JKR owns everything you recognize.

June 2023 – June 2024

Rose travels to California on a Thursday. Her parents will accompany her to company housing before they and her brother set out on their road trip. Her new digs are on the eighth floor of a sleek and shiny apartment building. The entire apartment is furnished – there's a California king sized bed in the bedroom (the bedroom is the size of her shared dormitory back at Hogwarts), desk space, couches and tables in the living room and dining area, pots and pans and cutlery and flatware in the chrome kitchen. When her brother turns on the flat screen TV, they discover that there are a huge number of muggle cable channels available. It's extremely overwhelming.

Tired from their travels, the family hunkers down on various soft pieces of furniture and rests for a couple hours. Rose and Hugo browse through the cable TV channels, and find cartoons, cooking shows (Rose's Grandma Molly could probably star on one of these and do better), shows where people spend the entire time screaming at each other and then kissing, weather divination, muggle sports (she thinks she'd like to give tennis a try this summer), and so many others that her head spins so she lies down on the plush carpet for a well-deserved nap.

Around dinnertime, the family prepares for dinner by slightly changing their appearances; after all, war heroes are often recognized in surprising places and they would like to enjoy this last time they have with Rose for the next two months without any interruptions. They wander out of the apartment building and emerge on a tree-lined street. They walk for a couple blocks, enjoying the cool shade and the little breeze that rustles through, and find a little mall where all the muggles park their cars in a flat lot – Rose is bamboozled at the amount of space in California and how inefficient muggles and magical people alike are with it. In this little mall, they find a massage parlor next to a pho restaurant, a Taiwanese bakery, and a burrito joint. Hugo clamors for burritos, so they have the most delicious, greasy burritos Rose has ever experienced. Top that off with the sweet, creamy, subtly spicy wonder of horchata and Rose is a very happy camper.

After dinner, they stroll around the town and find a little park where they can enjoy the dusk colours, before all retiring to Rose's spacious new digs. She half expects to find that someone else has moved in to share the space in the time they were at dinner, but there is no one.

Her mother asks if she will be lonely in this huge space on her own, and Rose suspects, yes. But she puts on a brave face and says that after she meets people tomorrow and this weekend during the orientation backpacking trip. She asks her mother to take a letter back to Alice - she'll invite Alice out for a weekend or longer to hang out.

The next morning, her family accompanies her to company headquarters to drop her off at orientation. They see a couple other families milling around the lobby saying their goodbyes, and Rose turns to her family to do the same.

"Take care, Rose. We'd love to hear from you as you learn new things this summer. We'll make sure the fellytone is set up, so we'll try to catch up with you through that. We love you."

"Have a safe trip, take pictures! I'll see you for Uncle Harry's birthday weekend in July. I love you too, mum, dad, Hugo." Rose hugs each of them in turn and they turn to go.

After some introductions to the company at large and the big picture aims of the summer internship, the cohort of seven magical students are separated from the muggles under the guise of separating into teams.

Rose discovers that this company is approaching the problem differently than the Finnish company, and furthermore is farther along in their process. The seven interns are introduced to the process, and she learns that several Squibs are involved. These individuals provide the muggle expertise that Rose thought was lacking in the Finnish company. These Squibs continued their traditional muggle education, but due to their magical heritage, were tapped for this position, developing the interface of magic and what they learned among muggles.

The interns complete the magical safety training, and meet the teams they are assigned to for the summer. Rose will be working with the Materials team – her mentor, Elena, describes it as the magical version of muggle chemistry. When Rose looks at Elena in confusion, she says, "You know how you add ingredients to a potion because of certain properties they have alone or in combination with other ingredients, and the order in which you add them matters greatly, and the end product is significantly different from the sum of its parts?" Rose nods, and Elena proceeds. "Now think of those ingredients at a much, much smaller scale, so small that a billion billion particles might be visible as a speck of dust to your naked eye. And each of these individual particles has properties that muggles know about, and some properties that are only discoverable by magic. That's where we come in. We're trying to access the magical properties of the materials that go into these phones, and using that knowledge, build a magically accessible phone. Does this make sense?"

Rose says tentatively, "Yes, I think so."

"Good. That's really all I wanted to say about that today, because for the details, you may need to catch up a bit on chemistry." Elena hands Rose a stack of textbooks and papers. "I've listed a couple of videos that might be a good place to start – you can watch them on the TV at your apartment. From there, any number of these introductory textbooks or research articles that pique your interest would be good to read. Don't feel rushed about reading them over the weekend, I think they've got a pretty busy schedule for you kids, so you can take next week to do some reading and we'll check in next Friday about what interests you and you might want to work on for the summer. Of course you should ask me any questions in the interim, but I think I need to let you go to dinner with the group."

