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"It was my idea, but
I could not be bothered with the trouble,
so I made them think it was theirs."
Bel, talking about one of the twins' prank.
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Betelgeuse and Harry spun faster and faster, blurred fireplaces flashing past them until they felt themself slowing down. Betelgeuse observed the boy throw out his hands and come to a halt in time to prevent himself from falling face forward in the Weasleys' kitchen as she stepped out the fireplace with grace.
She saw Fred rush towards them, "Did he eat it?" he asked breathlessly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his feet. Betelgeuse smirked.
"Yeah," Harry replied, straightening up. "What was it?"
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," Fred said brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer —"
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Betelgeuse looked around and saw that Ron and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with Charlie and Bill. She smiled at them. As the older Weasleys talked with Harry, Betelgeuse turned to Fred, "What you did was highly entertaining, Freddie," she complimented, smirking.
Fred bowed deeply in front of her, "I live to please my lady."
"Yeah, don't we know?" Came the rich voice of Charlie as he beckoned Betelgeuse over. She complied, nearing her former Quidditch captain and leaving a flustered Fred behind. "Altair, George said you're not the Gryffindor Captain this year," he crossed his muscular arms over his broad chest and frowned. "Why."
Beside him, Bill snorted, "You lot are a bunch of Quidditch fanatics."
"Bel is the worst of us," George spoke, leaning back on his chair as Fred hugged her waist from behind.
Betelgeuse noticed Charlie and Bill follow his action with their eyes. Bill had a subtle smirk on his freckled face while Charlie's frown deepened. He abruptly clapped his hands in a gesture of recognition, "That's the cause. You distracted her from her athletic goal with your touchy hands. Fred, you dim-witted ginger."
Betelgeuse threw her head back in laughter, leaning her head on Fred's shoulder. She moved her head to the side, observing his facial expression. She had expected a pout of mock outrage to appear on Fred's visage, but instead, a grave expression had downed on his face. Then he spoke, "I'd never do that, Charlie."
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mr Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than Betelgeuse had ever seen him. "That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," Fred replied with an evil grin, never loosening his grip on Betelgeuse's waist. "I just dropped it — It was his fault he went and ate it. I never told him to."
"You dropped it on purpose!" Arthur roared. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"
"How big did his tongue get?" George interrupted his father's rant eagerly.
"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"
Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again. Betelgeuse had an accomplished grin on her fair visage as she patted Fred's hands, "Well done, cœur." She let the endeavour slip from her lips without a second thought, feeling Fred smile against her head.
"It isn't funny!" Mr Weasley screamed. "That sort of behaviour seriously undermines wizard–Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons —"
"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" Fred argued indignantly.
"That would have been me," Betelgeuse stated with aloofness. She felt Fred's chest shake with laughter at her low comment.
"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," George added. "Isn't he, Harry?"
"Yeah, he is, Mr Weasley," Harry spoke sincerely.
"That's not the point!" Arthur raged. "You wait until I tell your mother —"
"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.
Molly had just entered the kitchen, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said and smiled. Then her eyes snapped back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Mr Weasley hesitated. Betelgeuse could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and George, he had not actually meant to tell Molly what had happened.
Then two girls appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Molly. One, with very bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Hermione Granger. The other, small, and red-haired, was the youngest Weasley, Ginny.
"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs Weasley repeated in a dangerous sort of voice.
"It's nothing, Molly," Arthur mumbled, "Fred and George just — but I've had words with them —"
"What have they done this time?" Molly urged. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes —"
"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" Hermione intervened from the doorway.
"He knows where he's sleeping," Ron replied, "In my room, he slept there last —"
"We can all go," Hermione insisted pointedly.
"Oh," Ron exhaled, catching on. "Right."
"Yeah, we'll come too," George nodded, taking a step to leave.
"You stay where you are!" Ms Weasley snarled. "Betelgeuse, go with the girls!"
Betelgeuse did not move from the circle of Fred's arms; she did not have the slightest intention to leave the twins to the overexaggerating and unjust verbal abuse of their mother.
"I rather stay, Ms Weasley."
☆☆☆
Betelgeuse has been debating with herself if casting a Vanishing Spell on Molly would have been socially acceptable. Alas, she already knew the answer.
And so, she ensured the ballistic screams of a mad Molly Weasley for at least twenty minutes.
