A/N: Come on guys! Only a few more reviews to go until Child Head Girl breaks the 30 barrier! –R xx
In the Previous Chapter…
"She loves you, mate. One of the things she could smell in the potion…"
"was me!" Scorpius gasped, suddenly remembering the lesson Ly was on about. "But she loves me at 5, when I'm looking after her. She probably won't love me when she ages again though" he murmured.
"But she might" said Leo, before grabbing Scorpius under the arms and hoisting him up. "But we can worry about that later. Let's go and try and find her a chrimbo prezzie, yeah?" he said before dragging his friend away towards a small trinket shop.
"Little Vintage?" asked Scorpius as they entered the small shop.
"Yeah, it's like this little trinket shop. My dad brings me here every year in the summer and we always try to find something for my mum's birthday" Leo explained. "It's got little bits of everything, but has quite a lot of jewellery, so I thought you could look for something for Rose here."
Scorpius looked around the shop. There were numerous shelves all over, all filled with this that and the other. In a way, it reminded Scorpius of Ollivander's (which was now run by Mr Ollivander's son) in the way that it was arranged in such an organised mess.
Leo walked up to the counter and said hi to the lady in charge before saying, "My mate Scorpius is looking for a little trinket for his girlfriend" he said, "Could you possibly show us where any of the good finds are?"
The lady behind the counter knew Leo well, so was more than happy to guide them between a maze of shelves to a jewellery stand. "This is most of the jewellery that we have, Leo, but if you can't find something, just give us a shout and I can take you through to the store room and we can see if we can find something there" she beamed before turning around.
"Thanks, Soph" Leo called before turning to Scorpius. "You heard the lady, get looking!"
The boys filtered through all of the jewellery on the stand, but Scorpius still couldn't find something that he thought Rose would like, so they found Soph again and she led them down into the basement/store room.
As soon as Soph pointed out the jewellery, Scorpius' eyes found out the perfect gift. He picked it up and carefully showed his friends, beaming. They all looked down and nodded back at him. "She'll love it" Lorcan nodded.
Meanwhile, up at Hogwarts, Lily was having a nightmare time controlling Rose.
"Rosie, please come out!" she pleaded, trying to persuade Rose to unlock the door to Scorpius' bedroom.
"No!" came Rose's defiant little cry from inside the head boy's room, "I'm not coming out until Scorp'us comes back!"
"Rosie, he's gone out with his friends to buy presents, but I'm sure that he'll be back soon" Lily said.
"Well then, you won't have to wait very long for me to come out then!" Rose yelled. Lily heard something clunk against the door. "Leave me alone, I want my Scorp'us!" Lily assumed that Rose had thrown one of Scorpius' shoes against the door.
"Rose, if you come out, I can take you to the kitchens and we can get ice cream" Lily said, trying a new method.
Lily heard the lock click in the door and watched as Rose's head slowly popped out of the miniscule gap. "Really? What type of ice cream?"
"Any type you want" Lily said, grinning to herself as she had finally got Rose to move out of Scorpius' room. She offered her hand out to Rose and together they left the Head common room to go across the hall to the kitchens.
Just as they left the common room, however, Rose sprinted away from Lily.
"Rose come back! Scorpius'll kill me if I lose you!" Lily yelled.
"It's cool, I can't kill you if she runs into me first."
Lily groaned as she walked up to a smirking Scorpius, who currently had Rose sitting smugly in his arms around his waist further down the hallways. "She's been a nightmare all day. She locked herself in your room and it took me 4 hours to coax her out, and even then I had to promise that you were coming back" Lily said before glaring at Rose.
"I just wanted my Scorp'us" Rose said innocently, but ruined her act by giggling.
"Well, I'm here now. But I want you to apologise to Lily here for giving her a bad time whilst I was gone" Scorpius said sternly.
"Sorry, Lily" Rose said, dipping her head shamefully for getting into trouble. She then looked up at Scorpius. "Have you got my Christmas present?!" she asked hopefully.
"Nope. I knew you'd ask so Leo's looking after it for me" he grinned. "But it's only a week until Christmas, so you don't have to wait long to get it anyway!" he smiled before moving Rose so that she was sat on his shoulders. "Shall we go down for dinner then?"
As they were walking towards the Great Hall, Scorpius felt Rose squirm. "What's wrong, hun?"
