A/n: OK, yes, I know you would like to shoot me, and I am extremely sorry for such a late update, BUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER RIGHT?! -laughs nervously-

Anyway, here's part 2 of 3.

Love~

Chapter 9

Unresolved Feelings – II

Rose bit her tongue to keep herself from spluttering and glowered at Scorpius – who looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself at her expense.

"You carried me?!"

"Well, you couldn't walk on your own, so…"

"People at work saw you carrying me?!"

He raised his hand to his face and scratched his cheek as he cleared his throat, a telltale smile playing on his lips. If he was trying to be subtle about controlling his laughter, he wasn't doing a very good job at it.

"You don't have to look so scandalised, Miss Weasley. On your orders, I went to your uncle and he successfully got us out of the Ministry without any problems."

She frowned at him and chewed on her lower lip. His explanation had brought forth many questions that seemed to take precedence over how exactly they had managed to carry her out of the Ministry with no problems. She started with the most pressing matter.

"Have there been any unforeseen problems in the department during my absence?"

He made a face that said he didn't want to talk about that, but he answered anyway, considering that that had probably been the only excuse he could use to escape Rose's endless questioning. "None that I couldn't handle."

She regarded him for a moment and it probably looked to him like she was sizing him up, but really, she was too full to even think very clearly. She nodded finally and he gave her a searching look. He inclined his head and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Do you not trust me enough to handle things while you're on a sick leave?"

His voice was soft and deep and his eyes were imploring and honest. She felt her chest squeeze ever so slightly. She chewed on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from grinning stupidly and said carefully, "I didn't say anything of that sort, did I?"

"No," he agreed, moving so he was facing her fully. He continued to stare at her with the same intensely earnest look and she suddenly shifted under her blankets, feeling uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze.

"Rose," he all but murmured, leaning close to her as though he was examining her face. She leaned as far back into the headrest as she could without the wood cleaving into her bones.

"Yes?" she squeaked, her mouth suddenly parched. She was one hundred percent sure that he didn't realize how awkward and strange he was making her feel and was simply gazing at her like he was sifting through the thoughts in her brain, because that was probably exactly what he was doing.

"I don't know how you've been running the department these past five years," he began and she felt the mattress under her shift as he leaned even closer, his brows furrowing ever so slightly, "but you can trust that I will be able to do all the work that a Division Head is supposed to do, and more. So please don't categorise me under the general assumption that I am the same as that half-wit, Wernicks."

His eyes flashed and her breath caught. Oh. He was upset that she hadn't trusted him enough to let him take care of most of the work that was pretty much his to do in the first place, and instead, had chosen to overwork herself till she was sick. She shook her head slightly, finding it more and more difficult to breathe under his unnervingly straightforward gaze.

"That's not it," she said in a small voice and almost sighed in relief when he pulled back slightly and regarded her with raised eyebrows.

"No?"

"No." She shook her head insistently, not wanting him to find the need to once again resume his staring through her skull. "I suppose you're right. I probably just unconsciously thought I had to carry the burden myself without realising that I had someone to carry it for me. It was stupid to overwork myself till I passed out, and you're right, I should trust you to do the work given to you perfectly and without hesitation."

His eyes widened at that and regained its usual appearance of dancing silver and he gave her a dazzling smile that quite literally took her breath away. She had said something right after all.

"So, you trust me?"

The question was simple enough, but the way in which he had put it forth, soft and almost beseeching, she knew that he genuinely wanted her to trust him. And that was the cause for her dilemma. She could hear her jumbled thoughts racing round in her head even as she nodded and with a smile, said, "Yes. Yes, I do."

He smiled that innocent, genuine, wide-eyed smile that always confounded her, and stood up carefully, as though she was so fragile that he didn't want to jostle her. He picked the soup bowl up and gave her a swift bow.

"Now that I've heard you say that, my mind is free of worry and can be turned completely towards the tasks at hand."

He walked towards the door before she could get over his smile and get her brain working enough to think of something to say. Pulling the door open, he paused to look over his shoulder and said, "Thank you, Rose."

She moaned and placed her face in her hands as the door shut behind him and she realised her face was burning and her heart was pounding. Those smiles of his should be illegal. They were so rare as compared to his conceited smirks or his wily grins, and they took her completely by surprise and bulldozed her down before she even knew what hit her.

Renée's warning from the day Scorpius had returned, rang clearly in her mind and she groaned loudly. She couldn't help it that he caught her completely off guard and blew her off her feet with so much force that she would be tumbling down a mountain side and come to a stop at the bottom and still not know what hit her.

She had placed him under the same misunderstood perception when she had viewed him as the boy who teased and taunted her endlessly during their days in Hogwarts; so much so, that she had failed to realize that he had always been careful and responsible with everything that was placed under his care. He had been Head Boy, for Merlin's sake, and she still thought he only lived to make her life miserable.

