Percy Weasley stood with one hand placed firmly on his hip and the other shading his beady brown eyes from the incinerating rays of summer sunlight, inspecting the wrought iron fence around his brand new swimming pool.
"We checked and rechecked, love. It's all up to code." His wife, Audrey, shook with laughter as she brought out a glass of lemonade for him.
"Yes, yes, but regulations and codes doesn't mean it's as safe as it could be! We've got the new baby to worry about!" He bent to peer at latch, jiggling it repeatedly.
"It's baby proof, I promise. Teddy and Victoire aren't worried and it's their own child!" She teased him.
"I suppose you're right." He sighed, jiggling the latch once more for good measure.
"The whole family will be here any minute. Let's go inside." Audrey gently tugged him away.
Inside the home, Molly and Lucy were already clad in their swimsuits. Molly was puffing on an oversized inflatable giraffe as Lucy was squeezing air out, laughing hysterically at Molly's very aggravated face.
"Girls. You know you should be doing that outside." Percy scolded them. Audrey winked at the girls who continued blowing up and deflating the giraffe, regardless of what their father had to say. His scoldings never managed to hold any water anyway. Lucy just had to pull her sweet little baby face and all was forgotten.
"We didn't want to miss Lily! We haven't seen her in ages!" Lucy whined, channeling the face that always seemed to get her out of trouble. In actuality the girls had seen Lily just last week on the train home from Hogwarts.
Percy nodded absently at Lucy's protest. "Lily, right. Lily." He followed his wife to the kitchen, tittering nervously as she lazed across the kitchen preparing the trays of food for the party. He could hear Lily's voice fill the hall and knew that the Potters must be the first to arrive. Audrey pointed him out the kitchen with her relaxed smile.
The hallway was filling with all of Percy's closest family members (Aunt Muriel would never be invited to these events after last time). Ginny squeezed by Molly, Lily, and Lucy who were squealing loudly and hugging each other. Percy smiled at the lopsided grin on her face and prepared for the suffocating embrace she tended to dish out. As the air pushed from his lungs and she crushed his ribcage, he laughed aloud.
"Gin! You're just as bad as the girls! I saw you last week!" Percy teased his baby sister as the air refilled his lungs.
"It's been a week too long!" She shook her head, a curtain of red dancing across his fair face.
George and Angelina crashed out of the fireplace and joined the family in the hall. Percy lit up at the sight of his secretly favorite nephew. He thought about Audrey only for a moment, insisting that it was obvious that Freddie was his favorite. He pushed the thought aside and performed the intricate secret handshake that he and Freddie had devised before the now seventh year had even started Hogwarts. A fist bump, a hand slap, a finger wiggle, two more fist bumps, a hand slap above their heads, one at chest level, one at hip level, followed by one last fist bump, and a very long finger wiggle.
"Uncle Percy! I'm dying to see the new pool!" Freddie insisted peering over his shoulder to the back door. Molly and Arthur had just peeked around the corner and he was dying to avoid his parents at the moment, who were nagging him about coming to visit them! It had been quite some time since he'd last been to the Burrow.
"Well, let's go see it!" Percy led the way out to the pool, forgetting his duty to greet the rest of the family. Molly and Lucy could manage it, no doubt.
Freddie inspected the new swimming pool, dipping a toe into the crisp water that counterbalanced the sweltering summer heat.
"This is going to be awesome, Uncle Percy!" Freddie exclaimed as he dipped a toe in again. Percy faintly registered the sound of his enormous family joining him by the pool. Teddy and Victoire were holding their squirmy little newborn, swaddled in a blanket decorated with blue and pink lobsters.
"Oh! Let me hold the little one!" Percy exclaimed at the sight of the couple. He held the darling baby, today with a head full of pink hair and shimmering green eyes. The baby cooed with excitement at the sight of Uncle Percy and in a flash had flaming red hair and matching eyes.
"So much skill!" Percy chirped in excitement.
"We reckon Sam will be the next transfiguration professor once old McGonagall finally retires!" Charlie chimed in, patting Teddy on the back.
A flash of red swim trunks followed by a blur of green swim trunks whirred by Percy, baby Sam, Charlie, and Teddy. With a thundering 'whoop,' James plunked into the pool as a cannon ball, followed by his brother, Albus. The water splashed Percy and baby Sam right in the face. The boys stopped from splashing and thrashing to admire their damage. Percy pulled the water slowly off his face using both hands and the boys froze. Were they going to get chewed out? Would he tell their mother (arguably much worse)? Percy paced to the edge of the pool, near where the boys had leaped heroically, and whipped out a pool noodle. The boys glanced at one another in fear. Maybe it was some new form of flogging? Percy dipped the noodle into the water and blew into the noodle with all his might, forming a spout that saturated the already soaked boys. They cheered and laughed, impressed that Uncle Percy was being so cool about it even though they weren't Freddie.
"Who let the kids loose?" Ron complained loudly at the squirting water.
Freddie immediately joined the boys in the pool. The sun warmed the water to the perfect temperature of refreshing but comfortable. It was somewhere between Arctic tundra and the scalding bubble bath water in the Prefects Bathroom.
