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Rose was deep in thought as she stepped out of the fireplace into her living room. Her arms were laden with files and books that McGonagall had reluctantly let her take with her from the archives. She knew that there was a lot more there, but after Lily’s discovery, she couldn’t sit still in that room anymore.
This whole thing was getting more confusing than she had ever anticipated. She had just wanted to learn more about her mother, now her father and her uncle were involved. Part of her brain was yelling at her to let it go, that it wasn’t worth it. But the other, more persuasive, part of her brain told her she was in too deep now. She had to figure it out.
She made her way up to her room, fully intending to examine all the papers she had. When she reached her door, however, she noticed Kenny, sound asleep on her bed. He had really been trying to go along with all the magic stuff. She thought he certainly had come a long way since that night in her dorm room, but she couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to discover all this stuff at once.
She placed all her papers on the desk in the corner and crept over to the bed. Slowly, she lowered herself next to Kenny, snuggling into him. The slight movement caused him to carefully open his eyes. When he saw what had woken him, he smiled.
“Any luck?” he asked with his voice still hoarse from sleep.
“A little bit,” she answered back. She shifted and turned to face him so they were nose to nose. She placed a delicate kiss on his nose. After a moment, she moved down and gave him a passionate kiss on the lips, which he greedily returned. He wrapped his arms around her waist as she ran her fingers through his hair. In one swift motion, she was on top of him, kissing him even more fervently. She snaked her hands under his t-shirt and pulled it over his head. His hands had roamed under her shirt and he was about to return the favor, when…
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?!”
Rose’s head whipped around and she saw her father standing by the door with a look of pure fury on his face. Both Rose and Kenny jumped so quickly to get out of their compromising position that they fell off opposite ends of the bed. Kenny inched his hand over to where his shirt had fallen and tried to discretely pull it back on. Rose shook off the fall and stood up to face her father.
“Um, hi Daddy. We weren’t expecting you home…” she chattered nervously.
“Oh don’t you ‘Daddy’ me young lady,” Ron glared at Rose but quickly turned his attention to the other person in the room, “YOU!” he stormed over to where Kenny was still on the floor and drew his wand.
“Mr. Weasely, I…well…” Kenny’s eyes darted around the room desperate for something to save him. He was terrified of the stick pointed square at his face.
“Don’t you dare speak to me!” Ron was in a full rage now, “That,” he pointed his free hand back at Rose, “is my daughter!!”
Kenny just nodded his head furiously not risking speaking again.
“I am going to curse you so hard you’ll never know what hit you!” Ron raised his wand higher and Kenny shut his eyes in anticipation.
Rose ran over and grabbed Ron’s wand arm and attempted to get him to lower it. “Dad, you don’t want to curse him,”
“Like hell I don’t,” he pushed against Rose’s hands.
“Dad,” Rose stood right in front of Ron, blocking his path to Kenny, “Please, you’re overreacting. If you hurt him you’ll be no better than those people who hurt Mom,” Alright, she knew it was kind of a low blow, but to have your boyfriend killed and your father arrested in one swoop would be pretty rough.
Ron slowly lowered his wand. “You,” he snapped at Kenny, “Stay here,”
“Yes, sir,” Kenny agreed timidly.
“You,” Ron pointed at Rose, “Come with me,” He turned and stalked out of the room. Rose rolled her eyes and followed him, leaving Kenny paralyzed in fear on the floor.
Rose trudged down the stairs to the living room where Ron was pacing furiously with the same raged look on his face. She stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Seriously?” she looked at him in exasperation, “Are you kidding me Dad?”
“What do you mean am I kidding?” Ron’s eyes widened, “I know what I saw up there Rose. That, young lady, is simply unacceptable,”
“Unacceptable?” Rose’s look of exasperation turned to one of astonishment.
“This is my house, and when you are in my house, you abide by my rules, and my rules have always been no boys in your bedroom!” Ron jabbed his wand in the air so hard a flurry of red sparks flew out of it.
