"Oh Arthur! The wedding was just beautiful." Molly said, breathless with excitement. Arthur swung his wife into his arms and the two of them watched their son lead his bride into their first dance.
"Do you remember the first time she taught him to dance?" Molly asked her husband. He grinned down at her.
"That was a sight, wasn't it? Little Evie trying to teach those two oafs how to waltz. It was ten years ago, but, thinking about it, it seems like it was yesterday…"
"C'mon! I've seen ducks that have better foot work then that." Evelyn commented, watching Fred and George waltz around the garden.
She'd had to learn the waltz for her mother's annual Embassy Ball, and this year she was allowed to bring a friend. So since none of her schoolmates knew her as well as the Weasley twins, she decided to ask them to be her date.
That is if she could teach them to dance.
Her ten-year-old critical eye saw Fred almost trip over his own feet and George continually trod on his brother's toes.
After another few minutes of being stepped on, Fred pushed George away from him.
"Gerroff!" He snapped and rounded on Evelyn. "How much longer am I going to have to suffer this mundane torture?"
Before Evelyn could respond, Mrs. Weasley came out and called them into lunch. With a look of utter relief on both their faces, Fred and George hurried into the house. With a frustrated sigh, Evelyn followed.
In the kitchen, the twins grabbed a couple of sandwiches, each, then made a bee line up the stairs to hide in their room.
Cowards. Evelyn thought, grabbing a corned beef sandwich off the platter on the kitchen table and sitting down. She was joined seconds later by Mrs. Weasley, who sat down with a smile on her lips.
"Alright," she said. "Tell me what's on your mind."
Evelyn stopped in mid chew and looked at the woman she considered a mother figure.
"Tell you what?" She asked, her mouth full of corned beef.
"Swallow before you speak, dear." Mrs. Weasley reprimanded gently.
Evelyn swallowed what was in her mouth, setting the remainder of the sandwich on the plate in front of her.
"Tell you what, Mrs. Weasley?" She repeated.
Mrs. Weasley reached over and patted Evelyn's hand, and the young girl had a sense of being comforted by the mother she didn't have.
"Evie, you'll have to give my boys time before they'll be ready to join in your muggle world." Mrs. Weasley said, her voice soft.
"I don't want them to join my world, Mrs. Weasley."
"Then why go to all the trouble of having them learn this waltz of yours?" The older woman asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
"W-well, I-I don't want them in my world totally, I-I just want them to participate for one night." Evelyn faltered, now mentally questioning herself why she had wanted the twins to learn the muggle dance.
"You know as well as I do, Evie, dear, that it would only take one night for Fred and George to wreck your muggle mum's perfect world."
Evelyn heaved a heavy sigh, she knew Mrs. Weasley was right. Knowing Fred and George, one of them would bring acid pops and hand them out to her mother's unsuspecting guests, while the other tried to engage the muggles in a game of exploding snap.
Mrs. Weasley knew Evelyn knew that she was right when she sighed. They both stood up and Mrs. Weasley hugged and kissed Evelyn before sending her up the stairs to fetch the boys.
"It's time to de-gnome the garden." She said matter of factly and shooed Evelyn up the stairs before turning to the dirty dishes in the sink.
The waltz forgotten, Evelyn, Fred, George, and their younger brother Ron, had a blast de-gnoming the garden (for a change). Fred and Evelyn got into a contest to see who could throw a gnome the farthest. Mrs. Weasley had to come out a few times and threaten to wallop the twins with her broomstick because they kept throwing the gnomes at Ron.
Mr. Weasley came home in time for supper and Fred and George kept bewitching their food to fly off their plates and pelt Ron. Evelyn had to stuff her napkin in her mouth to stifle her giggles.
After supper Evelyn went outside to wait for Mr. Weasley to take her home, while Mrs. Weasley made the twins clean up the mess the made, the muggle way.
She lay on the grass, her arms crossed under her head, listening to the gnomes sneak back into their holes. She was thinking about not wanting to go home, when out of the corner of her eye she saw a thin figure loom over her.
Evelyn looked up into the grinning face of George Weasley.
"Mum reckons we made you feel shoddy about teaching us that muggle dance. So I came out here to show you what I've learned." He held out a hand. Warily, Evelyn took hold of the hand and let herself be pulled to her feet.
"May I have this dance, miss?" He asked, his nose in the air and trying to sound as if he were part of the upper crust.
Smiling, Evelyn let him lead her into the dance, George humming a sound that sounded strangely like Brahms's Lullaby, and was very out of tune.
She let him pull her closer, and as he continued his horrible humming, a thought drifted through her mind, of how, years from now, George Weasley would make an excellent dance partner.