So maybe letting Dad and Uncle Fred plan how we tell Nan and Pops that Uncle Fred is alive wasn't the best idea we've ever had.
To be fair, we all learned pretty quickly that when Dad and Uncle Fred set their mind on something, it's pretty impossible to get them to change.
Yeah, I say mind instead of minds because lets be honest, those two are essentially the same person. Sure Dad was always funny and a total riot but for the past couple of days he's been absolutely chaotic. We've closed the shop for the entire winter holiday because of a family emergency which you know, makes sense and everything. But because Dad doesn't have the shop to work on right now he and Uncle Fred have been causing chaos everywhere we look.
Uncle Lee, Uncle Walter, their kids, and Auntie Em and Darcy have been around the flat pretty much every day. Actually, everyone has been around pretty much every day. I guess that happens when their brother comes back to life.
Freddie has kept Evie away, for the most part, he says that it might be a little much to see Uncle Fred all alive right now, but she should be here tonight for the big Welcome Home From Hogwarts party Mum and Dad always throw.
"So I'm thinking that I walk in instead of George, say hi to Mum and Dad, peck Violet on the cheek, just overall be you for a bit and wait till they notice." Uncle Fred says as he helps Mum and Dad clean up the flat.
I'm sitting in the big chair in the living room going over the notes that I took before we left for Christmas holidays. That and texting Josie. Don't tell my parents that I've been chatting with a girl, I don't want them to make fun of me the way that they make fun of Freddie.
"After all these years you're still trying to snog my girlfriend?" Dad says to Uncle Fred.
Mum walks out of the kitchen drying her hands on a tea towel, "Girlfriend? I'm going to need you to rewind what you just said, George Weasley."
"Sorry love. Wife, my darling wife and mother to my beautiful children." Dad goes over to peck Mum on the lips and she makes an unimpressed humming noise.
Uncle Fred looks at me, "What're you doing?"
"Homework." I shrug.
Uncle Fred makes a face, "Homework? On your holiday? Who even does that?"
"People who want to get better than an A..."
Dad laughs, "They got you there Freddie."
Freddie walks into the room, "What?"
"What?" Dad says.
"You said my name."
"Sorry not you Freddie, that Freddie," Dad says pointing at Uncle Fred.
Our Freddie's eye twitches a little, "I'm going to go pick up Evie, Mumma can I have the van keys?"
"Only if you run some errands for me too. And pick up Dray and Scorpius on your way back. Oh, and Wally and Lee need a ride too." Mum says going back into the kitchen to grab a list of things that she needs to get done.
"I'm not a chauffer Mum!" Freddie groans.
Mum comes back into the room and gives Freddie a list, "Today you are. Love you, darling."
"Yeah, love you too," Freddie grumbles before heading out the front door.
"Theo my love, my favourite child," Mum says.
I groan and look at her, "What're you gonna make me do?"
"Can you go tell your sisters to get their laundry into the basement and start a load please?"
"I have to start the laundry or do they?"
"I'll leave that up to you." Mum blows me a kiss, "Thank you!"
I gather all my notes together and shuffle out of the living room and down the corridor.
"I've always wanted one of those." Uncle Fred says.
"A blanket?" Dad says.
"A kid you blithering idiot."
"Kids are a lot of work Freddie."
"I know that."
"And Emma..."
"I know that too. Thanks. I was just saying..."
I feel really weird listening into Dad's conversation with Uncle Fred so I do my best to tune it out as I knock and open Ophelia's bedroom door. She's standing in the middle of her room in sweats and a sports bra staring at herself in her mirror.
"What?" She asks me poking absentmindedly at her stomach.
"Mum wants your laundry downstairs and she wants you to start a load... what're you doing?" I ask her.
Ophelia looks over at me, "Do you think that lying down on a hard stomach would be comfortable?"
"What?"
Ophelia sighs and picks up a huge orange flannel from her bed. She puts it on but doesn't bother doing it up, "Like if you were cuddling someone and they had a hard stomach, would it be uncomfortable?"
"I haven't touched anyone in eighty-four years," I say to my sister.
Ophelia snatches my phone out of my hands faster than I can blink, "Really? Cause this right here..." I try to grab my phone from her but she jumps onto her bed and away from me, "What does this say hmm? I miss you, can't wait to see you again... I haven't been able to stop thinking about our kiss...! Theodore Weasley! Are you sexting a girl?"
I try to grab my phone out of Ophelia's hands but she jumps off her bed and races out of her room waving my phone in the air wildly.
"Give it back you hag!" I scream chasing after her.
Ophelia grabs Dad's shoulders and uses him as a bodyguard.
"What is going on! This doesn't look like laundry!" Dad shouts as Ophelia moves him side to side dodging my attempts to get my phone back.
