Loving in Red

Chapter One ~ Hide & Go Seek

Chapter One

Hide and Go Seek

     For a brief moment, Rose Weasley thought she might just stop breathing. She had dreaded going back to school, knowing it would hurt her more than she could imagine looking in those silvery grey eyes…but she had been wrong. It was worse.

The platform was crowded, noise pressing in on Rose from every direction. He stood only a few metres away, calm as could be, talking with his father and mother. How could he look like nothing had happened? As if the past two months hadn’t even existed.

Her heart was beating faster and faster, air somehow punishing her as it was no longer there. Was it possible to die from a breaking heart, because Rose swore that was what was happening.

“Rosie?”

She turned around to see her father, Ron Weasley, looking at her worriedly. His blue eyes searched her in the only way a father’s could and one of his large, calloused hands that had rocked Rose to sleep as an infant rested on her shoulder.

“You okay, Rosie Pose?”

Nodding, she cracked a strained smile and stepped towards him and laced her fingers with his like she had as a little girl “Fine Dad, just having a silent freak-out.”

“About what?”

Rose could see the panic in her father’s eyes; he worried over everything. A fever sent him into a whirlwind of check ups. Every time she had a stomach bug and threw up, he worried she was pregnant. He hated her long, lonely excursions in the wood with her sketch book, afraid she would never come home. “This is my last September first I’ll ever spend on the platform.”

Pulling her close, Ron tried to hold back the tears; his little girl was growing up, and he couldn’t stop it-not matter how much he wanted to. She was so smart and beautiful, there was really nothing wrong…except that every boy they passed gave her the once over. It made him wish they were like those wizards in the desert…so he could cover her up from head to toe. “You’ll be fine Rose, and-and I’m so proud of you, my little girl.”

Standing on her top toes, Rose planted a gentle kiss on her father’s cheek and smiled up at him “I love you, Daddy, you know that, right?”

“Oh he knows,” Hermione said, coming up to them and fixing her daughter’s scarf “He just never wants you to grow up.”

“To late,” grunted Hugo, who was completely engrossed in his Quiditch book “Rose already thinks she’s better than everyone, going off all alone all summer.”

Rose nearly said that she wasn’t alone, in fact, she’d never felt less alone in her life, but held it in. “Shut it, Hue. Walk into a wall, why don’t you?”

“Kids,” warned Hermione, smiling all the same “Be good, and…we love you. Hugo, don’t bug your sister to much and try not to forget about your studies with Quiditch coming up, okay?”