Chapter 2

Head Of Department

"—and then we somehow managed to score the last goal… and you're not listening to me."

Rose looked up from her dinner and shot Hugo an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry Hugh, I was preoccupied."

"You always are," Hugo said in a dejected voice and Rose winced. "And don't call me Hugh. My name's Hugo," he snapped at her, as he got up to keep his plate in the sink.

She stared down at her food, toying with it, as she didn't exactly have an appetite that day. Plus, it had gotten too cold to taste good anyway.

"I'm leaving," Hugo announced and Rose looked up so fast, her neck cracked. She groaned as she rubbed the back of her neck and stood up hurriedly as Hugo put on his jacket.

"What? Why? You just got here!"

"No, I got here two hours ago and you've been ignoring me the whole time," he replied as he laced his shoes. She sighed at his brown head and had a sudden urge to ruffle his hair like she used to when they were little.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't ignoring you. I was just—"

"Preoccupied," Hugo finished harshly. When he saw the hurt on Rose's face, he sighed and shook his head. "I know you're busy Rosie, but if you keep ignoring human contact like this, you're going to turn into one of those Muggles who was rescued after being stranded out in the wilderness for too long."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Rose mumbled, feeling guilty that she had given her little brother cause to lecture her. Again.

Hugo nodded and standing up, patted her head. She swatted his hand automatically, frowning up at him. He'd long since over shot her and no one could actually tell that she was the older of the two siblings, if they stood side by side. He smiled as she stuck her bottom lip out at him and hugged her with one arm.

"I'll come visit again, if you don't go home within the next two weeks."

"Hugo," Rose sighed, "it's been seven years since I moved out. You don't have to keep coming and checking in on me all the time, like this. I know you're busy with the new season starting soon and all."

Hugo shrugged and pulled the hood over his head. Rose frowned at him.

"Are you going to see Lily now?"

Lily had moved out and into her Muggle boyfriend's house in Muggle London four years ago, despite everyone's disapproval. Her boyfriend knew she was a witch and it actually made him excited to see her perform magic, although she had made him swear – magically, of course, because Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys would never have permitted it otherwise – that he'd never talk about her or magic or wizards or the like to any Muggle. Although everyone had expected the relationship to fall apart sooner than later, that being the only reason Harry and her brothers had grudgingly agreed to let her live with her boyfriend in the first place, even after four years, they were still going strong, and Lily had even spoken to Rose about having suspicions that Nicholas was going to propose soon.

"Gotta make sure that berk doesn't suddenly up and decide that tonight is the night he 'pops the question', as he calls it."

Rose rolled her eyes at Hugo's successful attempt to sound like a Muggle. Despite what he said or did, both he and Rose liked Nick because they knew that he genuinely loved Lily.

She walked him to the door and stood with her hand on the frame as he stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded at her.

"See you later, then."

"Can't you just floo into their house? Traveling by that underground tube thing this late in the night is ridiculous."

Hugo shook his head and grinned at Rose. "Nick goes ballistic if someone steps out of the fireplace covered in soot. Thinks we'll explode in flames or something. I keep telling Lils it's her fault for telling him about how Phoenixes die."

Rose chuckled and shook her head. Nicholas would always be a running gag in the family, with his many Muggle ways and his Muggle reactions to magic. He was the one who had gifted her the coffee machine that she kept in her office. Apparently it was a 'high-end model' and was very expensive, and although she, like Renée, didn't see the point of it, kept it anyway because she was quite fond of Nick.

"Alright, be careful then."

Hugo nodded and was about to walk away, when Rose grabbed his elbow. He looked back at her curiously and she debated whether or not to tell him that Scorpius was back. She'd been debating that back and forth the entire time Hugo was there, which was one of the main reasons for her not paying attention to him. She suddenly found herself wimping out from the way Hugo was looking at her expectantly, and she bit her lip, wondering if it was too late to simply laugh it off as nothing.

"Rosie?"

"He's back," she blurted, before she could lose her nerve, and Hugo looked at her in confusion, coming back to stand in front of her door.

He frowned at the way she was chewing her lip nervously and asked, "Who's back?"

"Scorpius. He's back."

Hugo's frown deepened and he seemed to expand, the way he pushed his shoulders back and his chest out.

"Back from where? Peru? Why? Wasn't he supposed to come back this year end?"

Rose nodded hastily, already regretting telling her brother.

