The Visitor

Chapter 4

Percy

The Ministry of Magic, Arthur Weasley well knew, was in a state of semi-organized chaos of late. Following the defeat of Voldemort, all resources had been split three ways: rounding up leftover Death Eaters, managing Muggle affairs, and repairing Hogwarts.

With the exception of the Auror department, the last item had been of paramount importance. This had left very few employees to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Ministry, and it came as no surprise that the investigation into Jacob's background was going nowhere.

But Arthur had other things on his mind.

He was worried about his wife. Empty Next Syndrome, he knew, could make women do strange things. Although he knew he shouldn't have been surprised, it had come as a bit of a shock to him to learn that Molly had cleaned out their children's old rooms on the September 1st. He thought back. How many years had it been since they'd not had to run to Kings Cross to send a child off to Hogwarts? And wasn't it always a chaotic fiasco? He pictured the scene of her sitting alone in the Burrow, wondering what to do next. It was no wonder she'd taken all the old things to the shelter…and come home with a foundling.

"There's nothing left to do," she'd said, when they'd finally come home at the end of the summer.

Still, he was bothered that she'd not consulted him first. If she had, he could have told her that the shelter had only 'those' children left. He could have told her that they were all…

"Children," Arthur reminded himself. "Merlin's pants, old man, when did you become so petty?" He muttered. "I suppose a war or two will do that to you."

Arthur sighed and ran a hand through his thinning red hair, now shot through with gray. He adjusted his reading glasses and stretched, getting up to move about his office as his back popped. "Ooof," he grunted, wondering when that had set in. He picked up a stack of papers from the corner of the desk and began leafing through them, sneering as the black and white portraits of Death Eaters pulled faces back at him. He read the names: Carrow, Carrow, Dolohov, Rookwood, Avery Sr., Avery Jr., Crouch, LeStrange, Lestrange B. (deceased), and the list went on.

His eyes went back to Bellatrix LeStrange, Voldemort's right hand, killed by his own wife when Bellatrix had threatened Ginny.

This thought lingered in his mind as his eyes went back to the flyer.

Then they fell upon another crashed paper airplane.

Arthur cringed, glancing at the updated flyer to the side of his desk from the Burbage shelter. It was enough to give one chills, the similarity between the two documents. He recognized the Avery boy from Molly's description and his likeness to his father on the Death Eater flyer, and saw that Jacob's quirky little picture was now missing from the new flyer.

Fixing the image of Jacob at the breakfast table in his mind, he scanned the Death Eater pictures.

Arthur thought the boy had the Black family jaw and chin, perhaps Rookwood's nose, and Dolohov's eye shape.

"Oh, bollocks, he looks like anyone if you look hard enough! Hell, he's got Harry's forehead now!" Arthur snorted.

Another paper airplane flew in and crashed into the side of his head. Arthur jumped, thankful that it wasn't an owl. He picked up the airplane and unfolded it.

It was Madame Pomfrey's weekly report on the shelter children, as well as an announcement that St. Mungo's had finally dispatched one Dr. Egretudo – a psychologist – to the shelter.

The report began with "Avery," the children listed in alphabetical order. There was a small St. Mungo's icon at the bottom of the page, with instructions "press here to expand". Arthur didn't want to expand it after reading the summary of Cameron Avery's condition:

After receiving his trunk and salvaged possessions (excepting his wand) from his First Year, Cameron Avery, aged 12, Slytherin, displays signs of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, claustrophobia, and extreme agitation. He devotes his time to writing out his old lessons over and over, mumbling to himself, and playing chess against himself when no one else will play with him. (He is quite good at it.) Most of the time, he sits quietly; occupying himself with his studies, but is given to bouts of uncontrollable crying and intermittent hysterics at the slightest provocation or error in his work. One example reported by volunteer Andromeda Tonks is when they try to take his cap and jumper for laundering. Given his record of bedwetting and nightmares, and the habit of sleeping under his bed instead of in it, the boy has been prescribed a daily dose of Calming Solution, with Muscaria Extract. Side effects are minimal, including periods of catatonia and increased appetite, along with a few minor delusions. While the boy insists upon returning to Hogwarts, it is our judgment that he is incapable of functioning in such a social setting, and that this will only serve to aggravate his ongoing…

Arthur dropped the report, unable to read any more of it.

