There was a quiet, pointed cough and Rose practically jumped away from the too-comfortable embrace with Scorpius. She wasn't even sure how long they'd been standing there in warm silence by that point. Skilt was eyeing her narrowly, though in reality his eyes were the only part of him that she could see beyond the small hands gripping desperately around the fluffy bundle he held.
It took her a moment to register that it was a blanket as the house-elf shuffled forward. He then thrust it toward Scorpius who took it graciously and draped it over his shoulders. Skilt moved forward and tugged at the edges to make sure it was properly covering his ward.
Rose bit her lip to try and keep her amusement from showing on her face, but from Scorpius's knowing look she wasn't succeeding. Luckily, Skilt was too absorbed in herding the youngest Malfoy toward the stairs to notice.
"The young master needs to rest now," there was another pointed look to Rose before he returned to his ushering.
Scorpius allowed himself to be directed, grinning back at Rose as he started up the stairs, "I guess this is good night, then."
"I suppose so," she returned with a smile. There was a small hesitation before she added, "And if you want we can chat tomorrow and I'll tell you everything I know about Grandpa's case." Scorpius stopped his ascent at that, Skilt huffing in mild irritation as he continued to push at the back of the wizard's legs. Rose shrugged, dropping her gaze from Scorpius's surprised expression, "It's the least I can do after...all of this."
He watched her for a moment before nodding, "Tomorrow, then."
"Sleep well," she said with a small wave as Scorpius relented to Skilt's persistence once more. She watched as they disappeared up the stairs and down the hallway before taking a deep breath and looking back toward the rest of the foyer again, processing the last ten or so minutes.
It had been...different. Like something had shifted, just slightly, from where the line had been before. Her cheeks felt a little warm as she considered the moments after Scorpius had been led back inside by Skilt. She'd seen him, albeit accidentally and covertly, take his shirt off before, but this had felt like something else. At once more charged and less embarrassing, though she was well aware she hadn't been able to keep herself from watching him as he dried off. She was also fairly certain he'd been well aware of her observance.
Merlin, it would have been impossible for him not to have noticed.
Rose rubbed her cheeks with a small grumble as she turned and made her own way up the stairs towards the guest bedroom. She shouldn't be thinking about things like that. That hug shouldn't have felt so natural. Or been that long.
She closed the door to the room with a long sigh.
This was becoming a problem.
Yet another unaccounted-for consequence of choosing the Malfoy Manor.
"Great," she mumbled as she ran her fingers through her hair and started her nighttime routine.
By the time she was crawling into bed, she was more determined than ever to keep things from progressing any further. Just because he was surprising and smart and exceptional...nope. She was doing it again. Take two: just because he was turning out to be a nice person didn't mean she had the time, interest, or mental capacity at the moment to deal with trying to be more than friends with Scorpius Malfoy. As it was...school was starting in less than a week.
Her time here had felt so pleasantly removed from reality that it had been almost too easy to forget that there was a world with its own agenda moving around outside. Her mum had done an excellent job of bringing her attention back to that fact. Her reminder of what she'd dumped on Scorpius's shoulders had been the cherry on top of the wake-up call for Rose to start operating beyond the odd limbo she'd been drifting in.
She rolled over and closed her eyes with another long sigh. She had to start focusing less on how fascinating her temporary manor-mate was turning out to be and more on studying, coming up with a plan to find her grandfather, and...all the rest. Tomorrow was a new start.
Which then had her thinking about tomorrow. She wasn't looking forward to going through everything that had happened again. It needed to happen, but it had her stomach in knots just to consider it. The sad truth of it was there wasn't much to the story. Rose curled up tighter around herself, squeezing her eyes shut. She'd almost feel better about telling Scorpius everything if there was anything that felt remotely helpful to tell.
She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. She was exhausted. It had been a day. She needed to stop thinking about this and go to sleep.
She hoped Scorpius was already asleep.
"Sure, drag the guilt back up to full power," she grumbled at herself before pulling the covers up over her face. It was going to be a long night.
