Recollections

Chapter 75: Recollections

December 26, 2022

Age 44

"Wake up, Gramps. Time to rise and shine."

"I will throttle you the next time you call me that," George warned her. He opened his eyes to see a dreary winter day outside their bedroom window. Icy fog permeated the air around the house, veiling the woods in the distance.

"Empty threat. You'd never catch me, old man," Annie retorted.

He could hear the smile in her voice. She certainly woke up in a feisty mood today, he mused with delight, rolling onto his back to face her. "You're older than I am, hag," he taunted, pressing a hot button he knew would rile her further.

"And you're a bloody troll to keep throwing a difference of thirty-one days in my face," she cried, batting his head with her pillow.

"All I know is neither of us is old enough to be a grandparent!" he exclaimed, snatching the weapon out of her hands and tossing it across the room. Their daughter, Merrie, had given birth to twin boys, Liam and Ruari, earlier in the year. It definitely ran in the family – no doubt about it now.

"Well spotted, git. And yet, somehow, we find ourselves in exactly that predicament. I blame you, of course, and your blasted ruddy Weasley fertility," she said, turning onto her side to face him and propping her head up on her elbow.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, feeling sorry for them both at the realization that faced them: They were growing old. Not just older, but old.

"Too right. I refuse to be a grownup, much less a Gran," she whined.

"I didn't mean that bit. I just realized I've been married to a hag now for twenty-five years," he teased, smiling in smug satisfaction at the zinger.

"Kiss my arse!" she said, giggling.

"With pleasure," he assured her as he rolled her onto her stomach and began kissing his way down her bare spine.

"I love it when you're so obedient," she purred as she looked back at him over her shoulder.

"I love it when you're naked," he responded in kind, looking for a moment into her violet eyes before continuing on his course.

"I love it when – YOW!" Annie spun back away from him and scrambled into a sitting position against the headboard.

"What?" George chuckled.

"Did you just bite me?" she gasped in disbelief.

"You can't expect to call me 'obedient' and escape retaliation," he said, smiling with devilish glee at her reaction.

"You just bit me!" she cried, pulling the sheet up to cover herself and leaning further away from him.

"Sorry, I got a little carried away, all right?" he admitted, chuckling and tugging the sheet back off of her.

"Your bite mark is on my arse at the moment!" she scolded him, still in a state of shock.

He pulled her closer to him and began kissing down her belly. "I said I was sorry. Let me make it up to you...."

Annie then grabbed his chin and roughly lifted his head. "If you think those pearly whites are coming anywhere near there at the moment, you are insane. Or maybe it's senility.... Do you even remember who you are, old man?" she laughed.

George smiled wickedly. Then he lunged at her, growling and snapping his teeth.

Annie was startled by the sudden, aggressive movement, crying out in surprise. Now pinned beneath him, she began to giggle.

George chuckled in response and began kissing her again. "A little adrenaline never hurts," he whispered.

Annie smiled, her eyes glinting with mischief of their own. Her fingers, which were entwined once more in his hair, closed and gave a gentle but firm tug, yanking his head back slightly. "And a little pain can do wonders, as well," she said softly as he sucked in a tiny bit of breath though his teeth.

Two hours later, after they had made love, eaten a light breakfast in bed, and showered, they were getting dressed together in the bedroom.

"Where's my party shirt?" he called out to her from within the closet.

"What party shirt?" she asked, playing dumb.

He stood in the doorway, eying her suspiciously. "You know the one I mean."

"Isn't it there?" she asked, keeping her face turned away from him.

"You bloody well know it isn't," he said accusatorily.

"It's too cold for it today, anyway," she said, changing tacks.

"Annie..." he said in a warning tone.

"Don't wear that horrible old thing. Find something else," she urged.

"Accio party shirt!" he said in a loud, clear voice. A dresser drawer opened of its own volition, and the brightly-colored shirt burrowed its way out from under a pile of old Weasley jumpers and flew through the air into his outstretched hand.

"You never would have found it if you hadn't cheated!" she cried. "That was a damn good hiding place!"

"Let that be a lesson to you," he scolded her. "Do not mess with my party shirt."

"I'm going to burn that bloody thing some day," she threatened teasingly.

"You'll never find it again – I'll make sure of that."

"And I suppose you'll be doing the laundry from now on, then?" she countered, calling his bluff.

"Hmm... not hardly. Suppose I'll have to make it fireproof instead," he chuckled.

They went downstairs next and curled up together on the couch, sipping coffee and gazing out over the meadow separating Mole Hill and the Burrow. His childhood home was barely visible through the mist, looking even more magical because of it.

"I feel like I should be cooking something," said Annie after a long quiet spell.

"Relax. Just sit here with me for a bit. We never get to do this anymore," he complained. He was warm and comfortable with her body reclining against his.

"It feels odd, not being in the kitchen when I know they'll all be here later," she explained.

