Staying in Dad's old room at the Burrow is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's always cold no matter how many blankets you cover yourself in, and Ophelia snores like her life depends on it.
Like right now, two in the morning, Ophelia's snores are shaking the entire house and I'm wide awake because of it.
I roll out of my bed and put my slippers on and wrap myself in one of the blankets before shuffling out of the room and down to the living room. I can still hear Ophelia's snores, but they mix with everyone else's, even when we're asleep, the Weasleys are loud.
I make my way into the kitchen and get myself a cup of water before sitting at the kitchen table with my legs tucked under me and my blanket over my head, draping down my body so only my face is showing.
The clock on the wall ticks softly even though none of the hands are moving. There are eight hands on it, each one representing the original Weasleys. When Uncle Fred died, his hand on the clock fell off. Nan turned it into a necklace for Dad and he's worn it ever since. We've got one in our flat too, a family clock. Nan made it for Mum and Dad once Annie was born because they were both terrified of not knowing where we are, especially after what they went through during the war.
"What're you doing down here?" Dad says coming down the stairs.
I shrug, "Ophelia's loud, I can't sleep in the same room as her."
Dad comes down the rest of the stairs and comes into the kitchen, "When you two were born, Mum and I had to keep you in the same crib or else you would scream bloody murder all night." He says putting the kettle on and getting two mugs ready.
"I don't believe that," I say to him
Dad chuckles, "Honest, the first two years that you were on this earth you two were inseparable. Freddie was wildly jealous that he didn't have a brother to be best friends with." The kettle goes off and Dad pours the boiling water into both of the cups, adding two spoons of sugar and a dash of milk to both before, squeezing the teabag on the side of the cup and taking it out.
"Is that why you had Theo?" I ask Dad. He sits on the other side of the table opposite of me and puts one of the cups of tea in front of me.
"Oh no, we had Theo cause we wanted a big family. Mumma never had one and it felt weird for me not to have one coming from a big family myself." Dad says taking a drink from his cup.
I stare at my mug for a minute before picking it up and taking a drink. Dad and I have our tea in the same exact way. "How'd you know I was down here?" I ask him.
"I didn't know it was you, I'm not that talented. There's a squeaky board just outside of my old room. Your Nan and Pops did it on purpose after we drove my Dad's flying car halfway across the country to rescue Harry and your Mum one summer."
"Oh..." Is all I say.
We stay quiet till both of us have finished our cup of tea. I can feel my eyelids get heavier, the fact that it's 2 am and I haven't had any sleep is starting to catch up with me. Dad notices because he takes both our cups over to the sink and looks at me, "Off to bed now Cassie darling. I'll see you in the morning."
I gather my blanket around me and get up from the table, "Night Dad, thanks for sitting with me."
"Course."
I can feel Dad watching me as I head back up the stairs. I stop just outside of the bedroom door and press my foot on each of the boards, sure enough, the middle one squeaks, not very loud but loud enough to let someone know that someone is leaving that room, I never noticed it before.
I open the door carefully, not to wake anyone else up and crawl back into bed. The warm tea that I just had makes me really sleepy and I fall asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow and I don't wake up till I hear Mum and Dad laughing outside my window the next morning.
"Someone should tell them to shut up." Ophelia groans and pulls the blanket right over her head. I get out of bed and go look outside. It's absolutely pouring rain but Mum and Dad are spinning around and dancing in it.
I ignore Ophelia's moaning and groaning and get dressed in some black tights and a huge black jumper that nearly goes down to my knees. I pull as much of my hair as I can into a small ponytail on the back of my head and put the hood of my jumper over my head before heading downstairs.
Soft music is playing from the radio and Nan is talking to someone in the kitchen. "I never measure anything anymore, just a few drops of vanilla in the bowl and you're good to go." She says. I walk into the kitchen and Theo is sitting cross-legged on the counter beside where Nan is making muffins.
"Moring Cassie," Theo says with a big smile on his face.
Nan turns around and smiles too, Theo and Nan have the same smile, never noticed that before, "Look who got out of bed, breakfast won't be for another little bit."
"You complete arse George Weasley!" Mum shouts from outside, which is followed by the maniacal laughter of my father and another shriek from my Mum.
Theo hops off the counter and runs out the front door to join Mum and Dad in the rain. I go into the living room and lie down on the couch, curling into a ball and closing my eyes, listening to the rain hitting the roof, the laughter of Mum, Dad, and Theo outside, and the soft hum from the kitchen as Nan makes breakfast.