Elena is so high energy and abrupt that Rose can only manage a, "Thank you, have a nice weekend!" as she retreats to join the group after shrinking her papers to tuck in her pocket.

Dinner is a modest affair. The magical intern coordinator takes the seven of them to dinner at an Ethiopian place a couple of streets away. It's the most flavorful food Rose has ever eaten, and she learns a little more about her coworkers during the time. She's seated between an American born young wizard, whose name is Kasper Smit, and the coordinator, in their circular arrangement around the delicious food. Rose finds that Kasper is extremely easy to talk to - they compare what wizarding school is like in Britain and the United States, aspirations for after graduation, extracurricular interests and sports. Rose discovers that Kasper plays tennis for his school, and she asks him to teach her how to play in his free time.

Unfortunately, Kasper has no free time this weekend, and Rose does not have the energy to try, because the next morning, Saturday, the interns meet up for a hike in the foothills. "To show you around the area a little bit," explains the coordinator. "And also to get you to meet each other and become friends before you start working all the time."

After the first mile or so, Rose finds herself walking with Kasper, and they once again fall into a pattern of easy conversations and comfortable quiet spells. Rose finds out that his family really dislikes camping and being outdoors, because they feel that, as a middle-class family who have worked hard to have a comfortable and clean living space, why should they pay money to be dirty and live in a tent and sleep on the ground? Rose is suitably entertained, and they spend the rest of the hike talking about other preposterous things their family and friends do.

The crazy thing is, at a couple points in their conversation, Rose thinks that he might actually be flirting with her.

On Sunday of the first weekend, Rose has arranged to have dinner with Cecily Piros. Cecily appears on Rose's doorstep beforehand, and takes Rose (and a bottle of her father's favorite firewhiskey which she's bringing as a gift) for Side-Along Apparition to her home in the rolling foothills. Rose continues to be shell-shocked at the prodigal use of space, but simultaneously marvels in the beauty of the architecture and the surroundings. The house is separated from the neighbors by a light wooded area, and when she steps outside onto the patio where Cecily's husband is barbecuing, she breathes in deeply of the fresh, dusty air mixed with the mouth-watering aroma of charred meat.

Rose is a little tongue-tied at first, in the presence of this high-ranking muggle, but she finds that he and his wife are both very down-to-earth, and they converse easily over hamburgers, lamb kebabs, and grilled fruit. She tells them briefly how she got interested in muggle technology and as much as she is allowed to speak of her internship in the past year. Cecily's husband speaks about his company and asks Rose insightful questions about magical interfacing. Rose rapidly understands why an accomplished and beautiful witch such as Cecily married a muggle.

By the time Rose thinks to look up from her conversation with her hosts, night has fallen. And the views… they are spectacular. She sighs audibly when she looks upon the Bay Bridge just beyond the trees, the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, and the sparkling lights of San Francisco in between. It's also dark enough at the house that when Rose looks up, she can see a smattering of stars. She sees Ursa Major, and Orion's Belt very clearly, and revels in the views.

She excuses herself to go home to rest for her day of work tomorrow and thanks her hosts profusely, and Cecily tells Rose to not be afraid to reach out to her if she's ever in a bind during her stay. Rose Apparates back to her apartment on her own, and falls into bed, still seeing stars.

Kasper is not unattractive. He's only half a head taller than Rose, who is not very tall at all, dirty blonde and blue eyed, and full of wiry muscle from playing tennis. And Rose, now that she's a few months removed from her undefined relationship with Scorpius and breakup masquerading as a random fallout between friends, may actually feel something for him. She feels comfortable around him, and finds herself wondering about the feasibility of a relationship. Or a summer fling.

So she finds herself watching him a little more carefully in the next two weeks. Work flies by, and Rose is learning so very much all at once and loving every minute of it. After the first weekend outing, the interns try to have dinner together a couple times a week, either at a restaurant, or at somebody's apartment, where they all cook and clean together and put together meals of their various home cuisines. They go hiking almost every weekend, and sometimes explore the city and the beaches and beach towns on the Pacific Coast.