“I’m not a little kid anymore Dad. I’m almost twenty two years old, I can do whatever I want when it comes to my boyfriend,”
“Not while you live here you can’t!”
“Dad, you are being ridiculous!”
“Rose Ginerva Weasely, if he is not out of this house by tomorrow, so help me,” he just grunted in anger. He agitatedly grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and heatedly threw it into the fire. He stepped into the green flames and was gone.
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Now it was Rose’s turn to pace around the living room in a fury. She had had half a mind to follow Ron, but in a second of level headedness she decided against it. Kenny had waited what he thought was an appropriate amount of time after her heard the yelling stop, in order to be sure that Ron was gone. He was now sitting on the sofa watching Rose grumble and stalk back and forth in front of him.
“I can not believe him,” Rose cried, “We’re adults! He has no right to tell us what to do!”
“As long as he has that wand he can certainly tell me what to do,” Kenny muttered to himself. Rose didn’t hear him and continued to rant.
“He thinks I’m still a child he can impose ridiculous rules on,” her face lit up, “Well I’ll show him,” she grabbed Kenny’s arm, “let’s go,”
“Wait, wait,” he protested, “Where are we going?”
“Back upstairs,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Oh no, no, no,” he sat firmly back down in his seat, “There are so many things wrong with that idea its not even funny,”
“C’mon, what are you talking about?” she whined.
“I am not going to have sex with you so you can get back at your father. That is just creepy Rose,”
Rose dropped her head, “Yeah I guess you’re right,” she plopped down next to him on the couch, “Sorry, he just made me so mad! I’m not used to my dad making me mad, I guess,”
“Plus,” he looked her in the eye, “I am going to do whatever that man says. You might not be afraid of the stick, but I sure as hell am,”
“It’s a wand sweetheart, a wand,” she gave a subtle laugh. “And he would never hurt you for real,”
“Whatever, I’m not going to risk it. Maybe I should find another place to stay,”
“No way are you staying in some crappy hotel somewhere. He’s not serious,”
Just then there was a faint pop, and Ginny appeared in front of them. Kenny’s involuntary jerk had gotten less noticeable, but after his close encounter earlier, he had reverted back.
“You have really done it this time,” Ginny stared accusingly at Rose.
Rose looked shocked and placed her hand on her chest, “What did I do?”
“Oh, you know what you did,” Ginny shook her head, “And your father is furious,”
Rose sighed and shook her head.
Ginny looked at Kenny, “You, my friend, are coming with me,”
Kenny gazed at her in concern, “W-what? Where?”
Ginny gave a lighthearted laugh, “Don’t worry, I’m not leading you to your death. Ron went on this rampage about you being gone when he got back. You can come and stay with us until he calms down,”
Relief spread on his face, “Oh, ok, thanks. I’ll go get my stuff,” he left to go collect his bag from Rose’s room.
“Really Aunt Ginny?” Rose responded when he was out of earshot.
“In case you haven’t noticed Rosie, you dad has a lot of stress going on at the moment, and your little encounter earlier really set him off. He’s in a weird place right now, I don’t know what he’s capable of,”
“You think he’s really going to hurt Kenny,”
“I’m just saying, if it was Harry walking in on Lily, I wouldn’t put it past him,”
Rose raised her eyebrows and looked at Ginny.
“I don’t want to know,” Ginny responded to Rose’s silent accusation.
Kenny appeared back at the door with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He walked over toward the fireplace, almost comfortable with his new form of transportation, almost. Rose stood up and gave him a quick kiss, and he and Ginny entered the fire and whirled away.
Rose sat back on the couch, fuming at the thought of her father. Suddenly, she remembered what she had actually planned to do that night and she raced upstairs to retrieve her pile of papers.
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Lily was sitting at her desk on the third floor of the Ministry. Her detective side work with Rose had put her behind on all the paperwork she needed to finish. She had only had this job for a year, and seeing as everyone knew her aunt had made sure she got it, and everyone knew that it was actually supposed to be Rose’s job, she was adamant about not screwing up. She was certainly qualified to do it, Hermione would never have let her do it if she wasn’t.
