The Eighth Weasley

The Eighth Weasley - Chapter Fourteen

The Burrow

Notes: Here I was feeling incredibly clever to have realised that Diagon Alley was a play on words by JKR. It took me another six hours to realise Knockturn Alley was the same (Nocturnally). Doh.

Anyway, here we have Willow/Family stuff going on. Forgive me if it seems out of character/location etc and whatnot, but stupid me forgot to pick up books 2 and 4, so I could check my details.

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Willow felt sick.

She felt really, really sick.

Her whole world was spinning and even if she opened her eyes a crack, she knew she would spew all over the place and since she was flying through some kind of fireplace-portal-thing, it probably wasn't a good thing.

A jarring thump of something hard against her head made her open her eyes in panic, the second before she flopped out of a copper-framed fireplace and onto a black and white floor.

"Willow!" one voice yelled.

A second voice added approvingly, "You made it!"

Two pairs of hands caught her by the arms, hauling her to her feet.

"First time and everything!" another voice said as she felt a rough brush dust down her clothing. Squinting between ash-crusted lashes, she saw a flash of red hair, but couldn't decide if it was hers, one of her siblings' or even one of her parents'.

She was dropped into a seat, still trying to get herself orientated. A wand tapped her firmly on the head and suddenly, she could open her eyes.

Fred and George were standing over her, both grinning broadly, and Ron plopped himself down in one of the spare chairs, blowing ash off the brush he had dusted her down with.

"All right, Will?" he inquired, tossing the brush over his head and punching the air triumphantly when it landed in a bucket beside the sink. "Thought you might be a bit squiffy after coming by floo..."

Swallowing down the nauseous feeling she had, Willow nodded, but didn't dare open her mouth unless she was sick.

"Just take a minute to get your breath back, Willow," her father said and smiled slightly as he disappeared through the door into the hall with her bags, her oldest brother aiding him.

Looking around, she found herself sitting at a fairly small table that could fit six people around it at most, in a small, cosy kitchen with wooden cupboards lining most of the wall space.

The most noticeable thing, though, was a large Grandfather clock standing in the corner of the room, with numerous gleaming gold hands and no numbers visible on the face whatsoever.

All of them - except one - was pointed at the word 'Home' on the face, but that single hand was moving rapidly to join the others. There was a loud ping from the clock and she turned to see her mother roll out of the hearth and land on her feet.

Pointing her wand at herself, the dust exploded off Molly's clothing in a puff of green and grey and she sighed. "That's better." She gave Willow a smile. "I see you arrived safe and well."

"She hasn't spoken yet, mum. I think she's in shock."

"Do you blame me?" Willow looked up with a mischievous look in her eyes. "I mean, your faces are the first things I saw when I opened my eyes. That's enough to shock anyone!"

"Yeah!" Fred preened. "What with our stunning good looks and all."

"I'm thinking more of terror," Willow pulled a face. "Not even vampires could make me stop speaking with shock...although there was this one time when a great big one tried... er...never mind..." She looked up at Molly. "Can you show me around, mom?"

"Why don't we do that?" George offered with a smirk.

"Yeah," Fred added. "We could introduce her to the ghoul in the attic. They'd get on very well."

Ron chuckled at the nervous expression on Willow's face. "Don't worry about those two," he said, giving his elder twins a warning look. "They know that if they annoy you, I'll annoy them."

Fred and George both shut up very quickly, scowling mutinously at their younger brother, who merely grinned at them as he got to his feet, towering over both of them and his younger sister.

"How about I show Willow around, mum? You can have a cup of tea and take the weight off your feet, eh?"

Molly raised a brow slowly. "What are you up to, Ronald?"

"Me, mum?" He gave her a completely innocent grin, which did nothing to calm her suspicions. "Absolutely nothing." He looked to his brothers. "Am I?" They muttered something unintelligible, which was probably just as well. "C'mon, Will. I'll show you the room Bill and Percy added for you."

Willow gave him a suspicious look. "Added...?"

"Well, here's the thing," Looping an arm through hers, Ron led her towards the door of the kitchen, leaving Molly squirting soap from her wand into her elder sons' mouths for swearing. "We had five bedrooms, but since you've come to visit, all of the unhitched family members want to hang around and see what you're like."

