After The War (Romione & Hinny fan fiction)

Our Little Love Story

"So, tell me. How did you two meet?" Lily looked up at her cousin very seriously.

"Oh."

They'd been speaking for less than a minute and that's what Lily decided to ask her?

Rose had thought there would be a greater motive from the way her cousin had stopped her from going to Care of Magical Creatures class. Apparently Lily had learnt about her relationship with Rylan and had way too many questions about it. She sighed. Evidently her day wasn't going to get better anytime soon.

"And why are you crying?" Lily tipped her cousin's chin up so she could have a look at her face.

Indeed, Rose's eyes were red and her make up was smudged. She'd been crying, but sweet Lily didn't need to know about it. "It's nothing." Rose pulled away and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

Lily's eyes were full of concern. "Are you sure you're okay? You're a mess."

Rose laughed softly. "Thanks Lil."

"I mean it. You can't go to class like this. Come on." Lily grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her down the corridor.

"Where are we going?" Rose didn't even try to argue with her. There was no point.

"The girls' bathroom." Lily said.

The bathroom was completely empty, Rose noticed as Lily shut the door. Their paces echoed in the room as they walked to the sinks.

Rose started washing her face, wincing when the cold water splashed her cheeks.

"So." Lily said, "you still haven't told me how you and your boyfriend met."

"It's a long story." Rose said as she rinsed her face a second time.

"I have time." Lily shrugged, "It's not going to make a difference if we skip just a period. It's too late for class anyway."

Rose sighed. For how much she wanted to complain, her cousin was right. Rose had already read all about Thestrals on the textbook anyway, and her mother had told her about the magical beasts many times during their pre-Hogwarts classes. Rose had always been fascinated by them. Can you imagine? An animal that can show itself only to people who have seen death, but invisible to all the others.

Well, the point was, she hadn't been looking forward to today's class anyway. She hated it when they stayed in class and learned on textbooks when they could go to the grounds and see the Thestrals for themselves. If she was ever going to teach, Rose was confident that she's never leave her students stuck behind a desk for two hours straight.

"Okay, now tell me everything! Please." Lily's excited voice brought Rose's attention back to the girls' bathroom.

As Lily used her wand to reapply makeup on Rose's eyes, Rose closed her eyes and started to tell her cousin about the first time she met Rylan.

Her memories of that day were so vivid that she could see them play out under her eyelids.

"I'd seen him play Quidditch before. You know, him being a Seeker and all. He started to play Quidditch only this year, but I noticed him immediately... I don't know... there was something about him..."

Rose looked so dreamy while she was talking. Lily was finished with the make-up, so she started doing her cousin's hair so Rose didn't have an excuse to stop telling her the story.

"He approached me one day after our first Gryffindor versus Slytherin match. I remember that us Gryffindors had won because I'd seen the seen the golden snitch just a few seconds before he did. He tried to catch up, but I was too quick and managed to reach it first. I was coming out of the locker rooms with the rest of the team when he asked me if we could talk for a minute. Tall, black hair, blue eyes." Rose continued, her voice dreamy, "I was a goner from the first word he spoke to me. Honestly, I'd never felt anything for a guy so... immediately." This time Rose did blush, but she didn't open her eyes. "Anyway. He told me his name was Rylan. I knew that, obviously. Everyone called him Rylan J., and no one seemed to know his full name because he'd always insisted he was 'just Rylan J.' Anyway. He told me he was a fifth year and he said he thought I was a really good Seeker. And then the strangest thing happened. He offered to pay me a good amount of Galleons in exchange for information: he wanted to know the Gryffindors's Quidditch team's strenghts and weaknesses. I couldn't say no to him. He had this weird effect on me - still has. A good weird I think. I felt so guilty about saying yes so easily afterwards. Anyway, I didn't say too much about our team, just enough to keep him near me. Slowly, or maybe not so slowly, we fell for each other. I'll spare you the details."