Nevertheless, she still took a lot of crap from her co-workers, especially Sophia Brown, who not only seemed to hate her, but also had a weird vendetta going against Aunt Hermione. Lily could never really figure out way. All this led to Lily working much later than anyone else in the Department of Experimental Charms. The light on her desk was the only glow in the whole office.
As she poured over her latest report, she vaguely heard the elevator clang in the distance. She didn’t think much of it; she heard it all the time. Soon she heard footsteps in the distance. Deciding that it was probably just the night janitor, she continued to focus on her work. However, the footfalls became quicker and closer, obviously making their way to a specific destination, not meandering around cleaning the floor. She put down the quill she had been making notes with and listened intently. It seemed as if the footsteps' destination was her department. She unconsciously held her breath and fingered her wand that was placed above the report she had been editing. As the footsteps came closer, she could tell they were in the office, but she couldn’t see who they belonged to. They were coming up behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around. For some reason, she thought if she held her breath and didn’t make any noise, whoever, or whatever, was behind her wouldn’t see her. As the stranger came right up behind her, she could couldn’t help but have the thought that the same attackers that had got her aunt were here for her too. Then the shadowed figure spoke,
“Lily?”
Lily jumped and spun around with her wand outstretched in front of her. When she met the eyes of her would-be attacker, she lowered her wand and slumped back on her chair.
“Rose!” she looked up at her cousin with both relief and anger, “What are you doing here? You nearly scared me to death,”
A smile slowly spread on Rose’s face, “What, did you think I was going to attack you or something?”
“Well, you came creeping up behind me, what am I supposed to think,”
“Sorry,” Rose was laughing now. She walked over to the desk opposite Lily’s and sat down in the comfy chair. “So this is it huh?” she glanced around the dark room, “Think of it, I could have been sitting in that very desk Lil,”
Lily had thought of it, actually everyone had thought of it, and reminded her of it on a daily basis. She didn’t want to get into that, “Rose, what are you doing here?”
“Oh! Right,” Rose leaned forward and pulled a large folder out from her cloak, “It’s my mom’s school file. It’s got detention slips in it, detention slips,”
Lily stared back at her in amazement, “This couldn’t have waited until tomorrow. I have actual work that I have to get done. I mean…”
She was interrupted by a new set of footsteps and the sound of muffled voices from down the hall.
“That’s not me,” Rose whispered.
Lily put her fingers over her lips to signal Rose to be quiet. She could understand now all those stories about people who go crazy after their parents die. Ever since ‘the incident’ Rose was acting completely irrational. Well irrational for Rose, which was probably regular person rational, this included sneaking up on people in the middle of the night and talking when there are clearly people who didn’t know you are there. She tapped her wand on the light on the desk to extinguish it.
The two of them sat in silence, straining their ears to hear what was going on. As the noise grew closer, they realized it was two men, arguing in whispers over something.
“Next time, I’ll do it myself,” the taller of the two men said. Both Rose and Lily found something familiar in the voice, but neither could place it.
“I feel that would be far too risky,” the second man was much shorter and had a nasty tone to his voice, “No one suspects our involvement, just as we planned. Even Potter and his team…”
“Potter is an imbecile,” the taller man spat back, “always has been. I’m not worried about him and his motley crew of Aurors,”
“They are rather effective…” the smaller man muttered, but was interrupted by a hand slapping him across the face.
“Nevertheless, our last excursion was a failure. That Mudblood was supposed to be dead. I guess now I’ll have the pleasure of doing it myself.” Rose and Lily could almost hear the sneer on the taller man’s face. “And then we can continue to pick off that family one by one,”
The tall man stalked past the dark Department on Experimental Charms and to the elevators. His smaller companion rushed after him, “But Malfoy, that’s just not…” and he was out of earshot.
At the mention of the name Malfoy, Rose and Lily had looked at each other in shock. Neither said anything for quite a while, until Rose hit the light with her wand and cast the glow back between them.
