This is the Third Generation-
The Burrow grew bigger as the Weasley family grew bigger. More rooms were added for third generation of Weasley-Potters. The old house looked even more like shoeboxes stacked on top of eachother then ever, but it was still loved greatly. The paint of it was faded slightly, since people had a hard time scaling the mishapen building. Many people had walked through the building, all of different natures. Now it was us. The Weasley-Potters.
I'm Rose Weasley, daughter of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, older sister of Hugo Weasley, cousin of... well many, and grandaughter of Arthur and Molly Weasley. In two months I'm going into my fourth year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with most of my cousins. Not Victoire, she left last year and moved into an apartment with Teddy in London. I still missed Teddy being at Hogwarts, but he had to leave eventually.
Every Summer we all stay at the Burrow together, a tradition amongst us to remind everyone of family unity. I never get a break from my cousins, but I don't think I'd want to. I hope they share that feeling, but I'm so darn lovable it would be hard not to.
I'm writing everything I can down that I can, normally I read books, but writing one seems fun. In the Burrow I share a room with Lily, who I treat like a little sister. Lily is such an oddball, it's hard to wonder how she can even function at times. If she ever reads that I wrote that I may not make it past the night. Our room is painted a warm red colour, that oddly enough nearly matches our hair colour. Like an odd mixture between the two of them.
This room is at the very top of the house, the renovated attic. Either side of the room has a bed, in between that a chest of drawers that we share. There's one window in the room there, above the drawers, where you can see all of the land around us, where we play each Summer. The roof is awkward, triangular shaped so that we have to be carefully with getting out of bed in the morning. Posters draped Lily's wall, bands she liked mainly, a couple of Quidditch ones. I had mainly photos on mine, one or two Quidditch posters, but it was primarily photos. There was an old rug on top of the wooden floors, a wardrobe, a desk, my piles of books everywhere, Lily's shoes and blankets everywhere.
I was sitting on my bed as I wrote most of this, waiting for dinner. Tonight was the second day back since we got picked up at Kings Cross. People had to make way for the Weasley-Potter family arrival, nearly everyone came to collect us. Except Uncle Charlie, who's coming next week. He's busy in Romania with the dragons.
Granny Molly would cooking dinner with the aid of Young Molly and Dominique, Grandad Arthur was sleeping in his chair while the radio played in the background, Uncle Bill would be reading the paper outside, Aunty Fleur would be telling off Fred and James for one of the many tricks they played on her, Uncle Percy would be talking about his work at the Ministry to Lucy, Lucy would be half asleep, Aunt Audrey would be trying to figure out how to turn on the water in the house, Uncle George would be hiding from Aunt Fleur because it was most likely him who told Fred and James what to do, Aunt Angelina would be gossiping with Mum and Aunt Ginny in the living room, Dad would be asleep on the couch and Uncle Harry would be asleep right beside him.
That's how most days went for the adults. I think out of everyone in the family I knew the most about everyone. It was a tendency of mine.
This morning Roxanne, Fred, James, Hugo, Albus, Lily, Lucy, Louis and I all rode our bikes up to the Scamander house to visit Lorcan and Lysander. They were our closest neighbours and our favourites. After that we all went to have a picnic in the forest near their house. I supplied the cauldron cakes, as per usual. My love affair with cauldron cakes was well-known, Cauldrose cakes was our relationship name and I was honestly preferring it to the others. Mrs Scamander provided us with sandwiches and butterbeers, she treated us like family since she knew our parents so well.
When we eventually got home we all had to change, having gotten our clothes to dirty for around the house wear apparently. Now I was wearing one of James's shirts and jeans, a pair of slippers to match, or rather not match. I always wore James's shirts, they were far to big for me but I just wore them anyway. Albus's weren't as big.
Lily was sitting on the bed beside me, making paper airplanes and shooting them across the room. She had decided to wear a summer dress upon her arrival home. She had her hair in a loose plait that went down one of her shoulders. She was humming as she made the planes. "Rosie?" she asked, squinting her eyes at the plane.
