Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, shy of a couple original characters.
A/N: Hi folks... I'm going to try to get a bit more writing done. I hope you like this chapter, and I promise you that there's going to be more action happening really soon! Please read and review!
Chapter Six – A Weasley Family Dinner
There was, of course, an excellent rationale behind Hermione's arrangement to meet Percy specifically for Sunday lunches.
She had shared with him the reason of that being a day off for them both, but that wasn't the only motivation for selecting that day.
The main reason was that Sunday lunch was a mere few hours before Sunday dinner. And Sunday dinner was when she went to eat at the Burrow, every week like clockwork. Should any future plans need overseeing, or setting into action, she would be guaranteed to see the Weasleys right away.
It was rare that the entire Weasley clan were able to attend Sunday dinners, but as Hermione arrived at the Burrow, she found it packed to the brim with redheads. The ever-watchful hostess as always, Molly Weasley hurried to the door to fuss over Hermione.
"Hermione, dear, are you getting enough to eat? You look so thin! I swear, you put in too many hours at that newspaper. Don't you have an assistant? You should, so you don't have to feel like that place would fall apart without you. Goodness, you look so pale! You need to get out of that office more. Come, sit in the living room, dinner will be ready any minute now. It's a full house tonight, isn't it wonderful?" Molly said quickly welcoming her honorary daughter, nary taking a breath.
Hermione chuckled at Molly's fussing, knowing by experience not to take her comments too personally. She kissed her hello on the cheek, and joined the rest of the family in the already-crowded living room.
Squeezing onto the worn, cushy sofa between Fred and George, she surveyed the scene of the happy family before her.
Bill and Fleur were kneeling on the floor, trying to catch up with their energetic tots, Giselle and William Junior. Hermione greatly admired the couple's perseverance through Bill's injury. The scars left by Greyback had mostly faded, only appearing as deep lines in his face when he smiled broadly. He still worked for Gringotts, but had settled down into an office-based job in London in order to stay close to his family at all times.
After having had two children, some of Fleur's youthful radiance had faded a bit, but she was still a very beautiful woman. She kept in good shape, but this was not without extra effort – though the task of chasing her active children helped to a degree. She surprised the entire Weasley clan by deciding to become a full-time housewife after Giselle was born, and soon mastered cooking and cleaning spells after a great deal of time spent being tutored by Molly.
The precocious five-year-old Giselle looked quite like her mother, but had fine, strawberry-blonde hair – a colour that seemed to exist as a combination of both her parents'. William Junior, aged three and more affectionately known to the family as Will, was the spitting image of his father, down to his reluctance to have his hair cut. Fleur had recounted to the family that Will would scream blue bloody murder whenever she tried to even trim it. Arthur and Molly had chuckled at this, thinking about how many times Molly had pleaded with Bill to cut his ponytail.
Charlie sat in a recliner in the corner, reading the large, Sunday-edition Daily Prophet (Hermione smiled whenever she saw a Weasley reading one of her by-lines) while his wife Natasha chatted animatedly with Arthur. Everyone knew Arthur had a bit of a soft spot for Charlie's half-blood Romanian wife.
When Charlie first introduced her to his family five years prior as his fiancée, Natasha Dumitrescu, Hermione had her pegged all wrong. She saw the tall, elegant Romanian girl with clear, pale complexion and shiny, deep brown hair and assumed that an additional Weasley brother was bringing home another delicate princess-type, much like Fleur once was (and to a slightly lesser degree, continued to be). It turned out she could not have been more incorrect. The lovely brunette witch was not at all the type Hermione expected, being unafraid of her husband's line of work, or of getting her own hands dirty. The latter fact was heavily due to her profession. She was indeed a witch, but after she finished her schooling, she decided to follow in the footsteps of her Muggle father and trained to become an electrician. During Charlie and Natasha's visits to the Burrow, Charlie would catch up mostly with his mother and brothers, as his father would near totally monopolize Natasha's time. The two became fast friends, spending hours in the garage where Natasha helped Arthur with his gadgets through her keen mechanical knowledge and spell casting.
Married for three years now, Charlie and Natasha did not yet have children, but always shared a patient smile with each other at Molly's regular hints about wanting more grandchildren.
To Hermione's right on the couch sat George with his long-time girlfriend and first employee of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Verity Harper. Verity sat on George's lap on the crowded couch and leaned toward Hermione to greet her with a hug.
George and Verity had been working together for some time before they had become involved. They had very similar dating histories; Fred had told Hermione that before the two started dating, they were both "playing the field" an awful lot. But as a couple, they were clearly very happy, despite George's impatience with Verity's constant sarcasm, and Verity's exasperation with George's propensity to gossip. They shared a flat together in Diagon Alley, though Verity no longer worked at the London location of WWW – she now managed their Hogsmeade branch, the shop's first of its many expansions.
George ran his fingers through Verity's cropped blonde locks in attempt to keep her composed while he gave Hermione the whole story about why Fred, who was sitting to her left, was looking so uncharacteristically grouchy.
