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Harry had thought that him and Ginny both realizing they were gay would make the dissolution of the engagement easier—there was no hostility, after all, and they'd both vowed to stay friends—but it turned out he had severely underestimated Molly's commitment to having Harry become her son-in-law.
"So," Harry said, twirling the stir stick in his drink as he avoided looking at Charlie across the table. "How've you been?"
"Great," Charlie said, his voice strained, until he couldn't hold it back anymore and he drew the attention of everybody in the restaurant with his huge, cackling laugh.
"I'm so sorry," Harry whispered into his coffee, and then Charlie's heavy, scarred hand patted him firmly on the shoulder a couple of times.
"Look, Harry, I go on the dates she sets up to get her off my back for a few more months. She refuses to believe that I'm not interested in pairing off. It's nice to not have to let someone down at the end of it, for once."
"I told her not to do this," Harry said, risking a look at Charlie, who was red with mirth and shaking his head.
"Kid, brace yourself. Mum's not going to stop until you're a Weasley."
"Oh, God," Harry groaned, dropping his face into his arms on the table. He heard Charlie ordering something for both of them, and his face heated.
"You know I don't want to date you, right?"
"Of course. And I don't want to date you. But I don't mind catching up with the kid who hooked me up with a female Norwegian Ridgeback." Harry looked up, and caught Charlie gazing at the ceiling, his eyes glistening. "She's so beautiful, Harry. And she's such a good mum. She gave me this when I tried to measure her eggs." He pulled his collar down, revealing a thick, knotted scar. "I'm so proud of her."
Harry summoned every ounce of patience he'd ever possessed, and settled down to hear about dragons for a good couple of hours. He liked Charlie, but Charlie had one setting, and that setting was dragons.
He'd have a chat with Molly about this afterwards.
The chat was not effective.
Percy stood stiffly beside him, looking up at the arch of the amusement park, two tickets in his tight fist.
"I have a girlfriend," he said, primly, his knuckles white. "I really do. I just haven't brought her home yet, because of..." He gestured widely at the gate. "...things like this."
"It is a bit much, isn't it?"
"A bit." He took a deep breath, and his hand loosened around the tickets. He offered them to Harry. "You want these? I don't even like amusement parks. I don't know why she's always trying to get me to do all these things I don't even like to do. You know you're not the first guy she's tried to set me up with? Not being single aside, she's convinced I’m gay and I'm not."
"I don't think it matters," Harry said mournfully. "She's just setting me up with all of you."
Percy snorted. "Good luck. I'm going home. See you Sunday."
Harry nodded, took the tickets, and pulled out his mobile to see if Ron was free to go with him. Platonically.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Bill groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, shoving the bottle of wine he was carrying in his other hand at Harry. "She told me it was a party. Nobody else is here, are they?"
"Nope," Harry said grimly, taking the bottle and stepping aside to let Bill in. "She's getting trickier. She didn't tell me a thing." Harry closed the door and reset the wards. "You're married."
"She still doesn't like Fleur," Bill said, spelling his muddy shoes clean and then taking off his cloak. "Charlie warned me this might happen. Look, it was a long apparition, can I stay here until I recharge?"
"If you promise to tell your mum off. Apparently she's not listening to me."
"She doesn't listen to anybody. Is that Puddlemere versus Holyhead?"
A huge cheer came faintly into the hall from the wireless in the kitchen.
"Yeah. Come on, I don't want to miss any more. Ginny's going to end up on the field if it goes on longer."
"Nice." Bill followed Harry to the kitchen, and Harry went ahead and opened up the wine he'd brought, pouring it into mugs. He couldn't be arsed to get down the wine glasses just for Bill.
Next time he saw Molly, he realized with a feeling of dread, he'd have to have a little more than a chat with her.
Harry spent three Sunday dinners with his heart in his throat, conversation looming, before he finally resolved to actually say something. It took some time after they'd settled in the living room before he could get Molly alone—she seemed to have rapidly gotten over her dislike of Fleur since her pregnancy was announced two weeks ago, and was now extremely difficult to tear away from her daughter-in-law—but he'd managed, and now he had to talk.