During these group outings, Rose sees that Kasper has the same easy conversational ability with everyone he talks to, and he is fond of teasing. She wonders if he is just the type to flirt with everything and anything that moves, but every time this thought comes up, they drift together in their activity and he turns his golden tongue on her again and she forgets whatever concerns she had previously.

She supposes that maybe he spends more time with her than with the other interns, who have similarly started drifting into their own little cliques.

Alice makes plans to visit Rose one weekend. She'll arrive on a Friday afternoon, and take a Portkey directly into Rose's apartment.

That afternoon, Rose has a long incubation for her experiment, and is able to leave work relatively soon after lunch. Kasper's experiment, on the other hand, blew up in his face and singed his eyebrows a bright fuschia, but this means that he, too, has the afternoon off. They decide, over the company messaging system, to take the afternoon to play a little tennis.

When Rose sees his eyebrows, she cracks up.

Pouting, Kasper tells her that if she keeps this up, he won't teach her how to play tennis. This effectively stops Rose's ugly cackles, but does not erase the sparkle in her eyes as she unconsciously reaches out for his eyebrows. However, when her fingers make contact with his face, it finally clicks for her what they are doing and she meets his eyes.

His pupils are dilated, and his hand has moved from his side to reach to her.

Rose springs back. "I apologize," she stammers. "I've crossed a line." When he says nothing, she continues, "Would you still like to play some tennis?"

Rose is atrocious, but Kasper is patient with her, wrapping his hand around hers to show her how to hold her racket, hands firmly but gently positioning her limbs to show her how to stand in the ready position. By the end of the hour and a half they spend on a court, Rose is able to gently bat a forehand over the net with reasonable form. They leave the court, with Kasper cheerfully rambling on about "building your cardio" and "running lines" and "working on your footwork" and "what about that backhand" and "don't get me started on talking about serving." They return to the apartment building, and are still chatting as Rose opens her door, to find Alice lounging on Rose's couch.

"Alice! Oh my gosh! I lost track of time and we got sidetracked getting snacks after playing tennis—" she gestures at the boba that she's holding. "But what am I saying, this is Kasper, he's another one of the interns this summer, and he's just been patiently teaching clumsy old me to play tennis. Kasper, this is Alice, my best friend in the whole world, and she's visiting me from home."

Introductions made, Kasper suggests that they all go out for dinner together, and excuses himself to wash up first. As soon as the door closes, Alice hisses at Rose, "You didn't tell me that he's hot!"

"Hot? I suppose he's okay. He has a really friendly smile," Rose comments somewhat dreamily. "I touched his face today and we had this really weird moment then kind of went to play tennis and ignored it."

"Are we also going to ignore that he just asked you out?"

"He did?"

"Yes, just now. You should remember, you were there."

"When?"

"Dinner! I'm chaperoning, but I'll happily make up an excuse to say that I'm tired and need to rest if you want it to be just you two."

"Are you tired? Can I offer you some water? Did you find my bathroom? Do you want to take a shower? That's usually what I like to do after taking a long-distance Portkey."

"Rose, stop avoiding my question."

"No, it's just something that the interns do, we eat together often enough."

Alice raises an eyebrow. "Other people are coming other than us?"

This gives Rose pause. "It did kinda sound like it would just be the three of us. Should I be freaked out? What does this mean?"

Alice sighs. "You were just about to go along with it, perfectly normally. I suggest you do that."

"But I can't be normal anymore, now that you've brought this up!" Then, after a moment, "Alice, please come along for dinner, I'd really appreciate if you shared your impression of him."

"He couldn't take his eyes off of you all dinner."

"You're pulling my leg."

"I am serious. I swear to Merlin. This is not to say that he was not accommodating and made me feel welcome, but, damn, Rose, what is it with you and blondes?"

Rose's summer project has taught her she definitely does not want to pursue a career in this field after Hogwarts, because she often feels that she is just throwing money and complicated toys at a problem for limited results. However, someone inside the company has made more progress, and by the end of the summer, the company has a prototype. They offer to set the interns up with beta units, and Rose jumps on this. The first text that she sends is to her maternal grandparents, and they are thrilled to learn about this development.

The night before the program ends, one of the interns who lives locally borrows his parents' car, and all seven of them drive out to see some stars. Rose has never done this anywhere except the Astronomy Tower, so the concept of laying out on a blanket under the stars, near a boy who she probably fancies, but probably also shouldn't start anything with because of long distance, is enticing. Rose and Kasper end up on the same blanket, to no one's surprise. As Rose sits back, she feels fingers intertwine with her own. She blushes and meets Kasper's eyes. They share a little, secret smile, and when Rose lies down, she is curled up in the curve of Kasper's arm, pressed securely to his side, their fingers interlaced.

