CHAPTER ELEVEN

WEASLEY JUMPERS

Rose stepped off of the Hogwarts Express with Hugo and Scorpius close behind her. James, Al, and Lily had already gotten off, and Rose could see them standing with Uncle Harry talking to Mr. Dursley and Collin, with her own parents nearby. Emma appeared next to them then and said, "I have to go home for Christmas, but I'll be there for the wedding. Come say hi." Hugo ran up to the group with Emma, while Rose waited for Scorpius and stopped him.

"Have you ever talked to a Muggle?" she asked him. "Like, actually talked to one?"

"Does Professor Creevey count?" he asked.

"No."

"Then no, I guess not," he admitted.

"It's probably a good idea not to talk about the fact that he's a Muggle much, then," she sighed as they approached the group. "Oh, and don't look at him like something in a zoo, they hate that. I would, too. Oh, and Collin's not even really a Muggle, he got thrown off the swings last summer and flew about twenty feet before floating back down." They had reached the others by then and Uncle Harry turned to them. "Rose, you remember Mr. Dursley, don't you?"

"Yeah, nice to see you again, Mr. Dursley," she said, and he shook her hand.

"Hey, Rose," Collin said eagerly. "Where's…um, Roxanne, I think? Yeah, Hugo said she could get me some candy that could get me out of class?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, maybe when you're older," she said quickly, and Uncle Harry quickly changed the subject.

"Er, Dudley, this is Scorpius, he's a friend of Al and Rose's," he said, and Mr. Dursley held out his hand to Scorpius as well.

"Good afternoon…Scorpius," Mr. Dursley said, and Scorpius shook his hand, looking a little nervous. "Well, we'd better go…come on, Emma, get your brother."

"Are they from that cool shop your uncle works at?" Collin was asking Hugo, and he looked put out at a look from his father. "All right, then, I'll talk to you soon. Hey, could you send me an owl? That'd be so cool!"

"I could just… phone you," Hugo said. "We do have a phone."

"Oh! Okay. Bye, Hugo!" he said quickly as he ran after his father. Emma waved goodbye quickly as they walked away. Almost immediately, their mother pulled Hugo aside. Rose heard something about the different worlds and secrecy, which Hugo understandably argued against by saying that he's practically at Hogwarts and it's not like he doesn't know everything already.

Rose's father approached Rose and Scorpius and said, "Let's go to the car, wait for them there." Rose nodded and followed her dad back through the barrier. "So, how's school been?"

"Pretty good. Gryffindor's winning the Quidditch cup so far," Rose said.

"Yeah, Al's caught the Snitch every time," Scorpius added.

"But the Auror guards are annoying," Rose complained. "I know they're there to keep us safe…"

"But honestly if we can get hexed by Rosier and his friends without them noticing…" Scorpius muttered, but Rose's dad heard it.

"What? Did you say Rosier?"

"Yeah, just this Slytherin boy," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"He's hexing you?"

"Well, we hexed him too," Scorpius admitted.

"You've been duelling?" Rose's dad asked as they reached the car.

"Duelling? Who's dueling?" Rose's mother asked, and Rose thought her mother probably had the worst timing in the world. "Rosier was being awful, Mum," Hugo tried to explain, and her eyes widened.

"You were there?" she asked, shocked. "Get in the car, all of you." Rose entered first and exchanged a solemn look with Scorpius and Hugo. "Rose, why did you get Hugo involved with this? I thought you were supposed to protect him."

Rose was thrown off by the disappointed look on her mother's face as her father drove in silence, and didn't respond before Hugo said, "She didn't, we were just walking and Rosier came up to us, and he was talking about you, Mum, and I got really mad so I told him to stop and then he tried to hex me but then we all got involved and Rose made his head really big—"

"It was his spell, it rebounded," Rose corrected quickly.

"We couldn't just let him—he called you a—um…"

"It's all right, Hugo," Rose's mother sighed. "Just… try to stay calm next time." The rest of the car ride passed mostly in silence, until they were pulling into the driveway of the Burrow, when their mother said, "I forgot to tell you; your gran has asked for some help with the Christmas jumpers this year. If she asks either of you, I want you to help her."

"Mum…" Hugo moaned, and their mother gave him a warning look.

"Your gran works very hard on those jumpers, Hugo."

"I know," he mumbled. The car pulled to a stop and Rose hopped out, as did Scorpius, both clearly very glad to escape the situation. Rose's dad got out soon after them and stopped Rose before she entered the house.

"You won, right? The duel?" he asked.

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Rosier had to go to the hospital wing."

"That's my girl." Rose walked inside and was greeted by Gran and Granddad, sitting at the kitchen table.

"Rose! Welcome home," Gran exclaimed, and Rose went over to hug her. She saw Scorpius and Al sitting in the living room behind them with Aunt Ginny, and Gran let go of her before saying, "Now, about the Christmas jumpers—"

"Oh, yeah, Mum told me. I'll help," she offered, and Gran smiled.

"That's wonderful. Most of the other children have been hiding from me." Al's eyes widened when he heard this and made a break for the stairs. Gran rolled her eyes a little and said, "Al, I do need more than one helper, you know."

"I'll help," Scorpius offered, and Al turned to him.