"Yes, Lily?" I asked, staring up at the ceiling. I did that when I wanted to think, the ceiling was always plain so less distractions.
"What's the difference between a novel and any other book?" she asked. She was sitting cross legged on her quilt.
"A story is defined by happy, tragic or some other emotion. A novel is just a series of events." I answered politely. I was used like a google search engine, since I was the only one who could figure out muggle devices in the family. Grandad Arthur had bought the computer, but I remained the only one who could work it.
"Oh," Lily said. There was a two second pause. "Rosie?"
"Yes, Lily?" I asked. Normally her questions came in groups. I turned to look at my cousin. She was shorter then me, but I was tall for my age. Her hair was a darker auburn then mine and she had brown eyes. She tended to be less graceful then I was, but I took ballet when I was younger. Her hair was also shorter then mine. Other then that, we looked quite alike. People thought we were sisters and we acted that way.
"When's dinner?" she asked, throwing the paper airplane around the room. It landed on the wardrobe.
"Dinner! Dinner time, pets!" we heard Aunt Ginny called up the stairs.
"I'd say about now." I answered, throwing my legs off the bed and standing up. The attic had been renovated into two rooms, across from ours was James, Albus and Hugo's bedroom. It was larger then ours, but it accomadated more people. Most nights we would go in there to talk.
James was emerging from the room, yawning. "Hey, Rosebud." he said, putting an arm around my shoulder as I walked into the hall. He was taller then me by a good few inches and his hair was messy constantly.
"Hi, Jamesie." I said, messing up his hair even more. "You better not be sitting beside me for dinner."
"I'm insulted." he said, putting a hand over his heart dramatically. James was always up to something, whether it was here or at Hogwarts. He was also a ladies man of Hogwarts, like Louis. They were both also horrendous at Geography. I wonder if that's somehow connected. "You'd probably eat all my food though, so I guess that's fine."
He always mocked me on my appetite. I was seemingly always hungry, which had been compared to Dad often. I was still skinny though, so I couldn't care less. "Don't joke about that, I probably would." I warned as we walked down the stairs. Everyone was emerging from their bedrooms. Louis was giving Roxanne a piggyback, Victoire was standing at her door with her eyes closed and a second later she apperated (much to the surprise of Teddy beside her), Fred was laughing at something Lucy said and Hugo was talking to Albus.
I unravelled myself from James and sat down on the bannister delicately, then I let go, zooming down it. James quickly followed me. We had been doing this with Louis normally, since we were tall enough to reach it. My jeans were always damaged from bannister surfing.
Mum rolled her eyes when I landed down outside the kitchen. She didn't say anything this time, but probably because everyone was here. I ran to the dining room before anyone else could come in. Hugo sat next to me at the middle of the table, giving me a shy smile. I messed up his hair.
"Hey, H." I said to him, pouring myself some tea. "Good day?"
"You were there." he said, nodding his head. "Can I have some tea?"
"Of course, poppet." I said, pouring him some. We were nearly the only cousins that liked tea. "Sugar?"
"Yes please." he said politely. Hugo was always really shy, but he told me everything. "What's for dinner today?"
Everyone had started sitting down, still in conversation. Granny Molly came in on cue, holding a ham. Aunt Ginny came in holding some of the pots of food, Young Molly was holding two jugs of pumpkin juice and Uncle Bill was carrying the salad at armslength.
"Dinner's ready, sweeties." Granny Molly said, smiling. Her hair had faded grey over the years and her reading glasses were more permanent then they used to be. She was plump as she always was, but that meant she gave the best hugs.
The food was put down in front of us. Uncle Harry and Dad sat in front of us and we had the ham in between us. On my other side was Lucy, who had dip died her hair recently into purple, navy and aqua. It was also cut short. It was nice, suited her better then her long brown hair. You could hardly hear yourself think over the talking of the family. We all nearly didn't fit in the room, bu it was extended around the time Albus and I were born.
"Okay, we have the salad for Roxanne here." Bill said, handing it to his neice. He still had a ponytail, which Aunt Fleur loved but Granny Molly still detested. Every wedding she would cut it off while he slept which brought us all endless amusement. He put the plate in front of Roxanne.
