Well, that surely wasn't a success. Other than his name, the muggle hadn't said much. Sirius had left the house with the house elves not long after his first encounter with the muggle. He had wished Arthur a lot of luck and was willing to offer his expertise with dangerous magical creatures if needed.

The windows were still locked with a spell, preventing him to try to jump out of the window. Something had happened that had driven him so far that he would make him dare to make a death leap from the second floor. And even though Arthur didn't want to believe those rumors about Hogwarts, he slowly was beginning to release that they could be true.

He occasionally checked if the muggle was still in the room. After their brief encounter, Arthur had left him alone. The teen had gone to sleep almost immediately after that but when Arthur accidently made too much noise when walking through the hallway, Tristan had awoken his whole body tensing up.

This was not what Arthur had been expecting. Sure, a traumatized muggle because of the war and he did believe that he wouldn't have been treated too nice in Azkaban and at Hogwarts. But it seemed that this time Arthur had bargained for too much than he could handle.

It was clear that Tristan was hungry but he didn't dare to touch the mince pies and fudge made by Molly and the pumpkin juice in a goblet on the nightstand. It actually had left Molly quite insulted, she had disappeared into the kitchen and she hadn't come out for at least a hour or two.

Judging by the smells coming from the kitchen, she was still determined to proof the muggle otherwise, trying recipes from her great-great-grandmother. Arthur doubted that it was because Tristan didn't like the food, but he didn't want to be the one to break the truth to Molly.

If he had to explain his thoughts about the cause why Tristan wasn't eating, Molly would probably try to convince Arthur that it was just too much than the family could take and that he had to give the muggle to the Ministry or send him back to Azkaban, as he was send away from Hogwarts for good. It was already difficult to manage such a large household, it had cost Arthur a lot of reasoning to convince Molly and the only reason why she finally said yes was because of the Malfoys.

Arthur heard noise upstairs. He sighed deeply, put the muggle newspaper down which was read over maybe for a dozen times, the ink of the letters starting to fade. Fred and George didn't get the point of leaving the muggle alone, they were constantly trying to get into the room. Ginny hadn't even paid attention and didn't bother to find out who the new one was in their household. Ron was too busy with catching up with schoolwork, he was terribly behind since Arthur had taken them off school. But sending them back was worse so after a long and boring sermon about how important schoolwork was, Arthur had send him up to learn the spells in those books.

But before Arthur was by the staircase, the noise was gone. Maybe he had just imagined it? He turned around after glancing at the top of the stairs for a moment. Then he walked back, going to the kitchen.

Molly's face was red with effort, directing every spoon and ingredient to the correct pan or bowl. Arthur had seen her only like this once before, just before the wedding of their son Bill. She had had to cook for an enormous group of people and had been busy for at least three days straight with making lists, finding the ingredients, cooking it and making sure no one ate before the wedding and that nothing burned.

Tristans eyes flew open the moment he heard some sound at the door. He saw the lock in the door moving slightly as someone was fumbling with it at the other side of the door. Every hour someone tried to get into this room, sometimes more than just once an hour and every single time, the persons was chased away by the man who had prevented him to jump out of the window. Or more like, the person who had stood frozen in the door opening when he saw Tristan in the window frame. The other man with the dark long hair had practically dragged him away, but Tristan hadn't heard his voice anymore.

Though they had tried at least ten times to get in, every attempt of them was stopped in time. But it still made Tristan heart stop every single time he heard noises at the door. He could only hope that they were chased away by the man again.

Even when taking these attempts of breaking in into account, this was the best sleep Tristan had had in a long time. A bed, blankets, a warm room. And best of all, alone. Since the war had broken out, he had had barely a moment alone. Always people around him, panicking, crying, screaming.

He shortly glanced at the food standing on the nightstand. He couldn't believe it, it seemed too good to be true. There had to be some kind of trick as these wizards and witches always had hidden somewhere. There could either be poison or some kind of potion in both the food and the drink. And Tristan wasn't going to take the chance.

The fumbling at the door took longer than previous times, Tristan was starting to worry, where was the man? Then a short click made him aware of the fact that the door was open now. His heart dropped, his eyes staring at the door. The last time he had been that scared was when he was a kid.

Looking under the bed with a flashlight before going to bed, making a leap just to make sure the monsters under the bed couldn't grab him. Pulling the blankets up to his chin. The dark had always been something really threatening for a child, you couldn't see what was going on. Closets, especially if mom forgot to close it before sending you to bed, could frightening you to death. The waving curtains for a open window, a door screeching in the wind.

But even then he knew that monsters weren't real, or at least he had thought so. Now, it was obvious that they were real and not too far away from him. A screeching door now didn't mean that it was just the wind, it actually meant that it something or someone was coming to torture him.