"So don't help him, just sedate him," he muttered, shaking his head as the amplified voice of someone made an announcement for the Wizengamot to reconvene after lunch. "Wonder who it is this time?" He wondered if it might be ol' Malfoy, pondering what he thought that Harry Potter might not be telling them in his adamant insistence that the Malfoy family be returned to their home under house arrest instead of being held in Azkaban. Why would Harry be defending his nemesis, and how was it that Andromeda was also insistent that her sister volunteer with her at the Burbage shelter? It made no sense to Arthur, and he was sure that they were all hiding something from him there.

But Harry and Andromeda, he had to admit to himself, weren't the only ones hiding something.

A sudden wave of guilt made him nauseous. In all the years that he and Molly had been married, the only secrets they'd kept from one another had been in the area of gifts or little surprises. He hadn't really ever considered his tinkering with Muggle artifacts to be secrets; Molly simply was not interested in them as he was, and tended to ignore them.

But what was bothering him now was beyond anything like hiding a rusted old Volkswagen Beetle automobile in the shed. It was beyond his plans to generate electricity with a solar panel. No, it was much more than that.

Arthur didn't know how long he could maintain the illusion in his ambiguous attitude towards their little visitor.

Jacob No-Name was the great mystery, and in this postwar time, 'mystery' could by synonymous with 'threat'.

Granted, having the boy in their home seemed to be making Molly very happy. He couldn't begin to imagine how she must feel, even though he himself had been looking forward to some peace and quiet. It wasn't that Arthur didn't love his children, or didn't like children in general. He did. But as he had reminded his wife, the object of the game was to eventually get them all out of the house and moving on with lives of their own.

He sat back down at his cluttered desk. No one seemed to care about the misuse of Muggle artifacts right now, but that hadn't done a thing for Arthur's workload. His department was now picking up the slack in other areas, such as mundane administration. Suddenly, instead of breaking Curses on things like biting toilet seats in public rest areas, he was pushing papers and filing reams and reams of testimony about war crimes.

The files about Colin Creevey needed processed, but Arthur just couldn't do it right then. He pushed the files into a drawer, suddenly recalling that Harry wanted to see a copy of them. It would be violating protocol, Arthur knew, but he also knew that he was going to do it. A sixteen-year-old boy, having sneaked back in to fight…

Still, his mind lingered on Jacob.

Only some days before, the boy had disarmed him with a toy wand. He'd taken the toy to George for analysis, and his son had assured him that it was indeed no more than a toy. So had old Ollivander, and the whole request had amused the old man. He'd also had the wandmaker analyse his own wand, but there had been nothing wrong with it other than needing a bit of polishing. It made no sense to Arthur; he'd never heard of a case where random childhood magic had ever overcome wand-driven adult magic. But that didn't change the fact that Jacob had done it.

He worried that the boy might be dangerous. He worried that his wife might be going 'round-the-bend. After having knitted that awful sleeper for the child (which was his favorite thing to wear), and after their shopping spree in Diagon Alley, he'd only begun to worry more. He dared not say a word against the boy, he'd found out from experience. Any little disapproval of the child would instantly set off an argument about him being prejudiced against all the children like Jacob, which would only upset Molly and the boy even more, thus compounding the issue.

And so it had been, on the night that Jacob had disarmed him, that Arthur had made up his mind to put on airs of accepting the boy and to simply watch and wait for new developments. This had pleased Molly very much, it was evident. She seemed to be back to her old self, which, under other circumstances, would have been a good thing. Arthur wondered, however, if his wife were even in a fit state to care for a child now. Days had turned into weeks, and if Arthur could come up with a word to describe Jacob, it would be "spoiled". Molly devoted almost all of her energies to the boy, and Arthur was beginning to feel as if he were no more than another piece of furniture in their home, or perhaps some type of accessory.

