At twenty-five past four Harry walked into the library to find Ron busily trying to concoct an excuse for why they shouldn't go and have dinner with his family.
"The thing is Mum," he addressed a particularly spindly bookcase, "Harry and I sort of promised Neville that we would help him pick out some fanged geraniums for his Gran's window boxes…" He turned to Harry, "oh who am I kidding I couldn't convince Luna that Nargles were real." Nervously straightening his jumper he took a deep breath, "well I suppose we better get this over with, but when it all blows up in your face don't say I didn't warn you." He walked out of the room as though he had been consigned to the gallows shouting back, "come on Potter, I'm not doing this on my own!"
Five minutes later an extremely nervous trio were standing at the end of the lane which led to The Burrow having chosen to apparate rather than appear out of the fire place and straight into Mrs Weasley's path. Exchanging a silent look the three of them walked slowly down the lane taking as long as possible without actually going backwards.
Upon reaching the gate they paused again and looked up at the ramshackle building. Suddenly Hermione snorted and the too boys turned to look at her. Seeing the question in their gazes she responded.
"Look at us, we've all faced Death Eaters and dark wizards more times than we can acre to count and we're scared of Ron's mother!"
Ron turned even paler as he contemplated the evening, "that's because my mother is more terrifying than Death Eaters!"
Harry tried out a grin on his face and found that he could make it half convincing, "come on guys how hard can it be?"
His best friend and his girlfriend merely responded by looking at him in utter disgust.
"Well," Ron eventually grunted after several more seconds of silence, "I suppose we had better get this over with."
Side by side they advanced towards the house and Ron knocked on the rickety old door. Which was immediately thrown open and he was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug courtesy of Mrs Weasley.
"Ron, here you are! We were wondering where the three of you had gotten to. Hello dears." She released Ron and grabbed Harry and Hermione in something resembling a headlock and hugged them until they were gasping for air. "It's been so long since we've seen you all that we were beginning to wonder if something had happened to you."
Laughing nervously the three of them followed Mrs Weasley into the house where they found Bill, Fleur and George sitting round the kitchen table. To Harry's surprise Angelina Johnson was also there looking slightly uncomfortable, but upon seeing the trio she grinned and waved them across.
"Hi Angelina, how are you?"
As they walked over, the three at the table turned to greet them as Angelina replied. "Not bad, I've been scouted for a couple of the smaller Quidditch teams so I'm waiting to see how that turns out."
"What my dear Angelina is not telling you Harry is that the other day she was contacted by one of the Harpies scouts." George winked at him as he stretched in an exaggerated fashion and draped his arm across the back of a red faced Angelina's chair.
"Wow Angelina," Ron exclaimed, "well done, the Harpies are huge news!" Then bungling along with all of his usual tact he asked, "so are you two together now?"
Harry and Hermione shared a look as Bill rolled his eyes. George looked as though he was about to do something very painful to Ron, but was prevented from doing so by Mrs Weasley coming across with an armful of plates and depositing them in front of him. "Lay the table George. Hermione, Fleur can you come and help me with the food please, boys," she looked at her youngest son and his friend, "you two can get some extra chairs from the shed." Her appearance put the trio back on edge again and so without a word Harry and Ron slunk back outside as everyone moved to obey the Weasley matriarch.
As they walked to end of the garden Ron finally voiced the thought that was bouncing around Harry's skull, "mate if we tell her she going to go mental, you know what she's like."
"I know but we've got to tell her, and if we don't Hermione will, she's determined to come clean."
Ron smirked, "you make it sound as though you've done something wrong."
Harry stacked a couple chairs to carry them inside, "and you don't think your Mum will see it that way?"
"Fair point."
By the time the two of them had half carried, half dragged the chairs back into the kitchen and narrowly avoided breaking their necks by tripping over several more adventurous gnomes along the way Mr Weasley and Percy had arrived home from the Ministry. From the red tinge to Percy's ears Harry realised that some sort of argument was ongoing between the two.
"But it's what you've been waiting for." Mr Weasley was saying, "I can't understand why you've turned it down."
"Honestly father," Percy huffed, "I can't see what the problem is, it's my decision to make and I thought you would be happy with it!"
Glancing from his father to his brother and back again Ron interceded cautiously, "what's up? Has something happened?"
Looking exasperated Mr Weasley turned to his youngest son. "Your brother has taken it into his head to turn down a promotion at the Ministry, Merlin only knows why, and seems to think that it's what we would want."
Everyone in the room stared at Percy as though he had grown an extra head until eventually Bill broke the silence. "What job did they offer you Perce?"
The mumbled reply was too quiet for Harry to catch, but he needn't have worried because mere seconds later Mrs Weasley repeated it at such a high volume that it was a wonder that half of Ottery St. Catchpole couldn't hear it. "Head of Broom Regulatory Control?! What on earth did you turn it down for? Your own department, that's a huge promotion, why on earth didn't you take it."
