Arthur Weasley's cup was overfilling. He had been so excited about his trip to Lauren's cottage since he awoke that morning that, by eleven o'clock, Molly had sent him to his shed with the newspaper just so she could have some peace. "Or go to your office at the Ministry and I'll floo call you when they arrive," Molly had offered as an alternative.
"Not likely," Arthur grinned. He had announced to his staff by owl that morning that he was taking the day to 'work in the field', knowing that what he would learn from his day with Lauren would easily justify him taking the time away from his desk. He had sat himself outside his shed, in a deckchair, pretending to read the paper while fantasising about the things he might learn in his day. And he was so alert that, when Lauren turned her little blue car up the track to The Burrow, he had his chair, paper and tea cup away and the shed door locked before she had even parked and put the handbrake on.
"Welcome, welcome," he said, opening the little car's back door of his own accord and greeting Elliot. Confused at first when the little boy didn't jump out, he understood only when Lauren climbed into the back seat through the other door and explained to Arthur how a muggle child's car seat worked. Delighted with his new-found expertise, Arthur strapped a giggling Elliot in and out of his car seat five times before finally Elliot become bored with his grandfather's new game and declared that he wanted to get out of the car.
"Sorry, sorry," said Arthur, gathering Elliot into his arms and remembering to shut the car door to keep the gnomes out before he followed Lauren to the kitchen.
Arthur's excitement was very clear to Lauren and not just because he was repeating everything twice. She could see that it would be cruel to have a long stay at The Burrow when he was so very keen to get into the car. "Quick cup of tea and a wee," she said in answer to Molly's question about what she would like before they got back on the road. She stretched her body a little, enjoying being able to stand up again. "I'll have plenty of time to rest when we get home. Charlie's going to fire up the barbeque, so all I need to do is get salad and wine out of the fridge."
"Oh, you have a fridge!" said Arthur happily. "I'd like to help with that, if I may."
"You may help with anything you like," Lauren told him, patting his arm. "I'll give you the grand tour when we get there, and then Molly and I can sit back while you and Elliot explore…"
Arthur's delight was compounded when Lauren and Molly agreed that he should sit in the passenger seat, up front and next to Lauren, for the journey itself. He began examining the dials and displays on the dashboard even before Lauren had done a three-point turn and driven the length of The Burrow's drive, slowing so that she didn't hit any of the chickens that were pecking for bugs among the stones. While Molly explained to Elliot how they would be fed and put to bed if everyone was still out when it got dark (the answer to which involved a charmed chicken house), Arthur embarked upon a comparative analysis of the dashboards of Lauren's car and his own Ford Anglia, which was safely home (thanks to the twins) but (thanks to Ron and Harry) rather a lot the worse for wear.
"Well, mine might be a bit newer, I think." Lauren was trying to be subtle, but Arthur wasn't ashamed of the age of his pride and joy.
"Oh undoubtedly," he said. "I worked on that one for years." He leaned a little closer, hoping Molly wouldn't hear his next words. "I was secretly delighted when Fred and George took it for a ride with Ron one day, to help Harry out of a spot of bother. I hadn't got round to testing it myself."
"There was nothing secret about your delight, Arthur Weasley!" Clearly, Molly had heard, and Lauren quickly checked the rear-view mirror, trying to read her mood. She was relieved to see a twinkle in Molly's eye. "There I was," Molly rolled her eyes at Lauren, "trying to reprimand the three of them for just taking it off during the night without even thinking about permission or safety, and Arthur's first words were to ask them how it went! And," she turned to her husband, "don't think I don't know that you snuck off later to get a fuller report from Fred and George!"
Lauren laughed, thinking that the Weasley home must have been a fun one to grow up in. She glanced at Elliot while checking the turn onto the main road out of the village, glad that he would soon have a little cousin to play with, and hoping that more Weasley grandchildren were on the horizon. Molly had also mentioned getting together with a friend called Andromeda, who was caring for her orphaned grandson, Teddy.