He didn't really like the boy, he certainly didn't trust him, and to be totally honest, he didn't want him in his house.

Such was the secret that tormented Arthur Weasley these days, as he searched for and awaited new information about their little visitor.

But that information was not coming.

No one in the magical realm had come forward to identify or claim the boy.

Jacob's fingerprints matched nothing in the Muggle databases that Mafalda Hopkirk had finally found time to search.

Even the Muggle DNA analysis had yielded nothing, other than the fact that Jacob was a perfectly normal and healthy boy.

It was as if Jacob No-Name had never existed before the war – both in Ministry records, and in the boy's own memory.

Arthur got himself some coffee (an affectation of his Muggle studies), and wandered about his small office, thinking. Memory extraction for use in a Pensieve was far too dangerous for a child, especially one with no training and no wand of his own. The risk of brain damage was severe, and despite his feelings towards Jacob, he would not risk that. Legillimency carried the same risks; there were old case files of the mind-reading practice having been used on children during the days of Grindlewald, and the reports were more sickening than the report on the poor Avery boy at the shelter. In either situation, all of the children involved had been left with serious brain damage akin to the atrocious Muggle surgery known as 'lobotomy'.

And so it was, left with no other choices, that Arthur Weasley waited…and had to admit, that he rather fancied the idea of having a small one about again.

But what if Charlie gets eaten by a dragon? What if Bill breaks a Curse wrong? What if Ginny falls off a broom? What if Ron…

What if Jacob had hit the door any harder than he had?

Arthur's thoughts again turned to Fred…

September passed into October, the leaves changed and began to fall, and Jacob continued to develop. As Arthur would have put it, he became more and more like a normal boy. His speech improved, although it had taken him weeks to figure out prepositions and to stop referring to himself as "me" and to say "I". He came down to the breakfast table dressed, although this had taken a while in figuring out which was the front of his shirts and trousers. Now and again, he would get the shoes on the wrong feet, but he was learning to be self-sufficient. He could fill his own plate, ate all of his food, and had mastered silverware and napkins. Drinking glasses still gave him trouble, though, and Arthur had pilfered some straws from a Muggle restaurant at lunch one day to solve this problem.

Jacob was also helpful in clearing the table and washing dishes, although magic could just have easily have done these chores. Still, the Weasleys insisted that the boy learn the value of work in such things, in addition to caring for the chickens and other animals, bringing in firewood (Arthur didn't trust him with an axe, What if he chops his foot off?), and keeping his room…

This was another area that Jacob had settled right into. He didn't mind having chores one bit. Percy's old room now looked as if Jacob had inhabited it all along, which meant that it was akin to the pigpen. Arthur dared not go in there when he didn't have to, having come up with the idea to read to the boy in the sitting room until he became drowsy enough to go to bed.

There were still some issues, however. Arthur chalked it up to his imagination, but it seemed as if the boy were always following him. Sometimes he even felt like he had a second shadow. And when Arthur would look up from reading the paper in the evenings, as Jacob sat near the hearth playing with his toys or doing his home school studies, the boy always seemed to be looking up and smiling at him with that beatific expression that looked like something on a Muggle painting from the Renaissance Era. There were also the intermittent nightmares; sometimes the boy would sleep peacefully through the night, and other nights, his screams (Arthur joked) had awakened old Xeno Lovegood down the way and over the hill. The odd nights of bedwetting could easily be fixed with a charm, however, and Arthur even confessed to Jacob that he'd had the same problem until he was nine.

Jacob had even discovered Arthur's workshop, where he was introduced to things like duct tape, paper towels, canned fizzy drinks, a nonfunctional television set, and a rusted out Volkswagen Beetle. It hadn't been that difficult for the boy, really. He'd simply followed Arthur out there one Saturday morning when the man hadn't realized that he was being followed.

