REUNION

ASK HIM POLITELY

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.

Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle.

Hermione shooed her daughters out and hastily conjured an extra sofa while Severus greeted the scowling group of six Weasley men – one by marriage – and one woman who had just rudely Apparated into his living room. Perhaps they would find undeserved politeness more unsettling than the blasting they were asking for.

"Good afternoon, Ginevra, Neville, Frederick, George, Charlie, William."

Apart from the first two, they were infrequent visitors, but familiar enough to be on a first-name basis. In general, he preferred more formality, but there was no gainsaying his wife's argument that it was preferable to know which "Mr Weasley" one was talking to or about. He turned a sarcastic eye on the remaining visitor. Hermione's ex-best friend had refused to have anything to do with her since her marriage. It was a satisfaction to watch him eat his words.

"Ronald too? How – unexpected."

Ron scowled, taking the point. He was hot-tempered, not thick.

"I'm not here to talk to you. I want to talk to my brother," he said, his hands clenching and unclenching.

"Where is he?" asked one twin. "We want to see him so we can –"

"– tell him off properly," the other one finished.

"I wouldn't recommend that," their host replied calmly, sitting down again and motioning them all to sit likewise. "It's telling him off that precipitated this situation in the first place."

By then, Hermione had Accioed two jugs of juice, a platter of Chocolate Wheatens and nine cups and saucers to the coffee table, in the forlorn hope that serving afternoon tea might ease things. She perched on the broad arm of her husband's chair, leaving the other armchair to Charlie, who promptly sprawled across it. The remaining visitors had squeezed themselves onto the two sofas, three and three, the twins and Ron on one and Ginny, Neville and Bill on the other. Ignoring the refreshments, they glowered at their hosts.

"It's funny, in a way," Hermione said, before they could start. "It was him always telling you what to do that made you resent him, but you all thought you had the right to tell him what to do, even after he grew up. And you even think you still can, after you haven't seen him for twenty years and he has a family of his own!"

"That's his fault, but he –"

"It's everyone's fault," she interrupted Ginny. "Every one of you – except you, Neville – your parents and, yes, him too. If any of you had been willing to bend, you wouldn't be in this mess now."

Mouths opened to speak, but Severus was first.

"Open those heads to a little thought for once and consider what it is you want. If it's to go on fighting with him, then by all means continue as you are. You will not achieve anything other than to justify his decision to leave. If you want to be a part of his life now, you'll have to accept that he has a right to be different from you. He always did."

Ron and the twins had to be wrestled down. Neville's soft "No" in his wife's ear kept her quiet, but she glared equally at her hosts, who sat waiting in grim-mouthed silence, and at Charlie and Bill for interfering. It wasn't often that she agreed with Ron, but this was one of the times.

"You've no right!" Ron was yelling, as Bill held him back. "You slimy snake, you've no right to stop us talking to our brother!"

Hermione's fists clenched and her eyes darted from her husband to his accuser. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut and put a shaking hand on her husband's shoulder. His sideways glance was enough to steady her, but she left her hand there and he didn't shake it off.

"There's so much we don't understand," Bill said, after the shouting had subsided and everyone was seated again, looking slightly rumpled. "For twenty years, we've thought he was dead. How? Why?"

Their erstwhile Professor traced one long finger around his thin mouth before answering. They glared impatiently at him.

"He transfigured his fingernail clippings into a replica of his form so that it would hold his magical signature," he explained at last. "Then he left his wand beside it to reinforce the spell. That's why no one detected that it wasn't him."

"That's ingenious," said Fred. "I didn't know –"

"– the pompous prat had it in him," his twin continued.

"Amazing!" they said together.

Hermione sighed and shook her head at them, but left the obvious response to her husband.

"You didn't know your brother at all. If you had, you wouldn't be here now, asking why."

"And you did, I suppose," jeered Ron.

"No more than any other Gryffindor hothead, but I've come to know him better in the last six years." Severus held Ron's gaze till the younger man looked down. "Our children are friends. His oldest daughter, Alison, is the same age as Cammie."

