Gideon would never admit this in public, as he feared he would be taken for a fool, but the day he left Devonshire, a week after celebrating their twentieth birthday, he cried. He hadn’t seen his family in three years, not since he’d left for Marseille. Well, Fabian visited him over Christmas and Easter holidays, but that was different. Gideon considered his brother his right arm; he needed him. They wrote to each other constantly. Folks, especially those who didn’t know how close they were, said there was something else going on between them. They’d both laughed it off, of course. They’d lived with each other for the longest time. When they’d left school, the two of them shared a small place together.
Fabian wasn’t much of a world traveller and enjoyed his simple lifestyle. Unlike Gideon, who got a thrill out of crossing any border to offer a negotiation, he preferred the comforts of home and worked for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Gideon worked for the Ministry, too. He loved the idea that the Ministry officials in his department didn’t actually require him to report there. He went wherever they told him and followed their orders. Of course, now that he was coming home, things would be different. He’d missed out on another life and this birthday party simply promised to be a strange one.
He rubbed his chin and took a deep breath. The last time he’d set foot in the Burrow, his sister had aimed a rolling pin at his head asked him to leave. Asking was the nice way to put it. He’d signed a contract to hold a station in France for five years, and she didn’t understand why he spent his life elsewhere. Truth be told, he missed not seeing his family very often, but he had to work and didn’t see why he had to choose between commitments. His mother and his sister didn’t see why he involved himself in such affairs. Last time, Percy didn’t exist and the other boys were tiny. The chicken coop and things were still there. The renovations to the place surprised him, but it was good handy work, especially considering that Arthur had been the mastermind behind the madness.
Things had changed for Gideon, too. For one thing, he’d learned French and a game the Muggles called football. He wasn’t very good at it. In fact, he was downright awful, but it gave his colleagues a good laugh. He’d picked up smoking, too, and he knew that wouldn’t smooth things over with Molly. Instead of robes, he wore blue jeans over a t-shirt and dirty trainers. He’d forgotten the time and knew he’d get an earful if he showed up late. Molly had to have caught the rumours by word of mouth, but Gideon couldn’t bank on it.
Despite the awkwardness, he wanted to put his best foot forward and hoped to mend things between them. After all, it was just a smack in the back of the head. If he was willing to forget and forgive, she should be a big enough person and put things aside, too. Honestly, he couldn’t remember what had sparked the row in the first place.
His bride was a pretty thing with long legs, smooth skin and grey eyes. One day, whilst he worked on butchering on her native tongue, Emmeline Vance had casually suggested they have a bite at one of her favourite sidewalk cafés. Her hair had been tied back in a perfect knot and she wore a light blouse over a pinstriped skirt. In exchange for a free breakfast, although she’d claimed it was brunch because of the hour, she gave him lessons and laughed off his countless mistakes.
It soon became a regular thing for them, these quiet brunches, and they slowly escalated into something more. Both of them had sworn off marriage, but they ended up falling back on that promise. Emmeline accepted his friendship, his hand, and his ring; she kept her name. Gideon felt a bit closed in when their time sped up on him, and he simply couldn’t leave her. He hated being alone.
He worked for the Department of International Magical Cooperation and lived by an unpredictable schedule. Emmeline held a similar position with foreign affairs in her country and had recently signed a binding contract to work as a liaison. They hadn’t officially announced their marriage because they feared there would be whispers of a scandal. Honestly, their relationship had started out that way. After the coffee, the next step led to a steamy rendezvous. Gideon felt the concerned organisations had little to worry about. When they were sneaking round Calais, Marseille, Dijon, wherever, he and Emmeline only shared a bed.
“A country house,” she said, walking up behind Gideon with his brother in tow. She’d spoken English ever since she was a little girl, so Gideon felt relieved, at least, that Molly wouldn’t peck at the language barrier. Emmeline pulled off a classier look than he did, draped in silk robes and fancy heels.
“You don’t like it?” Gideon guessed.
“Oh no, it’s just I’ve never visited one,” she said. “It’s lovely.”
“Yeah, she’s a high-class Parisian girl,” said Fabian, smirking when Emmeline pulled a face. He took a step back when she swung at him with a bag. “You really shouldn’t have worn the jade pendant because she’ll pick you to death with it. You’ve too much money for her tastes. Do you ever take that thing off?”
“Oh, I meant to jot this down in the letter I sent with the last owl,” said Gideon, suddenly remembering what he’d meant to say before. “Next Spring, if you’re trekking with us from Calais, to Mount Blanc, to Marseille, we’re walking and taking the scenic route.”
“It was my grandmother’s,” she said, fingering it. “I rarely see Paris, anyway. It’s dirty and taken over by tourists and their favourite friends, pickpockets.”