He swallowed heavily.
"Harry, dear, what is it?" Molly said, more sympathetically than he thought she would be if she knew what it was about.
He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Everything he'd been planning to say was gone. He just had to jump in.
"Molly," he started, dropping his hands and turning to look at her with an expression Hermione might have described as "plaintive". "Please stop setting me up with your sons. If I wanted to date them, I already would be."
Molly wasn't upset like Harry'd thought she might be. She just smiled sympathetically at him and put her arm around his shoulder.
"Oh, Harry," she said, squeezing in a gentle side-hug, and Harry felt a little better despite himself. "Percy and Charlie and Bill told me what happened. Are you sure you don’t just need to give it a chance?"
"I don't need to give it a chance, I've known them all since I was eleven. If I wanted to date any of them, I would have asked them out myself. Honestly, it's embarrassing for all of us."
"I just think you'd be happier in the family, dear," Molly said firmly, pulling Harry in close and planting a kiss on his temple. "Think about it, okay?"
"If I ever want to date any Weasleys I promise I'll ask them out myself, okay?" Harry said, a whine making its way into his voice. He didn't feel like Molly was listening. The fact that she just nodded absently and then got up to deal with some desert-related issue did not help.
Ron came over and sat down.
"It went just like I said it would, didn't it?" he asked, passing Harry a mallowbeer.
"I don't know, I think she might have heard me," Harry said, accepting it. "I did promise I'd date one of you if I ever wanted to, so she doesn't have to set us up anymore."
Ron snorted. "You'd better take me somewhere posh when she gets round to me."
"Tell her that," Harry said, lifting his beer to clunk it against Ron's. Still, he was hopeful that Bill was going to have been the last one.
"I am going to kill my mother."
"Yeah, me too," Harry said tiredly, dropping the portkey to the ground. The dimly-lit cave around them had a sign hammered into the wall reading Dragomir's Inescapable Labyrinth! Test your strengths and reveal your weaknesses in this twisting, winding, chock-filled-with-traps maze of DOOM!
"If I knew she knew about escape rooms, I never would have accepted the portkey," Harry added.
"She told me I was going with her. I was actually looking forward to it. I thought she was interested in something I liked, for once." George crossed his arms tightly, looking genuinely furious. "I guess all she cares about is getting back up to that nice round number of sons." His wand, gripped in the hand tucked under his elbow, started sparking red directly at Harry's knees.
Harry stepped gingerly away from George. "I'm sure she's not trying to replace-"
"I know. She just wants you to be her son more than she wants to spend any time with her remaining actual for-real lived-in-her-body-like-she-likes-to-constantly-remind-us sons." George, mouth set in a straight line that rivaled McGonagall's, pointed his wand at the air and sent the sparks to the ceiling. The sign changed to Are you SURE you want to give up?, and he turned up the power, raining a fountain of sparks around both of them.
Apparition wards are down, the sign read. No refunds.
"See you Sunday...?" Harry said, hesitantly, and George's eyes narrowed, and sparkled wetly, which made Harry feel extremely unsettled.
"Yeah, not this week, mate," George said, and disappeared with a pop.
Harry stood in the empty cave. He felt guilty, and he wasn't sure about what, exactly, given that he hadn't done anything wrong, but it was there nonetheless. He'd been embarrassed every time she'd done this, but he'd never actually felt bad, the other times.
He rolled his wand between his fingers. This was starting to not be funny anymore.
Ron came swanning into the French resort lobby like he, unlike the others, had been expecting this.
"Cheers, mate! My turn, I guess? Wow, she really went all out on this one. Guess she's worried she's running out of chances, huh? Maybe the romantic atmosphere will make it work this time." Ron said with a laugh, throwing his arm around Harry's shoulder and steering him to the front desk. "Weasley, checking in," he said brightly. "If my mum sent over any drinks, go ahead and toss 'em, I'm not risking a love potion."