"Hard to think of Perce being human enough to have kids," Ginny said. Neville laid a restraining hand on her arm. She ignored it. "Is Alison really his? She doesn't look the least bit like him."

"Most of their children favour his wife. Amanda was born in Jamaica," said her host.

"Most? He must have –"

"– at least three then."

Severus scowled at the twins under frowning brows. If they'd still been his students, he'd have given himself the pleasure of dissecting their characters – for their own benefit, of course. If they kept interrupting him, he still might. They'd always been a rowdy, reckless lot, the Weasleys, especially the younger siblings, though Percy and Bill had been somewhat tolerable and Charlie a not unpleasant colleague before he returned to his dragons.

"He has ten," he told them, leaning his head back and looking them slowly up and down.

"Ten!" said Charlie and was immediately echoed by three siblings. "Ten? Pompous Perce? He can't have! He'd never stand the chaos!"

"All girls; two sets of twins," supplied Hermione helpfully.

"The older twins, Amalie and Adelaide, bear the most resemblance to Adam," her husband continued. "They'll be –"

"Adam? Who's Adam and what does –"

"– he have to say to anything?" Again George finished Fred's thought.

"Your brother has been living as a Muggle under the name of Adam Wales, for the last twenty years. He joined an engineering firm as an analyst and worked his way up to become Chief Operating Officer five years ago."

"Whatever that is," Bill said.

"It means he manages the day-to-day operations of the entire company. He's one step below top place," Hermione explained.

"That'd be right!" muttered Ron. "Always was as ambitious as all get-out, the git!"

"You would think so, of course. You never had his determination or capacity for application," Severus retorted.

"Never wanted 'em." Ron's only ambitions had been on a broom.

"Indeed." Severus sneered, resisting the temptation to point out that was why he'd never got further than third-string Seeker on a third-rate team. He didn't have time today. "As I was saying, the older twins will be entering Hogwarts this September. After them come Anthea, Abigail, Aglaia, Amy-Rose – the only other one with red hair – and Alfrida, then the younger twins, Arielle and Aislynn, who'll be turning four in August."

Seven jaws dropped.

"Blimey!" breathed Ron. "How are we supposed to remember all that?"

Severus merely smirked. Ten names was nothing to a teacher. He was accustomed to learning five times that with every new first year class.

"It's just like Percy to give his kids names that all start with the same letter," mused Charlie. "He always was the sort of kid who liked everything in neat, straight rows."

"He could have thought of us and made them consecutive letters of the alphabet," complained Ron.

"Hardly," Severus reminded them. "He's spent the last twenty years trying not to think of you at all."

"Did he succeed?" Bill asked, looking troubled.

"He might tell you, if you ask him politely."

Ron jumped up again.

"Politely!" he stormed. "We don't need your advice how to talk to our brother, you overgrown bat!"

"No doubt that explains why for twenty years you haven't had the chance," Severus shot back.

"How's that your business?" Ginny's eyes flashed. Four of her brothers chimed in with similar plaints. Her husband looked across at Severus with a troubled frown.

"It might be better to teach by example than precept," he suggested mildly.

Their eyes met. Severus flushed, his eyelids lowering briefly, his lips pursing. He had come to respect Neville. There was steel under that softness and the younger man's rare reproofs were all the more effective for their subtlety.

"It's my business because Adam has made it my business," he explained, gentling his tone. "He has asked me to be present at any discussions you might wish to have with him."

"Anyone would think he hated us!" said Ron bitterly. "First he walked out on us, then he let us think he was dead, now he won't even face us without a bodyguard!"

"He doesn't hate you; he loves you. That's why he can't forgive you," Hermione said.

He'd been like a McGonagall peg in a Weasley hole, she thought glumly, and they'd all just kept trying to cram him in and cut off the bits that didn't fit. And he was as stubborn as they were – that was one Weasley trait he did inherit, along with Weasley temper and Weasley courage –so he'd kept trying to do it back.

"That doesn't even make sense!" said Ginny. "If he loved us, why did he leave?"

"Because it hurt too much when you kept pushing him away."

