After the meeting in Hogsmeade, Bill and George flooed to the Burrow. They came straight into the living room from the fireplace, trailing soot and rain water off their cloaks.

"Hello?" Molly came in, a confused look on her face. "George? Bill? What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk." Bill said. "Where's Dad, is he here?"

"I'll go get him." Molly sounded terrified now. "What's going on? What's happened? Is everything all right?"

"Everyone's ok." George said quickly. "It's not an emergency or anything. It's just that something quite odd has happened, and we should talk about it."

"Ok. I'll get your dad." Molly hurried away. She was back a few minutes later, Arthur in tow, and they both sank into armchairs in the living room. "Ok. So what's going on?"

Bill nudged George. "Go on. You're the one who figured all of this out."

George looked at his mother. He'd planned out this whole speech about how he'd met one of Freddie's friends, how she'd seemed familiar but he couldn't place it, how he'd heard the name Ignatius Prewett and figured it out. But in the moment, words failed him. He only croak, "I've found him."

"George . . ." Molly's voice was trembling and she trailed off, hardly daring to speak her thoughts aloud. In the silence, George reached into his pocket and pulled out the copy of the photo Victoire had given him. He handed it to his mother.

There was a split second in which Molly and Arthur looked at the photo in silence, then Molly wailed. It was a loud, keening wail, a sound George had not heard in a long time, a raw wail of grief as painful as the first day the injury was wrought on her heart. She collapsed against Arthur, sobbing, as he held up the photo. Tears were beginning to run down his face and drip off the end of his long nose. He looked up at George, his hand beginning to shake as he held the photo. "Are you sure?"

George nodded. "As sure as I can be. I mean, it's photographic proof."

"But how?" Molly asked, wiping her tears away. "How? We spent years searching for him. We had Hermione—one of the best witches in the country—and not even she could do it. No one could find my baby! So how did you—not that I doubt your skills, you know, but you are a school dropout—"

"Molly." Arthur said gently. "Let him talk. George, how did you find all this out? We—we'd given up on looking. Did this information just drop into your lap?"

"Err, sort of." George said. He started at the beginning, with the quidditch match where Dom had introduced him to a girl named Lucy Prewett, and how he didn't give her a second thought at first. Then the next match he'd attended, when Dom had made a crack about Ignatius Prewett, Fun Police, and how it had all hit him like a ton of bricks. Then him telling Bill, Bill sending the letter to Victoire and Dominique, and their meeting at the Three Broomsticks. "We came straight here afterwards." he finished. "Victoire gave us that photo not two hours ago, right Bill?" Bill nodded.

"I still can't believe it." Molly had a hand pressed over her heart and was out of breath, like she'd run a long way. "I can't believe it. We spend years searching, then when we've long since let our guard down . . . it just falls into your lap . . . my baby!"

"It was the name that set it off." George said. "I didn't think anything of the surname Prewett, but when I heard about a bloke called Ignatius—well, that's not exactly in the top one hundred baby names, is it? Who else would be called Ignatius Prewett."

"My theory is that he couldn't think of anything better." Bill said. "I could understand wanting to change your name if you're going to run away from your family, since Weasley is an uncommon and fairly notorious surname, but your mother's maiden name and your middle name? Not terribly creative, and pretty obvious when it falls into the right person's ears."

Molly nodded distractedly. She was still gazing at the photo. "It doesn't matter what he's done. We've found him, and that's what matters. Oh, he's all right. For so long I worried about him, but . . . he seems to be ok. That's all I ever wanted to know, is that he's ok."

George nodded. "Wife and two children. He found someone willing to shag him at least twice. He can't be doing too badly for himself, right?"

"So that must be Lucy." Molly pointed to Lucy, pointedly ignoring the shagging comment. "Wow, she's got the red hair and the freckles and everything. And his other daughter—"

"Oh, that's right." George grinned. "Mum, you're not gonna fucking believe this, but—"

"Language, George!"

"Guess what his younger daughter's called?"

"George, I am not in the emotional state to guess that right now."

"Her name's Molly."

"Molly?" she repeated. "But why—but why?"

"George and I speculated a few reasons on our way over." Bill said. "The best we can come up with is that maybe he feels badly about how everything happened or feels guilty about hurting you."

"Though apparently not guilty enough to actually let you know anything about his whereabouts." George muttered. Bill kicked him. "Ow. Am I wrong, Bill?"

"We don't know what his reasons are." Bill said. "Remember how long it took him to swallow his pride and come back after that stupid argument about his stupid promotion? That's got to be multiplied by ten now. He may feel guilty about hurting Mum like that, guilty enough to name his daughter after her, but he's too proud to actually talk to her."

Both brothers fell silent, looking at their parents. Molly and Arthur didn't say anything either. Molly lifted her head and looked at her husband. Tears glittered in her eyes and she looked fragile, one wrong move and you might shatter her into a million pieces.

"What do we do now?" Arthur murmured.

"I have an idea." George said. "Hogwarts Parents' Night is coming up on Friday. Perfect timing. I'd already been planning to go because, well, I've got a kid at Hogwarts now. Odds are Percy's going to be there too. We could all go as a family, and talk to him there."

"George, no."

