AN: Oh my gosh I'm so sorry for taking so long, but I had finals, and papers, and I never had any time. Of course now it's the first day of summer break and I have a freaking cold. Oh well, at least it gives me time to write, since I can't really do anything else. Did I mention the power went out and it fried the cable box? No TV until Tuesday. Hopefully I can get more chapters in that time haha. Anyway, enough of my rambling, onto the chapter!

Rose POV

Scorpius and his father tried to lift me off the dirty floor of the shack as carefully as possible. I wrapped my good arm around Scorpius' neck to try to make it easier, but I felt a shooting pain go through me and suddenly everything went black.

I felt awful. There wasn't a single part of my body that wasn't aching. I lay in my bed in St. Mungo's feeling completely useless. I had thought I could defend myself, but I couldn't, and if it wasn't for Scorpius, I would most likely be dead right now. I looked to my left, and there he was, his head resting on his arms on the side of my bed. I could have laughed at how adorable he looked, but it would probably really hurt with my cracked ribs. I reached over and carefully brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. He immediately shot awake.

"What? What happened? Wh- Oh! Rose you're awake!" He visibly relaxed, and smiled.

"Yup. And now so are you." I shot him a grin, and tried to move closer to him, resulting in a huge jolt of pain shooting through my stomach. I grimaced.

"Rose, are you okay? You had a lot of broken bones, you shouldn't move like that." He scooted closer and leaned on my bed again. I started playing with his hair. "I was really worried about you, you know? You could have died!"

"But I didn't," I replied.

"Don't joke about it, I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to find you, and you would be hurt, a lot worse than this, and it would be all my fault! This is still my fault. I should have found you sooner. I should have…"

"It's not your fault," I cut him off. "You're not my Uncle Harry, don't go blaming yourself for everything. I get enough complaints about that from my Aunt Ginny, and I don't want to inflict the same suffering on my children and nieces and nephews. None of this was your fault, it wasn't anybody's fault. Nobody knew it would happen. If you have to blame someone, blame Scabior. Speaking of which, what happened to him?"

"He's taken care of. Your dad and Uncle got him sent off to Azkaban for kidnapping and violent acts on a minor first thing after we left that awful shack. You don't have to worry about him coming after anyone for a long time."

"Thank dead wizard god. But, what about the others? It's not just him, there are plenty more out there, and they would want to get to us too! What-" he quickly captured my lips with his, effectively making me lose my train of thought. The kiss was very short, and he soon pulled back.

"We'll deal with that when we come to it. None of us will make the same mistakes, and I'll make sure nothing like this happens to you ever again. I promise." He shot me one of his adorable grins. I couldn't help but smile back. It was like he had banished all my worries with that one simple smile.

"How long was I asleep?"

"About 48 hours, pretty long but I've heard about people who were out for much longer than that. You had some damage to your spine, we're lucky it wasn't too serious, and there won't be any permanent problems. I was so worried when my dad told me, I took like three hours to calm down. According to my dad, it was hilarious. You should have seen it." We stayed silent for a few minutes.

"I stayed with you, you know."

"What?"

"In here. I came in here with you and I never left. I wanted to be here when you woke up." He looked away, embarrassed. I thought it was adorable.

"Really?" He nodded with a small smile on his lips. "You are the sweetest person I have ever met. Hands down. How did I never notice that before?"

"I would assume you were too busy hating my guts."

"Right. Sorry about that by the way. I blame it on the years of 'beat Malfoy in every subject, don't get too friendly, Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood' being ingrained into my skull. I'm pretty sure my dad is completely incapable of letting go of a grudge."

"Don't worry about it. My dad was the same way. I just didn't listen to him." He grinned at me, and I flashed him a smile. I stared into his eyes. I loved the blue-gray color and how they would look more blue or more gray depending on his mood. Now they were a very light blue with a tinge of silver, so I could tell he was happy and calm. That was my favorite shade.

"Oh I forgot to mention, your family is outside. They're all in the waiting area waiting for you to wake up. I was supposed to tell them if you came to, but I guess I was just too selfish to actually do it."

