Author's Note: I don't own Harry Potter. Please read the chapter, then the second author's note for my apology. Enjoy!

:*: 8 – Dinner with Dolores :*:

To say that I was dreading dinner with Hermione's family would be an understatement. To say that I would rather be pummeled with a thousand Bludgers in my sensitive man area instead of going to dinner with Hermione's family would be a slightly lesser understatement. And I was only feeling this way for one reason and it starts with a "D" and rhymes with "valorous." (Which, by the way, I was not feeling.)

That's right. Aunt Dolores. She was going to be at this stupid dinner and I knew I would crumble under her thumb. Hermione knew of my adversity towards her aunt and while she understood it, she was still forcing me to go to dinner; a decision which was final during a conversation we had earlier that day.

"Fred, I know you don't want to go to dinner at my parents – "

"No, Hermione," I interrupted. "I do want to go to dinner at your parents place, but seeing as how your aunt is going to be there, I would rather not. Is there any way I can get out of it?"

"Dammit, Fred," Hermione snapped. "You are going to have to get used to Dolores because she is my aunt and she will be at the wedding and everything. Just buck up."

I huffed like a two year old.

"Oh, hush," Hermione said. "But we'll have to make sure that you make a good impression on my family this time around. Last time you, er… didn't."

I laughed.

"It is not funny, Fred," Hermione said. "I wouldn't be surprised if my family thought you were a case for St. Mungo's."

"I doubt," I replied, "Your family even knows about St. Mungo's."

"You know what I mean."

I did know, but I find it way too much fun to play around with Hermione than to just give into her demands.

"You should probably dress a bit nice for dinner," Hermione said, adding quickly, "just to make a good impression. You don't have to be in a tuxedo or anything, but maybe a nice button down and trousers?"

"Button down trousers?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Hermione sighed impatiently. "I know what you mean. I'll get dressed in a bit."

Hermione looked like she was going to say something else to me, but decided against it.

"On second thought, I'll get dressed now," I said, getting off the couch and heading to my closet. On my way into the bedroom, I caught Hermione with a triumphant smile on her face.

:*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*:

We ended up at Hermione's parents house at about six-thirty, exactly one half hour before dinner was to start. That meant that I had exactly one half hour of forced conversations with Hermione's family. Exactly one half hour to dodge the evil Aunt Dolores.

Of course, since I wanted to avoid her, she's the first one to come up to me and talk.

"You," she said, voice full of anger.

"Er… me?" was my intelligent response.

"You and your dirty thoughts and actions got my little Herman pregnant," she hissed.

"Well, it was Hermione's dirty actions as well," I said. "'Cause you know, it takes two to tango."

She opened her mouth again, but I was too quick and I headed off to find Hermione. It was very apparent that most of the family knew about her pregnancy because she was surrounded by women cooing over her and asking dozens of intrusive questions. I was unable to get through the estrogen field emitting from the women – mostly middle aged – so I meandered about the crowds.

"Are you Fred Weasley?"

I turned around and came face-to-face with a girl to be about my age. She had mildly long brown hair and green eyes. She was fairly thin only hit at about my chest in height.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Hi," she said. "My name is Kerri. I'm Hermione's cousin."

"Oh, hello," I said, extending my hand. "Fred Weasley. Hermione's cousin."

"And father of her child."

"Yep. We're pretty excited," I said, smiling.

"But it's a child," Kerri responded, cringing a bit. "How old are you, Fred? Twenty, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-two, actually."

"That's really young for a kid." It was a statement.

"Yeah, it is," I responded, a little confused by Kerri's bluntness. "But, hey. Hermione and I love each other a lot and we're getting married in a few months."

"You'll be twenty-three when that happens," Kerri said. "That's really young to get married. Half the marriages these days end in divorce, you do know that right."

"Er…"

"Fred?" I heard Hermione call. "Hi, Kerri. You met Fred, then?"

"Psyched me out is a bit closer to the truth," I said.

"Kerri!" Hermione said.

Kerri shrugged. "What? Just thought I'd let Fred know what was in store for him."

As we walked away from Kerri, I said, "you're family is psychotic!"

"Excuse me?" Hermione responded.

"Aunt Dolores, that mean grandparent of yours, Kerri," I said. "Does the entire extended Granger family hate me?"