"Then why's he back so soon?"

Rose waved her hand hurriedly and said, "I don't know the particulars yet, but I think it's because of shortage of funds and the fact that they hadn't made any worthwhile discovery in the past two years."

"OK," Hugo said slowly, as though he was trying to think through whatever information Rose had just given him. "So he's back early. How does that affect you?"

His eyes had lost its usual glassy manner and had taken on a darker, more brooding look. Rose swallowed, wondering if he would see through her if she lied.

"If you're planning on lying, don't bother," he informed her and she pressed her lips together to keep from saying that she was doing no such thing.

"I don't—I didn't expect him, that's all. I should have been informed, since I'm the Head of Department and everything, and although I have been busy with other things, and technically his actions are completely separate and aren't monitored by me, I should have still been informed about his leaving the expedition early and returning back."

Hugo sighed and scratched his head. "Rosie, if you can't stand to be around him, then let Renée or someone else handle him. There's no need for you to force yourself."

"I'm not forcing myself," she replied a little too defensively and Hugo raised his eyebrows at her. She shook her head to cover up for her mistake.

"I'm the Head of both his and Renee's divisions and I can't suddenly push my duties onto someone else because I'm uncomfortable about dealing with him. That, and I can't actually do it, since I am the Head and his direct superior."

"And because you don't want to lose to him."

Rose made a face. She was hoping Hugo would have forgotten that. He rolled his eyes at her.

"Please. You both have been going at each other's throats for years and you think him taking a long trip and then returning suddenly five years later is going to change that?"

Rose picked at the stitch in her dress and stared at his shoulder instead of answering. Hugo reached up and tugged her hair as he said, "You're not fooling anyone by pretending to be alright, Rosie. Either deal with the problem or run away from it."

She knew he'd only said the last part to instigate her into arguing, as she couldn't actually run away from Scorpius, so she glared at him and he grinned.

"Old habits die hard, right?"

He reached upward and ruffled her hair like she always had done his, and she swatted at him with an annoyed yell. He laughed and began walking away backwards.

"Night Rosie," he called with a grin and she stuck her tongue out at him. She heard him laugh even as he turned the corner toward the elevator. She couldn't help but smile herself, as she shut the door and made her way to the kitchen. No matter what she did – or didn't do, rather – Hugo always seemed to know exactly what to say to get her wheels turning the right way.

Exactly how Scorpius knew exactly what to say or do to get her wheels turning the wrong way.

"Can you believe that piece of shite?!"

Rose looked up from the forms she was signing, alarmed by how Renée had slammed her hand on her desk.

"What? Who?"

"Wernicks!"

Rose shook her head at her friend. "Renée, if this is about the files Harold brought—"

"I couldn't care less about the files that silly boy brought," Renée snapped and ran both her hands through her hair. Rose put her quill down and sat back with raised eyebrows. It had been awhile since Renée had gone on a rampage.

"So Wernicks is an arsehole because," Rose prompted, as she would a child who had forgotten why they had come crying to her about something and got distracted along the way.

"I called him a piece of shite, but arsehole is fine too," Renée grumbled, as though exactly what Wernicks was, was the more pressing matter here.

"Ren," Rose quipped and Renée made a frustrated sound and threw her hands in the air.

"He didn't tell us about Scorpius's premature return back from the Expedition Crew because I told him I thought he was a lazy, lying piece of shite!"

Rose sighed. And there was the answer to the question that had been bugging her all day yesterday. "And why exactly did you think it was a good idea to tell him what you thought about him?"

"Everyone thinks that about him and it's true and you know it!"

"Come on, you know that's not the point."

Renée sat down on the chair on the other side of Rose's desk and sulked. Rose bit her cheek to keep from smiling. She had almost forgotten how childish Renée's tantrums were.

"Remember how Harold was all flustered the other day when we ran into him after lunch?"

"Yeah," Rose replied, closing her pot of ink in case Renée flung her hand out and spilled it all over her parchment. She placed it on the side table as an extra precaution.

"Well, it was because Wernicks had asked him to replace the contents of the box of files marked 'important' on my desk to ones that he was supposed to submit later that day. He'd forgotten to do it the previous night because of another row with his wife and the bloody git thought it would be hilarious to put the blame on me!"

Rose frowned. Wernicks was getting out of hand with his habit of skirting his work by tricking other people into doing it. It was about time she had a talk with him.

