[edited: 26/04/2016]
Chapter 6
Well and Truly Fucked
I wasn't laughing though.
"You're fucking what?!"
"Pregnant," I repeated tonelessly.
"You have to be joking," he said dismissively.
"Well I'm not," I retorted coldly.
"And she was meeting Scorpius –" Al said slowly, "because he's... I mean Rose and –"
"He's the – the father, yes," I said dejectedly.
"WHAT?" James roared suddenly. "YOU SLEPT WITH –"
"Shut up right now, Potter," I warned, before he told the whole of Diagon Alley, and what felt like the majority of the magical community on this particular day, that I'd had unprotected, drunk sex with Scorpius sodding Malfoy.
He shook his head silently, his face full of anger. "I am going to kill him," he snarled. "What a little git. If he thinks he can just swan in, fuck you over and then leave... that kid has another think coming, the tosser."
I glanced at Al almost curiously. The poor boy looked a little crushed. Understandably, he seemed to be finding it difficult to take sides.
"I mean – god, Rose..." James was saying softly. It seemed as if he needed to say everything that came into his brain in order to make sense of this bizarre situation.
"I know," I exclaimed. "That's all I can think... I've really, really, really, really screwed up."
Finally, I burst into tears.
Al pulled me into a tight hug immediately, and I buried my face into his shoulder. "No, you haven't, Rose. You're going to be ok." He seemed relieved to have something to distract him from his cousin having slept with his best friend.
"You don't believe that," I mumbled gloomily. Over Al's shoulder I noticed Fred arrive.
"Sorry, mate – I was talking to my dad, I – what on earth is going on here?"
I watched distractedly as James shared the information he'd just learnt furiously. "Malfoy and Rose slept with each other and the little dickhead got her pregnant." I was almost amused by the expression on Fred's face, until I remembered that it was my life. He turned to me.
"Rose, I'm gonna kill him, that son of a bitch."
"Really, as kind as it is of you both to offer, I think it would be better if I didn't go to Azkaban for assisted murder," I joked feebly, feeling a little hysterical.
Fred half grinned. "We'll keep your name out of it."
"So what did he say," Al asked finally, pulling away from me.
The anger that had just about melted rose up again and I felt like screaming. I shook my head furiously. "He said – fucking hell – he's going to stick around 'if he can', but 'he doesn't want to make promises he can't keep'."
"WHAT?" James yelled. "IF HE CAN? I SWEAR TO GOD –"
At the same time Fred was beginning to curse Scorpius in some of the most colourful language I'd ever heard. "That fucking little snake wanker, he'll be fucking shitting the bed before we've finished with him."
"That'd make the dorm smell," Al said tonelessly, but he'd set his jaw angrily, and I reckoned Scorpius really was in for it. I was beginning to wonder why I hadn't told James and Fred earlier; somehow everything seemed better with their promise to look out for me. James wand was actually drawn unnecessarily.
James shook his head angrily. "What a little prick... he doesn't know what's coming – Fred, did you say you needed to go to QQS?"
Fred nodded slowly. "Yeah, I mean, it's not urgent –"
"Al," James interrupted, "why don't you take Rose home? We'll be back later."
"Yeah, that seems like a good idea – Rose?"
I half nodded. "Please," I muttered.
"Don't do anything stupid, yeah?" Al warned James before he and Fred vanished into the crowd, the request left hanging. Al gripped my forearm tightly. I could almost feel the fury radiating off him. He dragged me through Diagon Alley to Flourish and Blotts and almost pushed me in the fireplace to floo back. I was glad, because I didn't want to return to the Leaky Cauldron again.
*
I'd cried for hours when I got home, alone in the attic (a single perk of my seventeenth birthday was that I could use magic to lock Dom out and prevent anyone else from hearing my anguish). In retrospect, I don't know what I'd expected from a Malfoy. I'd already heard that he wanted to be a Healer, and I knew that the next two years were vital for him. He definitely wasn't his father, but he was driven in other ways, and I shouldn't have been surprised that he felt almost no qualms at putting his future career before the stupid sixteen-year-old girl and her baby that he'd knocked up and fucked over.
