Chapter 7

Rose

I'll meet you at the bar tonight, got to hang around at work for a bit so I'll floo straight there, get the butterbeers in!

Love Dom

She folded the parchment back up and glanced at the clock which now said quarter to eight, it was strange for Dominique to be at work late, especially on a Friday but she simple shrugged and returned to her butterbeer as a whooshing sound in the grate signalled another person entering the bar for a Friday evening drink.

"Rose," said a familiar voice and she felt her heart leap a little when she realised it was Salamander.

"Hi," she whispered feeling suddenly shy and beginning to peel the label on her bottle to hide her nervousness.

"Rose, I'm glad you're here I was hoping to see you," he said and her heart lifted again.

"Oh," she returned without looking at him.

"Yes I wanted to tell you that I am so sorry about what I said to Chris," he began, "it was your private business and I had no right to tell him, especially when there were other people around. I know we had agreed to forget it but he was saying terrible things about you and going on that I would never be able to..." he coughed uncomfortably and let her mind work out the rest, "anyway it was out before my brain engaged and I'm just...sorry."

"Don't...don't worry about it," she said finally finding some strength to look at his face and feeling herself blush immediately as the image of his hands on her body came un-beckoned into her mind again. "Actually you did me a favour, something must have got through to Chris because since I confirmed that we had..." she looked away shyly again, "…well he's sort of left me alone."

"Oh well...well I'm glad about that at least. I was worried though because James said you were...a bit angry, which I fully understand and I just hope...I just hope we can forget it and go back to how things were, it's all been a stupid mistake hasn't it and we should just forget it all."

"Oh," she said feeling her heart fall to her stomach, it was not quite what she had wanted to hear after James had made out that Sal had not seen the whole thing as a mistake after all. However if that was what he wanted then she was not going to be stupid and try to cling onto something that wasn't there, she had made it her New Year's resolution not to act so desperate around men in the hopes that she would not suffer any more disasters in her love life, "yes, right, forgotten."

"So, how come you're here alone?" Sal asked changing the subject quickly before they could become awkward again.

"I'm waiting for Dom, she said she'd meet me here at half past but she must be running a bit late," she explained glancing at the clock which now read five to eight.

"Looks like James is too," Sal added, "he was supposed to meet me at half past and I thought I was running late, mind you he's been on nights at the Ministry this week, surveillance work with a recon team. It's the first time he's been back on active duty since that mission last October so he's probably still in bed! Can I buy you a drink while we're waiting?" he asked, "Better stay away from the firewhiskey though," he chuckled and Rose found herself blushing again.

"Just a butterbeer please," she said quietly. "Thanks," she added as he passed her a bottle and then gestured towards a table in the corner of the room.

"Shall we?" he asked holding out his arm for her to hold and she took it feeling another little jump inside. They had only been sat a few moments when a shadow passed over the table and they both looked up at the sound of Sal's name.

"Salamander?" whispered a timid voice, "How...how are you?"

"Fine, thanks," he replied confidently as he looked at the girl who had broken his heart mere weeks before, "you?" he enquired reluctantly.

"So-so," she returned, "can we...can we talk? Alone?" she gestured at Rose who stood up from her seat.

"Rose, don't go," Sal said adamant that Gloria would not ruin his evening.

"It's okay, I promised Dom I'd get the butterbeers in and I'm sure she'll be here soon, I'll...I'll catch you later," she added grabbing her cloak from behind the chair and walking past Gloria without even smiling, she could see in Sal's face that her presence had affected him.

Just as she got back to the bar Dominique flooed into the Cauldron fireplace followed seconds later by her other cousin James, they both spotted her at the bar and looked at each other with a disappointed glare, what had happened? Then they both clocked Salamander sitting with Gloria at the back of the room and realised what had gone wrong. Approaching the bar together they bid hello to their cousin and took a seat on either side of her, "What's going on?" James asked indicating his now rather angry and ruffled looking flatmate.

"She wanted to talk to him."

"You've...you've not been talking to him then?" James asked as if he knew they would have been.