"Uh...huh..."

"So, since that means there would be all of us, except Ginny and Bill, it would be a bit of a squash, with there being eight of us..." He gave her a grin. "So, we stuck another bedroom on the side of the house, especially for you...and Ginny, if you don't mind sharing when she drops in. She's never had a sister before and she kinda wants to see what you're like."

"When you say stuck on..."

"Oh, we used spellotape and some kind of glue." His teeth flashed. "Don't worry. It's very sticky. I don't think it'll fall off any time soon...George bet it would last a week. I give it two."

The youngest Weasley blanched. "S-spellotape and glue?" Ron glanced down at her, then laughed.

"I'm joking, Will."

"Oh...right..." She squeaked in surprise when her year older brother grabbed her in a hug that lifted her a foot off the floor. "Ron!"

He grinned again. "Don't take things so seriously, Will," he cautioned her as he deposited her back on the floor, looking flushed and like she needed to fall over. "It won't do much good, especially around Fred and George."

"Okay already!" She stepped back quickly, when he feinted to lunge in to pick her up in another hug. "See! Smiling!" She pointed at the grin that she hadn't been able to keep from her face. "Terrified of you, but smiling!"

Ron nodded approvingly. "That's better," They were halfway down the hall when they heard a noise from the living room. "Oi! Ginny! Get your tongue out your husband's mouth and help me show your sister around."

A loud protest came from Harry a moment before Ginny exited the living room, her hair mussed and clothes rumpled, but with a broad smile on her rosy face. "Hiya, Willow," she said.

"We didn't interrupt anything, did we?"

Ginny's grin got a little wider and she licked her lips. "Not exactly something we haven't done before," she replied naughtily, smoothing down her shirt which had risen up her ribs. "Just never in the living room..."

"Oh!" Willow went pink.

"Ginny! Stop embarrassing the girl! She hasn't been raised with six brothers!" Ron tutted down at his sister. "She has to learn to cope with being around us before we start chucking filthy meanings into everything."

"What better way to introduce her to our way of thinking, Ron?"

Ron shook his head. "You are such a filthy little perv, Gin," he said with a mournful sigh. "Why can't you be more like Willow?"

"Um...well, I do have a wolfy boyfriend..."

"You ever make him...howl?"

"RON!" Ginny slapped Ron's arm and hard.

The red-haired man laughed, his eyes dancing. "Well, I did try and behave," he said, an apologetic grin on his face.

Willow made a squeaking sound, her face scarlet.

"I think we embarrassed her," Ginny said.

"Naaaaaaaw," their brother laughed, slinging his arm around Willow's shoulders and hugging her against his side. "Come on. Let's show her up to her room, so she knows where she can hide from us if it gets too much for her innocent head to deal with..."

Ron grabbed both of the twins by the arms, steering them quickly up the staircase that seemed to go both up and down at the same time, which disorientated the youngest of the Weasleys.

By the time they reached the top of the stairs, they were walking at right-angles to the floor on the lower levels of The Burrow.

They had to crawl along the walls, using the banister as a climbing rail, to regain their footing at the top of the newest staircase, where Arthur was waiting for them, smiling broadly.

"I hope you like it, Willow," he said, drawing back as they literally fell through the door and landed in a heap on the floor. "Bill and Percy wanted to make it rather special... we thought it safer to let Bill do the decorating though."

Unsteadily getting to her feet, Willow gasped, looking around.

The room was her ideal room, similar to her room back in Sunnydale, but with wide windows looking out on the garden, a double bed beneath the windows and a beautiful desk made of what seemed to be willow wood.

The curtains and the covers on the bed were all a deep shade of magenta and a bright green beanie dragon had been placed on the pillows. Crossing the floor, Willow picked it up with a smile. "From Charlie?"

"Since he couldn't be here," Bill nodded, smiling.

"You guys did all this for me?" Hugging the beanie, the young witch rose on her toes and peered out of the windows at the steep drop into the garden. She could see tiny figures running around in the long grass, but couldn't make out what they were.

