Rose's eyes hurt, her throat aches, and her head is starting to pound. She sits in an armchair in the Granger-Weasley sitting room and stares across the coffee table at her mother, who is somehow blinking far less than any normal person should be. The expression with which Hermione watches her daughter reminds the latter uncomfortably of the onre she uses while making a speech at the wizengamot or fielding off reporters and paparazzi.

"Mum..." Rose tries. Hermione just raises an eyebrow, and Rose sighs and slumps back in her seat.

Rose is sure that none of her friends' parents deal with their children like this, although of course most of her friends' parents are also not war heroes or Ministers of Magic. And Rose loves her mother, she really does, but sometimes it's hard not to question her parenting technique.

Hermione's policy (installed a few years ago, after Rose complained yet again about her meddling too much) is that if Rose wants to keep something a secret more than her mother wants to know what it is, then it's only fair for her to not interfere. This, however, requires a sort of battle of the wills to sort out what is greater this time: Hermione's curiosity or Rose's insistence on independence.

They're been sitting here for almost half an hour, and Rose is getting restless. She is, after all, eleven years old, and the rules of the contest (skewed as they are in Hermione's favor) include disallowing distractions of any sort, including books or even homework. It's just the two of them and the coffee table (which has water on it of course, Hermione's not a monster).

"Fine!"

Rose breaks. "Albus doesn't like me anymore, I don't think. He and I met Scorpius on the train—I wrote you about that— but after that they were both Sorted into Slytherin, and I was put in Gryffindor. Which is fine, I love Gryffindor and all, of course." She takes a deep breath, envisioning her mum's perfectly cool, emotionless tone as she addresses the entire Wizarding public. "They still talked to me, but they weren't really... I didn't think they wanted me around, and when I stopped talking to them Albus didn't care. He hangs out with Scorpius all the time, which isn't even fair, because if it wasn't for me they'd never have been friends! And I still miss him, which is ridiculous because he clearly doesn't miss me, and it's not like I've not got other friends, but we've been friends since we were born, and he doesn't talk to me anymore."

Rose is horrified to find that her voice catches slightly, and she takes another steadying breath. "And now they're coming over for Christmas, and I'll have to talk to him."

Hermione frowns in that thoughtful way she's probably trademarked. "To be honest with you, I'm probably not the best person to give out advice about friends." She smiles slightly, and Rose is grateful that she doesn't tell the story of the troll again, because she's heard that one so many times she can recite it in her sleep. "I'd better go check on Hugo anyway, you know how your father is with Healing Charms. Why don't you make some tea and I'll send him down?"

Hermione departs, and Rose goes tot make tea, because when her mum says things like that they're not suggestions as much as polite orders. Probably a side effect of being the Minister of Magic, Rose reflects (for not the first or last time) as she wishes that she could use magic to heat the water faster. It's probably lucky she can't, though, because she'd probably end up lighting the curtains on fire. She's only been doing magic for half a year, after all, and even though she's more advanced than everyone else in her class she's still a first-year.

The mugs are sitting on the table, letting off steam, when Ron comes down the stairs a few minutes later, looking sleep-deprived.

"Tea?" he says. "Oh, excellent." He sits down and sighs, wrapping his hands around the mug. "Hugo should be feeling better by tomorrow," he says.

"Oh." Rose has, in the the haze of preteen angst, completely forgotten about her brother's existence. "That's... good."

Ron smiles at her. "Mum told me you were having some boy trouble?"

"Dad! Not like that!"

He laughs. "I know, I know. What did you want to ask me about?"

Albus looks nervous. The realization offers Rose profound relief, and she allows herself to relax, if only slightly.

The Potters put their coats away (they had, much to their children's chagrin, Apparated only part of the way and walked the last few blocks), and Harry joins Hermione in the kitchen as Ron drags Ginny off so that she can properly admire their Christmas tree.

James, Albus, and Lily are left to their own devices. Lily immediately bounces upstairs to say hi to Hugo, and James mutters something about making sure his little doesn't strangle the still-sick boy before following her. Leaving Albus to stand in the doorway and make what is an admittedly impressive effort to avoid Rose's eye.

"Wanna come to my room?" she asks. It comes out different than she expected, hopeful rather than commanding, but it's alright because the relief on Albus's face is obvious.

"Sure," he says, and they go upstairs.

"We should talk," Rose says as soon as the door is closed.

Albus nods. "Probably."

Rose slowly breathes out, mentally shuffling through her notes, and is for some reason surprised when Albus interrupts her.

"Oh, don't do that," he says.

"Do what?"

"That... thing where you're about to sound like you're giving a speech or something. I'm not the Wizengamot, you know."

He says it with a small smile, so Rose smiles back. "Never know when it really will be the Wizengamot, though," she says. "I wouldn't want to be caught unprepared."

"Unprepared? I can think of a lot of words to describe you, Rose, but that's not one of them."

"I do hope the rest are along the lines of 'talented, clever, powerful,' and the like."

"Oh, of course! What else could they possibly be?"

They grin at each other for a moment.

"I'd like it if you didn't ditch me for Scorpius next term," Rose says.

"Deal, if you promise to explain why you're mad at me next time."

"Deal."

There's a bit of comfortable silence.

"Have you seen our tree?" Rose asks. "It's even bigger than yours was last year."

They leave her room chatting, and both pretend not to notice the satisfied Looks the grownups send each other downstairs.