"Because," Percy snapped at his mother, "I've had to learn the hard way this last year that some things are more important than work."
Harry winced as soon as Percy had spoken and looked to Molly for her reaction. She gazed blankly at her son for a moment and whether she saw him or Fred Harry couldn't be sure, but suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she flung herself at Percy with a muffled wail. No one said a word although Harry was sure he caught George trying to suppress a grin as he watched Percy pat his mother awkwardly on the back.
Glancing at Ron Harry raised an eyebrow in silent question. Ron merely raised one in return.
Finally releasing her son Molly gazed up at him fondly, "Percy I know your career has always been important to you, accepting a promotion doesn't mean that you've chosen it over your family." At this George coughed sceptically and Percy turned a shade that would have made a raspberry proud and said nothing.
"Well perhaps we should talk about this later," Mr Weasley counselled, "once everyone's had something to eat and calmed down a bit."
For the next few minutes everyone bustled about finishing their assigned tasks and helping Mrs Weasley bring the platters of food to the table. Once everything was set Harry moved to take a seat between Hermione and Ron, he had reckoned however, without Mrs Weasley's interference.
"Harry dear why don't you come down and sit next to me, I've got a question I need to ask you?" Shooting a desperate glance at Hermione, who merely gave him an encouraging smile, and with a sinking feeling, Harry complied.
And so it was he found himself sandwiched between Percy and his mother, with Ron and Hermione sitting opposite him and looking increasingly awkward. None of them said very much as they ate, they just communicated silently with an anguished look every so often. For Ron not speaking wasn't a problem, it just left him more time to shovel platefuls of food into his mouth, but for Harry and Hermione it meant fending off Mrs Weasley's probing questions into what the three of them had been up to at Grimmauld Place.
Halfway through pudding Harry looked up to catch a very odd pantomime going on between Hermione and Angelina who was sitting next to her. His former Quidditch team mate flicked her eyes from Harry to Hermione several times and then raised her eyebrows suggestively at Hermione, who blushed ever so slightly and after glancing at Mrs Weasley to make sure she wasn't looking, nodded. Angelina then grinned and gave Harry the thumbs up across the table before leaning over and whispering to George. Harry flushed and rolled his eyes as George winked at him and kicked Bill under the table to get his attention. Turning away from a discussion on Quidditch with his father Bill looked confused at first as his brother began a subtle mime, using Angelina to hide his motions from his mother, that involved pointing at Harry and Hermione and then pressing his two forefingers together like a child pretending its fingers were kissing. Harry could barely suppress an embarrassed groan and was only thankful that the bizarre situation went no further.
As the last person scraped their pudding plate clean Mrs Weasley got up and began to collect the plates to take them to the sink suddenly Bill got up to help her and as he moved behind Harry to take his plate he leant down to whisper in his ear.
"Tell her now, I'll distract her once you have, don't worry."
Watching Mfrs Weasley as she returned to the table Harry swallowed hard and plunged in. "Er… Mrs Weasley…" His throat dried up as she stared at him expectantly.
"Yes Harry dear?"
It only occurred to him now that he had no idea how to approach this, "er, well you see the thing is…" Surprisingly it was Ron who came to his rescue.
"Mum, once Hogwarts has stopped for the holidays can we invite Luna to a family meal?" Harry smiled gratefully at him.
"Luna, that's Xenophelius' daughter isn't it?" Mr Weasley asked from the other end of the table then winked at Ron, "well done son!"
His wife it seemed wasn't quite so quick on the uptake, "Luna? What, what do you mean Ron?" She darted a frantic glance at Hermione.
"Well Mum the thing is we're sort of going out now so I thought…" he trailed off as George sniggered from the other end of the table.
"Going out?!" Mrs Weasley's voice came out as a strangled squeak, "but - but…" she stared helplessly at them.
Seeing his friends squirm uncomfortably Harry found that his voice had come back. "Actually Mrs Weasley, Hermione and I are going out now." At that moment Harry thought Voldemort himself could have risen from the dead and yodelled his way around the kitchen in lederhosen and the woman wouldn't have noticed. Her eyes seemed to bulge out of her head and everyone at the table had to repress the urge to shelter under it as she was clearly working herself up to one of her famous explosions.
"Well while we're all in the mood for sharing," Bill abruptly got to his feet, apparently the only person unphased by his mothers expression and took Fleur's hand. "I think it's time we told you all, Fleur and I are going to have a baby."
A/N: Not much of a cliffie I know, but I thought it was an appropriate place to end the chapter so that the next one can be about the fall out. Once again I apologise for having left a ridiculous amount of time between updates, I've been very busy and when I have been writing I've been doing another fic that I hope to begin posting soon. Thank you to all who read and review, if you haven't died of boredom while waiting, it's much appreciated.
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