Chapter Text
Harry had warned Jasper. It wasn’t his fault the revenant had assumed he was joking.
Jasper should know better. Harry never joked about Christmas.
Still, he grinned at the revenant, Jasper was taking the packed Christmas schedule in his stride. “It will be a little more flexible between Christmas and New Year but the next couple of days are going to be intense.”
Jasper just wrinkled his nose back and Harry laughed. “It’s only the Burrow for drinks tonight. Tomorrow is when we have to start making the rounds of home visits. And the Christmas Eve gathering always ends up at mine because I have the most space but Molly has taken over organising it as I’ve been away.”
Jasper sighed but he was smiling, “I suppose it’s nice to get a chance to meet everyone. I’ve heard so much about them.”
“You’ll be thoroughly sick of them by New Year,” Harry predicted. “But by then we’ll be back in Forks and can put off doing this again until next year.”
Jasper grinned brightly, the way he always did when Harry mentioned future plans. Honestly, if the revenant thought he was getting rid of Harry any time soon he was deluded. Harry grinned back and knew he probably looked just as dopey.
They were wrapped up against the cold, Harry had lent Jasper one of his roomier jumpers because, despite the revenant not feeling the cold, walking around in your shirt sleeves in December was going to draw eyes anywhere.
Particularly in the English countryside.
His jumper based generosity had nothing to do with liking Jasper with a giant H emblazoned across his chest.
He hadn’t charmed a jumper bigger.
Or hidden Jasper’s favourite sweatshirt.
No, that genius move had been all Crookshanks.
He had both their packed bags tucked in one pocket. The other pocket was filled with presents and even shrunken down he was bursting at the seams. Neville and Hannah had just had their first so there was going to be a baby for him to spoil over the holidays.
The DA reunion wasn't until the 23rd so Jasper didn't have to worry about running that particular gauntlet yet but the immortal teen was still looking nervous.
Not that either of them looked like teenagers at the moment. Harry had his usual combination of aging potions and glamours and Jasper was trying out a new wearable glamour Harry had been experimenting with.
"Harry," Jasper's voice was still nervous, and he shifted slightly to tug at the unfamiliar weight of the amulet tucked under his shirt collar. "Exactly how many people are going to be there tonight?"
He looked very distinguished, Harry thought, the hazel eyes Jasper had chosen looked very good in his slightly older face. He'd had a lot of fun working on the glamours with the Cullens. Using their vague memories of their human appearances as a guide and some predictive algorithm stuff that Alice had worked out, they'd come up with a couple of difference 'standard' glamours for each of the revenants.
The inbetweeny glamours for life in Forks that just dulled their eyes enough to look more human, introduced enough variety of skin tones in the family to make them slightly more believable if still strangely pale.
The older human glamour that Jasper was rocking right now, aged them up to their late twenties which matched Harry's age in the wizarding world, at least visually.
Harry almost missed the gold, but Jasper looked good with a bit of colour on his cheeks.
The final glamours were their more 'escape into a crowd' glamours that made them look like a random, average person. Because even in their new human glamours the Cullen family were unfairly pretty. Emmett and Rosalie looked way too good with tans.
"It's just the Weasleys," Harry finally answered, when Jasper cleared his throat. His distracted staring at his gorgeous, age-appropriate boyfriend hadn't gone unnoticed but at least Jasper was looking more exasperated than nervous now.
"Just the Weasleys," Jasper narrowed his eyes at him.
Harry grinned and grabbed his hand, "Yep. Just a family get-together, we'll stay at the Burrow for a couple of hours, get you introduced to everyone and then head back to Grimmauld. Hopefully, Kreacher will have hidden some of the more malevolent bits of furniture by then."
Jasper shivered. His relationship with Kreacher hadn't exactly gotten better, Kreacher still referred to Jasper as one of Harry's 'pet projects' whenever he thought Harry wasn't listening, but the elf had given up on physically ejecting the revenant. And Harry had explicitly banned physical harm.
If it got too traumatic they could always decamp to a different property, Sharptooth had sent over a couple of options and he'd just have to redo the wards. Grimmauld may be temperamental but the wards were secure without needing any experimental Harry-warding.
"And how many people is that?" Jasper asked, pulling Harry closer to him by his hand until Harry was completely tucked under his arm.
Harry hummed and Jasper raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well, Mrs Weasley, of course, and Bill and his wife Fleur will be there. Their daughter Victoire is the oldest of the Weasley cousins, she used to date Teddy way back but is now seeing a nice German boy from the sounds of it. They have Meeka and Louis too who are post-war babies."
"It will be nice to see him."