Roxanne was in the year above me and was an on again off again vegetarian. She was really "Meat is murder... when it suits me." She had dark skin and hair, but a Weasley face. She was shorter then me too. The only Weasley girl taller then me was Victoire because she was the oldest. I was five foot seven inches and growing still. Hugo was still smaller then me, but he was only in second year.
Hugo and I immediately jumped for the ham, taking the first several cut slices. It was hard not to notice several cousins roll their eyes at us but smile. Dad was the closest parent, so he would be the one to tell us off, but he had done the same. Uncle Harry seemed quite amused. The whole table was filled with talking, even as we ate.
"How was school this year?" Uncle Harry asked Hugo and I. We turned to eachother and gaped a bit. How do we answer that? Was this a trick question?
"Yeah, it was good-" "Not awful-" Hugo and I said at the same time.
Dad rolled his eyes, but smiled. "They never give us any details. I say you two are as sensible as your mother, but you're probably like George when you get to school." Dad said, pointing his knife between us. "Tell us a story, come on."
"We're not up to anything." I defended, cutting into my ham and pouring gravy over it. "Perfect example, model students."
"What she said." Hugo said, pointing to me as he ate. "Perfectly students, model example." I closed my eyes and sighed. Hugo wasn't good with words. He gulped. "Yeah."
"When we were in your years we got up to more mischief then you could imagine." Uncle Harry said. "When we were in fourth year.. oh what did we do that year, Ron?"
"I'm not giving Rosie any ideas." Ron said, putting his hands in the air. I scowled, eating the amazing dinner.
"I'm insulted." I said.
"You'll get over it." he said, smiling. I then felt something crawl over my foot and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Quickly I bent down and saw the little kitten, half asleep on her foot. "Rosie, what are you doing?"
I brought her up to the table to show Dad. "Poppet apparently felt lonely." I said, smiling to the little kitten and holding her paw.
"No animals at the table." Granny called down. I frowned, putting her back down. "That's better, dearie."
"But what happened this school year?" Aunt Angelina asked. That moment all of us remaining students went silent. The adults obviously noticed our sheepiness, not like we could just brush it off anymore. Albus and I caught eachother's eyes, we both new we couldn't mention the large amount of drama that had happened.
Even Uncle George had stopped eating when they realised we were hiding something.
"I think I left the straightners on." Dominique said, jumping out of her seat. She was quickly followed by Molly who said she would help her turn them off. But they weren't the first cousins to go, in less then a second the match was ignited. "I'm wearing the wrong dress!" Lily proclaimed, standing up and acting surprised. "I can't have this at all." She ran up the stairs. "She'll need help picking out a dress." Hugo said, looking glad that he didn't have to come up with an excuse. "Wait, these aren't my shoes," James said as Fred said, "I haven't made my bed." Both of them left, pushing past Hugo and Lily in haste. "I need to check that my wardrobe's still there." Louis said. "I think I'm allergic to the air down here." Roxanne excused, jumping over Molly's empty seat. "I'm saving my appetite for tomorrow." Lucy lied, patting my back as she passed by. "Early start to my homework." Albus finished.
I blinked and suddenly it was just me with every adult eye on me. They stared at me like I was the gazelle full of secrets, ready to spill the informationious blood once they sunk their curious teeth into me. I was torn, freedom or food? If they don't ask us today it will be tomorrow, surely.
Instead of picking I lifted my plate slowly and backed up the stairs, not looking back... until I went back for the jar of gravy. The adults remained in silence until we left. Everyone was waiting on the top landing, all of them waiting on me.
"Well.. do you think they noticed?" I whispered up to them from the bottom of the staircase.
This one small event can give you an overall sumation of what exactly my family is like. We are like snowflakes because none of us are the same, but that's such a clichéd metaphor. There needs to be more originality in this world. We're all like words in a the English language, we're structured differently and we end up in different places, but we're all rooted the same. Like trees in a forest-Dammit, why didn't I come up with that metaphor first before the crappy language one?
