!"

"What?" Her faced turned toward the garden, but she side-eyed him. "Three years is a long time to wait on making a move. Couldn't get up the courage?"

"What?" He shook his head. "You tried to sabotage me! She- she wasn't even into me three years ago!" She furrowed her brow at him. He seethed. What was the point of playing innocent in this? "She was with bloody Zabini when you said I should ask her out. What sort of twisted prank-"

She was laughing again. Her hand in front of her mouth, her shoulders shaking, her eyes positively sparkling-

"Oh, little scorpion," she said with the most alarming softness, melodious malice in her words. "You always were so blissfully unaware of others' feelings..."

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

She curled her knuckles against her lips as her giggles died down. She hummed thoughtfully, gaze floating torturously over every inch of him, from the corners of his eyes to the tips of his toes. He could feel her, finding the chinks in his armor, as she always did. He snarled and tried to leave but-

He couldn't.

Not in the her gaze pinned him to the spot type of way, but he actually, physically couldn't. Frowning, he looked about in search of a possible culprit. Just as Weasley was teasing him with a singsong "If she hasn't told you, I'm not going to," his eyes zoned in on a sprig of red berries and thin leaves. Mistletoe. Enchanted mistletoe, a staple of the famous Potter holiday parties. When he next met Weasley's eyes, they were lidded and he was smirking.

"That's a real shame, Red, because I think you'll find that you're stuck with me until you do."