Tristan got out of bed, though the blankets gave him a false sense of security, he knew that he had a better chance when standing on his legs. His hands curled into fists, trying to brace himself for whatever would come through that door.

Fred and George were the problem at the moment, they continued trying to break into the room, wanting to know who the muggle was. And probably also because they wanted to test whatever they had made on him. Ron had once made the mistake of accepting some candy of his brothers and it had left him throwing up for two hours straight.

The twins had called it a grand success but their initial euphoria had soon been tempered by a furious Molly who had to deal with Ron. The two had been made to do all of Rons chores for the next month and were forbidden to make any new creations for the next three months. When Molly had caught them while they were brewing something that surely wasn't in the potions book, a additional two weeks of chores and the removal of all of their potions brewing material for a whole month was added.

So Arthur had good reasons why he kept his sons away from Tristan, just too dangerous. He probably already had enough bad experiences with magic and Arthur didn't want to add any more problems and trauma's. Tristan would first have to get used to magic around the house in normal life, he would learn that it could also be used for good things and not only bad.

Only then could Arthur gather enough information about normal muggle life and maybe convince the Ministry of Magic to make more human rules in handling muggles. He wasn't hoping for much more since the muggle community had been destroyed and the wizards and witches wanted revenge for the war and casualties. But it was the least he could do, feeling shame and guilt because of what the magical community had done to the muggles. He could at least save one of them.

Ginny apparently was also in the kitchen, helping Molly and at the same time learning how to make sure that the knives wouldn't turn against you while you were busy chopping up the vegetables.

Arthur counted the plates on the tables. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. ''Is Percy visiting?'' he asked, he hadn't seen him yet. But it could be expected, Percy also worked at the Ministry and Arthur knew that he didn't really like muggles and probably would try to talk the idea out of his fathers head. Arthur wasn't looking forward to that discussion with Percy.

Molly looked up confused from the stove. ''What do you mean?'' she said, having to divide her attention between Arthur and the meat in the pan. Arthur pointed at the table. ''Seven plates'' Molly sighed and turned back to the now burning meat. ''Seven plates. You, me, the twins, Ron, Ginny and Tristan'' she said like it was obvious.

Arthur hesitated a moment before replying. ''Honey, I don't think it's wise that Tristan is eating with us already.'' He hoped that she would get it and not push the matter. But that wasn't Molly, she always insisted on the whole family eating together and Tristan was added to the household from this day on. ''What do you mean, he's not eating with us?'' she asked irritated, extinguishing the fire beneath the pan.

''He's still really tired'' Arthur postponed the real reason. ''And he needs to sleep. And ehm… he probably doesn't want to say any magic at all for the next few days'' His voice had gotten softer as he proceeded talking. Molly had whipped around at the last scentence. ''No magic? How do you think I'm going to run this household for the next few days without magic, Arthur Weasley? That's right, it's near to impossible! If he lives in a magical household, he will just have to get used to it''

Before Arthur could respond to that, a loud screaming and things falling on the floor was coming from upstairs. Arthur apparated to Tristans door in just half a second.

It took a while before the door opened, first there was whispering and hushed talking. Tristans chest heaved up and down, not completely ready for what would come through that door. It could be a wizard or witch, a monster or that creepy thing what he had seen earlier today. But the last one had just appeared in this room. A bit worried Tristan looked around to make sure that there weren't any big ears visible in the room.

Then the door was finally opened and three red headed persons sneaked inside, closing the door behind them. ''I told you the muggle was here, otherwise he would haven't been this persistent to keep us away from here'' one said to his exact look alike. Tristan wasn't sure if it was a magical trick or that they really were twins. His face was set in a determined glare.

The copy moved forwards, a grin on his face. ''Nice to meet you, muggle'' he said, while keeping his hand out. Tristan looked suspiciously at the hand, why were they acting so strangely? There was something wrong, that was for sure. The hand was still hanging in the air but Tristan made no attempt to shake it. The ginger slowly lowered his hand.

There was an awkward silence for a moment before the first one started talking again. ''Well, I'm Fred, that's George and that's our little brother Ron. The man you have already met is our father'' Tristan still didn't reply and looked at the three of them, actually wanting them to leave him alone. ''Is he deaf?'' The one that was called George asked Fred softly while leaning towards his brother.

''No, I don't think so. That book of dad we got said that muggles greet each other differently. '' And after whispering that to his brother, Fred did a big step forwards to Tristan, spreading his arms widely. Tristan was already with his back against the wall and now the wizard closed in on him rapidly, blocking every way out with his arms. Tristan balled his fists and hit him square in the face.

The results were instant, Fred backed off, clutching his bleeding nose and making muffled sounds. His twin had screamed in anger about what Tristan had done and the third one also didn't seem to happy. ''I wah jus' t'ying to we nice'' Fred said in pain.

It seemed like the other two were about to turn against Tristan but before that could happen, a flash and the man was back and he was furious!