“Well, if that’s not a lead on Malfoy being behind Mom’s attack, I don’t know what is,” Rose finally said slowly.
Lily nodded her head, unable to argue with her on this one.
This whole thing was getting more confusing than she had ever anticipated. She had just wanted to learn more about her mother, now her father and her uncle were involved. Part of her brain was yelling at her to let it go, that it wasn’t worth it. But the other, more persuasive, part of her brain told her she was in too deep now. She had to figure it out.
She made her way up to her room, fully intending to examine all the papers she had. When she reached her door, however, she noticed Kenny, sound asleep on her bed. He had really been trying to go along with all the magic stuff. She thought he certainly had come a long way since that night in her dorm room, but she couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to discover all this stuff at once.
She placed all her papers on the desk in the corner and crept over to the bed. Slowly, she lowered herself next to Kenny, snuggling into him. The slight movement caused him to carefully open his eyes. When he saw what had woken him, he smiled.
“Any luck?” he asked with his voice still hoarse from sleep.
“A little bit,” she answered back. She shifted and turned to face him so they were nose to nose. She placed a delicate kiss on his nose. After a moment, she moved down and gave him a passionate kiss on the lips, which he greedily returned. He wrapped his arms around her waist as she ran her fingers through his hair. In one swift motion, she was on top of him, kissing him even more fervently. She snaked her hands under his t-shirt and pulled it over his head. His hands had roamed under her shirt and he was about to return the favor, when…
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?!”
Rose’s head whipped around and she saw her father standing by the door with a look of pure fury on his face. Both Rose and Kenny jumped so quickly to get out of their compromising position that they fell off opposite ends of the bed. Kenny inched his hand over to where his shirt had fallen and tried to discretely pull it back on. Rose shook off the fall and stood up to face her father.
“Um, hi Daddy. We weren’t expecting you home…” she chattered nervously.
“Oh don’t you ‘Daddy’ me young lady,” Ron glared at Rose but quickly turned his attention to the other person in the room, “YOU!” he stormed over to where Kenny was still on the floor and drew his wand.
“Mr. Weasely, I…well…” Kenny’s eyes darted around the room desperate for something to save him. He was terrified of the stick pointed square at his face.
“Don’t you dare speak to me!” Ron was in a full rage now, “That,” he pointed his free hand back at Rose, “is my daughter!!”
Kenny just nodded his head furiously not risking speaking again.
“I am going to curse you so hard you’ll never know what hit you!” Ron raised his wand higher and Kenny shut his eyes in anticipation.
Rose ran over and grabbed Ron’s wand arm and attempted to get him to lower it. “Dad, you don’t want to curse him,”
“Like hell I don’t,” he pushed against Rose’s hands.
“Dad,” Rose stood right in front of Ron, blocking his path to Kenny, “Please, you’re overreacting. If you hurt him you’ll be no better than those people who hurt Mom,” Alright, she knew it was kind of a low blow, but to have your boyfriend killed and your father arrested in one swoop would be pretty rough.
Ron slowly lowered his wand. “You,” he snapped at Kenny, “Stay here,”
“Yes, sir,” Kenny agreed timidly.
“You,” Ron pointed at Rose, “Come with me,” He turned and stalked out of the room. Rose rolled her eyes and followed him, leaving Kenny paralyzed in fear on the floor.
Rose trudged down the stairs to the living room where Ron was pacing furiously with the same raged look on his face. She stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Seriously?” she looked at him in exasperation, “Are you kidding me Dad?”
“What do you mean am I kidding?” Ron’s eyes widened, “I know what I saw up there Rose. That, young lady, is simply unacceptable,”
“Unacceptable?” Rose’s look of exasperation turned to one of astonishment.
“This is my house, and when you are in my house, you abide by my rules, and my rules have always been no boys in your bedroom!” Ron jabbed his wand in the air so hard a flurry of red sparks flew out of it.
“I’m not a little kid anymore Dad. I’m almost twenty two years old, I can do whatever I want when it comes to my boyfriend,”
“Not while you live here you can’t!”
“Dad, you are being ridiculous!”
