2nd chances (Scorose)

Chapter 28

I've been thinking of doing something with this story, as Ron's POV of the last chapter I think it would be quite interesting, or maybe something from Scorpius' POV. What do you think?
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"Then what the devil is he doing in my house?" Dad said irritably.

Normally it was 'our house', so clearly Dad wasn't quite as okay with my relationship with Scor as he'd claimed. Not only was he acting possessive, he was also coming across as slightly aggressive, an unattractive quality in him.

"What's going on?" Uncle Harry asked, surrounded by the rest of my family.

"Dad thinks Scorpius is gate-crashing," I explained. The tone of my voice made it quite clear that I thought the notion was ridiculous.

"I invited him," Mum said quietly to Dad.

"You knew about this?"

Wincing, I explained how I told Mum about Scorpius.

"Who else already knew?" Dad asked, looking round at everybody.

Everybody in the room lifted their hands.

"Great. The last person to know. Again."

"Sorry, Dad, but I didn't feel like I could tell you..."

Really I kind of had a right to tell Mum and not him. Every girl would rather talk to their Mum about boyfriends, wouldn't they? There was no way my father would ever be able to sit down and talk to me about boys I fancied or thought were good-looking. It would probably be the most mortifying experience of my life.

Feeling uncomfortable, Scorpius shuffled his feet. "I'm just getting in the way, so I think I'm going to go home..."

Dad stepped in front of him and blocked his path to the fireplace. "Wait. I'm not finished with you," he told him through gritted teeth.

Scorpius looked up at him with wary eyes.

"Rose, Hermione," Dad said. "If you could show everyone else out of the room."

I glanced over at Mum, who nodded and hissed something into Auntie Ginny's ear before showing her out.

"Good luck," Hugo muttered to me, the last to leave the room behind Fred and Dominique.

I nodded, feeling my heart in my throat, and turned around to face my father and Scorpius.

"Well...what to do?"

I said nothing. I wasn't even sure what Dad was talking about. He'd seemed fine earlier when he'd decided, after consulting my teacher's, that Scorpius wasn't as bad as he'd originally thought; but now he appeared to have changed his mind. He didn't seem at all okay with the fact that Scorpius was my boyfriend.

"What to do about what, Ronald?"

Finally someone had said something, breaking into Dad's thoughts.

"This," Dad answered, pointing between Scor and me.

"Why does anything need to be done?" Scorpius asked, stepping forwards and squaring off with my father.

Dad looked down at Scorpius with humor, as if he was laughing at his shorter height and how easy it would be to beat him if it came to a fight. Stood toe to toe as they were, it was easy to see there was quite a difference between them.

"Ron," Mum warned, stepping forwards and pushing him backwards with a palm on his chest. In urgent whispers, I heard her say, "He's a boy, Ron, you can't."

"The hell I can't. I'm going to do everything to protect my daughter."

"I can protect myself," I replied, wondering why everyone seemed to think I was so helpless. Please, I was top of my class in almost every subject. I knew NEWT grade spells already. If someone was going to attack me, they would regret it.

"No, you can't. Not from him. Look, Rosie, you don't understand. But I do. I'm not ignorant of teenage activities and I won't have it. He's only here for one thing and I won't let him take it."

Scorpius looked around in confusion while I felt my cheeks go red.

"We haven't- It's not like that, Dad," I stuttered.

"Good. And it's going to stay that way until you're married."

"What?"

"You heard me, young lady. There is no way he is staying here," Dad declared, pointing at Scorpius with venom.

"I won't stay overnight. I just came to celebrate Hugh's birthday and see Rose," Scorpius said politely, keeping his cool where my father wasn't.

"Don't you think you're being a bit unreasonable, Ronald?" Mum asked.

"Not at all. Do you honestly want them... you know under our roof, and don't call Hugo Hugh. I didn't name him so people can be prancing around calling my son Hugh."

"Scorpius has just told you it's not going to happen," she pointed out.

"And you believe him?"

"Yes."

"Well I don't," Dad replied stubbornly.

I'd been wrong when I thought it would be mortifying to talk about which boys I fancied with my dad. Nothing could be more embarrassing and humiliating than the conversation I found myself in. All I wanted to do was lock myself in the bathroom and find some cold water to throw over my burning cheeks, anything to escape the room. It was even worse knowing that my brother and cousins would most likely be listening at the door. They wouldn't waste the opportunity to mock me about it when I next saw them.

"What's it going to take for you to trust him?" I asked Dad in anger, my embarrassment providing fuel.

Taken aback, Dad mumbled, "It's not that I don't trust him..."

"So you don't trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"Then Scorpius being here isn't a problem, is it?"

Sighing, Dad agreed, "I guess not."

"Great! We're going back out to the party."

Scorpius stared at me in admiration as I took his hand and towed him out of the dining room and outside. Surprisingly my cousins weren't at the door and they appeared to be acting normally when we joined them in the garden, rather than shiftily pretending to be busy doing something.

"How did you do that?" he asked in awe.

"Do what?" I honestly didn't know what he was talking about.

"Handle your dad that way! When I told my parents about me and you, my dad was so mad. I couldn't do anything to calm him down. It was only my mum that managed to stop him from hitting me."

"My mum helped too," I mumbled, feeling self-conscious.

Scorpius shook his head and laughed. "You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"How much your dad is wrapped around your finger, that's what. He wouldn't have admitted any of that stuff to anyone but you, I'm sure. He must really love you."

I shrugged, thinking that it couldn't be true. My parents had always been really close. I thought they told each other everything. In the back of my mind, I knew they didn't - after all Mum hadn't told Dad about Scorpius.

"Rose, Scorpius! You're just in time for the fireworks!" James shouted.

With the lights in the house that automatically brightened as it got later, I hadn't noticed it getting dark. In fact I was kind of surprised to see the stars in the sky.

Mum and Dad emerged from the house a few minutes after us, and though I could feel Dad's eyes zeroed in on Scorpius arms slung around my waist and his chin resting on my head, he didn't say anything. For that, I was grateful. I even managed to enjoy the fireworks display despite it.
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