Made with Love

Christmas dinner had, to put it mildly, ended on a sour note.

The next day, the Weasley children banded together and reassured a still-touchy Molly that they would take care of the various chores and meals, not to worry, Mum, it's fine, we're big now and we appreciate your efforts and thank you for everything...

Molly's lower lip trembled, and she burst into tears once more, sobbing that her babies were all grown up into such fine people, bless them...

"Save for Percy, who's a great prat," Fred muttered, only to make a hasty exit after his mum wailed loudly, at the same moment as Bill stepped firmly on his toes.

Fleur and Harry joined the Weasley children in the kitchen, peering into the pantry and icebox, attempting to make a meal that would, in turn, make Molly proud.

"We still have turkey, right?" Bill called, shifting various bowls of leftover vegetables and tins of half-eaten pie.

Fleur pinched her fiance's bum as she leaned over his shoulder. "Check in ze back, behind ze turnips."

"So," Harry called from the table, where he was coring and peeling apples, "who did chuck the turnips at Percy, anyway?"

"I did!" Fred, George, and Ginny said in unison.

Harry blushed bright red as he shot Ginny a wide grin. "Good shot."

"Hey!" Fred protested.

"I said I did it!" George cut in over his twin, shouldering him out of the way to glare at Harry.

Bill nudged the icebox door closed with his foot, his arms full of a large platter of turkey, and shot a pointed glare at his younger brothers. "Never mind that now. You don't want Mum to hear, do you? Now, go make yourselves useful and...erm...Well. Harry and Ron already have charge of a pie, but why don't you make another dessert?"

Fred and George exchanged a glance. "Fabulous," George grinned.

"We'll take care of the...Hmm. Something chocolate, that sounds good," Fred chimed in, dragging his brother into the pantry.

Ron was sitting next to Harry at the table, taking the apples as Harry finished preparing them and chopping them into uneven slices. "Bloody git, Percy is," Ron muttered, his ears flushing pink as he hacked at the fruit. "Upsetting Mum two Christmases in a row, he's rotten, he is..."

"Ron," Ginny scolded, carrying a tray laden with leftover sprouts, "Pay attention. You're slicing the apples all wonky."

"Yeah, Ron," Harry absently echoed, "Watch the apples."

Harry abruptly swore and dropped the knife to put his freshly-cut thumb into his mouth, though he still kept his eyes trained on Ginny's retreating backside as she passed.

"You watch the apples," Ron hissed.

Jumping, Harry finally turned his attention back to the fruit, rubbing at his chest, as though trying to soothe some odd beast that had taken up residence there.

Several minutes passed, in which the twins emerged from the pantry carrying cocoa, flour, oil, eggs, and, oddly, what appeared to be a large Muggle baggie full of...oregano?, and Fleur and Bill commenced their snogging over their joint assembly of turkey sandwiches.

Out of nowhere, Ron sighed.

"Hermione likes apple pie," he ventured, apropos of nothing Harry could see.

"Ron." Ron glanced up, blinking rapidly as though coming out of a trance, and Harry smirked. "Watch the apples, would you?"

"Shut up, Harry," Ron growled, hacking at the fruit with abandon.

Before long, the young adults had created a veritable banquet of messy pies, partially-completed sandwiches (Fleur and Bill had excused themselves for the second half of sandwich-making and disappeared upstairs for a while, leaving mustard and mayonnaise on the table, with Bill threatening to use a number of obscure, grotesque Egyptian hexes anyone who made any smart comments), a casserole of leftover vegetables, and a large tray of what appeared to be a gooey, flat chocolate cake. Molly entered the kitchen and her eyes filled with tears once more.

"Oh, children, this is wonderful...thank you..."

"Mum, don't cry," Ron pleaded.

"We have to eat, you know..."

"...and we figured we'd feed you, too, for once." George completed his twin's sentence.

Wiping her eyes on the corner of her sleeve, Molly settled herself at her place and passed round the nearest tin. "Harry, would you like some pumpkin pie?"

Harry shook his head, obviously holding his breath as he handed the pie to Ron.

"Harry thinks pumpkin pie tastes like vomit," Ginny said, smiling sweetly as she set the casserole dish down, hard, onto Fleur's plate. Fleur broke away from rubbing noses with Bill, looking affronted at the noisy interruption.

"Hermione doesn't like pumpkin pie, either," Ron said softly, setting the pie tin down in the middle of the table and separating his turkey sandwich into its components, picking at his food.

Molly, meanwhile, was examining the dish Fred and George had made. "Why, boys, this looks lovely!"

"It's a recipe from Verity - they're called brownies, I guess. She picked it up when she went to university in America for a while." George shot his twin a frantic look, and they both reached for the baking tin, though not before Molly had served herself a large square.

"Erm...Mum...They're kind of...sweet...Rot your teeth teeth and all, they will...I made 'em for us kids..."

Molly gave a watery smile, waved off the frantic protest. "Nonsense, Fred! I'm certain you made these with the most special ingredient of all."

George sprayed butterbeer through his nostrils. "What?" he sputtered.

"Love!" Molly said, smiling broadly at her boys.

Fred choked on his own drink. "Yup, there's a whole big bag of love in those brownies," he gasped, turning bright red as he struggled to contain his laughter.