"I didn't realize something was wrong until I saw the date stamp on the 'to be submitted' portion. I was sure my files were due by the weekend, not that evening. So I went up to Wernicks and asked him from where in Merlin's name he found the balls to think he could just replace my work with his and get away with it."

"Let me guess, he accused you of accusing him of doing something he'd never done and then you told him that he was a dirty, lying piece of shite."

"Yes! Although I didn't say dirty. I should've said dirty."

Rose sighed and stood up. Renée forgot her anger for a moment to look up at Rose curiously.

"Where are you going? I'm not done yet."

"I'll let you ramble on about Wernicks as soon as I get back," Rose promised with a pat on her friend's shoulder.

"Pinky promise!" Renée called after her, earning confused glances from the people walking outside.

Rose straightened her blouse and redid the bun on her head so she looked as prim and proper as she meant to look, as she stepped out of her office. She made her way past several offices and witches and wizards scampering around, shouting to each other. The best thing about being the Head of Department, was the fact that everyone else did most of the brunt work for you and only the most pressing matters or the ones no one else could do, were the ones you had to handle.

She dodged around two wizards in lab coats who had put down a large contraption in the middle of the corridor to argue back and forth over it. She would have intervened, but the arguement would have taken hours to settle and the best way to solve problems in the Research and Experimentation Department, was to let the problem burn itself out in due course.

She reached Wernicks office, or rather his former office, since he had only been made Secondary Head of the Practical division since the actual Head had gone on the five-year expedition to Peru. She paused with her hand on the knob of the wooden door, when she heard voices inside. Wernicks was shouting at somebody and after a few seconds, that somebody answered back in a voice that was clearly more amused than angry.

A voice she knew all too well.

Sighing, she decided that handling both parts of her problem simultaneously was the best course of action. Pushing the door open, she stood just inside the room and listened to the argument, since clearly, neither men had noticed her enter.

"—and just who do you think you are, you wretched piece of—"

"I'm the actual Head of Division, that's who. But that's quite a silly question, Mister Wernicks, since you already know who I am."

"You rascal! How dare you talk to me like that! If it wasn't for me, you'd never have been able to go on that ridiculously flamboyant expedition of yours! It's only because I agreed to step in for you—"

"Precisely. You agreed to step in for me when I left, and now that I'm back, I'm asking you to agree to step right back out."

"How dare you! You've got some nerve talking to me like that! The other Division Head and the Head of Department will never accept this!"

"Actually," Rose said, finally coming forward. Wernicks jumped like he'd been whipped and stared at her red-faced. Scorpius's smirk grew with amusement as he watched her approach them, wide-eyed.

"The other Division Head was just telling me what a nasty, lying, piece of shite you are," she said with a smile, already tired with Wernicks' ridiculous antics.

He swelled with anger, his face going purple, and spluttered, apparently so enraged that he couldn't even form a coherent sentence. If the short, pudgy man could have come close to blowing up, Rose was sure this was it.

"Besides," Rose began, coming to stand next to Scorpius, so it turned out to be the two of them against Wernicks, "Mister Malfoy is the one with both the qualifications and the expertise to be the Division Head, and not you."

"You—after all these years! I've done everything—"

"By tricking and bribing other people into doing your work for you. You even went so far as to try and trick the other Head of Division into doing your work and me as well, simply so you could meet the deadline. That speaks for itself, wouldn't you agree?"

"That's—because—our division has so much to do and such incompetent fools to do it! Take that Harold fellow for example! I've never seen him do rat's ass!"

"Harold isn't part of the Practical Division, Mister Wernicks. Has he ever tell you that he was?"

Wernicks opened his mouth and then shut it. He opened it again and then had to shut it again, like a fish out of water, because he obviously had been rendered speechless by his own stupidity.

Rose raised an unamused eyebrow at the older man. "And what was it you were saying about the Head of Department never agreeing to fire you?"

"F-Fire," Wernicks mumbled, having gone entirely pale. He completely deflated and took on the demeanor of a middle-aged man being told he was being let go because he was incompetent. As he was now, Rose almost felt sorry for him.

"Yes, because it would seem that you've done nothing but cause trouble, ever since you were made Secondary Head."

"I—I may have used nefarious means, but I still got the work done! The Theoretical Division barely does any work anyway! That Harold fellow always has so much free time! He never even told me he wasn't part of the Practical Division!"