"And then there's Charlie who isn't with anyone but might have brought some hatchlings if his last letter is anything to go by, and Percy and his wife, Audrey, and their kids. Mini Molly is married now, some guy named Harry which is very awkward, and Lucy, their youngest, is bringing a girlfriend, I think." She was adorable according to Mrs Weasley, Parvati’s youngest, which meant Harry could probably get the real dirt from Padma. Best to keep track of what was happening with Lucy, that girl was a dark horse with a mean streak a mile wide. "Then there's George and Angelina, and they've got Fred and Roxy. The main thing to remember with them is to never accept any food off them. They're terrors and absolutely take after their father, Angelina's influence has only made them more wily."
Harry looked over seriously at Jasper, it would be cruel to leave him to the tender mercies of Fred and Roxy without some warning.
He waited until Jasper nodded his understanding before he moved on.
"Best not to accept food from anyone but Molly really, Mrs Weasley is safe, not mini Molly. Roxy is very good at recruiting her cousins for maximum chaos.”
“Noted,” Jasper answered, “I’ll treat anything I’m handed with the same level of suspicion as I would anything Jacob hands me.”
And really, Jasper had gotten quite good at avoiding most of the ‘New Marauder’ hijinks. Better than either of his brothers in any case. Without his gift to act as early warning, it turned out that Edward was terrible at reading body language which the wolves had been using to their full advantage.
“Anyone else I need to be warned about?”
“Teddy is the main one to watch and he can look like anyone so it’s generally best to assume everyone is suspicious,” Harry admitted, pride peeking through his warning. “You won’t have to worry about him tonight though. He couldn't make it, something to do with a business meeting that he wouldn't tell me anything about."
And no matter what Teddy said Harry wasn't pouting about it. And if Jasper ever mentioned anything about any pouting to anyone Harry would lace his blood pops with something weird.
Cornish Pixie blood maybe, they'd worked out that stuff acted like an expresso shot for revenants. And not in a cute kind of buzzed way, more in a manically doing laundry and ranting about the casting of Les Mis at 3 am kind of way. So maybe he'd wait to try that until after Christmas.
"Andromeda will probably be there too, and maybe some of the old order members. Luna said she might drop in with Rolf and the twins but something about moonfrogs might mean they need to be elsewhere."
Sometimes Harry really wished Luna would invite him along on more of her family outings because they sounded like a lot of fun but then he would remind himself of the Sunday dinner he went to in 2009 which ended up with him fleeing from an erumpent stampede whilst juggling two teething toddlers. He was 43 now, maybe he didn't need that kind of excitement in his life anymore.
Jasper sighed, "So just 25 or so people then?"
"Yeah, not even a full Weasley complement."
"I know I'm southern, but that's a big gathering even by my standards you know,” Jasper complained.
“It will be just like pack night, too many people to count, too much food and a lot of noise.” Harry thought back to the last pack night at his cabin and grinned, “Except no one here is predisposed to hate you and any pranks will be entirely for the thrill of it rather than as weird punishment for dating their cousin.”
“Joy.”
They were cresting over the hill now, the windows of the Burrow glittering with light on the outskirts of Ottery St Catchpole. Harry smiled at the sight and tugged Jasper forward when the revenant paused to gape. "Isn't it brilliant?"
"How is it still standing?" Jasper demanded, rolling his eyes when Harry only raised an eyebrow in response. "Right, magic. Are all wizarding buildings this physics-defying?"
"They tend to just add space where they need it rather than thinking too much about logistics, most wizarding buildings make a little bit more sense on the outside but Arthur always had a weird sense of style," Harry smiled at the memory of the late Weasley patriarch. "He once wore a psychedelic ski onesie to the supermarket, that man had absolutely zero shits to give about what other people thought of him. Hermione and I used to trade off taking him on muggle outings and the guy never lost his enthusiasm for absolutely everything."
Merlin, he missed Arthur Weasley.
They reached the gate to the front garden and Harry paused to give Jasper one last warning, "Before I forget-"
The front door opened with a bang.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER."
The door framed the friendliest-looking angry person Jasper had ever seen, her red hair was peppered with grey and her face was traced by smile lines but age didn't seem to be slowing her down at all. She stormed up to them, stopping in front of a bashful-looking Harry with her hands on her hips. "And what do you have to say for yourself then?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer but the woman was already continuing, "Barely a letter a month from you and then Bill goes to visit and comes back with stories about vampires and werewolves and all sorts of nastiness."
Ah, Jasper was starting to recognise the voice. This must be the infamous Molly Weasley.
"I have to hear from Sharptooth that you've found more family out there. Sharptooth! And you know how that goblin likes to tease me when he finds things out first! And then I have to hear from Kreacher that you have a mysterious boyfriend."