"It's official, you're my best friend. Sorry, Rose," he said. "I'm going to find James." And with that, he was gone up the stairs, and Gran turned to Scorpius.

"Do you know how to knit, Scorpius? I'll teach you if you don't."

"Er… yeah, I do," he said, looking a little embarrassed.

Gran looked impressed. "Holly didn't do all that?"

"Well, she did, I just… I didn't like making her do stuff for me. She taught me how."

"All right, then, I'll let you get settled. We can start in a little while."

"Oh, uh, Scorpius, we set up a bed for you in James's room," Aunt Ginny said. Scorpius glanced at Rose.

"Er… doesn't he already share with Al?" he asked weakly.

"No, they didn't get on very well when they were little. Al shares with Hugo," Aunt Ginny explained. Scorpius nodded and shrugged with what looked like some effort.

"All right then," he said quietly, and Rose followed him up the stairs. As soon as they were out of earshot of the ground floor, he turned to Rose in horror. "I thought I'd be with your brother!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't even think about it," Rose admitted, giggling a little. This would be entertaining, at least.

"You have to help me," he groaned. Just then, Rose heard James from the next floor up.

"Why is there another bed in my room?"

"Believe me, I'm not happy about it either," Scorpius called up, and there was a short period of silence before James came barreling down the stairs. He stopped briefly next to them.

"Tell me you're joking, Malfoy," he said. Scorpius shook his head and James started running down the stairs again. "Mum! Mum! You can't be serious!"

By the end of the night, Hugo had moved into James's room for the holidays and Scorpius took his bed in the room with Al, after a lot of bickering that Rose thought was very unnecessary and annoying. She spent the time before supper in her room, and was reading when Lily burst in and flopped down on her bed. "Can I stay here? I hate my brothers." Rose grinned.

"Sure," she said, and Lily hopped up, took a book off of Rose's bookshelf, and sat back down. She had always liked Lily for her ability to be quiet, a feat never quite achieved by practically anyone else in the Burrow. Of course, when Lily wanted to, she could rival even James in terms of wildness, but she was still rather bookish, which was probably the reason she was in Ravenclaw.

The housing issues effectively delayed the jumper-making until after dinner when Gran tracked Rose and Scorpius down and sat them in the living room.

"All right, so I'm very glad that you two are here to help me. We have quite a lot of jumpers to make. I usually start on these a lot earlier, but with the wedding—did Min tell you about the bridesmaid dresses, they're just wonderful—well, you see, I haven't had much time. Besides, I have my seven children, six of their husbands or wives, 12 grandchildren, my husband, and then there's Emma and her brother, and Teddy, and you, dear," she added, looking at Scorpius and his eyes widened.

"Me? Oh, you don't have to give me one," he said quickly and she shook her head.

"Oh, hush, love—anyway, that's 30 jumpers, so we'd better get started."

Rose and Scorpius helped Gran for the next few days, and Rose was seriously beginning to regret volunteering to help. They finally finished the last ones on Christmas Eve, and Gran began wrapping them all. She gave Rose two jumpers with E and C on them and said, "Could you two please send an owl with these to Emma and Collin?"

"Sure," Rose said, and Scorpius followed her up to the stairs to her room. She sat down at her desk and wrote out a quick note to Emma and tied it to the package. She let Musetta out of her cage and she flew out the window with the jumpers. "Sorry you had to help with all those," she told Scorpius. "I should have told you how many she makes."

Scorpius shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I like her. What else would I be doing anyway? Sitting around with James?"

"We could be playing Quidditch," Rose pointed out, and Scorpius shrugged.

"It's fine, Weasley, don't worry about it," he said. "Besides, this is basically the best Christmas I've ever had."

She frowned a little, and it got suddenly very quiet. After a moment, she said, "Have you… heard from them?"

"No," he said shortly. "Whatever. I don't care." They both knew it was a lie, and it was silent again until Rose spoke.

"I'm sorry, Scorpius," she said quietly. He didn't answer, and after a minute, Rose heard something from outside. She walked up to her window and looked down. She saw her dad and Uncle Harry standing outside with a woman that she knew looked familiar. She couldn't quite make out who it was at first.

"Do you know her?" Scorpius asked her, and she suddenly recognized her when her head turned, showing them more of her face.

"That's Hestia Jones. She's an Auror," Rose explained. "Here." She cracked her window open, just enough to be able to hear their conversation.

"Are you sure it's true, Hestia?" Uncle Harry was saying.

"I'm sure. My source is never wrong."

Uncle Harry turned to Rose's father. "All right then. We'll leave in three days. After the wedding?"

He nodded. "Sure."

"All right. We'll see you then, Hestia. Let's hope we catch them."

Rose closed her window quickly as they turned back towards the house and looked at Scorpius.

"They're going to find the prisoners, aren't they?" he asked.

She nodded. "Let's hope they catch them." And that they don't get hurt, Rose added in her head.

"Well, I'm tired," Scorpius said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Good night. Happy Christmas," Rose added as Scorpius walked to the door.

"You too," he replied quickly, and Rose sat down at her desk as soon as he left. She never liked when her dad left for a job. As if she needed another reason to be nervous about the wedding.