Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [6]

⚡️ Chapter 31 ⚡️

"What?"

Mr. Weasley looked around. Everybody looked quickly at the window; Ginny stood up for a better look as she was otherwise too small to look over the heads of her family. Vega's lips fell in a frown as she looked out the window where Mrs. Weasley's rapt brown eyes were stuck. There, sure enough, was Percy Weasley, striding across the snowy yard, his horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the sunlight. Percy was not, however, alone.

"Arthur!" Mrs. Weasley gasped. "He's – he's with the Minister!"

And sure enough, the man Vega had seen in the Daily Prophet was following along in Percy's wake, limping slightly, his mane of greying hair and his black cloak flecked with snow. Before any of, them could say anything, before Mr. and Mrs. Weasley could do more than exchange stunned looks, the back door opened and there stood Percy.

There was a moment's painful silence.

Then Percy said rather stiffly, "Merry Christmas, Mother,"

"Oh, Percy!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, and she threw herself into his arms.

Rufus Scrimgeour paused in the doorway, leaning on his walking stick and smiling as he observed this affecting scene. But Vega was already tensing up, only held down by the fact that Fred still had his hand on her knee, his hold now a bit tighter.

"You must forgive this intrusion," Scrimageour said, when Mrs. Weasley looked around at him, beaming and wiping her eyes. "Percy and I were in the vicinity – working, you know – and he couldn't resist dropping in and seeing you all,"

But Percy showed no sign of wanting to greet any of the rest of the family. He stood, poker-straight and awkward-looking, and stared over everybody else's heads. Mr. Weasley, Fred, and George were all observing him, stony-faced.

"Please, come in, sit down, Minister!" Mrs. Weasley fluttered gratefully, straightening her hat. "Have a little purkey, or some tooding... I mean –"

"No, no, my dear Molly," Scrimgeour said, and Vega knew that he had checked the name with Percy before they entered the house. "I don't want to intrude, wouldn't be here at all if Percy hadn't wanted to see you all so badly..."

"Oh, Perce!" Mrs. Weasley said tearfully, reaching up to kiss him.

"... we've only looked in for five minutes, so I'll have a stroll around the yard while you catch up with Percy," Scrimageour went on. "No, no, I assure you I don't want to butt in! Well, if anybody cared to show me your charming garden... ah, that young man's finished, why doesn't he take a stroll with me? Maybe the young lady next to him can accompany us?"

The atmosphere around the table changed perceptibly.

Everybody looked from Scrimgeour to Vega and Harry. Nobody seemed to find Scrimgeour's pretence that he did not know the names of the black-haired duo convincing, or find it natural that they should be chosen to accompany the Minister around the garden when Ginny, Fleur, and George also had clean plates, and were occupants of the house.

It was not lost upon Vega that Scrimgeour had come all the way here to talk to Vega and Harry by themselves, and mostly because Dumbledore was not here – and it was entirely a lie that they had just been in the area, that Percy wanted to look up his family.

"Yeah, all right," Harry said into the silence and he stood up from his chair next to Vega.

Vega squeezed Fred's hand and got to her feet as well, and she shared a brief look with Harry before they moved around their chairs to head toward Scrimgeour.

"It's fine," Harry said quietly, as he and Vega passed Lupin, who had half risen from his chair. "Fine," he added, as Mr. Weasley opened his mouth to speak.