"It's a girl," George whispered conspiratorially to Hermione, while Verity rolled her eyes and grimaced at her boyfriend.
"A girl? That's got him this wound up?" Hermione questioned. Fred's usually pleasant demeanour seemed to be exchanged that evening for a rather cross scowl.
George nodded gleefully at the expense of his brother. "She's a regular at the shop, been coming in for months now. He keeps trying to chat her up, but she won't give him the time of day."
Hermione, never one to allow herself to be left out of Weasley family news, was intrigued. "Who is this girl? What's she like?"
George shrugged. "Don't know who she is, we've never even gotten a name out of her. As for what she's like? You'd never have guessed this would be Fred's type. She's got long, bright blue hair. I thought that maybe she was a Metamorphmagus at first, just like Tonks was." His voice turned sober and quiet at the mention of the deceased Auror. He started again after a brief and respectful moment of silence. "But she always looks the same, so I think she dyes it, or that it's a glamour charm. She always has loads of dark makeup on. She's always wearing black, and she's got lots of metal in her face."
Hermione furrowed her brow. "Do you mean like braces, or piercings?"
"Piercings, loads of them – in her lips and ears and eyebrows and nose," George answered, leaning back with a satisfied grin.
Hermione's eyes widened at she pictured the girl George was describing. "So… Fred's into goth girls?" she asked, fairly surprised.
George shrugged again. "Appears that way. But like I said, she's not giving him the time of day. That's why he's acting like such a grumpy git tonight – she visited the shop again today, and he got nowhere."
Fred reached past Hermione to give his brother a swift punch in the arm, while simultaneously Verity swatted at his other arm.
"Ow!" George exclaimed, looking from his twin to his girlfriend and back. "What was that for?"
Verity answered first. "You shouldn't pick on your brother, you big gobshite. If I recall, it took you awhile to properly get my attention. And don't gossip, you sound like a teenage girl. I'm going to help Molly in the kitchen so I don't have to listen to your ridiculous chatter." She was as good as her word, leaving his lap and smacking his head an extra time as she went.
George grumbled and turned to his twin, looking past Hermione. "And what's your excuse?"
Fred's normally sunny face was still glowering at his brother. "It's enough that I know nothing about this girl after months of trying. You don't have to announce it to the whole world. What will happen to my reputation?"
Hermione and George both snorted with laughter.
"Which reputation is it that you're worried about, Fred?" Hermione asked between giggles.
Fred bristled indignantly. "Well, of course I would be talking about my reputation as lady-killer extraordinaire," he retorted, causing George and Hermione to break out into a fresh fit of laughter. "What?" he asked, sounding even more annoyed.
"It's nothing, Fred," Hermione answered, wiping a hysteria-induced tear away from her eye. "We don't mean to be laughing at you, honestly. You're a bit right, actually, about the lady-killer thing, though I hate to admit it. We've never seen you have problems getting a girl's attention before, or seen you so wound up about one. I'm sorry, we shouldn't be laughing. Right, George?"
His twin cleared his throat quickly, and tried to stop chuckling. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. Come one, mate, she's in the store all the time, you'll chat her up yet, right?"
Fred visibly brightened somewhat. "Yeah, you're right. I mean, she can't possibly resist me forever, can she? It's only a matter of time 'til my charm and animal magnetism win her over."
George and Hermione muffled their snickering at Fred's egotism as best they could. "Absolutely," they both agreed.
The twins' disagreement placated, Hermione was privately stunned at the thought that these two convivial, fun-loving pranksters would have it in them to beat up their own brother and threaten to kill him. Then again, she had also been feeling a lot of rage toward Percy when first facing him alone.
'It's going to be some task getting those two to hear him out,' she thought to herself. 'I hope I know what I've gotten myself into.'
She continued surveying the Burrow's living room. Ginny was sitting on Harry's lap in an armchair in the corner of the room, chatting animatedly to each other. As for her other best friend, Ron has just entered the living room, hand-in-hand with his new girlfriend, Luna Lovegood.
Harry and Ron were now pursuing their long-desired career paths together, having successfully completed NEWT equivalents, Auror training and now working for the Ministry. Hermione wondered after seeing Percy why he made no mention of her two oldest friends, since they worked in the same building. She later worked out that the reason they wouldn't have had any contact with Percy was simply due to how separate and different their departments were from each other's.
It was still obvious to anyone that Harry and Ginny continued to be completely head-over-heels for each other, and Hermione, like the rest of the Weasleys, was relieved and thrilled when they finally got engaged the previous month, after having dated for several years. Hermione asked Harry shortly after the proposal why it took him so long to do so. He agreed it was silly, but insisted he just couldn't work up the nerve to do so, couldn't find the right time, et cetera. Ginny confided to Hermione that she thought he was waiting to get to a certain stage in his career. He had passed his training and exams, and had settled in to the position, so the time was just right now. But they were very happy, and despite the fact that Hermione was beginning to get tired of Ginny thrusting bridal magazines in her direction, she was ecstatic that two of her best friends were finally going to officially tie the knot.