"Merrie told you she'd take care of the food for today," he said, wrapping his arms around his wife, hoping to hold her there a little longer but recognizing the likely futility of it. She can be so ridiculously stubborn about the stupidest things....

Annie's brow wrinkled. "I know! And why d'you suppose that is? They always seemed to like my party food before," she worried aloud.

"You're absolutely right. Just because your children asked you not to spend the entire day making food for an army at your twenty-fifth anniversary party, it means they've hated your cooking all this time," he teased.

Annie slapped his leg. "Very funny, smart-arse," she snapped. "I think I'll just make a little something anyway...."

George threw his head back and sighed with disappointment. "Don't you like just spending time with me anymore?" he whined. Perhaps a guilt trip would keep her next to him?

No good – she sat up and scooted down toward the opposite end of the sofa. "How about a cheesecake? I've got some frozen redcurrants," she said, tempting him with his favorite.

"Oh, well, in that case, be quick about it, would you?" he said, sensing a lost cause and gently shoving her the rest of the way off the sofa with his feet.

"Troll!" she said.

"Troll!" he cried at the same time in a falsetto voice, anticipating her usual insult, pulling a face to mock her.

"Make yourself useful and go get the boxes of snaps Merrie and Janie want to sort through today," she directed him, launching a weak kick that was more like a shove toward him as she walked by.

He grunted exaggeratedly when her foot connected with his hip. "Are you sure that's a good idea, letting them go through those boxes?" he asked. He had nothing against the plan – just felt like arguing with her for the sake of entertainment.

"That's why I'm telling you to get them now, so we can edit the collection before our children see them and become scarred for life," she teased.

George snorted but heaved himself off the sofa anyway. There really wasn't anything that embarrassing to be found in the collection of family photographs. The raciest ones would be Annie in a swimsuit on the beach, and they were hardly indecent. But Annie would want them removed for vanity's sake. Which was fine by George: they were all taken by him anyway, typically without her knowledge, mostly for his own amusement, which was only enhanced by the anticipation that she'd throw a fit when she saw them later. He smiled in contemplation of what would likely be a tidy little stack of bikini-clad Annie photos he'd have stashed in his bedside table before afternoon. Why haven't I thought of this idea sooner? he chided himself.

While Annie busied herself in the kitchen, George sat on the sofa in front of a now roaring fire, flipping through pictures and listening to some of their favorite music. Once the cheesecake was in the oven, Annie came back over to sit with him. They spent the morning sharing memories brought back to mind by the photos, laughing at the fun adventures and sighing at the beautiful vistas they had seen.

George and Annie had never taken their financial success for granted, and their home life had always been comfortable yet frugal. Their children had never wanted for anything, but their parents had been purposefully very careful not to spoil them with too many possessions. Once they'd become confident they were financially secure enough to weather most any storm, they'd chosen to splurge on travel opportunities for the family rather than luxuries or – an even worse sin in their minds – inheritances.

George firmly believed that the worst sorts of people, in his experience, were those who felt entitled to things without having worked for them. He'd loathed the "rich" kids at Hogwarts who'd pranced about with their noses in the air, treating everyone else like dirt – and yes, he referenced one nasty snob in particular by the name of Malfoy. And while Annie hadn't had any experience with wealthy brats around Ottery (no one in town was that well off), she fully agreed with her husband that in order to teach their children the value of anything, they should be expected to earn it and take good care of it afterward. It was the way she'd been raised, after all.

Their children had always had sufficient food, clothing, and toys – and never second hand, at George's insistence – but not an item more than necessary. After all, it was no good to grow up in a miserly household, either, they'd decided. It might've led their children to overcompensate later, to excessive consumption just because they could. So they'd attempted to reach a reasonable balance, and by all accounts, they felt they'd been successful in providing a happy childhood for their family.

The one excess they'd permitted themselves was travel. George and Annie had been all over the world during the quarter-century span of their married life; perhaps it was a continuation of their childhood penchant for exploration. They'd rationalized that the opportunities for adventure and broadening one's mind far outweighed any guilt they might've felt for spending so much money to take all five children to so many exotic destinations. Not that they'd spent time or money in luxurious accommodations, either; the family always camped in their magical tent wherever they went and occupied their time seeing the sights, meeting Muggle and magical people alike, experiencing and learning about new cultures and lands.

Often, the destinations were determined by George's business interests: either scouting out new magical ingredients, import opportunities, or more recently, accepting invitations to speak to fellow entrepreneurs about his successful ventures. He was now considered to be something of an expert in adapting Muggle marketing and business practices for use in the magical world, as well as magical automation in manufacturing ventures. As a result, they had been all over North and South America, Europe, Australia, and even a good bit of southern Asia. They tried to avoid visiting the same place twice and were most recently looking to expand their horizons further by exploring the continent of Africa.

