Disclaimer: The painting 'The Tempest' by Peder Balke and The National Art Gallery in London are not mine… I am simply borrowing the idea of them and would recommend you visit them if you ever get the chance.

Chapter 4: Summer between 4th and 5th years

He finds her barricaded into the last carriage on the train, only the curly disarray of her hair visible through the glass pane in the door.

"If you're making out with Abbott in there stop now… I'm coming in." He calls. Something doesn't feel right though. She always waits for him and Al before finding a carriage. He mutters the counters to all of her favourite locking spells and tries the door. It gives slightly but he feels something heavy shift on the other side. She has blocked the door with her trunk.

"Rosie… are you alright?" He asks through the small opening he has created. There is no response.

"Rose, could you let me in please?" Still no response. "Rose, I will blast your trunk to bits if I need to!"

"m fine, just leave me be for a bit, yeah?" Her voice is shaky.

"Nope, sorry love, I'm coming in. Get away from the door." He pokes his wand and hand through the opening and vanishes her trunk, tumbling through the door he is leaning on when there is no longer an obstruction.

She is curled up in one corner of the carriage crying. Her face turns up to look at him as he rights himself and it is pitifully tear streaked. He narrows his eyes as he regards her and draws a few swift conclusions.

"Right," He says, brushing off his robes, "I'm going to flay Abbott." He turns to march from the carriage.

"'s not his fault." Rose tells him miserably.

"Well then who did this to you?" He demands.

"N-no one." She sniffles and a fresh wave of tears flow down her already damp, red cheeks. He takes a deep breath and tries to remain calm. Seeing Rose this way makes him want to tear people limb from limb. He waits until he can question her with a steady voice.

"Why are you crying, Rose?" She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her robes, sniffs and swallows.

"We broke up!" The thought seems to be too much for her and her face crumples.

"That… that…" For a few moments words utterly fail him. "That snot-nosed, spineless git broke up with you?" Flaying will be happening… he'll get Al and Louis to hold him down. He's pretty sure he can convince Lily to dance gleefully around them hurling insults while they peel Abbott's skin off too. They'll turn it into a kind of pagan ritual that will be an example for every boyfriend still to come…

"I broke up with him." Rose replies. His brain pauses.

"What?" He asks.

"It was me… I broke up with him." She tells him tearfully.

"I'm sorry, let me get this straight. You're crying because you dumped someone?" He feels as though he has been confounded. Truly, she never made an ounce of sense.

"It was horrible! You should have seen his face… he was so hurt! I feel like a horrible person!" At this point Scorpius begins to laugh. She throws a shoe at him. He dodges it easily.

"I'll be with the rest of your family when you get over your terrible loss!" He calls jovially over his shoulder as he makes his way back to the front of the train.

Rose, having forgiven Scorpius for his decidedly unsympathetic behaviour on the Hogwarts express (upon the reception of a cluster of violets from his mother's garden), decides that Scorpius is ready to attend a family quidditch outing.

Unfortunately Ron Weasley, subsequent to deciding to like one of his daughters friends based on an arbitrary criterion (such as their ability to play chess), has a unique ability to embarrass himself, others, and most especially his daughter when interacting with said friend. Rose reflects on this talent with some bitterness as she sits in the Harpies family box attempting to watch her aunt play. Instead she finds herself watching her father, in orange from head to toe, screaming at the referee and lambasting Scorpius and Uncle Percy for their support of the Harpies beaters. Teddy, who is sitting next to her, follows her eye line and smiles knowingly.

"Don't worry; your dad won't scare him off that easily."

"Are you watching the same Ron Weasley as I'm watching?" She mutters, turning a deep shade of red and then trying to change the subject. "The reserve that's in for Crawley isn't bad, is she?"

"That's Victoria Chang, she was in my year at Hogwarts… bloody single handedly crushed our team in the house cup finals in seventh."

"Where has she been since then?"

"American league I think." Teddy replies distractedly. "Say, why has Scorpius been giving me the stink-eye? Tried to crush my hand when we said hello and I begin to fear he's going to set my hair alight with wandless magic." He gestures towards Scorpius who is indeed glowering in their direction.

"He's probably just upset with me for abandoning him with my father. I'd better go remedy that." She sidles past various family members, trying not to spill her Butterbeer, until she gets to Scorpius.

"Will you quit it? Teddy thinks you're trying to set his hair on fire." She has a pretty good idea what this is about. She sighs. Victoire hadn't received the warmest greeting from Scorpius either.

"He's a smart man." Scorpius replies. Rose chucks a couple of peanuts at him in affectionate frustration and then grabs his hand.

"I need a refill on my Butterbeer, keep me company in the queue?" Scorpius rolls his eyes as she hauls him towards the door.

"Heaven forbid you go on your own! Sometimes you're such a girl."