Ron and Luna had only been dating for a couple of months now. The two reconnected through Ginny, as she and Luna had just finished their Healer Apprenticeships together at St. Mungo's.
Hermione had found it rather annoying when the two first got together, simply because everyone – from Harry and Ginny to Molly and Arthur to Ron and Luna themselves – kept coming up to her to ask if she "was okay with it". She certainly had no problem with Ron and Luna seeing each other, but being asked about it began to get maddening. Now that the constant questioning had died down, though, she knew that she was very happy for the couple, and were very sweet together. Luna, who had previously had a long-standing crush on the youngest Weasley boy during their Hogwarts years, admired him more than enough to stroke Ron's delicate ego, while her unique personality kept him on his toes. And in receiving such warm affection, Ron was extremely attentive and caring in return.
Contrary to everyone's concerns, Hermione very much liked seeing the pair together. Reflecting now on the year she had spent dating the redhead, she was fairly sure that they both knew, deep down, at the start of their awkward courtship, that it just wasn't meant to last. They shouldn't have even lasted as long as they did, but neither had wanted to hurt the other. She remembered that they both finally got the courage to end things at precisely the same time, each blurting out their doubts about one week before what would have been their first year anniversary. The break-up was surprisingly easy, as they spent the evening talking out the last few things that needed to be said, and agreeing that they were just better suited as friends.
Until now, neither had managed anything resembling a meaningful relationship with anyone since the break-up, but there had been no jealousy of any kind. The fact that all seemed to instinctively be concerned for Hermione's feelings this time made her realize even in these early stages of their relationship that Luna would turn out to be "the one" for Ron. She suspected she was the only one who was consciously acknowledged this fact, and bet herself they'd be engaged within the year, whether they knew it now or not.
Hermione sighed aloud, still pondering the Percy problem. She suspected that after Fred and George, Ron would be the hardest of the bunch to win over. Percy had once said some pretty rotten things about Harry, which Hermione knew was still more of a sore spot for Ron than it was for Harry.
She recalled the conversation she and Harry had long ago, shortly after the war, when they wondered to each other why Percy still hadn't come back to the family. She had asked if he was still bothered by those things he said in his letter to Ron, and Harry had shook his head.
"Percy's bigheaded, but he's not malicious," he had told her. "I was really angry at the time, sure, but I know he was just having his mind changed for him by the government he works for. If he could apologize, I know I'd forgive him, and probably everyone else would too. But the longer he takes, the harder it's going to be."
At the time he had said this, Hermione had not agreed. But just a few nights ago, she heard Percy out, and knew Harry was right. The problem was going to be getting everyone to hear him out as well.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Molly re-entering the room. "Time for dinner, everyone. Get to the table!" she bossed, in her friendly and kindly way.
They all sat around the Burrow's dining room table, magically enlarged that evening to accommodate the large number of family members that turned up.
Taking a seat between Fleur and Luna, she puzzled over how she was going to go about assisting Percy with his task, which was suddenly seeming far more arduous, as she assessed the family.
'Bill wouldn't be a bad place to start,' she mused to herself. He had always been the most laidback of all the Weasleys, in fact in her many years of visiting the Burrow, she was fairly sure he was the only one that she had never seen display the famous Weasley temper.
'On the other hand,' she thought, watching him trying to coax Giselle into taking some carrots, 'now that he has a family, he's gotten all the more protective of them. That temper could be just biding its time, for all I know. Perhaps he shouldn't be the first family member we try to convince.'
She cast her eyes around the table, and as they fell on the twins, she merely thought, 'Definitely not,' and continues looking.
As Molly re-entered the room with another bowl of mashed potatoes, Hermione considered the possibility of beginning with the caring Weasley matriarch.
'She'd welcome him back in an instant, and force everyone else to, as well,' she pondered. 'But they'd only do it grudgingly. It'd be a hollow welcome at best, and the others will never really forgive him. We can't start with Molly.' Hermione also inwardly apologized to her, for not being able to tell her that she had contact with her estranged son. She would have to wait.
Arthur wouldn't be a good place to start, either, she determined, as he certainly wouldn't keep any secrets from his wife. Charlie probably wouldn't be too difficult, because he was away from the family a lot anyway. But he and Percy didn't have much in common, so Hermione decided that would require a bit more thought.
Glancing at Ron, her best friend and ex-boyfriend, she felt hope rise within her, wondering if she could get one of her oldest friends on Percy's side. But her heart fell almost instantly, knowing that Ron's capacity for the Weasley temper was great, and his stubbornness equally so.
'That leaves one person,' Hermione reflected, looking at Ginny, who was spooning potatoes onto Harry's plate. Hot-headed as she could be, Ginny had mellowed somewhat with her new career, and was generally preoccupied with beginning to plan her wedding.
Throughout the meal, Hermione reflected on the idea a bit more. No one seemed to notice how unusually she was, as the house was so full and bustling with voices regardless. By the time Molly came out with dessert (apple pie and strawberry fool), Hermione thought that it probably would mean a lot to Ginny to have the whole family reunited by the time of her wedding. 'So that settles it,' she thought. She knew where she would tell Percy to begin.