Ophelia is the next one downstairs, "Nan, you're great you know that?" She says.
I sit up on the couch and look at her. Her hair is sticking up in all different directions and she's still in her flannel pyjamas and her Slytherin jumper.
Nan laughs, "Thank you, darling." Ophelia goes over right behind Nan, towering over her shoulder, she shover her finger in the muffin batter and puts it in her mouth. Nan shrieks, "Get your hands out of the batter! Out, out, out!"
Ophelia laughs and narrowly dodges the tea towel that Nan swats at her with. Mum, Dad and Theo come back into the house sopping wet just as Annie and Freddie come down the stairs. Dad dries everyone off with a few movements of his wand. Mum kisses him hard before coming further into the house.
"Morning Weasleys," Dad says as he sits down on a chair by one of the fireplaces in the living room. Annie goes over and sits on Dad's lap, curling up into his chest.
"Anyone have anything they want to get done before the rest of the family shows up for dinner?" Mum asks us from the kitchen where she's helping Nan finish up breakfast.
"I want to make a centrepiece for the table." Theo says from his spot on the couch beside me, "Can we go to Luna's flower store?"
"Does Luna still have that flower shop in town Mum?" Dad calls.
Nan walks into the living room wiping her hands on her apron, "Luna Longbottom? I'm pretty sure she still has that cute little place down the street."
"Great! After breakfast, we'll all go and say hello alright? Theo can get what he needs for the centrepiece and it'll be good for the rest of you to get outside." Dad says.
"See? I hear what you're saying but I simply disagree. I go outside plenty." Ophelia says from her spot on the floor.
"Taking out the trash every night doesn't count as going outside genius," Freddie says to her.
"last time I checked the trash was outside so you can suck an egg." She says back to him.
They start bickering and I tune them out, I don't have the mental capacity to deal with those two today.
After breakfast Mum makes everyone go get dressed if they haven't already which was just Freddie and Ophelia. Mum thinks it will do us some good to walk there instead of drive so once everyone is dressed we head off.
"Oi Freddie, I'll give you a galleon if you can do a cartwheel," Ophelia says as we are walking down the sidewalk.
"Right so you can record me and post it all over the internet? Fat chance." He says back to her.
"You won't do it cause you know that you can't." She says back to him.
Annie, who is getting a piggyback from Freddie laughs, "Course he can't do a cartwheel!"
"Bet you he'd just fall right on his face! Smash his nose up real good and then he'll never be Hogwarts boy of the month again!" Theo adds; we all know that the more we say that Freddie can't do something he's gonna try to prove us wrong.
"Freddie can't even stand up without toppling over, what makes you think he'll be able to do a cartwheel?" I add which makes Mum and Dad laugh.
Freddie stops walking and puts Annabeth down, "Can't do a cartwheel. This is like when you all said that I looked like I couldn't swim. Proved you wrong then didn't I?"
"Yeah by nearly drowning yourself in the great lake. The giant squid had to help you back to shore." Ophelia says.
"I only started to drown because a mermaid grabbed onto my leg and dragged me under!" He says loudly which makes all of us laugh.
"Excuses, excuses." Theo sings which makes us laugh harder.
"I can swim! And I can do a cartwheel! Watch!" Everyone takes a few steps away from Freddie so we don't get a foot in the face or something. He raises both his hands in the air, points one of his feet in front of him, and throws himself down on the ground. He manages to catch himself on his hands, his knees bent, his feet flailing. But he can't manage to get himself standing again and he falls on his face, the impact makes a gross crunching noise and we all go, ooh at the same time.
"Tell me one of you were videoing that," Mum says laughing as she helps Freddie stand up, his nose is very broken.
"It's called recording Mum not videoing," Annie says matter of factly.
"And yeah, don't worry, I've got it all here," Ophelia says waving her phone in the air.
Mum takes out her wand and fixes Freddie's face and gets the blood off his shirt before we continue walking. Theo and Leah are holding hands and skipping in front of us all laughing wildly. Annie is back on Freddie's back, the two of them are playing a bad version of eye spy, Mum and Dad are walking behind us, holding hands and having a loud discussion about whether or not you should put water on your toothbrush before or after the toothpaste. Which leaves me in the middle, not talking to anyone. But it's what always happens, I've started not to mind very much. It's easier to listen to other conversations than be apart of them.
