Disclaimer: Harry Potter, the subsequent characters, and universe belong to J. K. Rowling.

Summary: Ron suspects that Rose might be dating Scorpius Malfoy. He enlists the help of Teddy to figure out if he's right, but Teddy becomes quickly entangled in the situation. Rose/Scorpius Rose/Teddy.

Author's Note: We need more Teddy/Rose fanfiction – do your part. You know you want to…

I'd read and review it. (Oh look another promise. Will it never end?)

Same author's note, as before, because it still applies. Sorry for the lousy updating schedule, but wasn't it a pleasant surprise out of the blue?

Chapter 12: The Homecoming

Using the underground to get to Kings Cross was fairly easy. Though it was crowded, uncomfortable, and Teddy thought unreasonably dirty. From the way Posey was wrinkling her nose she probably agreed with him. After a short deliberation they both decided it would be better to stand.

Rose didn't say much in the underground, but he could tell she was thinking. Her brow was slightly furrowed and she appeared to be taking the floor under deep consideration. This was not a good thing as far as Teddy was concerned. The last thing he needed was Rose to come up with a nice long list of questions about their abrupt departure from Hogwarts or his home life.

He grabbed at the first opportunity to interrupt her thoughts. "So have you ever been on the underground before?"

Rose shook her head, "I'm sorry what?" He couldn't tell if she didn't hear because she was distracted or because of the noise let off by the train. The wind rushed by in the confined space between the train and the tunnel creating a continuous muffled roar. Then again she could just be annoyed at him asking inane questions at a time like this.

"Have you ever been before, you know on the underground?" he repeated rather lamely.

"No." She replied rather distractedly. "Oh, um have you?"

"Nope. Grew up in the country. Haven't been to the city very much you know." Teddy thought it would be best to sneak little tidbits about Danny's life into the conversation whenever possible. He was slightly afraid if she thought too much about him, she might notice some similarities between Danny and Teddy which he really didn't need to deal with right now.

"Oh yes," Rose said. That was the end of conversation until they got off at the stop near King's Cross.

The train station was buzzing with activity. Luckily, or not so luckily, they didn't have any luggage to cart around just the small duffle bag. Rose pointed Teddy in the direction of the departures board. They began scanning looking for their train. "I'm sorry I'm not sure what I'm looking for," Rose confessed after a minute.

"Oh right. We're going to Ancaster. That's where my Dad is." Well that's where Jack Miller was.

Rose and Teddy went back to scanning the board. "I don't see it up there. Maybe we should ask at the desk?" Rose suggested after a minute. Teddy continued to stubbornly check the departures for a minute. Certainly he could figure out something as simple as a muggle train schedule.

It seemed that Rose was not nearly as confidant in his abilities. "Oh come on, Danny," she said grabbing his arm and dragging him over to the service desk.

As it turned out they had missed the morning departures to Ancaster, so they'd have to wait until the afternoon to leave. The woman at the desk directed them to a food court where they could pick up something to eat while they waited.

"I'm not very hungry," Rose told him as they approached the seating area.

"Me neither, but we have to kill some time. Can I buy you some tea or maybe a cup of coffee?" Rose barely shook her head no and walked towards a table. Rose seemed to be in a thoughtful daze as she walked away which did nothing to relieve Teddy's nerves.

Despite what Rose told him, Teddy came back with two cups of hot tea in paper cups. He pushed one across the tabletop towards her. She fingered the sides of the cup thoughtfully her nails creating a faint rasping sound. "So where is Ancaster?," she asked abruptly. "I don't think I've ever heard of it before."

Teddy cast about in his mind for the few details he knew about his 'home town' "In Lincolnshire."

"Not so far then?"

"Not really. It's about two hours by train." Teddy was already running out of things to talk about on the subject of Ancaster. He had never been there himself and only had the two paragraphs in the mission file to go off of. Most of those two paragraphs had been more about his father's house than about the community.

"Well what's it like?"

"Umm…like any other village I suppose." Teddy could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down the back of his neck.

Rose gave him an annoyed look. "Well there's a church. It's rather nice, though we never really went there." That was a bit out of the file. It was important Jack didn't go to church or really have any close acquaintance that might point out the fact he had never had a wife or a son. Luckily Jack Miller had always been a bit of a suspicious recluse which worked in their favor.

"And a couple of pubs," he assumed. Really any town with a population of over 50 had to have at least one pub. "And an inn," he hoped. If it turned out to be false he could always claim they shut down or he meant in the neighboring town.

"Are you worried about what your Dad will think when you show up out of the blue with some strange girl?"

Honestly Teddy was worrying about far too many different things right now to spend much time worrying about Jack. Of course now that Rose had brought it up he could worry about that as well. "He's always been very supportive," in his letters at least, "and you're not strange since he already knows all about you."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "He does, does he?"