"As Division Head, isn't it your responsibility to know who is and isn't part of your division? Plus, that excuse would have worked better if both divisions didn't have completely different sets of uniforms. And you didn't notice that Harold didn't wear the white lab coat of the Practical Division, simply because you didn't care to notice, as long as you could harass him into doing your work."

"I still got the work done," Wernicks tried one final time. Rose sighed and shook her head. Even pity seemed too good for a man like him.

"Fine. Ignoring everything you did – or rather didn't do – let us talk about something else, shall we?"

Wernicks raised his head a little higher, as though he thought Rose was giving him another chance. She smiled sweetly at him, just to reinforce the illusion that she was.

"What exactly did you think would happen when you deliberately withheld information regarding the untimely arrival of Mister Malfoy?"

Wernicks seemed to assume the demeanor of someone who was being told that his life's worth wasn't nearly as much as he had always thought it was. He wrung his hands and Rose noticed that he was sweating quite profusely.

"I—I didn't," he began, and then coming to the realization that there was nothing he could say to defend that particular act of foolishness, he seemed to shrink even smaller than he already was.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled half-heartedly, staring down at his hands.

"Really?" Rose asked, causing Wernicks to look up in confusion. She understood why he seemed so baffled, because she had kept her smile gentle and her voice sickly sweet, and let him assume she wasn't nearly as angry as she actually was.

"You think you can simply apologize for withholding information that wasn't yours to withhold in the first place, and everything will be OK? Did you actually think your quarrel with Miss Herington, where you were obviously in the wrong, was reason enough to not tell her of Mister Malfoy's preponed arrival? Even if you did have that fight with Miss Herington and you deemed not telling her as justified, information of Mister Malfoy's early departure from Peru and handling the remaining matters was your responsibility, wasn't it? So I simply cannot fathom how something so important just – how should I put this in a way you would understand – skipped your mind?"

By then, Wernicks seemed all but ready to accept his fate and seemed rather inclined to be cut loose, than be humiliated by two people half his age. Rose wondered if he had been punished enough, and as though in answer to that, Scorpius spoke up slowly beside her.

"Many a great men have made mistakes, Miss Weasley. I don't think we should hold it to Mister Wernicks for his slip up."

Rose had the urge to whip toward the blond, grab him by the shoulder and demand what exactly he was playing at, but she simply retained her smile and stared at Wernicks.

"I think Mister Wernicks himself is well aware of his misgivings and thus, I would like to once again offer him the chance to step down graciously," Scorpius said gently and Rose could see that he had replaced the smirk on his face with a smile that could be considered as genuine, if whoever saw it didn't know him half as well as she did.

"Mister Wernicks?" Scorpius took a step forward, offering a hand for the older man to shake. Although Wernicks eyed it with disgust, he nodded and shook it anyway, thinking that was probably the best chance he was going to get to keep his job.

That was when it suddenly dawned on Rose what Scorpius had done. He had played along with her attempt to make it seem that all they were doing was having an amicable discussion, nothing nearly as horrific as calmly discussing a man's future and whether they would be the ones to destroy it or not. She would have felt disgusted by it before, but at some point she'd realized that Scorpius was never explicitly spiteful toward anybody about anything. She probably wouldn't have felt contempt toward him for half her life, if he had actually been an honest bastard.

Once it was clear that Wernicks was going to vacate the office to Scorpius, Rose nodded to the latter to follow her and made for the door. Scorpius held it open for her and bowed slightly, while graciously extending an arm and gesturing for her to go first. Rose paused half way outside the door and looking over her shoulder, said in the same casual tone of voice,

"Oh and Mister Wernicks? Don't bother shifting your things."

When the man looked at her in confusion, she smiled sweetly and said in the nicest of voices,

"You're fired."

A/n: I just wanted to mention that several things in this story may confuse you, because most of this story follows Rose's perspective, so only things that she knows will be explained. If she doesn't know something, then it'll be left as is until she does, so they're deliberate plot holes. Just wanted to inform you on that since someone told me it was rather confusing as to why Rose was so ignorant about a lot of seemingly important things, or why they were left unmentioned.

Also, I decided to give Rose her own personality as a strong individual, rather than forcing her to follow in her parents' footsteps, as I kinda have in my other story. So let me know what you think of her!

Please review and critique, because I really want some active criticism so I can better my skills and my story.

Love~