In my period of heartbreak, I'd at least been able to convince myself to write the five essays that I'd firmly put off until about three days before school. I holed myself up in the bedroom, wearing my comfiest pajamas, wrapped in duvets, and worked and worked and worked to block out the mess of my life. When I wasn't writing essays I was reading up on the things we'd be learning over the course of the year, or organising my time for the future (begrudgingly I became very grateful for Uncle Percy's life planner). I wasn't naïve; I could foresee a lot of whispers, staring and bitchy comments as soon as news spread, and I knew it would, so I figured it was better to be busy and to have to be in the library twenty-four seven than to be trying to ignore them from the Common Room.
I couldn't quite believe the mess my life had become. I kept expecting to wake up from this grim nightmare. First I was pregnant, which was a lifelong commitment that I had barely given the necessary thought to, but I just couldn't bring myself to think about a tiny baby growing inside me, ready to depend on me for everything. I couldn't.
I was going to have to give up everything. Nine months of pregnancy would barely allow me to finish my sixth year... and then what? Would I ever get my NEWTs? Would I be able to have a career? Was I going to be stuck living at home forever? I had briefly toyed with the idea of going into magical law recently, although I was reluctant to follow my mum's footsteps. I needed top grades in all my subjects to even consider this... but I'd sold that chance when we decided not to use a condom.
Secondly, my dad had moved out, which was both sad and infuriating. Why on earth should he get to run away from this problem when it was all I wanted to do?
And finally, Malfoy wasn't going to stick around and look out for this poor child who was going to be welcomed into the shittiest world. How's that for a seventeenth birthday present?
The 8th of January couldn't come fast enough. I'd been packed for at least two full days before we needed to leave. Despite anticipating a nasty atmosphere, I was desperate to get back to Hogwarts, where I could just hide myself in the library and pretend not to notice that I was growing gradually fatter and that my parents weren't speaking to each other. I was desperate to be surrounded by all that magic again; I was confident that it would massively improve this dire situation.
I woke Dom up slightly aggressively that Monday morning. She'd tried to be very understanding the past few days, and I really appreciated her consideration. A couple of nights I'd found myself crying into the pillow, and she'd slipped into my bed and hugged me until I felt a little better about the shit show that was my life.
"Dom! Get up!" I exclaimed, whacking her on the head with a pillow.
She rolled over grumpily. "Fuck off, Weasley. All I do is give you kindness..."
"It's January 8th!" I replied, her bullying bouncing right off me. "We're going back!"
Her face softened a tiny bit. "I'd better pack my stuff then."
"Can't believe you've left it til the last minute," I teased, as if I, Rose Weasley, absolute Queen of Disorganisation, had never packed my trunk the morning before going back to Hogwarts in my life.
"Merde, how have I made such a mess?" she muttered to herself, sounding remarkably French all of a sudden. Then her face lit up and she turned to me imploringly. "Can you do it?"
"What? No – I'm not packing your fucking trunk, Dom?" I replied incredulously.
"No," she interrupted impatiently. "I mean with magic. Please?"
I rolled my eyes. "You're bloody lazy."
"Is that a yes?"
"Oh, go on then," I agreed, waving my wand and watching in satisfaction as Dom's clothes began to fly into her trunk. "I never said they'd be tidy," I added a moment later, as we saw the clothes bundle themselves up messily. "I'm not very good at cleaning spells."
"Oh, sod it, we'll be there in a few hours," she replied, sitting down at the dressing table to do her makeup.
A grin spread across my face. "I can't wait!"
*
A couple of hours later, at eleven forty-seven, granddad pulled up outside Kings Cross in the last car, and we all piled out. "I don't wish to alarm anyone but you've only got thirteen minutes and twenty-six seconds to get on that train," he announced.