"Ophelia stole my phone!"
"Theo has a GIRLFRIEND!"
"You're just jealous cause you don't!"
Ophelia shoves my phone in Dad's face, "See! Seeeee! It's Jason's kid! Jason Carmody!"
"You bastard!" I screech.
"Language Theo!" Mum calls from the kitchen.
I roll my eyes, "So what if I'm talking with her! It's none of your business!"
"Ophelia give them their phone back now please," Dad says to Ophelia who is now on Dad's back, piggyback style.
"MUUUUUUUUUUM!" Freddie shouts from the bottom of the stairs, "THE VAN WON'T START!"
Mum comes out of the kitchen, "Ophelia give Theo their phone back right now. It's none of your business who they are talking to. Theo, Josie is a very adorable little girl and I am very proud of you." She goes over to the front door and shouts down the stairs, "BE RIGHT THERE!"
Ophelia crawls off of Dad's back and gives me my phone, "I could have a girlfriend you know." She says as we walk back down the hallway into our bedrooms.
"Yeah, but you don't so suck an egg," I say to her.
Ophelia flips me off and goes back into her room to get her dirty clothes. I knock on Cassie's door and open it before she responds, "Cass Mum needs your laundry downstairs..." I make eye contact with Cass who is sitting on top of her friend that she brought home for the holidays. "I'm moving out." I say to myself, "I'm moving out and becoming a hermit in the mountains."
I go to close the door but Cassie scrambles of Theseus and pulls me back into her room. "You can't tell anyone." She says to me.
"Tell anyone that you're snogging that guy? It's not like you two are doing all that much to hide it or anything." I say.
"Mum would have been able to sense if I put up a charm. Theo please."
I look past my sister and at Theseus, "Don't you have a girlfriend?" I say narrowing my eyes.
"Uhm..." Is all he manages to say.
I roll my eyes, "Mum needs your laundry downstairs," I say to Cassie again, "And I need you to figure out how to lock this room because I do not want to see you snogging. I really don't need that in my life."
Cassie nods and I walk out of her room. I knock on Annie's door and I hear a little 'yeah?' from inside so I open the door.
Annie is sitting on her floor cross-legged, covered head to toe in bright green sludge.
"Don't tell Mum." She says super fast.
I stare at her, "I couldn't even if I wanted to. What the hell?"
Annie shrugs, "I got curious. What would happen if I mixed that spot ointment that Dad sells in the shop and un-no-poo. Turns out, it makes this really gross stuff that I can't get off."
"I – you're gonna have to tell Mum."
"I'll tell Dad instead, he gets the creative vision."
"Okay well... once you've gotten this," I gesture to everything about my little sister, "Mum wants your laundry downstairs.
Over the next couple of hours more and more Weasleys show up. Mum, Aunt Ginny, and Aunt Audrey start in the kitchen but it's only a matter of time before Aunt Hermione goes in and starts to boss them around a little. I know that Mum's not a fan of getting bossed around at all but she puts up with it when it's Auntie Mione.
"It's so weird, seeing you all together like this." Uncle Fred says to me as he sits down on the sofa beside me, "Like I know all of you, well not all of you I haven't gotten to know Audrey yet, but everyone else I know. And seeing you all at Hogwarts was always one on one, never all of you."
Teddy, Victoire, and their daughter Dora step out of our fireplace. Uncle Fred has already spent a day with everyone but they still have the initial shocked look on their face when they see Uncle Fred on our couch.
"That's weird too." Uncle Fred says as Teddy puts Dora down and she toddles away.
"What is?"
"Seeing my niece with her own kid. Like last time I saw her she was seventeen stressing about her NEWT exams and now she's raising her own child and starting her own family."
I look at Uncle Fred, who's watching Dora with a small smile on his face. I never really thought of it like that. I mean last time he saw most of these people they were kids themselves.
"I'm glad you're back," I say.
Uncle Fred smiles at me, "I'm glad I'm back too kiddo." He ruffes the hair on the top of my head, something that he's been trying to do for years before getting up and going over to Mum and Dad.
"Oi! If you two idiots have something big planned for Mum and Dad then they're on their way up the stairs now!" Uncle Charlie shouts running through the flat.
Dad and Uncle Fred look at each other and have a quick whisper conversation before Dad disappears into his room.
"Goodness Violet, you and George have to install one of those thing-a-ma-gigs for us oldies," Pops says once he's in the flat.
"An escalator?" Mum suggests giving both Nan and Pops a hug.
Pop's face lights up, "Yes! One of those. I tried to get Molly to come into muggle London with me last week so we could go ride them but she wasn't having any of it."