Jasper caught a stray glance then so he tried to smile.
"Lovely to meet you dear, I'm sure. We're all so excited to meet you," Mrs Weasley smiled at him brightly before turning back to Harry with a brow like a thundercloud. "Honestly Harry, is it that hard to write me a letter?"
Harry looked properly shamed-faced, an expression that wouldn't have looked home on his normal face let alone his magically older one. "Sorry, Mrs Weasley."
The crackling worry and tension that was sparking off the woman was almost drowned by a wave of affection when she looked back at Harry. "Oh come here, dear, I'm glad Kreacher has been keeping you all fed up but I'm sure it's time to get some proper food in you."
She bustled them both back towards the terrifyingly constructed house behind her, curtains twitching closed and faces rapidly retreating from windows as they got closer. Jasper could hear the beginning of several conversations about where that dressing down rated on the 'Not my daughter' scale. The consensus seemed to be that Harry had gotten off very lightly, "It's because he's the favourite," a voice he recognised stated firmly. "And that boyfriend of his is polite enough that McGonagall would approve of him so Audrey might finally get some competition for Mum's favourite in-law."
"I am ze first in-law, I weel always be ze best," An imperious voice responded.
"Of course, love," Bill answered, Jasper could hear the smile from here. “Competition for 2nd place is heating up though.”
Jasper stepped through the front door just in time to see Harry get swallowed in a hug that seemed to involve at least 5 redheaded teenagers. He went down to the floor with a crash, squeals of "Uncle Harry!" announcing his descent.
Bill sidled over to grasp him in a friendly hug, “Welcome to the Burrow, mate. Glad you made it over okay.”
Jasper sent a worried glance in Harry’s direction before he was dragged away to an expectant looking blonde woman. “Is he..?” Jasper ventured.
“He’ll be fine, they’ve been climbing all over him since they were toddlers.”
“Found one!” A voice crowed from the pile of bodies on the floor, a cheerful looking girl wearing a Nirvana T-shirt emerged from the pile brandishing what looked like a miniature Hippogriff.
“Ooo you got Buckbeak,” An older man that Jasper was going to cautiously label George (red hair, no glasses, minimal scarring). “I’ll swap you a Fawkes!”
Jasper blinked as the tiny hippogriff moved, ruffling its feathers and glaring up at George.
“He makes them every year and hides them round the house,” Bill commented when he saw Jasper’s interest. “Only way to guarantee you find one before he gets to hiding is to tackle him as soon as he gets in the house, all the kids used to do it but they are getting too big now so we make them draw straws for it these days.”
“Ze broken ribs may ‘ave ‘ad something to do with zat,” the blonde woman drawled with an eye roll, “Poor ‘arry had to go to St Mungos after one overly enthusiastic greeting. Lovely to meet you Jasper, Bill ‘as been telling me so much about you.”
“You must be Fleur,” Jasper took her hand with a smile, charmed by the breathtaking smile as well as the gentle, warm contentment poring off the woman in waves. “Harry speaks highly of you.”
The pile was finally dispersing, each teen leaving with a different miniature animal. Harry emerged, ruffled but grinning, the mischievous glint just as at home on this older face as it was on his normal one.
The extra age certainly wasn’t doing Harry any harm, Jasper mused, his face was sharper and the beginnings of wrinkles around his mouth and eyes just made him look approachable. It wasn’t a look far into the future, or even likely to be any part of Harry’s future at all, but Jasper was still pleased to find Harry beautiful. No matter what face he wore.
Harry grinned at him brightly before he was swallowed in a another crowd of people excited to see him. Less violently this time, although Jasper noticed anyone younger than 30 seemed to come away with a new animal companion.
He commented on the overwhelming number of people to Fleur, and soon found himself in the middle of a far more detailed debrief on everyone from the eldest Weasley and his wife.
“Roxy is, ‘ow do you say-“
“A menace. She’s a menace.”
“She ‘as great taste in music, she is coming to Paris with me in ze spring for Opera.”
“Main thing to remember is she has minions, doesn’t matter that she’s one of youngest if you cross her you’ve got to look out for Luna’s twins as well as our youngest Louis.” Jasper felt like he was being prepared for a war he didn’t know he’d walked in on.
“Yes, Louis takes after ‘is father. ‘e loves strong women.” Fleur patted Bill on the arm lovingly and beamed over at one of Harry’s first attackers, the boy had delicate features and clearly took after his mother apart from the shock of violently red hair. He waved back but when his eyes settled on Jasper, they narrowed.
Jasper was starting to get the feeling that straying this far from Harry might be a mistake.