“She’s in the United Kingdom more than I am these days,” Gideon pointed out, knocking on the door. He smiled, reminded of a memory he’d thought he’d forgotten. “Emma, remember when the skinny dodger paper boy tried nicking your wallet?”
A soft smile touched her lips. “My life’s in that thing.”
“What’d she do?” asked Fabian.
“She took his umbrella and beat him with it,” said Gideon.
Fabian burst out laughing and looked up when the door opened. A harassed-looking Arthur stood on the threshold. Percy clung to his left leg and the other two boys flanked him. Judging from all the toys shrewn round the place, Arthur wanted to keep the boys occupied so he could tend to his wife. Gideon remembered that his sister had been rather fond of playing house and school when she was growing up. Well, she had gotten her wish. The Weasleys bred like gnomes. Aunt Muriel pointed that out at every open opportunity whenever she dropped in. Every time another kid came along, Fabian showered them with baby things and split the cost with his brother. The elder brothers got gifts, too. It was a little something just so they would know they hadn’t been forgotten.
“Merlin, is that Bill?” Gideon barely got the question out of his mouth before the boy collided into him and jumped into his arms; his bags fell on the ground. Gideon laughed and kissed his curly head. Surprised, Gideon swallowed a lump in his throat. “Hey, mate.”
“Hey, where’ve you been?” Bill demanded, instantly firing off questions and filling him in on whatever he missed. He said something about sticking a bead in Charlie’s ear, which made him kind of blue, and eventually caught his breath so Gideon could finally say something.
“Let me get a word in edgewise, so I can fill you in, yeah?” Gideon grinned, showing him he wasn’t being snubbed. He took a colourful trinket out of his pocket and handed it to him. He bounced the kid in his arms and shifted through his tales. “That’s something I found in the streets of Spain. Where’ve I been, eh? Everywhere?”
“He’s been staring out the window all morning,” said Arthur, grinning. “Let him breathe, Bill, you’re choking the man. Come in, come in.”
“Charlie Boy!” Fabian scooped up the other boy, who asked, “Who’s that?”
Gideon looked over his shoulder and jerked his head towards Emmeline. She’d picked up his things and set them on the coffee table. He’d hoped to break the ice later, but Molly was sitting on the couch and stared at the woman. Aunt Muriel sat in an armchair, and her eyes looked as though they were about to spring out of her skull. An old lady, she looked like she was about to kick the bucket, yet there was no promise of that coming anytime soon. Gideon had never warmed to the old hag, and Fabian liked her even less, which was saying something, because the fool liked just about anyone he met.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed resting?” Gideon walked over and pecked his sister on the cheek. He tossed some squeaky thing on the floor and sat next to her on the squashy cushions. He fingered the yarn in her basket and watched her tie the finishing touches on a blue blanket. “You’re an expert on this type of thing, but it’s been two days.”
“He’s jealous that he doesn’t possess your talent.” Fabian shrugged. He sat on the edge of the coffee table and patted out of the little ones. Aunt Muriel hissed something about him not washing his hands, but he turned a deaf ear and set Charlie on the floor. He scooped up one of the little ones. “You could have held off till the third, you know, so that we could all share birthdays. Which one’s this?”
“Fred.” Arthur sounded pretty certain for about a minute before he hesitated. He bent down and pried his son off his leg as he walked closer. He looked spent, too, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes. “No, George. No. Fred. Fred. Molly?”
“We are in trouble,” said Fabian , raising an eyebrow. “You’ve mixed them up already?”
“No.” Arthur laughed nervously when Molly glared at him. “No. I.... hang on, I’ll be back. One of you, come with me, please.”
“Arthur?” asked Molly.
“It’s nothing, Molly, Fabian is going to show me how to use a ... a pencil sharpener.”
Arthur invented these wild excuses off the top of his head to calm her. It didn’t really have the effect of giving her a warm and fuzzy feeling, Gideon suspected. Gideon loved his sister. Sometimes, he went as far as to like her. He couldn’t imagine being stuck with her for the rest of his life. She was undoubtedly a good, strong mother to her children and she loved her husband. Molly saw the world, her world, through narrow lenses. There was nothing wrong with that view, per se, but there was more to life than chickens and children. If Molly didn’t understand something, that was it. It ceased to matter to her because it posed no threat to her family.
“Gideon,” he said, pointing to himself and waving the mistake away. He followed Arthur out of the kitchen door. “Are you all right?”
“Me?” Arthur walked over to his shed and opened the door. Gideon and Fabian knew about this hideout and had sworn to Arthur that they’d never speak a word to Molly. He reached in his pocket and fumbled round for his wand. “I left it somewhere.”