"Now, we do not tell Mummy about this, Jacob? Understand?" Arthur swore the boy to secrecy.

"Yes, sir," Jacob agreed, as he began his education in things like sockets, ratchets, and of course, and joyfully, grease. By the end of their first day together, Jacob had disassembled the VW's carburetor; the only problem was that after he'd cleaned all the parts, he had no idea how they all went back together again!

In all these things, though, Arthur was patient. Somewhere, out there, he knew, was information on Jacob. Somewhere out there might even be someone who was looking for him.

And Arthur was beginning to realize that it wasn't only his waning distrust of the boy. He began thinking how Jacob's family, whoever they were, must feel with him missing. And this did not sit well with Arthur.

"Molly," he asked one night, as they settled into bed, "Have you considered how we're to handle it if someone does come looking for Jacob?"

Molly lowered the book she was reading and looked over her spectacles at him. "How can you ask that?" She replied, although her tone was more of surprise than the anger that Arthur had expected. "If his parents or other family show up, and they are who they say they are, of course we have to give him back to them! Honestly?! Can you imagine if someone had run off with one of the twins, or Ronald?" She almost laughed.

Arthur blinked. "They'd have probably brought him back and paid us to take him," he joked.

And surprisingly, Molly laughed. "Oh, Arthur," she sighed a long sigh, taking off her reading glasses. "You're probably right!" There was a long, awkward silence.

The clock ticked, barely audible up on their floor.

"Arthur, am I trying to replace Fred with Jacob?" She finally said it aloud, what Arthur had suspected but dared not mention since Jacob's arrival.

Then she began to cry. Arthur took her in his arms, and this time, she did not resist.

"Am I…am I going 'round the bend?" She asked, her voice rising, "Oh, Arthur! You weren't here!" She suddenly broke down. "I jumped out of bed, barking orders, hysterical on the 1st, and when I realized there was no one here…"

He held her for a long while as Molly released even more grief, from what Arthur feared might be a bottomless wellspring of pain. Sometimes, when he was alone in those random silences, Arthur could still hear Voldemort's voice:

"Dispose of your dead with dignity. You have one hour."

Arthur couldn't even remember who it was that had carried Fred into the Great Hall. All he remembered was seeing his son's lifeless body in someone's arms, physically carried, and not with magic. Carried back to his parents in the arms of someone who must have cared…

He had heard his wife scream.

And every night, Arthur Weasley prayed to any deity who would listen to him to take that memory from him, and that he would never have to hear that awful sound again – that sound that was beyond the descriptive powers of mundane words in its horror.

No parent should ever have to face burying their child, he thought. No one should ever hear the sound of a mother scream for her lost child.

"What's around the bend is only more road," Arthur waxed philosophical, searching for any words of comfort. In fact, he didn't know what to say or do. When the Battle had ended, the funerals finished, it was if they all suddenly moved on. There had been work to be done, and no more time to grieve. The tears had since turned to dust…

But now there were more.

"Dear Merlin, is that what you thought I felt?" Arthur finally realized, "That you were trying to replace Fred, and that I was angry…jealous of that? Angry that Jacob is here and Fred isn't?"

Molly nodded.

"Oh, Arthur! What if they do come looking for him?" She then blurted, "How can I let him go?" She blew her nose, and tried (and failed) to regain her composure. "I can't lose another child, Arthur! I just can't! What if…what if Ginny falls off a broomstick? What if Ronald…does something stupid? What if Charlie gets eaten by a dragon? What if…"

Arthur felt a chill.

"We can 'what if' our very lives away, Molly," He comforted her as best he could, "And in meantime, waste ours – and theirs. Whatever happens, we have to…"

AAAAAIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH!

The child's scream snapped them both out of it. Two seconds later, the bedroom door burst open. Before they could react, Jacob was upon them both.

Of course, after seven children, this was nothing new for the Weasleys. Ronald had joined them in their bed for a whole week after the time that the Twins had managed to turn his teddy bear, Mr. Stuffings*, into a giant spider. What had he been – four? Five?

