He chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. "Let me see you be a Weasley."
In an instant, her hair was flaming red, though still terribly short. "There."
I clapped my hands in delight, as though I'd never seen Tonks do that trick. "Hey! How did you do that?"
"Family secret," said Tonks winningly, and turned her hair back to the purple she'd been wearing it (to match her purple dress robes).
At the reception in the Weasleys' backyard, I was seated with all the other Hogwarts-aged kids. Molly wanted to keep an eye on me, but she was too distracted with the other guests. At my end of the table were Gabrielle, Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked like they desperately wanted to be in private -- to discuss, I knew, their plans to find the Horcruxes. Gabrielle, who spoke almost no English, looked bored. And Ginny, whom I loved more than anyone in the world, looked sad and hurt. I wanted to sing a song with her, which always cheered her up when she was older and I was younger. But I didn't think I could do anything in the here and now.
Eventually, Ron and Hermione got into a Wizarding version of Rock-Paper-Scissors (in which wands are used, and ghostly versions of the three choices beat each other up over the participants' heads), and Ginny and Harry bent their heads in deep conversation. I picked at my food and pretended to not listen.
Unfortunately for me, my parents were good at discouraging eavesdroppers -- all I could hear was a slight buzz. A couple times, though, I heard a word or two slip out: "Slughorn," "July," "spy."
The last one turned my blood cold. Mum had warned me about this, that she remembered my being suspected of treachery. She said that Harry would spike my drink with Veritaserum.
I decided to get the supposed truthtelling over with as soon as possible, so I got up to go to the loo. When I came back, my parents were pointedly not looking at me. I figured that the drink had been spiked. What they didn't know was that in my satchel, along with my father's Invisibility Cloak and a host of other things that would come in handy, I had the antidote, which I'd taken while in the loo.
I made a point of taking a sip of my drink first thing. Then I did my best impression of someone under the effect of a little bit of Veritaserum -- I'd seen Ron in that state once when I was young, while he was in Auror training -- and folded my hands in my lap, waiting for the questions.
Harry hesitated, then seemed to steel himself against his discomfort. Ginny was sitting between the two of us, so he leaned over my mother and looked into my eyes. I did my best to look blank.
"Who are you?"
"Susan Hopkins," I said flatly. I knew the trick here was to not say a word more than necessary.
"Why are you here?"
"Bill and Fleur's wedding."
"Are you related to the Weasleys?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"My father and Molly are second cousins," I said.
Harry let out a breath. "Are you with us? Or with the Death Eaters?"
"My loyalty is with the Weasleys. I know He Who Must Not Be Named is evil, and I set myself against him and his minions."
Ron and Hermione were watching, both of them wide-eyed. "Harry, mate, what did you do to her?" asked Ron.
"Shh," said Ginny, who'd been watching the entire exchange with rapt attention.
"What do you know of the Order of the Phoenix?" Harry asked.
"I know my family has been involved in it since the first Wizarding War. I know that they claimed loyalty to Albus Dumbledore."
At the mention of Dumbledore's name, the Brits at the table winced. The loss had still been recent to them. As for me, I'd never met him, though I'd had a few discussions with his portrait.
"Do you stand with the Ministry?" my father asked.
"I don't know anything about the Ministry. I've spent the past nine years in America."
Harry nodded. "All right." Then he looked uncertain. "What do we do with her now?"
"You didn't put in enough for it to last that long," Ginny said shrewdly. "It'll wear off in ten minutes or so."
"You used VERITASERUM on her?" squeaked Hermione. "Harry, that's ILLEGAL!"
Harry glared at her. "Slughorn taught me how to make it. I told him I was studying for the N.E.W.T., and he sent me instructions. Actually, I think he knew what it was for, but -- anyway. I think it'll come in handy very shortly."
Hermione opened her mouth, then glanced at Ron and closed it again. Ron, for his part, was staring at me in awe. "You mean she has to tell the truth now, no matter what?" he asked.
"Yes, but don't abuse it," hissed Hermione.
"Oi, Susan, how'm I looking in these new robes?" Ron asked, striking a pose.
I stared at him as blankly as I could manage. "Like my cousin."