Bill's eyes widened, and with a stricken look of recognition at his younger brothers, he reached for his mother's plate. "Mum, really, what if there are...erm...Wizarding Wheezes in there? Remember, ah, it's never safe to trust any food from Fred and George..."

"Nonsense, Bill," Molly said, waving a dismissive hand. "They'd never play a trick on me. It's Christmas."

"Christmas was yesterday..." Ron interjected, noting the desperate look on Bill's face. "Time's up on the break from their pranks, Mum."

"They look delicious. And, Ron, did you make the apple pie?" Molly firmly turned the conversation away from the twins' dessert, obviously still convinced that they wouldn't deign to put anything untoward in the food, after the excitement of the day before.

"Harry helped," Ron said feebly, shrugging at Bill, as though to say, I tried.

"Oh, Harry. Such a good boy, you are." Molly sniffled, then reigned herself in with effort.

Ginny cut in: "I made the casserole. Try some, Mum. It's kind of like the one you made last year."

Harry hastened to place another spoonful of vegetables on his plate before passing them on to the Weasley matriarch. "It's very good," he said thickly through a mouth full of sprouts and turnips, a stupid grin on his face.

"You hate sprouts!" said Ron indignantly, spraying bits of turkey across the table.

Harry swallowed. "Ginny made them taste good," he replied, shoveling yet another spoonful into his mouth, all the while trying not to gag.

The younger people kept firm watch on Molly as she picked her way through half a sandwich, a forkful of vegetables, a sliver of pie, and then three large helpings of brownie.

Fred and George also helped themselves to their creation, as did Fleur, shooting Bill a withering glance when he tried to dissuade her, along with muttering something under her breath in French that, apparently, no one at the table understood.

"Bet you wish Hermione was here to translate, huh, Ron?" Harry muttered.

"Yeah." Ron poked at his vegetables, then shot Harry a fierce glare. "To translate."

"And have pie," Harry added, raising an eyebrow.

"Shut up and have some brownies." Fred and George slid the tray to the younger boys, though Ginny reached for it first, but all three of them were denied access to the chocolate by Bill, who snatched the chocolate creation back across the table with a forbidding look on his face.

"I think the rest should go to Charlie," Bill said firmly, standing up and wrapping the remaining brownies with tinfoil and an Imperturbable charm.

"You're so thoughtful," Molly murmured, settling back in her chair with a contented grin spreading across her face.

The children exchanged startled looks as Molly's wide smile persisted.

Their eyes widened further when the oft-irascible, and as of late, frequently weepy woman actually giggled.

"Oi, I think we should go listen to the wireless...They're doing an encore presentation of Celestina Warbeck's Christmas concert." Bill had sent the package off with Errol, leaving a note for Auror Tonks, who was on mail duty ("Help yourself, then send it on; there's plenty to go 'round"), and he chivvied his mother, fiancee, and younger siblings into the parlour.

Fleur wrinkled her nose. "I am going to bed, thank you vairy much."

Bill leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Give me a minute...Mum'll never notice I'm gone."

Fleur shrugged and headed upstairs as the rest settled in by the fireside. Ron challenged Ginny to a game of chess; Harry watched the proceedings (read: Ginny) carefully, and the twins sprawled out on the hearthrug with a Self-Updating Ledger and a spare roll of parchment.

Molly was splayed across a sofa, still giggling at random moments, when Arthur Weasley Flooed home.

"In here," Ron called. "Dinner's in the icebox."

Arthur came in, bearing a tray laden with messily-created food and a puzzled expression. His eyes scanned the room, and he settled in a chair, staring at his wife.

"What's wrong with Molly?"

Ron and Ginny both jerked their heads in the twins' direction; Fred and George were wearing expressions of complete innocence, the likes of which hadn't been seen on their faces since before they'd started crawling.

"Out with it, boys," Arthur snapped.

Fred and George shrugged.

Molly snorted with laughter; all eyes turned to her.

"Arthur," she giggled. "You're going bald."

Arthur's lip curled. "Why, thank you, Molly, I hadn't noticed."

The youngest Weasley children and Harry were stifling their laughter into the sleeves of their jumpers, and Arthur glanced round the room. "Not that I don't appreciate any efforts to brighten your mother's mood, but sweet Merlin, what did you do to her?"

"Cheering charm," Fred hastened to say, and George nodded in agreement.

Arthur sighed and closed his eyes. "Right." He polished off his dinner, and after Banishing his tray to the kitchen sink, he offered Molly an arm.

At the doorway, he paused. Molly kept walking and thudded into the wall opposite, but he barely registered the sound.

"Boys..." he began, raising an eyebrow at the twins.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny exchanged a glance, and quickly turned their attention to the chessboard; Fred and George cringed, wondering what they were in for, this time.

"I take it you used the 'oregano' from the pantry?"

Eyes widening, Fred nodded; George elbowed him, and both rapidly shook their heads.

Arthur rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. "Well, I suppose that's not quite as disastrous as what would've happened if I hadn't caught your mum starting to make the stuffing yesterday with that container of 'wild mushrooms'."

Chuckling himself, Arthur went to fetch Molly, leaving the twins rolling on the floor, Ron and Ginny staring at them, and Harry surreptitiously sniffing at Ginny's hair.

THE END.