The last time we were all together at Nan and Pops shit hit the fan and everyone was in the splash zone. I want to say that this time was different... but we all know that the Weasley's have a problem with the whole getting along thing.
"What's Victoire doing here?" James snaps as he watches Aunt Fleur, Uncle Bill, Dom, Lou, and Vic all land in the front yard from their portkey.
"Cause she's related to us?" I say coming up to him.
"Teddy's here."
"And?"
"And, Teddy deserves one bloody holiday without her around!" James says loudly. Aunt Ginny glances over at us frowning, but she doesn't say anything.
The door opens and Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur come in with big smiles on their faces, "Bonjour! Bonjour! My beautiful family!" Aunt Fleur says loudly taking off her coat and handing it to Uncle Bill.
"It smells great in here Mum, sorry we're late." Uncle Bill says, placing a kiss on Nan's cheek.
"You're just in time, come in come in!" Nan gives Aunt Fleur a hug and they all come into the room. James, Albus, and Lily are all giving Victoire a dangerous look but it doesn't look like any adults are noticing the tension.
"Let's see, how about we do youngest to oldest for dinner?" Pops says coming into the living room where most of us are, "Does that make sense for everyone?"
"Makes perfect sense to me!" Jordan says hopping up from her spot on the couch and racing Annie to the kitchen. Gilbert, Lucy, and Theo follow, then Hugo and Lily, then Cass, Darcy, and I.
"Haven't heard from you in a while." I can hear Darcy half-whisper to Cass.
"What do you mean? We hung out at my Dad's birthday party."
"Yeah but after we uh, you went back upstairs and ignored me for the rest of the night."
"You keep disappearing out of my life and reappearing and doing things... like..." Cassie's voice is so quiet that I can't hear her anymore, especially not since Rose came up beside me and put her arm around my shoulders.
"Ugh, do you know how much it sucks not having you at Hogwarts?" She sighs.
"Can't suck as much as Scorpius," Louis says behind us.
Rose and I turn around in the food line and look at every one. Scorpius is bright red, so is Albus. Freddie and Lou are laughing and James looks very lost.
"What have you been sucking on Scor?" I say to him.
Louis clears his throat but it sounds a lot like 'Albus' and he and Freddie lose their minds again.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on. You two walked in on them!?" Rose whisper shouts, not wanting to let any of our parents hear. "When!?"
"Let's see, when was Dad's birthday?" Freddie says.
My eyes go wide, "You got off in our flat!?"
"Not the flat, lower," Louis says in between giggles.
"Oh god!" Rose and I say at the same time.
Darcy hands Rose and me plates, "What are you two on about? Looks like you're going to be sick."
"Might just be. You two haven't been getting it on in the shop too have you?" I say to Darcy and Cass.
Cass looks like she's going to faint and kill me at the same time, Darcy nearly drops his plate, "Me and Cass?" Darcy says. He forces a laugh, "Dunno what you're talking about."
I can feel the gears in my head start to work, attempting to figure out why the two of them look like they were caught in the middle of fucking. "You two? In the same spot as those two!?" I say pointing at Cass and Darcy then spinning around and pointing at Albus and Scorpius.
That gets Freddie's attention, "What do you mean those two?" He says in a very protective way.
Cass goes red, Darcy starts to load his plate with food not making eye contact with anyone.
"Darcy, did you screw my sister on my father's birthday?" Freddie snaps.
Cassie drops her spoon, Darcy goes to pick it up but he stops himself, "What? No! No, I would never. We just snogged a bit."
Cassie bends over to get her spoon and hits Darcy with it, "Darcy Williams you shut your mouth." She hisses at him.
"I think Darcy should keep talking." I say to them, "I knew that you two snogged at Hogwarts but I didn't know it was anything more than that."
Freddie grabs a plate from the stack of dishes on the counter, "You snogged at Hogwarts? Is that why you were so weird and locking yourself in classrooms?"
"It's not related." Cassie snaps, "I can have more than one thing happening in my life at a time Fred."
"You locked yourself in a classroom?" Darcy says looking at Cass.
"Some boyfriend you are Williams; doesn't even realize that my sister is struggling with stuff."
"I'm not – we aren't dating... are we?" He looks between Fred and Cass.
"I – I uh. It's not your business Fred." Cassis snaps.
Fred scoffs and puts a heap of mashed potatoes on his plate. My head hurts from looking back and forth between the two of them. "None of my business? Course it's my business. Especially when some random guy is snogging my sister casually!"
"Random guy? Are you mad?" Cassie says glaring at Fred, "Darcy is not some random guy!"
"So you fancy him then?"
"It's none of your business! Unlike you, I don't need to strut around Hogwarts snogging every person that lays eyes on me!"
"You've got me confused with James there love," Freddie says to her.
"Oi! Leave me out of whatever the fuck is going on over there, I just wanted some ham," James says which makes Rose, Lou, and I laugh.
"Stay out of my business Fredrick."