"We didn't!" Ginny looked like her mother in a temper.

Hermione met her gaze squarely. There was a lot she hadn't noticed at the time, but she'd had years to mull it over.

"Didn't you? It was Percy who noticed something was wrong in your first year, even before the first attack, only of course, he didn't have a clue what it was. He made you drink Pepperup, remember? And he told you off, Ron, because he thought you were the one making her cry. You told him he just wanted a better chance at Head Boy!"

Ron looked uncomfortable, but he was quick to defend himself.

"Well, he did."

"It was Percy who noticed the twins jumping out to frighten her and told them off."

The twins nodded wisely.

"He always liked telling us off –"

"Used to be his favourite activity."

Hermione sighed. It was hard getting the twins to take anything seriously.

"He was trying to help you all in his own way. And you didn't want to know him! You couldn't even say his name without attaching something rude."

"So you're saying it's our fault he left?" George said.

"I guess we did tease him a bit," Fred mused.

"A bit? A bit?" Hermione spluttered, her hand digging into her husband's shoulder. He cleared his throat gently. She startled and guiltily released him.

"Well, all right, a lot then. But it was only joking."

"He never could take a joke, Perce," Fred added.

"He always thought he knew everything! Always telling us what to do and trying to make himself look good," Ron complained.

"Remember the Triwizard second task," Hermione huffed, "and how Percy ran right into the water to fetch you, in front of the judges and the crowd and everyone? Was that just to look good?"

"S'pose not," Ron conceded reluctantly. "But honestly, you know what he was like. Always sniffing around trying to get us into trouble, criticising us and being a full-on pest."

"Yes, I know," Hermione said. "And he's still the same obsessed nitpicking pedant that he was then and his opinions haven't changed either. So I have to ask, are you sure you want him back?"

Ron stared at her.

"Course we do. He's our brother, isn't he?"

"He was your brother then, but you still ran when you saw him coming. You didn't like him the way he was – and he can't be anything else without losing himself."

"That's all rubbish," Ron snorted. "It wasn't anything we did! He was just jealous of Harry, that was all!"

Hermione looked at him and he looked back. Seventeen years he'd been refusing to talk to her and now that they were face-to-face, for a moment the world dropped away and she was fifteen again, trying to persuade Ron out of a jealous rage as the Goblet spat out a fourth name for the Triwizards. He and Percy had been so much alike in their jealousy, their thirst for recognition, their shame at being poorer than most other students, only Percy had been more outspoken and less lazy. And that was not something she ever planned to point out, no matter how irritating Ron got.

"And that was entirely unreasonable, of course," she said instead. "Why would he be jealous of a stranger that you all liked better, that you all trusted more, that you all chose over him again and again?"

"It wasn't – He chose the Ministry over us!" Ron protested.

Hermione chewed on her lower lip. They still didn't get it, she thought; he shouldn't have needed to choose.

"He went where he was wanted; it's what people do," she said. It was what she'd done. She'd married Severus and Ron had vowed never to forgive her. But she was only a friend. Adam/Percy was his brother.

Charlie stabbed a stubby, calloused finger at her.

"If he felt so wanted there, why did he leave?"

"By the time he left, he was fed up with the whole wizarding world. He wanted his kids to be Squibs, Charlie, and not just because he didn't want to be discovered. He wanted to go somewhere he could be his own man, where he'd be judged on himself not his family."

"Too ashamed to come back and admit he was wrong? We told him the Ministry only wanted to use him to get at us." Ginny's eyes blazed.

And that was so like a Weasley, though Hermione wearily. Strong, determined, steadfast – and so inflexible.

"Because why would they want a dedicated, hard-working, conscientious employee for any other reason than to get at his family?" She gave them all an upward glance under lifted brows. Ron glowered back at her.

"You're on his side? How can you – You know what Fudge and Scrimgeour and Umbridge were like! And now you're defending them? Snape's turned you against us!"

"Shut it, Ron!" The order came from several throats, but Hermione continued alone.