"Here's one that's fallen out of its proper envelope. D'you recognize it?" Annie asked him, holding up a photograph.

"Let me see it," he replied, and she handed it to him. It was a beautiful shot of the ocean. In the distance, just barely in the frame, was Annie poised on a surfboard, peeking out from behind the curl of a wave. "Hawaii," he said confidently.

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. Without a doubt, that was taken in Hawaii. You were probably pregnant at that point," he added with an amused smile.

"Me?" she exclaimed. "Where?"

George pointed to the tiny figure that was semi-accidentally in the picture.

"How d'you know it's Hawaii? I thought the water looked more like Tahiti," she said suspiciously.

"Because you're wearing yellow," he explained. Annie looked at him in confusion, so he explained further. "Blue in Tenerife, yellow in Hawaii, green in Tahiti, red in India, ooh and the purple one in Australia..." he said in a wistful voice.

"Are you telling me you remember our holidays by the color of my swimsuit?" she interrupted his recitation, starting to laugh.

George smiled. "You remember your way, I remember mine. And at this point, my way appears to be the more reliable of the two."

They spent the rest of the morning thus occupied until their children began arriving just after noon. Joey had been staying with Janie in her London flat for the past few days while on break from school, but both girls had dutifully reported to Merrie's place early that morning to help prepare the banquet. Annie was highly entertained by watching dragonhide-gloved arms full of various dishes of food appear in the green fire, which were passed off to Janie and Joey through the Floo, who in turn carried them into Annie's kitchen.

Finally, Merrie and Ryan arrived through the flames, each with an infant in their arms. George nearly snatched the little boy in his daughter's arms from her, lifting him high up into the air. The baby squealed with delight.

"Please don't drop him, Daddy!" Merrie teased, taking off her traveling cloak.

"Liam knows he can trust me even if you don't," George scolded her, then pretended to take noisy bites out of Liam's tummy, eliciting more giggles.

"Merrie, you went overboard," Annie cried, indicating the dozen large containers of food now on her table.

"I wonder where I learned that habit from?" she teased. "And I see you made a cheesecake even though I told you I'd bring everything," she reprimanded her mother mildly.

"Oh, well, that's for your father. He insisted on it," Annie replied with a wave of her hand. George snorted in rebuttal but continued playing with Liam as Annie moved to take Ruari from Ryan. The baby boy bounced himself excitedly in his grandmother's arms, smiling and drooling at her.

"Merrie made us slave all morning," whined Janie, flopping exhaustedly on a chair and yawning theatrically.

"She wouldn't even let us use magic," Joey chimed in, joining her sister.

"Lies! You used nothing but magic all morning, you lazy gits!" Merrie laughed.

Fred arrived through the back door a minute later, having Apparated directly from Hogsmeade. He hung up his traveling cloak on the wall pegs with the rest of them, casually gave Annie a peck on the cheek in greeting, then made directly for the refrigerator. "Butterbeer, anyone?" he asked.

"In a bit," his father answered, mugging for his grandson in his arms and eliciting more giggles.

Annie watched her son and husband stand together, casually chatting, while Ruari enthusiastically gummed on her finger. Fred was a little taller than his father, yet seemed smaller due to his slighter, more youthful physique. Where George was solidly built, Fred was lean and sinewy. Having spent most of the past eight months in a Brazilian rainforest, his skin was tan and freckly. Annie knew he hadn't spent many nights under an actual roof while he'd been out in the field, touring the Amazon jungle with native witch doctors, searching for flora and fauna that were rare and unknown to European wizardry. Each specimen had been dutifully collected and shipped off to his mentor-turned-colleague, Professor Longbottom, back home at Hogwarts for further investigation.

Fred tossed his head slightly, swinging back the shaggy curls from out of his eyes. The move brought to Annie's mind his namesake uncle at age sixteen, when he and George had let their hair grow long, much to Molly's aggravation (the woman still nagged Bill about his ponytail, for heaven's sake). Now, at forty-four, George's hair was just slightly longer than most men his age, for the sole purpose of hiding his missing ear. It wasn't precisely for vanity's sake: she knew George cared little about his appearance, but since the incident that led to the injury was now so well-known as to be nearly mythologized, he preferred that the general public not be reminded of it every time they looked at him. Annie had recently noticed his still-bright red hair had just started to thin a bit in a small circle at the top of his head.

A far cry from the state of her own hair: Annie's curls were heavily streaked with grey now. Her hairdresser in Exeter had been trying to convince her to dye it for years, but she had steadfastly refused. To her mind, it was a privilege to grow old, and she had planned to do so as gracefully as she could. She had always considered her Gran to be beautiful and strong, rather than old, and couldn't imagine attempting to alter her lustrous silver hair or kind, warm wrinkles.

