The Gray's Secret: Scene 10 (Patreon)

The Burrow: One day before the Wizengamot Weekend.

“Mum, can’t you do anything?!” Bill Weasley was this close to straight-up whining. “Ginny is too young to know what’s best for her!”

“William, that’s enough!” snapped Molly Weasley, who’d finally had enough. Her eldest son had been an increasing headache for months now, and she’d been tolerant, but there was only so far she was willing to be pushed. “I agree that Ginny is too young, but your father and I are not, need I remind you, and Harry is a wonderfully responsible young wizard. They’ll make a lovely match.”

“But you haven’t even met him!”

Molly ignored this because it was true. Instead, she flicked her wand and a half-dozen plates flew across the room, settling themselves on the kitchen table. One needed to keep busy while the children were at school and work and she’d always done this by hosting endless tea parties for her old school friends.

At least, she had needed to. Recently it seemed that one or more of her babies were zipping by the burrow far more often than they used to.

Just the other week, the twins had needed a place to crash while they prepared for some kind of meeting in London. In March!

When she’d been at Hogwarts, the furthest she’d hoped to travel during term time was Hogsmeade.

Not that she wasn’t incredibly proud of her boys. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was they actually did, even when Arthur had tried to explain it, but she’d seen the cut of their new robes and the quality of their new boots, along with the gold slowly trickling into the Weasley family tax vault, and that was more than good enough as far as she was concerned. Why, at the rate things were going, they’d even be able to go on holiday this summer! She’d had her eyes on Egypt, but if Bill wasn’t going to let up about Ginny, maybe Romania instead.

She whacked the rolling pin down on a fluffy mound of bread dough. “Bill, if you’re going to hang around pestering your mother and father,  you can at least make yourself useful. Go de-gnome the garden.”

Bill Weasley marched out of the back door, muttering something under his breath about land rights, evictions, and the exploitation of native populations of semi-sapient creatures, but didn’t actually go so far as to refuse her. A few minutes later, gnomes were sailing through the air outside, more forcefully perhaps than she’d seen before.

Mrs Weasley, wiped her hands on her apron just in time for the family clock to begin to whir. Glancing up, she saw Arthur’s spoon grind around from ‘working’ to ‘travelling’. Then, a minute later, the name ‘Mister Arthur Weasley,’ engraved on the shaft, snapped into position at, ‘home.’

Molly poured a cup of tea as a whoosh sound erupted from the floo and waited for the inevitable.

“Oh, dear, oh dear,” Arthur said, bumping open the kitchen door with his hip while carrying what appeared to be a dozen separate white boxes. “Molly, you’re never going to guess the day I’ve head. Oh, thank you,” he said as she handed him the tea cup after flicking several of the boxes away with her wand. A quick kiss on the cheek and he collapsed at the table.

“I swear, the whole ministry is buzzing like an upturned doxy nest over this so-called, ‘Wild Wizengamot Weekend.’ Blasted Skeeter and her blasted headlines.”

He took a sip of tea. “And of course I got dragged into some high-level planning, even though my department has only a minor interest in one of the items on the docket and I myself am only guiding one of the bills, trying to keep the nobles in line long enough to get some actual work done, but does anyone listen? No, you’d think I was the Chief Warlock with how much extra parchment work they’ve thrown at me.”

“People rely on you, dear,” Molly said with pride, flicking her wand again, turning the hard-backed kitchen chair into a carbon copy of his favourite armchair from the living room.

Arthur seemed to melt into it.

“I suppose they do,” he conceded with a groan of comfort. “Still, I have a feeling something I’ve missed is going to come up. They’ve postponed voting on the Muggle Protection Act so many times, it would be just my luck for some innocuous little detail to block it again.”

“You’ll think of something, dear,” Molly said.

“Mmmm...” Arthur said by way of acknowledgement. A rare moment of quiet settled down between the two, save for the sound of the Weasley family clock tick-tocking on the wall, keeping time even while tracking every member of the Weasley clan.

Then, Arthur thought he heard a sound. It was quiet and on the edge of hearing. A kind of wwwwhhhhhhaaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

His eyes shot open, just in time to see a gnome splat against the kitchen window with enough force to shake the frame.

“What on earth?!”

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