Jacob's colorful sleeper was soaked in sweat, and he was deathly pale and shaking so badly that his teeth were chattering. Between the sobs and the stuttering, as they took him into their bed, they were able to make out: "Mummy, Giants! Great big bad men! Big men stepped on me! Fire and big men, step on me! And spiders! Great big spiders come and eat Jacob, Mummy!"

But the boy's pronunciation of his own name was "yah-cobb."

This time, Arthur caught it. Something clicked in his mind.

"Oh, baby, there are no giants here," Molly assured him, holding him close and rocking him. "And no spiders! It was just a bad dream!"

"Another one," Arthur put in, and he felt a lump rising in his throat.

As he closed his eyes, he saw Fred in those unknown arms again. He heard Molly scream. He saw that look on her face again – the expression that had haunted his own nightmares ever since the Battle.

And Arthur Weasley realized that he himself had not fully come to grips with his own grief as he opened his eyes to see his wife still crying, clutching this hysterical child that was not theirs.

He reached out and laid a hand on Jacob's shoulder.

The boy didn't hurt anyone, Arthur told himself, as the child turned to face him with that stricken, tear-stained face.

"Don't let 'em get me, Daddy!" He wailed. "Don't leave me, don't leave me, don' leaf meee…"

Arthur did not correct him.

"It's all right, son, it's all right," he assured him.

They held the boy between them until he finally fell back sleep.

In the morning, Arthur awoke to find a small hand clutching his, as if for dear life.

"There's no help for it," he told himself, carefully getting up and making up his mind. Very carefully, as the room was chilly, he covered the boy and let them sleep on.

He was not going into the office today.

He would go to Hogwarts and get Poppy. Then they would go to St. Mungo's.

Somewhere, no matter how deeply buried, there had to exist a record of Jacob's birth.

And if there were none, he would go and see Percy to start the paperwork, as no one did paperwork like Percy Weasley.

"We either find them, find out what happened to them, get him back to them, or we keep him," Arthur told himself. "It can't go on like this."

Arthur and Madame Pomfrey spent the day at St. Mungo's in the cellar digging through old records pertaining to magical births. They began with children at age ten, and then began working their way down, as no one was certain how old Jacob was.

They found nothing.

"You're sure you want to do this, Dad?" Percy asked, when Arthur presented the idea to him.

"Percy, it's almost Halloween," Arthur explained. "The boy's been orphaned since the Battle, and no one has come to claim him. We've looked everywhere, searched every archive of our records. Minerva's even crosschecked the devices that track magical children from the Head's office at Hogwarts. Nothing! It's almost as if the boy didn't even exist before the Battle."

Percy met his father's gaze. "But there's something else, isn't there, Dad?" He asked. "Besides wanting it to be a surprise for Mum?"

Arthur thought for a moment. "You think we're doing the right thing, Perce?" He asked.

"Oh, it's just smashing," Percy agreed. Then he looked away for a moment. "If anyone understands the errors of their preconceptions, it's me. I…I…Dad, I'm glad you and Mum have worked through this…ah…difficult time." He added nervously. "I'd heard you were having …disagreements?"

"It was rough at first, having Jacob around," Arthur admitted, "But the more we had to deal with his problems, and the more we thought about those shelter kids, it just seems to be the right thing to do."

Percy nodded. "We've tried, Dad. Honestly. We've tried and tried to place those kids. When we try to place a boy, they want a girl. When we say we have a girl, then she's too young or too old. You know the drill?"

Arthur nodded. "What they won't come right out and say is that they don't want a Death Eater brat. Guilty," Arthur confessed. "There's just something about him, though, I wonder? You know he was mute when he came to us?"

Percy nodded. "I'd read that in his shelter file, yes. Odd. He picked up on it fairly fast, though, didn't he?"