“Fred is a troublemaker, just like his namesake, but he inherited more of Angelina’s common sense so he mostly stays out of things. When he does get involved things get more efficient which is almost always terrible for the rest of us,” Bill joked, laughing when another teenager rolled his eyes at him.
This teenager was also eying Jasper in a way that was starting to make the revenant feel very uncomfortable. The mix of emotions in the room made it hard to pinpoint what Fred was feeling and Jasper turned back to Fleur cautiously, unwilling to put his back to the young teen.
Fleur twitched crinkled her nose delicately, "It's best to just make sure you don't upset Lucy. She turned 17 last month so she can use ‘er wand outside of school now."
Bill wrapped his arm around Fleur's shoulders and grinned down at Jasper with a smile that was definitely more vicious than it had been a couple of minutes ago, "She was terrifying without magic, and Harry's her favourite."
Every instinct was yelling at him that he needed to get to safety. He glanced around the room, trying work out where Harry had got to.
He was starting to understand Harry's sensitivity around his height. Mrs Weasley was tiny but everyone else in the room seemed to be taller than Harry. Which also made him incredibly difficult to spot.
"Thank you for the advice, I think I should possibly-"
"Bill!" A loud voice cut across him, "You've been hogging the new boyfriend, introduce the rest of us before Harry gets back."
Jasper froze like a deer in headlights when two pairs of bright blue eyes settled on him. George and Charlie were on the shorter side compared to the rest of the Weasley clan but Charlie made up for it in sheer bulk and George made up for it through reputation. Even without Harry's stories, Jasper would have known to be cautious just from the glint of malevolence in that smile.
Fleur ducked out with a smile, leaving him alone with three fully trained wizards who were stopping just short of cracking their knuckles menacingly.
He'd been too distracted by the teenagers.
Bill did the introductions and Jasper did his best not to notice how the rest of the party was quietly giving them a wide berth.
"So Jasper," Charlie was leaning against the wall, every inch of him relaxed but somehow still looming. "I hear you're a vampire?"
"Er, yes." Jasper didn't glance at Bill, but he was hyperaware that he needed to be convincing. He was pale enough to pass for a wizarding vampire and Harry had given him a bracelet with enough vampiric energy pumped through it that most wizards wouldn't sense anything amiss. Bill had sent over some books on some vampire basics and had recommended a backstory as a rare 'muggle' who was bitten. "I was turned back in 1930 and I've been living in the muggle world for most of my life."
Harry found it very funny that there were muggle vampires that still had more magic than the Cullens but Jasper was just relieved there was a realistic cover for him that meant he could actually follow Harry back into his world without accidentally summoning the might of the ICW down on his family.
"That sounds really interesting, you must be quite quick at dodging around the muggle police, I've heard it's a bit more difficult to get blood on that side of the statute," George commented, his tone was blasé but he stood next to his brother in a way that blocked Jasper's view of the other guests. And their view of him.
"Ah, I actually only drink blood from animals," Jasper tried to interject earnestness into his tone but the rising protectiveness he could feel coming off the three brothers in front of him indicated he wasn't doing very well, "Me and my family hunt animals exclusively."
"Of course, of course, and I'm sure you never nip out for a cheat here and there..."
A glance towards Bill to see if he was going to jump in here indicated that he was going to get no help from that quarter, the bastard was just grinning at him. "I haven't consumed human blood for over 70 years."
The brothers exchanged a look before turning back to face Jasper, George patted him on the shoulder, "Look mate," he glanced theatrically over his shoulder before leaning in further, "Bill has explained a bit about the whole soulmate, imprinting thing so we're not massively worried you're going to hurt Harry on purpose."
Jasper struggled to contain a sigh of relief, and if he had a circulatory system he was sure he would be blushing. He was picking up bad habits from Harry. He didn't even need to breathe, when had he started sighing dramatically?
"We're mostly worried that you're going to wander off somewhere and get yourself killed."
What?
"Yeah, we can't go through another Harry breakdown." Charlie's tone was light but his eyes communicated just how serious he was being. "Harry doesn't deal well with losing people, we've basically only just got him back after the last loss." Charlie grimaced and there was a sharp shock of grief that echoed around the group. "Don't do it."
Jasper paused for a moment, "Sorry, are you asking me not to die?
"Yep," Charlie nodded brusquely. "Don't sacrifice yourself for the greater good-"
"No following mysterious voices into the woods," George interjected, "No new extreme sports, don't piss off any passing graphorns or make any deals with demons."
"Don't touch random magical objects or get on the wrong side of Goblin," Bill added, "If there's a mission with high chance of failure and little chance of survival, you stay home."
