The next few days went by predictably. James was caught trying to sneak an ugly green pulsing thing into William's soup, while Albus successfully pranked William into thinking he was about to be squeezed into a small box and used for spider's legs in a gruesome potion that was to be fed to his parents. It was not funny. They were both punished. James and Albus were both to wash and dry all the cups in Augusta's Queen's tea set collection. We obviously took permission from Augusta before we set the punishment though. She did so with a frown and pursed lips but even she was quite keen to watch them suffer for doing that to her son.
The rest of the Weasley's arrived. Ron didn't engage with them too much. Which was only to be expected. Hermione, however, was most suited of all of them to living with muggles, being brought up by them, and was always keen to talk muggle with them. Lily and Rose were together most of the time. They understood each other and were never the one's to cause mischief. It was always Rose that made the decisions in between the two as she was older. But that never meant she dominated over Lily. No, I just thought that it was in her nature as she was much more like Hermione than Ron.
With them came Teddy who politely greeted them and tried to act as gentlemanly as possible but still couldn't help siding with James and Albus when they were planning their misendeavors with William. I watched him closely over those two days simply because I knew him. Fortunately for him though, he kept his behaviour up to scratch and I'd only ever had to go as far as giving him a warning glare.
The party, however, was a slightly worrying event looming over the horizon for Ginny and Ron. They'd never had to engage with muggles before and weren't sure exactly how to act. Hermione was, obviously, used to it. I'd been brought up by the Dursley's so I was pretty sure what I was suppose to and not suppose to do even if I hadn't put those rules to practice since my days living with them. The kids were more excited than apprehensive about the whole affair. Like Ginny and Ron, the children too had never had to be around with muggles but that didn't seem to matter to them.
The day of the party came and Ginny, out of nerves or otherwise, had got all our outfits ready the night before. It was very unusual for Ginny to be this Hermione-ish and I thought she was a lot more worried about this than I'd originally thought. Ginny and Hermione both wore similar dresses. They wore slim cocktail dresses layered with silk underneath and a see-through matching-in-colour expensive material on top. I wondered where they got these dresses from and I remembered when Ginny came to me with a plea for money so that her and Hermione could go and buy some appropriate outfits for everyone to wear in the unexpected party. I gathered from this that Hermione had gone to ask Ron for money as well. I didn't see the point in asking us though. Me and Ron weren't the only one's with money. Hermione and Ginny were both hard-working and independent women who earned enough money to keep the family going on their own without our help.
By the time everyone came back down, we all looked extremely posh. We boys wore the same-looking suits that only varied in size and colour. Lily and Rose were both dressed in pretty-in-pink pale dresses that made them look (in Hermione's words) 'incredibly adorable'. Augusta was dressed in a frilly sort of dress that Aunt Petunia would have worn at Uncle Vernon's work parties. She reminded of me of her so much at times. This was one of those times.
We all trundled downstairs into the garden where all the tables and chairs were set and a long table was set at the side for food. Slowly, the seconds ticked by getting closer and closer to 4. Augusta ran around in a panicked state trying to keep 3 dishes cooking as well as organise plates, cutlery and all the rest of the dinner things at the same time. Hermione took pity on her and went to help as soon as she was ready. Ginny didn't know as much about cooking and wasn't sure she was able to stand Augusta, much less that Augusta would let her anywhere near the food. Augusta trusted Hermione much more than she did Ginny. So Ginny stayed in the garden sorting out the tables and chairs and decorating the place suitable for the guests while William was hiding out in Dudley's room for reason's beyond me. Ron, Teddy and I just sat in the corner of the garden watching over the kids to make sure they didn't mess anything up, our conversation thin and lacking.
'Where did Hermione learn to make muggle food like that?' Ron murmured quietly, watching Hermione and Augusta bustling about in the kitchen.
'Don't you eat Hermione's food every day?' I asked in return with a slight laugh.
'Yeah, well, it's nearly always the recipes that she'd learnt from Mum. Never muggle food though.'
'I swear I came your's once and ate muggle food,' Teddy said frowning.
'Nah, I can't remember,' Ron said, looking back at us. I shrugged in reply. Silence took us again. Looking around, I noticed something.
'Hey, where are James and Albus?'
'I dunno. I thought they were inside.' Teddy said, nodding back to the house.
'Do you think maybe we should go back and see what they're up to?' The reasons for this needed no explanation.
'Nah, they're coming out now,' Ron replied watching the door open with James and Albus filing out looking bored.
'Where were you two?' I asked sternly as they approached us.
'Exploring,' James answered. The answer would've made me suspicious but the tone and the expression made me think that it was nothing to worry about because they hadn't seem to have found anything interesting. It being the Dursley's house, I wasn't particularly surprised.
'Dad, was it always this boring with the Dursley's?' Albus asked in a whiney tone, taking a seat by Teddy.
'You've been coming here nearly every single year, I would've thought you'd known that by now,' I replied with a slight smile.
'No, I mean when you lived with Uncle Dudley's parents. You did when you were a kid, didn't you?' His question took me by surprise. He'd never asked me about my childhood. The only reason he knew about where I lived was because of how many times we'd talked over it with them listening in.