"He never shuts up," Arthur had to smile. "Reads all his lessons aloud. He still has problems, though. Sometimes he just seems to forget the names of things, and he's got this odd accent when he's excited. Sometimes, when he's wound up, you can't understand a thing he says. You know, it's been on my mind, before he was talking right, he used to talk about himself in the third person. He'd say things like 'spiders were going to eat Jacob' when he had a nightmare. Only he'd say it as…"

"Yah'-cobb?" Percy cut in, his glasses nearly sliding off his nose in surprise. "You know, Dad, just because they spell it like that here and in, say, Bulgaria, Germany, or Poland, doesn't mean that they pronounce it the same way! Maybe," Percy looked thoughtful, and Arthur could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears and hear the gears grinding, "Maybe you haven't found any records on Jacob because you've been looking in the wrong places?"

Arthur sat upright and his jaw dropped. "We've had transfer students before, I remember Mafalda mentioning it once, what a nightmare of paperwork it is!"

"It is a rather Durmstrang-ish name," Percy agreed, madly scribbling notes now. He snapped his fingers. "Dad! What if Jacob didn't talk when he came, because he didn't understand English? Or wasn't very good at it…yet?"

"You think his family might be from the east? Bulgaria, even Russia, or the like?" Arthur gasped.

"Viktor Krum, remember him?" Percy asked. "And you won't find records on Fleur here, either. You'd have to go to Beauxbatons in France for those!"

Arthur palmed his face and sighed. "Gods, Perce, I think you're onto something," Arthur agreed, wondering at how he'd not made the connection with Jacob's pronunciation of his own name. "He does roll his r's and tends to cough, so to say, on certain words."

"Dad, do you want me to pursue this?" Percy asked, flicking his wand to check his security wards. "Because I can just as easily sweep this under the rug. He's a foundling in our jurisdiction. Legally, we are not obligated to search any further. Jacob No-Name can become Jacob Frederick Weasley with one stroke of my quill."

Arthur thought about it. They thought about it long enough for another cuppa.

Finally, Arthur shook his head. "No, Perce, it would be like stealing someone's child. Even if Jacob came from a Death Eater family, or sympathizers not locally, it would be wrong to not pursue this. I can't imagine one of our own, lost, and in the care of strangers. I can't imagine being so selfish and cold as to not try just a bit harder. Keeping him would be wrong, if there's any chance at all of finding his family."

"And if Jacob turns out to be from a really…unsavory lot?" Percy had to ask.

"I keep arguing with myself on that, Perce, and I've finally realized that these kids like Jacob are victims, too. He's damaged, yes, but aren't we all?" He finished his tea. "But he's committed no crime."

"No matter the outcome? Dad, you and Mum have to be rock solid certain on this – you can't just send him back like a defective cauldron," Percy warned him.

"Perce, we didn't try to send any of you lot back, did we?" Arthur grinned.

Percy nodded. "You raised us well, Dad," he smiled. "We might mess up now and again, but I wanted you to know that," he nodded slowly, sincerely.

"You'll make the arrangements?" Arthur asked.

"Both sides," Percy agreed. "I'll set up the adoption and bypass Mafalda's office. Besides, it'll have to go through this Felicia Thimblebrass lady, too. If it falls through, Mum will be crushed, though. How does she feel about it…finding his family?"

"We've talked about it, and she said the same thing, son," Arthur explained. "She doesn't have the heart to keep him, if it means making some other mother lose her child," Arthur almost choked, suddenly remembering what Percy had suggested for a name for Jacob. "Thank you, son," he smiled. "She'll love it."

Percy nodded again. "I'll contact Viktor Krum, but something tells me that Jacob spells his name with a 'k'," Percy noted. "I'm sure that Viktor can use his celebrity to get us into our Comrades' files!"

"Percy, did you just make a joke?" Arthur laughed.

"I think I did, Dad," Percy agreed. "Been hanging around George too much, I think?"

Then he turned serious again.

"What?" Arthur asked.

