Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne had an aura around his different personas. That was the first thing that Marlene McKinnon noticed about him when she first met him. She was freshly graduated and was in Gotham on a mission from the Order of the Phoenix, searching for something there that might be able to help them win the war against Voldemort, but instead she found the most interesting man she had met in a long, long time. She spent the evening of a Gala observing the man from across the room, changing his demeanor, voice, and speech pattern as he went from person to person. He finally turned his attention to her towards the end of the night, asking her to dance, as he had noticed her watching him throughout the night. Marlene would have normally declined this offer, but Mary had recently called off their relationship while the war raged on, and she could her Dorcas in her head saying to go for it. As the two danced around the room, their conversation flowed freely, both intrigued by the other. They remained on the floor for the remaining few songs, neither wanting to leave the other just yet. Before either knew what was happening, Bruce was opening the door to his car for Marlene and the two were off to his home. Neither were looking for a relationship, both just expecting to have a good night with an interesting person and that being the end of it. But alas, Marlene should have known to look at the stars that night, something she told herself over and over again as she cried in Dorcas’s bathroom, a muggle pregnancy test in one hand and a scroll of a pregnancy spell in the other, both positive.
Marlene knew that she could not keep this to herself, as a pregnancy would prohibit her from fighting in its later stages. The night she told the order about her pregnancy was a night of both celebration and anger. Sirius and Lily were the most excited, thrilled for their best friend to be having a bundle of joy. Mary on the other hand had fled the room quickly. Telling the father was a different story entirely, with Bruce asking her if that meant she wanted to move in and if not, how much she wanted him in the baby’s life, if at all, or if she just wanted his money. She told him that he could see the baby whenever he wanted, and that she needed to tell him something else, promptly telling him that she was a witch and that the baby was likely to have magic as well. His questioned stopped at this and he let her tell him what she thought was important, not telling him of the war, fearful that he would ask to keep the baby to himself if he knew.
Her pregnancy went by faster than she wanted, and before she knew if, Madam Pomphrey, Dorcas, a barely pregnant Lily, and very pregnant Sirius were gathered around her bed at Dorcas’s house. Her baby girl was born on the night of October 31st, a fierce storm raining down on the house as she entered the world. Her baby was born silent, blinking up at her mother upon being placed on her chest. Blue eyes filled with tears stared at Marlene, a quivering lip not yet making noise. The baby’s father’s black hair laid plastered to her head.
“Rosemary, her name’s Rosemary,” the new mother said with a tired smile on her face as she looked at her smiling friends.
Rosemary spent the first year of her life, surrounded by love. Her birth was quickly followed by Remus and Sirius’s twin boys, their existence being able due to a potion made by Lily, who brought her and James’s baby into the world that following summer. Rosemary’s birthday was held before a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, the Potter’s with baby Harry, Remus and Sirius with their almost one-year-olds, Caelum and Teddy, Andromeda and Ted Tonks with a hyper Nymphadora Tonks, and a pregnant Molly and Arthur Weasley with a ten-year-old Bill, the three-year-olds Fred and George, a baby Ron, a five-year-old Percy, and an eight-year-old Charlie who seemed very fascinated with baby Rosemary and the dragon stuffed animal in her arms. An hour into the party, a flustered Albus Dumbledore rushed through the Floo, saying that the children needed to go into the other room and that the meeting needed to begin now.
Molly quickly ushered the children that could walk into the other room, picking up Harry as she told Bill to do the same to Ron, Caelum and Teddy who were very close to tipping over were grabbed by the hands by Percy and Nymphadora, and Rosemary and her dragon were moved by Charlie. The remaining members arrived quickly after the children left the room, the conversation turned to shouts once Albus told them of the prophecy. The room the children were in was quickly muffled and wands were confiscated.
It was this night that the prophecy was told, it being explained that the likelihood that it was about little Rosemary was high. The meeting ran late, the children having to be carried home, the McKinnon’s bags being packed quickly and a dragon stuffed animal being accidentally left in the possession of a sleeping Weasley. They fled into the night, joining the remaining McKinnon’s at an old family cabin. The next year was one of worry, the baby Rose going months without feeling sunlight on her face.
All of their worry and all of their attempts at hiding came to an end on Rosemary’s second birthday. The McKinnon family had dressed in costumes this year, trying to forget the war and simply celebrate the little girl’s family. The war ended that night. The McKinnon family line almost ended that night. Albus was the first to arrive at the scene, taking the once again silent girl from the rumble, she blinked sleepily up at him as he picked her up, fleeing the country for the next few hours and leaving the girl on the steps of Wayne Manor, a blanket around her shoulders and a letter next to her shivering form. He watched her from the driveway, staring at her sleeping form under the lights of the large Manor.
“Good luck little Rose,” he whispered into the quiet. He turned and fled the scene after that, quickly returning to the rejoicing England.
The little girl slept on, blood trickling down her check from the fresh scar across her eye. Soon enough, Alfred Pennyworth would take a step outside to retrieve the paper and he would drop his teacup in shock at the sight of the little girl he was only able to see one time since she had been born. She would be quickly carried inside, a tired Bruce arriving home from a night of patrol only to be meet with his bleeding daughter. She would spend the next few days quiet as a mouse and being poked and prodded at by doctors to make sure her scar was not infected and that she was just choosing to be silent. She wouldn’t know as another doctor gasped in shock at her near glowing eye that all around a country that she was no longer in, people were cheering and drinking to the name “Rose McKinnon – The Girl Who Lived!”