The next morning came too early for Rose and late for Scorpius. She had given up on her scattered sleep around 3 a.m. and headed down to the den to do some reading. Skilt had popped into the room thirty minutes later with the most delicious cinnamon roll she'd ever tasted in her life. He accepted her thanks and responded to her polite inquiry of his own morning with a mildly amused, 'Fine, miss' before he removed himself from the room and left her to her reading.
She woke up to the quiet sounds of a book being pulled from a shelf with a minor mishap and a whispered curse. She blinked her eyes open to see Scorpius with the side of his thumb in his mouth and an impressive glare down at the book in his other hand. The next thing she noticed was that she was covered in a pretty lovely blanket. It looked suspiciously like the one Scorpius had been ushered away in the night before.
"Sorry." She looked back up to see Scorpius frowning over at her, "Didn't mean to wake you."
Rose snaked her arms out from under the blanket and rubbed her face, a small yawn escaping, "I didn't realize I needed waking." She glanced over to see the book she'd been reading sitting on the end table next to the chair she was curled up in, a bookmark thoughtfully placed for her. "How long have I been asleep?"
Scorpius made his way toward his chair across from her, thumb back in his mouth again for the duration of the journey. He scowled down at it as he pulled it away again, "I don't know when you got down here, but it's around 10 now."
Skilt appeared next to Scorpius with a glower, reaching his hands out expectantly.
"It's just a papercut, Skilt, I really thi-"
The house-elf's grip was quick and strong. Skilt tutted gently before touching a finger to Scorpius's thumb. Then, he released it with a quiet, "Can't have the young master bleeding all over the books."
Scorpius pressed his lips together in an attempt to stifle an amused look.
Skilt narrowed his eyes and turned to look at Rose now, "Is the young miss feeling more rested now?"
She blinked at him, "Oh. Yes, I am. Thank you for asking, Skilt."
The house-elf nodded with a small smile before his expression melted into a more serious cast, "But, do remember, sleeping in chairs is terrible for the back. Skilt would not recommend it as a habit."
It was her turn to try not to laugh as she smiled at him, "I will keep that in mind, Skilt. Thank you."
He gave a small nod of his head before disappearing with a quiet 'pop' once more.
"He really does know all, doesn't he?"
Scorpius laughed in response, inspecting his thumb, "He's always reminding us of how poorly we take care of ourselves. It's nice to have someone remind you every once in a while to be good to yourself." He shot her a warm look before turning his attention back to his book, flipping it open to a marked page.
Rose watched him in surprise, trying to decipher what the look had been for. Her brain felt more muddled than usual. While she was grateful to get a few hours of solid sleep, she knew she would need more before being back to full operational capacity. She also knew she was awake and sleep was now going to have to wait until later in the day.
Instead, she reclaimed the book she had been reading earlier and they settled into a relaxed silence. A little while later, Skilt dropped off a light snack for them and they reviewed uses for various plants they had covered in Herbology last year. They moved to the kitchen for lunch and while they were eating Skilt informed them that her grandfather's car was now sitting in the front courtyard of the manor with a full tank and her remaining items from the car had been deposited in the guest bedroom.
It broke the spell of the morning. It was so easy to put off, but it was wrong to. She and Scorpius washed the dishes in quiet and then he followed her as she wandered out to check on the car.
The day was pleasant with the occasional cloud drifting lazily in front of the sun. They stood side by side looking at the gleaming contraption that was one of her grandfather's items of immense pride. The breeze picked up and she absently put her hair up in a haphazard ponytail before wrapping her hands around her elbows to fend off both the slight chill through her sweater and the impending conversation.
"We didn't know he was missing until the next day."
She saw Scorpius glance at her from the corner of her eye. "Do you want to go back inside to…?"
Rose shook her head, "Here seems as good as anywhere."
He nodded and tucked his hands into his pockets, gaze drifting back to the vehicle.
Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Gran showed up at our house in a panic. When we finally got her to sit down and breathe, she told us he'd been called on a late night incident. An enchanted object in the middle of a muggle neighborhood." She frowned, "I think Mum told me later it was a toaster. Pressing business, you know?"
