Harry Potter grunted as he barely managed to heave his trunk down the stairs of The Burrow. Harry had had enough of the Weasley's. He tried to drown out the voice of Mrs. Weasley's incessant droning on about just how perfect he and Ginny Weasley would be.
Harry who has stayed at The Burrow on multiple different occasions was able to tolerate her not-so-inconspicuous attempts to play matchmaker to get him to mate her daughter Ginny.
But, this time she had gone too far.
The first night he had stayed there was when it all started. Harry had just arrived back from an awful summer with the Dursleys. He was already tired from being dragged along to help Dumbledore with a personal matter.
After Dumbledore left, Mrs. Weasley. took Harry by the shoulders to examine him.
"You're like Ron," she sighed, looking him up and down. "Both of you look as though you've had Stretching jinxes put on you. I swear Ron's grown four inches since I last bought him school robes. Are you hungry, Harry?"
"Yeah, I am," said Harry, suddenly realizing just how hungry he was.
"Sit down, dear, I'll knock something up."
As Harry sat down, a furry ginger cat with a squashed face lumped onto his knees and settled there, purring.
"So Hermione's here?" he asked happily as he tickled Crookshanks behind the ears.
"Oh yes, she arrived the day before yesterday," said Mrs. Weasley, rapping a large iron pot with her wand. It bounced onto the stove with a loud clang and began to bubble at once. "Everyone's in bed, of course, we didn't expect you for hours or I would have had Ginny up to help, she is an amazing cook."
Harry made a mental note at the first Ginny comment of his stay.
"Here you are..." She tapped the pot again; it rose into the air, flew toward Harry, and tipped over; Mrs. Weasley slid a bowl nearly beneath it just in time to catch the stream of thick, steaming onion soup. "Bread, dear?"
"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley."
She waved her wand over her shoulder; a loaf of bread and a knife soared gracefully onto the table; as the loaf sliced itself and the soup pot dropped back onto the stove, Mrs. Weasley sat down opposite him.
"So you persuaded Horace Slughorn to take the job?"
Harry nodded, his mouth so full of hot soup that he could not speak.
"He taught Arthur and me," said Mrs. Weasley. "He was at Hogwarts for ages, started around the same time as Dumbledore, I think. Did you like him?"
His mouth now full of bread, Harry shrugged and gave a noncommittal jerk of the head.
Harry swallowed a large amount of very hot soup and thought he could feel his throat blistering. "That's great!" he gasped.
Mrs. Weasley had just told him Mr. Weasley had gotten a promotion.
"You are sweet," beamed Mrs. Weasley, possibly taking his watering eyes for emotion at the news.
Harry nodded in hopes for her to keep talking. He felt a weird feeling bubbling in his stomach. Harry had had Mrs. Weasley's soup multiple times over the past years, it had never tasted like this.
"Is Mr. Weasley still at work?" Harry asked. He had missed what she had been saying before, so he opted to change the subject.
"Yes, he is. As a matter of fact, he's a tiny bit late... He said he'd be back around midnight..."
She turned to look at a large clock that was perched awkwardly on top of a pile of sheets in the washing basket at the end of the table. Harry recognized it at once: It had nine hands, each inscribed with the name of a family member, and usually hung on the Weasleys' sitting room wall, though its current position suggested that Mrs. Weasley had taken to carrying it around the house with her. Every single one of its nine hands was now pointing at "mortal peril."
"It's been like that for a while now," said Mrs. Weasley, in an un-convincingly casual voice, "ever since You-Know-Who came back into the open. I suppose everybody's in mortal danger now... I don't think it can be
just our family... but I don't know anyone else who's got a clock like this, so I can't check. Ginny is at mortal peril too but she still stays punctual, good young la— Oh!"
With a sudden exclamation, she pointed at the clock's face. Mr. Weasley's hand had switched to "traveling."
"He's coming!"
And sure enough, a moment later there was a knock on the back door. Mrs. Weasley jumped up and hurried to it; with one hand on the doorknob and her face pressed against the wood she called softly, "Arthur, is that you?"
"Yes," came Mr. Weasley's weary voice. "But I would say that even if I were a Death Eater, dear. Ask the question!"
"Oh, honestly..."
"Molly!"
"All right, all right... What is your dearest ambition?"
"To find out how airplanes stay up."
Mrs. Weasley huffed, "And…"
"For Ginny to marry and mate with Harry."
Harry almost vomited.
Mrs. Weasley nodded and moved to turn the knob, but apparently, Mr. Weasley was holding tight to it on the other side, because the door remained firmly shut.
"Molly! I've got to ask you your question first!"
"Arthur, really, this is just silly..."
"What do you like me to call you when we're alone together?"
Even by the dim light of the lantern, Harry could tell that Mrs. Weasley had turned bright red; he himself felt suddenly warm around the ears and neck, and hastily gulped soup, clattering his spoon as loudly as he could against the bowl.
"Mollywobbles," whispered a mortified Mrs. Weasley into the crack at the edge of the door.
"Correct," said Mr. Weasley. "Now you can let me in."
Mrs. Weasley opened the door to reveal her husband, a thin, balding, red-haired wizard wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and a long and dusty traveling cloak.
"I still don't see why we have to go through that every time you come home," said Mrs. Weasley, still pink in the face as she helped her husband out of his cloak. "I mean, a Death Eater might have forced the answer out of you before impersonating you!"
"I know, dear, but it's Ministry procedure, and I have to set an example. Something smells good... onion soup?" Mr. Weasley turned hopefully in the direction of the table.
"Harry! We didn't expect you until morning!" They shook hands, and Mr. Weasley dropped into the chair beside Harry as Mrs. Weasley set a bowl of soup in front of him too.
Harry noticed it was from a different pot than he was from.
"Er— Mrs. Weasley did you add a different kind of seasoning to the soup?" Harry asked, trying to figure out what he was tasting.
"Nothing you have to worry about, Dearie," Mrs. Weasley smiled.
It had turned out that Mrs. Weasley had decided to drug Harry with a love potion in hopes of him falling for Ginny.
To her dismay, it had worn off in his sleep.
Then, she had tried to lock Harry and Ginny in a room together to, in her words, "work things out."
They were left there for hours.
Harry had lasted at the burrow a total of 3 days and endured a handful of horrifying things he didn't care to rehash until finally leaving.