"Take up cross-stitch, or carpentry, or calligraphy or something else that can keep you entertained."
Jasper stared at the three brothers.
They stared back.
"I also know a necromancer over in Nepal who owes me a favour so if you die doing something stupid you will not escape the consequences," Bill added nonchalantly.
"And I know where a certain death-defying stone is," George added with an unfriendly curl to his lips.
They both turned to look at Charlie, who just shrugged. "Dragons."
They all stared at each other for a little bit.
A cleared throat finally ended the awkward silence and Jasper was ready to throw himself at the feet of the tall, black woman who was tapping her feet behind George. "And that's enough of that," presumably Angelina delivered deadpan, grabbing George by the collar and dragging him away. "Welcome to the family Jasper, ignore this idiot," she called back over her shoulder before disappearing into another room, followed by her clearly besotted husband.
"Well-"
Another cleared throat from a reappearing Fleur had Bill heading to the kitchen to check on Meeka who had apparently run into some issues with the pie she'd baked for the occasion.
Charlie grinned over at him when Fleur disappeared after Bill with a flounce, "I don't have a wife to drag me away so I'll just say, welcome Jasper." Jasper grasped the offered hand like a drowning man, "Harry is looking happy and if you had anything to do with that then you're all good as far as I'm concerned."
"Thank you," Jasper responded fervently, "He makes me very happy and I certainly hope to make him happy in return."
Charlie clapped him on the shoulder one last time before disappearing into another room with a shout, "Rolf! I have new hatchlings to show you!"
Jasper relaxed back into the wall and slowly closed his eyes. Why hadn't Harry warned him that his brothers were so intense? He'd spent so much time walking through the next generation of Weasleys that Jasper didn't feel remotely prepared for the older ones.
Now that was over, he really needed to find Harry.
He opened his eyes to discover he was no longer alone.
"So," one of the teenagers drawled, "We hear you're dating Uncle Harry."
Harry lost Jasper almost immediately, Bill had promised to keep an eye out but Harry wasn't sure how far to trust that promise. People always pointed to George as the jokester of the family but Bill's sense of humour was twisted.
He distributed his usual animal-shaped gifts, ignoring the usual pointed looks from George as the most mischievous Weasley made his annual attempt to find out how Harry made them. Harry had mostly been keeping it secret to protect himself from Bill's judgment because if Harry was being entirely honest he wasn't entirely sure.
The set of spells he used weren't meant to give the animated animals personalities, just a series of snippets of animal behaviours they repeated on a random cycle. Made a lot more believable with the little bit of life that magic could usually give objects. George's figurines at the shop seemed to respond to affection and Harry's old Hungarian Horntail from the Triwizard Tournament used to follow him around the tent and hoard small piles of knuts.
But Harry's figurines had started taking on a level of life that surpassed those charms, it started almost 10 years ago and Harry really didn't want to have to explain another one of those things to Bill.
He watched as the nundu Louis was cupping in his hands nuzzled against the teens fingers before curling up for a nap. "Thanks, Uncle Harry," his youngest pseudo-nephew chirped, stroking a gentle finger down the nundu's back.
Harry dodged George again and made his way towards a smirking Andromeda, "Hey Andy!" Harry ducked into a hug, grinning up at his co-parent of the last 25 years. "How is everything going at the practice? Teddy said something about you hiring someone new?"
She raised an imperious eyebrow at someone behind Harry and he suddenly felt a lot more space opening up around him, a glance over his shoulder gave him a view of George’s back so Harry breathed a sigh of relief.
"Addy and I thought it was a good idea to bring on a junior associate, our workload isn't getting any lighter and we’ve had some good press recently. You might know her actually, Susan Bones's oldest, Alexandra, she just finished her Juror exams."
Harry had a vague memory of Susan saying something about Alex following in her Aunt's footsteps but the memory was clouded by a lot of firewhiskey. So he just smiled at Andy as they launched into their typical compare and contrast of the things Teddy had told them over the last couple of months. They were past the point where comparing notes was going to help them prevent oncoming disasters but it was an ingrained instinct at this point to prepare themselves for Teddy's specific brand of chaos.
"He just said it was a meeting he couldn't move," Andromeda commented, eyebrows furrowing down into a formidable frown.
"Hmm, he said it was an important business meeting to me," Harry mused, "He said he wanted to do some travelling so maybe he's found a new job?"
Fleur had joined Mrs Weasley and Audrey around the dining table and seemed to be making her annual attempt to have a conversation with her Mother-In-Law.
