Harry and the Pirates
Chapter 69
A Weasley Interlude
by Technomad
Ron, Ginny, the twins and Percy were met at the train station by their parents, who were, as always, overjoyed to see them. From the way Molly hugged her two youngest, Harry thought that she was reconciled at last to having Slytherins in her otherwise all-Gryffindor family. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! From what you wrote me, you had an interesting year! And to think…Sirius Black was innocent all this time! I'm so happy that he's been exonerated!"
"So are we, Mum," Percy said. "I hate to think of anybody rotting in Azkaban for something they didn't do!"
"Or even something they did do!" said one of the twins; Harry could never tell them apart, but he thought it was Fred, since he usually took the lead in conversation. "That place is the stuff of nightmares!"
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now, boys. Let's get together and head for home. Your father's waiting with the car." Chattering happily about how much fun they were going to have over the summer, the Weasleys trooped out, but not before Ginny managed to get in one last hug with Harry.
As she held him close, Ginny whispered: "When we figure out when we'll be in Roanapur, we'll contact you!" Harry hugged her back, enjoying the clean girl smell of her hair. Beside him, Ron was having a farewell hug with Hermione, and Dudley was saying farewell to Luna, who looked torn between sadness at not having "her Dudley" around over the summer, and joy at seeing her Daddy again.
Xenophilius Lovegood shook Harry's and Dudley's hands when they were free. "I'd like to thank you for looking out for my Luna. Knowing that scum tried to kill her, just for being my daughter, was a dreadful shock. I sleep better knowing that she's with you at Hogwarts."
Harry smiled to himself. He knew enough of the world to know that a father approving of his daughter's choice of male companions was more the exception than the rule. But Xenophilius Lovegood, from all he could gather, marched to the beat of his own drummer and could not have cared less about what others did.
Finally, Harry and Dudley were gathered up by a representative of the Ministry of Magic, who was responsible for seeing to it that non-British-dwelling Hogwarts students got to their homes. Soon they were in a cab on their way to the Ministry of Magic, where they would take an international Portkey to Bangkok. In Bangkok, someone from Hotel Moscow would be waiting, and they would be back in Roanapur in a few hours.
"I love Britain, don't get me wrong," Dudley remarked, "but it'll be so good to be back home again!"
"I know," Harry replied. "I wonder what new things we'll have to deal with? I bet Sirius Black'll be glad to see us!" He figured that his godfather had been very welcome news indeed to the real rulers of Roanapur. He had heard that Boss Chang had been desperately trying to get the Triad bosses in Hong Kong to send him a wizard or witch after he'd learned of Harry and Dudley's capabilities.
Ron Weasley
Once they were back in the Burrow, the Weasley children first stowed their school supplies, then went separate ways. Fred and George made a beeline for the broom shed, eager to practice their Beater moves in hopes of greater glory on the Quidditch field. Once they were gone, Ron and Ginny sat down at the kitchen table with their mother.
"Now, let's get whatever you want out in the open," Molly said. She smiled warmly at their gobsmacked expressions. "Look, I've known you both literally since you were born. You've got something you want. Out with it!"
"Very well," said Ginny. "We want to go to Roanapur for a visit this summer."
Of all the things that Molly Weasley had anticipated, this clearly had not been on the list. "Roanapur? You mean the town that Harry Potter lives in?"
"Yes. Roanapur." Ron gave his mother a bland look. "The town in Thailand. Where Harry Potter lives. Along with Dudley Dursley." Ron knew that his pal was a little touchy about Dudley being thrown into his shadow, no matter how good-natured Dudley himself was about it. Accordingly, he thought that reminding his mum that Harry Potter had a cousin who was as close to him as any brother was a good idea.
"But Roanapur's so far away! How will you get there? We certainly can't afford it!" Molly was behaving precisely as Ron had predicted, and he smiled inside. Gryffindor straightforwardness is no match for Slytherin subtlety, he gloated privately. He saw Ginny giving him a quick wink.
"We'll take the International Apparation system. And you may not be able to afford it, but we can!" With a flourish, Ginny pulled out her Gringott's bank statement, which reflected the fat deposit she had made on their last trip into Hogsmeade, and put it on the table in front of their mother. Ron produced his own statement, and laid it beside his sister's.
Molly Weasley glanced at the papers, then saw the balances that her son and daughter had, and went white with shock. "How in the world did you earn this much money?"
Ron and Ginny grinned. "Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley started a soft-drink distributorship. They found out that some drinks that are very popular with Muggles, like Coca-Cola in particular, were not available to people in the wizard world, so they set up a deal where they're the exclusive source for them. Muggle-borns will pay through the nose for a taste of their former lives, and magical folk also love them." He produced a bottle of Coke and poured some into a nearby glass. "Here. Try it."