He must think I'm an idiot, she thought, sighing morosely and shaking her head. He seemed to have a knack for endlessly confusing her.

Albus had been right about her unnecessarily overworking herself because she had been under the assumption that only she could do the work that came to her. And it wasn't that she didn't trust Scorpius – at least, she didn't consciously mistrust him – but it was just that she was so used to Wernicks not doing any work and the fact that Scorpius had been thousands of miles away and had almost nothing to do with what she was doing in those five years.

It also probably had more to do with the fact that they had barely worked together as Division Head and H.O.D before he had to leave. Even in the year and a half that they had worked together, he had been too busy organising the expedition and taking care of things related to it, while she handled everything else. So it wasn't very difficult to understand why she thought she had to do all the work. It would take her some time to realise that yes, things were definitely different from before and she could rely on Scorpius to handle almost everything if she wanted him to – especially seeing as he was more than willing to do it.

But even after she had started to accept the fact that he was no longer the young Malfoy who was always seen with a girl on each arm and got what he wanted by carelessly flaunting his charm; she was still not used to the fact that he was willing to work so hard for her – she, who had stolen the position that he had wanted, forcing him to work under her – or more likely, simply wasn't able to comprehend why he was willing to go so far to gain her trust.

She rolled around her bed groaning and moaning and wallowing in self-pity and confusion till Albus poked his head into the room and laughed at her. She sat up with a scarlet face and pouted up at him as he handed her a small vial of some kind of lilac coloured potion. She swallowed it in one gulp and held it out for him to take. He chuckled and sat down on her bed, reaching out to pat her head. She smacked his hand away and sulked.

"Alright, what did he do now?"

"What did who do? I don't know what you're talking about," she declared defiantly, sticking her chin in the air. Albus rolled his eyes.

"Scorpius. He was the last one in here and you look even more confused and puzzled than when you just woke up and didn't know what was going on."

She sighed and pulled the ends of her hair to cover her face.

"Rosie," Albus urged.

She shook her head and mumbled into her hair, "He is so confusing! I don't understand what goes on in his head!"

"Well, obviously," her cousin supplied helpfully and she glared at him. He raised his hands in surrender and let her continue.

"He came in here and then demanded that I trust him and when I said I did, he had the same expression on his face like he did when they told him he was going to be Quidditch Captain."

Albus raised his eyebrows and looked at Rose with an unreadable expression.

"What?" she snapped irritatedly and he slowly shook his head, as though he was trying to calculate exactly how soft in the head she was. "Al!" she scolded and he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"You really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" she demanded and Albus only continued like she hadn't spoken.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure he didn't realise it until our final year, either," he said to Rose's dresser, a thoughtful expression on his face. She made an annoyed sound and slapped his arm. He simply turned to her with a bemused smile and asked, "Why do you think he had the same expression as back then?"

She frowned. "Does that even matter? I was just making a comparison." He gave her a look that told her to answer the question. She shrugged, still not understanding what he wanted her to say.

"I don't know. He just looked happy, that's all."

"He was more than happy when we chose him as Captain of the Slytherin team. He was ecstatic."

"OK," she said slowly, wondering what in Merlin's name Albus was trying to tell her.

He made an impatient gesture and said, "You compared his expression now to that of when he was made Captain!"

"Yes?"

"Merlin, Rose, did you work yourself till your brain shut down?"

"Hey!" she yelled, affronted that he would say something like that.

Albus only gave her an endearing look and said, "You are being unnecessarily stupid right now."

Rose glowered at him. "Did you come in here simply to poke fun at me—"

"Rose," he snapped, rubbing his eyes, "you said his expressions were the same and I just said he was ecstatic back then. Did he look ecstatic just now?"

Rose frowned, thoroughly confused. "I don't know! I wouldn't say ecstatic—it was more like jubilant. Like when I got my Hogwarts letter and it had the Head Girl badge inside."

Albus was looking at her with an expression almost akin to wonder. He had a faint smile on his face and his emerald eyes shone with some incomprehensible emotion. He finally laughed breathily and leaning forward, placed a feather light kiss on her cheek. She suddenly jolted at the sense of déjâvù it brought. It reminded her of the time Scorpius had kissed her on the cheek. She felt herself flush and she looked away from Albus's gaze boring into her.

"Did you just remember something uncalled for?"

Uncalled for was definitely what she would use to describe the unnecessary thought. "Go away," she whined, pulling the sheets over her head. Albus chuckled and patted her head through the sheets.

"Rosie, you need to be more honest with yourself or this is never going to end."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yes, I actually believe that you don't, which is why I shall leave now, but I want you to think about something first."

She eyed him from over the corner of her blanket and he tugged on her hair, his eyes twinkling.

"What exactly do you feel towards Scorpius?"

And then he was gone, leaving a completely bewildered Rose feeling even more perplexed than she had been before Albus had entered the room—which showed how much more he had served to confuse her.

