I'm Dead

Ron's Outburst

Ron's Outburst

"WHAT?"

Rose and Scorpius leapt back as Ron burst into the room. Even George jumped a little, though he had that infuriatingly knowing smirk on his face. Rose wondered briefly if he'd known all along that Ron was outside the room eavesdropping, but all thoughts of that faded quickly from her mind when she saw how furious her dad was.

"Ah, Ronald, my dear brother!" George beamed. "Nice of you to pop in!"

Now Rose was sure that George had planned this all along – although getting her revenge wasn't at the very top of her priorities list right now.

There was dreadful silence following George's statement. Rose stared, terrified, at her father. Scorpius' eyes flicked nervously between his girlfriend and Ron, while George just had that merry grin on his face one can only have when you're laughing at somebody else's expense. Ron didn't seem to know what to say first. His eyes were almost popping out of their sockets, like he was trying to burn Rose and Scorpius to the ground with his glare. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"I - what – who – why – where - what is this?" Ron spluttered, gesturing wildly at his daughter and Scorpius as he tried in vain to string an articulate sentence together. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

"Erm – Dad," Rose began, in a placating tone. "Why don't you sit down -"

"No, I will not bloody sit down!" Ron shouted, his arms flailing wildly in his anger. He then jabbed an accusing finger at Rose, who flinched. "You! You have some explaining to do!"

It seemed, however, that Ron didn't actually want Rose to explain anything, because as soon as she'd opened her mouth, all hell broke loose.

"How could you? What the bloody hell were you thinking?" he yelled at her, blatantly ignoring Scorpius and George, the latter of whom seemed to find this highly amusing.

"Dad – Ron? - I –" Rose sighed loudly as she realised she wasn't going to get a word in edgeways.

"I don't believe you'd do this! My daughter! A Weasley, date – going – doing things with a Malfoy! With that!" The finger-jabbing was now directed at Scorpius, who recoiled immediately. "You're – you're fraternising with the enemy! That's what's going on here!"

"Mr Weasley –" Scorpius tried to interrupt as politely as possible.

"Don't 'Mr Weasley' me!" Ron exclaimed, turning on him. Rose was certain that if he was any angrier, steam would be shooting from his ears. "What have you been doing with my daughter? Answer me!"

Scorpius shrank back. Sure, Ron was a year younger than him right now, but he was also about a head taller. Rose shuffled closer to him, squeaking slightly when her dad shouted at her boyfriend.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Ron was momentarily distracted as Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, James, Lily, Hugo and Al piled into the room, wide-eyed as they looked from one occupant of the room to another. Fred was quick to join his twin, and it only took a nod from George for identical gleeful grins to spread across both their faces.

"What's going on here?" Lily asked timidly, at the same time that Hermione and Ginny said in an apprehensive tone, "Ron, what have you done?"

"Nothing! It's not me for once, Hermione!" Ron defended himself. Hermione just raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm serious!"

"Nope, he's downstairs," James pitched in, causing Lily to groan. Everybody else ignored him.

"Then who is it?" Hermione challenged. "You're the one making all the racket! It's hardly going to be Rose's fault, now, is it –"