"Is that is Dad?" Theo says pointing at a bright green store a few feet ahead of us.
"Yeah! Let's all try our very best to be on our best behaviour alright?" He says before Theo and Leah run up to the door and yank it open. Freddie takes Annie off his back and they walk in together, then me, and finally Mum and Dad.
"Well look who the cat dragged in! I haven't seen you two in a while!" Luna says from behind her counter. She comes around and gives Mum and Dad big hugs.
"Who's here darling?" Professor Longbottom says from deeper in the shop. He comes around a corner, his hands covered in dirt, his face smudged, "Weasleys!"
"Neville!" Dad says cheerily, the two of them go off having their own conversations.
"Alice, Lorcan, Lysander come say hello please!" Luna says softly. Three kids come running out of the back of the store. Alice is in Hugo's year at Hogwarts, the two boys, Lorcan and Lysander are the same age as Annabeth. Each of the kids has Luna's pale blonde hair and Professor Longbottom's eyes.
"Hullo Missus Weasley!" Alice says cheerily. Her brother, Lorcan I think, shies away from us, holding a Barbie doll in one of his hands.
"What can I help you all with?" Luna says to Mum.
"I need a bunch of flowers." Theo says, "Blues, yellows, pinks! Maybe lemon leaves too." He and Luna go off looking through the shop for what Theo is looking for. Dad and Professor Longbottom come back from where they went off to, Dad takes a package from him and shoves it deep in his coat pocket.
"It's a new strand I was working on, let me know what you and Vi think of it." He says to Dad.
"Whatever you give us is always great Nev, I think I speak for both of us when I say we trust you wholeheartedly," Dad says winking at Mum.
"Good, I'm glad. With your kids, I figure you two are in desperate need of something to calm the nerves." Professor Longbottom says to us, "Nice to see you without blood on your face Fred."
"Should have seen him about three minutes ago Longbottom, it was tragic." Ophelia says, "I've got a video if you want to see it."
"Really Ophelia? He's my head of house." Freddie says to her.
She shrugs, "You can show Slughorn any dumb video of me falling on my face whenever you want."
"Speaking of Slughorn, the old man is retiring next year did you hear?" Professor Longbottom says to Mum and Dad.
"About time really, the man has been teaching at Hogwarts since Tom Riddle," Mum says.
"Any idea who's going to be taking over his position as potions master?" Dad asks.
"Bun than! Who's going to be our head of house?" Ophelia wails, "Slughorn was so easy to manipul..." She looks at all of the adults' faces, "... to talk to! It's just going to be hard to get used to someone else!"
Professor Longbottom looks at Ophelia hard before looking back at Mum and Dad, "You didn't hear it from me because if Minnie found out I was telling students about staff changes I'd be sacked. But she's hired Blaise Zabini."
"Draco's Blaise?" Mum says.
"That's the one." Professor Longbottom says, he doesn't look very happy about the staff change, "It took a bit of convincing on Minnie's part to get him to take the position, they had another daughter last year, him and Millicent so he was hesitant to take the position. So I had to sit down with both him and Millicent and tell them both that having kids and working at Hogwarts full time isn't as bad as it sounds... half wanted to blow the entire conversation but it was either Zabini or Parkinson and I really don't want to work alongside Pansy."
"Your son has good taste in flowers," Luna says coming back to the group with Theo behind her, both of them carrying a surplus of flowers and other things.
"Christ Theodore, what are you planning to do with all of that?" Dad says, taking the plants from Luna so she can start ringing up all the items.
"Dad look at them! How could I say no?" Theo says putting everything in his arms down on the counter. When he backs away from the counter he bumps into Alice, "Oh, sorry! Hope I didn't hurt you."
If they weren't eleven, I would have thought that Alice blushed a little when Theo said sorry, "Didn't hurt one bit! Are you coming to Hogwarts next year?" She says to him.
Theo smiles really big, "Yup! What house are you in?"
"Ravenclaw."
"ooh! Ravenclaw is a great house! But I feel like the blue would clash with my hair. You're lucky you're blonde, blonde goes with everything!"
"5 galleons, nine sickles, and twenty-one knuts," Luna says to Dad.
Mum pulls out her coin purse and starts to pull out the money. Dad looks at Theo who is chatting loudly with Alice, "Five galleons for flowers." He says to him.
Theo stops talking to Alice, "Thanks, Dad! You're my favourite Dad!"
"I'm you're only Dad..."
"Yeah well, now you're my favourite one too!"