Chapter five

Present

Rose turned her face towards the sky and felt how the tiny snowflakes settled down just to be gone a second later, it was sad that the snow were to disappear soon, but her thoughts quickly went back to her problem ahead.

She took a deep breath, letting the cool air fill her lungs and held it in for a moment, as she tried to force the nausea away before she entered the building in front of her.

She wished that she would have someone with her for moral support as she felt the worry grow stronger inside, why did she have to dream about working at the ministry's department of magical accidents and catastrophes, she wouldn't be this nervous if she were to work at her uncle's store. Damn grandpa Weasley for making it sound interesting to work here…

Scorpius had laughed when she had voiced her worries out loud. That stupid git...

"You sound like you are going to Hogwarts for your first year. Rose, of course they'll like you." Well, that's easy for him to say… that stupid yet sociable git.

Deciding that she had been standing outside long enough, she gathered all her courage and stepped inside the ministry of magic.

Inside there were lots of witches and wizards bustling around, both employees and visitors. Rose tried to shut everyone out of her head, and it wasn't improving her nauseous feeling when a plump witch squeezed herself past Rose while eating away at a big pumpkin pastry. The mere thought of eating something almost made her want to turn around and go home, but then she found herself at the wanted level and she was met by an elder looking man who introduced himself as mr. Thomson.

"So Rose, you'll be working with me and Cynthia over there." He pointed to a witch in her thirties who smiled and waved at them. Feeling a little more at ease with her situation Rose smiled and waved back slightly, as mr. Thomson began to describe what they would do and show her around the place.

Suddenly mr. Thomson's smile wasn't as warm as before, but more forced when his eye caught something over her shoulder. Confused Rose turned around and was met by a grinning man, whose smile didn't reach his cold eyes, probably one or two years older than herself. She was taken aback by the look in his eyes, but shook the man's hand as he held it out to her.

"You must be mrs. Malfoy, I'm Matt Farrow." His voice was dripping of false politeness, and she tried to let go off him, but he still held onto her hand. "Yes, looks like dear old Scorpius went against everyone's expectations after all."

"I guess he did." She could feel her anger rise, all the worries she had had were disappearing and she fought hard to remain cool and collected. This however was hard when she looked into the smirking face before her, how she longed to bring out her wand. "If you excuse me, mr. Farrow, but I'm quite busy right now, so I'll need my hand back."

The smirk on his face grew as she said this in a cold and serious tone, but he obliged her. "Of course, how silly of me." He left without another word and Rose turned to her new boss with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry about that…" But mr. Thomson interrupted her with a light pat on the arm.

"Nothing to worry about, I can tell you that I myself, wouldn't have done it differently." They began to walk again and mr. Thomson continued to instruct her about what she needed to know.

"So Malfoy, how was Christmas?" Andrew Mitchell asked as the two of them were lazily hovering by the goalposts after practise.

"The usual, utter chaos every second of it." Scorpius laughed as he recalled how Harry with help from Ron and Albus chased after James and Hugo, who had cast a spell on the gift from Harry to Ginny, turning a ticket for a magical cruise into a ticket for a wizard mud wrestling tournament. It didn't help that Harry held a short speech before Ginny opened the envelope, a speech which consisted of how much he thought that the two of them needed this and how it would help his wife relax.

"How was your own?" Mitchell smiled dreamily before answering.

"I got engaged with the most incredible, awesome, loving witch you have ever had the pleasure to know."

"You know that Rose is married to me, right?" Scorpius smirked at his friend who tried to smack him over the head. "But I'm happy for you and Laura."

"Thank you." Andrew suddenly looked like he was deep in thought and Scorpius patiently waited for him to come out of it. "When you married Rose… how was that?"

"Apart from having our fathers throwing death glares at each other, before they got together during the reception to argue about our future lives, such as names and grandchildren, and then having two highly uncomfortable talks with both of them… apart from that it was one of the best days of my life." The other man stared at Scorpius for a second before he uttered a low "wow".