"It's the drinks tent, not the loo. Besides, aren't I a prettier sight than that?" She gestures towards her father who is half way out of the box insulting passing players. This is why her mother insists on sitting in the ministry box.

"Fair point."

Half way to their destination they run into Alice Longbottom and a few of her friends. Rose, engaged in animated conversation with Alice, barely notices what Scorpius is up to until Alice makes a move to leave. She turns to look for her partner in crime and finds him chatting up one of Alice's hangers-on. Rose just catches him promising to owl her about coffee before the girl is drawn away by her friends.

"You don't waste any time do you?" She asks him, eyebrow raised. "Didn't you just break up with Alessandra?"

"Your point being?"

"You're chewing them up and spitting them out awfully fast."

"Rosie, it's a coffee date, not a marriage proposal."

"Well, they have feelings you know."

"So did George Abbott." He counters.

"Low blow!" She replies accusingly.

"I'm only teasing." He says, slinging an arm around her shoulders and guiding her in the right direction.

They finally find the drinks line and she perches on a rail, arm across his shoulders for balance. His arm slides around her waist and a feeling of contentment washes through her.

"We could change our minds about the dating thing you know." He says quietly. She turns to look at him, searching his face and eyes.

"I know." She replies.

They stare at each for a while longer. The line starts to move forward.

"I'd rather screw up with George Abbott than with you though." She puts her hands on his shoulders, drops a quick peck on his cheek and then hops down and moves with the queue.

Her mum likes to take her somewhere in muggle London at least once a holiday. It has become something of a tradition and, though at first she complained about it, she now enjoys their rambles through parks and museums more than she is willing to admit.

They are meandering through the National Art Gallery when she sees the painting. It's called 'The Tempest'. It's a tiny oil painting, by an artist she's never heard of, in black, white and grey, depicting a storm tossed ocean. She can't decide why, but it's Scorpius through and through. She stands, mesmerised by the movement, the passion and the pain all captured so hauntingly on a tiny block of wood.

Her mother's hand waves between her face and the painting and she is pulled from her thoughts.

"Are you alright Rose?" She asks.

"Yeah… why?"

"Well, you've been staring at that painting for almost ten minutes. I got two rooms down before I realised you weren't following me anymore!"

"It's just really beautiful, you know?" She says, tearing herself reluctantly away. "I don't know why Dad thinks pictures that can't talk are so boring."

" I've known him for a quarter of a century, but sometimes your father makes as little sense to me as he did on the first day I met him." Her mother replies, amused. "Come on then, I'm desperately in need of some tea!"

They walk across Trafalgar square to an overpriced tea shop, where they eat custard slices and drink tea that's not half as good as Molly Weasley's but costs more than what most Central African families make in a week.

"Mum," Rose starts, self-consciously studying the inside of her tea cup, "when did you know Dad was the one you wanted to be with forever?"

"Hmmm… well I suppose I liked him from very early on." Hermione responded, thinking. "Probably from around third or fourth year. I can remember feeling terribly hurt that he only considered me 'date' material at the very last moment before the Yule Ball. So I definitely had feelings for him then, even if I wouldn't admit it to myself. But we were awfully pig-headed about the whole thing…" Her mother wore a faraway look and a wry smile. After a moment her attention snapped back to her daughter.

"I suppose, to answer your question, I knew I would be with him forever in our seventh year. You know the story… the Horcrux had an especially terrible effect on him, it brought all his darkest thoughts, fears and personality traits to the surface. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and he left us. I would rather relive the battle of Hogwarts than those weeks in that tent without Ron. When he came back, I knew."

"But how did you know?"

"Your father and I were the best friends of Harry Potter from the age of eleven. I grew up with him. We figured out Hogwarts together, ate meals together and did detention together. I learnt what friendship and bravery and sacrifice meant with him. We followed Harry into every conceivable dangerous situation the magical world had to offer. By the time I realised it was forever I had seen all of his weaknesses, all of his faults, all the dark things that people keep locked inside of themselves. And none of them scared me as much as the thought of being without him."

"So what you're saying is the only way to really get to know someone is to fight a war with them? Or to stick a piece of Voldemort's soul around their neck and watch how they react?" Her mother's eyes narrowed in disapproval.

"Don't reduce a war into a litmus test for love. It's disrespectful." Rose looked down, ashamed.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be." Her mother replied, her tone firm, but gentler now. "You'll figure it out your own way my Rose. I only hope your way is less painful than mine."

AN: Sorry for the late update, work has been crazy, I found this chapter particularly difficult to write and I was a little discouraged by the lack of response to the last chapter. Please drop me a line and tell me that you like it or hate it, or have any feeling towards it whatsoever. Believing the reading community is largely apathetic is killing my motivation!

Special thanks to: peacock33, youcunt and pocahontas98 for taking the time to review!