A/N: This will be a short story, probably around 5 chapters. I even have the whole thing plotted out before I start for once. Hope you enjoy and please review!
Rose should've RSVP'd no when the invitation first came. She frankly wasn't sure why she got an invitation at all.
On the rare occasion she and Eliza would talk, it was just Eliza being an overly cheery suck up while simultaneously being condescending. Rose always refused to engage so it would peter off into stilted conversation until Eliza gave up and moved onto Lily or Dominique or Hugo or any of her other famous, more sociable relatives. Douglas was good enough friends with Albus that she had hung out with him on several occasions, and even was nice enough for them to actually talk, but only in groups. Again, not enough to merit an invitation to his wedding.
Her best guess was that Eliza wanted another expensive wedding gift and the clout that came from having a child of the Golden Trio at the event. Unfortunately for Eliza, Rose was a Healer-in-training making minimum wage and, given her latest spat with her mother, was probably close to being disowned (not really, but they were on day three of a cycle of not talking for two weeks and then slowly going back to normal without ever really apologizing, all to inevitably repeat once they got into another argument).
It was the first event of Wedding Season, which wasn't actually limited to weddings, but any and all big events. Rose's birthday fell at the end of the summer, by which point most people were usually either too tired or too broke from all the previous events to do much for her birthday. Since Eliza and Douglas's wedding was bound to be followed by several more big events that would involve Rose needing to dress up and find a suitable gift and (Merlin help her) a date, she could skip this one without any fear of missing out.
But Albus insisted she needed to come as his wingman in his quest to woo Joanna Finnegan and Rose, despite her protests, couldn't say no to her favorite cousin.
("I need her to think I'm cool!"
"So you're taking your cousin as backup?")
So after failing to find something affordable on the wedding registry, Rose grabbed a nice picture frame she had been gifted by a distant relative for her birthday last year and had never opened and squeezed into an old dress she had worn to her cousin Molly's engagement dinner last year.
What she hadn't done was prepare to answer a barrage of intrusive questions about her life.
The ceremony was fine enough, if a little long. Rose was expecting to be bored out of her mind, but the flower girls getting into a fight halfway down the aisle and the 5 year old ring bearer sneezing onto the ring drew laughs. Eliza's look of disgust at having to put on a snot-covered ring made coming to this wedding worth it, Rose decided. Whoever said kids shouldn't be allowed at weddings hadn't considered the sheer entertainment value for the guests.
She clapped, if not enthusiastically, at least politely when they finally kissed, ignoring the little twinge that came seeing another couple her age that met in Hogwarts get married while she was still "painfully single," as Witch Weekly had put it in their last edition.
But overall, she had made it through the first part of the wedding with minimal pain, which was really all she could ask for. Rose resolved to get herself an extra slice of cake and a drink (despite the cash bar, ugh) as a treat for being so pleasant. Never mind that she hadn't had to do any talking yet—she had showed up and smiled at all the right parts. Even Albus couldn't complain.
It was during the reception that the questions started.
"Rose!" Clover Casamptura flounced over in, what was in Rose's opinion, an offensively bright pink dress, drink in hand dangerously close to spilling on the ground as she gestured. "I haven't seen you in ages."
Rose smiled tightly, refraining from saying that's how she preferred it. "Clover. How have you been?"
"Amazing!" she gushed. "Evan and I just moved in together and it's been amazing. Though I'm sure you know how messy these boys can be when they're not used to living with us." She rolled her eyes as though she and Rose were in on an inside joke.
Clover's eyes flickered over the various couples behind Rose. "Who are you here with? I couldn't remember who you were sitting next to at the ceremony."
"No one," Rose answered before Clover could begin actually craning her neck to search for her fictional date.
"No one?" Clover repeated in surprise. "Oh. Well, that's alright. Nothing to worry about there. We all find our special someone in our own time."
"I'm not worried. I'm only 26," Rose said.
"Of course, of course. Anyway, how's work?" Clover asked hastily, eager to move away from Rose's apparently-worrisome single state.
Rose thought about the shift she had had that morning, where she was thrown up on, screamed at by an irate patient and also her supervisor, and had to deal with a teenage witch's makeup spell gone so awry she first thought the girl had taken a botched Polyjuice Potion.
"Good," she answered. "I'm a Healer."
"I'm sure there's plenty of men to go around at work." Clover winked.
Yeah, right. The only men she worked with were her elderly male administrative supervisor and the three married male Healers on her team. The closest she'd gotten to a date was when a drunk teenager last week tried to hit on her after he had taken too many Nosebleed Nougats from her Uncle George's shop and was high on the pain potions.
