A Hairy Issue
Disclaimer: Guess what? It's still not mine. Boy, I am full of surprises today.
Author's Note: This chapter is very light again, so I hope you enjoy it. My inspiration came from the fact that Bill and Molly are always arguing about Bill's hair, so I thought, why not during Bill's teens, too?
Reviews: Are very helpful, and if you write one, I can respond, and fix any problems that you spot. If you don't say anything, you have to live with my errors forever...so speak up, or live in misery.
The evening after Bill, Charlie, and Percy returned home from Hogwarts for their Christmas holidays, Molly Weasley whipped out her wand, as though it were a saber, and pointed it ominously at her two oldest boys. "You're both getting a haircut, right now."
"No, Mum, we like our hair just fine the way it is, thanks," her two sons protested, both of them looking at her wand with alert brown eyes.
"Don't be silly, dears," chided Mrs. Weasley. "Your hair is getting really long and unruly, especially yours, Bill, since you seem to have neglected it for such a tremendous time frame that you must now wear it in that horrid ponytail—"
"I resent that, Mum," Bill endeavored to keep his tone calm, although he hated when she insulted his excellent fashion sense, which was obviously the best in the family's, even though Ginny was shaping up quite nicely in that regard, "because I happen to be quite fond of my ponytail, and so is everyone I know at Hogwarts."
"Oh, dear, I'm sure your friends and girlfriend just don't what to hurt your feelings, but really, I'm absolutely certain that they'd prefer it shorter," Mrs. Weasley insisted, hands on hips.
Irritably, Bill turned to face Charlie. "We've always been honest chaps with each other, right?"
"Brutally honest, mate." Charlie nodded. "You're the one shoves me into the showers after Quidditch practices and matches, and cuts my hair, because I don't look good with it long."
"Because you never bother to comb it or anything," explained Bill seriously, "besides, we can't look too similar, that'd be weird, and people would think that we didn't have our own tastes and all. So, anyway, you'd tell me how my hair really looks, correct?"
"Of course I would," Charlie agreed, but he did not seem to feel obligated to expound upon the idea, and was silent.
"And what do you think of my hair?" pressed Bill patiently. "Come on, Char, don't spare my feelings any."
"I think the ponytail is cool," Charlie announced in his steadfast manner. Looking at his mother, he amended, "And it's not just me who thinks so, mind. Everyone—the Quidditch team, Dan, Matt, Tonks, and, well, everybody who's anybody—says the same. Bill's always been one of the most fashionable people in the Gryffindor tower, in the whole school, probably, and everybody with two thoughts in their head knows that much, and even if they don't know enough to fill a peanut about anything else."
"I don't think much of the ponytail, if you ask me," commented Percy pompously from his perch on a kitchen chair where he was reading a book for Transfiguration before their mum could respond to this rebuttal. "It just demonstrates plainly that you need to learn how to perform a simple Hair-Cutting Charm, Bill."
"Frankly, I'm shocked you consider yourself to be anybody, which was what I said, 'everybody who's anybody', and, by that definition, your opinion doesn't matter," muttered Charlie out of the corner of his mouth, causing Bill to snigger, because, unlike him and Charlie, Percy had never been popular, although he had two friends, Kimberly Wagnar and Oliver Wood now, two beings Bill respected immensely for their valor and endurance. If he had to deal with Percy all day every day, he might very well throw himself out a window. Better yet, he'd hurl Percy from a window.
"You'll also note that nobody asked you, Percy," Bill reasoned, "and, for your information, I actually can perform a basic Hair-Cutting Charm. I got an 'Outstanding' in my Charms O.W.L., remember? I just don't want to perform it on myself, because my hair looks loads better this way."
As he frequently did, Percy ignored any interjections in his oration, and continued, now addressing Mrs. Weasley, "Mother, I am utterly convinced that you're right, as always. That is, Bill is, after all, Head Boy, and what kind of example does it set for him to be wandering around with his hair as long as many girls'? Not a very favorable one, if you ask me. Besides, if Bill walks around with his hair in that rebellious style, who on earth will listen to him? Students cannot be expected to take someone who dresses like a rebel seriously."
"They take him more seriously than they take you, for Christ's sake," snapped Charlie before Bill could reply, "you're a laughingstock, so I suggest you don't give lessons until you've passed the course."
"Be nice to your brother, Charles!" Mrs. Weasley scolded. "Or else I'll send you to your bedroom for the rest of the day after I finish trimming your hair, and I'll make sure that Bill doesn't go up with you, and, while you're up there, you'll be folding a week's worth of laundry!"
"Why the heck do I have to be nice to Percy, but Percy doesn't have to be nice to Bill?" argued Charlie, arms crossed.
"Because she loves Percy loads more than she loves me," Bill supplied with the air of an angel.
