1982

"Exactly how long do you think you can freeze Mother out?"

Bilius's voice was a mix of skepticism and amusement as he and Arthur sipped cider in the back garden of the Burrow, watching Bill and the twins practice their flying — well, Bill was flying; Fred and George were delighting themselves taking turns deliberately falling off their shared broom. Molly would be cross as two broomsticks if she were to see it, but she was presently occupied with Ronnie and Ginny inside the house, and the twins were in no real danger — toy brooms only went so high, and kids bounced, didn't they?

"I'm not trying to freeze her out," said Arthur tersely, annoyed at how moody he knew he sounded.

"Good, 'cos she's got a lot more experience doing it than you."

If that wasn't God's honest truth. Among the few traits that Cedrella Weasley (née Black) retained of her birth family, perhaps the most notable was what Arthur and his brothers had termed 'the Black ice.' When their mother was upset about something, she was positively arctic.

Arthur's emotional responses — when they slipped out, which admittedly happened less and less as he got older — had always been of the more incendiary variety. Accordingly, when his mother had dared to offer Arthur and Molly financial help as Bill's first year of school approached, his reaction had been to take offense at the implication that he couldn't support his own family properly. Spurred on by all the perceived slights amassed over the past few years concerning how he and Molly were proceeding through life — every time he had interpreted his mother's calmly raised eyebrow and pointed silence as an expression of judgment — Arthur had interpreted his mother's offer of support as clear evidence of her lack of support. Years of minor hurts and offenses, compressed and stored away, mixed with all the stresses accompanying a family of nine, and the cauldron had boiled over before he'd even realized it was in danger of doing so.

Unimpressed with his behavior, Cedrella had weathered Arthur's little tropical storm without melting a drop. And since then, Arthur had been rather too embarrassed by his strop to speak to his mother; so, he'd made the completely reasonable decision to simply not talk to her.

Undoubtedly, Cedrella loved her grandchildren — every single one of them - doted on them, really, and probably all the more because Bilius and Godfrey had expressed no interest in producing any of their own anytime soon, if ever. She and Arthur's father Septimus would not have traded any of these kids for the world. And they were especially ecstatic to have a granddaughter and told anyone who would listen that Ginny was the first Weasley girl in over two hundred years.

But Arthur was not an idiot and could not miss the almost imperceptibly waning enthusiasm and waxing concern that had greeted him each time he and Molly had made a new announcement over the years.

Three was fantastic - expected, even.

Five was understandable — even reasonable — all things considered, particularly being twins; what could one really do about that but grin, shrug, and take it all in stride?

Six was… surprising, he supposed would be the kind word other people would have applied to it, but ultimately excusable considering Molly had desperately wanted a girl.

Seven… well, seven was the point where Arthur could hear the unspoken sentiment behind the awkward smiles: Now you're just being silly about this.

And when Arthur and Molly had first told his parents the news about number seven the previous year, even while they were met with congratulations, Arthur had read volumes in his mother's split second of hesitation, the guarded blink of her eye, the carefully worded remark:

"I had no idea you were trying for another!"

(They had not, in fact, been trying for another, though they would never admit to anybody that Ginny was a happy accident. The official story was that they wanted a girl — even though Arthur had put his foot down after the last time they'd deliberately tried for that. Ronnie was supposed to retain the distinction of being the baby of the family.)

Taking hold of that bit, Arthur had let it stew for the better part of the past two years, during which time he'd been forced to hear similar comments from relatives, friends, and colleagues. In retrospect, it was really no wonder that he'd finally lost it on his mother the other day. He supposed it was good, even, that he hadn't snapped at work, on some unsuspecting acquaintance or another who simply had to comment to Arthur how full his hands were…

"Keep doing that and your teeth'll crack."

Arthur, fallen into one of his ruminations, pinching the bridge of his nose and clenching his jaw, looked up to see Bilius increasing the cider in both their glasses.

"They're only excited for Bill starting school," offered the latter, in an un-Biliusly reasonable way, and Arthur wondered at what point his baby brother had grown up this much. Somewhere in between Bill and Ginny. "And who else are they going to spend their money on? Me?"

In spite of himself, Arthur sniggered at the idea of Bilius entreating their parents to spend any part of their modest savings subsidizing his would-be gentleman of leisure lifestyle.

