It's two weeks into the summer break and I'm absolutely enjoying it. Agreeing to manage the Hogsmeade Weasley Wizard Wheezes has been one of my better decisions since retiring from the Auror department. With sales drying up after students leave Hogwarts, George keeps the shop closed and does all WWW business at the Diagon Alley shop. This frees me up for the summer and allows me to stay home with the kids. I get to enjoy my time more with the children and I get to watch them while Hermione works. With her work at Ministry getting busier we both agree that this is a very ideal setup for us.

Today has been a nice, slow Tuesday. Hermione is at the ministry and Hugo is spending the week with his cousins over at Ginny's. Rose had decided to stay home to catch up on her reading. She had not only picked up her mother's smarts and looks but also her habits. "I spend nine months with them in Hogwarts," she'd said, "now I would like to spend some quiet time with my books". She looked so much like her mother when she'd said this that if it wasn't for her red hair I would have thought it was Hermione back in the Burrow many summers ago.

I head to my study and sit down in front of my desk. For many years this desk was covered with files and reports on various Death Eaters, shady types like Mung, and bored Wizards who were mostly harmless. Now it's mostly covered with files and reports on inventory, supply and sales trends, and potential new products. It's amazing how much I have changed from my days in Hogwarts. Back then I wouldn't even bother going through all this paperwork until the very last minute. Now my paperwork is finished days before the deadline (much to the delight of Hermione) and I always come prepared to meetings. Having your first capture released due to 'inadequate paperwork' will do that.

Hermione's insistence that we live in a muggle neighborhood and that we partially live a muggle lifestyle has turned out to be a great idea in the end. Muggles really are very ingenious and many of their gadgets are quite convenient- sometimes ever more so than doing things with magic. Heating food and water in a microwave is really much easier than heating it with magic. Many think heating and cooling spells are trivial but so much could go wrong when done by someone inexperienced or distracted. Another gadget that I have grown to really like is muggle music players like the one Hermione got me for my study. It's amazing how much music muggles have; beats listening to Celestina Warbeck's wailing over and over. The best part is the remote; it's like a wand that controls the player like magic.

With a wave and a press I turn the music player on. A song from a muggle singer starts playing - it's this bird Adele that Hermione started to like back before we were married. I personally think she isn't all that great. She does have this one song that Hermione absolutely loves which seems quite angry - it probably wasn't a coincidence that we had temporarily broken up when she started to like this song.

I focus on the paperwork in front of me. Usually I would find these boring but now it's all quite interesting to me. In my days as an Auror it was the thrill of finding that one detail that would give me the upper hand against my target. Now it's all about getting the better of George. Since I started at WWW he has given me freedom to run the Hogsmeade store and to even come up with my own product ideas. I have yet to outsell any of his products but I am getting close. He's had many years head start in experience but I'm going to beat him this year. With the vision of finally having one over George in my mind I bury myself in my work.

…

It is a few hours later deep in thought that I hear a scream that make my heart race.

"Aaaoooooooooooooowwwwwww!"

Rose! I push my chair back and start to run out of my study. Instantly I have my wand out pointing ahead of me. Years of running from Death Eaters then later on chasing after them have disciplined me into always having it on my person.

"Oooow! Uhwwwww!"

I'm trying to not think the worst. Me and Hermione have placed the best wards we could around the house. We had tested the wards on the shed at the Burrow and it had taken Bill a good part of a weekend to break through. Nobody without Weasley blood or Harry's could apparate or floo in.

I enter the living room scanning with my trained eyes for anything out of sort.

"Rose?"

"Dad!" Rose calls back with a sob from the kitchen.

She's fine, otherwise she would have answered with our family's code word for trouble. I calm down a bit. I run to the kitchen with much less dread in my mind.

"What happened honey? Are you OK?"

"No Dad, it hurts," she answers, again with a sob.

I find her in front of the sink shaking- fumbling with something on her front. On the floor I see a shattered pot in a pool of steaming tea. I reach Rose and turn her around. Her face is flushed, her face scrunch in pained. Her one hand is holding her shirt up while the other are pulling her shorts and knickers down. This is when I notice her clothes are wet and the skin around her torso red and looking tender.

"Blimey!" I exclaim at seeing her burns.

I point my wand at her torso and quickly do a cooling charm. I then lift her up and hurriedly carry her to the bathroom. Once there I sit her on the counter beside the sink.

"C'mon honey let's take your clothes off."

She suddenly pulls back with a look on her face that tells me she doesn't want to. She pulls her clothes that she was just holding away tightly to her body.