“Here.” Emmeline flicked her wand and lit the small room. She muttered something and a cylinder zoomed into her open hand. She handed it over. “Here. Gideon says you collect Muggle things. Since your boys are all getting presents, here’s yours.”
“What is it?” asked Arthur, banging it on a wooden table.
“A flashlight,” said Emmeline, holding out her hand and turning on a beam of light with a switch. She flipped it upside down and unscrewed the top. Arthur made a hissing sound, like a little boy disappointed a friend had broken his toy. He stared at the black objects lying in her palm. “My grandfather’s a Muggle and has tons of these lying around for when the power goes out. They’re called batteries. It’s like a candle or Lumos, you know, except it runs on electricity.”
“What’s that? Eckel ....” He fumbled round for a scrap of parchment and a quill. “Eckeltricity. Fascinating. Spell that.”
“Told you he was weird,” said Gideon when Emmeline looked at him.
She did as he asked and put the flashlight back together.
“Eckeltricity,” he repeated, flicking it on and off, surprised it worked each time. “Look at that!”
“Yeah, okay,” said Gideon, rolling his eyes at the tin ceiling. “Feeling better, now?”
He spotted an ancient broomstick on the corner and snatched it up. He listened to Arthur flood his wife with questions and fingered the splintered wood. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and snapped the old thing over his bent knee. The broomstick, the twig, cracked into pieces and landed on the floor. The longer end with the bristles flopped round feebly as if waiting for a rider to mount it. Emmeline glanced at Gideon and missed a few of Arthur’s questions. She nodded when the curious man tugged her sleeve and pulled her back into the conversation.
“He’ll shut up,” Gideon assured her. He started to walk back out into the garden and called over his shoulder. “Don’t eat the batteries, Arthur!”
Gideon ran back into the house. By now, both the twins were awake, and Charlie covered his ears. Bill, who lived through the screaming and the screeching with enough brothers already, sat on the floor and pulled a chessboard off the iron rack underneath the coffee table.
“Till you learn their names,” he said, dipping Fred and George’s teddy bears’ paws in the coloured ink, he’d found on the mantelpiece. “Fred is red and George is black. Don’t let Arthur blind your boys with a flashlight.”
“A what?” asked Molly, changing Fred’s nappy. “What did you give him?”
“Nothing.” Gideon shrugged it off. “ I didn’t give him anything.”
“After five kids, I’d say he needs something,” added Fabian. “I’m just saying. Are you done yet?”
“You know this isn’t going to work, right? Dying these things.” Molly waved her hand at the stuffed toys. "Does your friend know anything about raising children?”
“Shut up, Molly,” said Gideon warned her with an air of forced calm.” Let’s enjoy ourselves for one weekend, yeah? For me? For the boys? It’s my birthday. Fake it.”
“I never said...”
“Bill,” called Gideon, overriding her. He was pleased to see he had learned to set the board without him. He did it with a quick hand, too. Gideon never voiced it aloud, but he felt that Bill was his favourite nephew, hands down. True, he didn’t know Percy or the twins, but Gideon liked that he could hold simple conversations with the boy instead of babbling syllables or offering to change his nappy. “You want to play?”
“Yeah. Dad’s taught me some tricks since you’ve been away.” He thumbed through a shoebox and laid on his stomach. “I’ve kept all your letters and postcards. Dad says Errol’s getting some serious flying experience chasing after you.”
Gideon grinned. He quizzed the boy, delighted in his interest. Every Christmas and birthday, he sent the boys gifts from wherever he was at the moments. They were good ones, too, because nothing was too good for his nephews. Perhaps, some of this assuaged his guilt. Gideon didn’t have anything to waste his gold on, anyway. If he hadn’t understood it before, Gideon knew that Bill, at least, took hints and figured out why his uncle wasn’t coming around anymore. Maybe Gideon should have caved and submitted to Molly’s wishes. He loved his job, and he enjoyed the chase whilst he searched for answers, but he’d missed his family, too.
“Is she our aunt?” Bill asked quietly, glancing out the window at Emmeline. “She’s pretty.”
“Yes,” said Gideon slowly, but he was overridden when Molly hissed, “No.”
Fabian chuckled, “You two can’t agree on anything. It’s like a wireless show where they just tear each other apart for the hell of it.”
Fabian was kidding. Molly, who was a little bit emotional, didn’t check the joke. Gideon followed her into the kitchen and glanced at the layered cake on the counter. He hadn’t noticed it before because he was trying to rush Arthur out of the crammed nest. Molly took a jar out of her pantry and started icing the thing with a spatula. She wasn’t crying, but he could tell by the way she was breathing that she was upset about something. She barked at her eldest boy to clean up before dinner. Bill stuck to his uncle like glue, though, and didn’t go far. Fabian stood in the doorway and tapped his fingers on the doorframe.