However, it was becoming apparent to Annie that she was aging a good bit faster than her husband. Despite her grey, Annie still looked younger than her years – yet George looked younger still. It was beginning to get to her, she had to admit. Lately, she was actually starting to consider following her hairdresser's advice.

"Hello?"

Annie was distracted from her train of thought and turned to see the Jordans coming through the front door with her other son in tow.

Art spent all his free time at their house these days, but Annie didn't mind: whenever she saw her previously moody and mopey son now, he usually had a cheerful smile on his face. She took a moment to wonder if Molly had experienced anything similar when she and George had been dating. She doubted it – George had never been the mopey type, even as a teenager.

"How are the wedding plans coming, Roxy?" she asked, hugging her future daughter-in-law with one arm while balancing Ruari on her hip with the other.

"Brilliant!" she exclaimed, beaming at Art, who was beaming right back at her.

Annie giggled as she took in the haggard smirk on her friend Angelina's face that contradicted Roxy's assertion. "I owe you an apology, Annie," she groaned. "You deserved the Order of Merlin for all you accomplished with Merrie's wedding!"

"Let me help!" she offered. "There's no rule that forbids the groom's mother from being put to work, you know."

"I swear I will take you up on that," sighed Angelina. "But I refuse to think about it for the rest of the holidays!"

Everyone began making their way toward the table nearly groaning with food when one more knock came on the door. Joey bounded over to let in the last of the expected guests. "The Macgruders are here, Mum!" she called out as she accepted hugs from their old family friends.

Jane and Alec considered Annie's children to be nieces and nephews of a sort and often participated in Weasley family celebrations. They had never taken the time out from pursuing their careers for a family and doted on Annie and George's children instead. The Weasleys welcomed them with open arms, as was the family habit.

Annie gazed about the table at her family gathered once more around her. Merrie and Ryan looked tired and happy – and grateful to have a chance to eat a meal uninterrupted for once while someone else entertained the twins for them. Annie could commiserate, having survived a set of infant twins herself. For all their exhaustion, the young couple still looked blissfully in love. In their own way, they were the mirror of herself and George at that age, Annie reflected.

Ryan Murphy had landed his dream job at the Ministry after finishing school, working with the Department of Magical Games and Sports as a liaison for coordinating the Triwizard Tournament every four years. George had confessed to Annie at the time that it was a sweet position – perhaps the only Ministry job he could ever be tempted to accept for himself. The traditional competition had started up once more soon after the war was over, with the idea that international magical cooperation and friendship was never more necessary to prevent a similar nightmare from ever happening again. Annie, however, was thankful that the timing of the most recent Tournaments had been such that none of her children had been eligible to participate. She would never be able to forget what happened at the Tournament when George had been at Hogwarts, nor the nightmarish fallout that followed.

Merrie, on the other hand, was happily busy at home. Like Annie, motherhood agreed with Merrie. She spent her days caring for, playing with, and loving her baby boys. To Annie's utter delight, Merrie was planning to bring them with her to the infant school, as Annie had recently hired her daughter to work in the daycare portion of the business. She would start early next year, once the boys had turned one year old. Annie was immensely looking forward to spending her days with them.

Janie sat next to Merrie. The two sisters looked so much alike, but were diametrically different temperamentally. Where Merrie was always sensitive to other's feelings, Janie would run roughshod over them if she suspected an ounce of hypocrisy or caught a whiff of oppression. As easy-going and cheerful as Merrie was, Janie was equally brash and impatient. Both young women understood the world they lived in was imperfect, but while Merrie always attempted to soothe ruffled feathers and gently make small improvements around her, Janie reckoned she knew how to fix the whole job, and everyone else would do well to either follow her direction or get the hell out of her way.

She's Harriet now, Annie corrected herself, for Janie used her given name professionally at the Ministry and had been causing quite a stir there for the past year or so. Uncle Percy had pulled strings and gotten what he had considered a plum position for his niece within the Department of International Magical Law. Janie's troublemaking reputation at school had been glossed over by Percy, who instead touted her NEWT accomplishments to his superiors, which were far more important in his mind anyway. It wasn't long before Uncle Percy was made to pay for that misjudgment.

Janie had been sent to America for a year to a magical embassy of sorts after only three months in London spent berating her superiors and colleagues alike for being snobs, idiots, and hypocrites. At the time, being shipped off to a foreign embassy was akin to being banished – especially the American embassy, for nothing of interest was ever happening stateside, according to the biased British Ministry counterparts.

But Janie had been a bit happier there, in the States, where pureblood superiority was not so deeply entrenched into the society. She loved the polyglot culture, where wizarding traditions from all over the world met, blended, and (to her mind) improved. She spent her time there soaking it up, plotting and planning how to implement similar improvements once she got back home to Britain.

Oh, and Janie had fallen in love.