After the interns return to the apartment building, Rose and Kasper end up on Rose's couch, talking about nothing. Rose eventually can't keep her eyes open any longer, and Kasper carries her to her bed. The next morning, Rose is preparing to take the Portkey from her apartment when she hears a knock at her door. On the other side is Kasper, looking a little worse for the small amount of sleep he has had.

"I couldn't let you leave without knowing…"

"Knowing?" Rose prompts, butterflies in her stomach threatening to burst out.

He takes a step closer to her. Reaches out to cup his hand around her face. "Rose, can I kiss you?"

And that's how Rose gets her first kiss – it's a little fumbling but completely perfect and it makes Rose's heart bloom.

They step apart again, and Rose is biting her lower lip, as Kasper, who is sporting a ridiculous smile, says, "We'll keep in touch, yeah? You have my number." He winks and watches as Rose's Portkey activates and takes her home.

When Rose arrives on her doorstep at home, she already has a message from Kasper.

K [1701]: Miss u already~

Rose smiles to herself before she notes with a start the time difference – they had barely gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and she left in the morning, and it is suddenly time for dinner already? Perhaps their night of stargazing actually worked out – this way she will be able to get to sleep tonight at a normal time.

She sends off a return text to Kasper, and goes inside to see her family.

R [1718]: Miss you too! Gotta go hang with my family for a couple hours, but tty soon!

Rose has dinner with her family during which she shows off her new phone. She makes a show of calling their house telephone from her little handheld, and everyone delights when the house phone rings appropriately. Rose makes plans to visit both sets of grandparents, because she knows both will supremely enjoy this new toy.

Rose is about ready to fall asleep where she stands by the time the sun goes down, but checks her phone for messages from Kasper before she passes out completely. There are many. Apparently each time he did something that reminded him of her, he texted. When she replies, she gets a return text almost immediately, so she lies in bed texting Kasper until she falls asleep. Her final thought is that she didn't get a chance to ask him what would happen to them now that they are on separate continents.

September 1 rolls around again, and Rose and Kasper have been messaging each other progressively less since the first day, but still keeping up a couple messages every day. She realizes that his tone remains light and conversational, but lacking his physical presence and inflection of speech, she does not feel the same urgency to keep up this constant messaging, often at odd hours to accommodate their time difference.

And besides, now she's back at school and in the midst of ramping up for NEWTs. Not to mention, she also has the presence of Scorpius Malfoy to deal with.

They manage to avoid each other pretty effectively for the first couple weeks, much like the end of the previous year. It helps that Rose now has a functional phone that she can glance down at when she doesn't want to – or can't – meet Scorpius' eyes outside of class. It doesn't really matter if she has a notification or not, just smiling slightly at her phone seems to convince him fairly effectively that she's moved on from him.

She doesn't see the flickers of hurt on his face when he sees her doing this.

Rose's good luck does not hold, and they're assigned as project partners in Potions.

He's perfectly polite and they talk only schoolwork. They decide to meet up in the library to work on their project, and at no point does either of them bring up the matter that broke their tentative friendship-bordering-on-relationship from last year. This is not to say that it is not constantly on Rose's mind as they work together.

But the project is over soon enough, and she discovers that working together with Scorpius on homework is still as productive as last year, and they are still as efficient as ever.

It comes as some surprise when, after their Potions project is several days behind them, Scorpius spontaneously asks Rose if she would like to resume their library homework sessions.

A small voice in Rose's head points out that this is the first time that he's taken the initiative to ask her to do something. Maybe something changed for him this summer. Maybe she shouldn't be so hasty to close this chapter of Scorpius in her life. But she's changed this summer and she has Kasper. Had? She's not sure of the tense. They don't speak as much these days; it seems they've more or less run out of things to say.

But she accepts Scorpius's request to be study buddies again, and they fall into an old and familiar rhythm.

Seventh year passes peacefully in this fashion. She sees Scorpius in class and in the library one night a week, sometimes more if they have a project to work on together. He is nothing but professional, and she has Kasper to write to. When she's not studying, she spends her free time with Alice and Anya and their friends, gossiping and gallivanting about Hogsmeade and occasionally having study parties or sleepovers.

In March, Kasper writes that he will be visiting his grandparents in the Netherlands over Easter weekend. He asks if she'll have time that weekend to meet up; he can take a Portkey to her. His timing is very lucky, that's fortunately a Hogsmeade weekend, and she gives him a time and a place that she can meet up with him.

