Swear to Shake It Up

The first person to meet on the agenda was Fred, Percy’s younger brother, one of the two twins apparently. Percy didn’t really talk about his family much, but I remember hearing a little bit about the ‘troublesome twins’ from him, they were usually used as a benchmark for his own achievements.

“A part of me is proud of them,” He would sometimes say “they didn’t too brightly at school – or even finish. But here they both are, owners of a semi-successful joke shop. I still feel though it’s not sustainable for a career, though. The novelty will run off and what will they have to show for themselves? Nothing. They have no real career prospects. Unlike me, where I’ve spent the entirety of my life preparing myself for the future.”

It seemed pretty harsh of him to say, especially when I finally met half of the duo. Fred seemed nice enough, we only chatted for a few moments, but he seemed super nice. Besides, who could predict the future? His shop might take off. But maybe Percy was right, he knew his brothers best.

Just as Fred was being called away by someone, Percy ushered me into the lounge room. I nervously smiled, as I was unsure on what to expect. I had never really had much of a family – it was always just myself, my sister and my father. Nowadays it was just myself and my sister. Percy knew this, well, the basic gist of it. So I didn’t need to voice my discomfort – an intelligent guy like him could work it out instantly.

“Let me know if it gets a little overwhelming, okay?” Percy asked me, taking my hand in his and moving his thumb in my palm, giving me a kiss on the head also to calm me down.

“Yeah… Fred was alright though, that’s one down, right?” I asked, flashing a nervous smile, to which Percy returned.

“It may not comfort you, but I can assure you that everybody in my family, including their respective partners, are very lovely people who are all very interested in meeting you. The worst is definitely over, trust me.” Percy said to me, as he moved his hand to be intertwined with mine, and he led me into the kitchen.

I wasn’t entirely sure what factor he was referring to when he said ‘the worst is definitely over’ but I did not have time to find out, as I was now in the very ‘cosy’ kitchen, faced with a plump woman with flaming red hair, with a huge smile on her very kind looking face.

I was about to stutter out a greeting, but before I could, the woman (who I was guessing was Percy’s mother) had engulfed me into a tight hug, embracing me for a few short moments before letting me go.

She then put her hands on my shoulders as she took a good look at me.

“Carly, is it? My, our Percy is a lucky boy isn’t he. Just look at you.” She said to me, making me blush a little, as I wasn’t expecting a lovely compliment as a greeting. At least it was definitely confirmed this was Percy’s mother.

“Hi, yes it is,” I smiled, before deciding to return the compliment “I think I’m pretty lucky to have him too, you’ve raised a perfect gentleman.”

“Oh dear, you’re too kind.” Percy’s mum beamed brightly, and it was at that time a middle-aged man appeared in the kitchen, I was assuming this was Percy’s father.

“Arthur dear, this is Carly. She was just telling me about how well she believes we have raised Percy.”

Arthur ignored Percy’s mother as he quickly approached me and offered his hand.

“Hello Carly it’s very lovely to meet you. Percy has been telling us you were mostly raised in the muggle world, and still greatly influenced by it?” Arthur asked me, sounding enthusiastic as he shook my hand.

“Yes I am, I-“ I began, about to answer Arthur, but Percy’s mum (whose name I still had yet to find out) interrupted before either of us could continue our conversation.

“You can talk about odd little muggle things any old time, Percy, why don’t you take Carly outside and meet everybody? It’s such a beautiful day outside I thought we could sit outside and have lunch. Oh and could you send in either Ginny or Ron for some quick help?”

“Yes, mother.” Percy responded to his mum, before taking my hand and leading me away. I didn’t bother to say goodbye, I’d be seeing her soon enough anyway.

That was three down, and a lot more to go. But Percy was now right with what he said earlier, the worst was over. I had now awkwardly met his parents, hopefully the many siblings, siblings significant others and the one niece (I remembered!) would be okay.

Percy then led me outside, and we stood on the porch, looking onto his entire family.

I looked on, my cheeks turning rosy. I hadn’t met them yet, but millions of thoughts were swimming around in my head. So many that I wasn’t even sure which one was the one giving me this reaction, but Percy cocking up my chin and giving me a quick, tender kiss broke me out of it.

There were two groups of people sitting in the yard. A group of six sitting on the lush grass, the two females of the group sitting on some flat rocks in the circle. There was another group – a more grown up one – sitting at the table that had been set up for lunch. Percy led me over to the table, rather than the grass.

I was faced with three faces beaming up at me, well four, but the cute little toddler was changing between happy to see a new face and becoming irritable about well, one of the many things toddlers get irritable about.

“Carly, these are my older siblings, Charlie and William. This lovely lady is Fleur, my sister-in-law who is married to Bill, and their child, Victoire,” Percy introduced, and then turned to me to suggest something “I’m going to go gather some of the young ones to help mother. I won’t be too long”

I wanted to ask Percy to not leave me, but smiled outwardly as I smoothed down my skirt before taking a seat opposite the couple, and next to Charlie.

“Your daughter is absolutely stunning. She’s going to break a lot of hearts when she gets older.” I said to Fleur, the mother, to compliment her daughter.

“Yes, she is very good looking, isn’t she? Takes after her mother.” Fleur beamed brightly at my compliment.

I thought it was a little weird of her to say. To take a compliment for her daughter and twist it into something for herself. But I must admit, Fleur was very beautiful. No point in being jealous or beating around the bush, at least she was confident, and didn’t dig for compliments or anything like that.

***

I checked my phone, it had only been about ten minutes, but it felt like I had been talking with Bill and Fleur for two hours. They were lovely people – aside from Fleur’s high self-esteem which got old really quickly, but I feel I couldn’t connect with them too well.

Bill and Fleur spoke endlessly about their family, bragging about how smart they thought Victoire was, and how every time they took her out into public both muggle and wizarding model agencies approached them. They said some other stuff too but I tuned out after a while.

Charlie was nice too, but a little boring. Apparently he was never in the UK, he was usually in Romania studying dragons. You’d think that would make good conversation, but he spent the entire time talking about the career ladder, and how he was sure he was next in line for promotion over Sam, because now Peter had been promoted, it was all about team Charlie.

Usually I liked talking about ambitions, and goals, especially with such lovely and young motivated people. There was just something about the conversation I had, it just wasn’t flowing. It was an odd feeling, I liked them as people, but it wasn’t a conversation I enjoyed.

I excused myself to go find Percy, and made my way to the kitchen. A few seconds before I reached it however, I found two males in front of me.

“Come on, you don’t want to be in there right now” One of the twins said, linking arms with me on my left.

“Percy is in a foul mood. It might be because of us, but he’s in a foul mood nonetheless.” The second twin said (Who I had a sneaking suspicion was Fred, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure) linking arms with me on my right, and we made our way to the grassy area, towards to the group sitting on the ground.