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Chapter Three:
Behind Closed Doors Many thanks to Nicolas for correcting my French grammar!
HARRY “Oh, we weren’t expecting you for hours!” she squealed, sailing unexpectedly into Harry’s arms. “We—er—weren’t you?” he stammered when she had released him. She laughed giddily, “I can’t believe you’re actually here! It’s too good to be true! Mum went ahead and sent for your trunks, of course, just to be ready when you came, but we’ve all been just beside ourselves with worry--” “We were only incommunicado for twelve hours!” Harry exclaimed. “—over the wedding, of course. Absolutely haywire. Mum’s gone bonkers,” Ginny threw up her hands and laughed. “The Delacours—after Phlegm, we thought we were ready for anything, but wait’ll you see…” She seized Harry’s hand and looped her free arm through Hermione’s and led the way back to the Burrow, chatting merrily all the way. Harry, still on edge after their visit to Godric’s Hollow, was at once irritated with her for breaking the silence and grateful for her talkativeness as it meant all he had to do was smile and nod occasionally. As the threesome rounded the final bend in the road, the Burrow came into full view. By the look of it, every nook and cranny had been scrubbed to perfection (or at least, as close to perfection as such a crowded household was liable to be) and standing in the doorway with his back to the road was Harry’s best mate, Ronald Weasley. He turned around at the sound of their footsteps on the stone pathway and gazed at Harry and Hermione in disbelief, as though he could hardly register what his eyes were seeing. Then, with a broad smile and a rising blush beneath his smattering of freckles, he loped across the lawn to greet them, catching Hermione in a one-armed hug and clapping Harry on the back. “Good to see you, good to see you,” he repeated over and over as though reassuring himself that they were indeed there, safe and whole. Finally, he pulled away, a wide grin plastered on his face that was replaced moments later by the same lobotomized gape that never failed to accompany the presence of – “Ooooh! You are ‘ere! You ‘ave come!” crooned Fleur Delacour, sweeping into sight and peppering Harry with kisses. “So ‘andsome, ‘Arry!” she said with an airy laugh. “Gabrielle! ‘Arry Potter is ‘ere!” The now twelve-year-old Gabrielle appeared in the doorway. She was Fleur in miniature, Harry noted, all blue eyes and silken hair, poise and polish.
“’E eez doing as well as can be expected,” she said with a radiant smile. “Ze scars ‘ave faded a leetle. Come, ‘Arry, come see for yourself.” With Ginny clasping one arm and Gabrielle tugging on the other, Harry was half-led, half-dragged into the house. A quick tour revealed the Burrow to be much changed. The old Wellington boots and been bundled away and the discarded cauldrons were brimming with flowers. Inside, the clutter had been cleared and the house was festooned with baubles and bouquets. Ron led Harry up to the attic to see the family ghoul – decked in tinsel and looking absolutely livid. “Bloody brilliant, eh?” Ron asked, craning his long neck to get a better glimpse of the ghoul. “So, where’d you and Hermione come from? We weren’t expecting you lot until tomorrow.” “Uh, nowhere. Just – just thought Hermione and I could make the journey together,” he finished feebly. Though the memory of his visit to Godric’s Hollow was still raw and painful, Harry wasn’t quite sure why he was keeping it from Ron. Ron obviously sensed that something was afoot, but before he could ask any more questions, the ghoul hurled a chunk of metal piping in his direction. Ron dodged it and fled down the rickety staircase, and Harry, grateful for the distraction, hurried after him. Downstairs, the kitchen was bustling with activity. Mrs. Weasley was standing over the stove stirring a large pot of stewed turnips, steam condensing on her flushed face. When she spotted Harry, she shrieked and tossed the ladle aside in her haste to reach him. “Harry, oh Harry!” she sobbed, enveloping him in a rib-crushing embrace. “We’ve been so worried!” “Lay off him, Mum,” Fred said, prying Mrs. Weasley off of Harry. Harry stepped back, massaging his aching sides. “Yeah, Mum, he’s just been at Privet Drive…don’t reckon he’s done anything too dangerous yet!” George cuffed Harry around the back the head. “I know, I know,” Molly dabbed her eyes, only to burst into tears again as Hermione entered. “Meezus Weasley?” A coldly imperious voice interrupted them. Mrs. Weasley grimaced and grudgingly turned to face a tall, blonde woman who was surveying the crowded kitchen with great distaste. “You must be ‘Arry Potter,” she said coolly, extending a bejeweled hand to Harry. He shook it, but had an odd feeling that he ought to have kissed her hand instead. “Meezus Weasley, as I waz saying, how do we expect to ‘ave ze wedding ‘ere of all places? No room for ze guests!” “Everything will be fine, I assure you – stop that, Fred!” - Fred spat out a mouthful of hot soup he’d been sampling – “Of course we’ll have enough room for everyone.” Madame Delacour turned on her heel and left the room without a further word. Harry could make out the sound of her high heels chinking on the uneven floorboards.
