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No one has ever seen Molly Weasley so furious, happy and relieved at the same time.
After quick bear hug and overall check if she was ok, Molly pushed Jade into the kitchen.
Arthur stayed behind to thank everyone for helping with the search and wish them good night. All of his friends were parents and all of them understood what Molly and Arthur have been through this afternoon so when they heard Molly yelling from the kitchen, no one questioned it, they just quickly went home leaving parents to deal with the situation.
Arthur turned around and marched inside, ready to go into the kitchen when he spotted his two youngest ones sitting on the stairs.
"Off you go, you'd better be in bed sooner than I say quidditch!" he said strictly and chased the kids upstairs where he tucked them in their respective beds.
"Is Jade fine daddy?" asked Ginny, with concern.
"Yes, she is, she's safe at home now and you'll see her tomorrow, now go to sleep." He kissed her nose and left the room to say good night to Ron, who was as usually sitting on the last step in front of his bedroom door.
"Why did she run away?" asked Ron simply.
"I don't know buddy, I don't know." Arthur shook his bed and closed Ron's roof window before kissing his forehead and wishing him sweet dreams.
Just before he left his son's room, Ron piped out from under the covers and asked one more question:
"But she's going to stay here right? Even if she ran away? I mean, Fred and George messed up big time a lot and they still got to stay right?"
"of course she's going to stay! Where did you get the idea we'd send one of you away for getting in trouble?" asked surprised Arthur.
"Percy once told me that if I won't behave…"
"oh Ron, I'm sure he was only joking, it's not true ok? Don't worry about it." Arthur turned off the light and left the room.
He'll have to talk to Percy. Arthur was sure Percy would say it if Ron was bugging him while he was doing homework or something but that was no excuse for telling little boy his parents would send him away! They had an unspoken rule in the family, that family matters were not a topic for jokes, even twins never joked about such things. It was harmless, sure, but with Jade here and all her insecurities, it would be a major set back in bonding if someone told her she'll be send away for misbehaving. She was kicked out by too many families in the past so Arthur was sure she'd have no problem believing in something like this.
His thoughts were interrupted when he entered the kitchen and found Jade sitting on her place with bowl of potato soup in front of her and her head hanging so low that she almost dipped her short hair into it.
Molly was cutting a slice of bread to go with the soup but still had time for her monologue, which she was preparing all afternoon.
Arthur didn't understand most of the words because when Molly got furious she was…well, furious, and there was no stopping her, you just had to let her tell you what she wanted.
There were words like "empty room….no idea…scared…never again…crazy…mad" etc. accompanied by sobbing and finally crying.
"Molly, that's enough, let's all calm down and go to bed, there's no need to do this tonight, I'm sure Jade'll have enough time to think about what she's done tomorrow, after we all get some rest. Now, let's go up." He gently took Molly's arm and after she hugged Jade one more time and told her: "I love you honey, I'm totally mad, but I'll always love you, remember that." She let Arthur to lead the way upstairs. He looked back at Jade "I'll be right back." And after a minute he really came back and sat across from Jade.
She finished her bowl of soup and put the piece of bread in her pocket for later.
"Mom's just angry, don't worry, it will be better tomorrow." Said Arthur. "What you did scared hell out of us. Why would you run away like that?"
Jade just shrugged, she didn't know what to say, but when Arthur didn't say anything else, just waited for the answer, she confessed she heard Miss Jones talking about finding family for her, and she also wanted to tell him how much she wished she could stay, but that would mean showing him her soft spot and she couldn't do that.
"And you don't want to stay with us?" asked Arthur sadly. "I mean, nothing's official yet, but we hoped you'd want to stay here, as you'll be 11 soon, we'd need you to agree you want to stay before the adoption process is complete, but I understand if you don't want to. I'm sure you lived in nicer houses with far less children. It can get pretty crazy here…"
Adopt her? Stay with the Weasleys? What was he talking about? Didn't Miss Jones say she finally found a family for her, unless…
"You want me to stay? Forever?" asked Jade confused.
"Well, if you'd want to…" said Arthur and shrugged, "I mean we thought it was obvious from the very start no?"
Jade smiled and then giggled, could this be true? Then she nodded, of course she wanted to stay, she never lived in more beautiful home before.
"I want to stay." She said simply, smiling so wide, her face almost broke in half.
"Then all this was just a big misunderstanding!" exclaimed Arthur "let's forget about it for now, and just go to bed, you can talk about it more tomorrow with mom." He stood up and climbed the stairs, stopping for a while in front of Jade's room. He waited until she caught up with him and hugged her one more time, happy to have her at home. "Welcome home sweetie."
Jade hugged him back and went to her bedroom.
She couldn't believe it, was she really going to have Weasleys as forever family? After all these years? Two flights of stairs over Jade's room, Ginny Weasley smiled and finally closed her eyes. So she was really getting new sister, for good.
Jade got a week of extra chores, because as Molly said, if Ginny or Ron would have done something like that they'd get two years of extra chores and she'd make them copy all History of Hogwarts by hand, but with Jade it was a misunderstanding and she couldn't be too hard on her when she's new and all.
Days passed and the arrival of Charlie was really close.
"Now, now, we have to get ready for Charlie coming home, why don't we clean the backyard today?" Molly used to say after every breakfast for a week and Ron rolled his eyes every morning. Ok, to be fair it wasn't always the backyard. Sometimes they cleaned broom shed, sometimes they rooms, sometimes they had to de-gnome the garden, while Molly franticly scrubbed every surface of the house, kitchen, bathroom (two times), and even attic.