“Rose Ginerva Weasely, if he is not out of this house by tomorrow, so help me,” he just grunted in anger. He agitatedly grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and heatedly threw it into the fire. He stepped into the green flames and was gone.
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Now it was Rose’s turn to pace around the living room in a fury. She had had half a mind to follow Ron, but in a second of level headedness she decided against it. Kenny had waited what he thought was an appropriate amount of time after her heard the yelling stop, in order to be sure that Ron was gone. He was now sitting on the sofa watching Rose grumble and stalk back and forth in front of him.
“I can not believe him,” Rose cried, “We’re adults! He has no right to tell us what to do!”
“As long as he has that wand he can certainly tell me what to do,” Kenny muttered to himself. Rose didn’t hear him and continued to rant.
“He thinks I’m still a child he can impose ridiculous rules on,” her face lit up, “Well I’ll show him,” she grabbed Kenny’s arm, “let’s go,”
“Wait, wait,” he protested, “Where are we going?”
“Back upstairs,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Oh no, no, no,” he sat firmly back down in his seat, “There are so many things wrong with that idea its not even funny,”
“C’mon, what are you talking about?” she whined.
“I am not going to have sex with you so you can get back at your father. That is just creepy Rose,”
Rose dropped her head, “Yeah I guess you’re right,” she plopped down next to him on the couch, “Sorry, he just made me so mad! I’m not used to my dad making me mad, I guess,”
“Plus,” he looked her in the eye, “I am going to do whatever that man says. You might not be afraid of the stick, but I sure as hell am,”
“It’s a wand sweetheart, a wand,” she gave a subtle laugh. “And he would never hurt you for real,”
“Whatever, I’m not going to risk it. Maybe I should find another place to stay,”
“No way are you staying in some crappy hotel somewhere. He’s not serious,”
Just then there was a faint pop, and Ginny appeared in front of them. Kenny’s involuntary jerk had gotten less noticeable, but after his close encounter earlier, he had reverted back.
“You have really done it this time,” Ginny stared accusingly at Rose.
Rose looked shocked and placed her hand on her chest, “What did I do?”
“Oh, you know what you did,” Ginny shook her head, “And your father is furious,”
Rose sighed and shook her head.
Ginny looked at Kenny, “You, my friend, are coming with me,”
Kenny gazed at her in concern, “W-what? Where?”
Ginny gave a lighthearted laugh, “Don’t worry, I’m not leading you to your death. Ron went on this rampage about you being gone when he got back. You can come and stay with us until he calms down,”
Relief spread on his face, “Oh, ok, thanks. I’ll go get my stuff,” he left to go collect his bag from Rose’s room.
“Really Aunt Ginny?” Rose responded when he was out of earshot.
“In case you haven’t noticed Rosie, you dad has a lot of stress going on at the moment, and your little encounter earlier really set him off. He’s in a weird place right now, I don’t know what he’s capable of,”
“You think he’s really going to hurt Kenny,”
“I’m just saying, if it was Harry walking in on Lily, I wouldn’t put it past him,”
Rose raised her eyebrows and looked at Ginny.
“I don’t want to know,” Ginny responded to Rose’s silent accusation.
Kenny appeared back at the door with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He walked over toward the fireplace, almost comfortable with his new form of transportation, almost. Rose stood up and gave him a quick kiss, and he and Ginny entered the fire and whirled away.
Rose sat back on the couch, fuming at the thought of her father. Suddenly, she remembered what she had actually planned to do that night and she raced upstairs to retrieve her pile of papers.
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Lily was sitting at her desk on the third floor of the Ministry. Her detective side work with Rose had put her behind on all the paperwork she needed to finish. She had only had this job for a year, and seeing as everyone knew her aunt had made sure she got it, and everyone knew that it was actually supposed to be Rose’s job, she was adamant about not screwing up. She was certainly qualified to do it, Hermione would never have let her do it if she wasn’t.