"You are my business Cassiopeia."
Cassie glares at Fred, her eyes hot with anger, Rose and I step out of her line of sight just in case. The plate in Freddie's hands cracks right down the middle. He drops it out of shock and it shatters on the ground.
"Real mature Cass." Freddie snaps.
"I didn't mean to." Cass says, "But I'm happy I did."
"What is with you recently!" Freddie shouts.
Mum and Dad come over to us, abandoning their spot in line, "What's going on here?" Mum says sternly.
"Cass is blowing up people's plates and snogging Darcy!" Freddie says loudly.
"Fred is being a pain in my arse!" Cassie shouts. She drops her plate and cutlery on the dining table, "I'm not hungry anymore." She says pushing past all of us, grabbing her coat out of the pile by the front door and leaving the house. No one says anything for a while, the entire house is quiet.
"I'll go," Mum says to Dad. She pecks him on the cheek and heads out of the door following Cass.
"Can we pick up the pace up there? Bloody starving!" Teddy shouts from further down the line which cuts the tension that was built up and everyone goes back to their own conversations.
Once we both have food, Rose and I find a spot on the floor in the living room away from everyone else, "What was that about?" She says to me.
I shrug, "She told me that Darcy kissed her a while ago, but she never mentioned it again so I thought that was the end of it... I heard Mum and Dad talking to her about her recent outbursts of magic and shit. But I don't know enough to know what's going on. All I know is that Mum and Dad are pretty worried and honestly so am I."
"I am too, I mean I've never seen anyone manage to break a plate like that, and without a wand too?" Rose says, mashing butter into her mashed potatoes.
"And Scorpius and Albus? In the shop? At the same time that Darcy and Cass were snogging?" I say before shoving a big piece of ham into my mouth.
Rose shakes her head in disbelief, "Are we the only ones not snogging people every other second?"
"I don't think Lou's been snogging anyone," I say to her.
She swallows her food hard, "Wouldn't say that. You weren't at the Gryffindor party."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I say with wide eyes.
"Lou was dancing with this guy, and the way they were dancing, not a chance that they didn't at least snog."
"Why is it that everything interesting happens when I stopped going to school?"
Rose laughs, "You've gotta come back, then everything will go back to normal."
"Teddy? Puis-je te parler?" ((translation- Can I talk to you?)) I hear Victoire say over the noise.
Teddy puts his plate down and goes to stand up from the floor by the coffee table but James stops him, "Leave him alone Victoire." He says to her.
"This doesn't concern you James so why don't you just finish your dinner," Victoire says to him, her accent is more noticeable when she's cross.
"Why don't you just leave my brother alone?" James says back to her, "Don't you think you've done enough?"
"Teddy. Please, it's important." Victoire puts her hand on Teddy's shoulder and he nods and goes to stand up again.
"Teddy don't. For all you know she's using her veela bullshit to get you to do what she wants."
"Hey!" Aunt Ginny and Aunt Fleur say at the same time. Aunt Ginny goes over to the three of them, "James you have no right to tell Teddy what he can and cannot do and who he can and cannot talk to. He is a grown man. And you have absolutely no right to talk to your cousin the way you are talking to her now."
"If you knew what she did, you wouldn't have a problem with it," James says to his mum. He looks at Victoire, "Dom told us what happened, why your back in England so soon."
Victoire spins around to look at Dominique who's trying to hide behind Molly. "Est-ce vrai? Leur avez-vous dit?" ((Translation- is it true? Did you tell them?))
God, I hate it when they start speaking French, I never have a clue what they're saying.
"Yeah? I may have mentioned it...?" Dom says awkwardly. Molly shuffles away from Dom, not wanting to get in the middle of it all.
"SALOPE!" ((Translation- bitch!)) Victoire shrieks and pulls out her wand from her dress pocket, she points it right at Dom and before Dom could even get her wand out to defend herself, Victoire is shouting, "HERBIFORS!" flowers instantly start to sprout and bloom out of Dominique's ears and nose.
"Oh mon Dieu." ((Translation- oh my god)) Louis says which makes Freddie laugh.
Aunt Fleur flicks her wand towards Victoire, Vic's wand goes flying in the sky and Aunt Fleur catches it midair. "Get outside. Both of you. Maintenant!"
The two girls are staring at each other, the flower in Dom's left ear is now almost as big as her head and very purple, the plants coming down from her nose are dangling down her chin, growing longer every second. They both storm out of the house, Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur following close behind.
Teddy looks very confused. He stands up from the floor but Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny have him sit back down and tell him something along the lines of, 'not yet.'
Uncle Walter clears his throat, "So... Lee and I were waiting for the right moment to say this. But because well, you know, there's no such thing about the right moment with you people." Everyone laughs, but it's clear that people are still on edge, "Lee and I are going to be renewing our vows over the summer, and since we didn't get the big fancy wedding that neither of us wanted in the first place..."