"Yeah, exactly," James agreed, "so why don't you take Lucy through now, and we'll follow in a sec with all our stuff – need to grab some trolleys, and I want to pick up a paper." I stared at him incredulously. "For the crossword – to do on the train," he amended, but I was no more convinced.
Granddad was barely listening anyway (we'd suspected he was actually just losing his hearing for ages, but he insisted it was absolutely perfect). "Okey dokey. See you on the other side, lads." He made that joke every time, and every time it wasn't funny.
James kept his eyes on Granddad's back until it vanished into a crowd, before turning to us. "I've got a really good idea."
"No you haven't," Al said immediately. "You never do."
"No, really. Listen," he replied in a low voice. "Granddad's been fiddling with these cars over the past few months. And, I mean, surely no one's forgotten what dad and Uncle Ron did that time they missed the train..."
I raised my eyebrow. "You're not serious?"
He nodded, grinning. "No, I'm James." He raised his hand for Fred to high five him, and he complied, grinning. I rolled my eyes. "Who's in, then?"
"Me," Fred said with no hesitation. I suspected he'd known about this plan for more than forty-five seconds.
"Be a laugh," Al shrugged. "Why not?"
"You want to fly that car?" Dom confirmed. James nodded mischievously. "Sure, go on then."
"Rose?" They were all looking at me, and I realised that if my four favourite cousins (well, I mean, that was debatable) took a flying car to school, I'd be forced to sit with someone like Lucy, or even worse, I might run into Malfoy on the train without a wingman.
"Fuck. Ok."
"Brilliant! It's now eleven fifty-three, and by the time we've found the car in the carpark again, we'll have missed the train."
I grinned in spite of myself. With a strange new determination, we headed back for the carpark.
"Everybody in?" James asked, looking disturbingly relaxed behind the wheel. We all assented. "Well, it's eleven oh-one, and we have... lift off!"
Fred and Dom cheered loudly.
"James, do you really know how to fly this thing?" Al asked a few minutes later.
"'Course," James replied easily. "You press the invisibility booster, and then the fly button, and then you use the steering wheel to avoid any rogue dragons. Easy."
"James, I trust you even less than I ever did," I said.
"You've got nothing to worry about, mate. I'm a natural in the air."
To emphasise this point, James spun the wheel one hundred and eighty degrees, and we flipped upside down.
Dom squealed loudly, hanging onto the back of Fred's seat. I closed my eyes tightly, feeling my stomach leap about in a way that it never had before. This was not at all like being on a broom.
The car spun back over to the correct way up, as if nothing life-threatening had just happened.
"Bloody hell," Al commented, matter-of-factly.
"I just saw my whole life flash before my eyes," I insisted, verging on hysteria.
"I bet you realised that you need to get out more," James grinned.
"You can fuck right off."
"Watch it – I'm the driver so if anyone'll be fucking right off it'll be you, Weasley. And before you say anything else, just remember where we are."
I groaned in frustration, but I didn't trust him as far as I could throw him, especially not with my life, so I didn't say anything else.
About an hour and a half later, my stomach growled loudly.
"James, are you lost?" Al asked.
"Of course not," he retorted.
"Where are we going?"
"North."
"Where's Hogwarts?"
"North."
"Do you actually know where North is?"
"Up."
"James, you need to get further down right now and follow the sodding train!"
"I don't know where the sodding train is, Albus!"
"Don't call me, Albus!"
"We're lost in the bloody sky," Fred said gloomily. "The sky is enormous."
"Good one," Dom said bluntly. "And in other news, the sun is hot."
"Merlin's pants, what if we get too close to the sun?" Fred exclaimed in alarm.
"Don't be an absolute wanker," Al snapped. "We're roughly one hundred and thirty-seven point six million kilometres from the sun."
"Well, sorry that I'm not a nerd!" Fred argued.
"This is so much more fun than sitting on the train," I said sarcastically, to nobody in particular.