"That is not true, and you know it, William!" Mrs. Weasley blew up at her oldest child, instead. "Your father and I love you all just the same, no matter how terribly you behave. However, Charlie is older than Percy, and, therefore, takes Charlie's comments more to heart than you take Percy's."
For a moment, she glared at her two eldest offspring, seeing if they would challenge her on this point. When they didn't, she snarled, "So who wants their hair cut first?"
Bill and Charlie glanced at each other, silently imploring one another to go first. To indicate that he was not willing to go first, Bill crossed his arms. Sighing at his sibling, Charlie volunteered, "I'll go first then, Mum."
With a grim expression on her face, Mrs. Weasley shoved him into a vacant kitchen chair across from Percy, and waved her wand at his head. For a moment, a cloud of orange mist shrouded him, and, the next second, his hair was at least three inches shorter. "There, dear, you look loads better now," she reassured Charlie as he pushed himself out of the seat, launched himself across the kitchen, opened the drawer beneath the stove, and yanked out a silver pot in which he could examine his reflection in. Realizing how much of his hair had been hacked off, Charlie frowned, and rubbed the crown of his head ruefully.
Mrs. Weasley focused on Bill, and indicated with a sharp jab of her finger the chair Charlie had just emptied. "Your turn."
"That's what you think." Bill took a step backward, colliding with the counter behind him.
"That's what I know. Sit down in the chair, young man."
"No." Bill's head shook to the left and right in defiance.
"Do as you're told," snarled his mum.
"No."
"Yes."
"I said no, Mum."
"And I said yes, William!" Molly's arms folded across her massive, heaving chess.
"Mum, please, I don't want to." Bill hated the slightly beseeching quality that had intruded upon his voice.
"I didn't ask you if you wanted to have your haircut," Mrs. Weasley reminded him cantankerously, "I ordered you to sit down so I could chop it off."
"Why?" Bill's arms crossed over each other, as well.
"Because I said so, that's why." Mrs. Weasley's eyes were lethal slits, and, in the fraction of his brain not fixated on their raging debate, Bill noticed that Percy was watching the argument with wide eyes over his tome, and Charlie's face was anxious as its attention shifted from his mother to his brother and back again.
"That's not a reason," he insisted stubbornly.
"What?" Apparently, his mum was so appalled by this statement that she could do no more than choke out a simple question.
Deciding that this remark might have been a tad harsh, he backpedaled, "Why can't I keep my hair the way it is, Mum? After all, it is my hair, not yours, and, therefore, I should be able to choose how I want to wear it."
"Percy explained that quite nicely, if you ask me," she retorted.
"Yeah, we definitely should take advice on how to make oneself respected and listened to from the one guy in the common room who is never obeyed." He couldn't prevent the irony from invading his tone, he just couldn't. When he saw Percy blush, he felt slightly vindicated. "How about we let the prisoners run Azkaban and the patients operate St. Mungo's, as well? That's about as logical!"
"Don't you dare take that tone with me, young man!" Mrs. Weasley raised her wand, as if she were about to duel with him. "Sit down in that chair now, this discussion is over!"
Before he was even conscious of what he was doing, Bill had his wand out of his pocket, where he always stored it, and out in front of him, in a combat position that mirrored hers. Luckily, however, they never discovered whether or not they would actually have performed magic against each other, for at that moment, Mr. Weasley, accompanied by the twins, Ron, and Ginny, entered the kitchen, tugging in a large evergreen, and singing "Joy to the World." When he spotted the drawn wands of his wife and eldest son, Mr. Weasley broke off mid-lyric, and frowned. "What's all this commotion about?"
"Go ask the Diggorys or the Lovegoods, Dad," muttered Bill, his wand still out, because his mother's was still aloft, "because I'm pretty sure they heard everything, unless they've all suddenly gone deaf, or the Lovegoods have worked some lunatic spell on themselves again."
"Your son is impossible, completely impossible!" Molly exploded simultaneously. "He refuses to let me cut his hair."
"Of course he won't let you cut his hair," stated Ginny in her bundle of winter clothing from the doorway, and her oldest brother grinned at her, touched by her stalwartness. "It looks awesome the way it is."
"Yes, it is amazing," echoed Ron, who was standing beside his sister in the threshold. He shot Bill the double-thumbs-up. "Cool."
Even Fred and George stepped in with their support. "His hair looks as good as Bill's ever will, Mum."
"Thanks, Ginny, Ron, Fred, and George." Bill nodded at each of them in turn.
On the other hand, Mrs. Weasley's reaction contrasted glaringly with that of her son's, for she glowered at the four speakers. "Be quiet, all of you. When I require your opinion, I shall go to the immense bother of asking for it." Her eyes sought out Bill again. "Now will you cooperate, and set you little siblings a good example?"
"No, I like my hair the way it is, so it's staying exactly how it is until I decide otherwise," Bill replied firmly. "They're more than welcome to copy my awesome sense of style, though, Mum."