"George has been very good about him wanting to take a step back from the shop, he said Teddy has been great but he can tell it's no longer a passion for him," Andromeda grimaced, "I can't say I will be sorry if he moves into a job that won't have him bringing home explosive substances all the time. I've only just managed to redo the living room after the last explosion and things can really only be repaired so many times before the magic starts leaving them a little wonky."
Harry watched Fleur's smile grow more and more fixed as the conversation continued to focus on local gossip and a recent Witch Weekly article. She interjected something about a recent muggle fashion trend and Mrs Weasley stared at her blankly whilst Audrey at least tried to engage.
There was never a lack of entertainment available at a Weasley gathering.
"Wasn't he working on magic proofing a laptop?"
"Yes, he was. It was still shockingly explosive."
"He finished then?"
"Yes, George was very impressed. There's not much demand for them so far and they don't exactly fit the core product focus of WWW but he's sold a few to incoming muggleborns."
"I'll have to get him to make me one, mine keeps shorting out."
Angelina swanned in, George following along in her wake, and saved Fleur from an imminent explosion by pulling her into a hug. Just in time as well, Mrs Weasley had just said something typically incendiary about 'continental manners' and whilst Fleur’s patience had improved over the years, she was still French.
Andy and Harry exchanged glances before moving to intercept an annoyed-looking Bill and the still blithely chatting Mrs Weasley.
"Hey, Mrs Weasley!" Harry called, moving across the kitchen and grabbing a plate of vaguely familiar-looking beige chunks, "What's in these Yorkshire puds? They look delicious!"
Harry was going to end this gathering with at least five new recipes and pockets full of more jarred condiments, he could tell.
But Parma ham and goats cheese in a Yorkshire was surprisingly good. Even Fleur agreed, happily describing a sardine rillette she’d tried last week to an intrigued Mrs Weasley.
Crisis effectively averted Harry glanced around to check for any more approaching disasters and noticed things were actually quite quiet. His eyes narrowed as he scanned over the space, too quiet.
All the young people were missing.
The collection of partners who had been dragged along to the party were still clustered together in a corner, Harry no. 2 was still sending him regular wide-eyed looks and Lucy's girlfriend seemed to be holding court.
But not a single Weasley spawn was left in the main room.
And the only other person missing was Jasper.
Harry started to make his way back towards where he'd seen Jasper last, panic rising in his chest as he mentally called Bill every bad name under the sun. Summarising to traitorous bastard.
A cackle of laughter echoed through from the entryway and Harry sped up, nothing good ever came from Roxy laughing like that.
He stumbled into the room just in time to catch a bemused-looking Jasper holding something his hand with a gaggle of various young people gathered around him.
He made his way over in time to watch Jasper release his grip on something and drop it into a waiting Louis’s hand.
“That’s so cool!” The 14 year old crowed, “It’s completely crushed.”
Harry watched with an eyebrow raised as Fred produced what looked like one of Hagrid's rock cakes from his pocket.
“This will be more difficult than a regular rock,” he pointed out, “This one is stale.”
The collected Weasleys all nodded seriously, “Definitely,” Lucy agreed before twirling her wand between her fingers in a move Harry had taught her, “I can transfigure something into iron if he manages that.”
Harry watched with a smirk as Jasper closed his hand around the stale rock cake and barely tensed his hand before he was returning the cake to Fred, now reduced to a fine powder.
“And here I thought you might need rescuing,” Harry grinned at Jasper who was still dusting off his hands.
The various co-conspirators were ducked together making plans so there was space for Harry to sidle past and tuck himself into Jasper’s side.
“They started off threatening me,” Jasper murmured into Harry’s hair, “and they are far better at threats than their fathers.”
Harry wasn’t surprised. Ginny had always been the threatening one in his generation and she was off at a Harpies training camp with her new husband, Dean Thomas.
Not that Ginny would threaten anyone on his behalf these days, they hadn’t spoken properly in a decade. Not since the funeral.
“Emmett is the closest thing to a proper teenager I know and he still buys walnuts just so he can crush them. He leaves a trail of gravel behind him whenever we go on a family hike.” Jasper reached out to accept the hastily transfigured nugget of iron from Lucy.
“Sounds about right, you should let him know that Jake and his lot would 100% appreciate that,” Harry smiled over at his variously niblings when they cooed over the finger impressions Jasper had left in the now smooth dollop of metal. “You should try Tungsten next, Lucy, it’s harder than steel and properly heavy.”
“Thanks Uncle Harry!”
The rest of the introductions went a little more smoothly now Harry was back at his side.
Mrs Weasley was intense but lovely.
Andromeda was terrifying and her profession being the wixen version of a lawyer made a lot of sense.
