AN: Thank you to my reviewer! This is only a shorty really so am putting up two chapters today, would REALLY appreciate more reviews!!!

Chapter 6

As she rapped on the door heavily Rose could feel her temperature rising, she was absolutely fuming and needed to give Salamander Longbottom a piece of her mind. How dare he tell anyone that they had slept together? Least of all Chris, who had cornered her the next morning demanding to know if it was true. They had agreed to forget about it, that was what he had said to her in the office when she had destroyed the memory, he obviously didn't want it to go any further so why had he blurted it out in front of an atrium full of people after knocking her ex to the floor? "Hello?" she screamed while still pounding on the door. She had left work on time and apparated from the atrium straight to her cousin and Salamander's shared flat, "Sal, James is anyone there?"

"What?" shouted a sleepy voice from the other side of the door as it was slowly unlocked, "What the hell is going on?" James asked sleepily after wrenching it open and looking at his cousin who was stood with her hands on her hips looking very like her mother did when she was angry.

He rubbed his eyes sleepily as she bustled past him shouting, "Where's Sal?" He had been on a night shift for the auror office keeping watch over a well known dark wizard's house. It was the first time he had been out on assignment since his botched mission three months before and he had been on alert all night making him extremely tired when he crawled into the flat at lunchtime.

"He's gone to his Mum and Dad's for dinner, why?" he asked yawning and stretching, "What do you want him for?" he went on raising one eyebrow when he remembered what he knew about New Year's Eve, "Come back for more!" he chuckled and knew immediately that it had been a mistake. In her anger Rose launched herself at James and began to hit him around the head and shoulders with her hands. "Whoa, Rose calm down, I'm sorry, what's going on?"

Huffing loudly she took a step back and sat down on the sofa behind her, "Sal is what's wrong."

"What did he do?" James asked sitting in a chair opposite her and looking with concern at his flustered cousin.

"He told Chris that we...about New Year's," she said shyly looking away form her cousin's gaze. "Bragging about it after he'd clearly decide we should forget it ever happened.

"Sal did?"

"Yes."

"But why would he do that?"

"I don't know do I? He walked me to the elevator to get me away form Chris and then when I'd gone he told him what had happened not five minutes after saying we should forget it."

"Sal said you should forget it?" James asked.

"Yes," she growled in exasperation, why was he focusing on that? She was mad that he had bragged about it to Chris. "He came to give that memory back and I destroyed it, then he said we should forget it ever happened and five minutes later he told Chris, am I not saying it right?"

"Yes I understand you it's just..."

"What?" she yelled.

"You destroyed the memory?"

"Yes," Rose barked, James was starting to irritate her now and she wanted to seethe some more alone at home.

"And he didn't talk to you first?"

"He told me you'd found the memory and that it needed to be put back or destroyed so I destroyed it, then he said let's forget about it then."

"Well he would if you'd destroyed it."

"What are you on about James?"

"He didn't say anything else about what had happened on New Year's Eve?"

"No," she screamed, "why?"

"He was going to talk to you about it."

"He did, like I said he talked about forgetting it."

"Well he would if you destroyed it, he probably thought that's what you wanted to do, forget it."

"Did he...did he not want to forget it?" she said suddenly calming down a little and starting to realise what James was saying.

"I don't know, I asked him how he felt about you."

"And..?" Rose asked curiously. Until that morning when Chris had confronted her in the lift at work and asked, in front of nine or ten other people including the biggest gossip in the whole ministry, if she had slept with Salamander Longbottom she had been thinking about him almost non stop. When he had taken her hand and stood up for her as they left her office she had felt every part of her body explode with excitement and had not been able to stop wishing they could have held hands for longer. She had arrived home and spent most of the night, once Dominique had gone, replaying the image of her and Sal exploring and pleasuring one another and regretted destroying the memory as she felt like watching it again. However she had woken realising that Sal wanted to forget it had ever happened and when she heard he had told Chris she had become furious, it was alright to tell her to forget it but then he could go around adding her as a notch on the bedpost? She was not going to have it and most of her day had been spent arguing with the man in her head. She had turned up ready to give him a piece of her mind but now that James was making sense she was starting to think that he might not have been bragging but maybe standing up for her and showing that he really did not want to forget that they had shared a night of passion.

"He said that he'd never looked at you that way before but that ever since you'd left on New Year's Day he hadn't thought about Gloria at all, he also said he had felt relieved not to be with her because he was glad that what ever happened, had happened. I think he likes you Rose but if you destroyed that memory he probably thought that you wanted to forget it so he was being noble and agreeing with you to save face and your friendship."

