Mr and Mrs Weasley slowly made their way downstairs, chattering about her "plans" to enforce her children to breed,
"Molly, you're not going to start forcing them into arranged marriages and such just so you can have grandchildren?" Mr Weasley asked slightly alarmed at the prospect.
"Come now, Arthur, don't be ridiculous. We already have one son married; I figure we just have to push the rest along gently. Ginny and Harry for example, it's about time they wised up, everyone already knows how they feel and it's been so hard on Ginny with him gone this past year." She replied matter-of-factly.
"But, Molly! They're so young! She's only sixteen, they can't get married now!" Mr Weasley argued.
"In case you have forgotten Arthur we were young when we got married. And anyway that's not what I was saying!" she countered.
"Well what are you saying?" Arthur asked, becoming more confused by the minute; he loved his wife dearly, but it was often a struggle to keep up with her thought processes. It had always been that way, and he wouldn't change it.
"I'm saying what I said a moment ago, they just need a gentle push," she turned and looked at her husband with gentle eyes and said, "After all that has happened, they should be together. They have a wonderful opportunity to love, and something I have learned from you is that there is nothing greater on this earth than love. And all of my children need that too."
Mr Weasley took his wife's hand in his and kissed it softly before continuing down the stairs, fingers entwined.
XXXXXXX
Percy and Ginny were standing at the living room door ready to ambush and unsuspecting Mr and Mrs Weasley and herd them into the kitchen.
When they were on the nearest landing Percy went to the kitchen to start brewing the tea, making a show of noisily collecting the cups hoping to naturally lure them to the noise. As they reached the final stair Ginny emerged from the living room arm resting on the doorframe, effectively blocking their path.
"Hey Mum, Dad," she said with a small sad smile. They returned the gesture and made to walk into the living room and Ginny stepped in front of them waving her arm frantically behind her back to indicate to everyone else to keep out of sight and, more importantly, keep George quiet. Just as her mother was about to enquire about her strange behaviour Ginny spoke,
"Umm, Percy's making tea if you want some?" she asked, almost willing her parents to turn around to the kitchen with her eyes.
"Oh yes that would be lovely, dear." Mrs Weasley replied kindly, and again made to walk into the sitting room.
Ginny, deciding quickly that talking wasn't going to work linked her arm through her mothers and physically led her and her father into the kitchen, frantically explaining by saying,
"Let's sit in the kitchen at the table and I'll have a look and see if there are some biscuits, eh?"
Mrs Weasley smiled at her daughter, mistaking her behaviour as trying to help distract her mother from Fred; when unbeknownst to her it was his twin in which she needed to be distracted from.
There was a collective sigh of relief when from the living room; the distinct sounds of chairs scraping on the floor could be heard, indicating that they had finally sat safely in the kitchen.
Ron gave a swift nod and went to the bathroom to search for something to cure his inebriated brother – even though he felt he would perhaps deserve the hangover as a lesson to not get into this state again. He shook his head and sighed as he started rifling through the remedy cupboard.
Slowly Hermione led the procession up the stairs creeping on the creaky wood below her feet. She had been forewarned by Bill that there was no way to silence the stairs as his parents had made them creaky on purpose to catch him and his siblings if they were up to no good. Although it wasn't certain if this would count as 'no good'. Bill was walking up the stairs backwards his arms under Georges carrying him head first while Charlie took his legs; controlled levitation had been attempted, which caused George to vomit all over the sofa, and they decided carrying him was a better option. After a short whispered argument on who was taking which end, Bill won arguing that he was more agile due to his curse breaking and going backwards wouldn't be a problem and they began leading him up the stairs, but not before Charlie warned,
"If he pukes on me I'm going to kick your arse."
Harry was on the end, supposed to be waiting in case he needed to catch, warn or silence something or someone; but he could hear Ginny's soft voice coming from the kitchen and found himself distracted, wanting to talk to her more, or kiss her more. Harry liked kissing Ginny, well 'like probably isn't a strong enough word', he mused. 'I certainly need to be doing more than that...'
THUD
Harry was startled from his thoughts to see Bill lying on the landing with George sprawled on top of him, Charlie still holding his feet with his eyes crinkled shut. Hermione peeked round from the next set of stairs eyes wide and whispered an apology to Bill,
"I'm sorry, I probably should have told you that there were no more stairs." Bill looked up at her irritably not saying a word.
"Muffilato," Harry said pointing his wand down at the Kitchen door, in an almost bored manner.
"Why didn't I think of that?" Hermione said incredulously looking at Harry.
"Dunno," he shrugged, "I reckon after spending ten months on the run constantly on high alert followed by what happened at Hogwarts kind of takes it out of you."
"Umm, yeah," She agreed.
Bill got back to his feet and they continued upstairs, taking not nearly as much caution to be quiet.
XXXXXXX
"What was that?" Mrs Weasley asked hearing a bang.
Ginny glared at Percy who took that as his cue to knock over the sugar bowl to distract his mother,
"Sorry mum, you know I've always been a bit clumsy," he said
"Not to worry dear," she said squeezing her son's hand, she was so happy to have him back.
"So Percy, what've you been up to while you were gone?" Ginny asked half interestedly as she watched Harry's trainers disappear upstairs.
Mr Weasley listened to his son's reply with rapt attention,
"Well not much really, it's been horribly boring without you all," he said with a small laugh, "I just tried to keep my head down and get on with things, and I can thankfully say, I didn't involve myself with any of you-know-who's goings on," at this statement Mr Weasley visibly relaxed, "It was hard, I never done anything other than show up at work and go home to sleep –,"
"Isn't that normal for you Perce?" Ron asked from the doorway, deftly holding potion bottles out of his mothers view, "You were the same at Hogwarts."
"Yeah, I was a bit of a tosser wasn't I?" he said, "But it was...different, because all of you were there," he finished smiling sadly. Ron returned the same smile before turning and making his way upstairs as Ginny rested her head on her brothers shoulder.
XXXXXXX
Ron opened the door to Percy's room quickly causing those inside to jump and turn around,
"How's it going?" Ron asked,
"Well, it's not," Charlie replied, "The puking as definitely passed, and now he's just unconscious."
"Well I couldn't find much to help him; a lot of the stuff has gone off. But I have some 'Hydration Solution' and stuff for pain, 'cause judging the state of him his headache is gonna be bloody awful." Ron set the two small vials on the bedside table and looked at his brother noticing a label stuck to his sleeve he peeled it off and grimaced, "Merlin, he drank Blacklabel Firewhiskey as well, that is not going to help much," he said indicating the two vials.
"Let's just leave him then, I'm going to go and pick up Fleur from St. Mungos," Bill said, "I'll go and pick up some dinner too 'cause there's no food in; place could do with a clean too since no one has been here in so long," he added casting a glance over his siblings, Harry and Hermione. Bill left swiftly to say goodbye to those in the kitchen followed by Charlie, Ron and Hermione.
Harry hung back and whispered, "I'm so sorry, George," he left shutting the door behind him slowly and descended the stair case praying that George would make it through this.