Harry could scarcely recall the last time he had seen Mrs. Weasley this angry, though he thought she might have come close when she discovered that Fred and George had restarted Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes right under her nose. The rest of the Weasley clan was looking worse for the wear as well. Charlie, back from dragon-taming in Romania, looked ready to breathe fire himself. The usually good-natured Arthur Weasley was sitting in a raggedy armchair in the corner, tapping his foot impatiently while a stately gentleman, who could only be Fleur’s father, paged slowly through Mr. Weasley’s copy of The Daily Prophet. Fred confided in Harry that Monsieur Delacour had called Arthur Weasley’s obsession with plugs “stupide.” “He’s been in a right funk ever since,” Fred added seriously. “It’s been terrible,” George agreed. “Or should I say ‘terri-abba-lay?’” “That’s not French!” Hermione exclaimed, though her brown eyes sparkled with amusement. “Close enough,” George replied, scuffing the toe of his dragon-skin boot on the ground. “Fleur’s very – well, she’s very nice—” “Not to mention nice-looking—” Fred chipped in. “-That too,” George said with a smirk. “But I could do without her family.” Meanwhile Ginny amused everyone by miming Madame Delacour’s heavy French accent – “Een France, we would ‘ave none of zis!” she said in mock outrage when Mrs. Weasley ordered her to shell a cauldron full of sweet peas.
* * * * *
The atmosphere was taut with anticipation as night descended on the Burrow. The Delacour and Weasley clans seemed to have reached an unspoken truce and both sides were making concerted efforts at friendliness. Over the dinner hour, Mrs. Weasley had very kindly asked Madame Delacour to pass the sugar and cream and Madame Delacour had reciprocated by accepting a plateful of English home cooking without so much as a grimace. Monsieur Delacour had complimented Mr. Weasley on a handsome set of two-way radios, and, by the time dinner was over and the families had congregated in the den, Mr. Weasley was positively beaming. Not wanting to stretch the terms of the ‘ceasefire,’ the Delacours had retired to bed early, followed by Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, and Hermione who all expressed a desire for what Ron had termed “beauty rest.” And so it was that Harry was sitting on the floor in Ron’s room, paging absentmindedly through a book on defensive magic when Fred and George arrived. “Hiya, Harry. Remember a few years back you gave Fred and I a thousand galleons and said that someday soon we’d need the laughs? Well, we’ve got our joke shop and it’s high time we paid up.” George’s eyes glinted dangerously. “We thought you might want to brush up on your dueling skills, before the big to-do,” Fred said, hands tucked up behind his back. “On a personal note, George and I put a lot of thought into this, Harry—” “I should be worried, shouldn’t I?” he said with a laugh, swallowing the familiar lump of fear that had risen in the back of his throat at the mention of The End. Fred grinned. “When it came right down to it, it was either going to be trick wands or a round of You-No-Poo products – our treat, of course. In the end, though, we decided there are far too many people and far too few bathrooms in this house for that sort of jape—” “That and we wanted to save a tablet or two to drop in Percy’s breakfast porridge—should he choose to show his slimy face,” George finished, to a collective cry of “Hear, hear!” “First we square off, straight-backed and proud, and ready ourselves for the fight to the death that awaits us,” Fred said, in a very grave sort of way. He tossed a trick wand Harry’s way and handed one over to his twin. “And, alas, none left over for ickle Ronniekins.” “Fred, you’ve got another! Hand it over,” Ron demanded, leaping up on his bed and brandishing a Chudley Cannon’s pillow at his brothers. “Clever, Ron,” George said, “but not clever enough!” He threw aside the trick wand (Ron made a mad dive for it) and pulled out his real wand. One quick wave and the room was brimming with pillows – pink and lacy pillows, gilt-trimmed pillows, rolled-up pillows with streaming tassels, and still others that bore an uncanny resemblance to Madame Delacour’s small fluffy dog. Fred let out a giddy whoop and aimed a wallop at Ron, who recoiled in surprise. He retaliated with a bold swipe at George, who went down, taking Harry with him. Ron seized the moment to sock Harry full in the stomach with a pillow that felt like it had been stuffed with wet sand rather than goosefeathers and Harry collapsed back onto Ron’s