There were only a few days left until Bill and Fleur’s wedding, and there was a definite increase in tension in the Weasley household. Mrs. Weasley snapped at everyone she thought wasn’t doing enough work in preparation for the wedding, and the trio could not find any time to discuss their looming quest. They scrubbed, swept and organized until the Burrow was practically spotless, and yet Molly Weasley kept finding more and more things for them to do.
“Blimey, I don’t know how Mum is keeping it all together,” whispered Ron to Harry on a rare moment in which their paths crossed. The rest of the family seemed to be feeling the same way. Two days before the wedding, Mr. Weasley all but ordered his wife to have a quiet afternoon in the kitchen while everyone else did the work.
“I’ve asked your cousin Stella over for tea. She’ll be here for the wedding, I know, but today I want the two of you to stay in the kitchen and just relax," he told Mrs. Weasley as he steered her to the table. "Molly, please don’t argue with me, I can see that you’re worn out,” Mr. Weasley continued as Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth to object, and he put a kettle of water to boil.
Harry was de-gnoming the garden for the third time in two days. The little things seemed to become more vicious and persistent when excitement was in the air, and Harry was feeling particularly resentful towards them as one had just given him a rather nasty bite on his index finger. He was just about to lob the offending gnome particularly far away when a voice called his name from the window of the Burrow.
“Harry! Harry, could you come here for a minute?”
He flung the gnome as far as possible and set off for the door a little warily. Mrs. Weasley was sounding much more relaxed than usual, but he hoped she wouldn’t try to confront him about his, Ron and Hermione’s plans for after the wedding.
In the cosy kitchen of the Burrow, he found two women laughing merrily over two huge cups of tea and a plateful of biscuits. This was such a change from that morning’s flustered and stressed Molly Weasley that he stopped in the doorway and looked between the two women in confusion. The younger one- he assumed this was the cousin Arthur had invited over- had strawberry blonde hair and facial features that he thought looked vaguely familiar. He remembered seeing her pop in and out of Grimmauld Place when it was still headquarters of the Order meetings, but they had never been introduced.
She turned around and the look on her face turned to surprise and then recognition.
“You must be Harry! Oh, but you look so much like James! I’ve heard so much about you, from Molly and from my daughter, and yet we’ve never met. I’m Stella Spinnet,” she stood up and held out her hand, which Harry shook, struggling to process all the information she had just given him.
“Er, there was a girl named Alicia Spinnet on our Quidditch team at Hogwarts, she wouldn’t happen to be related?” Harry realized that Alicia and this woman looked very much alike.
“Related to me? Oh, yes, she’s my daughter.”
“But I thought you and Mrs. Weasley were cousins?”
At this Mrs. Weasley herself spoke up. “Yes, first cousins on my father’s side. Alicia and my lot are second cousins, of course, but they haven’t spent much time together since they were all much younger, and then at Hogwarts, of course. Harry, dear, pull up a chair and have some tea, I daresay those gnomes are being troublesome… oh, no, that looks like a nasty bite, I’ll get you some potion…” She made as if to stand up, but Mrs. Spinnet glared at her pointedly.
“Arthur asked me here to make sure you got some rest, and get you some rest is what I’m going to do. Second cabinet on the top, yes? Here, Harry, this should clear it up in no time,” she handed him the bottle and sat back down. Harry sat down and dabbed some on his bite, aware that both women were studying him intently.
“I daresay everyone tells you that you have your mother’s eyes, Harry?” The younger woman spoke up after a pause. Harry looked up, a little surprised.
“Yes, they do,” he replied after another second.
“Well, you certainly do, but I think there might be something in the nose as well. James’s was a bit longer and wider, just a tad bit.” Seeing his confused look, the woman smiled, “I went to Hogwarts with your parents. Same year, same House.”
Harry’s mind was buzzing as he tried to put all the facts together. The only people he had known to be in his parents’ year at Hogwarts were Lupin, Sirius, Peter Pettigrew, and Snape. All of them had many stories to tell about his father, but few about his mother. He suddenly realized that he wished he knew more about her. Taking a sip of his tea, he missed the sympathetic glances the two women gave him.
“They were two of the best people I’ve ever met, Harry,” Mrs. Spinnet told him quietly. “Well, James could be downright obnoxious at times, but Lily was always so kind and understanding. She never let anyone walk over her or any of her friends- always stood up for what was right. I’m truly sorry you never got to meet them.”
Harry could not trust himself to look up, so he simply nodded. It must have been the stress of planning the quest to destroy the Horcruxes, of leaving behind nearly everyone he cared for to go on a foolish journey to who knew where- or perhaps he was just tired.
The three of them sat quietly for about twenty minutes, sipping tea and eating biscuits. The cousins chatted a little about the small details of the wedding plans- colour schemes, seating charts- and Harry found himself lost in his own thoughts. Mrs. Weasley never told him to get back to de-gnoming the garden. She thought that the boy needed a break quite as much as she did.
“I believe Hagrid gave you a photo album of your parents a few years ago?” Mrs. Spinnet looked over at him after a particularly long lull in conversation and gave him a smile that suddenly reminded him of Fred and George.
Harry nodded, wondering where she was going with it.
“Well, some of the more candid pictures were contributed by me,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Do you remember the one of your father beating Sirius Black around the head with a broomstick while your mother is laughing on the couch?” Harry nodded with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, do I have some stories to tell you… if, of course, you want to hear them?” She asked, a little worriedly, as though she was afraid of upsetting him. Harry nodded again, rather eagerly. The last true insight he’d had into his parents’ time at Hogwarts was Snape’s memory in the pensieve, and he rather hoped there were happier ones waiting for him.