"God, Fred, no!" she said. "How could you think that?"

"Because they act like they do," I said.

Hermione huffed.

"Well, it doesn't matter what they think," she said. "Because I am in love with you and they can all just sod off if they don't like that."

"Language, Hermione," I said and we laughed. "I love you too."

Hermione smiled her sweet little smile that always shows up when I say that and I leaned down to give her a kiss. I was very close to touching lips with her when someone yelled out,

"WOO-HOO!"

I felt my face get hot and I looked up to find almost the entire room looking at us. I looked down at Hermione and she was bright red. I laughed and the same person yelled out again.

"Don't stop because of us, Lover Boy!"

The room broke into laughter and I swooped down for a very dramatic and passionate kiss. When we ended, the room exploded into applause. Hermione, out of breath, got even more red and hissed at me,

"You are going to pay for this, Fred Weasley."

"How?" I asked. "My family has basically disowned me."

"Lucky bastard."

I let loose a quiet, yet mad cackle that earned a few stares from her family.

It was nearing dinner, so Hermione and I just worked the room and met numerous family members of hers. Few had really stuck out to me more than Aunt Dolores (who I was stealthily avoiding, though I kept feeling her insect-like eyes etching holes in the back of my head) and by the time I had met a quasi-interesting Granger – apart from my fiancé, of course – dinner had began and I was seated next to a brand new person.

"Hi," said the girl next to me. She had light colored hair with streaks of many colors going through it. It was… different.

"Hi," I replied, trying not to stare at her hair. It was oddly entrancing, like those Muggle lights with goo floating around in them. Lava Lamps I believe they are called.

"You saw my hair, I'm assuming?" she asked.

"Er, right."

"And I'm judging form that dumbstruck stare that you must think it to be the most atrocious hairstyle you had ever seen!" she said sarcastically.

"Not really, no," I said.

"My mum hates it," she said. "I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up one morning completely bald because she cut it all off."

"As much I would enjoy hearing about your mother and sharing a few stories of my own," I said. "Perhaps I should, you know, find out who the hell you are… Not to be rude, of course."

"Of course," she snorted. "I'm Wanda. One of Hermione's cousins. There are a lot of us, you see. You must be Fred Weasley, the man who stole my cousins innocence."

"Er…"

Wanda laughed and looked straight into my eyes and said, "don't worry. You will be hearing a lot of things like that; mainly from the older generations because we children are a little more open to the whole sex thing."

"Wanda!" another woman, an older woman, hissed. "That is not a subject that needs to be discussed at the dinner table."

Wanda looked at her plate.

"Sorry, Mum," she said, muttering something so quiet even I couldn't hear what it was. I did hear the next thing though, but it wasn't from Wanda. It was from Dolores.

"Don't blame Wanda," she said, shooting a sympathetic glance towards her. "Blame the Weasel fellow. He's the one with the dirty mind."

"Er…" was my oh-so-brilliant response. I seem to have a lot of these now a days, especially around Hermione's family. I must contain some unyielding urge to impress them. It's odd because I never have had the urge to impress my family, but who cares.

"Aunt Dolores," Hermione began.

"No, no, no!" Dolores snapped, surprising everyone at the table except me. "I am tired of you all sticking up for this red-headed weasel. He is not worthy of our dear Herman and I will not stand idly by and watch him corrupt her! Though I fear that it's too late for some things."

"For Christ's sake, if she hadn't shagged she'd have shagged someone else!" I yelled at Dolores. "She isn't a bloody nun, you know."

The table was eerily quiet. I pleaded telepathically for someone to say something or drop something. It took a few beats, but a loud snort came from my right side. I looked over and I saw a head of busy brown hair shaking with, what I was amazed at, was laughter.

Hermione was laughing.

I had just extremely embarrassed her in front of almost her whole family.

And she was laughing.

Damn, if Hermione wasn't destined to be a Weasley, I'll eat my hat… or maybe even some snails.

"Hermione?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

Hermione put her hand up to signify she was fine. She lifted up her head and I spotted tears of mirth down her cheeks. That made the corners of my mouth twitch and soon I was laughing along with everyone at the table.

Except Dolores, of course.