Elliot Baldwin was a good-looking American boy filled to the brim with sky-high idealism. He had met Janie at a hospital in Salem, Massachusetts, after she had gotten into a scuffle with a Muggle criminal who had been attempting to rob a little old lady. Janie had wound up with a broken finger for her troubles. The mugger had gotten the worst end of it, of course, but would never remember how his nose got broken. Elliot the Healer had splinted her finger, given her a tiny dose of Skele-Gro, and sat with her for two hours while the potion did its work. They went on their first date as soon as his shift was over, enthusiastically discussing possible ways to provide magical healing to the underprivileged and underserved the world over.

After her tour of duty in America, Janie had been politely uninvited to return to her position within International Magical Law. Instead, Uncle Percy shifted his problematic niece off onto another relative: Aunt Hermione, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Hermione had been working in an understaffed and unpopular sub-office, dedicating her efforts to ending pro-pureblood laws for several years now. Unsurprisingly, working with her aunt turned out to be Janie's dream job, as well as a turning point in her life.

Harriet Jane Weasley had finally found her true calling. She had a lawyer's keen mind and an activist's powerful drive. She worked tirelessly, combing through ancient law texts, finding each and every obscure law that discriminated against wizards with Muggle blood, and writing an iron-clad, uncontestable law that overturned it. She and Hermione were peas in a pod, happy to spend the day together railing against the stupidity of the hypocrites who supported the idiotic status-quo. The problem was they managed to offend most of the people who could "grease the wheels," so to speak, and get the laws passed. They were reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it might be in their best interest to recruit a – gulp – lobbyist to help them in that capacity.

So now, Annie's middle daughter sat before her at a difficult crossroads. The only thing clouding Janie's happiness now was the fact that while her professional soul was singing, her emotional heart was hurting, for Elliot Baldwin was still in Massachusetts. They kept in touch via letters posted by Muggle air mail, (Owls tended to be unreliable across the Atlantic and somewhat slower than jet airplanes. Plus, it was just so much more romantic this way.) and promised to visit each other whenever possible, pining for each other in the meantime.

Annie could relate. For seven years she'd felt the same way, missing her best friends. She'd experienced the same misery, separated by a vast, seemingly insurmountable distance from the boy she loved for what had, at the time, felt like ages. Her heart went out to her little Janie.

Her sons sat on opposite sides of the table from one another. As usual, Art sat with his arm casually wrapped around his fiancée, Roxanne Jordan. They were seldom much further apart ever since they'd finally overcome their fears of rejection, apparently attempting to make up for lost time. Annie could tell that while Art participated in the conversation of the table, Roxy was always at the center of his attention, even as he and Fred would spar teasingly, launching insults at their siblings and laughing at inside jokes.

Annie wondered if all twins behaved the same way, or if it was something special about Weasley ones. Art and Fred were so much like George and Fred had been a generation ago that it was almost painful for her to witness their banter. And like history repeating itself, the one named Fred was content to remain single while his twin brother was eager to marry the love of his life as soon as possible.

Not that Annie had any inkling her son Fred was anything like her friend Fred had been when it came to love – nor would she want to! No, her son seemed perfectly dedicated to spending his life out and about, discovering the world for the sake of science, rather than chasing women. Maybe later he'll decide to settle down, she thought. But she had learned her lesson from Molly's bad example: Annie swore to herself that the last thing she would ever do would be to nag him about it. She would not drive Fred away from her like Molly had nearly driven Charlie.

Next to Annie sat her youngest daughter – her baby – little Joey. Georgeanna had never caught up to her peers in stature, remaining petite and slightly built despite an appetite like a Weasley male. She was the only one of her daughters who kept her curly, dark red hair cut short, wearing it in a style almost identical to Annie's. She had a little less than six months left at Hogwarts and only two more Quidditch matches in which to defend her spotless record of consecutive victorious Snitch-snatches (Annie was very proud of herself for coining that term) before fulfilling her father's and uncles' life-long dreams for her: playing professionally for the Chudley Cannons. Only Aunt Ginny had been at all disappointed with the decision, hoping instead for her niece to play for Holyhead, even though it would have meant Ginny giving up her own spot on the team as Seeker.

Joey had been heavily recruited in her sixth year by nearly every British team once word had gotten out about her astounding talent. She and her parents had had a very serious discussion about her quitting school altogether to begin her professional career that much sooner. While Annie had calmly explained her position – that it likely couldn't hurt to spend one more year in school – George had carefully remained neutral, pointing out pros and cons for both sides of the question. Annie appreciated what a struggle that had been for him, for she knew he reckoned the sooner his daughter began playing, the sooner she would raise the Cup wearing his beloved orange and black.

"You left school early, Daddy," Joey had pointed out.

"True. And it was the right decision for me at the time. But you have to decide what's right for you and not just follow in my footsteps without a good reason. Your mother did finish school, you know, and that was a good decision, as well," he had argued.