Chudley Cannon bedspread, momentarily winded. Feathers floated through the air like falling leaves – “Bad luck, Harry!” Fred roared, deluging Harry with an armload of horrible, mildewy Victorian cushions. Lights burst in front of Harry’s eyes and his glasses were knocked askew. Thus it came to pass that Harry – vision blurred and head spinning – swung a frilly pink pillow at Fred. A sharp “Ha!” of laughter escaped his breathless lungs and the only thought in his mind was how good it was to be alive and sixteen years of age. He could see its trajectory, how perfectly it would glance off Fred’s right ear, but at the last possible moment, it sailed out of his hands. They all watched, as if in slow motion, as the pillow soared across the room … and beamed Percy Weasley clear in the face. For a moment, they stood frozen, all eyes on Percy, but then Percy regained his senses and stormed away. “It’s just Perce,” George said, stumbling to the doorway to see which direction the wayward Weasley had gone. “He’s used to that sort of thing.” “He deserved it,” Fred muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “’Bout time he showed up, the git. He probably knows we’d never forgive him if he didn’t show his smarmy face at Bill’s wedding.” George stepped back inside and with a wave of his wand, the pillows vanished and the room righted itself. “And to think, we offered to arrange the bachelor party, but our own brother turned us down,” George said with a falsely melancholic sigh. “Goodnight, Ron, Harry.” Laughing to himself, Harry drew the curtains and collapsed onto his narrow cot. “They’re really something else, Fred and George,” he said, looking over at Ron. Ron was sitting up in bed, still goggling at the space where Percy had stood with a look of unreserved, inexplicable happiness on his face. “Percy’s back,” he said simply. “Fred and George’ll lay off me now that they’ve got their favorite laughingstock back, I reckon. We knew he’d come back eventually, didn’t we? Once a Weasley, always a Weasley – that’s what Dad says.”
* * * * *
“You look like you’ve broken your nose,” Hermione said over breakfast the next morning. Ron picked up his spoon and studied his reflection in the back of it. “It’s not that bad,” he said defensively, prodding at his nose, which had been reduced to a red, swollen mass. “Besides, Fred and George look worse.” And indeed they did. George came downstairs sporting an impressive bruise blossoming yellow and purple along his jaw; Fred wore his black eye like a badge of honor. “Were you lot boxing with the house ghoul?” Hermione asked, torn between concern and amusement. She leaned across the table and plucked Harry’s glasses up off the bridge of his nose. With a tap of her wand, the frames unbent themselves at once and she handed them back. “Pillow fight,” George said with a lopsided grin. “You look a menace. All of you.” “Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger,” George said genially. “Ah, well I thought the black of my eye would accent my dress robes nicely. The look was so overwhelmingly—” But whatever the look was, they didn’t hear, for Ginny chose that moment to come storming into the room, her flowing red hair already set in elegant waves in preparation for the wedding. “Can I just kill them already?” she groaned, flopping artlessly into the chair nearest Harry. The previous evening’s “truce” had collapsed under the pressure of wedding day preparations. “Not before high tea,” Hermione replied smoothly. “Pull yourself together. You’ll have to learn to put up with them sooner or later. These are your future sister-in-law’s family members, after all.” “Don’t remind me,” Ron groused, joining in. “Ever since she came here, it’s been ‘oooh, zis eez so much better in France’ this and ‘’ow quaint zeez British customs are’ that.” “And yesterday, Madame Delacour told Mum she wouldn’t feed ‘zis ‘orrible food’ to her dog.” “That hairy little mop—” Ginny sniffed. “I’d mop the floor with it if she wasn’t so bloody fond of the thing—” “I’d mop the floor with it because she’s so bloody fond of it—” Fred said darkly. “I mean, how dare she?” “We – we can poke fun at her cooking, because we’re her family—we have to love her—” Harry found himself thinking – not for the first time – that he would very much dread being on the outside of the Weasley’s tight-knit circle, for when riled up they were quite a formidable force to reckon with. The rest of the morning passed in a raucous blur. Arthur Weasley had recruited Harry to see to the droves of guests pouring into the Burrow, which meant that Harry spent much of his time shuttling