The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

All five pairs of eyes turned expectantly toward the six of us as we entered, and I was glad Carl had been the one to open the door because he got the brunt of the stare.

“Well come in, come in!” Professor Collins said conversationally. “Don’t be shy!”

Carl slowly led the advance, and Andy followed with much more confidence - I guess that she, like my Aunt Fleur, had a lot of confidence from being even a small part veela. I tugged Scorpius after them and Ethan and Carmela followed. Like the last few times, at least one Champion from each school was seated across from their respective headmaster. Scorpius sat across from ours, while my Uncle Percy was opposite from me. He flashed a small, reassuring smile, so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad. After all, my entire family was kind of protective of us all, especially the few girls, so if it was something bad he probably would have been a little less enthusiastic.

There was silence for a few minutes as we settled in, and then for a good minute after we had done so, and I sighed.

“Was there something important you had to tell us?” I asked to break the silence. Uncle Viktor snorted at that, and my uncle just smiled and shook his head, looking down at the few papers in front of him to hide the curve of his lips.

“It’s about your parents coming to see the final task,” said Gwen quickly. “I know that one set of parents in particular don’t get along and that they’ll also be pulling for the same team to win.”

I ducked my head and Scorpius let out a disappointed sigh.

“There’s also been requests from some extended family to be allowed to attend,” Uncle Percy said sheepishly. I let my head fall to the table and groaned. His laugh only proved my guess was correct.

“This applies to us, how?” Ethan asked carefully, his accent not shining through as vividly as was normal for him.

“Well, each of you happens to have a few members of your extended family requesting to be there. Rose just happens to have the most.” Gwen said easily, looking through the papers that were in front of her. “The decision is to allow them to come, but only for the task itself. The immediate family is all who are allowed to come for the whole day leading up to it. For those of you whose immediate family is just your parents, you will be allowed to invite two of your other family members, so the numbers are even, since Carmela has a younger brother and an older sister. You don‘t have to invite others if you don‘t want to.”

I raised an eyebrow at Scorpius and he just shrugged.

“Rose,” Uncle Percy said suddenly, and I turned my attention to him, “I’m afraid your choice has already been made for you. Ginny and James are coming with your parents, and Harry’s coming later.”

I laughed a little with an, “Of course they are,” and a shake of my head. Scorpius snorted.

“Ethan, do you have another additional family member, aside from your parents and your little sister?”

“My cousin Brett,” he said instantly. Gwen nodded and she and Percy both circled a name on their lists.

“Andy?”

“My auntie Marie,” she said, “since I’m sure my older brother is coming with my parents?”

Uncle Percy nodded and turned to Carl.

“My cousins,” he shrugged, “Linda and Gary.”

I almost snorted at the boringness of those names, but I managed not to, because my name was Rose and my father’s name was Ronald. How boring are those?

“Scorpius?” it sounded to me that Percy was a little tentative.

“Just my grandmother,” he said, “and if you mean really, really extended family, you can invite Teddy Lupin, too.”

“All right, we can do that,” Gwen nodded her agreement. I think they were just thankful he didn’t want to invite Lucius, but I was sure that he would show up for the task anyway. “That’s really all we had for today. You can be on your way.”

We all got to our feet, and I kind of laughed and said, “You don’t even want to know all the things we thought this might have been about,” as Scorpius led me out of the door. I heard one or two of our judges snort, and Carmela and Andy giggled. Scorpius rolled his eyes pointedly at me, Ethan snorted, and Carl grinned.

“Teddy, huh?” I asked Scorpius as we walked back down toward where all the Potter/Weasleys and really close friends were waiting still. “How long did it take you to remember that you were kind of related to him?”

“Not too long,” he shrugged. “I was thinking about my grandmother, then I remembered that the son of Tonks was Teddy, so…yeah.”

I laughed and linked arms with my boyfriend, starting to pull him towards the waiting people rather than the other way around.

When we reached the crowd of Potter/Weasleys and members of our Quidditch Exhibition team (and the other team, too), all of the champions were surrounded and asked about what we had to have a meeting for. Scorpius decided to take over the explanation for everyone, and I was content just to lean into his side. I was once more rolling over a few things in my mind, and I realized that we’d have my dad and his dad together, and I wasn’t exactly sure how they’d take our status as a couple. I thought maybe Uncle Percy or one of the cousins would have told Mum and Dad, but I hadn’t gotten a howler or anything, so I couldn’t be sure.

“Should I send Mum a letter?” I leaned over and asked Lily in an undertone.

“Why?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

“So she can try to get Dad used to this?” I gestured at the arms of Scorpius and I, which were still intertwined as he continued to talk to Al, who was laughing at the very same predicament that was running through my head. “I don’t exactly know how he’ll take it. He seems fine with us being friends, but what about with us being us?”

Lily stopped to think, then shrugged.

“Maybe they’d like to hear it from you, but Mum said she’s told Aunt ‘Mione about it. She said your Mum seemed almost…delighted about it. So I don’t know. I don’t know if she told Uncle Ron yet, or if she’s waiting until you want to tell her. But Rose, it’s been almost four and a half months now, and you haven’t said anything?”

I flushed and responded sheepishly, “I kind of forgot about Dad wanting to murder his dad.”

“That’s a hard thing to do,” she giggled at my expense, and I rolled my eyes.

“Shove off,” I chuckled a little despite myself.

“Let’s all go sit by the lake!” Al suddenly suggested above the chatter. The others agreed, and Scorpius tugged my arm a little, grinning down at me. I kind of noticed that his grin wasn’t spreading to all of his features, and so I smiled reassuringly at him. He was probably worrying about the same things that I was, based on the content of his discussion with my cousin just a few moments before the aforementioned cousin blurted out his desire to sit by the lake.

“It’ll turn out fine,” I assured him gently, hugging his arm closer to me. He chuckled a bit and kissed the top of my head.

“How can it not?” he retorted, “You’ve got your Dad wrapped around your little finger nowadays, don’t you?”

I snorted and shook my head no. In response, he raised an eyebrow at me.

“Well, I don’t,” I said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “I have a feeling he’ll start being difficult again, so I think I’ll owl Mum tonight or tomorrow and ask her to break it to him gently…”

“You haven’t told them?” he asked incredulously, raising his eyebrow at me yet again.

“You like that eyebrow thing today, don’t you?” I asked evasively. He just looked at me sternly, and I sighed. “I forgot about the whole ‘our parents hated each other back then’ thing, and didn’t think to tell them.”

“Don’t worry,” he said suddenly, turning forward to watch the steps as we descended out onto the grounds. “I have to owl my Mum soon, too…”

I hit him on the shoulder as he grinned sheepishly at me.

“You hypocrite!” I laughed, switching our grip to where we had our fingers intertwined again before pulling him along to catch up to the rest of the group. He laughed with me, and we broke into a run.

The entire group just kind of lounged out by the lake until Professor Longbottom came out and said, “You’d best be getting to your dorms! Curfew’s in two minutes.”

Everyone leapt up in a hurry - the ones who weren’t prefects - and rushed towards the castle. The prefects looked at Scorpius and I for direction.

“Do your rounds and then go back to your houses,” Scorpius said, “just like every night.”

They nodded and rushed off.

“Thanks for the warning, Uncle Nev!” Hugh called back to the professor as he rushed up with the others. The foreign students took their time returning to their respective places. Neville just chuckled and turned back to head up to the castle himself.

“Let’s go do our rounds,” I suggested, tugging Scorpius up with a chuckle.