"Yes I have actually but why would you ask that?"

"Oh just...just because..." he looked imploringly at Dominique who shrugged her shoulders as if to say 'you got yourself into this one mate.' "Well...I...I ran into Dom in the...in the Ministry atrium and...and she said she was late meeting you and I said I was also late meeting Sal so we...we thought maybe you'd...well kept each other company."

"Well we did actually until Gloria showed up," Rose said still looking suspiciously at her older cousin, "but how come you were at the Ministry? I thought you'd been on nights?"

"Yeah..." he replied looking again at Dominique who was almost fit to burst with laughter, James was squirming under Rose's suspicious gaze and it reminded her of their childhoods when the two would constantly be bickering about something. "Well I called in to drop something off that's why I was running late, anyway we just thought that...anyway…are you having a drink?" he concluded turning to talk to Tom the barman while Rose looked at her other cousin who simply shrugged her shoulders to say, 'I don't know!'

A heated discussion suddenly caught their attention and all three members of the Weasley clan turned their heads in the direction of Sal and Gloria. He was stood up leaning across the table and they could tell that he was angry, Gloria appeared to be pleading with him and they watched as Sal slammed his hand down on the table and then walked away towards the toilets which were situated at the back of the pub.

"Why won't she just leave him alone?" James said discarding his freshly opened bottle of butterbeer and heading over to where his best friend's ex girlfriend was now sat dripping tears into her hands and feeling sorry for herself.

"I'll...I'll go and see if Sal's alright," Rose whispered jumping down from the barstool and heading over to the toilets where Sal had once rescued her from attention she didn't actually want. When she got there he was evidently still in the men's room so she waited outside for a few moments until he wrenched open the door and walked out looking extremely angry. "Sal, are you alright?" she asked taking him by surprise and causing him to stop in his tracks.

"Rose," he said shaking his head, "what? Well no, but I will be," he started to wring his hands where he stood looking at her unable to shift the furious glare in his very dark eyes, Rose had not noticed before but they were almost jet black and in his present state they made him seem very brooding and quite sexy. "She just makes me so...angry," he yelled hitting the wall next to him with his fist, "expecting me to take her back, 'it was just a silly mistake Sal, I'm so sorry Sal, I'll never do it again Sal, I love you, argh!" he screamed and Rose found herself taking a slight step back to give him some space. "Oh Rose I'm sorry," he uttered realising that his mood was causing her to feel a little uncomfortable, he let his hands fall by his sides and looked at her pretty face. Up until that moment he had not even thought about Gloria and what she had done to him since New Year's Eve and he was most annoyed that he had let her get to him when he had been thinking more about the pretty red head standing here asking him if he was alright. "I shouldn't have got angry in front of you," he went on taking hold of her hands compassionately but she could see he was still seething inside.

"Don't worry about it," she replied feeling her stomach flip at his touch, "I know what it feels like," she added tilting her head towards Gloria and remembering Chris' incessant hounding of her for the last three weeks. "I still think about him."

"Oh, yes," Sal went on.

"Scream and shout as much as you want, I did!" Rose joked knowing that he was still wound up about his ex.

"I just...I thought I'd forgotten about it, finally moved on," he said letting her hands go and beginning to pace up and down, "but when she sits there trying to act all innocent and weeping that she wants me back I just think why should I? After what she did why should I let her anywhere near me? I'll never be able to trust her again and I can't even look at her without feeling the fury rising within me. But what irks me the most is that I feel so mad!" He shouted and Rose just let him do it, she had been there herself and knew that sometimes you had to let it all out. "If I didn't still care about her then I wouldn't be so angry would I?"