"I think I see Albus waving me over so I have to go. Actually, wait—" Rose hastily turned back to Clover. "Where did you get that drink?" Clover was already impressively tipsy only 20 minutes into the reception. Whatever she was drinking was bound to be strong enough for Rose.
By the time she got the Euphoria Elixir that Clover recommended, Rose had repeated that same conversation twice more with old Hogwarts acquaintances on her way to the bar and was close to downing the drink as a shot.
"Do try to look a little happier, Weasley, it's a wedding. You're ruining the mood," a voice behind her drawled. Rose bit her cheek in irritation (she was never the best at being told what to do), and turned around only for her neutral frown to deepen into a full scowl.
"What're you doing here?" she snapped.
Scorpius Malfoy gave a smug grin at her obvious displeasure. He looked amazing, Rose thought with disgust, all chiseled cheekbones and arched brows. She was hit with the sudden urge to smash her slice of cake in his hair to see him looking anything but perfect for once.
"Celebrating my old friend Douglas's happiest day, of course. The real question is what're you doing here? You're not friends with either of them if I recall correctly." He turned away from her to pile some food on his plate. "Don't tell me you're here as a plus one."
"No," she grumbled. "They invited me and Al made me come. I'm assuming you're on your own here too?"
Scorpius was notoriously single throughout Hogwarts, though never alone. Rose herself had given him plenty of detentions as a prefect for being out after hours with a girl in a broom closet.
"Au contraire, Weasley." He nodded toward a table in the center of the room where Al was eagerly chatting up a seemingly uninterested Joanna Finnegan, while a leggy blonde sat next to them in a skin tight dress. God damn it. Of course he'd be here with Lana Hensling, the latest cover girl of Witch Weekly. Rose was suddenly glad Lily had insisted on doing her makeup for her.
"You're dating someone?" If even Scorpius Malfoy had settled down by now, maybe her situation was worse than she thought.
"That's not what I said."
Rose shifted as he studied her, his gray eyes sharp.
"Shouldn't you be with her? She looks kind of bored."
"That's just her usual expression," Scorpius said, looking unconcerned. "She doesn't try to move her face too much since she's a model. Preventing wrinkles and all that."
"Um…" Rose wasn't finished with her Healer training but she was pretty sure that wasn't medically accurate.
"It's been a minute since I've seen you," he continued casually. "Still on that moral crusade of yours to 'help people?'"
He actually put quotes around the words. Rose rolled her eyes.
"You could call it that. Still destroying the planet in your reprehensible scheme to rake in more money than anyone humanely needs with your shitty potions?"
"I'll have you know Malfoy Incorporated is going carbon neutral at the end of the year. Not to mention the record donations we've given to establish a hippogriff sanctuary." He grinned at her.
Rose was unimpressed. "Tax write offs?"
His smile widened. "Is it so hard to believe I would do something for the common good?"
"You did just call my career a moral crusade," she pointed out. He shrugged, conceding the point.
"Sorry that I enjoy living a life of comforts and luxury"
"Right. Have fun killing baby nifflers with your product testing."
"Eloquent," he responded dryly. "Well, it's been a pleasure as always, Rose. I'm sure I'll see you showing up uninvited at other events this summer. Oh, and animal testing has been banned for ages now. We only do human trials, so I'll be sure to sign you up as a volunteer since you so charitably want to help the niffler cause."
Before she could retort that she was invited, thank you very much, he bent down to kiss her on the cheek and strode away. The couple next to her at the bar gave her an odd look as she made a strangled noise, but Rose didn't care.
"Another Elixir! Please," she barked at the bartender when she finally regained her voice, trying not to take her irritation out on him.
"Rose Weasley? Is that you?"
Rose turned around to see Alana Brown with her hand on the arm of a very uncomfortable Zach Finnegan. Her ex of three years ago. Great.
"I heard you only just switched to being a Healer. It must be so difficult to start that career path so late in life. What exactly were you doing before?"
Rose gritted her teeth. "Just taking some time off. You know, traveling, writing."
"Right. So, who's your date to this event?" Alana continued, unimpressed with the previous topic of conversation. God damn it. Zach finally made eye contact with her, clearly interested in her answer.
Naturally just then Rose happened to catch a glimpse of Scorpius leaving the reception area with his hand quite low on the back of his model girlfriend.
Yeah, she really should've RSVP'd no to this.