Deep down in Hogwarts, the kitchens were bustling with activity as Weesy returned there, made some hot chocolate, and disappeared again. The other house-elves hardly cared, as she was, after all, responsible for the headmistress herself. Still, they would have been surprised if they had known exactly where Weesy disappeared to with the hot chocolate.

She appeared in a place where most would hardly have expected her, as the house-elves only entered the common rooms at night to tidy up the day's leftovers, clean and stoke the roaring fireplace, which even now crackled happily away.

Weesy looked around the Slytherin common room, which was usually empty this early in the morning on a Saturday, with one exception. A girl was sitting cross-legged on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Her long red hair fell over her face, but it was just as bushy as that of a certain Muggle-born girl who had once roamed the halls of this school.

Blue eyes like her father's looked up from the book in her lap and she smiled as she recognized the house-elf. "Weesy! I wasn't expecting you so soon."

She smiled even wider when Weesy handed her the hot chocolate, which she gratefully accepted. She carefully brought the warm cup to her lips, breathed in the heavenly scent of melted chocolate and closed her eyes in pleasure after the first sip. She hummed contently, opened her eyes and looked lovingly at the house-elf in front of her, "You know you don't have to bring me hot chocolate every time you come to visit me, Weesy? I'm also just happy to see you."

The house-elf blushed, played with the bottom hem of her shirt in embarrassment, and squeaked, "Miss Rose is too kind, but Weesy wants to make Miss Rose happy. Weesy likes to make her friends happy, and Miss Rose is one of Weesy's friends."

Rose Weasley beamed from ear to ear at these words and didn't think that the hot chocolate would make her heart feel any warmer, but the house-elf always managed to make the Slytherin girl feel as soft as the melted chocolate that was steaming in the cup in her hands.

"Weesy brings good news, Miss Rose."

The red-haired girl held her breath in anticipation. Did it really happen that quickly?

"Weesy brought the headmistress breakfast for two people."

Rose tilted her head. Ok, that didn't have to mean anything. She had to be absolutely sure. "Who was the second person, Weesy?" she asked.

"Hermione Weasley, like Miss Rose had said."

Rose sucked in a meaningful breath. Her heartbeat quickened as she realized how close she was to her destination. She briefly considered how to ask the next question without getting too much information and details that she definitely didn't want to know: "Where exactly did you bring them breakfast, Weesy?"

"To the headmistress's bedroom," the elf squeaked without hesitation.

The fifth grader tried to hold back her victorious grin because her brain, which often thought faster than she would have liked, immediately produced alternative and entirely logical scenarios as to why the two women were eating breakfast in the bedroom, even if the answer seemed obvious. But Rose Weasley was an extremely thoughtful and precise person. She would never settle for half information. She wanted absolute certainty.

Unusually hesitant for her standards, she searched for the next appropriate words that would give her the information she so desperately needed and protect her from learning even more things about her mother than she already knew. Suddenly an incredulous giggle arose within her. Well, it migth be a little too late for that anyway. Strictly speaking, one image more or less in your head seems quite irrelevant now. If you want to know for sure, you have to ask exactly for it.

She steeled herself before asking the next question, hoping that this would truly be the last time she had to learn intimate details about her own mother: "Where exactly were Professor McGonagall and Hermione Weasley when you brought them breakfast? What were they doing?"

Completely unaware, the elf said in her squeaky voice: "They were in bed, Miss Rose. They were holding each other very tight. Miss Hermione was on top of the headmistress and they had locked their mouths together. They held on very tightly. Weesy is happy. Weesy has never seen the headmistress so happy. But…Weesy hopes she didn't do anything wrong."

Rose frowned, "Why do you think that?"

"They were very red in the face when Weesy brought them breakfast. But they were quite friendly to Weesy, including Mrs Weasley."

Rose had to suppress the urge to burst out laughing as the elf stood so uncertainly in front of her, fiddling with the hem of her shirt again. She slid off the sofa, placed her cup on the coffee table, and knelt on the floor so that she was eye level with the elf. She put a reassuring hand on her shoulder: "You did absolutely nothing wrong, Weesy. Quite the opposite. Sometimes a red face is a sign of…joy."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Merlin might forgive her for that little white lie, but the idea that Weesy felt guilty because the headmistress and her mother couldn't keep their hands off each other and had been caught in an extremely precarious situation by the house-elf felt far worse.

"That calms Weesy down." The house-elf looked at her beaming with joy. "Thank you, Miss Rose."

"You're welcome. Can you do me a little favor before you go back to the kitchens?"

"But of course, Miss Rose, for Miss Rose always."

Rose pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote just one sentence: It worked. She folded it, but didn't bother to put a protective charm on it so that only the person it was intended for could read it. The message was so meaningless that it was of little use to anyone else.

She handed it to Weesy: "Can you please take this message to my brother Hugo in the Hufflepuff common room? Although...check the bedrooms first and put it on his bedside table if he's still sleeping. That wouldn't be out of character at this time. Thanks Weesy."

The house elf bowed with a smile and disappeared. Satisfied, Rose stood up again, picked up her cup of hot chocolate and returned to her place on the sofa. She automatically sat back down cross-legged, the cup still warm in her hands, and stared thoughtfully at the flames in front of her.

There had been a lot of insecurities in her plan when she had left the notebook on her desk in the Transfiguration classroom, but she had hoped so much that it would set something in motion that would be unstoppable once started, and would especially hit her mother away with such violence that she would be ready to change her life completely.

She wanted that so much for her mother. Her mother, who was so obviously unhappy in her marriage to her father that it tore her daughter's heart. She had long suspected that her parents only felt obligated to each other to ensure a stable home for herself and her brother Hugo, but it was by no means a pleasant home. And if the two of them weren't ready to take the necessary step, she just had had to take action.

She had to admit, she had been extremely shocked to find her mother's notebook in the attic where she liked to wander around when she was home on school holiday. Her curiosity always led her to places where secrets were hidden that needed to be deciphered. Especially when it was a secret that was not only well hidden but also carefully protected. Because she probably would have put the dusty notebook away indifferently if it hadn't had so many charms on it to protect its contents from the unwanted gaze of others. That was exactly what made her even more curious and it took her a while to solve and bypass all the protective spells, but when she finally did, secrets that she would never have dared to come across her were revealed before her curious eyes. It was the final push Rose had needed to spring into action and just the thing she needed to convince her mother to finally find happiness, even if it was with her own headmistress and Transfiguration teacher.

Minerva McGonagall had actually been the biggest uncertainty factor in this equation and Rose had long agonized over how she could guarantee that the Scottish woman, known for her integrity, would follow her heart, if it had ever beaten for her former favorite student and if so, was still beating for her.

But no matter how long and hard she thought about this problem, at some point she had to admit that she couldn't control this factor. But was this factor even important? She had decided to give it a try and hope that confronting her mother about her past would be enough, hoping that she would remember who she was and what she really wanted out of life.

It had always pained Rose when she heard from everyone how promising her mother's future had been after the war, and how many people in the wizarding world had assumed that she would be the next Minister of Magic.

It was still difficult for her to reconcile this ambitious woman, whom she only knew from other people's stories, with her mother, and she wanted for her so much that with her private happiness she would now also find the way back to her professional happiness. And she was sure that Minerva McGonagall was exactly the right partner for this.

Yes, everything would work out. The first step was taken and she had to grin again because her plan had actually worked, despite the many imponderables.

"I love it when a plan comes together," she confided to the flames, contentedly sipping her hot chocolate.

The future would show the rest, that was no longer in her hands - and that was a good thing.