"Arthur if I have told you once I have told you a hundred times, I am not going to go into muggle London with you and stick out like a sore thumb when we don't know what anything is."
Cassie gives Nan a hug and introduces them to Theseus. I haven't been able to look at either of them the same way since I walked in on them snogging. There are some things that you just don't have to see and someone else's tongue in your sister's mouth is one of them.
"Hi Mum, Dad." Uncle Fred says pretending to be Dad,
Nan smiles, "Georgie!" She gives him a hug and then pulls away, "Have you done something to your hair? It looks all shaggy."
Uncle Fred reaches up to touch his hair, "Not that I know of, might just be Violet sneaking growing potion into my shampoo."
Nan's not buying it. The room goes absolutely silent except for Dora who's babbling to Teddy. Nan stares at Uncle Fred for a good, long time.
"George?" Nan asks.
Dad walks out of his bedroom and into the kitchen, "Wotcher Mum, Dad."
Nan blinks.
Pops looks between the two of them.
"Fred.." Nan whispers to Uncle Fred.
"He's not Fred I am! Honestly woman you call yourself our mother." Dad says.
Aunt Ginny sniffs and wipes a few stray tears from her face. Uncle Percy holds onto Aunt Audrey harder than I've ever seen.
Nan looks between Uncle Fred and Dad several times, "Uhm..." She whispers.
"Only joking," Uncle Fred says to Nan, he looks at Pops and smiles, "I am Fred."
Nan nearly falls over and Uncle Fred and Dad catch her just in time. Pops stares at Uncle Fred, opening and closing his mouth like a frog but no noise comes out.
"Here Mum, take a seat. The rest of them have had some time with the idea." Uncle Fred says leading Nan to an empty seat in the living room.
"Dad you as well, no need for you to break your hip," Dad says getting a chair for Pops from the kitchen.
Everyone slowly goes back to what they were doing. Mum and my other aunts go into the kitchen talking about a need for a glass of wine. Dominique, her girlfriend Kate, and Ophelia are talking quidditch. Louis, Freddie, and Evie are sitting on the ground by his room talking and laughing. On occasion, Freddie shoots Theseus a look but Theseus and Cassie are sitting on the couch very close together talking between themselves.
"Galleon says that Nan faints," Lucy says plopping herself beside me.
"I'm not going to bet on whether or not my seventy-five-year-old grandmother faints in my living room thanks," I say to her.
Lucy shrugs, "Should have seen when Uncle Fred spent the day with us. Dad couldn't stop apologizing."
"How do you mean?" I ask her looking around the room for Uncle Percy. I spot him talking with Aunt Audrey, Molly, and her fiancé Bridgit. They're getting married in a week and it's going to be total chaos I can already feel it.
"Apparently Dad spent the past however long thinking that it was his fault." Lucy looks over at her Dad, "He said that every day on his way home from work he would stop at Uncle Fred's gravestone and say jokes that he came up with."
"That's the saddest thing I have ever heard in my entire life."
"That's what Uncle Fred said. Then they cried. Mum had no idea what to do. She didn't know Uncle Fred when he was alive the first time. She and Dad met after the war."
"I mean I wouldn't know what to do if I saw Uncle Percy cry. Bit of a scary sight if I'm being honest."
"It was. Molly and I sat there as still as we could. I wanted to hug him or something but I was scared I would mess something up."
Nan sobs and pulls Uncle Fred into another hug. Dad is trying to get Pops to drink some water.
"I thought that it would be happier, having Uncle Fred around. I mean it wasn't that big of a shock when I saw him alive, I mean we saw him every day at Hogwarts. But I thought there would be fewer tears when he came home." Lucy sighs.
"I think it's happy tears. Maybe sad tears too, cause they think that they should have done something more after the war." I sigh, "Overheard Dad talking to Uncle Fred last night, he said that he should have thought of finding the stone right after the war. If he did then it would have only been a day, not twenty-five years."
"So they blame themselves?" Lucy asks.
"Dad definitely does. Cause after the war he just drank all the time, he didn't do anything to try and get Uncle Fred back... course they didn't know that it would work."
"Can I ask you something without you judging me?" Lucy asks.
"Course."
"Do you think it was a good idea? Bringing Uncle Fred back and everything?"
"yeah definitely."
But the truth is, I don't know. Sure he's back with his family and everyone is happy again but I mean, he lost twenty-five years of his life in one go. He didn't get to experience growing up with his family he just... grew. And the way he was talking about kids earlier with Dad. He clearly wants a family of his own. He's just too old to start one.
Everyone else seemsthrilled, even Uncle Fred is the happiest I've ever seen him when he wasfloating around Hogwarts. But I dunno... maybe its because I tend to assume theworst about situations or what, but I don't really know if all this happinessis going to