Ron and Hermione had decided to floo over that morning to surprise their daughter with a trip out for breakfast. Ron, being the impulsive man he always had been, couldn't wait for his wife to finish getting ready. He left by himself with a call to hurry up and a smile gracing his face. That smile evaporated as soon as he stepped out of the fireplace.
There on the couch was his baby girl, but she wasn't alone. She was lying on top of Scorpius ruddy Malfoy with only their heads visible from under the blankets. Fury consumed him in an instant.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY DAUGHTER?"
The pair sprung apart in the blink of any eye.
"DAD!" Rose was stunned. "What are you doing?"
Ron ignored his daughter and flew across the room. He grasped Scorpius by the shoulders and slammed him into a wall. Although Scorpius was a tall man, Ron's imposing form easily dwarfed him. "What the fuck do you think you are doing? You keep away from my daughter, you dirty ferret! Don't you touch her."
"Let him go, Dad!" Rose cried.
"Listen to your daughter, Ron," Hermione, the voice of reason, had arrived. She had quickly assessed the room in the moments since she arrived. Rose was staring at the two men in horror, Scorpius was even paler than usual, and Ron was practically glowing with a red flush of pure rage. "Why don't we all calm down and discuss this?"
"There's nothing to discuss, Hermione. I caught Rose and Scorpius sleeping together. He took advantage of my baby girl and he's going to pay!" Ron screamed with a feral glint in his eyes.
"Dad we were just sleeping!" Rose exclaimed. She felt humiliated. "Leave him alone. Nothing happened."
"HE WAS TOUCHING YOU!" Ron bellowed.
"Incarcerous," Hermione simply stated. Invisible ropes shot from her wand and bound her husband who fell to the ground in an unceremonious lump. Rose ran to her friend and began to flit around him to ascertain what damage her emotional father could have caused her friend. Hermione, ever the observant woman, noticed Scorpius relax and lean slightly into Rose's gentle touches. Something had happened, even if her daughter claimed otherwise.
Ron continued to curse on the floor. "Do I need to silence you or are you willing to listen, now?" Hermione addressed her husband.
With a petulant look Ron muttered, "fine."
Rose rushed to explain, "Scorp came over last night to hang out. We hadn't seen each other in a week and wanted to catch up. We just stayed up late talking and must have fallen asleep on the couch. You didn't have to hurt Scorpius, Dad! He's my best friend and you had no right to treat him that way."
Ron defended himself, "I'm your dad, Rose. It's my job to protect you from people like him."
"People like him?! Who do you think he is?" Rose was boggled.
"Boys are up to no good, Rosie!" Ron claimed. "They just want you for one thing! You're too young and innocent to understand! He tried to get you drunk," Ron gestured to the empty ale bottles on the coffee table, "to take advantage of you!" Across the room, Hermione rolled her eyes and groaned at her clueless husband.
"DAD! OH MY MERLIN! Are you talking about sex?! For crying out loud, that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm can sleep with whoever I want to and you don't get any say in it. If I want to fuck my way through half of wizarding London, that's just what I'm going to do!" Rose ranted. Ron's eyes bulged out and Hermione tried to suppress a laugh. Rose realized what she had just shouted and her face was engulfed in flames. "Get out, get out, get out!" Rose doubted it was possible to feel more mortified.
Hermione dragged her still bound husband to the fireplace and said, "I'll call you later, Rose. After," she growled, "I deal with this ignorant fool." They flooed away.
"What did I just do?" Rose whispered to herself as the color drained away from her cheeks. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
"I think you stated you case quite eloquently, love."
Rose whirled around and her blush returned. She had temporarily forgotten that Scorpius was still standing in her living room. She stomped over to the couch and buried face in her hands.
"I hope you don't fulfill your threat to your father," Scorpius snarked. "You'll leave a trail of broken hearts behind you."
"Shit, Scorp. I'm humiliated," Rose moaned. "I don't want to sleep with a million men. I just want my father to stop assuming that I'm a clueless child who needs to be coddled."
