9 A Lunch with the Weasleys
[St. Ottery Catchpole, July 11th, 1991]
"Ginny, have you seen one of my pawns, I can't seem to find it?"
A gangling red-haired boy much like Ginny is standing before us with his chess board that he's holding tightly. He looked at Ginny and at us and after a few seconds, a look of confusion appeared on his face.
"Who are you?" He asked with a confused look.
"Hi, I'm Moses, Luna's friend." I greeted him with an innocent smile.
"He's Moses, Ron. Moses, I introduce you to one of my brothers. Ron." Ginny added.
"Hello...I'm Ronald Weasley." He said with a childish smile as he approached me and raised his hand for a shake. I met his shake with a childish smile of my own.
"Nice to meet you, Ron..." I said while shaking his hands.
"Ginny! Call your brothers now, supper's ready!" Mrs. Weasley shouted.
"You can go first, Moses, Luna. I will need to call the others" Ginny said as she took her leave, and went up to another set of stairs.
"Come, they will be down in no time, tell me, do you know how to play Wizard's Chess, how about we..." Ron started as we went downstairs ready for supper.
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While we were waiting for the others Ron and I played a fast match because of his insistence. After exchanging moves, Ron felt a drop of sweat on his forehead. He's usually the one who was feeling elated and excited about the outcome of the match because usually, he's the one who was winning the match, but it seems like this case is different.
"Bishop to C3," Moses muttered with a hint of interest in his eyes.
"Checkmate." He finished.
"Tha-thats-." Ron stuttered in daze.
"That's interesting, let's play again sometime, Ron." Moses said with an innocent smile, while Ron is still in his own world, appalled by what happened.
"Supper's ready everyone!" Mrs. Weasley interrupted,
In that instance, two red-headed boys with similar appearance signifying they're a twin or just extremely look alike brothers came down with a thump, they were pushing each other playfully while chuckling.
"Hello mother,", "What's up for supper?" One of the boys started which the other one finished.
"Meatballs, and my special onions, George, Fred, take your seat, we have a guest now," She said while placing the plates on the table.
"A guest?" The two asked at the same time as they found their gaze into Moses.
"Hello there, my name's George,", "And my name's Fred." The two introduced themselves as they took a step forward and raised their hands for a shake.
"Hello George...." Moses said as he stood up and shook George's hand.
"Hello Fred." He did the same with Fred.
"I'm Moses,"
The moment that Moses finished uttering those words, Ginny and another boy, who looked much older than Fred and George came down from upstairs.
"Who are you?" Said the older boy.
"My name's Moses, you?"
"Percy, Percy Weasley. I didn't know we had guests, mother?" Percy asked,
"Well, we do have a guest, Charlie, now how about you take a seat, dear." Mrs. Weasley said as he gave Charlie his plate
"Right, Moses, dear? Have you already informed your family that you're having dinner here? If not, then I'm sure they'll be worried about your whereabouts." Mrs. Weasley added.
"Uh! Right, I forgot to inform them, I'll just send them a letter, Mrs. Weasley do you have paper and a pen?"
"We do have a paper, but we don't have the thing that you call a pen, dear." She muttered in a confused expression wondering what a pen is.
"Can we borrow your quills and parchments, Mrs. Weasley?" Luna asked suddenly.
"Oh! Of course, dear....here." Mrs. Wealsey uttered as she gave Luna and Moses the parchments and quills to which Moses confusedly stared.
Luna wrote something to both of the parchments including Moses' using quills and gave it to Moses for him to see.
"This is okay...Luna give me your letter, I'll tag it along with mine for Erebus to deliver." Moses uttered as he received Luna's finished letter.
After receiving it, he whistled inaudibly to the people around him, however on the contrary to what others believed that whistle wasn't supposed to be heard by anyone else other than Moses's familiar, the night sky colored crow.
FLAP* KRAW!*
At that instance, Erebus made his entrance through the opened window and perched Moses' shoulder.
"You have a crow!" The red-headed kids exclaimed surprised.
"Yeah, I just got him today. Professor McGonagall decided to talk about this matter with Headmaster Dumbledore if he will allow me to have it at school so I'm a little bummed about it." Moses muttered while caressing Erebus's neck.
"Wicked!" The twins and Ron exclaimed in amazement.
"I'm sure Headmaster will allow it, I had a pet rat named Scabbers before which Ron has now, there's never been an issue with it." Percy added while eating his food.
"Yeah, yeah. Look! The Prefect said so ain't it?" George said with an annoying and sarcastic expression.
"Shut up, Geo-"
The argument, however was put to stop when a thin red-haired man wearing a long green robe entered the house with a compartment that he is holding in his hand.
"Good day, Molly, dear. Good day everyone!" He uttered as he sat down with us at the table.
"Busy at work dad?" Percy inquired,
"Yes, son. 8 raids! Just confiscated a wand that the muggle police took a hold of. So much paperwork from the ministry! Those muggles sure do mess with something that they can't understand, it's getting quite tiring dealing with them," Mr. Weasley uttered with a deep sigh as he sat on the chair.
"Oh, dear me, we have a guest, who are you...?"
"He's Moses, dear. Luna and Ginny's new friend." Mrs. Wealey introduced,
"Oh, I see, I didn't know. Good day to you, Moses. It's a pleasure that you'd join our little supper." He said in a delightful and friendly tone.