Molly gingerly took the glass and sipped. As she rolled the drink around on her tongue, her expression became blissful, and she drained the glass. "Oh, my! That stuff is heavenly! I can understand why people will pay well for it!" She gave her son and daughter a Look. "I do trust that as your family, we Weasleys won't have to pay outrageous prices for this?"
"No problem, Mum," Ginny reassured her. She knew that the premium prices Harry and Dudley charged were entirely due to their having an effective monopoly, and that anybody with knowledge of the Muggle world could obtain it more cheaply. "The high prices are for the snobby purebloods. Why do they have money, if not for us to figure out ways to get at it!" Molly stared at her daughter, then gave her a rather wicked smile.
"Well…I must say, I'm so very proud of you two!" She gathered her youngest in for a double hug. "And it looks like you can cover your next year's expenses at Hogwarts, even with a foreign trip thrown in!" Then a cloud crossed her face. "But I would feel so much better if at least one of your brothers were to accompany you. You being so far away, in a place like Roanapur, makes me nervous! And your father can't take off time from work…"
"We're miles ahead of you, Mum," Ron said. "We talked to Percy. He'd be quite willing to come. He's on excellent terms with Harry and Dudley both, and we think he'd be a better choice than either of the twins, much less both of them." He took his mother's hand in his. "Fred and George wouldn't be able to resist pranking people. And from what Harry and Dudley say, a lot of people in Roanapur don't appreciate practical jokes."
"I should hope they don't!" While Molly loved her twins dearly, she did think their prelediction for practical joking and pranks was something she could live without. "I see your point. Percy'll be free to go, and foreign travel might broaden his horizons."
"We can easily afford to bring him," Ginny assured their mother. "All we need to do is to figure out what dates we want to travel on, contact the International Apparation people, and pack our gear. Once we're all clear on the plans, we're both good-to-go."
"I can't wait till Arthur comes home!" gushed Molly. "I want to see his face when he sees how well you've done for yourselves!"
When their father came home, he was as delighted with their success as their mother was. They hadn't told the twins much about what they were doing, and Fred and George were also agog when they got the news, that evening. They descended on Ron and Ginny, who were talking with their mother about what they should take along on the trip, and barged into the conversation without a by-your-leave.
"Why do you want to take Percy…" asked Fred.
"…And not us?" George chimed in. They gave their younger siblings woebegone looks.
"For one thing, we don't trust you to behave yourselves. Harry and Dudley have said that a lot of people in Roanapur are dangerous…that's as in 'lethally dangerous'…and unfond of being pranked. You two can no more resist pranking people than you could resist breathing in if you'd been under water for a long while without a Bubble-Head Charm and just come to the surface." Ginny said.
"Percy isn't the 'pill' you think he is. He helped us out when Harry, Hermione and I turned the tables on you in first year, you know." Ron pointed out, with a rather evil smile. "He's a cool hand, and we think he could handle Roanapur. Mum wants us to have one of our older brothers along, and he's also the only choice that'd work."
"But…why not us?" Ron and Ginny looked at each other. Nothing they said had got through. With a sigh, they began to explain in simple terms.
"As we've said, we don't trust you to behave yourselves. Yes, we know you don't prank Luna, but that's because you know Mum would skin you alive if you did anything to her, right?" Ginny was rewarded with a couple of sheepish looks. "Mum won't be there, and you two would see what look like a bunch of inviting targets. And you could never resist temptation. Remember when you gave poor Ron an Acid Pop that burned a hole in his tongue? Or the time you turned his teddy bear into a spider?"
"The spider was accidental magic! We were kids ourselves then! You can't blame us for accidental magic!" Fred said hotly.
"Very well, I will accept that the spider wasn't your direct deliberate doing. I'm still terrified of spiders because of it, though. And it may be a good time to point out to you that one big reason I'm in Slytherin now is because I wanted to get away from you. Five years in a tower with you, with no Mum around to keep you in line, did not sound like much fun at all. Your damn pranking and teasing may yet drive Percy away from the family."
Fred and George looked utterly stricken. "We never meant any harm…" Fred began, before Ron and Ginny's glares made him trail off. "Mum? Are we really that bad?"
Molly looked sadly at her twin sons. "Yes, I'm afraid you are, sometimes. I love you both dearly, but if you weren't my sons, I don't know how I'd feel about you. The reports I get from school say that most of your classmates don't really even like you very much. They just pretend to like you so you won't prank them."
"This is for your protection as much as anything else, boys," Ginny said gently. "If you could be trusted not to prank people, we'd be happy to bring you along, but as things stand, we think Percy's a safer choice."
Just then, Percy himself came in. "Oh, hullo! Were you talking about this trip to Thailand you're planning! I must say, I'm looking forward to it!" He sat down, ignoring the betrayed looks he was getting from Fred and George. "Thailand in the summer's beastly hot, according to what I've been able to find, but it'll be a change of scenery, at least!"
"How could you do this to us, Percy?" asked Fred.
"We're your brothers!" added George.