"Well no," Rose said softly, "but it takes time," she went on, "to forget someone that you loved"

"But I haven't even thought about her at all since..." he drifted off and looked down at Rose, since the morning I woke up with you he thought and then without allowing his brain to engage and think about why he took hold of her arms and kissed her passionately on the lips venting some of his anger about Gloria but also some of his sudden deep desire for Rose. He felt her shock at his abruptness but then she seemed to relent to his kiss and return it for a moment before pulling away from him and looking through confused eyes at a panting Salamander. He gazed down at her look of confusion and realised what he had done, he had compacted matters again and made her feel like he was using her to get back at Gloria. Was that what he had been doing? Or had he really wanted to kiss Rose? She looked lost and he did not know what to say to her at all, "Oh god Rose, I'm so sorry...I'll...I should...I should go," he managed to babble before hurtling away from her towards the fireplace and flooing out of sight leaving a stunned and bewildered Rose in his wake.

She touched her lips where his had been moments before and stared ahead of her, he had kissed her and not because he was rescuing her and not because they were drunk but because...why? She had sensed somewhere that he had wanted to kiss her because it was her, but she had also felt his bubbling rage in the passion he displayed, had he only done it in response to Gloria or in response to her? But then, she mused, if he had wanted to kiss her wouldn't he have stayed and continued it? Why had he apologised and run away?

Her fingers were still grazing her lips as she replayed the moment again, it had certainly taken her by surprise and for a second she had not known what to do but as soon as she had realised how much she wanted it too she had returned it with equal vigour. However after a few more seconds she had needed to know why he'd done it which was why she had pulled away. Now that he had gone though she regretted doing that as they might still have been hidden away in the corner of the pub kissing once more where they had actually shared their first, more innocent kiss.

Staggering back to the bar Rose noticed a bemused looking Dominique waiting with a couple of butterbeers, James appeared to still be ranting at Gloria who had now stopped crying and was giving it back to him as fiercely as she was receiving it. "What happened?" her dark haired younger cousin asked when Rose took up an empty bar stool beside her.

"He...kissed...me," she said slowly touching her lips again and watching as Dominique's mouth grew wide.

"He kissed you?"

"Yes," she murmured her eyes sliding out of focus.

"So why did he run out?" Dominique asked curiously, "He didn't even stop to say goodbye, he just jumped into the fireplace and was gone."

"I don't know," Rose replied looking now at her cousin as if she might hold the answer to the question she was asking herself too.

"What actually happened?" Dom asked.

"He was angry, with Gloria, because she had been trying to get him to go back to her. At first he just ranted about how mad she made him because it must mean he still cared about her, which he must do, they were together for so long. So I told him that it was only natural, he had loved her for a long time and it wouldn't be easy to just forget that love. Then I reminded him that I had ranted and raved about Chris for a while too and I still thought about him, but then he said he hadn't thought about her at all since..."

"New Year," Dominique gasped and then flung her hand over her mouth.

"No he...wait a minute, why New Year? Why would you know that?" she asked turning to look at her raven haired Potter cousin who was now making his way back to the bar with an angry look to rival that of Salamander's when he had left the same table.

"I...er...James told me about New Year's, sorry."

"Great, who else has he told?" she shouted whirling back to face her again.

"Just me, I promise and I didn't tell anyone else. Actually he wanted to..." she looked sheepishly away as James joined them at the table.

"Can you keep my private life to yourself in future James?" Rose spat angrily putting her hands on her hips and looking once more like her mother. He took on a similar sheepish look and stared anywhere but at his cousin.

"Rose, he didn't do it to gossip honest, he wanted to...well," she looked over at her accomplice for help and he interjected for her.

"It wasn't a coincidence that we were both late tonight, we kind of schemed it so that you two might be able to talk to each other," he confessed guiltily.

"Why would you do that?" she asked curiously losing her angry tone.

"Well James here," Dominique explained, "thinks that you two like each other."

"Well you do, don't you?" he asked looking at the bushy haired girl who was feeling more and more bemused every second.

"We...what? I don't...I don't know...do we?"

"Well we can't answer the question for you but I know that Sal keeps thinking about you, he has done ever since..." he drifted off knowing she would fill in the blanks.

"Did he say that to you?" Rose asked her heart lifting a little.

