Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. I am not Leslie Charteris. I do not own The Saint.
Note: This chapter is another dose of the aftermath of Ron Weasley's disastrous trip to Hogwarts of September the first, 1991. This universe is an alternate one which was impacted by The Saint and in which some characters and situations differ considerably from canon. In this universe James Potter married a grand-daughter of Simon Templar, and Sophie Theresa Potter is known as 'The-Girl-Who-Lived'. This piece is from Ron's point of view and is supplemental to my 'Saint Potter' story.
Further Note: As a reminder, amongst the differences from canon of this universe, as of 1991 Ron's mother, Molly Weasley, is the one with a ministry job, whilst Ron's father, Arthur Weasley, stays at home looking after the house and family (and occasionally fiddling with muggle devices he doesn't understand). Ron's oldest brother, Bill, shows up in this chapter; in this universe at the time that this chapter takes place Bill's a trainee auror.
Ron's mother, when she got home, was quite cross. What Ron hadn't been expecting though was that apparently she was a lot crosser with her own brother, Ron's uncle, Fabian, than she was with Ron. She gave Ron that look she could do, saying in a disappointed tone of voice "…Oh, Ronald – and after all the trouble your father and I went through filling in forms so you could take Scabbers to school with you…" (which was probably much worse than if she had shouted anything) and then proceeded to raise Uncle Fabian on the floo and to cut loose on him.
Ron didn't understand that. Uncle Fabian hadn't been on board the Express (so far as he knew) or tried to jinx The-Girl-Who-Lived (possibly making her go evil). That had been Ron. Ron couldn't understand why his mum was so cross at Uncle Fabian about it.
Right now, mum was on the living room floor, kneeling in front of the fireplace, with her head in the flames yelling at Uncle Fabian about 'putting stupid ideas in the childrens' heads'. And Ron's dad was standing next to her, looking very solemn and occasionally shaking his head, or murmuring some detail to mum that set her off on a fresh volley of shouting.
Ron wished his mum was shouting at him, not at Uncle Fabian.
And into the middle of this scene of domestic misery and woe (Ginny of course was off in her room, scribbling something no doubt and keeping well out of the way) Ron's oldest brother, Bill, suddenly walked in, kitbag slung swinging over one shoulder and whistling. He abruptly stopped the whistling, on seeing that something was clearly going on.
"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?" Bill asked Ron, looking surprised.
By the look of it, Bill must have got one of those unexpected releases from the auror training program, which occasionally came up.
"Don't ask." Ron said gloomily.
"Bill. This is a surprise." dad turned to Bill. "A rather nice one, and much more pleasant than Ron's."
"Dad. What is my youngest brother doing home?" Bill frowned.
"I told the hat I wanted to go home." Ron interrupted, forestalling his father. "I had a really bad journey, and things were only going to get worse and I wasn't going to stay at Hogwarts and be laughed at for the next seven years."
"What did you do? Hex the Minister?" Bill looked severely at Ron.
"Worse." Ron shook his head, going red. "I tried to hex The-Girl-Who-Lived. And then she ended up being put in Slytherin, and that could be all my fault, because of what I did."
Bill looked a mix between disbelieving and annoyed and amused – although not as stern as he had a moment earlier.
"I'll take it you had sufficient brains that at least you didn't know who she was beforehand when you tried to hex her?" Bill said.
Ron shook his head firmly.
"No. She was in disguise. Not with the unicorn or anything like that."
"Ron." Bill sighed. "I've told you more than a dozen times that whatever Sophie Potter looked like, it probably wasn't going to be like almost any of the pictures in the books. She's been in hiding for ten years – so how could the people who write or draw the pictures in those books know what she looked like?"
"Bill. This is an unexpected surprise." Ron's mother had at some point finished her floo call to Uncle Fabian, risen from the hearth and dusted off her knees, and came forward now, blushing with pleasure. "If we'd known to expect you…" She enfolded him in a maternal embrace, almost crushing him, and kissed him on the cheek, causing him to go red for a moment.
Bill gently disengaged himself and offered an explanation:
"We were due to have overnight training with auror Fairy – maybe even her infamous abandoned-in-the-middle-of-the-Black-Forest exercise – but something came up and she's been assigned to a case, so they sent us all home, for twenty-four hours' leave, whilst they re-timetable everything." Bill said. He dumped his kitbag on the floor and settled himself into a chair. "Apparently there's been a nice juicy murder of some sort in a muggle nightclub owned by a wizard, and Fairy's been handed responsibility for the investigation. Put on it by the head of Magical law Enforcement herself, no less!"
"Fairy?" Ron's father frowned. "The name seems familiar for some reason? Ah! Is she, err, the…" he trailed off and the frown deepened.
"The crazy one?" Bill chuckled. "She says we're all crazy, wanting to be in the aurors, and to have to deal not just with dark wizards but with bureaucrats and paperwork. But yes, she is a bit 'eccentric'."
"Right, well: I had been adapting the menu for tonight anyway, since Ron is joining us. It won't be too difficult to expand it again, with you here too." Ron's father said.
To Ron's relief, his oldest brother's unexpected arrival back home took almost all further immediate attention off of Ron, as his parents fussed around proudly over Bill instead. Ron wasn't an idiot – he could see that once Bill's leave was over that Ron would be back firmly at the centre of attention in the Weasley family home, with no place to hide – but he hoped that somehow things would get less bad than they would otherwise have been, with the day or so's delay. And with the pressure temporarily off him, Ron could start to work out how things could have gone so horribly wrong.
It was all Neville Longbottom's fault, Ron concluded. He couldn't even begin to understand how Neville had arranged it, or even why he might have done it other than just because he was a budding-evil-wizard-in-the-making, but it was all Neville Longbottom's fault; well apart from the bit where Neville had so effortlessly pushed Ron's buttons, Ron thought a bit uneasily. Ron had made it easy for Longbottom by letting himself get provoked into fights so quickly. Even assuming Neville Longbottom had devised the sort of fiendishly complicated plan appropriate to the son of two werewolves (and Uncle Fabian was always telling Ron how devious werewolves were), Ron had to a considerable extent contributed to his own downfall, first of all by attacking Draco Malfoy like that, and then by trying to jinx a girl simply on the basis that he'd seen her earlier with Longbottom.
Ron was clearly going to have to try to remember to think first in future, before rushing into fights, because bad sorts like Longbottom would otherwise always be bound to try to take advantage of it for their own ends.
Ron just hoped that The-Girl-Who-Lived (if she hadn't gone evil already) would be able to cope with Longbottom without Ron there at Hogwarts to help her…
Author Notes: (subject to update depending on early reviews)
Hogwarts in the Saint Potter universe adheres to a line of (usually) only owls, toads and cats are permitted as pets at the school. Extensive paperwork must be filled in to apply for permission for a pupil to take any other kind of pet to Hogwarts (although probably having a parent in the Ministry of Magic helps smoothe the progression of such forms through the system).
As mentioned elsewhere, Ron's been brought up for years hearing stories from Uncle Fabian about how evil werewolves like Frank and Alice Longbottom who killed Gideon Prewett (Fabian's brother) are/were...
'Auror Fairy' is the same auror that Sophie and her grandfather bumped into on the platform in the 'Before the Train' chapter of the main story.
Although Ron finishes the chapter with some rather wild surmises, in amongst them (likely prompted by guilt/shame over trying to attack The-Girl-Who-Lived) he does resolve to try not to rush into fights in future...