"Nothing, Scorp'us, but I can see my Uncle Harry!" she giggled.
As Rose said this, they reached the entrance hall, and stood beside Professor Longbottom was indeed Harry Potter.
"Ahhh, Rosie, Scorpius, I've been meaning to see you" Harry smiled as he walked over to them.
Scorpius lifted Rose off of his shoulders and placed her on the floor. She ran over to Harry and jumped into his arms.
"Hiya Uncle Harry" she giggled, giving him a hug.
"Hey, it's good to see you, Rosie" Harry said, "But I actually need to talk to Scorpius here for a minute. Can you go with Uncle Nev to dinner whilst I talk to him? It'll only take a minute" he said.
Rose hesitated, but knew she couldn't argue with Harry, so went over to Neville, who took her through to the Great Hall. Harry turned to Scorpius.
"Only Draco's son would have that pale hair" Harry joked, "There's no need to look so worried, Scorpius! I don't bite" he grinned. Scorpius saw that the man wasn't gonna yell at him, so started to relax.
"It's good to meet you, sir" he said, shaking Harry's hand. "I haven't done anything wrong, have I?"
"No, no, not at all! I was actually going to congratulate you. I meant to come and speak to you as soon as you regained consciousness after your injury earlier this year, but I haven't had a spare minute" Harry said. "You've been doing a great job of looking after my neice, and I would like to thank you for it. You put her before yourself and as a consequence, your friends and her family gave you quite a beating for it" he frowned. "Believe me, Al and Hugo aren't going to forget what they did quickly after their mums got to them" he laughed. "Gin and 'Mione went bonkers" he chuckled.
"I'm sorry that your son got in trouble. I shouldn't have really sat at the Gryffindor table, but Rose wouldn't let me go anywhere else" Scorpius explained.
"Rose always has had a way of ensuring that her say goes" Harry nodded. "You really have done an excellent job looking after her, though. Have you considered what is going to happen when she returns to her normal age?" he asked.
"I have thought a little, but not loads" Scorpius said. "I'm just worried that she'll forget about me as soon as she's back to normal" he admitted.
Scorpius was surprised when Harry started to laugh. "Rosie won't forget you, Scorpius. It's obvious that she's completely in love with you at her current age, and she's not going to turn around and ignore you" the older man said. "Just wait and see what happens. Now, what are you doing about the Christmas Holidays?"
"I don't know, sir. Rose won't leave my side for less than 5 minutes without kicking up a fuss, so I was gonna stay here with her" Scorpius said.
"What about seeing your family?"
"I don't think Ron Weasley would appreciate it if Rose spent Christmas at Malfoy Manor" Scorpius said honestly.
"Well, you're right about Rose not leaving your side, but her family won't be very pleased if they don't see her over Christmas" Harry said thoughtfully. "How about you spend half of the holidays with your family at Malfoy Manor and spend the other half with us?"
"Sorry?!" Scorpius said, eyes bulging at the suggestion.
"Spend the first half of the holidays with your family, as I heard that Rose quite likes your dad too, and then come and stay with the Weasleys at the Burrow for the rest of the hols" Harry repeated. "I'll guarantee that Rose will enjoy it more, plus Ron can't kill you if I suggest it" he laughed. "You can sleep at the Burrow with all of the kids and then Rose can come and stay at yours."
"I'd really like that, sir, if you're sure no one would mind a Malfoy joining the Weasley Christmas" Scorpius grinned. "I'll just have to owl my dad about it, but he'll be fine with it all."
"Well, then I'll see you at Kings Cross in a few day's time" Harry smiled. "Now, let's go find my trouble-of-a-neice."
As Scorpius and Harry entered, Rose stood up from where she was sat with all of her cousins and ran full pelt towards them.
"What did Uncle Harry say, Scorp'us?" she asked excitedly.
"He just wanted to invite us home for Christmas" Scorpius grinned before picking Rose off of the floor and into his arms. "Shall we go and have dinner then, hun?"
Harry watched as Scorpius carried Rose happily towards all of his nieces and nephews and was amazed at how easily they all got along. Harry walked towards then and joined them at the Gryffindor table.
"I haven't sat here in years" he said, looking up and down the table.
"Urgh, Dad's reminiscing" Al groaned before asking Scorpius "So, dad invited you to have a Weasley Christmas, huh?"