"Well not in so many words," James confessed, "he said he hasn't thought about Gloria since then and that he had never thought of you in that way before so now he...he must..." he paused as he realised that in this explanation it didn't exactly seem that he did positively like Rose. "But he does, I could tell when he talked about you."

"So why did he just kiss her back there and then run off without any explanation?" Dominique asked.

"He kissed you?" James blustered and Rose nodded at her cousin, "Well that proves it then."

"Come off it James, how many women have you kissed who you didn't have any actual feelings for apart from that they might be a good shag?"

"Yeah but that was me, Sal's different, he's deeper that I am...er was," he added knowing that he was completely different in the most part to the man he had been prior to meeting Annemarie. "Anyway Salamander wouldn't kiss her without a reason."

"He kissed me back there on New Year's Eve and it wasn't because he liked me," Rose told them.

"Yeah but that was because he was rescuing you from that dick you'd been dating, he told me about it. This, this is different I know it Rose."

"You have psychic intuition about your friend's feelings do you James?" Dominique goaded.

"No, but I know with Sal!"

"So why did he run away then?" Dominique quizzed.

"What actually happened Rose?" he asked turning back to the still confused looking girl at the bar.

Sighing deeply at having to explain again she began softly, "He was angry because he said he must still love her and that made him mad and I said it was only natural as they had been together a long time, then he went on saying something about not having thought about her since…but he never finished, he just leaned over and kissed me."

"Since New Year," James said in triumph.

"I think we've gathered that now James thank you but that doesn't explain why he left. Are you sure he didn't say anything else?" Dominique asked turning back to Rose.

"No, he just apologised and ran."

"Maybe he thinks that you thought it was a rebound kiss or something because he was angry at Gloria," James suggested.

"Did it feel like that Rose?" Dominique asked.

"How the hell can you feel in a kiss if it was on the rebound or not Dom?" James asked sarcastically.

"Trust me, women can tell!" she retorted pulling a face at James before turning back to her other cousin, "Rose?"

"No, I don't think it did, I could tell he was angry and part of it may have been about that but it also felt like he wanted to kiss me," she whispered blushing bright red, "I pulled away because I was confused and that's when he ran so I don't know, maybe it was to get at Gloria, although she couldn't exactly see us."

"You can get all that from a kiss?" James asked with a bemused expression.

"Yes, we can," Dominique stressed.

"I'm telling you Sal likes you," James said adamantly, "pure and simple…I'm sure," he added quietly.

"Yes James," the younger of the three cousins said stressing his name through gritted teeth, "we know what you think, but that doesn't make a difference if Rose doesn't actually like Sal."

"But she does!…Don't you?" he asked suddenly beginning to doubt his intuition a little.

"I...I think so," Rose confessed quietly, "I mean when he kissed me I wanted him to do it and...and I didn't want it to stop," she looked away shyly then aware that one of her companions was male and a family member and she was not used to being this honest about men and her feelings in front of him. "And...well I...I've been thinking about him too, ever since you said..." she looked up at the older cousin who nodded his head.

"See!" he shouted triumphantly, "They do like each other, both of them."

"So why did he run?" Dom barked exasperatedly.

"I told you," James replied loudly in infuriation, "Because he thinks that she'll be thinking he only did it to make Gloria mad! Look Rose you should go and talk to him, he's probably just gone back to the flat."

"Not now," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"I don't know, I..."

"Come on Rose, strike while the iron's hot!" James chuckled dragging her from her stool and guiding her towards the fireplace, "you could be happy again by the end of the night!" But when they reached the flat they found it empty and after trying Sal's parent's house and where he worked they gave up and went back to drink with Dominique in the Leaky Cauldron. James didn't try to force the subject again but the more she thought about it the more Rose convinced herself that really there was nothing in the kiss at all, why else would he have run away? She had responded to it and showed that she welcomed it but he had obviously deemed it a mistake like their sleeping together and by the time her head hit the pillow she had decided to forget about anything happening with Salamander Longbottom, there had been too many occasions where mistakes had occurred and she had obviously just mis-read all the signals again.