A/N: Tomorrow I've got to get my hair died, then nails Sunday, hair and makeup and actual graduation on Monday, not to mention the fact that I've got to organize my life for the summer because with my Bat Mitzvah in November, then my trip in May, and my Nanny almost dying (but she's better now) my new cousin being born, my school trip, my friend's mental breakdown, the fact that I might have to move to small town Ontario (shoot me, I'm a city girl), or the burbs (please- kill me now) and now my graduation to worry about, so tonight, I decided to stay up till three am whining on MSN to my best friend and writing this chapter, sensible, ain't I? But I have a whole summer free currently so the updates will be plentiful. Sorry, I had to whine. I'm really really really really really really really really really really tired right now. Hope you like the chapter
DISCLAIMER: I'm not JK Rowling, I think she's better at organization than I am.
Charlie's family has congregated in a corner, and he's trying to control his youngest daughter, Aisha, who's eleven and very excited about Christmas, his wife, who is one of the most exuberant women I've ever had the luck to meet, is fencing with their two sons, Faris, who's eight and Jabir who's four and who's afraid of the toy wands they're using for their game, he's always been a timid little thing.
Najwa, Bill's wife, is Arabic, from Iraq, and a very kind woman, and she has an amazing story. She was married at sixteen and pulled out of wizarding education, her husband was, as she put it the first time I met her (she was already six months pregnant with Abia, their eldest at that point and wasn't trying to impress any more), "a fat bastard of about a hundred and two with the reproduction abilities of a pickle". She proceeded to have an affair with his brother, run off to Paris and divorce him, finish school and become a teacher, meet Charlie and get pregnant after three months. They got married when they found out they were expecting Aisha, six years after Abia was born. Najwa and Fleur have a lot in common, and with her exuberant personality, and ability to handle children, she's always fit in with our family. Her father disowned her, and I think Bill's decided that he can be just as overprotective of his closest sister- in-law as he was of his baby sister until Harry came along.
Abia, I think, feels a bit bad about being an 'accident', but her parents never cared, nor did we. Abia beat all of the records set by Hermione at Hogwarts, and as Harry, who was her Defense teacher all seven years put it 'she does things with wands that frankly scare me', she'll be starting Auror training in the fall- she's the first person to get in since Ginny did years ago, but she quit the same year Harry did, after six (including training) years when she found out she was pregnant and, after deciding it was too dangerous a job, she became a Healer. She's not the most beautiful person I've ever met, she was born with her mother's olive complexion, and her father's ruddy red hair, she thinks it clashes, she's also slightly overweight, but what she lacks in aesthetics, she makes up for in intelligence, I've always said. Abia is easy to be proud of, she's a Ravenclaw of course, most of my grandchildren who are already in school are either that or Gryffindors.
Aisha, Aisha, are there words for that little girl? Precocious is a rather good start. Opinionated, but without much information. Charlie's daughter, she has his eyes, that Weasley baby blue that all my children except Ginny and the twins inherited from me. You know, it's odd, but sometimes, if I look into her eyes long enough, I can see myself at eleven. And I feel so tired- I'm seventy-six, I'm a grandmother of thirty four- my children barely even need me any more, and she has everything to look forward too. She does remind me of myself at that age though- a redhead in every way, of course, a Gryffindor, and with a temper to go with all that loyalty and bravery.
Faris is noble for an eight year old, oh, he's as grabby as the rest. For God's sake his best friend in James Potter Jr., scourge of the universe and my cookie jar, but he's also very polite and sweet. He's, as Charlie put it when he apologized for accidentally opening one of Najwa's gifts this morning 'Harry's favorite future student' (you can't imagine the number of times Harry has sworn he'll throttle Seth and Ryan (George and Alicia's twins) or Ben and Franklin (Fred and Angelina's) he says a mannerly nephew will be the nicest thing ever to enter his door in a few years. Faris is currently poking his mother in the stomach with his wand, which has transfigured into a giant frog, I think she's just asked Charlie for help because he's laughing on the floor and shaking his head and she's frowning at him horridly.
Jabir is a very sweet, very young child, he's one of those ones who are too shy to show a personality when they're with someone other than immediate family, even me. It doesn't help at large family occasions like this that he's grown up, more than any of the others, on stories of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny and is in total and complete awe of them, he'll never speak when he thinks they might hear him.
Charlie and his family are really some of the happiest people I've ever met if a bit... untraditional.