Capítulo 9: The Weasley Family

For a few days after their jaunt through Diagon Alley, Draco was taking Holly over to meet with Daphne, Astoria, Hermione, Luna and Ginny, and Holly had to admit that she liked having a circle of female friends. This was something she had never had before, after all, and they were always kind to her.

Today, however, Holly was excited for a different reason. Today, Draco and Holly were headed over to meet Ginny's family, and she was going to learn to fly on a broom! Recalling that, Holly jumped out of bed in her underwear and grabbed achange of clothes before heading into the connected bachroom to take a shower and change.

Daphne had given her a collection of scented soaps the previous day, so she opened one that was supposed to smell like lilies, like her middle name, and used that to quickly wash up, after which she washed her hair before finally getting out of the shower and drying off, then putting on her change of clothes and putting the underclothes she wore over nght into the hamper.

Once dressed, she returned to her room and started putting on all the quidditch equipment that she bought with Draco on that day...Thinking back to it actually made her blush for a moment, but she quickly shrugged it off and put on the last of the equipment before picking up her Cleansweep 220 and heading out of her room to the lounge that had the fireplace. Draco was sitting on the sofa, waiting for her.

Instantly she was embarrassed again "I didn't make you wait long, did I?" she asked.

"I don't mind" Draco chucled and stook up and walked over to Holly again, and he hugged her.

Holly was starting to get used to these hugs, so she didn't get flustered or blush this time and just calmly returned the hug "I'm sorry about making you wait. I am ready to go now."

"Alright." Draco agreed.

Like Holly, Draco had a full set of quidditch equipment on, and even though the equipment was green and silver, it was high quality and suited him well.

Draco parted from the hug and then picked up his own Cleansweep 220 and headed to the fireplace, then picked up some floo powder from a bowl and tossed it at his feet "The Burrow." with a flash, Draco disappeared, and Holly stepped in next, grabbing floo powder at her feet, and said "The Burrow." as well.

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On one hand, Bringing Holly to the Burrow was a bit frightening to Draco, he was afraid one of the Weasley boys would get ideas about being with her, but Draco had decided in the end to trust that in the end, Draco had done enough that Holly would remain his girl.

After all, he knew he had been neglecting his other girlfriends a bit to help her out. Since among her girlfriends, the one Holly got along with best was Ginny, since they both loved Quidditch and flying, Draco felt like she should spend more time with Ginny, rather then jut in a group, and form a closer friendship with Ginny.

In short, he thought Holly needed a best riend who was a girl, and in spite of the risk posed by all Ginny's brothers, Draco was still certain that Ginny was the best choice.

Upon arriving at the Burrow, Ginny was waiting, so Draco greeted her with a short hug before letting go of her as Holly arrived. Ginny went over to hug Holly "My brothers are already outside" Ginny told them and proceeded to pull Holly along after her as she traced outside where the boys were already waiting.

"Oi, Draco, you're a bit late today."Bill pointed ut, then looked at Holly "You brought a friend to watch?"

"Nah, she's here to learn, can't you tell." Draco pointed out to Bill "She's got a broom abd Equipment and all."

"But she's a bit young." Bill seemed genuinely worried about her"

"She's a bit small, but she's the same age as me." Draco pointed out to Bill.

When he thought about it, among his girlfriends, the shortest was Astoria, and Holly was barely taller in spite of being older. This was because the Dursley's mistreated Holly and she wasn't well fed, so she was rather malnourished when he had met her. In the books, Harry was in a similar state at the start of the books, but because Holly was a girl, drago was sure that she was even shorter and even more frail looking then Harry would have looked at her age.

Bill was surprised "I thought for sure she was younger then Ginny." he admitted "And we only just started training her because mum forced us" he looked Holly over again "Sorry. My name is Bill Weasley." he introduced himself.

"Holly Potter." Holly introduced herself, and all the Wealey boys looked stunned, and Ron even fell off his broom, though thankfully they were all just barely hovering above the ground.

"Wow, looks like Ron's weakness has appeared, George" Fred Weasley chuckled in amusement before stepping off of his broom to go check on Ron "He's still breathing, what are we to do about that?"

"The usual?" George suggested.

"Please don't." Draco sighed "If you use a stink bomb now it'll make flying here today a bit unpleasant."

"Little brother, your nose is saved...For now." Fred laughed merrily.

"The twins are Fred and Grorge, they are this families jesters, basically." Draco told Holly "And those last to are Charlie and Percy."

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you" Holly said to them all before looking at Ron "Is he truly alright?" she asked with concern, seeing Ron laying on his side with a bif ofblood leaking from his nose.

Draco sighed, pretty much guessing that Ron now had the role Ginny had before of having a crush on the child of pophecy, but thankfully Holly didn't notice. He found himself singling Ron out as the one in the family to truly worry about. Only a little bit, though, since he thought that Holly already liked him too much to be easily swayed by Ron.

"Well, since it is like that, lets get to training, alright everyone?" Charlie suggested

Everyone (except Ron) quickly recovered in order to try to teach Holly to fly, and as Draco expected, she was a natural at it. They trained a couple hours before Mrs. Weasley called them in for lunch, which was devoured in a hurry, then they went back out to train some more.

Ron had eventually 'recovered', but his performance was terrible since he kept looking at Holly adoringly.. Draco wasn't sure what it meant, but when he saw Ron's behavior an annoying-sounding voice came to his mind saying 'By Asura, by Asura, by Asura!'. Draco definitely wasn't going to give up either Holly or Hermione to him, though.

Draco remained civil and pretended he did not notice what was happening with Ron, though. When it was time for him to head home, Draco and Holly went to see Mrs Weasley in the house "Thanks for Lunch today, Mrs Weasley, but I have to head home, my parents expect me for dinner."

"Oh." Molly weasley looked at Holly "And what about you, are you able to join us for dinner?" she offered.

"I...If it is no trouble, then I guess I am." Holly admitted to Mrs. Weasley.

"Since you'll be seeing more of Holly in the future, I ask that you keep her visits a secret" Draco asked Mrs. Weasley "I'm helping her right now. Her home life with her aunt and uncle was terrible. I mean, she's my age and smaller then Ginny, and barely larger then Astoria, who was sickly her whole life with a bloodline curse."

When she heard the name Holly, Mrs. Weasley paid closer attention to her forehead and barely spotted part of her scar through her hair, and gasped "Holly Potter, dear, I had no idea it was you." she confessed.

"Your family might be poor, but there is a lot of love in this house. In addition to her wanting to ride brooms, I want her to be able to see how a healthy, happy family interacts. It's something she's never gotten to enjoy." Draco told Mrs. Weasley "I don't want the Ministry or anyone else coming and saying that she has to return to that hellhole."

The idea that someone would mistreat the Girl Who Lived was outlandish to think about, but looking at Holly, Mrs. Weasley could tell that she was quite malnourished. "So can I trust you and your husband?"

Mrs. Weasley nodded "Of course. I'll convince Arthur. You have my word." Mrs Weasley answered seriously. She had never thought that the 'new friend' that Ginny had mentioned was coming over would be Holly Potter!

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Though in the end he decided to play it cool and let Holly stay at the Weasley's for dinner, Draco was really troubled when he got home, because he knew that Peter Pettigrew was in that house.

It was hard enough for him to stand idly by while Ginny (and occasionally Luna) were under the same toof as that ray, but now that Holly would sometimes be there as well, he had to find an opportunity to deal with that situation 'to hell with future plotpoints, I need to make a list and systematically handle everything before it blows up in our faces' Draco thought to himself, then grabbed a partchment and a quill and went to his desk.