Then, recovering himself, he shook his head and replied, "They think Molly and I have bitten off more than we can chew."

"They said that?" Bilius's tone was skeptical again.

"No, of course they don't ever just say it, but they… Well, you know Mother; you can tell."

"That face she makes that looks like she's having the inside of her cheek for dinner?"

"That's the one."

"Well, what does Septimus say?"

"He acts a little too happy about everything, like he's trying not to let on. But he likes to ask me 'how we're getting on.' " Arthur affected an exaggerated impersonation of their father's affable manner.

"All right, now you're just being paranoid."

"I'm not."

"Look… all right… maybe they worry about you but - "

"Well, they shouldn't. Especially Father — he should know, he had six brothers. Perfectly fine for Nanny and Grandad, wasn't it?"

"Yeah?" Bilius laughed. "You ever bother to listen to him talk about what it was like?"

Arthur scoffed, though he grinned. "Course not."

Arthur loved his father dearly, but Septimus Weasley had a way of just talking nonstop until your brain was about to melt from overheating. At some point you had to let the words fly in one ear and out the other if you stood any chance of making it through. And somehow Septimus could keep up a one-sided conversation for a solid half hour and still kick your arse at chess while he was doing it.

"Well, there you have it. You think you know better than Mother and Father, Mother thinks she knows better than you, and thusly will the West Country fall into endless winter. Meanwhile, Septimus will knit himself a scarf out of Yes, my dears and outlast all of us."

With an indignant laugh, Arthur protested, "I do not think I know better than them!"

"Oh, you do. It's the most impressive combination of pigheadedness and obedience I've ever seen."

Arthur might have tried to quarrel with the former characterization, but the latter was undeniable. Rare had been the occasions when Arthur could be accused of having willfully disappointed anyone, and perhaps that was why the implication that he'd done so had the power to drive him absolutely mad.

"You know that's what this is about, right?" Bilius again broke through Arthur's contemplation.

"What?"

"You were the last hope." Bilius could hardly contain his mirth.

"What are you on about?"

"You know full well what I'm on about. You were supposed to be the one who did everything right."

Arthur pulled a face. "Rubbish - " he began, but before he could go any further or Bilius could respond, Arthur caught sight of something and called out, "Bill, mate, what have I said? Not beyond the hedges, all right?"

"Sorry, Dad!" Bill changed course.

"Freddie, Georgie," Arthur added, "you come closer, too, please." The twins were not as near the hedges as Bill had been, but if the last several years had taught Arthur anything, it was that if Bill did it, six others were sure to follow.

Freddie and Georgie did not come closer, but Arthur merely chuckled to himself and kept an eye on them. At the mere age of four, the twins' selective hearing already drove Molly mad, though Arthur was convinced within himself that they'd got it from her side to begin with (and very few things in the world amused him as much as telling her that).

That accomplished, Arthur threw his brother a chagrined, apologetic look, returning to the subject at hand, but Bilius simply laughed.

"What, you think it bothers me? Come on. I've known it for years and so has Gobby," said Bilius, using their eldest brother's nickname. "You're the only one intentionally ignoring it."

Arthur was the highest achiever, the one with the most stable job — what might once have been described as the best job, until four years ago — the only one married, and the only one producing kids.

But while it may have bothered his mother, if Arthur were being honest, the idea that he wasn't living up to his potential - whatever that was - wasn't what irked him. Arthur's reputation for letting almost any disagreement roll off his back was not unfounded, and he'd never had any grief over doing what he thought was right, even when criticized for it - but when it came to the idea that he might have let down Molly and the kids somehow… that was the thief of hours upon hours of sleep.

Arthur could have tolerated a life of personal and professional obscurity if it made Molly happy… it was just that the way he'd attained that nirvana was by way of a job that hardly paid the bills.

And everyone knew it, though nobody ever talked about it (not that he wanted them to).

Very much desiring a change of subject, Arthur asked, "Heard from Gobby lately?" He would have liked to write his elder brother more often, but there never seemed to be enough time for anything these days.

"Yeah. He's not talking to Mother again."

Godfrey. Now there was the Weasley brother who'd inherited the Black ice.

"Oh, what the hell is it now?" asked Arthur, ignoring the irony of his own comment.

"Dunno, Mother said something about Kimi again."