"Dad, Moses's a muggle." Ginny revealed causing the others to spit a little of their food in their mouth.
"Muggle?!"
"Yeah, but he's a wizard." Luna added.
"Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. I just had my wand yesterday, Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall helped me with my supplies." Moses said giving relief to the people around him, but when he mentioned those two names, a look of mild shock appeared on their faces.
"Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore?" Mr. Weasley asked,
"Yes, Mr. Weasley. Why?" Moses answered with a question.
"Well, usually, just one Professor is enough to help a muggle-born in their supplies." Mr. Weasley answered while in thought.
"Oh..., Right! Mr. Dumbledore just fetched me, but Professor McGonagall was the one who helped me with the supplies. Mr. Dumbledore is a close friend with Father Orsi, the priest on the orphanage that I am currently in, so Mr. Dumbledore decided to visit Father Orsi on the way." Moses explained while pondering what he is saying because it is a little hard to understand.
"Father Orsi...I see. That's why. You didn't tell us that you're a muggle-born orphan, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked while making disheartened expressions.
"I don't make a big deal out of it, besides Father Orsi and Sister Lily are more than enough for me!" Moses exclaimed in a gleeful tone which made Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to smile because of his adorableness.
"How about you come here often, Little Moses? We're more than happy to welcome you, besides, Ron and Ginny need a friend outside similar to their age." Mr. Weasley suggested with a smile.
"Sure, Mr. Weasley, It will be my delight!" Moses said with a childish smile.
"Now, enough of that, considering that you were a muggle, tell me young Moses. What's the function of a Lego?" Mr. Weasley asked with a crazed look.
And that's how Moses's little dinner with the Weasley's started. A chaotic but fun supper as Moses came to know the Weasleys, the first of the many more families that he will meet that belonged to the Sacred 28.
After finishing their dinner, Mr. Weasley continued his question streak to Moses about the muggles with Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, Ron, the twins, and Luna were listening.
"So you're telling me that you're kind, invented a way to travel to the moon and back with this so called Rocket? And without magic at that?" Mr. Weasley said, wide-eyed.
"Yeah, its pretty famous event in our history, Mr. Weasley." Moses said while nodding when suddenly he thought of something.
"At first when I was younger I wanted to be like them too, you know. Because they make cool stuff like rockets and they can work in space! But when I was diagnosed with Dyscalculia, I don't think that's possible now." Moses muttered as he dropped his head dejectedly.
"Dyscalculia?" Mr. Weasley asked, he was not familiar with that term.
"It's a learning disorder that affected my ability to understand number-based information and math. That's why it's so hard for me to study anything related to numbers, even if it's a simple addition, it's kinda harder for me than others." Moses explained with a defeated smile.
"Oh, Moses, dear. I'm sure you will do just great in anything that you want okay? What if you're bad at math, not everything revolves around math and numbers you know?" Mrs. Weasley comforted Moses while caressing his head gently.
"Yeah, I'm sure, there's something you're good at. Everybody had talents y'know, I'm quite good at chest myself, even though I've lost to you today." Ron added with his comforting smile.
"Finally! You've lost to someone!" George teases Ron followed by Fred, Percy and Ginny causing the others to laugh at their antics, Mrs. Weasley wanted to stop them but when she saw that they were only having fun and making jokes, she instead only looked at them with a motherly gaze creating a peaceful and joyful atmosphere around the kitchen.
Moses looked at the others with his spirits up again, as he looked around, he couldn't stop thinking how similar the vibes that he felt from the orphanage to the Weasley family. It felt warm and...complete. He looked at them with warmth in his eyes
"Anyways, Mr. Weasley. Can you tell me about Harry Potter? Ginny had a book about it." Moses asked with expectation.
"Harry Potter! The Boy Who Lived eh?" Mr. Weasley muttered with a serious expression as he joined both of his hands as he looked at his surroundings and to Moses.
"If you want to know about Harry Potter, then you need to know first why the wizarding world dubbed him as the Boy Who Lived." He uttered in a grave expression.
"It all started that night..." He said while seemingly reminiscing.
In summary to what Mr. Weasley said, it is a story about a dark lord that Mr. Weasley dubbed as You-Know-Who, he started terrorizing Britain. He massacred and killed every muggle and muggle-born that he could and hunted all the Bloodtraitors that defied him.
After murdering Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, the evil You-Know-Who puts a killing curse on Harry, then just a baby. The curse inexplicably reverses, defeating You-Know-Who and searing a lightning-bolt scar in the middle of the infant's forehead.
"And that's how Harry Potter—The Boy Who Lived, defeated the Dark Lord!"
"I see...but how did everyone know about what happened that night, Mr. Weasley? Is there a witness on the crime itself that Harry Potter, a toddler, did indeed defeat the dark lord You-Know-Who?" Moses asked with one of his eyebrows up.
"Well, there is indeed no evidence of Harry's feats but Dumbledore, the man himself said that it was what happened. The important thing at that time was You-Know-Who and his reign of terror was no more." Mr. Weasley finished.
"Hmm." Moses hummed while pondering in thought.
"Well...who's up for desserts?"
"Me!"
And that's how Moses experienced his day with Luna and the Weasleys. A little bit of craziness, delicious food, and a little mysterious story of one Harry Potter—The Boy Who Lived.