"Dad, what are we having for dinner tonight? I mean, I've only met the boy in passing, you know. I think I should come and see who's taken over my old room, after all? Maybe help him with his school work?" Percy offered.

"You knew your mother was making shepherd's pie?" Arthur asked.

"I can almost smell it from here," Percy nodded.

"Eight, and don't be late!" Arthur stood and hugged him.

"Am I ever late?" Percy answered with a smirk.

"Uncle Percy is coming to eat dinner with us tonight?" Jacob was asking, as he stood on a stool at the kitchen counter and pounded on a lump of dough that would soon become a light and flaky crust of a large shepherd's pie. He paused just long enough to look out the kitchen window at the cold, gray and rainy day.

"Yes, he is, Jacob," Molly assured him, "You remember which one is Percy?" She gestured at the doorway.

Jacob hopped down and wiped his hands on his apron. Patches of flour were scattered here and there over his red shirt and in his hair, which wasn't so much of a disaster since Molly had taken him to have it styled before having some professional portraits taken in Diagon Alley some weeks before.

Jacob trotted to the sitting room and pointed at the portraits on the mantle one by one.

"Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, and Harry! The last one is me!" Jacob went down the row. "And the baby is Teddy!"

"You know, you were that little once," Molly informed him.

"I don't remember that?" Jacob wondered.

"Children usually don't remember things that happened before they were three or four," Molly told him.

Jacob sighed and went to back his dough. "I don't remember anything before the…the big fight," he mumbled. "Mummy, why don't I know anything?" He went on. "Why don't I even know what my real…," he hesitated, "Mum and dad looked like? Why don't I even know my own name?"

"I don't know, sweetheart," Molly hugged him around the shoulders, "But you're right here, right now, and we have to get this pie baking if we want to eat tonight!" She changed the subject.

Jacob smiled and nodded and went back to his work.

With dinner at eight, Percy arrived at seven-thirty, surprising everyone. He explained that he'd had a long day at the office, and hadn't had time to properly tidy up. That, and he wanted to chat properly with Jacob, who took his briefcase, umbrella and hat.

"So, they tell me you've taken over my old room?" Percy asked. "How is it, then?"

Jacob blushed a bit. "Messy, sir," Jacob answered.

"Mum's been teaching you manners, I see," Percy observed, "Very nice, but don't call me 'sir', right then? Makes me feel old. So Jacob, why don't you show me your room?"

"Good idea, you men stay out of the way!" Molly agreed, as she began setting the table.

Jacob was all too happy to do that, taking Percy's hand and leading him up the stairs.

There were now posters on the walls – one of the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team, and one of a small Chinese Fireball dragon, which Jacob said was his favorite from his book. His favorite toy was still the model of the Hungarian Horntail, though. The tiny dragon managed to look slightly offended as he sat on Jacob's shoulder, preening.

"Read me a bit, could you?" Percy suggested, sitting down on the edge of the bed and patting it.

Jacob fetched his book and did that: "The Chinese Fireball, also known as the Liondragon, is a dragon native to China. The Fireball is scarlet and smooth scaled with a fringe of golden spikes around its face. The Fireball's snout is slightly short, ending with a hooked beak on the jaw. Its name is derived from the mushroom-shaped flame that is emitted through its nostrils when angered."*

"Very good," Percy complimented him. "You're doing very well with your studies, I see. That's sure to come in handy when you go to Hogwarts in a couple of years."

"I"ll be going there, Uncle Percy?" Jacob gasped.

"TEN MINUTES, ARTHUR!" They heard Molly's amplified voice shouting to the shed. They both laughed.

"Well, you're clearly a wizard, and unless you want to go all the way to France to school with Madame Maxime and Aunt Fleur's little sister, Gabriella, then yes, you'll attend Hogwarts," Percy explained. "I'd think Durmstrang might a bit cold for your liking?" He added.

"I don't mind, I just wish it would snow instead of rain," Jacob shook his head.