Bill shrugged modestly, relieved Percy wasn't there to boast about the design he had added. "Well, it was a choice of doing some D.I.Y. to build this or giving you a nice tent in the back garden."

"Couldn't we put Percy in a tent in the garden anyway?" Ron asked hopefully. "And seal it and leave him there?"

"Ron!" His father tried to sound very annoyed, but only succeeded in sounding amused. "I hope you're joking."

"Of course dad," Ron gave him an innocent look. "But could you tell me where we put that old muggle tent and what the sealer spell was anyway?" He winked at Willow, his eyes dancing. "Just in case of emergencies, of course."

"Well, if its just in case of emergencies..." Arthur sighed heavily.

***

"And when you hit one just right..." Willow made a forward jabbing motion with her fork. "Poof! The explode into dust! It makes this weird kinda rushing noise and then, poof, they're gone!"

The Weasleys were in the living room for dinner, for a change, the only room that had enough space for all of them to sit together.

Willow and Ginny were sitting on the floor near the fireplace, their plates on trays in their laps, although Ginny had taken Willow's glass and put it out of the way, while her twin performed re-enactments of vampire Slaying.

"When you say...poof?" Charlie was the one who asked.

"Poof, like a puff of smoke."

Bill was snickering. "She doesn't know..."

"Don't know...what?"

"Poof..."

Willow's face was an image of confused worry. "I-I know it means something in British, but I don't know what cos I didn't wanna ask Spike why he called Angel a magnificent poof..."

"Angel and Spike being...?"

"Vampires. Angel is the big broody one that Buffy dated and Spike is the skinny blond one who says Angel made him."

"And this...Spike calls the big one a poof?" Willow nodded, trying to lift some peas on her fork, but they rolled off before the fork came anywhere close to her open mouth. "In that case, poof means..."

"Fred, don't you dare..."

"Mum, if she goes to Hogwarts using the word 'poof' in the wrong context..."

Molly sighed. "All right, Fred, but just this once."

"Willow," Sitting on the floor on the opposite side of the living room with his twin, Fred placed his tray on the floor and gave his youngest sister a serious look. "We have to discuss your use of the word for froofy little gay boys..."

"WHAT!?!"

George snickered. "Poof, poofter...either way they both mean the same thing..."

"Spike was calling Angel that...?" Willow started to giggle, covering her mouth with a hand. "Omigod! Spike...he was calling Angel a...no wonder Angel tried to beat him up so often..."

"I can't believe you didn't know that," Ginny remarked, chuckling.

"Personally, I can't believe you know two vampires..." Harry said. He was sitting beside his wife, watching the animated discussion flying between the family. He liked Willow a lot. She was so very like Ginny in so many ways.

"How did you meet them?" Percy asked. He, Bill, Charlie and their parents had the seats and couches. While he still seemed a little more stuffy than the other Weasleys, he did look genuinely interested.

"Angel was kinda good-guy stalking Buffy," Willow explained around a mouthful of steak pie. "He started helping us, then there was this whole thing where he went evil, but that's all over now."

"He's the one with the soul?"

"Mmm-hmm," Willow nodded. "Spike showed up a year after Buffy arrived in Sunnydale and he was..." She visibly shuddered. "He was scary. I mean really, really scary. On a wiggens scale of one to ten, he was way up in the tens. First time we saw him, he told Buffy he was gonna kill her."

"He didn't just try to do it?"

"Nope," Willow answered. "He crashed parent-teacher night at the school and Buffy had to save us. He tried to kill her a few times, then tried to kill Angel as well, but he got his ass kicked...then Angel went evil and Spike..." She frowned. "I don't if I believe this, but he made a deal with Buffy to save his vampire girlfriend. He helped her to beat Angel. He left after that."

"Blimey...I'm guessing there aren't many like that...I mean, vampires that'll fight with the Slayer," Charlie muttered.

"It doesn't make him a good guy," Willow said emphatically. "Big no on the good guy stakes. He came back the next year and kidnapped me and Xander to make me do a love-spell for him to get his girlfriend back."

"Oh!" Molly gasped. "Did he hurt you?"

