Chapter 2
Rose got a pretty good haul this year. Her Uncle George gave her some of his new WWW products and a coupon to his store. She felt that he had the easiest way to find gifts. All he had to do was look in his store.
Uncle Bill had given her a book about Charms. She had thanked him a lot because Charms was one of her favorite subjects. Uncle Charlie gave her new dragon-hide gloves for Herbology, while Uncle Percy gave her a book entitled Prefects Who Gained Power. He said that it was a book that he had brought when he was younger and wanted to pass it on to her. Rose thanked him, but knew that she would never read it.
Uncle Harry had managed to get her a brand new broom, The Firebolt 3000. It was the fastest broom in the world right now, so she had no idea how he had gotten it because it must have cost boatloads of Galleons. Rose thought that he deserved a big hug for that, even though she wasn't playing Quidditch right now.
All of her aunts pooled their money together and got her a bunch of new clothes. Rose was glad that she had such a big family because she got twice as many presents as most of her friends outside her family did. Her parents had gotten her a broom repairing kit. Since it corresponded with Uncle Harry's present, Rose knew that they must have talked.
When she had opened her present, Uncle Harry had said that her presents reminded him of his third year when he had gotten a broom repairing kit for his birthday. He said that her mum had gotten it for him. Thought he might have thought it was interesting, Rose didn't get it. Sometimes, it seemed that all her parents and Uncle Harry talked about was their childhood. It was pretty boring once you had heard it about a million times.
Rose couldn't help but notice the way Her Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny interacted. Though there were no noticeable changes, Rose saw that they would hardly touch each other. She also noticed that her parents kept shooting looks at each other. Finally, Grandma Weasley said that it was time for Christmas brunch.
All of the Potters and Weasleys plied into the dining room to get the food. Once they were there, it was a free for all to get the food. As normal, the parents got to sit outside while the kids were sentenced to the living room. This was because there were not enough seats to go around the table. This year, though, Teddy and Victorie sat with the adults. This caused much uproar from the kids.
"But Teddy, you're on of us. You can't leave us now," Al said angrily.
"How come I still have to sit at the kids table?" Al's older brother, James, said.
Her Aunt Ginny ushered her noisy inside. She said to them, "Teddy is twenty five. He and Victorie are old enough to make their own decisions. As for you," she pointed at James," you are only nineteen. That's not much older than most of the kids at this table. Besides, you aren't mature enough." Before James could protest anymore, Aunt Ginny left.
Rose, though she wouldn't say it, thought that Aunt Ginny was right. After all, James did have the maturity level of a preschooler.
"James, could you shut up for one minute? Is that too much to ask? I can't hear myself think," Rose yelled, finally, at James after he had been complaining for a long time.
James looked at her with his typical face of innocence. "What did I do, Rosie?" he asked.
Rose glared at him. "You are such a prat, James Sirius Potter. And don't call me Rosie. It makes me sound like a Rabbit."
"Now, what is my yelling distracting you from? Your thoughts on Scorpius?"
Rose looked at her cousin in shock. All other conversations in the room stopped. All eyes were on her and James. She couldn't believe that James would tease her about that.
"No."
"Yes. That's what you think about all the time. That little Malfoy. He is just like his father."
"No he isn't. He's nothing like his father. I'm surprised that you even brought that up. That's low, James, even for you."
James ignored her last comment. "Nothing like his father? If he was nothing like his father, he wouldn't have dumped you once he got bad publicity."
"You are a git, James. And an annoying one. You bicker with everyone. No wonder your parents are splitting up."
Everyone in the room gasped. James's and Lily's faces got pale. Rose was silently kicking herself. She wasn't supposed to tell, let alone know about that. Rose hated herself for that. After for what seemed like ages, Lily was the one to break the silence.
"Do you really mean that, Rose?"
Rose could barely nod her head. "I overheard my parents talking about it. James, I'm sorry. I should have never said that."
James dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "I should have never said that stuff about Scorpius, even though he did deserve it." Then, he turned to Al. "Why haven't you said anything? You have been quiet for the whole morning. What's the matter?"
After a deep breath, Al responded. "I already knew. Rose told me last night when she overheard it. But she said that nothing was official. By the looks of things, though, it's bad."
Lily burst into tears and ran upstairs. But not before she gave Rose an ugly look. Rose tried to follow her, but James stopped her. "Haven't you done enough?" James ran to join Lily with Al following his lead.
Rose looked around the room. In the corner, Molly and Lucy were still trying to prices it while Dominque, Fred, and Roxy looked like they were ready to kill someone. When Rose looked for her brother, all she saw was a red mane of hair go out the back door, towards the parents. Rose knew, without a doubt in her mid, that he was going to tell his parents what happened. Rose shook her head. Sometimes, her brother could be thick. She then prepared herself for the battle that was sure to come.
Her mum stormed into the living room closely followed by her father. They were arguing.
"I did not tell Rose anything."
"Well, neither did I."
I find that hard to believe. We were the only ones who knew and I know that I didn't tell her, so it must have been you."
"I didn't tell her. You must have told her."
"Rose," her father shouted at her when he saw that she was in the room. "How did you find out about Harry and Ginny? Who told you?
Rose sighed. "Neither if you told me on purpose. I overheard you talking about it last night before we went to bed."
Ron and Hermione stopped arguing with each other. Now, they both set their danger eyes on Rose.