Charlie was very friendly now he wasn’t trying to be threatening. And he had a Dragon hatchling tucked in a magical inside pocket which was scary and cute at the same time.
Harry the younger, as George kept calling him, was intensely terrified of Harry the older. And his father in law, Percy, didn’t seem to be helping by describing Harry’s history with rule breaking. Starting with their school days and lingering on several international incidents from the last decade.
Jasper would have to keep in mind that Harry was banished from Taiwan. It was apparently a misunderstanding that was in the process of being cleared up but Jasper wasn’t sure he trusted Harry’s explanation of a clerical error when Percy was still describing the ongoing repairs.
Lucy’s girlfriend, Lavanya, was an adorable ray of sunshine that Jasper was immediately suspicious of. Lucy seemed similarly sunny, at first. And then she’d explained in great detail all the loopholes in the ICW’s ban on vampire hunting.
Jasper respected her protective instincts but would also prefer to stay as far away as possible from her, and her girlfriend, until he’d established threat levels with Harry.
He’d been handed a glass of blood when he first came into the kitchen by an apologetic Audrey who seemed to be able to spot the symptoms of a Lucy-encounter at ten paces. Harry’s glass of red wine made Jasper feel a little less self conscious about drinking blood in a room full of relatively normal human beings. Relative being a subjective term, at least their eating habits were normal.
Jasper was starting to understand where Harry had got his inspiration for feasts, the table in the kitchen was filled to the point of groaning.
People were helping themselves to plates, some were making themselves comfortable at the table but most people filled a plate and then moved off to continue their conversations.
It was making Jasper feel mildly jealous because the smells were delicious. Luckily, Molly had clearly asked Harry for his blood preferences because Chizpurfle blood was delicious.
They were all settling in for the gift exchange, Harry producing interestingly wrapped gifts from every pocket to hand out to the Weasley clan at large.
Harry and Jasper would celebrating with Andromeda and Teddy, Percy and Audrey did something similar with their little subset of the Weasley clan, so those who wouldn’t be at the Burrow piled their gifts under the tree and took the carefully organised bags from Mrs Weasley in return.
Each ‘kid’, and Jasper managed to stop himself from looking sideways at Victoire when she lined up with the teenagers, was allowed to choose a present to open now.
All of them picked Harry’s.
The parents were already giving him side eye and Jasper had a feeling that no one in Forks was prepared for Harry with an actual excuse to give out gifts.
Harry was attempting to look sweet and innocent but no one was buying it.
Jasper grimaced when Bill looked at him and the redhead rolled his eyes.
Harry had spent weeks constructing little hampers of treats from the muggle world for all of the Weasleys. They were filled with books, comics and vinyl he thought they might like. He’d found board games or art kits for each of them and filled every available space with way too many American snacks.
But that wasn’t what Jasper was nervous about.
The parents watched with increasing confusion when each teen (or maybe just a little bit older) reached the bottom of their boxes.
They were all left holding black masks with clear plastic visors.
Harry’s grin was unholy.
He pulled out a tiny toy gun before tapping it to resize it. The glow of runes etched along the side answered Jasper’s question about how the plastic was holding up. Harry had seemed weirdly happy last week and now Jasper was thinking about it, the immortal wizard hadn’t needed to order a new calculator in at least a month.
“The first rule of paintballing,” Harry intoned, “Is don’t shoot inside. The bullets are literally little balls of paint and your parents will kill me, and then you, if you start playing with this stuff in the house.”
“Did he say shoot?” Audrey murmured faintly, clutching at her husband's wrist.
“Did he get them guns?” George asked with more delight than most parents would show when their teenagers were being handed weapons.
Mrs Weasley just sighed, “At least he’s telling them to keep it out of the house.”
“These are not for close combat, if you try and shoot someone within 6 foot of you the gun will give you a mild electric shock.” Harry was rattling off instructions rapidly as he handed out the unshrunken guns. “Do not shoot someone who isn’t wearing a mask or your gun will shoot you, and your gun will not shoot at all unless you are wearing your own visor.”
Fred looked disappointed and stopped aiming his gun at Louis’ head.
Roxanne looked too happy for any of her plans to be healthy for other people.
There were far more delighted faces than worried ones and Jasper was starting to think that maybe Harry’s rants about safety measures in the wizarding world might be underplaying the problem.
Harry just rolled his eyes and passed over equipment from his pockets to the adults as well.
Soon everyone was holding a gun and a mask, the woman Harry had introduced as Luna was already prying open one of the balls of paint with a look of delight on her face.
Harry started hurrying through his explanation when Bill’s eyes narrowed on his runework. “The basic game is you run around a field or a forest in teams shooting people. If you get hit it will be very obvious because a ball of paint will explode on you and you are then out of that round. Last person still alive at the end wins.”