Teddy quirked a smile back at her. "Sure you…and Albus and Scorpius. Don't get so full of yourself Weasley. You know I do write to my father about school and friends." Of course, usually he wrote a great deal more about Rose.

Teddy was relieved to see Rose smile again even if it was only temporary and disappeared quickly. She furrowed up her brow slightly and studied the gouged surface of the table, "Why are you a part of this Danny? I mean we barely know each other."

This is it he could confess everything right now. Or not. He grabbed hold of Rose's hand. "Feels like longer to me." Rose looked at their hands apprehensively, but she didn't pull away.

The train ride was quiet. Well on their part it was quiet. They were sharing a train compartment with two younger boys, well younger than Teddy but older than Rose and his alter ego, and a middle aged woman. The two boys talked of football and girls. Teddy wasn't interested in what they had to say and spent most of his time carefully watching Rose who spent all of her time carefully watching her hands and avoiding Teddy's eyes.

The muggles prevented them from talking openly, which for the most part Teddy was grateful for. However, it gave him plenty of time to sit with his own thoughts and worry which was not so fortunate.

"What are we going to tell your father?" he heard Rose ask. She was still looking at her hands, but Teddy was sure she had spoken.

"I'll think of something," he assured her.

As it turned out Teddy was wrong about that. They were on Jack's front porch and he was currently studying the peeling blue paint of the door while Posey patiently waited for him to get up the courage to knock. 'Patiently' may have been a liberal interpretation of her attitude as she was tapping a foot with her arms crossed over her chest. Which was not really helping him concoct a story to feed to a man that was supposed to be his father.

"Could you just sit still for a bloody moment?" He told her after finally losing his patience. She huffed, but stopped moving her foot.

"Danny?" he heard a voice from where the door used to be.

Teddy slowly turned around to face his next challenge. "Hi Dad." The photo Teddy had of Jack Miller must have been a few years old. This man had a few more wrinkles and his hair was far grayer than black, but Teddy recognized him immediately. He could see a lot of the resemblance between this man and the face he had become accustomed to seeing in the mirror.

Jack looked Teddy up and down and then glanced over at Rose. Teddy wasn't able to tell anything from his expression. "Come on in," he told them as he turned away and returned to the house expecting them to follow.

Rose looked at Teddy apprehensively, but he just shrugged in response and followed Jack into the house.

"You can have Danny's room and he can take the lounge. All the spare rooms are being used for storage. It'll be the third door on the left down the hall. Now you go on and get settled."

Jack gave no room for any type of response other than her leaving the room. Rose hesitated for a moment before heading down the hall leaving Teddy alone.

"Have you gotten that girl in a bad way?" Jack asked flatly.

When Teddy figured out what Jack was asking the color rose in his face. "No. No it's not like that between us," Teddy protested.

Jack studied him carefully before nodding once. "Well then I'm lost as to why you would come home…with a girl, when you ought to be at school." Jack wandered over to a worn floral patterned sofa and settled himself down. He appeared to be quite comfortable and at his leisure.

Teddy smiled nervously. Despite everything he was rather happy to finally meet Jack. He took a deep breath and began to explain what he could. "She's in a bit of trouble, magical trouble."

Jack frowned thoughtfully. "And she couldn't get any help from this school?"

It seemed Jack was rather fast at cottoning on to the situation. Well he had been British intelligence, so he must have been brighter than average. "No, not in this situation."

"Ahh, so Rose is in some sort of trouble where wizards' law can't or won't help her." Jack leaned back on the sofa. "Has she done something wrong?" Teddy barely noticed that Jack had figured out who Rose was.

"No," Teddy said vehemently grasping the edge of a chair tightly. "That's the thing she hasn't done anything at all! But there was a prophecy that said she will do something, so they're going to be coming after her."

"This thing they think she's going to end up doing. How bad would it be?" Teddy couldn't help but give Jack a guilty expression.

"Bad, eh." Jack pushed himself up off the couch and walked over to Teddy. There was stiffness to his gait that Teddy had failed to notice earlier like one of his legs was injured. Jack placed a rough hand on what he thought was his son's shoulder. "You know I don't believe in God. And till your mother I didn't believe in magic," Teddy winced mentally when he said that bit, "But the one thing I've always believed in is free will, and if you trust this Rose to make right decisions, then I trust her too."

"Thanks Dad." Teddy leaned against Jack and though a hand on the shoulder wasn't quite a hug coming from Jack it was more comforting than even one of Nana Molly's tightest embraces.

Note: I've only seen the Heathrow airport in London (fun times), so anything about the UK is taken from the internet and guesswork. Fiction for the win.