"You're just too blinkered to see that the truth's usually somewhere in the middle! He got the promotion because he deserved it and because they wanted to use him. Both together, not either or!"

"Deserved it? He was such a prat he didn't even notice his boss was Imperiused!"

"And no one at Hogwarts even noticed we had a Death Eater teacher for a whole year!" Hermione replied. Her husband cleared his throat and she added hastily, "Almost no one."

"Well, but Moody – Everyone just expected him to act nutters, didn't they?"

"She's right, though," Charlie said. "I'd never really thought about it before – well, I wasn't here for most of it – but if it was so easy to detect Imperius, all those Death Eaters wouldn't have got away with pretending they'd been under it in the first war."

The thoughtful silence that followed was broken by Ron.

"How can you be on his side? You've gone mad and it's all Snape's fault!"

"It's not a question of sides," she said, pretending not to hear that last bit. Ron was still Ron, just like Percy was still Percy, name change, lifestyle change and all. "All the grievances you had against him and he had against you are still there. Worse, in fact, for having festered unexamined for twenty years. It won't work to just barge in and tell him what you think about him, even if you hex him into silence so you can say it without being shouted down."

"I suppose he'd report us to his precious Ministry," Ginny said bitterly.

"Not his Ministry now," Hermione pointed out. "You're the one still working for the Ministry, Ginny; Adam's been a Muggle for twenty years. If you come on too strong, he's likely to sell up and move even further away."

"He wouldn't do that and lose everything he's been working for," Charlie argued.

"It didn't stop him twenty years ago, though, did it?" Neville said.

Two decades of spying and three of staff-meetings had schooled Severus in faking patience, but his tolerance for Weasleys was rapidly approaching zero. In any case, duty called him back to the school. It was time to bring the meeting to a conclusion. He caught his wife's eye in a combination question and apology. She gave a tiny nod.

"If you wish to reconcile with your brother, you'll need to exercise patience," he said. "A full-scale family meeting like this one will only trigger the very memories you presumably wish to supplant. I recommend starting with no more than two of you at a time, in order of age."

"Bill and me then," said Charlie with satisfaction, as his younger siblings loudly disagreed.

Severus watched them, a smirk twitching the side of his mouth. Then he abruptly stood up in a billowing sweep of black robes, creating a surprised hush just long enough for his parting words.

"No doubt your mother will have something to say about that."

He nodded to his wife, whose mouth was twisting this way and that in an effort not to burst out laughing as six Weasley mouths dropped open, and to Neville, whose amusement was better hidden, then flung a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace.

"Hogwarts!" And he was gone.

They stared at each other. Hermione was the first to speak.

"You didn't tell her yet, did you? Or she'd have been here louder than any of you."

Bill lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck and sighed.

"It's not that easy. You know Percy was always her favourite."

"One of her favourites," corrected Charlie. "It was always you and Perce."

"Don't be silly. I was nothing like –"

"Twelve O.W.L.s each," Fred chimed in. "Top-grade N.E.W.T.s –"

"Prefects, Head Boys –" George added. They reached for biscuits at the same time and took a bite together.

"You two were much too perfect for the rest of us," Ron agreed.

"But Perce was worse," Ginny said kindly.

"Not by much," Charlie put in, pouring himself a juice.

"But enough –"

"All things considered." The twins again. Hermione often wondered how their wives, Katie and Candice, put up with them.

Bill rolled his eyes.

"You're just jealous I get to see him before any of you," he said, refusing to be drawn. He turned to Hermione. "What's he like now? You said he hadn't changed, but he must have changed a bit. Ten kids! Does he still bring his work home and yell at anyone who disturbs him?"

"Manda wouldn't let him get away with that. She's very good for him, I think. No, he buries himself in his work all day; then he comes home and buries himself in his family."

"Is he happy?" asked Neville.

Hermione picked up a cup and ran her finger around the rim, staring at the emptiness inside. It was a good question, but she'd have preferred it to come from a sibling rather than a brother-in-law. Did they understand at all? She looked up and at them with a small shrug.

"As happy as anyone can be who's cut out a large part of himself."