Chapter 1: The red-tailed hawk and the frying pan
"Bloody hell, Albus Potter, you absolute prat."
"You know, speaking to people who aren't there is a sign of batshit crazy," a voice behind Lucy said conversationally. She turned around sheepishly to face her cousin James, who snatched the crumpled letter out of her hands and began to read out loud.
" 'Dearest, charmingest, least irritating cousin of mine – hope all is well at the Burrow. I'm very sad to be missing all the shenanigans the lot of you must be getting up to. I hope Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary was great and James and Fred didn't do anything too horrendous to Molly…' That's unfair," interjected James. "We only changed the scent of her shampoo to hippogriff and locked her date in the bathroom." He resumed reading the letter. " 'I mainly wanted to write to rub in your face that I know a big FAT secret that's going to affect you all. Don't worry, I won't tell. Lots of love, Al.' Blimey, he owled all the way from America just to do that? Absolute prat, I agree with you."
Lucy nodded vigorously. "And he sent that, which I'm pretty sure wants to eat Mr. Steggles." She was pointing at the large beady-eyed red-tailed hawk sitting grandly on the owl perch by the sink. It was eying the Weasley's ageing and diminutive pygmy owl with interest. Mr. Steggles cowered.
"Ah well," James said, mock-heavily. "He's not long for this world, is he, Mr. Steggles? Just one long journey and a heavy letter away from ploncking straight into the North-" He was interrupted by a strong biff to the back of the head by his cousin Roxy, who had just entered the kitchen. "Don't talk about Steggles that way," she admonished, crossing the room and pulling him out of beak's reach from the hawk. James rubbed his head, glaring. Roxy had a strong arm and a non-discriminatory use of her talents.
Lucy snatched her letter back and re-read it, tuning out the squabbling of her cousins. Every time Al left for the Southwestern Institute of Wizarding and Shamanic Studies, the boarding school he attended in New Mexico, he loved to owl back with exotic birds of prey, bragging about his adventures (which mainly involved things like eating a scorpion for a dare). Al had chosen to transfer overseas for school after second year rather than staying at Hogwarts, a decision that was becoming more and more common among wizarding children, especially those with an affluent family and a sense of adventure, like Albus. Dominique, on the other hand, had spent her first several years at Beauxbatons like her mother before transferring to Hogwarts. Roxy still liked to blame the 'new girl syndrome' for Dominique's popularity and allure for the male sex, resolutely choosing to ignore their cousin's lethal veela good looks. Everyone else had stuck with Hogwarts except for Hugo, who went to the Salem Witches' Institute. This had inevitably led to many cruel jokes from James and Fred about him being a witch, despite the school being co-ed. But Al had been overseas for a month already, unlike the rest of the Potter-Weasley clan, who were cooped up in the Burrow together for Molly and Arthur's anniversary. How had he managed to find out a secret that the rest of them didn't know? Bizarre.
Lucy pulled out of her reverie just in time to see Roxy brandishing a pan dangerously near to James' head, who was shouting "Well I'll tell Aunt Angelina about you snogging Professor Leonard!"
"Oh please, he was a teaching assistant. He still had spots, for christ's sake," Roxy retorted, but she had paled at the mention of her mother and paused in her pursuit with the frying pan.
Lucy decided not to get involved, instead grabbing some biscuits and her copy of North and South off the kitchen counter and heading up to the room she shared with her sister Molly, desperately hoping it would be unoccupied. Normally she loved to involve herself in James and Roxy's petty fights. The two were endlessly entertaining when they tried to kill each other, and they were, alongside Albus, her favorite of her cousins.
She'd been out of sorts all day, however. It'd started with the slew of mail that had arrived that morning – seven matching brown owls with seven Hogwarts letters, one each for Lucy, Roxy, James, Rose, Louis, Lily, and Dominique. All the letters gave the typical lists of new textbooks, while James' revealed he'd also been made Gryffindor quidditch captain (unsurprising, as he'd inherited his namesake's skills at chasing). Rose and Roxy's letters had also been a bit heavier, delivering shining new prefects badges. Rose looked extremely pleased, while Roxy was mainly shocked. A girl who had been regularly caught out of bed after hours with 7th year quidditch captains wasn't normally prefect material. Lucy hadn't been surprised though – Roxy was very clever and had a commanding presence, which Flitwick must've envisaged putting to the good of controlling first years, rather than the morally ambiguous ways Roxy normally used it.
Her own letter had been empty of any badges, which had given her only a sense of relief. She wasn't the cleverest Hufflepuff in her year, and she'd been caught in the forbidden forest too many times to be held as a paragon of rule-abiding. It had, however, hurt to see the severe disappointment in her father's eyes. She also thought his eyeballs would about burst out his head when her uncle George had laughingly clapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed "who'duh thunk it, Perce, my kid a prefect and you get the rule breaker! I'm a little disappointed, Rox, but at least Fred wasn't head boy by a long shot." George then swept the laughing Roxy up into a hug, while Lucy and her father had stood awkwardly aside. Percy avoided Lucy's eyes, instead intently watching his elder daughter Molly as she passed on her head girl knowledge to Rose, who listened keenly to the best places to catch third years out of bed. Lucy rolled her eyes and crossed the kitchen to join Fred and James, who clapped her on the back and congratulated her on joining the lay-folk. "To the rule breakers! The differently minded! The unusually-talented! The atypically-witted! We may not have many O.W.L.S but we have heart! We have gumption! Sass! God damn it, we got real grit!" James had inexplicably slipped into a Texan accent. Lucy smiled at her cousins. She'd rather end up like James and Fred than her uptight sister any day. Then James had over-gesticulated and accidentally punched Fred in the eye, and Lucy deemed it time to escape. But her father's expression as she left the room had weighed a bit on her all day.
Just as the unpleasant thought of parental expectations revisited her, Lucy heard the last thing she wanted to hear. Creeping past her parent's room she head her name, and paused against her better judgement.
"But Audrey, she just has no direction!" Her father's voice was agitated, opposite to the curt tone he used in any other social interaction. "Come on Perce, she's sixteen. You need to stop comparing her to Molly. Or to your siblings' kids, for that matter." Her mother sounded tired.
"But just look at Molly! Perfect grades, perfect ministry career, probably going to marry that Davies boy, very good family, and smart – where did we go wrong with Lucy?" Percy paused only to draw breath, cutting across his wife to continue, "and how on earth did Ron and George end up with prefects? They were nightmares at school!"
"PERCY. LISTEN." Audrey sounded frustrated now. "Stop. We are not always who we were at school. And our children are not us."
Her father sounded deflated now. "I know. I just don't know what to do with her."
At last Lucy shook herself and continued up the stairs, teeth clenched. She and her father had never been that close. It was a blessing and a curse, having such a large family. She was spoilt for choices when it came to father figures, and she had excellent relationships with all her uncles. But somewhere along the way her relationship with her own dad had fallen by the wayside.
She violently kicked her way into her shared bedroom, where Molly looked up grumpily from painting her nails. "What's eating you?" she asked, but Lucy just flopped on her bed and buried her head in a pillow. Her perfect sister, head girl, quidditch captain, and now future perfect bride and ministry department head, was absolutely the last person she wanted to talk to. Instead she busied herself with opening North and South and tucking into her stolen biscuits. Chocolate and a dreamy Victorian love interest were definitely enough to set her right.