The girls doubled over in laughter. "Nice one, Ron," Ginny said between giggles.
Ron scowled. Hermione controlled herself, put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled. "You look very handsome, Ron," she said, and Ron's face went pink.
"Let's just leave her be till she comes out of it," Ginny said kindly, and they resumed their private talks. A little while later, I shook my head briskly and blinked in what I hoped was a convincing manner.
"Goodness! I must be more tired from traveling than I thought," I said.
They all peered at me apprehensively. I was glad that none of them had actually seen the aftereffects of Veritaserum, so I didn't have to make a big production. "Are you all right, Susan?" Ginny asked.
"I think so," I said, putting a hand to my forehead. "Maybe I'd better lie down. Do you know if Aunt Molly decided where I'd be staying?" Calling her "Aunt Molly" had been my grandmother's idea; she thought it would help to reinforce the illusion that I was her cousin's daughter.
"Let me set you up in Bill's old room," Ginny said. "You can kip there. It's not as though he'll be coming back to live here any time soon; I'm sure Mum and Bill won't mind."
"Cheers," I said, and followed her. Tell the truth, I was exhausted -- it had been mid-afternoon in my time when I'd started my trip, but I'd jumped to this time in the mid-morning, so I had "timelag."
The house was quiet, despite the celebration happening in the yard. "It's a good thing the weather held," she said. "It would've been a disaster if we'd had to move indoors."
"Quite," I said. I was rather at a loss for words. She was my mother, for heaven's sake. She'd taken me shoe shopping and gotten me bright green galoshes when I begged her for them. She'd bought me horribly sugary cold cereals like Frosted Quaffles and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor-O's. She'd sent me off to Muggle primary school every morning with a sack lunch, and cried her eyes out the day she finally put me on the Hogwarts Express. She'd shown me every picture of my father she could scrounge up, and told me every story about him she could remember. And now she was looking at me like she barely knew me . . . which was, unfortunately for me, completely true.
Bill's room was on the third floor. He had posters of Wizarding bands all over, and a few of faraway places like China and Australia. From the cleanliness of the desk and the emptiness of the closet, it was clear Bill hadn't actually lived in his room for years.
"You'll be all right here," Ginny said. "I'll tell Mum I put you in here. D'you have luggage besides that satchel?"
"No . . . my mum might ship me some stuff, but I'm not sure," I said, deliberately being obtuse. In truth, though I had plenty of money, I didn't have much in the way of possessions. Hermione had said it was a good idea to travel as light as possible when traveling through time.
"Let me go get you some sleep things," she offered. "We look to be about the same size." When I opened my mouth to protest, she smiled. "I'm on the same floor; it's no trouble." She popped out; I heard her rummaging in drawers, and soon she popped back in with a set of PJs that looked old but clean.
"Thank you, Ginny. You've been very kind to me."
She started a little. "You're welcome." A pause. "Harry takes a while to warm up to people."
I hadn't meant to cast aspersions on my father, but I was beginning to see more and more why they'd ended up together. "I understand." I decided to take a small risk. "You two make a lovely couple."
She blushed, much like Ron had when Hermione had called him handsome. "We're not together."
"Oh? You act like it, is all."
"We . . . were, once upon a time." She sighed. "It's complicated."
I patted her gingerly on the arm. Now was the time to plant the seed for something that would bloom later. "I never know whether to tell people this, but . . . ."
She looked at me sharply. "What?"
"Well, I'm a Seer. I'm not great at it, 'cause I'm still young and my old school wasn't that great for Divination, but I can See . . . ."
She grabbed my arm. "What? What do you see?"
I looked into her eyes, which were almost frantic. "Neither of you will ever love another."
Her shoulders sagged as she looked at the floor. "That could mean a lot of things. That could mean we both die tomorrow."
"No," I said without thinking. She looked back at me. "I See you older, teaching a little girl to tie her shoes."
Ginny smiled, and her eyes filled with tears. "I hope you're right." Then she dashed the tears from her eyes and cleared her throat. "I'd better get back to the party."
With that, she left. I changed into her pajamas and crawled into Bill's bed. In a few breaths, I was asleep.