George and Annie had promised to support her no matter what her decision. In the end, she decided to play for Gryffindor for one more year, extending the house's Quidditch Cup winning streak to an almost guaranteed ten years running. Annie wasn't exactly sure what had been the deciding factor in Joey's decision: she had, in fact, been willing to bet her daughter would have chosen to start playing professionally as soon as possible. For Joey seemed to be born for Quidditch.

Georgeanna Weasley was tiny – built like a bird, in fact. Her delicate-looking frame somehow concealed remarkable balance and muscular strength. Nothing could knock her from a broom, not even point-blank Bludger hits (each of which had resulted in a near-apoplectic fit on the part of her mother). Joey had ridiculous flexibility as well, performing acrobatic feats in midair, literally dangling from her broom at times to snatch victory in her hand.

Annie had recognized the determined, excited look on her daughter's face whenever she flew on her broom. She imagined it represented something akin to the satisfaction Annie felt when she ran: the joy of being in control of one's body, driving it to perform, exerting itself to reach a goal.

Once the family had finished the feast and Merrie had put the twins down for a nap in the cribs in the twins' old room George had re-erected for just such use, they gathered around the boxes of pictures and dug in. The girls squealed and giggled at the photos of themselves: plump little infants, snot-nosed little toddlers, and grubby little tomboys in pigtails, denim overalls, and freckles.

"Ah, Cape Canaveral in the States! This trip's still my favorite," said Art, marveling again at the rockets and computers. He held the photo out for Roxy to look at with him: he and his brother were standing with their father, looking ant-like next to a space shuttle.

"That's because you're a geek," teased Janie.

"And you're a pest," he joked back.

"Ooh, this one's adorable!" cried Jane. She held a photo taken on the family trip to India. It was of Annie and her daughters, only just their four pairs of feet were in the frame. The four of them had spent the morning together while Indian women had decorated their feet with henna, and the reddish-brown swirls and dots were strikingly beautiful against the girls' pale, rosy skin.

"That was a lovely trip," said Annie, nodding. It was easy for her to summon back to mind the sights and wonderful smells of it. She was lost for several moments in a reverie.

"Oh my... Joey, look at this!" exclaimed Janie. She passed a photo over to her sister, who was sitting next to Annie.

"Mum! Is that you?" Joey exclaimed with a giggle.

Annie looked over at the photo and gasped in surprise. The sight of it felt like a punch in the gut. It was the photo George had taken of her on the sailboard, afloat on the ocean, that summer so long ago.

"It might as well be you, Joey. Mum could practically be your twin!" laughed Janie.

"Where did you find this?" whispered Annie, still immobilized by the shock of it.

Janie looked slightly confused by her mother's reaction. She understood, of course – as everyone in the family did – that her mother abhorred all pictures of herself, but this was extreme even for her. "Here, in this little box," she replied, indicating a well-worn shoebox barely held together with packing tape.

"I don't think your father meant to bring that box down," Annie said softly.

"What have I done now?" George asked, appearing at Annie's shoulder. He glanced at the picture Joey was holding. "Whoa! That's a blast from the past," he chuckled, taking the photo from Joey's offering hand. "My God..." he muttered, smiling with the memory of that week on the beach.

"Hand me the rest of that box, will you, Janie?" Annie requested. These photos had not been part of the bargain.

But it was too late. Everyone was peering into her past now. Stacks of Annie's teenage years had already been distributed to the assembled crowd.

"Hey, this must be Uncle Fred!" said Art, sharing the snap with his twin brother.

"And look, this must be Dad and his brother in the tree fort!" exclaimed Merrie, who was sitting on the other side of Annie.

George looked over his daughter's shoulder and exhaled sharply at the sight of the snap: he and his twin, their arms around each other's shoulders, mugging stupidly for Annie and her camera. They had been eleven years old – she had just gotten her camera as a gift for her birthday, and these snaps had been the first roll of film she'd ever shot. Annie reached out for George's hand, and he squeezed hers for support in return.

"Did you take all these, Mum?" asked Fred, flipping casually through the banks of Annie's memory. "Most of mine are snaps of Dad and Uncle Fred at the shore.... What are you, Dad – maybe thirteen, fourteen at most?" he said, chuckling at their antics captured on film.

Annie was struggling to maintain some semblance of her composure. She felt blindsided, unprepared for the onslaught of such ancient, powerful memories. She nodded rather than spoke.

"Here's one at the Burrow. Must be someone's birthday," Joey chimed in, holding a photo of a grinning George accepting a slice of cake from his mother.

"Dear God, Annie," George whispered, having sunk to his knees, reaching out for the photo still in Merrie's hand. "Look at us!" The smile on his face was equal parts amused and pained.

Angelina was holding a profile portrait of Fred at age fifteen, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "Look how young, how beautiful he was," she whispered. She turned to Lee, who put his arm around her in comfort. "We were all so young," she lamented quietly.