She paused at that, eyes drifting closed briefly, the image of her grandfather with that stupid feather duster jumping behind her eyelids. "He just...really loves what he does."
"My parents always talk about admiring how seriously he takes his job," Scorpius supplied quietly.
Rose smiled a bit at that, "It's a sight to behold."
Another quiet fell, and she let her gaze drift to watch the clouds for a moment, collecting her thoughts, "So he went to see about the toaster. And he never came back." Her hands squeezed harder around her elbows. "He wasn't back the following morning, but that wasn't unusual. Sometimes there's quite the clean-up needed if there were a lot of witnesses. And the paperwork." She shrugged, "You get it. Well, Gran had to go to Diagon Alley for some supplies that day, so she assumed he'd be home by the time she got home to start making dinner. But he wasn't."
She looked back at the car, steeling herself, "Gran has a clock in the Burrow that tells her where everyone is. Grandpa's dial stopped on 'lost' and hasn't moved since."
Rose pressed her lips tighter together, trying to figure out how to explain why the clock was important while tamping down the terror its meaning could potentially hold. She looked over and met his gaze, "The last time a dial on the clock stopped on 'lost' was when my uncle died."
She watched his eyes widen in surprise before he looked away from her, considering the information. Turning her attention back to the car, she went on, "Gran says she would know if he were really gone. She says she knew when Uncle Fred died and she swears on her life this isn't the same kind of 'lost.'" 'At least not yet,' her brain helpfully added. Her eyes closed against it and she took a few slow breaths.
Finally, she shrugged, opening her eyes again, "Aurors visited the home where his last call came from, but the person had no recollection of him being there and all toasters present were of the non-magical variety. Then Mum put the article out in the Prophet, Uncle Harry and Dad have been putting out feelers through the Auror network and have others keeping an eye and ear out for anything. I think Mum even put a few calls in to the muggle police, too." She tried for a small smile and glanced over at Scorpius, "Grandpa isn't exactly inconspicuous to the non-wizarding of the world."
He returned a soft grin. She felt some of the tension loosen as they looked at eachother. It felt...good to have it all out in the open like this. Have someone outside of their family who knew everything - even with how little it all was.
She shrugged and moved forward to the car now, her hands dropping to reach out and press against the sun-warmed surface, "And that's it. That's the entire known story of the case of the 'Missing Ministry Official.'"
She felt him come up beside her and watched his hands follow suit, fingers splaying across the space they took up on the hood of the vehicle. Only the sounds of the breeze and the occasional bird calls interrupted the space around them.
Her nerves were calming down, her stomach unknotting, and her thoughts starting to settle. She'd done it. Gotten it all out in the open. Well...maybe not all of it.
Her fingers curled into loose fists on the car, "We were visiting Gran every day after that, spending most of the day with her. She was doing her best to act normal, but it wasn't...she couldn't. We didn't expect her to act normal. We were trying to be normal for her. But then Mum and Dad were getting into fights and snapping at each other. I tried to help Hugo avoid most of it because none of it was...real? If that makes sense? It was the situation bringing out the worst in everyone." She felt her eyes start stinging, so she lifted a hand to rub at them, "And I did what I could to keep everyone okay. I spent time with Gran during all the times that the adults were out doing what they could and sent Hugo to be with his friends or the other cousins during any brewing tensions so he didn't have to be there and I tried to distract my parents when they were getting too wrapped up in it to function like humans. And it just…" Her other hand joined the first as she pressed her fists against her eyes. She let out a watery laugh, "I guess I just needed a Skilt there to tell me that I needed some support, too."
And then she started crying in earnest. Warm arms wrapped around her and she turned into his chest. One of his hands cradled the back of her head gently. And she cried, surrounded by the breeze and the sunshine while leaning against the solid warmth of Scorpius and her grandfather's car.
AN: Sometimes we all need a Skilt.
Sorry for the heavy chapters, but now they're on a level playing field for the case at hand. And guys...we're very close to leaving the Manor behind. Hope you all have a lovely two weeks and see you next chapter! :)