"Rose this is no time to argue," I tell her as I accio dittany from the potions cabinet.

"But Dad..." she whines in what is clearly embarrassment.

"Rose I have seen you naked countless times before. Now let's take your clothes off before your burns get worse." I tell her in my father voice.

She looks at me for a second as if she would argue the point but then gives up with a sigh. She lifts up her arms while I pull her shirt off over her head. I wince at what I see- her skin that I can see from the waist of her shorts to just under her bra is very red. I hand her the small bottle of dittany, "Here put some on your skin and spread it around gently. Now how far down did you get the hot tea on you?"

"All the way down my thighs." she silently answers, taking the dittany from me.

"OK, let's take off your shorts and knickers. I'll be gentle, let me know if it hurts."

"OK, Dad."

I unbutton her pants then I hook my fingers on the waist of her shorts and knickers. I slowly pull them down trying to keep them from scraping on her tender skin. She stops applying dittany on herself for a moment and lifts herself up with her hands. I pull her shorts and knickers around her bum then down her thighs. The more I see the more worried I become. The skin below her waist looks much worse than I expected. I shouldn't brought her to the bathroom; I should have removed her clothes in the kitchen and applied dittany sooner. I pull her clothes down past her knees and let them drop to the floor. I do another cooling charm on her skin and I see her face reflect the little bit of relief from the pain.

"Now spread your legs." I tell her as I place my hands on her knees to spread them apart. She instead tightens them together, "Daaad!"

"Rose I don't have the patience to argue. Your burns are worse than I thought. I have to make sure if dittany is enough, if not I'll have to take to St. Mungo's."

"No! Please Dad I don't want to go to St. Mungo's!" she exclaims in a voice more panicked than I expected.

"Then let me take a look."

Reluctantly she lets me spread her knees apart. I see the skin of her inner thighs part from the tight contact they have been in. This causes Rose to breathe in sharply from pain. I spread her thighs as wide as I could. I lean down closer between her legs to inspect the burn. It is worse than I thought but not as bad as it could have been.

"Your burnt pretty badly Rosie but we should be able to fix this with dittany. You're going to be sore and in discomfort for a few weeks. And it's going to itch like hell for a while."

She giggles a little with that last bit. I've tried hard not to curse with the kids around but once in a while I let it slip.

I place both of my palms on her inner thighs, gently feeling the tenderness. I hear her gasp from my touch though I make it seem that I did not notice. I move my hands up her thighs, my eyes leading the way. This is when I first notice the light hair showing just above and a little around her girlhood. I'm taken aback a little. I didn't expect to see that, not yet at least. But then I remember she is no longer a child. She has just finished her first year in Hogwarts and at twelve will be going back for her second year. It was the year that I had first started having confusing thoughts about Hermione. Now she's my wife.

Yet here I am staring at my daughter's girlhood. Looking at her nub that is halfway out of it's cover slightly splitting and opening up her slit. Around it, growing out like new grass in late spring, is a light red fuzz that is barely there yet unmistakably visible once you've seen it.

My head is filled with confused thoughts. My little daughter will always be my little baby. Yet here right in front of me, staring at it in awe and some other feeling I can't quite understand, is proof that she is now becoming a woman. I don't know why but I take my right hand from her thigh and place it above her girlhood and gently run it down red hair until my finger is just touching the tip of her slit.

"Dad!" my daughter whispers. I don't know if I imagined it but I thought I felt her shiver.

I look up at her, "Did I hurt you?", worried that I might have caused more damage to her tender skin.

"No. But it does hurt. Are we going to put dittany on?" she answers, eager for relief from the pain.

"Oh! Uhm, yeah... yes!" My mind is racing. Should I do it? Maybe I should let her apply dittany herself. But then she might not do it correctly. I am a trained professional and have on many occasions applied curing salves and creams to myself and others under much more stressful situations. I decide that I will do it. I can't risk my daughter's well being just because of some discomfort from a confusing feeling I'm having.

"Give me the bottle." She hands me the bottle while I take the moment to look at her abdomen. She seems to have done a fairly good job, not missing a spot. I can see the skin already starting to heal evenly.

"I'm going to need you to lie back and keep your thighs spread OK?" I tell her as I transfigure a towel into a pillow and place it behind her.

"OK" she answers shyly, flushing red with embarrassment in the way that only a true Weasley could.

I unstopper the bottle of dittany then move between her legs. "Now lie back and spread your legs, Honey."