'Well, yes. But only for the first few years. After I started going to Hogwarts, things got a little more interesting.' I said this was a smile as I remembered my Hogwarts letter arriving, the start of a whole and untold adventure. All these memories made me chuckle inwardly as I remembered the indignancy of the Dursley's. I hadn't meant to show such a reaction because I knew it was a spark of conversation for Albus, James.
'Why, what happened?' Albus prompted, a look of expectancy on his face. He knew vague bits of information about my time as a teenager, and knew that it had been nothing like anyone else's.
'Umm, well, nothing really, just the usual, I come home every summer and we got visitors and it all snowballed.' Indeed we had had a number of visitors each summer mostly all visiting for some reason linked with me, the exception of course being Marge.
'Aww, Dad, don't be like that. Tell,' Albus started pleaded. I really didn't want to have to recount each of summer's in turn to them all because for one thing, I knew now wasn't the time as we were in the middle of preparing for guests. Another reason was that I knew some parts were a bit too complicated for them to understand in the space of a few minutes.
'I'll tell you what happened,' Ron interrupted in an unusually low voice as he shifted heavily to face them, ready to tell the story. Albus and James both sensed that it was now Ron they should focus on as I wasn't prepared to talk.
'First summer before Harry actually got to go to school, they got tracked down in the middle of the sea by Hagrid. Second summer, a house-elf nearly got Harry expelled. Third summer, Harry's uncle's sister came to visit and then got blown up. Fourth summer, we all got trapped in the Dursley's chimney before we nearly died at a Quidditch match. Fifth summer Harry and Dudley both got visited by Dementors, then Harry really did get expelled, then un-expelled again. Sixth summer Dumbledore dropped by, and seventh summer, Harry didn't go back to school at all… 'til about the end of the school year that is.'
Ron had said all this while ticking each year off with his fingers and staring upwards into his head as though trying to remember it all in order. A slightly shocked silence left in his speech's wake. Albus and James were both either staring at Ron or me, looking as though it had to be a little exaggerated. They obviously hadn't been expecting that much. I knew that they knew the major points of what had happened to me during school, but I guess they never really bothered asking about the bits in between. Teddy seemed to have been going through it all with Ron but was opening his mouth to ask about the few parts which he hadn't known himself.
'When did you get trapped-' Teddy got cut off by the chirping noise of the doorbell ringing. August ran out looking stricken with still an apron on and a huge spoon that was steadily dripping more and more sauce onto the floor in hand. She didn't stay there for long though. She quickly ran back in, assumedly to let whoever it was in.
I stood up and then looked back at Ron who didn't look inclined to stand but did so grudgingly; being forced to get up after already being sat down for a couple of hours pretending to be working hard every time Hermione poked her head out wasn't easy, after all.
We all stood in a line waiting to welcome the guests once they came through to the back. We heard many thuds and Augusta's fluttery voice promptly followed by a series of unfamiliar voices, one of which was a deep rumbling but not unkind voice, as well as a female voice that sounded simple and humble.
We waited there for them to appear where the first thing they would see was us. After a maybe a minute and a half where we knew Dudley and William had come down to see to the newly arrived guests. Teddy took the last-moment opportunity to turn his normal blonde hair his favourite shade of bright blue with a rebellious pink streak in the middle. I felt like shouting at him. I knew exactly why he had done so, he knew that I wouldn't approve of this and this was why he'd picked now to change his hairstyle. The guests had arrived and now, I could do nothing about it.
Then they finally all came out into our view. We all smiled automatically. Ron's smile was sheepish, his ears had gone pink around the edges. I, unlike Teddy, concentrated on trying to look normal. They were a couple. There was middle-aged, burly looking man, red-faced but with quite a smiley expression, quite a lot older than Dudley, but still strikingly similar. Next to him was obviously his partner, a nice looking woman with short, dark hair and a warm smile. Their eyes fell on me, Teddy and Ron. The man's eyes widened very slightly on seeing Teddy and I knew that Teddy's hair spelled out rebellion but I couldn't tell if his reaction was going to be good or bad. But, for some reason, the woman's eyes were fixed on Ron. Or was it me? Her eyes were on one of us, her smile faltered, her brows furrowed by the slightest amount. Ron ears reddened even more. But before the woman got a chance to explain her sudden change of expression, Teddy's hair quickly caught her attention. Her eyebrows raised and she seemed to smile slightly. I couldn't blame her. What would she see when she looked at him? Probably a deranged and unshaven man that looked barely out his teens, not to mention the multi-coloured hair. In response to her reaction, I gave Teddy a look.
Augusta looked simply horrified. She was lost for words before she remembered that she was the hostess here and that she ought to introduce them. Dudley and William, both behind her, stared at Teddy.
'Er, this is Dudley's cousin, Harry Potter. That is Harry's brother-in-law, Ronald Weasley, and that's Harry's godson, Teddy.' She murmured feebly.
Sorry, I know this chapter is pretty short, but I had this part sitting in my computer for a while now, I'm ashamed to say that for quite a while, I'd simply forgotten about this story. Now that I'm a little more experienced in my writing (because I started writing this before starting the most basic qualification in English that my country offers) and now that I'm a little better read, I feel like this can actually turn into something good.
I decided to upload this despite its length, just to prove that I will be continuing this, and that I've decided to take up this story again, and slowly but surely, I think I'm going to get there.:)
-Da Righter
(sorry, about that ^ I couldn't resist:D)