Willow shook her head. "He was...kinda drunk. He hit Xander, knocked him out...he kept me conscious..." A strange grin crossed the youngest Weasley's face. "He had a nervous breakdown on me..."

"You what?" Fred asked.

"He started crying on my shoulder and telling me about what had happened to him and his girlfriend...okay, yeah, he was gonna bite me then, but I-I-I said I wouldn't do the spell for him if he bit me..."

Molly had gone white. "Oh my..."

"He went to get supplies...I don't what happened...Buffy ended up catching up with him and he left...then Oz and Cordelia found us...and then more badness..." She shuddered again. "But he was gone...and then he came back this year..."

"He better not have tried anything..."

Willow looked down at her plate. Her cheeks had gone scarlet. "Um..."

"Will?" Ron asked.

"Well, I was kinda down cos Oz and I...we were having a kinda trial separation thing... there was a whole mess with a female werewolf and I was all mopey and Spike showed up at the dorm..."

"If you say you shagged him, I'm going to be sick," Bill stated.

"N-n-no. Not exactly."

"Oh?"

"He...he tried to bite me, I mean properly bite me..." One hand came up and touched the side of her neck. "I don't think I've ever been so scared...but it was kinda..." She was blushing furiously. "It was kinda...kinky...when he didn't manage, he...I thought there was something wrong with me...he said...he said he would have turned me in a second...he even remembered what I was wearing the year before...I mean, he noticed me and not many people had done that..."

"He would have...turned you? Turned you where?" Percy inquired carefully.

"Turned me into a vampire, doofus," Willow said.

"Eep!"

"You...a vampire?" Ron threw back his head and started laughing. "You'd be too shy and blushy for a vampire!"

Willow's face went beet-red. "Actually," she mumbled. "I wouldn't."

"Pardon?"

"Um...seen a vampire me..."

Arthur was smiling slightly. "Ah, yes, I think Rupert told me a bit about this..."

Willow's face was redder than her hair. "It was an accident."

"How...?"

The youngest Weasley avoided looking at Percy. "Anya was trying to get something from an alternate dimension...the spell went wrong and vamp-me decided to pop out instead and went on a wander around Sunnydale. Buffy and Xander saw her and were totally wigged out..."

"What was she like?" Ginny asked, fascinated.

Willow pulled a face. "I don't think crazy is nearly emphatic enough a word to describe her," she said. "She...she was evil...skanky...a little bit gay...she wore solid black leather and I had to use her clothes as a disguise...definitely an experience that wasn't of the good..."

"Hold on a second..." Harry said. "Did you say she was...a little bit gay?"

"Um...yeah..." Willow's face went beetroot again. She was pushing a pea around her plate, staring at it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. "She...found me in the library and started licking my neck and asked if I...uh...wanted to...um...play..."

"Oh...my...gawd..." Ron gaped.

"Did you say no?"

"FRED! Of course I said no!"

"Well, it would only be like you doing yourself..."

"FREDERICK WEASLEY!"

Fred had the decency to look apologetic, for Willow's benefit. "Um...sorry, Will, I didn't mean that..." he waited until his mother lowered her wand. "But you were tempted, weren't ya?"

"FRED!"

"Fred, I know you're my brother and I'm starting to see you're a pervert, I'm really not into the whole necrophilia thing, as much as you seem to like it..." Fred's jaw dropped at the innocent tone in Willow's voice. She smirked at him.

"Hey! I don't like that kind of stuff!"

Willow gave him an innocent look that the family had only seen on Ginny, when she had wandered out of her husband's bed, first thing in the morning. "And if you keep saying that, you'll believe it one day..."

"Willow..."

"Don't 'Willow' me, mister. I know Xander and I knew Jesse. You're gonna have to work a lot harder to really embarrass me."

Fred raised a brow. "Is that a challenge?"

"You bet it is, Mister!" Fred turned to his twin, who smirked. "And that goes for you, too George."

"Give us time, Will..."

Willow, in a gesture of maturity, stuck her tongue out.

"Love you too, Will..."

Unseen by their children, Molly and Arthur exchanged smiles as the bantering continued. Their last and final child had come home and she was already fitting in better than they had ever imagined.