Percy cocked his head at the clue. "Do you like snow, Jacob?" He asked, reaching out to smooth the boy's hair and noticing the fading pink scar on his forehead. That silly Dutch door, Percy thought, smiling as he recalled that each one of them, himself included, had run into it at least a dozen times.

Jacob nodded. Then his eyes went wide and he froze. Percy touched his wand, gently, and wordlessly cast a charm to record. "I…I liked sleds," Jacob fumbled. "And snowmen. You can make them dance if you…" his voice trailed off as he stared at Percy, his face blank. He leaned over on his foster brother. "I…know…know about snow."

"All little boys like snow," Percy assured him, taking in the scattered toys, dropped clothing, the trainers stuck halfway up a wall, and the smell of a freshening charm fighting the smell of 'boy's room'. He smiled. "Jacob, do you like living here with Mum and Dad?"

Jacob nodded heartily. Then he looked down. "It's not like the shelter. It's not fair, Percy!" He sniffed, wiping his nose on the arm of his red hoodie. "How come I got picked and not Cam or somebody?"

"I don't know, Jacob, but here you are. And I need to know if you want to stay here?" Percy persisted.

Jacob nodded again and smiled. "Very much, yes!"

"That's all I need to hear, Jacob," Percy told him.

"Boys, dinner!" Molly called to them.

"Percy," Jacob asked, as they descended the stairs, "are you looking for my family?"

"Yes, I'm helping do that, Jacob."

"And I get to stay here if you can't?" Jacob asked.

Percy nodded.

"They left me," Jacob stated flatly. "I hope you don't find them!"

Percy cocked an eyebrow, but didn't answer to that as they sat at the table. The meal, as always, was delicious. Jacob even put a piece of meat on a small saucer for his dragon.

"Since when do model dragons eat?" Percy asked, perplexed.

"Since Jacob started feeding it," Arthur shrugged.

"Interesting," Percy nodded, helping himself to another slice.

"I made the crust!" Jacob declared proudly.

"And a very good job you did, too," Arthur added.

"Thanks, Daddy," Jacob smiled.

Percy nearly choked. Molly pounded his back.

Dessert was an apple cake, made from apples from the Weasley orchard that Jacob had gathered himself.

When they were finished, Molly cast a spell to clear the table and do dishes so that they could all retire to the sitting room. As the adults chatted, Jacob got his blocks out to construct another building. He wasn't really listening to them, engrossed in his construction, when Uncle Percy asked him to fetch the briefcase.

As Jacob was returning, the Floo lit up green and Miss Felicia Thimblebrass stepped out.

"And what brings you here tonight, Miss?" Arthur greeted her, as Molly tidied her up and took her cloak.

"Oh, didn't Percy tell you?" Felicia asked. Apparently, he hadn't, as they all looked at him.

Jacob then ran to her, and she swept him up in a hug.

"Wh-what are you doing here, Miss?" Jacob gasped in surprise. "Would you like some cake? I helped made it!"

Once they'd all had a bit more cake, and Jacob had settled down again, Percy pulled a document from his briefcase.

"Well, as you all know," he began to explain, "We've had no luck since May in locating anyone who knows who Jacob is or where he came from. As it's been almost six months, Dad and I thought that it was time to formalize things a bit more. Miss Thimblebrass has no objections, Mum, Dad, and since Jacob has told me how much he wants to stay here, I thought it might be a good idea to take this a bit beyond just foster care." He shook out the parchment and pulled out a quill.

Molly gasped. "Does this mean…?"

"It means, Mrs. Weasley, that if no one comes looking for Jacob, or even if they do and are judged unfit, then he'll be yours for good!" Miss Thimblebrass explained. "We do not take abandonment lightly."

Jacob squeaked in surprise. "I get to stay? I get to stay?" He cut in.

"You get to stay," Percy assured him.

"You won't change your mind?" Jacob asked, his smile suddenly fading.

"Oh, no, Jacob!" Molly assured him.

*Again, Mr. Stuffings plays our special guest star courtesy of TenthWeasley!

* wiki/Chinese_Fireball - quote