"I can't really blame him, Rose," Scorpius said. Rose glanced up at him with a look of incredulity. He slid down onto the couch beside her so that they were touching from knee to shoulder. She could feel his heat radiating into her body. "I mean, I get the desire to protect your children from anything that could harm them. And we know from last night that some men are very capable of harming you." He gently stroked his fingers across the bruise that Daniel had left on her arm. Rose felt like a series of sparks was trailing behind his fingers and igniting her skin.
"Oh Merlin, can you imagine what would have happened if my dad had noticed the bruise? He would have killed you on the spot."
"For leaving a mark on his baby girl, I would have been lucky to be killed quickly. Your dad strikes me as the sort to toy with his prey." Scorpius said.
"Yeah, you're right. He probably would have seen it fitting to castrate you first. It would have been his twisted version of an eye for an eye." Rose deadpanned. Scorpius shuddered and shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
"With that delightful thought, I'll leave you be. See you later this week?" Scorpius asked.
"Sure," Rose said, "we'll meet up for drinks after work some night." Scorpius grabbed a handful of floo powder when Rose remembered, "Wait, Scorp! Want to be my date for Roxie's wedding? I need to bring someone or else I'll wind up having to spend all night with the best man. I might go crazy if I have to listen to Lorcan prattle on about imaginary creatures for hours on end."
"Anything to see you in that dress again, love," Scorpius said with a wink and flooed away.
Rose smiled and began to clean up. She only had a few hours before she'd have to face her mother.
Rose showered and dressed in a pair of comfortable, well-worn jeans and a tee shirt. She cast a concealment charm on her arm to hide the finger shaped bruises. She was putting the kettle on, when she heard a voice call from her living room. "Rose, sweetheart?"
"Hi Mum, be there in a moment," Rose said as she finished slicing a lemon loaf. She grabbed a couple slices on a plate and walked out of the kitchen. In the fireplace was the kind face of her mother.
"Can I come through, Rose?" Hermione asked. "I don't want your father eavesdropping on our conversation."
"Of course!" With that, Hermione emerged from the green flames. She walked to her daughter and hugged her. "How's dad?" Rose asked.
"The stubborn, old fool is fine. You gave him a scare this morning. He was muttering about chastity belts when we got back home. I set him straight. He should leave you alone about it for a little while at least. But please, for the sake of all of our sanity, don't start parading around with a string of men." Hermione jested. "How's Scorpius? What really happened, honey?"
"He's fine, Mum," Rose said, "he strangely understood Dad's protectiveness."
"Really?" Hermione asked. Being the clever witch she was, Hermione knew there was more to the story. "Why would that be?"
"I don't know," Rose admitted, "He just said that he could appreciate why someone would want to protect their children from harm."
Hermione frowned, "Speaking of harm, what happened to your arm? Don't think that I didn't notice this morning. Even this excellent glamour charm you've done didn't make me forget."
"It wasn't Scorpius!" Rose emphasized.
"I never said it was, Rose," Hermione quietly stated, "but what happened?"
"I went out on a date last night. He had very different ideas of what was appropriate behavior. Like I told Scorpius, I took care of it." Rose tried to dismiss her mother's concern.
Hermione frowned, "It was Daniel McLaggen, wasn't it? My undersecretary asked me the other day how I felt about having him as a son in law. Apparently, Daniel was bragging in his office about you. I told her that you two had broken up. Did you get back together now?"
"I ran into him last week and he asked me for a second chance. But after the way he acted last night, I never want to see him again. He told me I was lucky that he would be willing to be seen with me! Like it was some great honor for him to virtually molest me in front of a crowd! I slapped him and told him to stay away from me," Rose said definitively.
"Daniel's father was annoyingly persistent too and had a very hard time understanding the word 'no'. I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself," Hermione continued, "but if he approaches you again tell one of us."
"I can take care of myself, Mum," Rose defended.
"I know you can, honey. But there's no shame in asking for help. You've got so many people who love you." Hermione gently said.
"Yeah, I know," Rose softly replied. "When Scorpius saw the bruises last night he demanded to know where Daniel was. I think he might have killed him."