“What’s wrong?” Gideon reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but Molly shrugged it off.
“Who is she?” she demanded.
“Don’t play dumb, boy.” Aunt Muriel was sitting in a chair at the table and helped herself to a bottle of sherry. He hoped she hadn’t gotten that far in one afternoon; it was half empty. She poured a healthy measure in a glass. Gideon had walked right past her, too, but he didn’t feel too sorry about it. She smacked her lips. “Speak up. Who’s the French girl?”
“Emmeline,” he said, holding up his hand. “She’s my wife.”
He held his breath and waited for Molly to explode. Now that he thought of it, this felt rather like déjà vu. This is what had sparked that row and kindled her anger: a girl. Fabian ran round with women like he changed clothes, but that hardly seemed to matter because it was all a game to him. No, Gideon was the eldest, the one who happened to be born four minutes before his brother, so he carried the burden of the responsible one. His last girlfriend had drained him for all his worth, which gave him the motivation to take the job opportunity across the Channel. The stigma carried onto Emmeline.
“Fine. That’s just fine.” Molly splattered icing on the cake and inhaled sharply. She lowered her voice and made sure he caught her words. “She’s not right for you.”
“What?” Gideon asked. “What? Don’t do that.”
“You didn’t tell me!” She shook her head. “No, you just bring in some ... some scarlet woman ...”
“What?” Gideon laughed. He realised a second too late that was the wrong response. “Molly, you don’t even know her. Do you know how much you sound like Mum? Like her?”
He jabbed a finger at Aunt Muriel.
“She’s your whore, boy,” said the old lady, not deterred in the least by being singled out, “and you don’t even see it. No, you love her, don’t you?”
Gideon threw up his hands. Aunt Muriel was old, which meant she got free license to say whatever she pleased. Unfortunately, since their mother, Clara, had passed, the hag stood as the matriarch of the family. Why would Molly sink so low as to listen and believe her lies? As far as Muriel was concerned, they all had screwed up their lives and amounted to nothing when it came to the Prewett name. He was going to walk back into the sitting room and hold his tongue. After distracting himself with Fred and George or playing a match with Bill, he’d feel all right. This, like everything else, would blow over. He decided against it.
“You wonder why you’re alone after three, no, four husbands, Muriel?”
“Oh, yes, but Fabian knows. Fabian knows everything and he adores her.” Molly jumped to Aunt Muriel’s defence and steered the subject back as she ran her hands under the tap and wiped them on a dishtowel. “You married her, and he was your best man. Did I get an invitation? No.”
“All right. No. I should’ve handled that better. ” said Gideon evenly. There was a scream in the distance. “I wrote you a letter, remember? Telling you I’d met a girl? My tutor?”
“Oh, well, Molly, of course,” said Aunt Mariel sarcastically, pointing out the stupidity of his logic. “Clearly they were private night lessons.”
“You didn’t even bother to introduce her to the family,” said Molly seething. “And now you show up and it’s all right? Mum died. You bolted out right after the funeral to go chase after Emily or whatever she’s called.”
“No, I was stuck in a Cairo conference,” he said, “and you never, ever drop them because it’s like a slap in the face. Do you have any idea how long I’ve worked on some of these trade agreements? The heaps of gold trading hands for a damn signature with an ally would astound you. You don’t turn a deaf ear to a delegate. It’s courtesy.”
“I don’t care about your foreign affairs,” she said flatly, switching tactics. “When is she due?”
“I...” Gideon stared at her. Where the hell did she get that idea? “What’re you talking about?”
“Merlin.” Fabian rolled his eyes and checked his watch. He’d had enough. “Right. I’m going to meet Lily in the village. We’ve got to ... do that thing.”
“Who’s that?” Molly rounded on him. “A girlfriend?”
“HA! No.” Fabian turned back to his brother, stepping out of the line of fire. “See you tonight? We’ll have a drink or something for the birthday.”
“Yeah.” Gideon didn’t turn away from his sister. Fabian waved good-bye to the others and turned to leave. Arthur opened the door at that moment and put a hand on Emmeline’s back. Gideon glanced down at her shimmering blue robes and noticed they were stained red. “What happened?”
“She fell,” said Arthur, wiping his hands on his robes after he helped her into a chair. Molly went pale. “I went to go show her the paddock, our land, you know.”
“I got dizzy and nauseous,” said Emmeline, muttering to herself as if she didn’t believe her own words. Her hands were shaking. Arthur scooted Molly aside, ran a dishtowel under the tap, and handed it to her.
“She slid on something, tripped, I think, and hit the concrete hard when we got back to the shed,” said Arthur, nodding. He handed her a glass of water. “She just fell.”
Playing the Game by Writ Encore
Chapter Endnotes: Thanks for reading. Please review.