carry on (open)

Stalking your cousin down the labyrinth of hallways within Hogwarts wasn't how Rose had wanted to spend her evening. Such a nice evening she had had planned out. Granted, it hadn't been all that much of anything. Perhaps reading a book in her bed for a bit before lights out was called. Maybe being a bit of a rebel and keeping a light on and reading late into the night. She hadn't felt like being a rebel very much lately. And now she even had to hunt down her own cousin, just to see her face to face. Lily had been avoiding her and well, it wasn't all that big of a question as to why. The avoidance though did dredge up a bit of resentment, as well as a fair bit of pity for her younger cousin. Rose hadn't been the only one to lose a family member.

Rose had spotted Lily turning a corner on her own way back to the Ravenclaw common room. Her cousin had seemed a bit - suspicious - to say the least. The two had been rather close as children, as all of the Weasley brood had been; pranking and what not sort of drawing some of them together. All less shiny memories now that she held onto to look back on fondly. Now though; seeing her not so little cousin sneaking around corners and through corridors, Rose was worried for her. The previous sort-of dismissal and her own avoidance towards the rest of her family vanished as she padded after her cousin. She'd get to the bottom of whatever was going on. She hoped.

The redhead grasped the handle of the door to the room of requirement just as it began to close. Who knew if it would disappear once it did close and she simply couldn't allow that to happen. Rose Let the door almost swing shut as to not let her presence be given away so quickly. After she had heard her cousin settle she slowly pulled the door back open; nearly silently stepping through the opening she provided herself with and slowly closing the door behind her, aware of every sound it made echoing through the empty room as if it were amplified.

Only turning a moment later did Rose spot her cousin sitting on the floor against a wall, drinking out of a flask. that led another wave of sadness at her for not noticing what her cousin surely had to be going through to need whatever alcoholic beverage she was currently drinking. So wrapped up in her own depression that she hadn't even noticed. "Lily? why are you drinking that?" Rose queried softly as she moved away from the door and into the room. If she was going to solve any problems she would need to know what was wrong. Her payment for being so wrapped up in herself and so oblivious to nearly everything and everyone around her in that time.

Rose padded over on soft feet and slid down to sit across from her cousin silently. Her eyes directed towards Lily with a mix of her sadness, curiosity and guilt shining within their depths. So long had she spent not noticing the important things. Walking past her cousin day in and day out and yet barely noticing all that great a change. Not truly interacting even outside of school as Lily was never around when they were all gathered to talk to. She missed her cousin. She missed pranking. She missed her father. She missed it all. All things that would become memories once upon a time and she would need to rebuild once again.

"Are you okay, Lils?"

Because Rose was going to make sure she was okay. Even if she had to tear down the walls Lily had built - not showing up around any of the family. Rose was going to make everything better, as mum used to say, and it would help her too. Surely it would help her too.

Rose didn't want to keep wallowing like this for the rest of her life. It had already been too long, she was sure, and yet she still hadn't been able to yet pull herself out of it. She didn't have enough energy to carry on as she had been recently. Smiling through the pain and putting up a facade that "everything was okay" just so no one questioned anything and tried to get to the center of anything. Rose could manage herself on her own. All she needed was time to get herself together. Time that she didn't want to spend. Why couldn't she simply just move on, no matter the pain? She most certainly didn't want to forget anything about her father; all of his little quirks, but she didn't want her life to drag out like this either. It was simply too exhausting.

She wanted to shed this old skin that clung to her like a cloak, refusing to drop off and release her from its clutches. She wanted so many things. Some impossible. Moving forward was one she would settle for. Rose very well knew that nothing was going to be the same moving past the death of her father. It had changed her, shattered her feelings of peace and broken her out of the protective shell she had inhabited up until the point that they had gotten the news. When she found out about the cause and knew that, like her parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents; she too would be waging some sort of war as they had as children. Chilling to the core and just a bit of motivation to live her life the way she wanted to before she couldn't anymore.

Watching her cousin drink the fire whiskey was something Rose far from approved of. it was something that she had yet to even have thought of resorting to. Something that had never crossed her mind before. Yet she didn't truly dare to snatch the bottle from her cousin's hands and empty it upon the floor. how she wished she had the courage to do. She held out a hand for the bottle, just a bit slowly and inconspicuously. If she was handed the bottle that was what would happen. There would be no more drinking of the fire whiskey for the night. Rose could understand the mourning Lily was going through, even if it wasn't the same as her own. They had both lost someone important to them; even if Lily had been acting a bit off as of late anyway.

The elder redhead sighed at Lily's response. It wasn't much of an excuse to say the least - though she didn't approve of any cause that had any of her family resorting to drinking fire whiskey or any other alcoholic beverage. "That's not a very good excuse, you know." Rose retorted softly, her eyes fixed on Lily's face. She didn't want to have to resort to anything too severe in regard to the well being of her family members. Even if she struggled with the sharing of her own feelings. Rose grumbled softly when Lily stated that she just didn't feel like dealing with the people in her dorm at the minute. Certainly not the whole  truth because something so simple wasn't just enough to drive her to drinking. There was something more that her cousin was avoiding telling her, that much could be ascertained. Fair guess it was something Rose should have noticed before this point in time.

Rose shrugged in response to Lily's next question, "I saw you on my way back to the tower and ended up here, I suppose." She stated with a shrug of her shoulders, almost certain it wouldn't do just as well to be telling Lily that she had been following her, even though that point was rather obvious from the start. "And I did consider going back to the dorms for a good read, but you ranked higher on the list." Rose replied with a smile for her cousin. A bit of humor, perhaps. She hadn't been cracking all that many jokes as of lately, but it felt good to break them out. She wasn't going to allow the slight edge of rudeness in her cousin's comment to strike back at her.

"What about you? How did you end up holed up down here?" Rose queried, managing to keep her voice softer. No use cornering your family and simply insulting them. They were family, after all.