"That didn't give you the right to tell anyone. It's not official yet," Ron spewed. "What you did was very wrong, Rose," Hermione said quietly. "You will go apologize to you uncle and aunt. Then, you will say that you are sorry to James, Al, and Lily. They did not deserve to find out like that."
Rose hung her head. She knew that what she did was wrong, but she didn't like admitting it. She knew that she deserve it, but it still hurt. Silently, she trudged outside to the adult table.
There, her aunts and uncles were sitting in an awkward silence. Rose guessed that Hugo had shouted what he had found out to the entire table. Judging by their expressions, no one had even heard a whisper about it. They all just stared at her like she had grown three heads. Slowly, her head bent, Rose trudged over to Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny. Looking into their eyes, Rose felt even more terrible than she already did, so she bent her head down.
"Uncle Harry, Aunt Ginny," she stared, still not looking at them; "I'm sorry that I lost my temper and said that to James. And I'm sorry that you weren't able to everyone the way you wanted to. I feel really bad. You have no idea how bad I feel."
Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny continued to stare at her.
"I'm really sorry," she said again, but this time, she looked at them. For a second, she searched both their eyes for any sign of forgiveness, but didn't find any, not that she expected to. So acts just didn't deserve forgiveness. Again, she dropped her head and walked back inside. Shuffling past her parents with her head still pulled against her chest, Rose headed up the stairs to where her cousins were.
[-**-]
"I'm sorry."
They didn't say a word.
Rose, after apologizing to her aunt and uncle, had gone upstairs to apologize to her cousins. James, Al, and Lily had appeared to have shut themselves up in James's room at the Burrow. James was sitting on his bed while Al was holding Lily in his arms on a random chair in the room. She was trying to get at least one of them to talk to her. She felt bad enough as it was. "I'm sorry," Rose pleaded again.
No response.
"Come on," she exclaimed finally, "I said I was sorry. What more do you want?"
James got up from his position on the bed. "Why don't you go ruin someone else's life. You've done a pretty good job with ours." His cruelly said words stun in Rose's heart.
This got Rose mad. After all, it wasn't her fault that his parents were getting a divorce. "I did not ruin your life. Your parents getting a divorce has nothing to do with me. It's not only one person's fault. Don't go blaming me for all your problems."
James stood up and walked over to his bedroom's window. Rose could see that he didn't want to talk anymore. Instead, she looked over to where Al and Lily had been sitting. But now, instead of sitting in a chair on Al's lap, Lily was curled up in a ball in the corned silently crying her eyes out. For a fleeing second, Lily reminded her of what she looked like when Scorpius had broken up with her. Pushing those thoughts out of her head, she saw that Al, while still sitting in the chair, had turned it so that he was facing the wall. Rose also thought that she saw tears in his eyes, but it might have been a trick of light.
Going over to her younger cousin, Rose crouched next to Lily and asked, "How are you doing?"
Lily stopped sobbing for a second and looked up. "What do you mean by that?"
"You know what I mean by that."
"I'm fifteen years old. I shouldn't be crying over anything but boys. Instead, I'm crying because my parents are splitting. It's pathetic. I haven't cried so hard since Al and James went off to Hogwarts," Lily responded and then broke into a fresh wave of tears. It was strange to see someone cry as much as she did when Scorpius broke up with her.
Pulling Lily to face her, Rose said sternly, "It is not pathetic. You love both of them. Of course you would respond this way. I would respond that same way."
Lily looked up at her and said, "Even when Scorpius broke up with you, you didn't cry. All you did was mope around. You never cried. I doubt you would cry over this."
When Lily said this, Rose's mind was brought back once more to the night that she and Scorpius called it quits. She had cried her eyes out. But, as lily pointed out, no one knew that. She had been alone. No one knew that she had cried. All her cousin had seen her after she had been able to get all the crying out of her system. Once they were there, she didn't cry. But she had- for the entire night before.
"Lily, I cried for the entire night." When Lily looked up at her in surprise, Rose just kept talking. "No one is made of steal. I was shocked. I had no idea what I had done to make me deserve that. But, Lily, remember that none of this is your fault. It's no one's fault."
Lily nodded and turned back to the wall and cried. Rose, knowing that the conversation was over, stood up and walked over to Al. She knew that Al already knew and had a good healthy cry about it, but now everyone knew. Rose didn't know how he would take it now.
"Are you feeling alright?" Rose asked, standing over him.
"Yes," he said with his back still facing her.
"Are you sure?" Rose asked, trying to get him to turn around.
"I said I was fine!" Al shouted, turning to glare at her. Rose wanted to go and leave him alone, but she had one last thing to say. "I'm here if you want to talk. After all, you were there for me when Scorpius broke up with me."
Rose then left the room. All her emotions were running high. But still, one took over. She couldn't believe that even when Lily said Scorpius' name, her stomach still got butterflies. Then, when she said his name to Al, she had almost broken into tears. Rose thought that she was over him. At least, that was what she said. It had been at least two months since they had broken up. Confessing to herself, Rose still loved him, even if he didn't.
She could not go on like this. She couldn't allow herself to pine after a boy who didn't return her feelings. Rose needed someone to take her mind off of Scorpius. A boyfriend, that's what she needed. Smiling, Rose thought of the perfect one. Walking to her bedroom, she got paper, a quill, and her owl. Then, she began to write a letter.