A wind that was more wet and blustery than truly cold swirled Audrey’s cloak around her as she climbed the rather mossy stone steps to her mother’s house. She scowled, plucking a damp brown leaf, left over from fall, out her auburn hair. She was fully aware that it was the task at hand that was putting her in a foul mood, but she could not help cursing the month of April. Why couldn’t it act like spring, for Merlin’s sake?
She drew her cloak more tightly round herself, her trepidation growing as she neared her mother’s door. Audrey had, after all, grown up in this house, but it had been almost ten years since her last visit. She took a deep, steadying breath and knocked on the rose-colored door.
Audrey heard a bell chime somewhere inside the house, and there was a flurry of movement in the window. A moment later, her mother had appeared at the door, looking flustered, shocked, and extremely pleased. Not for long, Audrey thought darkly. “Hello, Mother,” she said calmly.
“Audrey, sweetheart, what are you doing here? Come in; come in, out of the cold. It’s an awfully blustery day out there.” Her mother pulled her into the house and embraced her, then stepped back, beaming. Sophia Anderson had once been beautiful, though she had grown rather plump and wrinkled in recent years. Her graying hair, originally the same shade as Audrey’s, was pulled back in a wispy bun and she wore a pink blouse and slacks.
“Come into the parlor, dear, I’ll make some tea. And do take that silly coat off.”
Audrey suppressed a sigh as she removed the cloak, revealing a neat black sweater and jeans underneath. Her mother nodded approvingly and gave her arm another pat, then hurried into the kitchen, still beaming. Audrey hung the cloak on a hat stand near the door and went to perch on a sofa in the parlor, reflecting that it was probably a good thing she hadn’t caved to temptation and come in robes. She looked around the room, at the familiar floral furniture, the television, phone, and cord lamps. It had really been quite a long time since she had been here (when they did see one another, Audrey usually saw her mother at a restaurant or a concert, where they met) and not much had changed in the house since she was eleven. Some symphony music was issuing from the radio”her mother had always liked symphony music. It was one of the few things they had in common.
Sophia bustled back into the room, carrying a tea tray, and placed it on the coffee table. “So, dear, how are you? I’m delighted to see you of course”but what do I owe the pleasure?” She poured Audrey a cup of tea and added cream fondly.
“I’m doing great,” Audrey said, cagily avoiding her mother’s second question. She didn’t really feel like opening hostilities yet. “Work’s been really busy lately… the head of the department is retiring and it has been mad trying to tie up all the loose ends before he leaves next month.” She took a sip of tea. “What about you? How’s Eddie?” Eddie was her mother’s old cat.
“Oh, same, same as usual. Anne Wiley next door gave me her old computer, and her son Jordan has been trying to teach me how to use it… they’re quite baffling, those things.”
Audrey, who only had a vague idea of what a computer was, merely nodded.
“But dear, enough about me, really. Do you want some more tea? Tell me, really, how have you been since December? Did you have a good New Years?” Sophia settled back on the couch cushions, smiling.
Audrey decided that stalling time was over. “Yes, it was wonderful. I spent it with Percy, do you remember, I told you about him--?”
“The tall, red-headed boy?” her mother asked, pursing her lips slightly.
“Yes,” Audrey answered, deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble to point out that Percy Weasley was hardly a boy”he was twenty-five. “Well, his brother George runs a magical joke shop, and he puts on the most magnificent fireworks display in Diagon Alley every year. Percy and I had a lovely dinner and then we went to see it.” She paused. Her mother was nodding, the smile still on her face, though her mouth was a bit thin. Just do it, Audrey thought, steeling herself.
“Mum, I actually came here to tell you something. Percy and I”we’ve decided to get married. He asked me at New Years, actually. They wedding is set for this coming July.”
There was a long, nasty silence as Audrey did her best to keep her expression cheerful while the smile vanished instantly off Sophia’s face. “Don’t you think you should have warned me”or consulted me about this first?” Sophia demanded at last.
“No, I don’t,” Audrey retorted. “I think I should be able to marry whomever I please, Mother. I am twenty-six years old, and to be quite honest I think you’d like Percy, if you gave him a chance. He’s quite proper, and very polite. He was Head Boy at Hogwarts.”
Her mother sighed. “Audrey, I just hoped for your sake that you would choose to marry someone ordinary and settle down in a normal life.”