"You could say that." Scorpius sighed and looked down in time to see someone enter the field, the someone noticed the two men and waved. "But it was and still is all worth it." With that he zoomed down towards a laughing Rose and hit the ground with his feet right before her.

"Hey you, how was the new job?" He got off the broom and slung his arm around her waist as Mitchell touched the field a few feet away from them. Andrew gave Rose a bright smile and a nod before heading to the changing rooms.

"It was good, they are really nice." She trailed off and looked at Andrew's retreating back. "Andy looked really happy today, has he gone to a fortune teller again? He does remember about the last time, right?"

"Not that I know of, and I hope that he does, however he's happy because he's apparenty engaged now." Rose took him a little of guard by actually squealing at the news, but he shrugged it of as they made their way out to apparate home, thinking that she must be really happy for Andrew and Laura.

"Do you know anyone called Matt Farrow?" Rose sat down on the small couch beside Scorpius who was reading the Prophet. He looked at her before answering, and noticed how she furrowed her brow.

"Yes, he was a slytherin a year a head of me. What about him?"

"He works at my department and I just can't stand him." She glared at the coffeetable as she spoke. "He looks at me like I'm not worth… anything really. He came up and introduced himself, and there was this… I don't know." Rose felt how tears came to her eyes, and she was a little surprised by that, as was Scorpius. He brought her closer to him and hushed her as the tears started to fall.

"I-I don't kn-know what's wr-wr-wrong with me." She blubbered before she buried her face against his side. Scorpius was at a loss of words, this was not how Rose used to behave. For a moment he was afraid that she had been hexed, but he tried to ignore that thought and focus on calming her down.

"There's nothing wrong with you, love." He tried, but it seemed like she didn't notice his feeble attempts to comfort her. His hand travelled in circles over her back, her body shacking because of the sobs, but then suddenly she stopped crying. The room was silent before she removed her head from him to look out the window.

"Is it raining outside?" The question was so absurd after she had just moments ago bawled her eyes out; Scorpius couldn't do anything but stare at her in bewilderment. "Yes, it is… I should go out." She got to her feet and began to move towards the door. This brought Scorpius back and he followed her.

"What are you doing?"

"I just want to go out and smell the air." She answered simply, but under Scorpius stare she felt the need to explain herself. "I feel the need to smell the scent of wet pavement."

"Rose, what is this?"

"Scorpius, I don't know, you act like it's something wrong just because…" Her voice travelled of and her mouth shaped like an o in revelation.

"What!?" Scorpius couldn't bare this any longer; the worry was slowly beginning to drive him insane.

"I think I'm pregnant." Rose thought about it, and realised that it had to be that. She hadn't had any visits from the monthly visitor, she felt sick most of the time… and she really wanted to go outside and smell the pavement.

Scorpius was stunned; his brain seemed to have ceased to work properly, or even at all. Rose pregnant… pregnant Rose… swirled around in his mind. He studied her face and wondered how she could be so calm about this, he was sure that he showed everything as clear as day.

After another moment of silence Rose decided that it was perhaps time to bring Scorpius back to the present, it looked like he was frozen in shock.

"Scorpius… Rose to Scorpius, are you there?" His hands found their way to her shoulders but it was like he wasn't seeing her.

"A baby…" His voice was like a whisper, but she smiled a little at the acknowledgement. "We're having a baby." A full sentence, he was making progress. Then suddenly she was pressed against him in a tight hug with his face buried in her hair. She snaked her arms around his waist and hugged him back, as she heard him mumble too quiet for her to make out any of the words.

"You know we can't be really sure… I should take a test, but this is the most probable explanation." She said into his chest, she didn't want him to get his hopes up to high if it wouldn't be true.

"Yes, you're right, but after the show you put on earlier I can't believe much else." He smiled down at her, and she kissed him hard and passionately; she loved him so much it was on the border to ridiculous.