"So you said Bill got married?" Audrey asked looking at the picture. It'd been three days since they'd last mentioned the newspaper clipping and Percy was not especially eager to bring it up again.

"Yes," Percy said, drying his hands off. He'd been cleaning up after dinner while the rest of her family went outside to enjoy some of the last good weather before it started getting cold. The leaves were already starting to change colors. "Why do you ask?"

"Which one's Bill?" she asked pointing to the picture. Percy walked over to her and pointed to his eldest brother.

"You wouldn't recognize him, though," he said grimly.

"Why not?" she asked puzzled.

"Greyback," Percy said bitterly. Audrey gasped. "It wasn't a full moon, but still.

Audrey looked back at the picture horrified. "When did that happen?"

"The night Dumbledore died," Percy answered. "I went to his funeral and saw him. Someone told me how he got the scars."

Audrey swallowed. "I think I have them all figured out then. I'm going to guess that this one is Charlie," she pointed to the one with many minor burns on his arms. "He works with dragons, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Percy asked, confused.

"Article," she shrugged. "And these two are obviously Fred and George," she pointed to the twins, "though, I can't tell which is which."

"That one's Fred and that one's George."

"How can you tell?"

"Their grins," Percy shrugged. "Fred's is more joking and George's is more devious."

Audrey looked puzzled but said nothing more about the twins. "So that one must be Ron and that's definitely Ginny," she smiled. "How old are they now?"

"Fred and George left Hogwarts two years ago and if Ron was finishing, this would be his last year. Ginny's a sixth year," Percy said, finally comprehending how much time he'd missed with his family.

Audrey nodded. "Your father, Arthur, that's where you got Joey's new name? Arthur, Artie?"

Percy gave a small, sad smile. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"You still miss them," she answered. "Your father especially since he's the one that you had such a big row with. I'm guessing that you wanted to still have some tie to your family so you renamed Joey Artie."

"But Arthur would be too obvious," they both finished and they grinned at each other.

"Where'd you get the name Lucy?" Audrey asked. "Your mum is Molly and your sister's Ginny so…..?"

"I just liked the name," Percy shrugged. "It's always been my favorite name."

"Mine too," Audrey said, viewing Percy interestedly. "I always said that I wanted to have a daughter someday just so that I could name her Lucy."

Percy felt that it would be too odd to admit that he'd always thought the same thing.

XXX

"What was it like growing up in such a large family, knowing that you were a wizard?" Audrey asked one evening after the rest of her family had gone to bed.

"Um, oddly enough, lonely," Percy answered. Charlie was four years older than me and he and Percy spent most of their time together as kids and well, the twins were, and still are as far as I'm concerned, inseparable. And Ron and Ginny are a few years younger than me. As a kid, I read mostly. Bill and Charlie were both older and cooler than I was so I felt that I had to live up to them. Bill was Headboy and Charlie was the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. I suppose that I felt like the overlooked middle child at times."

"Wow," Audrey said. "It seems like you would never get a word in edgewise. There's only Joey and me and we still fight to dominate the conversation."

Percy grinned. "You and Joey seem so close even though you were so far apart. What was it like for you growing up?"

"Ah, now that is a very interesting story consisting of broken glasses, an excellent artist, far too many books than most children would ever read in their entire lives, and jealous older sisters. Do you still want to know?"

"Yes, what was life like for Young Audrey Simons?" Percy asked curiously, leaning forward.

"I was a handful, that's for sure. Not only was I overly talkative and rambunctious, strange things always happened to me. The candy that was set on a shelf far too high for me to reach somehow ending up on the floor right in front of me when I was three. The teacher who told me that I was stupid suddenly having her desk fall apart when I was five. China and glasses spontaneously shattering when I got angry. Well, you get the idea. I was always in trouble and in the Headmaster's office. None of the other children wanted to talk to me because I was so odd and I was too talkative. For some reason, though, Mum and Dad decided to have another child. They'd always wanted to have two or three children, but they didn't want another handful like me. But they decided to risk it. For the first seven years of my life, I was the center of attention. Usually I was being scolded for something, but it was attention nonetheless. Then suddenly, all anyone could talk about was the baby; how adorable he was, how little, and things like that. It was horrible. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. The window in the nursery broke even though we were all standing across the room from it." Audrey shook her head. "Somehow, I knew it was my fault and I was terrified. I thought I was a horrible person even though Mum and Dad didn't blame me. They blamed the guy who installed the window."

"So where do the artist and the books come in?" Percy asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm getting to that. So after the incident with the window, I stopped talking as much. I mellowed out a little."

"Mellowed out?" Percy asked.

"Yeah, what?"

"You call yourself mellow?" he grinned.

"Yes, mellow for me," she snapped. "Anyway, I started reading a lot. I read more books in the next four years of my life then most of the kids at my school had in their entire lives, and that's including when their parents read to them. Then I got my letter. It explained a lot when you think about it," she shrugged. "I mean, there was an explanation behind all the weird stuff that had happened to me or that I'd done. Mum and Dad didn't want to send me to Hogwarts at first. They were slightly scared at the idea of having a witch in the family, but I wanted to learn more about whatever it was that I was doing. Mum and Dad finally let me go. Sometimes I wonder if we'd be in this mess if I weren't so stubborn," she stared off into space bitterly for a moment then shook her head. "Anyway, they assumed that Joey would be a wizard too, but he was only four at the time, so it was hard to tell. But he somehow grew up pretty normal. The only thing that really we had in common was our talkativeness and our love for books. What made him abnormal, though, were his drawings. They're amazing! If he hasn't shown you any yet, you've got to see them. The year after I finished Hogwarts, we all expected Joey to get a letter, but it never came. I don't think that he was really bothered by this since he had drawing over me (I can barely draw stick figures) but I always felt a little bad about being a witch after that." She took a deep breath. "Wow! See what I mean about the talkativeness? I bet you're bored to death right now."

"No. No, I'm not. It was interesting," Percy said and he genuinely meant it.

"Who do you think had it worse? Your parents or mine? Your parents had seven children who were magic whereas mine only had one, but yours knew what they were up against and mine were Muggles," she thought for a moment. "I can't decided."

"Well, my parents did have the twins who I'm sure still are handfuls, but yours had you. That is a tough one. Not counting the twins, I'm going to say that my parents had it easier," he concluded.

"Why?" she asked.

"By the time that Ginny was born, Bill was already at Hogwarts so not only were they used to raising wizards, they also had Charlie who was old enough to have some control over his magic, at least, enough not to explode the entire kitchen every time he got angry, they had Ron and Ginny who were both too young to do magic at all, and they had me," he said. "This is not counting Fred and George, mind."

"What made you so easy to raise?" Audrey asked skeptically.

"I always had better control over it than most children."

"You had more control over you magic than most children?" she raised her eyebrows.

"No, I had more control over my emotions that most children," he said flatly. "Certainly more than you did."

Rather than retorting, she sat up more straightly. "And that's why people love me. I'm not boring." With that, she stood up, bid him goodnight, and strode upstairs to her room.

As he watched her leave, Percy couldn't help but grin.