Percy's eyes lit up with a dangerous gleam. "Why would I do this? Well, in the first place, it wasn't my idea or my decision. That's all Ron and Ginny. That said, I agree with them. You two aren't trustable, and you haven't done anything to earn any such reward. So why should they take you?"
Fred and George looked utterly stricken. "We…we thought people liked our pranks!" said Fred in a low voice. "We were just trying to get people to laugh!"
Percy narrowed his eyes. "Well, take it from me, pranks are like salt in food. A little salt is very nice, but I don't see anybody sitting down to a yummy dish of salt, do you?" Before the twins could answer, he went on: "If I weren't your brother, I'd hate you both! I remember how it was when Mum was down so sick after having Ginny, and Mum tried putting me in charge of things! All I wanted was to keep things going smoothly so that Mum could recover, but trying to keep you two in line was more than I could handle! You ganged up on me and made my life an utter misery! And you teased and tormented poor Ron till you drove him to distraction! You stole the food right off his plate! Why do you think he gobbles food so frantically when he's got it? Down deep, he's still afraid that the Two-Headed Menace will grab it if he doesn't!" Percy hissed: "I suppose you two just did it for a laugh! If you'd picked on people your own size who could fight back that'd be a different thing, but torturing your baby brother makes you nothing but a couple of cruel bullies!"
The twins looked at Ron with real horror in their eyes. Ron nodded. "He's not saying a word that isn't true. And a lot of it is stuff that should have been brought out years ago! I know Mum was busy, but she should have figured out some way to deal with you a long time ago. I'm surprised you haven't been thrown out of Hogwarts. I know Snape despises you, and while I'm no shining star in his class, I can see his point-of-view. No potions person wants someone in his or her laboratory who can't be trusted to behave themselves!"
"Do you realise just what would happen if one of your ill-thought-out pranks really caused someone to come to harm?" Ginny asked. "If you pulled one of your shines in the potions lab and someone was hurt…you two are not nearly as infallible on that subject as you would like to think you are…Snape would be the one to pay the price for it! He'd almost certainly be sacked, and if the injuries were bad enough, he might even end up in Azkaban! Or getting sued for more Galleons than exist in the known universe!"
Fred and George were looking utterly crushed. Ron felt a moment's pity for them, then remembered all the times they had used him as a guinea pig or elected him their dupe-of-honor for their latest stunt. Ruthlessly, he crushed any pity he felt. He thought this was something the twins needed to hear. He'd far rather hurt their feelings now than have to stand there and watch as they were sentenced to Azkaban, or, even worse, the Dementor's Kiss. They had skated on thinner and thinner ice for far too long, and sooner or later, they were bound to run into a disaster they couldn't handle.
"Look," Percy said, "it's not that we don't love you. But you've made yourselves very hard to like, over the years. Why do you think Bill and Charlie both got jobs that kept them far away from here? One reason may well have been because they were sick of your damn shenanigans, and wanted a rest from pranks!"
"All right. You've made your point. We won't ask about going to Thailand again. May we be excused?" Fred mumbled. Without waiting for an answer, the twins got up and headed for their room, their heads low and their expressions blank with shock.
"Fred? George?" Reluctantly, the twins turned back at Ron's call. "It occurs to me that if you put as much of your talents and energy into figuring out ways to make money, rather than to torment people, you wouldn't need to ask to come along, because you could swing the expenses of travel yourselves."
"Think about it," Percy added, as the twins nodded wearily and left.
Arthur Weasley had come in earlier, and was standing at the end of the room, his eyes wide. "Percy, Ron, Ginny…I can understand how you might feel, but weren't you a little hard on your brothers?" he finally asked.
"Better us than others, Dad," Percy said. "And we weren't joking about them ending up in prison sooner or later. Either one of their stupid stunts will annoy the wrong people, people with enough clout to have them tossed into Azkaban, or they'll really hurt someone."
"I think you can see why we felt they needed a dressing-down, Dad," Ginny said. As the youngest, and the only girl, she was often the one with whom Arthur Weasley was most lenient. "They've been getting wilder and wilder, as they've got older."
"I hope this is a wake-up call for them," Ron said. "I wasn't kidding when I said that if they put their energies into something constructive, they could do very well for themselves. Their marks are very good, even in Potions, and I have to say their spellwork is top-notch. But all they're doing is piling up resentment against them, to the point where, once they leave Hogwarts, jobs will be hard to get even if they're well-qualified."
"I see." Looking very thoughtful, Arthur turned to go back outside to his shed, where he often went to think about some problem.
Author's note: I know a lot of you will probably think I'm a little hard on the twins in this chapter. Keep in mind, this is Ron's POV, and Ron has (particularly in my continuity) good reasons to be good and fed up with Fred and George. He asked for Slytherin specifically to get away from them. I could also point out that before they left, Fred and George apparently injured another student very badly, and I've never seen a thing saying what Montague did that would have deserved such treatment.