Finally the day of Charlie's arrival came and everyone was more than ready to welcome him back home and get some rest from everyday's cleaning and organizing.
Jade was picking some more strawberries (there were hundreds of new ripe ones every day)with Ginny, while Ron, who was supposed to be helping, fell asleep in the hammock. His sunhat fell off and he had big smear of red strawberry juice on his shirt.
With loud crack someone apparated on the other side of the house so kids didn't see who it was, but loud happy cry from their mom could only mean one person.
"Charlie! Charlie's here!" Ginny jumped into the air and pulled Ron down from the hammock.
Jade stood up and brushed off the knees of her jeans overall she was wearing that day.
Charlie was here, one more Weasley. She didn't know much about him, they only exchanged a couple of letters but she already knew she was going to love him.
Ron andGinny were already in the kitchen, greeting their big brother while Molly exclaimed over and over how thin he was and how she had to make him something to eat right away. In fact, she was already taking out bread to make him a sandwich when he stopped her.
"Mom, it's almost lunch and I'm not that hungry, relax." He laughed with deep young voice and kissed his mom on the cheek.
Jade had to restraint herself from running to him and hugging him like everyone else did, because after all, she didn't know him that well. But it just felt right to hug him, she felt like they've known each other forever.
Charlie solved her dilemma when he picked up Ron and moved him out of his way and dropping his military duffle bag he run outside through the back door with his arms wide open. When he was just a couple of feet from Jade she jumped into his embrace and laughed as he spun them around.
"Hey little sis! So good to finally see you!" he said, ruffling Jade's hair.
Jade was right, it was as if they've known each other forever.
Kids spent next hour outside, just talking and listening to Charlie's stories. Molly insisted they leave him lone, because he needed some rest after such long journey, but Charlie refused to go up to his room even to unpack. "I can do it all tonight mom, l don't want to spend such beautiful day inside!"
Charlie was chilling in the hammock with Ginny cuddling by his side closely examined the newest scratch on his forearm. Ron lied back against the tree and Jade climbed on the branch which was hanging low enough for her to hear Charlie's stories.
Lunch was delicious as always, but there was one more person, on more brother sitting in the kitchen. Jade never lived in big families, which was unusual, considering the face that most of the foster families in the system take in more than one kid and have also biological kids, but as Jade was known as "quite difficult" kid, she was always placed in a family with no more than two kids.
Today was particularly hot and Charlie suggested they should go swimming to the pond.
"Charlie, the water will be freezing! And how will you keep an eye on 3 little ones?" protested Molly.
"We're not little!" said Ron and pouted.
"Oh, come on mom, Ron and Ginny can swim pretty well, and I'm sure Jade will catch up too, plus I can use magic in case something happens, and we'll only stay on the beach close to the house." After Charlie said all his arguments, Molly couldn't say no. After all, when boys get home from school, they'll be in the water every day, so it's probably better to get her little ones chance to practice swimming without all the chaos first.
Jade put on one of Ginny's bathing suits and some old cotton shorts, and after Molly put generous layers of sun-block potion on everyone's noses and shoulders, they were ready to go.
Charlie carried big sun umbrella and huge blanket. Everyone else helped with the rest of the things, some soda bottles – with Muggle lemonade which Arthur brought home from London were a big hit, then inflatable mattress which Ginny insisted they blow up at home so she carried it all the way on her head.
Once they settled on the tiny beach, which was basically four feet wide stripe of sand Charlie asked Jade:
"So, what about you Jade? Can you swim?"
Of course she could swim, she once made it to the county competition, but she hated races and so after she had to change family one more time, she never told anyone how good she was at swimming.
"Sure, I took swimming lessons once." And in fact it was only one lesson, when she was six, because swimming was so natural for her, there was really nothing she could learn in swimming class with other six year olds.
"Ok then, if you can swim all the way from us up to that old oak over there, I'll let you swim without floaties .
It was less than 160 feet, she was sure about that, and she could swim 160 feet on one breath so this was going to be fun.
She stepped into the water, but Charlie stopped her when she was waist deep. After she explained it's hard to swim in such shallow water, he let her go in a little bit deeper.
She took a couple of deep breaths and then after breathing in so much air her lungs started to hurt, she dived in the water. It was easy to swim close to the bottom because water was clear and as long as she didn't touch the mud, she could see perfectly all the way to the Old Oak which was casting it's shadow over the water.
Charlie walked on the edge of the lake ready to pull her out of the water. He even started to panic a little when she didn't come up to breathe, but he could clearly see her swimming towards the oak so he let her go.
When she stood up, finally, standing under the oak smiling, Charlie just raised his eyebrows: "wow, I didn't see this coming" he said surprised. "you certainly are a little swimmer sis! Ok, let's go back and have some fun."
They paddled around on the floating mattress and Charlie used his wand to create little sprinkles from the water. It was cold but they kept themselves busy all the time so it wasn't too bad. After almost an hour of water fun, Charlie noticed Ginny's blue lips. She was visibly shaking but still, when he told everyone to get out of the water she was the one who protested.
They dried themselves and lied on the blanket, enjoying the heat from summer sun. It was almost end of May so they brothers would be coming home from school in a couple of days. Apparently there were some political arguments on the Ministry and Albus Dumbledore the headmaster of school had to go there and set it right, which most of the students appreciated greatly, because it meant their school year will end one whole month early!
Ginny couldn't wait for everyone to be home again, and while Jade was bathing in the sun rays she started to dream about her brothers she was about to meet and wondered how awesome it would be if they were all like Charlie…