"We were wondering if we could have a really big celebration here. Everyone in this room pretty much got married here and since we don't have our own families to go to with this, we wanted to come to yours." Uncle Lee finishes.
"What are you talking about, this is your family." Uncle Ron says and the entire room breaks into cheers and applause. Nan goes over to both of them and hugs them tight and kisses each of their cheeks, which is really funny to watch because Uncle Walter is taller than Dad and Nan is one of the shortest ones in the room.
"And we know it's a little dangerous having it here and with all of you lovely people there because there is a very big chance that things will go wrong, but that's half the fun." Uncle Lee says.
Auntie Em goes over to Uncle Walter and hugs him tight, which is also funny to look at because Auntie Em is the shortest one here besides the younger kids.
Two hours later and Cass and Mum come back inside. Cass goes right upstairs and we can all hear the bedroom door slam closed. Mum goes over to Auntie Em, Uncle Walter, Uncle Lee, and Dad. She squeals loudly and hugs Uncle Lee and Uncle Walter tightly before taking a shot glass from Auntie Em and downing it at the same time as the rest of them.
I, on the other hand, am starting to hit my noise limit. The familiar pain of a headache creeping into my forehead area of my brain and spreading through the rest of my head. It's the longest I've lasted at an event like this and I'm pretty proud of myself. But my doctor at St. Mungo's says every time that I start to feel a headache coming on I have to call it a day and head to bed or somewhere where I can lie down in the dark and the quiet.
"I'm starting to not feel the best," I say to Rose.
Instantly her face is full of worry, "Do you need me to get Aunt Vi?" She says already getting up.
"I should be good, just let her know that I'm going upstairs for the rest of the night," I say to her. Rose helps me stand up and she takes my empty plate into the kitchen for me. I head up the stairs and into Dad's old room. Cassie is lying on her back in the middle of the floor. She sits up and watches me close the door.
"Did they send you in here to check on me?" She says coldly.
"not everything is about you Cassiopeia," I say shrugging off my clothes and changing into my pyjamas. I crawl into one of the beds and bury myself under the blankets, covering my head with a quilt so I'm in total darkness.
Someone knocks on the door and comes in, "Done for the day bub?" Mum says, she comes over to my bed and sits on the edge of it. I move the quilt so I can see her. The sun setting outside casts shadows over her face and makes her even more pretty than she already is if that's even possible.
"Yeah, sorry. Let everyone know I love them and stuff." I grumble.
Mum kisses my forehead, "Cassie, are you going to be staying in here? Because I'm going to put up some silencing charms so that Leah has some quiet."
Cass makes a noise that sounds like obviously from her spot on the floor. Mum gets up from my bed and closes the door behind her. I hear her muttering a few spells and then silence, nothing but me and Cassie's breathing.
"Did you honestly snog Darcy?" I say to Cass after a while.
She groans, "Not you too. It's none of your business!" She says it quietly but I can tell that she wants to yell.
"I'm not judging or trying to be protective like Freddie was. I'm just curious." I pause waiting for a response. When I don't get one I continue, "Do you think you might fancy him?"
I hear her get up from the floor and flop herself onto the other bed in the room, "Yeah." She says into her pillow. If it weren't for the complete silence, I wouldn't have heard her.
"I'm happy for you," I say.
"You are?"
"Course I am. What kind of sister would I be if I wasn't?"
She doesn't say anything for a while, "I'm having a hard time controlling my magic recently.
"I've noticed."
She throws a pillow at me and it lands on my hip. "I didn't mean it, breaking Fred's plate and whatever, he just makes me so mad that I don't know what to do any my emotions take over."
"he's just trying to make sure that you'll be alright. Once he's done Hogwarts he wants to travel the world. He won't be around forever."
"He does?"
"Yeah? He loves the shop but he doesn't want to do it full time and for the rest of his life. He wants to go off and make a name for himself. You didn't know?" I say to her.
Silence.
"No, he never mentioned it."
I sigh and roll over so I'm facing her side of the room instead of the wall, "My guess? He wants to make sure that we're going to be alright before he leaves, which means getting into all of our business and scaring away people that snog us."
"That's dumb."
"Course it is... we don't have it that bad though."
Cassie rolls over so that she's facing me too, "What'd you mean we don't have it that bad?"
"Aunt Ginny had it worse. She had six older brothers trying to protect her from dumb shit."
"Ophelia don't swear!"
"Mum can't hear us, I don't care."
She sighs, "I wish he would just leave me alone. How am I supposed to explain it to him when I don't even know what is going on? Darcy gave me a peck in the music room like two months ago and we haven't said anything about it since. Then at the party, we both got overstimulated and we were going outside for some fresh air and the next thing I knew we were snogging in the shop."
"The shop seems to be a popular place to snog," I say. She groans and covers her face with her pillow like she's trying to hide that she's blushing. "You've got four siblings, all with different levels of boundary issues. People are going to get in your business whether you want them to or not."
"I wish I was an only child."
"No, you don't. Your life would be so boring without us all there pissing you off all the time."