Best Mistake

ii. Brave

  Rose sat at the dinner table, spinning her mashed potatoes. She felt sick to her stomach, and didn't want to eat. She knew it was probably suspicious, since she was her dad's child, and he was always hungry. She was always like that, but not today.

"Rose, is something the matter?" Her mother asked, causing everyone to look up at her.

"Sick stomach," Rose said too quickly. Everyone at the table nodded and started to eat once again, except for Dominique, who winked at Rose.

After another long twenty minutes of hearing her cousins joke loudly, and her aunts and uncles talk about whatever happened at work, everyone was done eating.

Rose got up as quickly as possible from the dinner table, trying to escape and not be noticed. Which, of course, made her more noticeable. She heard footsteps follow her all the way out into the backyard, knowing they were following her. Silently, she prayed that it was just Dominique or another one of her cousins. Anybody would be fine, just not her parents.

"Rose, that was the lamest excuse I've heard out of you," said Teddy's voice behind her. He came and sat next to her on the bench. "So, tell me, what is it? Tell me before your mother. She's in there talking about it, she's going to question it when you get home."

"Teddy, swear you won't tell anybody," Rose said. She meant it, she trusted him but she wanted to be the one to tell everybody.

"Of course, you know that Rosie," he said, ruffling her hair a bit and messing it up even more than it was.

"I'm- er, pregnant," she said, and winced.

"Bloody hell, you're kidding." He didn't look too upset, and Rose knew that he wasn't very upset either. Teddy never got upset about anything, no matter what it was.

The only time Rose had seen him angry was when she was little. It was right after he and Victoire had started dating. Lots of boys had been harassing her, and he was very protective of her. A few years ago she had been raped and he hadn't even shown anger. He was just really upset.

"I'm not," she said, looking towards her feet. "It's terrible, I wanna go back and not have sex. I wasn't ready for sex, I didn't even want sex! He talked me into it, I should have been smarter. I'm so stupid, Merlin, I'm so stupid!"

"Rose, who's the he? Give me hints if you're not comfortable saying it."

"Scorpius. That's the he. I hate him, I hate what he did to me."
"Rose, I want you to tell your parents as soon as you can. Anytime you want, just make sure it's before you go back to school. You'll regret it if you don't."

Rose nodded and took a breath. "I know I'm going to have to. I'll probably get in trouble and get punished a ton, but I think I want to keep the baby."

"Rose! Good, you're back!" Dominique said the second Rose had stepped foot in the tree house. "Look who showed up, it's Carter!" She grinned widely and kissed him.

Carter was her boyfriend of three years. Everyone in the family loved him, except James and Rose. They knew something had to be wrong with him, but Dominique got mad at them every time they told her that.

He nodded at her and then started to kiss Dominique again. James and Fred were sitting over in a corner talking about some pranks. There was nothing for Rose to do in her except sit and think, which is the last thing she needed to do. Her brain was already about to explode since she'd started thinking about the baby.

Right when Rose began to run to go inside, she ran into someone. Of course, it had to be Lily. "Hi, Rose! I was just coming to get you guys. We're getting ready to open presents. don't get the spot by Scorpius, though. I already called it!"

"Wait, who?" Rose had only started to listen when she heard the name Scorpius.

"Scorpius. You know who he is. He's spending Christmas with us because of Al and because his parents went somewhere or something. I'll talk to you inside, I'll be right back!"

Scorpius was inside, right in the living area. The father of her child, who didn't even know she was having a child. Why did she have to go through all of this in a single day?


After everybody got inside, they started to hand out presents. One from a cousin, because names were drawn out of a hat like Secret Santa, and one from the grandparents. Every other present was supposed to be sent on Christmas Day.

After opening her first present which was from Fred, Rose caught Scorpius looking at her. She instantly flushed a deep red and acted completely focused on her gift. Of course, he had gotten her a box of candies and toys from his father's joke shop. As if she didn't have enough stuff from there anyway.

Rose briefly thanked him then waited for everyone else to finish. The rest of the gifts were passed around to be opened. In a hurry, Rose tore the paper off.

"Rose, manners. You're sixteen you know better," her mother tutted behind her.

Before Rose could respond, she was running to the bathroom. The second she opened the door she knelt down, only to get sick again. Rose knew of morning sickness but not afternoon sickness. She knew very little about what was good and what was bad about pregnancy.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Rose, you're leaving," it called. It was James. "You're coming to stay at my house tonight so your mom wants you to go home first."

They hadn't even finished opening presents yet. Her mother had to now, Teddy must have told her. Or possibly it had been Dominique. Her cousin might be her best friend, but she sure could not keep her mouth shut.

"I'll be out in a second," she called. The second she walked out of the bathroom she called Hugo's name.

"What?" He asked angrily, stomping over. "We're supposed to be saying good-bye, we're leaving."

"Yeah, well, I want to tell you something before we go home. I don't want you to tell mom or dad, I'm going to tell them."

"You're pregnant?"

"How'd you know?" she whispered. Hugo's eyes got wide.

"I was kidding. You actually are? When did you find out? Who knows?"

"Listen, Hugo don't tell anyone. I'm going to tell them."

Rose heard her mother call their names from the kitchen. Hugo nodded yes to show that he understood and ran towards the voice.

"What am I going to do?" Rose said, groaning quietly, then following after her brother.