"That's ok, it was actually nice to get used to being awake before the chaos that is my family rains down on me, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I haven't even known your family for more than a couple days, and I can tell it must be really… exciting when you all get together like this."

"Exciting? Yes, I guess you could say that. More like insanity, but I suppose exciting works, too." I laughed, and he joined in. "But I think we should let them know I'm up, so they stop worrying. I can just imagine my mom and grandma freaking out right now."

"Okay, I'll go tell them." He got up and made his way to the door. In a matter of seconds, my room was flooded with people. My mother and grandma got to my bed first.

"Rosie! Oh, I was so worried! Are you okay? Do you need anything? I-"

"I'm fine mom, I swear."

"Are you hungry Rose, dear? I can get you some-"

"No grandma, I'm good. Thanks though."

"Rose!" I looked past my frantic mother and dear old grandma and I saw Paula and Mina running at me.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Paula asked me. "I wish I could have helped you! Oh, I feel like such a bad friend now!"

"No, it's fine. There was nothing you could have done."

"But we still wish we could have helped," Mina said. Paula nodded in agreement.

"Well thanks for caring so much, but really, I'm just happy to see you guys now. And I don't think I would have liked you to see me back there." I reached out to hug them, and noticed that my bad arm was completely healed. Oh how I loved magic. They hugged me tightly, and then stepped back to allow more family members to greet me. The hours dragged on, my extensive family obsessing over me the entire time.

Eventually, hospital hours ended. A nurse came into the room and was a little shocked by how many people were in there. Though the rules about the number of visitors didn't apply to my family, it must have still been surprising to walk into a room and see them all there. "I'm sorry, but visiting hours are now over. I don't care that you're all family, we need to keep her overnight to make sure she's coming along normally and there are no complications and that requires being able to cross the room without shoving. Out." Okay, I officially loved this nurse. My family's great and all, but I was getting really sick of them. Everyone grumbled, but filed out in a surprisingly orderly fashion. Scorpius squeezed my hand and kissed me quickly, but then he too had to leave. Though I hated to see him leave, I could tell he really needed to shower after spending two days in a hospital room with me. Soon the only person left was my father.

"Rose, I can't help but blame myself for this. If I hadn't yelled at you and been so immature, you wouldn't have been sulking outside for him to grab."

"I don't blame you, dad. You were just trying to protect me. But scorpius isn't like his dad was at his age, and if you got to know his dad, he's changed, too. They're not like the Malfoys you grew up with. Draco Malfoy did change after the war, and he raised a wonderful son and you need to see that because I'm not going to let you control my opinions of people anymore."

"I know Rose, and I'm sorry about that. I just couldn't see past what they were back then. But you're right about Scorpius, he's a good bloke, I see that now. The way he was acting from the moment we started looking for you, until you were safely in this bed with all your injuries treated, showed me that. He's a good kid, and he really loves you. I doubt I'll ever be all buddy-buddy with his dad, but what we went through a couple days ago made me think of Scorpius differently. He's a decent guy Rose, and I'm glad you have him. Even if the idea of you with a Malfoy bothers me, I'll live." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My dad was giving me his approval? "But if he ever does anything to hurt you, I swear I will wring his slimy neck."

"Thanks dad. And I promise, you won't have to."

"For his sake, I hope not." With that my dad left the room. I lay in my bed, thinking about how well this worked out for me. All it took for my dad to give his approval was for me to get in a bit of mortal peril. Who knew? For once I fell asleep content that life was working out the way it should.

AN: Again, sorry about how long it took, but was it worth the wait? I tried to make it a little longer this time to make up for the break. This was the last chapter, but I might add an epilogue, or do a sequel. Let me know in a review what you think I should do. And thanks for sticking with me through this story, I love you all. Reviews mean so much, especially at the end of a story, so please take the time to give me a little feedback. Was this worth reading? Was it a waste of time? Let me know so I can improve for the future.

Lots of Love

~BurritoTown