"Oh," she said.

"Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to forget it?"

"I...I don't know...I don't think so. I…I felt the same, I've never thought of Sal as anything other than a friend before but ever since I watched that memory I...I keep...you know." She felt embarrassed talking to her male cousin about this and suddenly realised that James knew exactly what she was talking about.

"I get it," he said not wanting to go through the embarrassment either. "You should talk to him Rose, he obviously feels the same as you do."

"Maybe," she replied feeling a little shy, what if James was wrong, had he actually said he did like her or had James heard that because it was what he wanted to hear? Just because he had stopped thinking about Gloria did not mean he had started thinking about her. "I...I should go," she said deciding that she needed a bit of space to think.

"Will you be at the Cauldron on Friday night?" James asked as she stood up and headed to the fireplace.

"I...what...? I don't know...maybe."

"We'll be there!" he said raising an eyebrow but Rose ignored him and climbed into the fireplace where she whirled out of view in a fog of green and arrived in her own home seconds later feeling confused but also slightly hopeful that her love life might just be about to pick up in an unexpected way.

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"Our Rose and Salamander Longbottom?" Dominique shrieked from the kitchen table.

"Shh, don't tell everyone!" James replied laughing at her obvious shock, "It's not that strange is it?"

"No, it's just…I never pictured them together."

"Well they're not together...yet!" James explained with a twinkle in his eye, "They're going to need a little...nudge I think and that's where you come in!"

"But how do you know it's what they want I mean they've never seemed the slightest bit interested in one another what's suddenly made you think that they will want...nudging together?"

"Because they slept together!"

"They what?" she bellowed causing her Grandmother, who was cooking the usual Thursday Weasley family feast, to turn and look at her in shock.

"Keep it down," James said smiling at Molly Weasley before whispering to his louder cousin, "on New Year's Eve, they were a bit wasted as we all knew and that was the main catalyst but now that it has happened they both seem to be...thinking about the other one in a different way."

"And they've both told you this have they?"

"Well not in so many words, no but-"

"So we may well stick our noses in and get burned when it's all a load of codswallop then?"

"Dom, trust me, I've seen them both and they don't need to say it out loud I can tell!"

"Oh Yee who has suddenly become the love expert just because he finally got caught by a woman!" Dominique giggled still feeling a bit wary of James' plan.

"Shut it Dom, I'm serious! Sal said that since he woke up on New Year's Day he hasn't even cared about what Gloria did and the other day Rose came round to see Sal and when I told her that, she became all...all," he tried to find the right word to show his cousin that he thought he was right about the two of them, "…thoughtful!"

"Thoughtful?" she replied looking at James strangely.

"Well like...I don't know but when she came round she was angry with him about something and after I'd told her that, she calmed down immediately."

"So that means they want to be with each other? I'd stop playing detective if I were you James, you were better as a heartbreaker!"

"Look what harm will it do to get them on their own for bit? If I'm wrong and it doesn't work then what have we lost?"

"Nothing I suppose!" Dominique agreed and she had to admit that thinking about it Sal and Rose would probably make a good couple, he wanted to do nothing more for a woman than worship the ground she walked on as he had done with Gloria and all Rose wanted was someone who would love her. At least Sal already knew her so hopefully he would see past her desperate ways to cling onto a man which usually sent them running. "Alright," she nodded, "but if it all goes wrong you're taking the blame!"

"Fine, fine, but I'm telling you they might be giving a toast out to Rose's too wonderful cousins at their wedding you know!"

"Just slow down mate, we don't even know if they like each other really, I think a wedding is a little too ambitious!"

"Whatever," James replied adamant that this was a relationship that was destined to happen and stay permanent.

"What do you want me to do?" Dominique asked quietly so no one could overhear, more of the family were arriving in the kitchen and it was becoming harder to keep their conversation out of earshot.

"Just tell her to meet you at half seven in the Cauldron tomorrow and I'll tell Sal the same then we just turn up late!"

"Master plan!" Dom said sarcastically.

"Do you have any other ideas? At least it's accidental," he chuckled making air quotes when he said accidental. "They are bound to talk to each other while they are waiting for us and hopefully one of them might actually say something to the other!"

"I suppose," she replied still not completely convinced that it was going to work at all but if she didn't agree James would just hassle her all night and it was worth a shot at least.

"Great, we'll floo in around eightish and hopefully they'll be having a good old time."

"And I'll have to spend the rest of the evening with you instead of Rose, what fun!" she joked standing up and heading over to the table where the rest of the family were beginning to sit down ready to start another delicious feast prepared by Molly Weasley.