Nevertheless, she still took a lot of crap from her co-workers, especially Sophia Brown, who not only seemed to hate her, but also had a weird vendetta going against Aunt Hermione. Lily could never really figure out way. All this led to Lily working much later than anyone else in the Department of Experimental Charms. The light on her desk was the only glow in the whole office.
As she poured over her latest report, she vaguely heard the elevator clang in the distance. She didn’t think much of it; she heard it all the time. Soon she heard footsteps in the distance. Deciding that it was probably just the night janitor, she continued to focus on her work. However, the footfalls became quicker and closer, obviously making their way to a specific destination, not meandering around cleaning the floor. She put down the quill she had been making notes with and listened intently. It seemed as if the footsteps' destination was her department. She unconsciously held her breath and fingered her wand that was placed above the report she had been editing. As the footsteps came closer, she could tell they were in the office, but she couldn’t see who they belonged to. They were coming up behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around. For some reason, she thought if she held her breath and didn’t make any noise, whoever, or whatever, was behind her wouldn’t see her. As the stranger came right up behind her, she could couldn’t help but have the thought that the same attackers that had got her aunt were here for her too. Then the shadowed figure spoke,
“Lily?”
Lily jumped and spun around with her wand outstretched in front of her. When she met the eyes of her would-be attacker, she lowered her wand and slumped back on her chair.
“Rose!” she looked up at her cousin with both relief and anger, “What are you doing here? You nearly scared me to death,”
A smile slowly spread on Rose’s face, “What, did you think I was going to attack you or something?”
“Well, you came creeping up behind me, what am I supposed to think,”
“Sorry,” Rose was laughing now. She walked over to the desk opposite Lily’s and sat down in the comfy chair. “So this is it huh?” she glanced around the dark room, “Think of it, I could have been sitting in that very desk Lil,”
Lily had thought of it, actually everyone had thought of it, and reminded her of it on a daily basis. She didn’t want to get into that, “Rose, what are you doing here?”
“Oh! Right,” Rose leaned forward and pulled a large folder out from her cloak, “It’s my mom’s school file. It’s got detention slips in it, detention slips,”
Lily stared back at her in amazement, “This couldn’t have waited until tomorrow. I have actual work that I have to get done. I mean…”
She was interrupted by a new set of footsteps and the sound of muffled voices from down the hall.
“That’s not me,” Rose whispered.
Lily put her fingers over her lips to signal Rose to be quiet. She could understand now all those stories about people who go crazy after their parents die. Ever since ‘the incident’ Rose was acting completely irrational. Well irrational for Rose, which was probably regular person rational, this included sneaking up on people in the middle of the night and talking when there are clearly people who didn’t know you are there. She tapped her wand on the light on the desk to extinguish it.
The two of them sat in silence, straining their ears to hear what was going on. As the noise grew closer, they realized it was two men, arguing in whispers over something.
“Next time, I’ll do it myself,” the taller of the two men said. Both Rose and Lily found something familiar in the voice, but neither could place it.
“I feel that would be far too risky,” the second man was much shorter and had a nasty tone to his voice, “No one suspects our involvement, just as we planned. Even Potter and his team…”
“Potter is an imbecile,” the taller man spat back, “always has been. I’m not worried about him and his motley crew of Aurors,”
“They are rather effective…” the smaller man muttered, but was interrupted by a hand slapping him across the face.
“Nevertheless, our last excursion was a failure. That Mudblood was supposed to be dead. I guess now I’ll have the pleasure of doing it myself.” Rose and Lily could almost hear the sneer on the taller man’s face. “And then we can continue to pick off that family one by one,”
The tall man stalked past the dark Department on Experimental Charms and to the elevators. His smaller companion rushed after him, “But Malfoy, that’s just not…” and he was out of earshot.
At the mention of the name Malfoy, Rose and Lily had looked at each other in shock. Neither said anything for quite a while, until Rose hit the light with her wand and cast the glow back between them.
“Well, if that’s not a lead on Malfoy being behind Mom’s attack, I don’t know what is,” Rose finally said slowly.
Lily nodded her head, unable to argue with her on this one.