Godfrey lived in Japan with his long-time girlfriend Kimiko, whom he apparently had no intention of ever marrying. And there were several things about that statement that were unacceptable to Cedrella.

Both Weasley brothers exchanged a knowing look and sipped their drinks in unison, before Arthur spied in his periphery a small head of red hair that had just emerged from the house. Its owner plopped himself onto the steps, chin in his hands, and Arthur had to suppress a chuckle at the inexplicably glum look on his six-year-old's face.

Following his brother's gaze, Bilius called out encouragingly, "Alright, me 'ansum?"

Percy gave an impressively long-suffering sigh for someone so young. "Charlie won't let me play dragons with him."

"Aw, that's all right. Why don't you join the boys flying? Teach Fred and George how to stay on their broom more than ten seconds at a time."

"I don't like flying," replied Percy somberly but politely.

"Aw, how come you don't — ?" Bilius jumped, causing some of his cider to slosh down his front, as Arthur lightly backhanded him in the chest.

"Every time, you ask him that. Leave him be, he doesn't like it."

"Sorry." Bilius shrugged.

"Percy, mate, come here." His son obliged, standing before Arthur with a very serious expression as the latter leaned forward, elbows on his knees, trying not to smile inappropriately. Arthur would never dream of laughing at Percy, but the boy was just so curiously fretful, and for the life of him Arthur could never figure out where he'd got it from or what on earth there was to worry about at six.

"Are you and Charlie fighting again?" he asked.

"I haven't been fighting with Charlie!" protested Percy indignantly. "But he only wants to play with Bill, and he says I can't even play with him when Bill goes to school, and he says that everyone is going to school except me because I haven't done magic yet."

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Oh, he did, did he?"

"He says I should have done it by now."

"Well, you know, Uncle Bilius is almost thirty and he still doesn't know how to do magic."

Bilius chuckled into his glass; the joke, however, was lost on poor Percy, who now looked even more distraught.

"I'm only teasing you, and so is Charlie. Besides, Charlie forgets - "

"Bloody 'ansum!" burst out Bilius, looking in the direction of Bill flying. "Artie, did you see that roll? Who taught him that? That was gorgeous."

"Channeling Gobby, most like," replied Arthur, distracted from his talk with Percy. "Proper job, my boy!"

Turning back to Percy, Arthur repeated, "Charlie forgets how long you used to stay up in the air when I would throw you up."

Percy, whose attention had also been drawn to Bill, finally tore his eyes away to respond uncertainly, "He says that's not proper magic and it was probably you doing it anyway."

Percy had, in fact, displayed plenty of magical qualities, just none of it had taken the form of property damage like his elder brothers. But fires and loud bangs were more easily noticed.

"Well, it wasn't me, it was you. Now what do you say?"

Percy was pensive for a moment. "Charlie said I have to sleep by myself all the way up in the new bedroom."

What on earth Arthur was going to do with Charlie and his incessant harassment of his younger brother, he had no idea. If things kept going this way, Charlie was going to see the magical reaction he apparently wanted from Percy, and it would probably result in the entire house burning down.

The new bedroom to which Percy referred was in the recently added fifth storey of the Burrow, which Arthur had recently built with help from Bilius. Presently, all seven children were sharing three rooms, which was a fine arrangement for now, but the time would come eventually when Ginny would need her own room or Percy and the twins would no longer be able to comfortably cohabit in one room together. There'd also been discussion of giving Bill his own room, as the eldest, though he and Charlie were like two peas in a pod, and he'd expressed no real desire to kick Charlie out.

It had seemed as good a time as ever to add the fifth level, which housed the one additional room, especially since Bill was still around to help Molly look after the younger children while Arthur and Bilius had completed the project.

"You're not going to sleep up there all by yourself," he assured Percy. "In fact, that'll probably be Mum and Dad's room eventually."

"But Charlie says —"

"I'll talk to Charlie. All right?"

Percy nodded dubiously.

"Arthur?" Molly popped her head outside. "Bring the boys inside, please; dinner's nearly ready."

"Dreckly, my love," responded Arthur, making to finish his glass of cider.

"Or now, Arthur?"

At some point in their decade and a half of marriage, Molly had picked up on the fact that when a Devonian said dreckly, his intent could be to complete the task in a matter of minutes or a matter of months.