Harry's face was burning as Ron took the sheet of paper with their room password on it. "You don't have to stay-"
"You think I'm turning down a weekend in France? Not on your life, and Hermione's coming as soon as she's off work. We threw your name around to get us a room, hope you don't mind. Plus used the rest of my Christmas bonus. Hermione promises to pay me back when she's a high-powered lawyer." Ron's eyes went a little misty. He steered Harry onto the elevator.
"Under the circumstances? It's fine." Harry smiled, but he didn't feel any better. A deep tension had settled into his shoulders the second he landed in a French resort after picking up the Muggle newspaper on his stoop that he didn't remember ordering, and he was feeling wired and uptight, like he'd drunk sixteen cups of coffee in an hour. An unshakeable sense of doom had come over him when he felt the hook behind his navel yanking him away from home, and it hadn't left.
Ron pulled him into a tight side-hug that very closely resembled Molly's as they walked down the second-floor corridor.
"What's wrong, mate? I figured we could have some fun, but you don't seem into it." He said the password as they got to their—just Harry's, now, thank goodness—room, and the door swung gently open, revealing a lovely room with two armchairs, a beautiful picture window, and one double bed covered in orange rose petals.
"Guess she thought pink was too girly," Ron said, wrinkling his nose. "I hope nobody paid for any of this. I expect she threw your name about, too. Sorry, mate."
"It's fine." Harry didn't feel much of anything about the whole setup, aside from tired. He went inside, and dragged one of the armchairs so that its back was to a solid wall and he could see both the door and the picture window, and flopped onto it, his head lolling back. "It's just... I got surprise portkey'd to France. It's jet lag or something."
Ron was silent for a long moment, then shut the door with a firm snick. "She did what?" he snapped, and Harry looked up, surprised by the force of the anger in Ron's voice. "After what happened at the Triwizard Tournament, she fucking surprise portkey'd you? Merlin's tatty pants, mum," he spat, then walked over to the menu that was perched on the side table. "I'm getting you a fucking drink, and then I'm giving you a hug, and then when Hermione gets here, we're going to have a good time, alright? Fucking surprise portkey. Merlin and Arthur both."
"It's not that big of a deal, it's just jet lag." Harry felt awful, vulnerable and exposed and out of place, and he watched Ron shake his head and tap his wand against the room service menu with a growing sense of unexplainable guilt.
"It's not jet lag, Harry, it's shell shock." Ron dropped the menu and tucked his wand into his back pocket, crossing the room to make good on the other half of his promise. Ron gave very good hugs, generally, but right now, Harry just felt trapped. He pushed Ron away and was relieved when Ron didn't fight him. He just let go, and sank into the other armchair with a heavy sigh.
"George isn't coming to Sunday dinner," Harry said, which had nothing to do with anything, but he didn't like the way Ron was making him feel and he needed a change of subject and in the grip of this horrible, pointless, nonsensical guilt it was the only thing he could think of. "He thinks Molly's trying to replace Fred."
"Fuck."
The drinks—some kind of deep auburn cocktail with a sprig of perfectly ordinary Muggle lavender in it—appeared on the table between the chairs. Ron picked them up and handed one to Harry, taking a deep swallow of his.
Harry didn't want to touch it. He was deeply, irrationally afraid it would take him somewhere. It took him a second before he could bring himself to take it, and he brought it to his lips hoping Ron hadn't noticed.
"She's never going to do that again, Harry. Not after I'm through with her." Ron, always more tactile than either Harry or Hermione, reached across the gap between the chairs. When Harry didn't take his hand, he rested it so that it was close enough for Harry to change his mind, pressing his fingertips together in sequence. Harry knew he was distressed that he couldn't comfort him, but Harry was feeling too prickly right now. He took an even bigger swallow of the drink than Ron had. The ice clinked against his teeth. It wasn't as strong as he'd expected.
That was probably good. A strong drink might make him more morose.
