Enclosed

Chapter Twenty-Four: Fireside

"Is Al on yet?" Rose called from the bathroom, pulling back her hair into a high ponytail. In the last week, she'd mastered doing her hair one-handed. She only had two days left to wear the sling before Scorpius permitted it to come off. She was counting down the hours. 

In the last week, they'd been hard at work going through the photographs and new found evidence. Rose was slowly healing from her injuries. Her elbow was no longer sore and her shoulder felt fine (much to Scorpius' disbelief). The bruises on her legs were taking their sweet time to fade and ached when she touched them. 

"Not yet!" Scorpius shouted back. "Looks like he's running late."

Rose hustled down the stairs and stopped to admire the view ahead. Scorpius was crouched by the fire, tending to the logs. The cuffs of his sleeves were rolled up, accentuating the tight muscles of his arms. He pushed back his blonde hair and glanced up. 

Rose swallowed hard, as their eyes met. 

"Sounds like, Al." She said, sitting in the armchair, trying to look anywhere but Scorpius. "What time did he say he was calling?"

"Said he'd try to call around 2 o'clock."

"Maybe he got caught up with something?"

"Very likely. He's been running around like crazy all week after that attempted prison break at Azkaban."

Early morning Tuesday, members of The Reformed tried to break into Azkaban. They were caught in a lift after entering the wrong code. Al and his team have been interrogating them all week and getting nowhere. They couldn't get them to confirm that they were trying to break Pious out. 

Security at the prison doubled since the break-in attempt and the Aurors were all on edge. Rose knew that the break-in caused a lot of anxiety across the wizarding world and that the Wizengamot would be setting a trial date soon to help reassure the community that Pious was never going free again.

She suspected that was part of the reason Al requested a call.

"Did he say what he wanted to talk about?"

Scorpius poked at the fire, tending to it. Under his care the flames roared, heating the entirety of the downstairs.

Rose tugged at her sweater, wishing she'd put on something less warm. 

"I'm assuming he wants to give you an update about the evidence you collected in Whitby."

"Already? They've only had the evidence for a week."

"Ruby is that quick."

Rose was thoroughly impressed. Usually, when she requested reports for that much evidence it took weeks to get a fully composed report back. 

"Remind me to request Ruby's help on all my future cases." 

"She's the only one in the forensics lab I'll work with anymore." Scorpius leaned back casually against the coffee table, "Did you do something different with your hair today?"

Rose touched her hair self-consciously,"I always wear it in a ponytail."

"Well, it looks nice today."

Rose scrambled to think of something to say. Should she say thank you? Should she compliment him back? His hair did look good today. 

Luckily, she was saved from responding by the eruption of the fire. Al's face appeared out of the smoldering logs. His green eyes glowed black against the logs, as he greeted them.

"Sorry, I'm late. It's a little hectic around here right now."

Rose dropped to the floor, bumping into Scorpius as they scooted toward the fire, their shoulders brushing.