Curiosity Is Not a Sin

the wrinkles of the road: chapter 1

Rose never would have admitted it to anyone except her boyfriend and maybe her cousin Albus, but family Saturdays at the Burrow were really one of her favourite ways to spend her time. She hadn't properly appreciated them when she was younger, but now that they were significantly less frequent, she was grateful for them. She rarely got to see most of her aunts and uncles outside of them, and she often found it difficult to coordinate her schedule with that of most of her cousins, even the ones she considered herself close to.

She saw Albus on a regular basis because he was Albus. She saw Lucy because they shared a flat on the outskirts of Northern London. And she saw Victoire and James at work.

And often, for weeks at a time, that was it.

Even when she was just sitting alone by the window in her grandparents' living room, watching Fred bewitch snowballs to pelt Molly in the back of the head no matter what direction she was looking in, there was a sense of togetherness that she could never seem to find anywhere else.

There was just something about being in her grandparents' house that made any other problems she had melt away.

"Hey." She looked up just as Albus dropped onto the window seat across from her. His nose was still red from being outside, and there were flakes of snow clinging to his dark red hair. "Watching Fred?" She nodded, and he grinned broadly. "She's going to hex him to next Friday soon."

"I don't doubt it." She cocked her head to the side. "How have you been? I haven't seen you much in the last couple weeks."

His smile faded, and he slouched against the wall behind him. "The Aurors decided I was ready to move onto occlumency training, and it's a nightmare. I'm rubbish at it. And sometimes they have us practise our legilimency on each other, which is even better." He made a disgusted face, and Rose refrained from pointing out that wanting to keep his not-quite-girlfriend out of his mind should be good incentive; she knew Albus didn't work that way. "That's always fun. Then after work, it's always, 'Al, you never told me that-'" He broke off and sighed. "Anyway. That's why you haven't seen me. How's stuff with you?"

She shrugged. "Oh, you know. I've got a couple of nicks and bruises, but they've still got me on a tight leash - they haven't let me near anything more interesting than a grindylow." He didn't look very sympathetic, and she supposed she couldn't blame him; when she'd joined the Bureau for the Control of Dangerous Creatures, they'd told her she'd have four months of training and that once she'd completed that, they would ease her into real field work. They'd kept their word; it was January, and she suspected they'd boost her up to a real XXXX creature in a matter of weeks.

Albus, on the other hand, had to go through another two and a half years of training to be a fully-fledged Auror, and he couldn't expect to go into the field until his third year of training.

He was beginning to look a little annoyed, so Rose directed her gaze across the room and changed the subject. "Remember when those two hated each other?" she asked.

Her cousin followed her line of vision to where his brother was sitting with her boyfriend. From the animated hand gestures and occasional loud exclamations, they had to be talking about either Quidditch or Healing. Ever since his first trip to St. Mungo's since joining the BCDC the year before, James had developed a keen interest in Healing.

"Well, I don't have the patience to do it," he'd said when she teased him about quitting the Ministry and starting in on Healer training instead. "I just think it's interesting. I mean, they can really repair the human body. It makes me a lot less nervous about being reckless!"

Given how little concern James had ever showed for his safety, Rose was still a little worried about what "a lot less nervous" meant.

Albus snorted as he slouched against the wall and rested his feet on her seat. "Yeah, well, you used to hate him, too."