"Exhilarating," Al muttered dryly.
"Well I'm having fun," James decided.
"That's fine then. You're always my number one," Dom replied shortly.
"Hey!" James protested. "No need for that kind of coldness, Dominique."
"Just out of interest," Al began. "What is it exactly about people's excessively long or simply weird first names that you get off on, James?"
"Your reaction," James grinned.
"Let me make a mental note to never give you that sort of satisfaction ever again."
"Whatever," Dom muttered, rolling her eyes under her large sun glasses that were completely unnecessary, as it was beginning to rain.
"I'm hungry," Fred protested.
"Yeah, me too," I agreed.
"You're seventeen, Rose, can't you, like, magic something up?" Dom asked.
"It's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law," I replied, "you can't-"
"No, you've got to stop," Dom said immediately.
"What? Why?"
"Because I literally couldn't care less."
"Oh, piss off. Some of us would actually rather not fail our NEWTS."
"Rose, babe, our NEWTS aren't for another eighteen months."
"This is insane," Al was saying. "James, just pull down and find the train!"
"You are such a killjoy," James sighed histrionically.
"I'm actually just trying to make sure we follow the law, mate."
"Well then, can't you summon food?" Dom suggested, from the other side of Al, looking really proud of her idea.
"Yeah, I could," I replied, "but like Al just said, I'm not convinced this is legal, and a packet of crisps flying out of the corner shop up to an invisible car is, oddly, quite suspicious."
"What are the actual perks of being seventeen, Rose, tell me."
"You can do magic outside of school – obviously."
"Well, clearly not when it matters."
"Dom, you're going to have to take that one up with McGonagall, or even Gamp. It's not my fault."
"This isn't fun anymore," James sighed.
"Listen, I hate to be annoying, but this was your idea," Fred replied.
"Yes, I know that," James said. "Do I look completely stupid?"
We all stopped arguing at the same time to affirm that he did, indeed, look completely stupid.
"Alright, one more insult and I'll just stop driving. Consider yourselves warned."
"James, we're in the sky," I said. "You can't do that."
"Well, I'll do something," he retorted unimpressively.
"Well, now I'm really worried," I replied sarcastically. The situation seemed to be taking its toll on me.
Al squeezed my wrist. "Pack it in, yeah, Rose, before you make him do something stupid."
I put on a great show of rolling my eyes.
By three o'clock, the novelty had definitely worn off. "If we were on the train I could be eating a pumpkin pasty right now," Dom sighed.
"Yeah, but you wouldn't have the thrill of lawlessness in your heart," Al replied drily.
"Yes, because that's really making my day," Dom replied sarcastically.
"I'm going to be sick," I muttered suddenly.
No one heard. "I'm going to be sick," I moaned. "Fuck."
"What?!" James asked in alarm. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, there is vomit in my throat which is about to come out of my mouth," I snapped.
"Alright, alright, no need to shout," James retorted, but the back of his neck had gone very pale. "Can you, like, not throw up in the car?"
"Well where else am I supposed to do it, we're miles away from anything!"
"Out of the window," Al replied.
"What? No, I can't do that, what if some poor sod gets my sick on his head?"
"Then he should have been looking where he was going," Al replied firmly. "Rose, if you throw up in this car I will throw you out of this car."
I got the message and wound the window down.
The novelty had absolutely worn off by the time we spotted Hogwarts. Dom had been sat in silence for almost three hours, while James, Fred, Al and I had argued intermittently about everything from what sort of steam engine the Hogwarts Express was to the best pudding at the start of term feast, but we were all filled with an unexpected new energy on arriving home (and at the thought of stretching out our limbs).
"Thank Merlin," Fred said cheerfully. "I'm starving!"
"Yes, well, eight hours in a car with literally nothing to eat has a habit of doing that to you," I muttered darkly.
"Now we've got to make an entrance," James mused quietly, ignoring me. "How about driving straight through the doors?"
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