The Hidden One

poisoned mead

Rose woke up in an unfamiliar room. It was basically the same as her room at Grimmauld Place, but floor was carpet instead of hardwood and the walls were a light blue. A clock on the wall told Rose that it was 10 in the morning, meaning that she had slept for over 12 hours. Rose immediately reached for her wand on the table next to her and she slowly creeped out of the room and followed the voices that she could hear.

"Merlin, Rose!" Sirius yelled when Rose jumped out from behind a wall and pointed her wand at him.

"Dad?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, so put your wand down," Sirius said. Rose sheepishly put her wand down as she looked around. Her mum was sitting on a couch as the twins played on the ground.

"Welcome to our house," Marlene said.

"Oh," Rose muttered, embarrassment coating her tone as she started looking around. The house didn't have a lot of furniture in it yet and she could tell that it was very big.

"Yeah," Sirius said as he ruffled her hair.

"Why aren't we at the Burrow?" Rose asked as she sat on the ground and started playing with the twins. A cat that Rose knew to be one of Tillie's walked over and demanded pets from Rose. The girl turned over the collar and let out a small snort when she saw that her parents had named the cat Star. She decided it was better than the Weasleys, who had simply names their cat 'Cat'.

"We didn't want to crowd Molly and Arthur so we decided to stay here for the rest of the holiday," Marlene explained. "James, Lily and Harry are at their new house, too, but Cedric and Regulus are still at the Burrow."

"But we're going back to the Burrow for New Years," Sirius added. "Frank, Alice, Augusta and Neville might join us."

"How are they?" Rose asked, wincing when Sebastian started pulling her hair.

"Neville and Augusta are ecstatic, obviously," Sirius said. "But Frank and Alice are a little confused and upset. They're happy to be back, of course, but it's strange. They wanted to say thank you, but you stayed asleep the whole time."

"I'm gonna help them with coming back since I have some experience with that," Marlene said. "And Sirius and Remus are gonna help Neville and Augusta deal with their emotions. It can be hard on them, too."

"I remember," Rose said. "I had a whole break down cause of everything."

"And we want to avoid that for Neville and Augusta," Sirius said. Rose nodded in understanding.

"Where's the kitchen? I'm hungry," Rose said as she stood up.

"We actually don't have any food here," Marlene admitted. "We've just been getting muggle food, but we're going to go shopping tomorrow. You can go to Lily and James' house, though. They have food."

"Where is their house?" Rose asked.

"Here's the address," Sirius said as he handed Rose a slip of paper. "It's kinda like Grimmauld Place. You can only see it if you've been given the address by someone."

"Here's some floo powder," Marlene said as she handed Rose a bag.

"Thanks," Rose said as she stepped into their fireplace, flooing away as she heard her dad yell something about pumpkin juice.

Rose finally stopped and stumbled out into a nice house. Rose opened her mouth in shock as she looked around. One of the walls of the house was just windows, providing an excellent view of the woods and a small pond. The room was furnished much better than her house, and it was obvious that there was a Gryffindor theme.