The Dinner

After the way it started, dinner could have been an incredibly awkward affair.

Thankfully, Danny's dad had the sort of personality that wouldn't let him be discouraged by such trivialities as scaring the guests half to death by forgetting to give them the password to the wards. (Not that being halfway to death was necessarily a bad thing.)

The dinner room felt smaller than it was, it's not made seat ten people. Danny found himself squeezed between one of the twins (he can't honestly claim to know which one, when he tried to ask they switched in the middle of answering him) and Ron. The youngest Weasley son was giving him weirdly contemplative looks.

Danny had a heavy feeling in his stomach that it's because they knew about Amity Park.

It was ridiculous, it was paranoia talking, it was also undeniably possible. It shouldn't have been, but people liked their gossip... Maybe Ron was just mad about the wards. (He didn't seem angry, but Danny hoped that was the case.)

The rest of the family was nice, especially Mr Weasley. It seemed like Danny's dad was actually capable of making normal friends, which was a pleasant surprise.

With any luck, Mr Weasley wouldn't try to kill anyone before the end of the evening. (Danny's luck was usually rotten, so he mentally readied himself for the seemingly nice family to turn murderous. It was a good thing his parents always were prepared for an attack.)

Jazz was somewhat hard to spot in a room full of red-haired people, but she seemed happy enough.

Actually, she seemed to practically giddy. She was sort of jumping in her seat like she wanted to say something but was holding herself back.

Danny gave the twin she was talking to a look. If he was hitting on Jazz... (Danny wished he knew which twin it was he was angry at and which twin he was slowly starting to think of as a friend.)

His parents were easier to immediately locate, what with their bright orange and teal robes and all.

Danny's dad was in a deeply involved conversation with Mr Weasley, who only seemed mildly interested in whatever subject they were discussing. Danny listened in, if only because he was bored.

"We're trying to get the Ministry to use some of the safety features we had on our-"

Realising what his dad was about to say, Danny hurried to interrupt. "Daaaad, you're an Unspeakable. That means you aren't allowed to talk about work."

"Right. Thanks, Dann-o."

Danny gave his mom a meaningful look and she nodded curtly in reply. She'd try to keep tabs on her husband for the rest of the night.

Mr Weasley seemed thankful for an opportunity to change the subject. "So, Danny? I hear you'll be transferring to Hogwarts this fall. What year will you be joining? "

"Fifth year."

"Like Ron, then." Mrs Weasley smiled at him and inclined her head slightly towards the aforementioned teen.

Danny nodded, because he honestly couldn't think of something non-sarcastic to say. Ron was still looking at the Fentons oddly. Like he was having trouble figuring them out. Come to think of it, that sort of expression wasn't all that uncommon on people faced with Danny's dad. Danny simply wasn't used to it being turned on himself.

When did he become as weird as his dad?

No, there was no way Danny was that weird. Surely he was misunderstanding something.

"Speaking of Hogwarts." Mr Weasley sounded unsure, and turned slightly towards his wife as if looking for support or courage. "You work at the Ministry, so I'm sure you've heard the rumours about Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster..."

Danny's parents blinked in confusion. Apparently he wasn't the only clueless one in the family, but sending a look in Jazz's direction revealed that his sister had some idea of what Mr Weasley was talking about.

"You've chosen a bad time to come to Britain, I'm afraid." Mrs Wealsey added the comment, seemingly taking pity on them. "He-who-must-not-be-named has returned."

"I thought he was dead." Danny's mom shot him a look.

"I'll look into it." Danny shrugged. It wasn't like he was an expert on everybody who died, but he could ask around.

The Weasleys seemed quite mystified by this, but nobody questioned it aloud. The Fentons were thankful for that, and perfectly comfortable with leaving their guests in the dark.

"The Ministry is denying it." Mr Weasley got them back on track. "They are claiming that Dumbledore is lying about it as some sort of power-play."

Danny let out an indignant snort.

"That's... very irresponsible." Danny's mother seemed to agree with his assessment. Her face turned to a frown as she contemplated the reasons and consequences. "If there's even a possibility of him being back..."

"Ah, yes. It's not very..." Mr Weasley looked like he had more he wanted to say, but didn't dare to. "You realize you shouldn't talk about this at work."

Both the older Fentons nodded, uncharacteristically serious.

"If the Ministry isn't doing anything about it... Is anyone else?" Danny's dad had a look on his face that he only really had when constructing security wards.

"There... are some people." Mr Weasley seemed more hesitant than ever. "But with the Death Eaters acting in the dark, it's important to be careful with whom to trust."

Danny wasn't sure of whether he felt admiration for the well thought-out tactic, or insulted by the implications.

"We'll talk again, then." Danny's mom glanced his way. "After we've confirmed things."

Mr Weasley seemed thankful for the offered exit and was swift in changing the subject to more light-hearted matters.

Like how the sausages were trying to escape and start a rebellion.

AN: I'm not sure how good normal people are at telling the difference between identical twins, since I'm prosopagnostic and therefore can't even tell the difference between non-identical people. (For the longest time I thought John Cusack played Neo in the Matrix.) It's super awkward.

Jazz's happiness will be expanded upon in the next chapter, but no, there will be no non-canon pairings. There will barely be any canon pairings.