"That man would do anything for you, Rose," Hermione said.
"He agreed to be my date to Roxanne's wedding to spare me from dealing with Lorcan. I'm lucky to have such a good friend," Rose grinned.
"Are you sure that you're only friends, honey?" Hermione pushed.
"Don't you start on that too, Mum! Why does everyone ask that? He's my best friend. Plus, he goes for beautiful witches like Marguerite Shafiq. I'm not his type at all," Rose concluded with a frown. Why did that suddenly bother her? She had forgiven Scorpius for bringing Marguerite to her birthday.
Hermione sadly smiled, "You truly are your father's daughter."
"What do you mean, Mum?" Rose was puzzled.
"Although your emotional range exceeds that of a teaspoon, you can be so oblivious to what's in front of you," Hermione stated. She knew that her daughter needed to figure it out on her own. Telling her would only raise her defenses and send Rose into deeper denial.
Rose sighed at her mother's cryptic response. Why couldn't people just say what they mean and not talk in riddles? Rose knew her mother would not divulge her thoughts, so she let the subject drop.
The conversation shifted to Rose's work. Rose was grateful that her mother was the Minister of Magic and was therefore allowed to discuss her research freely. She filled Hermione in on the progress of the Oagadou students and the links between animagus and patronus forms she had discovered. Rose bemoaned that she was still completely stumped why some people could achieve the transformation and others could not. Hermione was horrified when Rose shared with her the details of the Oagadou student's failed transformation.
"That poor boy!" Hermione exclaimed, "Was Professor Faso able to assist?"
"She said that she found a potion that will allow the student to molt the scale-like feathers. But it's going to be an extremely painful and long process," Rose cringed.
Animagus transformations rarely went so wrong. In all her research she had only found one other instance of such a botched transformation. The wizard had attempted to modify the animagus spell so that he could change into a magical creature, specifically an Abraxan winged horse, at the International Symposium of Animagi of 1852. Upon transformation, the wizard remained in mostly human form but sprouted a pair of huge Veela-like wings. The wings crushed his rib cage and compressed his spinal column under their immense weight and the wizard died in agony. The incident was well-documented by the symposium attendees; it had been truly horrifying to behold. The Oagadou student, Rose thought, was lucky by comparison.
"Have you requested to interview the student?" Hermione asked. Ever the scholar, her inquisitive nature was piqued.
"Yes," Rose replied, "I'm heading to Uganda this week."
"I hope it provides you some insight to redirect your research," Hermione said and stood up. "I've got to get back to your father now, honey. Send me an owl when you get back to England to fill me in."
"I will, Mum," Rose promised. "Tell Dad I'm not angry with him anymore. But let him know that I'm not a little kid anymore."
"Rose, what you don't understand is that you'll always be his baby girl. But I'll work on getting him to accept that you are now a grown woman. He just wants you to be happy and safe," Hermione said.
Rose hugged her mother, "I'm happy. I've got a great life. My family and friends are simply the best. Now if I could just get my work to make sense, I'd be all set."
"I'm certain the pieces will fall into place soon enough, Rose. Don't give up on it. You might find the answer when you least expect it. Keep your eyes open." Hermione stared into Rose's eyes as if trying to convey an unspoken message. Rose squirmed under the scrutiny.
Hermione broke eye contact and walked towards the fire place, "Don't forget to contact me after you get back! Say hi to Scorpius for me when you see him and pass on my apologies for your father's behavior this morning." With a final farewell, Hermione disappeared leaving Rose alone in her flat.
Rose's brain was churning. She felt unsettled and decided to go into work to attempt to be productive. She spent the rest of the day pouring through her research and look for clues that she must have overlooked. Her mother had said that she was blind to what was in front of her, and Rose was determined to prove that she could uncover the truth. Then everything in her life would be perfect.
Rose frowned. Why did it suddenly feel like something was missing? For so long, her work was the only important thing in her life that hadn't come easily. Her friends and family were amazingly supportive in everything that she did. Granted, her dating life left something to be desired but Rose concluded that she just didn't need that to be happy. Right?