Ah, Hallowe'en. When the leaves had all fallen from the trees, the air was cooler, you sometimes woke to frost on the grass and last, but certainly not least, the time for spook and tricks and ghouls. And sweets. A lot of sweets. Especially at the Burrow.
The whole Weasley-Potter-Lupin clan had decided that since they were all going to be carving pumpkins that it would be best to restrict all the mess to one house. Molly and Arthur had promptly offered the Burrow, always eager to have everyone over.
The adults had soon been drafted into putting the kitchen table outside and adding the now almost permanent additions when they did, they sort of thing with the whole family. The result was a table everyone could sit around. Even still they were all sitting close together but that was more because of no one in this family having a real concept of personal space and not actually taking into the account the space available.
Pumpkin designing and carving was soon underway. Everyone drawing on their own designs with the adults doing the actual carving seeing how Teddy, the eldest of the grandchildren, was only eleven. And he wasn't trusted with a knife due to the fact that he had inherited his mother's lack of grace and because last year, when he originally been deemed old enough to weird a knife, he had chopped the top of his finger off. That had not been a pleasant Hallowe'en.
Ron was huffing as he eyed the design he had drawn onto his pumpkin. He had been pleased with it, it would look really cool, until he realised why there was so many knives on the table.
"I don't see why we can't just use magic." He complained.
Not that his precision with the cutting charm was enough to do the details of his design but he felt like he should complain anyway.
"Because this activity is for people without wands yet, Ronald. And it's fun to do things the muggle way."
Ron grumbled something but agreed.
"How exactly did you do it when you were younger?"
"Without magic," he said reluctantly.
"You, see?"
"What does Rona see?" Molly asked, bustling back into the kitchen.
"Uncle Ron wanted to use magic to carve the pumpkins," Dominique answered promptly and then looked at her grandmother with wide, blue eyes. "But that would mean we wouldn't get to do it."
"Tattle tale," Ron muttered at his niece, earning himself a cuff around the head from Bill. "Hey!"
"Don't call my daughter a tattle tale."
"Ronald!" Molly scolded, shaking the knife she was holding at him. "You will not take away the children's fun."
"Fine, fine," he grumbled and reached for a knife. "Right. What am I doing?"
"Ginny! You can't do that!" Harry's voice came from the other end of the table as he tried to cover up his wife's pumpkin.
Which, of course, meant that it drew everyone's attention.
Oh, come on, Harry!"
"Seriously, Ginny?"
Ginny shrugged and looked innocent as several of her family members crowded around her in an effort to see what she had done.
"What is that even meant to be?" Percy asked, tilting his head to one side.
"Nothing, it's meant to be nothing because she's changing it," Harry said firmly. "Aren't you Ginny?"
"I am not!"
"It's going to give people nightmares!"
"If anything, I'm the one who should be the most affected by it," she argued. "And it's not going to do me any harm so it's fine."
"And me and Ron?" Harry pointed out.
Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. "Is this really more scary than the real thing?"
"Well," Harry faltered. "No. Of course not."
"Then it's fine," Ginny turned back to her creation and eyed it critically. "Does it even look like it?"
"We don't even know what it's supposed to be, never mind know if it's going to give us nightmares," George pointed out.
"And it does. Kind of. I don't spend a lot of time looking at it," Harry answered her.
Ron felt like he was missing something here but he didn't want to get involved between Harry and Ginny. That was just a recipe for disaster.
"Is that supposed to be a snake?" George asked, squinting at it. "And a lion? Is that a lion head?"
"No, it is the young of a yellow plumed Carawarbler," Luna said.
It spoke volumes of how much they were all used to such comments from the blonde that it only earned her a few raised eyebrows before they turned back to Ginny's pumpkin.
"It's supposed to be a basilisk," Ginny said with a long-suffering sigh.
"A basilisk!" Ron yelped. "Why are you doing a basilisk?"
Seriously? He was definitely on Harry's side now. A basilisk. Shouldn't she be terrified of a basilisk or something? Traumatised, even? This was Ginny they were talking about!
"Because what's scarier than a basilisk, Ron? It's Hallowe'en!"
"But a basilisk?"
"Yes."
"Aren't you supposed to be traumatised by even the thought of one?" Ron asked, scratching his head in confusion. "Ow! Hermione!"
His wife had kicked him very firmly on the shin.
"You don't say things like that!"
Right. Okay. Yes. He could see how that wasn't a good idea. He opened his mouth to apologise but Ginny immediately brushed him off.
"I'm owning my fear," she told them all.
"And scaring everyone else in the process?"
"Of course."
"I still think it's a Carawarbler," Luna said.
"I bet it doesn't petrify people," Harry grumbled.
"No, but it does make the freeze on one spot for thirty seconds when it looks at you."
"Right..."
"Is that even what a basilisk looks like?" George asked, earning himself a thump from Ginny. "Ow!"