Can she even breathe while screeching like a banshee?
She had enough when Molly yelled that she had expected so much more from her, raising her better than that.
"Ms Weasley," Betelgeuse spoke in a sharp tone, "You did not raise me, so your claim is profoundly illogical. You are projecting on me the qualities and righteousness of someone that does not exist. I am not candid, and most definitely not just and fair." Fred and George witnessed the shift in her countenance as her eyes narrowed on their mother. "If you, for one minute, could cease ranting and ponder on the laborious work Fred and George put in their project, you could grasp how proud you should be of them. Now, if you are quite finished, we will take our leaves."
She turned around and walked outside the back door, silently followed by the twins. Molly was so stunned; she did not even try to stop them.
"Bel, you shouldn't have done that," George reprimanded her weakly.
"On the contrary, George," Betelgeuse replied, "I should have done it much earlier." She looked at Fred and sent him a petite smile.
Suddenly, a loud crashing sound caught their attention. The source of the commotion was revealed as the trio entered the garden and noticed that Bill and Charlie both had their wands out and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, crashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other out of the air.
Fred and George started cheering as they seated on the grass. Betelgeuse remained standing, softly smiling as George began to commentate like Lee would during a Quidditch match. Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and concern.
Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off.
"You are losing your touch, Dragon Whisperer!" Betelgeuse loudly declared, making the group laugh.
There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor. "Will you keep it down?!" He bellowed.
"Sorry, Perce," Bill shouted back, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"
"Very badly," Percy replied peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie guided the tables carefully onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.
By seven, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs Weasley's magnificent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Betelgeuse, Harry, and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.
Betelgeuse has been discussing the Quidditch Cup finalist with Charlie and the twins, looking up at the darkening sky from time to time, "Ireland is going to win."
"It's got to be Ireland," Charlie agreed thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semi-finals."
"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," Fred argued.
"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," Charlie said shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."
"It was ghastly," Betelgeuse stated flatly.
"What happened?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," Charlie replied gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."
"How humiliating," Betelgeuse added, making Harry grin.
Arthur conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their homemade strawberry ice cream, and, by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table as the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle.
The night was peaceful and silent. Betelgeuse sighed in content as she put her head on Fred's shoulder, feeling his long fingers comb her corvine locks. She was staring up at the sky, mesmerised once again by the gloriously sparkling stars that were beckoning her. Fred was looking at her profile, enamoured by the cold shine of the stars in her otherworldly eyes.
"You two sicken me," George commented with amusement.
"Oh, sod off, Georgie," Fred stated, blushing as he practically lifted Betelgeuse up and placed her on his lap. The boy goofily grinned over her shoulder to his younger twin, an accomplished emotion on his freckled face.
Betelgeuse snuggled closer to him, "This is highly inappropriate, Fred."
"Luckily, neither of us could care less about propriety, right?" He responded, smiling down at her.
"I actually do, but not when I am with you, cœur," Betelgeuse replied, promptly kissing his cheek, and leaning back again.
"What does it mean?" Fred gently asked, "That's the second time you've called me that. What's that? C-cuer? Cur?"
Betelgeuse giggled softly, shaking her head, "No cur, cœur, Fred."
Fred smiled at her soft giggle; his heart swelled with a warming sensation as he gazed at the Black girl in his arms.
"Can you not remember?" Betelgeuse asked, looking at him with bright grey eyes, "I showed you one of my most treasured possession during our third year at Hogwarts. A photo."
Fred's brows furrowed in thoughtfulness, then the black-haired girl saw his eyes widen. He beamed and hugged her tightly. Betelgeuse knew he had remembered the picture of her father with her mother's note on the back. He had identified its meaning.
Their bubble of tender serenity was suddenly disturbed by Ms Weasley.
"Look at the time," she said, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you — you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, Betelgeuse, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup; the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow — hope it does this time!" Harry blurted enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," Percy argued sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" Fred suggested as he raised to his feet with Betelgeuse still in his arms. She had to bury her face in his neck to keep herself from laughing out loud.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" Percy shouted, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry as he began to walk towards the house, ignoring the reproachful glare from his mother. He could care less; he was going to hold his girl as long as possible.
Betelgeuse leaned down, explaining to the spectacled boy, "We sent it."
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Cœur: heart.