"I don't know why she wants me to be with you so bad. It wouldn't change anything. Maybe George is right, maybe she is trying to replace Fred. Have a nice round number of sons." He laughed bitterly, and felt Ron tap the arm of his chair.
"She wants you to be a Weasley, Harry. She wants you to be her son. If it's got anything to do with Fred, it's that she's scared of losing you, too. She wants us all as close to her as she can get. She went ballistic when I told her me and Hermione were moving to Ireland for law school. It's not even that far, if you're a wizard, but she just lost it. And you've seen how she's been riding Charlie's arse about moving back to England."
"When did you get so insightful?" Harry said into his drink.
"Shut it, you, I've always been insightful." Ron tapped Harry's chair again, a long-suffering smile on his face. "But it's also the therapy. Which you and Hermione should also be getting, you stubborn mules."
"Not on your life," Harry said, a weak grin breaking through his mood, and Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head. He threw back the rest of his drink and clunked it onto the table.
"I love you, Harry. You don't have to marry one of us to be my brother."
Harry looked away and swallowed the sudden, painful lump in his throat. "Tell your mum that."
"I think you should."
Harry kept looking out the picture window for a few long seconds, seeing nothing, and then shook himself.
"Let's go do something stupid and dangerous before Hermione gets here to tell us to stop."
"Want to antagonize some mountain devils?" Ron said, and Harry grinned, getting out of the chair. The feeling of doom was still lingering, but it didn't stand a chance against a bit of adrenaline.
Harry wasn't eloquent. Especially when he was nervous. He had paced the library of Grimmauld Place, worrying his wand, for twenty solid minutes before getting up the guts to Apparate here, and now he was standing in the Burrow kitchen at three-thirty on a Monday afternoon, staring at Molly with his heart in his throat and feeling increasingly guilty as her delight rapidly transformed into worry.
"Harry, dear? What's wrong? Did things not go well with Ron...?"
He opened and closed his mouth, but nothing came out. He just wanted to tell her how he felt. It was so much harder now that she was standing in front of him.
"Oh, Harry, dear..." Molly said sympathetically, drying her hands and hurrying across the kitchen to pull him into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry."
"Do you want me to call you mum?" Harry asked, choking on the words, but managing to get them out anyway. Her arms stiffened around him.
"You knew my mum," he continued, and it was easier now that he'd gotten started, but it still came out haltingly, around the lump in his throat. "Do you think she'd mind?"
Her arms softened and tightened, her hands gripping his shirt as she did her best to squeeze the life out of him, shaking her head against his shoulder.
"I don't think she'd mind a bit. But you don't have to, dear."
"I think I'd like to," Harry said, and Molly's shoulders shook, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades rather painfully. She got herself under control, and let him go, dabbing her eyes with her kitchen towel.
"I think my children are all very mad at me," she said, with a choked laugh.
Harry held up his hands in a yes, obviously, including me gesture, nodding and hoping desperately that she'd finally gotten it.
"Would you just bloody listen to what we all want when we tell it to you? George misses you, and Charlie's happy the way he is, and Percy's straight and he has a girlfriend, and Ron would visit every Sunday even if he lived in America, and I guarantee that all this has made Ginny feel even more like you're disappointed in her for leaving me, and I guess you've gotten things figured out with Fleur and Bill already but as for me, when I bring a boyfriend home I want to know you'll be happy for me, not mad that he's not a Weasley."
Molly's eyes welled up, and she nodded fiercely, waving her wand. A chair whizzed out from the dining room and scooped Harry up, depositing him at the kitchen table in front of a pile of potatoes.
"Since you missed Sunday dinner, you have to stay for tonight. We're having cold hen over roast spuds," she said gruffly. "Peel those up while I firecall George."
"Yes, mum," Harry said, grinning at her, and he caught her dabbing her eyes again as she walked out the kitchen door.
On the mantel over the fireplace, unnoticed for the time being, a new hand appeared on the family clock, its scarred face settling on home.