the new arrivals to the upper levels of the Burrow where there was still some sitting room. On his tenth trip up the rickety staircase, he overheard Ron and Ginny arguing heatedly. Unable to help himself, he stopped outside the door to listen – “Well, Auntie Muriel just sent an owl to say she won’t be coming,” Ginny was saying, “so if you want to get any kissing in on your brother’s wedding day, it’ll have to be Hermione!” “I don’t want to rush things,” Ron said nervously. The floorboards creaked as he paced back and forth. “Ronald Weasley, you are impossibly obtuse. If you don’t – I mean to say, I’m warning you, Ron – if you don’t, she’ll get the wrong idea about things! You don’t have time! We don’t have time—” Harry felt the color drain from his face. He knew he shouldn’t be listening, but he couldn’t seem to tear himself away. “You do like Hermione, don’t you?” Ginny sounded flustered. “’Course I do,” Ron said shortly. “So tell her, and don’t forget to seal it with a kiss,” Ginny said. “Now if you don’t mind, I must be getting ready.” Knowing he had only a split second before Ron would emerge from the room, Harry barreled down the stairwell, nearly trampling Arthur Weasley, who was standing at the foot of the stairs. “Harry! Finished, are you?” Mr. Weasley began. “Are you quite alright? You look upset—” “I’m fine, Mr. Weasley,” Harry said, cutting him off. “Look, someone’s just arrived.” “Why, it’s Bagman, by the look of it! Ludo!” Mr. Weasley clapped him on the back, “Haven’t seen you around in awhile! How’re things?” “Fine, just fine,” Ludo Bagman flashed a smile at the rest of the wedding party, though he balked somewhat at the furious expressions on Fred and George’s faces. Clearly, they had not forgotten Bagman’s shady dealings at the Quidditch World Cup. “Anything to eat, Mr. Bagman?” Mrs. Weasley asked politely, gesturing at a platter of tea biscuits. “No, no, Molly – I couldn’t possibly. Just stopping by, want to offer my congratulations –” Bagman bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, peering over the redheaded Weasleys and blond-tressed Delacours, for a glimpse of Fleur Delacour. Harry remembered Bagman’s fondness for Fleur from the Triwizard Tournament. “If you’re looking for Fleur, she’s upstairs with Gabrielle,” Harry said blithely. “Aha!” Bagman nodded and bounded up the stairs with ill-disguised enthusiasm. Harry, feigning the same lighthearted enthusiasm, followed. He couldn’t quite dispel the sick feeling that had settled in the pit of his stomach at the plan he’d overheard.
* * * * *
HERMIONE An ear-splitting shriek echoed from the Burrow and Hermione, who had been magicking fairy lights into place in the garden paddock, pelted up the stairs to see Gabrielle and the bride-to-be locked in fierce combat. Madame Delacour stood frozen in the doorway, unable to intercede. “Gabrielle, no!” Fleur screamed as Gabrielle seized a fistful of Fleur’s long silky hair. Hermione and Ginny scrambled to break up the fight. Even as Ginny dragged Gabrielle away, the little girl was still struggling and gnashing her teeth. Fleur sank onto the bed sobbing fitfully. “I don’t know what ‘as gotten into ‘er,” she exclaimed tearfully. “Ze is jealous, ma chérie,” Madame Delacour wrapped her arms around her eldest daughter. Hermione bent down and scooped the beautiful gold-and-diamond tiara off the floor. “Great Auntie Muriel’s,” Ginny observed as she reentered the room. Her face was scratched and her hair mused from tussling with Fleur’s little sister. “I don’t think Auntie Muriel was too keen to part with this – even just for one evening.” Ginny winked and placed the tiara atop her own red hair. For Hermione’s amusement, she struck a few poses in front of the mirror and admired the effect of gold glinting upon red. “So,” she said conversationally, though the look in her eyes indicated something other than innocent curiosity, “did you and Harry have a good time yesterday?” “Hardly,” Hermione replied honestly. “We went to Godric’s Hollow early in the morning to see his parents’ graves. It tore me up to see him so downhearted.” “And did he mention me at all?” Ginny queried. “We didn’t really talk about much of anything, truth be told!” Hermione said, aiming to allay Ginny’s unfounded concerns. She felt as though she ought to apologize for having spent time alone with Harry, but quickly dismissed the notion as ludicrous. Ginny Weasley wasn’t – Ginny Weasley couldn’t be – jealous of Hermione Granger.
**And just for the record, I don't think French people are snobs, but the Delacours are...
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