As one the Weasley clan turned to look at Mrs Weasley.
Mrs Weasley looked back.
Louis pouted.
“Only for a couple of hours, I want you all back inside before 9.”
George let out a whoop and lead the charge out the back door followed by a herd of enthusiastic, masked teens. And most of the adults.
Percy was somehow press ganged outside between Charlie and Lucy but Audrey managed to escape an enthusiastic invitation from the younger Molly.
Nobody bothered Mrs Weasley but Jasper noticed that she’d still accepted the gun when Harry offered it.
Fleur floated over to stand with Audrey, glass of wine in hand whilst Angelina hung back to tie back her hair, rolling up her sleeves and tucking the mask over her face with an efficiency that spoke of experience.
Lavanya gave Lucy a kiss good luck and tied a conjured ribbon around her arm, “Fight hard fair knight!” She called as Lucy skipped out of the room with a manic grin.
Sidling over to Jasper and Harry she leaned against the table and watched through the kitchen window when Lucy got the first shot off, hitting George square in the face with an explosion of green paint that left the older man completely blind and at the mercy of his children who quickly took shots of their own.
“Mum warned me you were like this,” she commented to Harry with a grin. Unfazed when Harry grinned back.
“She warned you I was fun?”
Jasper and Lavanya both rolled their eyes.
“Unmanageable was the word she used.”
“I prefer the term authority-challenged.”
“Or completely mad if you’d just said something confusing in the prophet.”
Even Mrs Weasley laughed when Percy got in on the fun by shooting his younger brother in the face as soon as George managed to get his visor clear again.
“Your mum had some of her own moments of that,” Harry answered with another smile, “Did she ever tell you she joined an illegal army whilst she was at school?”
Lavanya snorted, “Yeah, led by you.”
“That is a scurrilous and unfounded accusation. Tell her, Andy, you’re my lawyer, she’s being libellous.”
Andromeda appeared beside Harry with a suddenness that made even Jasper start slightly. “I can’t defend you from entirely true claims Harry, we’ve had this conversation before.”
“No one can prove it was me who put that ad in the paper.”
“Barry Trotter is a terrible alias and different-shaped glasses is a terrible disguise. That’s not even discounting that no one sensible is ever going to believe that anyone else would decide to take out a full-page ad asking for someone to return Draco Malfoy’s lost ferret.”
“Slanderous lies. Draco placed that ad himself just to slander me”
Andromeda’s next devastating eyebrow raise was disturbed by a knock at the door.
Mrs Weasley tore herself away from the entertainment of watching all three of Bill’s children team up with Charlie to shoot every part of Bill that wasn’t covered by the telephone pole he was currently trying to take cover behind.
Opening the door Mrs Weasley’s face quickly transitioned from puzzlement to joy, “Teddy!”
Harry’s head whipped around, as did Andromeda’s and soon both of them were rushing to the door to envelope a brightly grinning blue haired boy in a hug.
“Teddy!” Harry crowed, “My favourite godson! What happened to your meeting? I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see you until tomorrow!”
“Your godfather’s been pining, Teddy,” Andromeda added, brushing the boys hair back off his forehead with a fond smile. “He’s been looking at baby photos again.“
“Haaarry,” Teddy groaned.
“I can’t help it if other people find you just as adorable as I do.”
“You can absolutely help it. I know you can, I believe in you, with help I know you can get over this unhealthy obsession.”
“You used to wear feetie pyjamas Teddy, no man is strong enough to resist cheeks that chubby combined with feetie pyjamas.”
Teddy rolled his eyes but still flashed a grin over to Harry who was smiling so hard that Jasper thought his face might crack.
“I’ve got someone to introduce you to Teddikins, this is-“
An apologetic throat clear interrupted Harry’s next words and they all simultaneously realised that Teddy wasn’t alone.
“Kingsley?” Harry asked, voice hovering somewhere between confusion and panic. “What’s going on?”
The tall, black man that stepped up next to Teddy shuffled slightly before fully straightening and offering Harry a hesitant smile. “Er, Hi Harry, sorry to bother you in the middle of a family thing.”
Jasper felt the sharp increase in dread from Harry and looked over at him sharply.
“It’s just that there’s been an incident, in Wales, and ICW’s gotten involved because it involves our treaty with the Veela.”
“Right.”
Jasper's stomach sank because that was definitely Harry’s business voice.
“They’ve asked for your help and they knew I was closest…”
Every inch of the man spoke of how unwilling he was to bear this particular message.
“When’s the meeting?” Harry asked.
“Now,” Kingsley responded with a grimace.