She stood at the entrance to her office and stared around, taking in the same neat and tidy workspace she was accustomed to. She sighed and walked up to her desk, wondering what exactly she had expected to see when she had come back from her four-day long sick leave. She sat down on her chair and took a moment to remember the familiar feel of the leather. She thought it seemed fluffier for some reason, but maybe that was only because she had been away for so long. She shrugged and touched the bun she'd pinned on top of her head, suddenly remembering something completely unwarranted.

"I don't know why you tie it up, when you look so beautiful with it down."

She pursed her lips and frowned at her desk, debating whether to scold herself for conjuring hallucinations of her own, or to scold herself for remembering something that any other delirious person would probably have not even registered in their feverish state. She was still lost in thought when she unconsciously started pulling the pins out of her hair and let it down. She fluffed it and let it fall down her back as she turned to a memo she'd just noticed pinned to her favorite mug. She immediately pushed away the memory the mug brought up, unwilling to link everything she saw or did to Scorpius.

She read the memo while she still argued with herself inside her head and suddenly stopped short, rereading it again because she thought she'd misread it the first time.

'Decided to get married. Meet me in Scorpius's office. –Renée'

"What the bloody hell," she said under her breath, leaping out of her chair and all but sprinting out of her office. She almost ran into a pair of wizards wearing the Theoretical Division's overalls, but managed to dodge them just in time and still somehow continued in her brisk pace, till she reached Scorpius's office. She paused for a brief moment to stare at the silver lettering on the door that now read 'Scorpius Malfoy, Practical Division Head, Department for Research and Experimentation' in bold letters. And then she pushed the door open and strode in, her heart racing wildly.

Renée looked up from where she was perched on the far window, a teacup in her hand. Rose's first instinct was to run to her and hug her before demanding what kind of joke she was playing on her, but instead, her eyes flickered to the desk opposite the window and her eyes locked with curious silver ones as Scorpius sipped from a mug, his hand hovering over a sheaf of parchment he had been signing.

"Rose!" Renée's voice interrupted whatever comment Rose's mind was going to come up with for Scorpius's disheveled appearance, so she snapped her head towards her friend and strode up to her with a smile as Renée jumped off the ledge and hugged Rose warmly.

"You look so much better well-rested," she said, smiling kindly at Rose, and the latter suddenly felt a surge of affection for the brunette. Renée then stepped back and motioned to the man who had been standing off to the side with a polite smile on his face. He nodded and stepped forward with his hand extended.

He had well defined features and kind brown eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled. He was well built and tall – although not as tall as Scorpius, her mind supplied helpfully – but several inches taller than Renée. He was ruggedly handsome and had a homely aura surrounding him even as she shook his hand. Something about him rang a bell in the back of her mind, but she wasn't sure what it was.

"You must not recognise me," he said in a gentle, soothing voice that had an underlying hint of an accent she couldn't place. She inclined her head, her brain running haywire trying to place him. Where had she seen him…

"My name is Cole Wardford, of Wardford estate. We met several years ago at the charity event Renée's parents hosted."

Rose's eyes widened in recognition and she nodded. "Ah, yes! I remember now! You're the oldest son of the Wardfords and donated quite a large sum of money towards our expedition to Peru."

Cole's eyes twinkled and he bowed ever so slightly. "That would be me, yes, although I would prefer not being remembered as the man who bought his way into your list of acquaintances," he said ever so graciously, making Rose flush.

"Of course not."

He laughed good-naturedly and stepped back to let a bouncing Renée come forward and grasp Rose's hands. "Did you get my memo?" she asked eagerly, the happiness on her face washing away Rose's hopes that it had been a joke. She felt her stomach clench uncomfortably even as Renée continued on with her good news.

"Cole and I have been quite good friends, as you know, and we've been corresponding with each other on a regular basis. When he visited England recently, he sought me out and of course I agreed to meet with him." So that's where she had been disappearing every other night, Rose thought. "And one dinner led to another and another and finally a week ago, he asked me to marry him!"

Rose stared. They were actually getting married. Renée squealed and hugged Rose and the latter laughed awkwardly and patted her friend on the back. Her shock must have been clearly written all over her face, because Renée laughed and said, "I know it's so sudden, but you were ill and I wanted to tell you face to face!"

"You could have come visit me," she said as she joined Renée in her laughter, although she didn't feel nearly as elated as the other.

"Oh, but you know how swamped we've been and I really just wanted to surprise when you got back," the brunette replied, hugging Rose again.

"Of course," Rose said, laughing a little forcefully and pulling back. Deciding that she could think about the particulars later, because now was the time to be happy for her friend; she smiled at the two of them and said, "Congratulations. I'm so happy for you."

A/n: Yes, Renée's getting married. Sorry to disappoint? [Not really]

If you're curious, yes, there is a part 3 to this, because as I said previously, the chapter got too long and had to be broken into three parts. Luckily this isn't such a cliffie :3

A penny for your thoughts and a ginormous cookie for your reviews!

Lots of love~