"I do not see what is so funny about this situation!" she screeched, apparently appalled by her families behavior. "He insulted – "

"Who did he insult, Dolores?" Hermione's mother Fiona asked. "For the only person I can possibly understand being offended by Fred's outburst is Hermione and I think she is taking it exceptionally well."

Dolores looked towards Hermione and turned a bit owlish, excusing herself from the table. A waited a few moments after everyone had resumed eating a normal chatter before getting up and scouting the aunt in question.

I found her out on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

"Dolores?" I asked boldly. She whipped around narrowed her eyes and said,

"Do you want anything else, Weasel? You already have Hermione."

I huffed like a five-year-old and said, "I do already have Hermione. She wants me to have her and I want her to have me. I'm not stealing her, if that's what you're implying."

Dolores said nothing.

"And since we're on the subject of Hermione and I, I think I need to get some things straight with you.

"First off, my name is not Weasel. It's Weasley and the last person who called me Weasel had a few unspeakable things, er… cursed upon him.

"Second, I am going to become a part of the Granger family. I will be Hermione's husband for as long as we stay happy; which is hopefully forever. You don't have to agree with that, but you can at least realize that short of one of our's death will we decide not to be together because we've already been through enough.

"Third, we are going to have a child. Yes, we did have sex. I can't deny that… well, I can, but it'd be stupid because in a few months there will be some pretty damning evidence stating otherwise. Anyways, the point is that we shagged. Big deal. Everyone does it.

"Fourth, I want respect. You give, I'll return it. You care a lot about Hermione and her well being and I do to! I'm also sick of all your comments about how you do not think I am a good enough man for Hermione. You want to know something else? I don't think I'm good enough for her either! She's smarter than me, more responsible than me and a hell of a lot more attractive than me so she doesn't need to be with me.

"The fact is, she is with me. And that's her decision. So any comment in the future that is a slight towards me… that's a slight towards Hermione and our baby. My family, your family, our family."

:*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*: :*:

I told Hermione what I said to Dolores when we returned to our flat that night. At first she was rightfully wary about it all, but agreed that it did need to be said.

"We're going to have to talk to your family soon," she said, bursting my bubble of arrogant pride.

I sighed. "I know. Can we just do it some other time. I'm tired and sort of all out of neat things to say when arguing with someone."

Hermione nodded. "Of course," she said and gave me a kiss before going off to get ready for bed.

I was in the bed before she came in and I'm sure I was still awake after she fell asleep. I just couldn't fall asleep with the looming shadow of fear growing over my head. I mean, I had always been a little scared Mum because, let's face, she's a frightening woman. But I knew what I had to do and I knew I had to do it soon.

Problem was, I didn't know how to do it. I had to be responsible, civil and adult and I needed help on it from  source that I despise receiving help from. I needed someone with an air of superiority about him… basically someone with an extremely large, splintery stick up his bum.

I had to talk to Percy.

Author's Note: I do hope you all are still reading this and have not given up on me and my story. I have many excuses for it all, so I will start form the beginning:

I have had, basically, an entirely packed summer. I've been working constantly on my bathroom, for which I am remodeling for my senior project (a HUMONGOUS project that you have to spend ages working on). I went to Pennsylvania for a week for a family reunion where I had no access to a computer with my stories on the hard drive. I got back and had to deal with my mother going out of town and me turning into the keeper of the house so I spent ages cleaning it so it was clean when she got back from her vacation. Then, Annual started up and since I'm co-Editor-in-chief I have many responsibilities, most of which involve a lot of time dedicated to working on the book. Then, I got my wisdom teeth pulled and was out of commission for EVERYTHING for three days, then I went to a four-day long festival (Bumbershoot!) which ended today.

I hope that clears some of it up and that you can forgive me enough to continue loving my story, because if I would've had the time, I would've written. But now, I have bad news: I am starting school (my senior year) this Thursday so I really am going to have no time to write. I promise that if any other huge delays show up, I will notify you. My writing spirit has been on vacation as well, so it might come back when school starts, though. Basically, I'm saying I'll try like hell to get updates out ASAP.

Thanks you all for understanding.

Now, since it is very late and I want to get this updated quickly, I am not doing individual thanks because it is very time consuming. Just know that I love you all dearly for reviewing and I'll thank you personally next time around. Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you.