Audrey took another deep breath to keep herself from shouting, and curled her hands into fists in her lap. “A normal life, Mother? You mean as a Muggle? Denounce magic altogether?”
“No dear, not altogether, just”“
“There is no just, Mother. I’m a witch, and its part of who I am”“
“This life is part of you too. “
“Yes,” Audrey agreed furiously, “but magic is a part of my life like”like a hand, or an arm. It will always be with me. I belong in the Wizarding World, and I belong with Percy. I don’t understand why that is so difficult for you to understand. Wizards aren’t all bad, you know”we’re just like Muggles in that way. Not all of us are family-disowning idiots or evil sorcerers. You should know that, you married a Wizard, you’ve lots of us”“
“Yes,” Sophia said, in a tone of cold fury that she always adapted when Audrey spoke of her father. “Yes, I did, and look where that got me.”
Audrey winced. There was a bit of truth in this statement: her father, Robert Leventhall, had left her mother when Audrey was only nine to marry again, this time to a young blonde witch named Isabella Wilkes. The two of them had a son called Roy, but Audrey had never met him”she avoided her father even more avidly than she avoided her mother. Neither of her parents had ever bothered trying to understand her, and it was this above all other things that, during the war, had drawn her to Percy, who did.
The two women were still staring at one another, each refusing to speak. At last, Audrey stood up. “Well, I’ll be going now Mother,” she said crisply. “I have a meeting at three with some other members of Magical Law Enforcement, and then Percy and I are going out to dinner at the Leaky Cauldron with some Hogwarts friends.” She said this purely to annoy her mother, emphasizing the words “magical”, “Hogwarts” and “Percy.”
Angrily, Audrey drew on her cloak from the hat stand. She hadn’t come here to antagonize her mother, or fight with her. She didn’t want to fight with Sophia, who Audrey knew missed her terribly, but she didn’t understand how her mother could want to see her so badly and then spurn her away so readily. It wasn’t as if this was the first time they’d had this sort of argument…
“I’ll owl you an invitation to the wedding, if you still want to come,” she snapped at her mother, who had risen off the couch too and joined her by the door. “We’re thinking of having it at Percy’s parents house.”
“Audrey,” Sophia said a little pleadingly, “Perhaps a church”“
“Wizards have their own traditions, Mother. It’s Weasley family custom to have weddings at the Burrow, and its very important to Percy.”
“I think you ought to have a say in it too”“
“I do!” Audrey exclaimed, losing her temper all over again. “Don’t you understand, Mother, I want to do this for Percy! He cut ties from his family for a while during the War, just like me. He wants to let his mother do the wedding, he wants to make amends, and he’s really trying! And so am I! The person who is not trying is you!”
Sophia looked as though her daughter had slapped her. “Audrey, you that’s not true. I’m trying to do what’s best for you, I’m trying to protect you”“
“From what?” Audrey shouted, fastening her cloak with shaking hands. “From magic? I am a witch, Mother. You made sure of that the day you married Robert Leventhall. And I’ll have you know,” she added as her mother’s eyes darkened, “I would never choose and ‘ordinary’ man to spend the rest of my life with. Percy is anything but ordinary. He is handsome, smart, courteous, hardworking, driven, and he LOVES ME!”
With that, she wrenched the door open and twisted on the spot, apparating into nothingness with a faint pop and leaving her mother standing, flabbergasted, on her porch.
Audrey apparated directly into the Ministry and ran for the lift, swiping tears angrily from her green eyes. She hated shouting at her mother and she hated that she was being forced to choose Percy over her Muggle family. Most of all she hated that Sophia was still so haunted by a wizard who had left her seventeen years ago that she had turned her back on everything to do with him, including, inadvertently, her own daughter.
She just had to find Percy, and it would be all right again. He would make her see that it was okay, that Sophia would come around, that she could be happy anyway, as he always did. They did it for each other; they had ever since the war. He knew what it was like, knew the anger and the guilt and the frustration, and he still loved her for it. He loved her more for it. He understood, and that was more than Audrey could ever have dreamed of.
Meet the Weasleys by dominiqueweasley
Story Notes:
This is a collection of one-shots I've been writing ever since Deathly Hallows was released about the next-generation Weasley/Potter family, as a kind of therapy exercise. They'll provide windows into the new character's lives, focusing on personality and families.