He appears Saturday noon at the edge of town, where Rose and Scorpius had their picnic so many years ago. But Rose is definitely not thinking about that as she goes to embrace Kasper. Much like the last time they saw each other, he cups her face in his hand and runs his thumb along her cheekbone. He bends to kiss her and she stiffens and steps away.

"What's wrong, Rose?"

"I'm happy to see you, but…" Rose looks at her feet.

"But?"

"It's just, since we met, we've spent much more time apart and growing and changing separately, that I feel that I don't know you well anymore. And it feels strange to just jump right back in and be intimate again."

Kasper sighs. "I see where you're coming from. But Rose, you're still as dear to me as the end of the summer. Will you let me hold your hand this afternoon, and reconsider kissing later?"

His hope is so infectious that Rose just has to smile and take his hand.

They walk back into town, where they meet up for lunch with Alice and Albus at the Three Broomsticks. The four of them get on famously, Kasper regales them with tall tales of America and Rose does not stop smiling the entire time.

After lunch, they part ways with Alice and Albus and meander around Hogsmeade. Kasper will take his return Portkey from the same location, so they slowly drift from shop to shop, snacking on liquorice wands and other "curious British flavored candies." They have about twenty minutes left when they arrive at the secondhand bookstore that Rose and Scorpius had such a good time in the year before, but when Kasper suggests they go in, Rose's face closes slightly and she suggests that they sit in the park and shoot the breeze. Kasper fixes her with a puzzled stare but goes along with it. They sit on a park bench and Kasper puts his arm around Rose's shoulders, and Rose hesitates before removing his arm.

"We should talk."

Kasper sighs.

"It's not you. I had a really lovely time this afternoon and you've been nothing but fantastic to me. But this afternoon has really given me a taste of what I'm missing out on by having a long distance relationship – I want to be able to see you regularly and hold your hand, for you to hang out with my friends, and not feel like our life together has to be on hold until the next time we see each other. So I feel that it would be irresponsible for me to keep you tied down when we're still so young. Do you understand?"

When Kasper says nothing, Rose continues, "I am really sorry. If we were both in the same location, or even time zone, maybe things could be different. I would like to continue being friends, but if that's not something that you want, I understand."

Kasper stands up abruptly. "I should go. It was good to see you again, Rose." He reaches for his Portkey, and with that, he is gone.

Rose walks purposefully back towards Hogwarts, needing desperately to find Alice and spill all. Unfortunately, she runs into her young cousin Lily first. Lily is wonderful, really, she is, but when she squeals, "Rose! You and your boyfriend are so cute together! Will he come back to be your date for the Leaving Ball?" Rose just wants to wring her neck. Or tear out her vocal chords. Whichever option would clear up the storm clouds that just appeared on Scorpius's face as he walked past them.

So Rose has to settle for mumbling, "He's not my boyfriend."

Something has changed in Rose and Scorpius' library sessions. Rose can't quite put her finger on what the change is, but she suspects a reason. A reason that is no longer valid, since she hasn't heard from Kasper at all since they parted. She itches to address it, but she isn't sure if it would be appropriate to, given their ill-fated not-relationship last year. Besides, he never gives her the chance, talking only schoolwork until they part ways at the end of the night.

The mood among the seventh years is more than just a little frenzied in the weeks leading up to their graduation. In addition to having NEWTs still hanging over their heads, their hormones are activated by the prospect of the Leaving Ball, and specifically, finding a date. Rose tries to avoid it as best she can, burying herself deeper in her studies. Still, she's not deaf to it all – she hears through the grapevine that Scorpius has asked none other than Arugula Flint to be his date. Rose isn't hurt at all; why should she be? It's none of her business what he does outside of their short hours in the library. Even though Rose doesn't care one bit about who Scorpius goes to the ball with, Alice comes to find her in her far back corner of the library that night, and they study in silence together, and Rose appreciates immensely not being alone.

She lets Albus set her up with his Quidditch teammate Lyle Wood.

Suddenly examinations are upon them, and all life halts to make room for last-minute cramming, and Rose mothering over her cluster of friends to make sure they are fed, watered, and well-rested for their exams, because she knows from experience that's what they most need.

And as suddenly as they arrived, the examination period has passed, leaving only nastily exhausted seventh years in its wake.

A/N: I MISS CALIFORNIA *cries*