"But—

"It's not right. It's not right to drag him kicking and screaming back into the family just so that I can apologize to him, just so that I can make myself feel better. Your mother and I agreed that if he wants to come back he can, but we won't force him. And I don't think it's a good idea for us to all ambush him at a parents' night like that."

"George, we haven't been to a Hogwarts parents' night since your first year." Molly added. "We're past that phase of life. All we've wanted these years is to know that Percy is ok, and we know that now. We don't need to go."

At that moment Teddy's patronus, a large gleaming wolf, sailed through the living room window.

"Teddy can produce a patronus?" Molly asked.

"Harry taught him over the summer." Bill said.

"Hello." Teddy's voice echoed. "I'm just giving an update. We told Lucy as soon as we got back. She's pretty upset right now, understandably. I guess she already suspected that her dad was lying to her about stuff, and now that we've confirmed that, she's really not doing well. I stepped out to make this patronus, but last I saw she was screaming and crying and Victoire was trying to calm her down. I guess he had told her that his parents were dead, and now she's super upset because I guess her mum's mum passed on a few years ago and now she's finding out that she still has a living grandmother and she's really upset. Oh, Victoire's telling me that we should take her to Madam Pomfrey for a calming drought. I gotta go."

Bill gave a low whistle. "Yikes. I knew it was going to be bad when they told Lucy. Didn't realize it would be that bad."

"He's been lying to her about—everything." George said. "He lied to her about his name, about her name. He told her that her grandparents were dead when they're not. I'd be screaming and crying too if it were me."

"I'll withhold judgement on how he handled the argument with you and Dad." Bill said. "I will, however, judge the way he decided to raise his daughters, because lying to them about that sort of thing is an awful parenting choice."

"Would you please come to Parents' Night?" George asked his parents. "For Lucy's sake." When they looked at each other doubtfully, he plugged on. "Lucy's twelve years old, and probably frightened. It might help her to know that she's got people in her corner."

"I don't know." Arthur was wringing his hands. "If your brother didn't want us to meet her, then we should respect that."

"To hell with what Percy wants!" George said. "He's gone and fucked up this whole thing. It's going to blow up, it's going to be messy—it sounds like it's already a mess. You really think Percy should be the one dealing with all that, the one talking to Lucy? He's already made some questionable decisions, and we all know that he's got the emotional intelligence of a brick! Merlin, can you imagine him trying to comfort a teenage girl through something simple like a first romantic entanglement? Because I can't! No, we should go. We need to be there for Lucy."

"I think I agree with George." Bill said. "I know, I know. I often don't see eye-to-eye with George, but I think he's right. If we don't get ourselves to Parents' Night and assess the situation, the whole thing could blow up. Come on, Dad. At the very least we can go and get a lay of the land, then decide what to do after."

"You've got four grandkids plus Teddy at Hogwarts." George added. "No one would question your presence there."

"I know, but . . ."

"Let's lay it all out." Bill said. "Percy's gone and changed his name, and apparently lied to his daughter about that and that you two are dead. She's just found out about all that and she's understandably quite upset, to the point where she needs a calming draught. She has Victoire and Dominique, but I'm not convinced that there's any responsible adult trying to handle this right now. The Weasleys have plenty of responsible adults, though. I really think we need to see what's going on."

"I don't know . . ."

"Mum, a vulnerable twelve-year-old girl without a responsible adult on hand to help her out. I'm not going to count Percy as a responsible adult."

"Ok, ok." Molly relented. "I don't know how it'll go, but I don't like the idea of Lucy being left to deal with this on her own. Oh, this is such a mess. I'd always held out hope that he'd come back, but I never thought we'd find him in these circumstances! And to think an innocent girl is caught in the middle of this—" she leaned into Arthur's shoulder and began to sob. He patted her on the back, still looking rather shell-shocked.

"I take it we should tell our other siblings?" George called over the crying. "You're in no condition to do that, Mum." Molly nodded mutely. "Right." George continued. "I'll talk to Ron and Ginny. Bill, you're going to tell Charlie."

"Why me?"

"Because you've been buddies with him longer than I've been alive, and because I'm not going to do any unpleasant task that I can foist onto my big brother."

Bill glared at George. The whole family knew that Charlie still harbored anger over their mother's overdose, blaming Percy, and that his anger had abated little in the intervening years. Charlie was careful to keep his temper in check most of the time, but his anger still came out here and there. Two christmases ago, when all the brothers and Harry had tried to have a nice night at the pub, Charlie's drunken temper had showed itself and he'd ended up kicking chairs and swearing about Percy. Hannah Abbott had kicked them all out of the Leaky Cauldron, which made things quite awkward for poor Harry and Ron. Telling Charlie about this would be like poking a bear.

"Fine, but I'm not doing it just yet." Bill said. "I've got a lot on my plate as it is."

"Do any of the kids know?" Arthur asked.

"Victoire, Dominique, and Teddy." Bill said.

"We shouldn't tell any of the others, at least not until Parents' Night blows over. I mean it, Bill."

"I know." Bill replied in an even tone. "We're worried enough about Lucy, who by all accounts sounds mature for her age. Imagine what Freddie and James would do with this information." They all shuddered at that thought.

"So, Parents' Night." George said. "This Friday, at seven o'clock. That's it, I suppose. Whatever happens, nothing we do after then will matter, right?" They all shuddered again. After all, George was right. One way or another, it all ended on Friday.