Audrey, with a twitch of a smile and her glimmering eyes, redirected Percy to cooking the main course for the day, chicken. Being of muggle background, she was a fan of cookouts with smoked chicken, even though it was a difficult and time consuming task. Not that she had to worry about that! She fully intended to spend the day kissing baby Sam's peachy cheeks and gossiping with her dearest friend, Angelina. Audrey loosely tied the apron around his waist, reading 'Kiss the Cook' aloud from the front of it before planting a kiss on him. He sighed contentedly.
The smoker was billowing far too much white smoke which meant he needed to rearrange the coals and reduce the temperature. In the process of doing just that with a mouthful of lemonade, he was pegged in the back of the head with an orange and green beach ball. Percy slowly turned around, eyeing the guilty faces of all his nephews. He was surprised to see that of all the frozen faces of terror, Freddie's was the guiltiest! His favorite of all of them! He pulled his best scolding face but began laughing so hard that he spewed his lemonade all over Ginny, who was disgusted, to put it mildly.
"Honestly, Percy, you're just as bad as these teenagers!" She scolded him. The boys in the pool roared with laughter and Percy sent them a wink, which made them double over, clutching their sides to contain their giggles.
In that very moment, a bobbing head of platinum popped outside the back door.
"SCORP!" Albus hollered, waving his hands to and fro vigorously like a loon.
Scorpius sent a shy, small wave in his direction.
Rose slipped down onto the edge of the pool to be sure she could tease her cousin, Albus, and his best friend.
Scorpius joined the other kids in the pool, loudly complaining how boring the last Ministry function was. Percy rolled his eyes slightly. He liked the boy well enough, but he didn't have a clue how lucky he was to be so well connected. What Percy wouldn't give for those same burdens. What he didn't give.
James teased Albus and Scorpius as they caught up on each other's lives and consoled one another on the injustices they'd experienced (Fortescue's ice cream shop wouldn't restock the caramel and banana flavor that they'd grown to love, despite blatant bribery). "Go buy your cute little cottage now, you old married couple!"
Albus and Scorpius blushed bright red and Percy thought for a moment that there must be some truth in James' statement. He smiled to himself. They were good kids.
On the other side of the pool, where Hugo, Molly, Lily, and Lucy were, they had begun what appeared to be a watermelon eating contest. He could hear Molly loudly repeat to Hugo "SEEDS AND ALL." He knew she'd cheat because she hated the seeds.
He rotated the chicken, watching the kids eat the watermelon. Despite being maybe half the weight of the almost grown girls, Hugo was stealing the show. The girls were still struggling with their first watermelon, full and holding their bloated bellies in anguish, when Hugo moved on to his next watermelon with the same energy and enthusiasm as the first one. Teeny, tiny Hugo won by a landslide.
Percy chuckled to himself as he cut into a piece of chicken, examining the pink ring around it indicating it had been smoked well. The chicken was thoroughly cooked so he plucked off the pieces and let it rest for a minute. Percy's mouth watered at the thought of how juicy the chicken would be then!
Audrey called everyone to the buffet style table she put together and told them to dig in. The teenagers loaded an absurd amount of food on their plate, piling it high to the sky, but Percy knew from experience they would eat every last bite.
Dinner had minimal complications, besides Lucy spilling her drink on Molly who was prepared to start a food fight, but thankfully their mother controlled that situation. With bites of cheesecake expanding their bellies into discomfort, everyone returned to the pool and lounge chairs, waiting for digestion to hurry up.
Hermione and Ginny diluted the food with some funny smelling 'juice' they insisted was delicious. Full of hiccups and giggles, the women whispered conspiratorially, pausing and glaring suspiciously if anyone came too close to them. Percy overheard the words "prank" and "Harry and Ron" and debated heavily whether he should intervene and risk falling victim himself or just wait and see what they were going to do. Harry and Ron stood by the pool, chatting about a dark wizard from work when Hermione and Ginny sprang into action. They jumped up from their chairs and sprinted at full speed to Harry and Ron, shouting some sort of awful battle cry on their way. Harry and Ron stepped apart from each other and turned to look for the source of the noise, causing the women to fly into the pool, completely missing their target and completely clothed.
"Look, Harry, I'm a mermaid!" Ginny giggled, wiggling her feet together like a fin.
Lucy, Rose, Lily, Molly, and Dominique were all sprawled in lounge chairs, flipping side to side despite the minimal sun still out. They were talking about all the Hogwarts gossip that Dominique had missed out on, having already graduated and started an internship at St. Mungo's. Percy was quite proud of Dominique and all her hard work. While all her friends were going to Hogsmeade every weekend and having their share of butterbeer, Dom camped out in the library until she was certain she'd excel at whatever upcoming exam she'd have next.
Percy sat down with his brother, Charlie, and Teddy who was holding Baby Sam. Baby Sam was staring at Charlie's ice cream with great interest and was reaching with those tiny little hands for it.
"Sammy's never had ice cream before. Go ahead, let's see how it fairs!" Teddy decided. Baby Sam took a ginormous bite, loved it for about half a second, then began crying.
"Brain freeze!" Charlie laughed. Baby Sam settled down when Teddy rubbed the now bright electric blue hair in a comforting motion, cooing at the baby.
The sun began to fade into the horizon, turning the sky dazzling shades of gold and pink. Percy glanced around at his family and felt so overwhelmingly content with his life. This was how summer should feel.
A/N: thank you Hayden for always helping me with names!