Lee nodded. "He was a good mate. I wanted to kill him a few times, but he was a good mate," he replied.

"Mum," asked Janie softly, kneeling in front of her and presenting yet another photo. "Is this her?"

"Ah," cried Annie softly, and tears finally won out and began to roll. It was Gran, looking lovely and warm and alive. She was kneeling in the garden, her head framed with a riot of colorful blooms in the background. Her sparkling, smiling blue eyes were patiently and lovingly looking straight at Annie, right through the lens of the camera, across decades of time.

"Sorry, Mum," muttered Janie, reaching out to take the photo back.

"Are you all right?" asked Merrie, putting her arm around Annie.

"It's fine, girls," Annie assured them, wiping her tears from her cheeks. "Just a bit of a shock, is all. I haven't looked at these for ages, you know. Yes, this is your great-grandmother, Meredith."

"What was she like?" asked Joey. "You almost never speak about her...."

"You're right, and that is very stupid and selfish of me not to share her with you more," Annie conceded. "My Gran was beautiful and wonderful, and she would've been over the moon proud of you lot," she gushed, a sad smile on her face.

"She was the sweetest person I ever knew," Jane chimed in. "She was the very essence of kindness. I liked her the moment I met her."

"She was a great lady," added George. "Strong and clever and funny. I loved her very much, and I still miss her."

Annie looked at her three daughters' curious faces surrounding her. It was time for them to know about Gran – the whole story. Probably overdue, she thought. If she had been a stronger, a braver person, she would've seen it sooner.

"Meredith Griffin was born on the twelfth of June, 1918 in Caernarfon, Wales. Being Welsh was something she was always terribly proud of. She was the only child of David and Tegwen. She married my grandfather, Llewellyn Jones when they were nineteen and then moved to Ottery St. Catchpole just after the second Muggle war with Germany was over. He was a mechanic – worked on airplane engines for the RAF, then civilian engines after," she explained.

"Cool," commented Art, intrigued to think of the possibilities of tinkering with Muggle airplane engines.

"Nineteen. Just like us," Merrie mused aloud with a smile, patting her mother's leg.

Annie smiled back at her, then continued. "Gran said she and my grandfather had pretty much given up hope for children, and then, sixteen years after they had married, Carys was born."

"Your mother," added Merrie.

"Yes. My mother," Annie replied. It was difficult, even now, to use the phrase. It seemed the furthest thing from the truth, actually, to refer to Carys as a mother. "She was twenty when my grandfather died quite suddenly of a stroke. He was young – only in his fifties."

"And that's when your mother lost her mind and ran away," said Janie.

Annie looked at her with surprise. Had George told her? Or Molly, perhaps? They were the only two who would have known, the only ones she had ever told the whole story to. "Yes, in a manner of speaking. She wasn't strong enough to handle the sadness of it, so she tried to escape. She ran away from Gran, made friends with some bad people. She started getting into real trouble." Annie paused, unsure if her children would have any frame of reference to understand what she was trying to say.

"Then you were born in London," prompted Joey. "And you were very ill."

Annie nodded. Somehow they had the basics of it already; that was apparent. She didn't mind –they had a right to know, in a way. It was perfectly natural for them to be curious. It was an odd feeling, though, to realize they had known so much about her all along.

"Several years later, yes – I was born premature and ill. You see, my mother was unable to curb her drug habit while she was pregnant with me. I was born addicted to something called heroin...."

"Oh!" exclaimed Jane, covering her hands with her mouth. She had never heard the details of the story before, either. Annie understood the significance of Carys' addiction would weigh more heavily with her and Alec, as Muggles themselves. She gave her friend a reassuring smile, then pressed on.

"And she left me in the hospital when I was twelve hours old."

There. She had confessed her deepest, darkest secret out loud to her children. Merrie began crying silently next to her. As a mother herself, it hit her particularly hard, just as the pain of it had resurfaced for Annie when Art and Fred were newborns. This was why she had never broached the subject with them before: why would she want to inflict such discomfort on anyone else – her own children, especially? She had just been shielding them from it, all these years – hadn't she?

"Jesus," muttered Alec in shock.

"Oh, Annie!" cried Angelina.

"How did you... I mean..." mumbled Lee.

"How did I survive?" she asked. "That part's easy – my Gran. She took it all in stride. Drove to London, gathered me up, and brought me home here to Ottery. Never gave it a moment's pause. She was an angel, my Gran," Annie said with a smile, hoping to cheer her audience's sad, stunned faces.

"You're a lot like her," George said, pressing his hand to her shoulder.

Annie reached up and patted his hand. "Thank you, love. I consider that the greatest compliment I could ever receive," she said. She reached out and touched each one of her daughter's cheeks in turn. "Forgive me for not telling you about this before now. It's a difficult thing for me to talk about, but that's no excuse. You deserve to know how incredible your great-grandmother was. Ask me anything, if you like," Annie offered.