"Weren't you unconscious when the basilisk was around?" Ron asked.
"Ron!" Hermione actually reached across the table to thump him.
"Ow! What happened to no violence around the kids?"
The glare he got in return would have put a basilisk to shame.
"And I was asking Harry," George complained, rubbing his arm.
They all turned to look at Harry.
"I don't know!"
"You fought it," Ron said.
"Yeah, and I was kind of busy trying not to look into his eyes so I have no bloody clue what it looks like!"
"I feel like were missing something here," Bill said to Fleur, who nodded.
"So, it could not be a basilisk is what I'm hearing," said George.
"It's my interpretation of a basilisk," Ginny huffed.
"Maybe you should have used a spell for that..."
"That's not the point of pumpkin carving!"
"We're using our wands to get the guts out, right?" Ron whispered to Hermione.
"Oh, definitely," she assured him.
No one liked the feeling of that on their hands.
"Put all the insides into this bowl, please," Molly said, placing said bowl in the middle of the table. "I'll make pumpkin pies and pasties out of it all later."
"And roasted seeds!" Teddy shouted down the table.
Molly smiled fondly at the currently bright green haired eleven-year-old.
"Of course, dear."
"Yay!" He cheered and pumped his face in the air, making all of the kids do the same, even the ones who didn't know what pumpkin seeds were - being babies.
"We'll have them when we're all down and tidied up," Molly said with a nod.
"I'm not done yet," Dominique said solemnly.
"You don't need to rush, sweetheart."
"'Kay."
"I'm not done either," Ron offered.
"Betcha I'll finish first."
"Oh no you won't," he teased his niece.
"Daddy, you gotta carve mine now so I'll beat Uncle Ron." Dominique said, tugging on Bill's sleeve.
Ron chuckled as Bill now had to deal with the demands of both of his daughters and turned back to his own pumpkin.
He then swore under his breath as he made a mistake with his carving. It was going to spoil his design! He had managed to get his eyes done, though they were more jagged than he would like (though it did give his pumpkin a more scary look) as well as the nose. The problem was with the mouth. He couldn't seem to cut it out right, he had given it far too many twists and turns.
He tried to prise a chunk out with the knife and it pinged across the table, hitting Fleur on the nose.
"Hey!"
"Sorry," he offered sheepishly.
He got a glare from his sister-in-law but thankfully nothing more than that. He quickly focused on his own pumpkin and nearly swore again. The wrong bit came out.
He stabbed his knife into his pumpkin and huffed. You know what? He was done. Done.
"Are you finished, Ron? Harry asked, somehow with pumpkin all over his face.
Ron then realised that Ginny was looking very satisfied with herself. Ah, that made sense.
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Death," Ron said promptly.
Because what else could you call a pumpkin that had all these chunks out of it and a knife embedded in it?
"Death?" Molly questioned.
"Death."
"Ron, we aren't leaving a pumpkin outside with a knife stuck in it." Hermione scolded.
"It's scary!"
"It's a sharp, pointy object and we have a toddler," she said reproachfully, gesturing at Rose.
"Shiny knife," the young girl said happily, reaching for it.
Ron scooped her up. "Ah, ah, ah, Rosie," he said, making her giggle. "Knives aren't for babies."
"Not a baby," she said matter-of-factly. "Big girl."
"Yes, you are," Ron agreed. "But you're still small."
"Bigger than Hugo," she said, pointing to her baby brother who was cooing on Hermione's lap.
"But not bigger than mummy."
Rose looked critically at her mother, well, as critically as a three-year-old could, and nodded.
"Kay."
"No touching knives," Ron told her.
"No knives," Rose agreed.
He heaved a sigh of relief.
"Daddy, what knife is sharper?" He heard his niece, Molly asked Percy.
He looked up to see her reaching for two knives in front of her, which were immediately snatched away by her father.
"We don't touch knives, Molly."
"But I wanted to see what was sharper!" she complained. "I have to do an experiment with them to see!"
Ron couldn't help but snort. It was typical that it was Percy's child was into things like experiments.
"I'll show you," Percy offered. "You can check the results."
Molly thought for a moment and then agreed.
"Okay, daddy. You poke the pumpkins and we'll see what one is the best."
The two of them then proceeded to line up all the knives and stab the pumpkin with them. Little Molly even insisted on sticking her head into the pumpkin every time to see if the blade had gone through to the other side.
Of course, this meant that her hair was liberally highlighted with pumpkin guts.
And she wasn't the only one because apparently Dominque had not liked whatever Teddy had said to her and had upended a pumpkin on his head. Oddly, Teddy's head fit in it and he was now stumbling around the table, declaring himself to be the "Pumpkin Man" and refusing to let anyone take it off him. Eh, at least Bill had already carved eye holes into it for Dom?
Yep, there was all sorts of fun to be had when you were carving pumpkins. Not all of them normal but, honestly, where was the fun in that?