After getting home from George and Angelina's wedding the previous evening, she had dreamt about moving the cottage to The Burrow's grounds. Her dream had been filled with happy thoughts about being able to live a life that embraced both her own and Charlie's roots. What would cap it off, she had said to Charlie that morning, before she had left with Elliot and he had flooed to the shop, was if at least one or two of his siblings also wanted to move there. Lauren wanted community more than anything else; it was the thing she had missed the most since her parents' deaths. They had been sociable people; their house always open to friends and neighbours and filled with academic debate and friendly, laughing conversation. Lauren hadn't yet managed to achieve the same thing in her adult life, and she was still awed at the fact that not only were she and Charlie together again, but he had this enormous and lovely family which had already given her and Elliot such a sense of community and security.
Charlie had been honest with her. He wasn't sure that Fred and George would want to live at The Burrow. Or, perhaps more importantly, he wasn't sure what Hermione and Angelina would think about the idea. It could go either way, he had said.
Lauren looked fondly at his parents as she recalled the conversation, feeling a sense of joy at being able to offer them hospitality and, at least in Arthur's case, an experience that was clearly already exceeding his expectations.
"You can open that if you like," she offered, seeing Arthur fingering the black plastic casing in front of him. When he struggled to do so, she checked the road ahead and then leaned over a bit, showing him how to press with his fingers and release the plastic catch of the glove compartment.
"Marvellous technology!" he declared, tentatively probing the moving part of the catch and then opening and closing the little door a total of nine times before Molly asked him to stop. Lauren was working hard to suppress laughter, and already looking forward to being able to share the story of this experience with Charlie, Fred and George, who she was sure would enjoy hearing about it.
Happily for everyone, Arthur was kept busy for the next twenty minutes examining the contents of the glove compartment, which included maps, baby wipes and an orange plastic dinosaur which Elliot insisted on reclaiming as soon as he saw it. Further exploration revealed a packet of tissues, a half-empty strip of paracetamol and several assorted bags of car sweets. Lauren made sure Arthur knew that the paracetamol weren't for sharing and explained the car sweet distribution rules, just as she had done for Charlie a couple of weeks prior. Arthur unwrapped a humbug for Lauren and offered the bags around the occupants of the back seat before choosing a map to study.
"It's quite a novelty," Molly remarked, as she sucked on a rhubarb and custard sweet.
Lauren caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. "How do you mean?"
"Well," Molly indicated her mouth with a finger. "It doesn't taste like slugs, it hasn't changed form or taste since I first put it into my mouth and," she leaned into the middle of the seat to check her appearance in the mirror, "unless I'm mistaken, my hair hasn't changed colour. I can't remember the last time I had a sweet that was just a sweet!"
All of them laughed, and then Elliot held up a gummy worm between his thumb and finger. "Worm!" he said. It was very sticky, having been held in his mouth for a couple of minutes before he had removed it to show them.
"So it is," said Molly. "You can keep that one," she laughed, and Lauren was pleased to see that she seemed to be taking the journey in her stride. She had wondered whether Molly would find the car journey as stressful as Charlie had seemed to.
"I'm fine, lovely," the older witch said when Lauren asked her how she was doing, adding that Charlie hadn't much enjoyed his own car ride. "Charlie and Bill haven't travelled in cars much, if at all." Her mind wandered for a moment before continuing. "But by the time we had the youngest five all at school, and then Harry and Hermione were often with us by the end of the holidays too, it was easier to go by car than to put them all through the floo network or try to apparate them. The Ministry cars are a little different than yours," she added, looking around and realising that Lauren's car probably didn't have an expansion spell that could be called upon for a large family, "but I'm used to travelling at speed in a car. Much more than Charlie, anyway."