"Yes, my dear." Arthur shoved Bilius in the arm as the latter sniggered into his glass. Then, draining the rest of his drink, Arthur ushered Percy inside the house and went to fetch the twins.

"Bill, time to come inside, mate." When this was met with a groan of disappointment, Arthur checked his watch. "Two more minutes, all right?"

"All right, Dad."

Now facing the house, having sent the twins inside, Arthur tapped his empty glass absently against his thigh, contemplating the recently added fifth storey with a frown, before glancing at Bilius.

"Oh, no," protested Bilius, holding up a warning finger, clearly having seen where Arthur's mind was going. "Don't you say it."

Arthur tilted his head, pondering the new construction for possibly the hundredth time. "Are you sure it looks level?"

"Don't you fucking start." His brother's voice carried the exasperation of someone who'd been dealing with this for some twenty years, though a laugh rippled through it. "We've been over this ten times. It's perfectly level. Three solid days we spent on that. If you start messing with it and you cock it up, I ain't helping."

Whatever response Arthur was about to give died in his throat as he caught sight of a disheveled mop of hair passing by the open doorway inside the house.

"Oh, Charlie?" he called mildly, causing the figure to backtrack and pop its head through the doorway.

Charlie always seemed to be wearing a slightly guilty but self-satisfied expression strongly reminiscent of the dear departed Fabian Prewett, and Arthur had always found it difficult to be cross with him - well, it was difficult to be cross with any of them, but Charlie's personal brand of charm was especially disarming.

"Come here, please." Arthur crouched to eye level with Charlie. "What's going on with you and Percy?"

"Nothing," said Charlie unconvincingly.

"Charlie…"

His boy scuffed the toe of his shoe against the ground. "I don't want to play with him, he's too little. He always bothers me."

Arthur sighed. "That's bad form, Charlie, he looks up to you. You've got to be fair to him, he's your brother."

"Ha!" inserted Bilius pointedly.

"You stay out of this," replied Arthur with a quick smile, turning back to his son. "Why would you say those things to your brother? You know full well he's done magic. Don't you want him to go to school with you eventually?"

Charlie wrinkled his nose. "No."

"Charlie!"

His son's brow furrowed as he looked at the ground.

"You'd better learn to get on with him or you'll be awful lonely when Bill's gone in a couple of weeks. Both of you."

The way Charlie looked up at him in response prompted things to click in Arthur's head in a way that made him feel like quite the idiot for not having seen it before.

"We won't say anymore about it now, all right? But if I have to hear about this again, Mum's getting involved. Is that going to happen?"

Charlie shook his head, wide-eyed.

"All right. Let's go inside. Bill, pack it in!"

Bill soared towards the house and, once low to the ground, hopped off his broom while still in motion, the broom dropping to the ground unceremoniously in the absence of its rider.

Arthur sighed as he and Bilius watched Bill disappear inside the house. "I don't know who's having a harder time of Bill going to school: Charlie, Percy, or Molly."

"Or you," added Bilius lightly.

Arthur didn't have the heart to try to contradict him.

There was the expense of Bill starting school, certainly - not an insurmountable obstacle, though it was an unwelcome reminder of the fact that the expense would only grow in the years to come, a dilemma that Arthur had not yet managed to solve in his own mind.

There was the fact that, despite Adom Tutuola's assertion four years earlier, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts had not been a plush assignment allowing Arthur to leave early every day - not at the height of the war - and even though it had been a year since You-Know-Who's disappearance, the raids had continued as the Ministry tracked down remaining Dark wizards, frequently keeping Arthur at work late, to his own chagrin and that of Molly's. Things were finally starting to slow down… just in time for Bill to leave.

There was the distinct possibility that Charlie and Percy would finally kill each other without Bill's stabilizing presence, not to mention the additional pressure on Molly without the eldest around to help her. Percy had already shown himself willing and able to rise to the occasion helping with the younger children, but Charlie was a little less concerned with concepts as silly as maintaining order.

And beyond all these, there was the nagging, unwelcome feeling that this overcrowded little house was going to feel inexplicably empty without Arthur's first boy around.

Bilius slapped Arthur on the arm companionably. "Talk to Mother. Let 'em buy the boy some damn books. It's too early for winter. Now come on - I'm starving."