"Did she know about... Dad?" Merrie asked.

"About magic, you mean? Yes. She figured it out at the very end," Annie replied.

"At your wedding? In the hospital?" verified Joey, piecing a familiar part of the family history together with one the revelations of the moment.

"Just after. Twenty-five years ago today, as a matter of fact." For just as yesterday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of her marriage to George, today marked the anniversary of Meredith's death. "She called your dad my 'handsome fairy tale prince' come to take me away. Just goes to show you she couldn't see all that well in the end," Annie joked, struggling to lighten the mood of the room, wiping a few more tears from her cheeks.

George mussed her hair in teasing retaliation, and she gently batted his hand away.

"Are you certain she was a Muggle, Mum?" asked Art.

Of all the questions she had steeled herself for, this one came out of the blue. "What do you mean?" she asked, shocked.

"Well, actually, it's a little pet theory of Granny's," he confessed.

Annie's jaw dropped open in astonishment.

Fred picked up where his brother left off. "Granny thinks that somewhere down the line, you've got wizard blood in the family, most likely on the maternal side."

"But then again, no one knows who your father is, either," added Art. "Could be he was a wizard."

"Maybe you're a half-blood too, Mum," laughed Janie.

"Why on earth would anyone think...?" Annie sputtered.

"Granny says she first got the idea after she saw your Gran's garden," Art said.

"Which was then reinforced when she was helping you set up the one here at the Hill," added Fred.

"She was impressed by how you knew all about the different plants, where they belonged together in the garden, and when to plant them according to the moon," said Art.

"And what they were used for," said Fred.

"But that's all just folklore and old wives' tales my Gran told me," she said, dismissing their outlandish idea. "I figured it was just coincidence they always did so well – I kept doing it out of a sense of tradition, or loyalty, or something. I never really gave it much credence...."

"No, it's not. It fits with pretty much everything we learned in Herbology, actually," argued Art.

"Uncle Ron always says your pies are magical, too," added Joey, making everybody laugh.

Annie turned to look at George. "Have you heard of this before?"

George smiled, shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah, Mum mentioned it to me," he said, chuckling.

"When?"

"After the twins began, you know, showing off," he said, laughing. "She thinks they get all that talent from you."

"I don't understand. I'm a Muggle," she cried, still flabbergasted by the suggestion. "You're the wizard, George."

"Okay... you know how Ginny was the first Weasley girl born in a long time, and when that happens, magic tends to concentrate in that child?" George explained.

Annie nodded. She was familiar with the story of why Ginny seemed so powerfully magical to the others in her family, even if she had never really seen it for herself.

"Well, then at some point you must've told Mum about how you and your mum and your Gran were all only children – all girls – and she wondered how far back that trend might have gone. How maybe the twins were the first boys born in your family for a long time...."

"But you're the wizard, George. Not me. The magic comes from you," she said once more.

"But Mum, you can't say for sure that there's absolutely no wizard blood in your family, either. I mean, maybe a few generations ago, a witch or wizard married into your family in secret," argued Joey.

"It happens all the time, you know," added Merrie with a wink for her mother.

Annie shook her head, giggling. "This is all very amusing, you lot. But I think I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt over the years that I am a Muggle, through and through. Believe me, if I could have summoned a scrap of magical power, I would have turned it on you kids in a heartbeat!" she joked, and everyone laughed.

"But what is a Muggle, anyway, Mum?" argued Fred, still serious and intent on continuing the discussion. "I mean, where do you draw the line? What constitutes magic, and what isn't? Both Muggles and wizards summon control over the same forces and matter in different but equivalent ways: in one world, it's called technology, and in the other, magic."

"On the other hand, how many magical feats are performed by so-called Muggles everyday and merely chalked up to odd coincidence, blind luck, or divine intervention?" Art proposed. "How much active power do you have to have before you're considered a wizard? Or a Squib? Or a Muggle? What if it's all just latent inside you?"

"This is turning into a very profound conversation," commented Lee, an amused smile on his face.

"And how does anyone explain how wizards and witches get born into Muggle families, if that term even means anything anymore?" Fred continued. "If it's genetic, which I, for one, am convinced of, I can't believe the very same spontaneous mutation or mutations happen that often, over and over again, year after year, all over the world."

"So you're saying it's always present in the genome and just activated in magical people somehow?" Art suggested.

"I think that makes the most sense," Fred agreed. "Everyone in this room, Muggle and magical alike, could likely all have the same magical gene or genes. Just some of us have been turned on, some haven't."

"Fascinating idea," mused Art, sounding impressed.

"Mind-boggling," added Angelina.

"My brain hurts," whined Joey.

"My ears hurt," complained Janie.

"I'm hungry. Anyone else care for more dessert?" asked Ryan, heaving himself out of a chair.

"Hands off my cheesecake," warned George.