Lauren nodded, and then her attention was caught by a sign on the road. "Oh," she said, glancing down at the dashboard. "I nearly forgot. I need to stop for petrol. I hope that's OK? It seemed easier to wait til you were with me, and then I don't have to get Elliot out of his seat to come in with me to pay. I don't like to leave him in the car by himself, even just for a few minutes."
"We're going to an actual petrol station?" The voice was Arthur's, but the degree of excitement in his voice was closer to Elliot's usual level.
"Yes." Lauren couldn't help laughing a bit. "A real, live petrol station. Well," she added hastily, lest Arthur got the wrong idea, "not actually live. That's just an expression."
"And tell me," Arthur said, turning in his seat to face her, as she flicked on the indicator and began to slow as they approached the turn-off, "just how do petrol stations work, exactly?"
"Well," Lauren replied, catching Molly's eye in the mirror again. The older woman was laughing and had a look of apology on her face. Lauren reached back briefly to touch Molly's knee, letting her know that she was OK with what was happening. Molly patted her fingers in return. "If Mum and Elliot don't mind waiting in the car, you can get out and I'll show you…"
Arthur was one of the keenest students that Lauren ever taught. It took him a moment or two to master undoing his own seatbelt but, once he was out of the car, he watched as Lauren showed him how she used her car key to unlock the little door on the side of her car, and then obediently unscrewed the cap off her car's petrol tank as she directed him.
"Now," she said, under her breath, taking the cap from his hands and putting it on the roof of the car as he gazed around in wonder. "Don't forget, you mustn't get your wand out, no matter what. I'm going to put the nozzle into the hole in the petrol tank, look, like this, and then we press its handle. It'll make a noise, but that's just the petrol flowing. Do you see?"
Arthur saw, and was delighted to take over, though it took him two or three goes to remember that he had to keep pressing the handle to make the petrol continue flowing.
"In America and New Zealand and some other countries," Lauren explained, "they have a clip which holds the handle down until it's full. So you don't have to keep pressing it while it's pumping." She shrugged. "But we don't have those over here. I don't know why."
"Oh," Arthur said, under his breath, leaning closer to Lauren and speaking in a hushed voice, as if the two of them were spies, collecting and sharing important information. "So there are differences between muggles in different countries?"
"Yes, of course," said Lauren, and Arthur's eyes widened as he took in that information. He had only before dealt with British muggles, and their customs were exciting enough. He was startled from his thoughts as the petrol pump made a clunking sound which he felt in his hand. "It's OK," she said quickly, storing away her question on comparative wizarding culture for later. Perhaps she would keep it for when she and Charlie next saw Bill and Fleur. Although she imagined that Minerva or her new dancing friend Filius might also be able to teach her a few things as well. "It's just telling us that the tank is full. Put the nozzle back on its hook and we'll put the cap back on and do the tank door back up and pay."
Molly laughed out loud to see the look on her husband's face when, four minutes later, he emerged from the door of the petrol station as the proud owner of a packet of smokey bacon flavour crisps and a small plastic tub of breath-freshening mints.
"I paid," he told her proudly, as he got back into the car. "Well, with Lauren's money," he added, "but I paid and we bought these." He showed her and Elliot his offerings.
"You're spoiling him!" Molly told Lauren, who just laughed.
"It's too much fun not to let him try all these new experiences!" she replied, as she checked her mirror and pulled away towards the petrol station exit. "Put them there," she said, indicating to Arthur that he should put the change that he was holding in his hand into a small pot nestled in the console just in front of the gear stick. "I always put my coins in there," she told him, "and then I always have small change when I need it for parking."
"I do really appreciate all of this," Arthur exclaimed, settling himself back in the passenger seat to study his mints and crisps. Once he had worked out how to open the crisp packet, with a few words of advice from his grandson, he looked back at the pot with the coins in. "So tell me…" He looked across at Lauren again, who had by that point got them back onto the M5 and headed towards home. "How does parking work, exactly?" he asked, and that conversation and Arthur's spin-off questions lasted them pretty much all the way home.