"You know perfectly well that is the very thing I don't want your siblings to emulate!" his mother roared, looking as if she wanted nothing more than to hang him from the nearest tree, or, better yet, strangle him on the spot.
At this point, her spouse decided to step in before wands were actually employed. Stepping between his wife and oldest child, he shoved their wands down, which caused both beings to glare at him, before asking his wife, "May I handle this, Molly dear?"
"Very well, if you really think you can do a better job," she blustered, stomping off toward the stove to finish preparing a chicken pie for supper.
Not sure if such an alteration would work to his advantage or not, Bill eyed his father like a wary animal. To his bewilderment, Mr. Weasley waved his wand at the tree, which soared into the living room, and said, "Come with me, please, Bill."
"Why?" Bill asked, placing his hands on his hips.
"Because you just volunteered to assist me in erecting and putting the strings of baubles on the Christmas tree," his father responded dryly, as they heard the evergreen land in the next room over.
"I didn't do any such thing, Dad," he protested, because he was not in the mood for shoving a cursed tree into a stand, and then stringing baubles around it, managing to tangle anyone and anything in the vicinity in the process. It never had gotten him into the Christmas spirit, and he was quite sure that he was entering the Christmas tree ordeal with the wrong attitude.
"Well, I nominated you, and that amounts to the same thing," replied Mr. Weasley, indicating the door, and, sighing, Bill trailed after him. In silence, they walked over to the corner where the Christmas tree was always placed, and, while his dad pushed the tree into its holder, Bill made sure it remained relatively stationary. Neither of them had any breath to speak while they erected the tree, and it wasn't until they were waving their wands to decorate the tree with strings of glittering baubles did Mr. Weasley say anything.
"So, would you care to explain the charming scene in the kitchen?" he inquired.
"Mum summed it up quite nicely when she said that I refused to let her cut my hair," grumbled Bill. "And I still don't think I did anything wrong, because it's my hair, after all, and I should be allowed to wear it as I want. She's just being a control freak again, Dad."
"That's why you had your wand out? You were going to attack your mother for that?"
"Only if she attacked me first," scowled Bill.
"Something about that scenario doesn't seem at all irrational to you?" Mr. Weasley's eyebrows arched.
"Excuse me, I was less irrational than she was, because, at least I wasn't the one trying to force someone to have their hair cut by me at the point of a wand," snapped Bill, glaring at his father, as his baubles almost strangled the tree in his temper. Cursing, he corrected this with a jerk of his wand.
"Don't talk to me like that, William," his dad answered sternly. "I was willing to side with you, at least up until now."
"If you'll forgive my saying so, you've a funny way of showing your sympathies." Fed up with decorating the blasted evergreen, Bill threw his wand on the ground. "Anyone watching would conclude that your heart was with her. Great cover job, Dad. Perhaps you could consider a career as a spy."
"Let's not argue, Bill," sighed Mr. Weasley, causing his companion to narrow his eyes suspiciously. "We'll call a truce and negotiate, shall we?"
"Alright," Bill agreed after a moment's contemplation, his manner still cautious. "Terms?"
"You may keep you hair at whatever length you desire, as long as you conduct yourself as you always have at school. If you don't, you're getting a haircut."
"What does hair have to do with my behavior?" Bill's eyebrows rose.
"Those are the terms, take them or leave them. Take them, you can keep your hair as it is, leave them, and your mum can give you a haircut when we're done decorating the tree."
"I'll take them," Bill muttered, "but I still think that it's not fair, because hair style has nothing to do with behavior."
"But people think it does," countered Mr. Weasley.
"It's the truth that matters, Dad, not what people think, isn't it, though?" Bill's lips quirked upward.
"Are you planning on blowing up the school or something? Is that why you're putting up such a fight?" laughed Mr. Weasley.
"No, but principle matters," Bill pretended to pout.
"Up to a point, but there is a point where resisting on principle becomes sheer folly, and is not worth the consequences." Mr. Weasley clapped his son on the shoulder. "Let's go find that angel in the attic where we keep all the rubbish we'd throw into a bin if we didn't have one, shall we?"
"I don't see why we need to bother with that, when we've got one right here." Bill jabbed a finger at his chest, implying that the angel he referred to was himself.
"Do you really want to go on a tree?" pointed out a grinning Mr. Weasley.
"No," Bill smiled, and they set off upstairs to the attic, "but we might not have the angel anymore. I'll bet the ghoul has gnawed it to pieces by now."
"It will probably still have its wins, for the ghoul doesn't seem to care for them," replied Mr. Weasley wisely, as they ascended the Burrow stairwell, until they reached the attic. Indeed, when they found the angel amid the chaos in the attic, it was slightly chewed in most places, but was still reasonably recognizable as a cherub, and the wings of the seraph were entirely intact, because, apparently, the ghoul did not fancy the flavor of them much.