Chapter 69: Meeting the Weasleys

"Here?" Natasha asked, driving the car.

Much to Tom's dismay, when he tried to drive, he had found that twenty years without driving had serious consequences and his driving career in this world lasted for the whole three seconds during which he almost rammed the front of the car into the closed garage.

From there, Natasha dutifully took over since she actually could drive a vehicle. Needless to say, both Natasha and Hermione had a great time poking fun at Tom because of that. Women...

"Yes, turn to the country road here! We are almost there." Hermione excitedly said, pointing at the country road Natasha had to take.

"Alright, alright. Settle down." Rolling her eyes, Natasha took the turn.

Hermione was very excited because Tom and Natasha were taking her to Weasleys. She will finally meet her friends!

The last week was quite hectic for Tom and Natasha because they had to fulfill contract after contract, curing twenty-three devils with the Sleeping Sickness altogether in just seven days.

Tom wasn't even happy about the power boost anymore and just wanted to enjoy his new vacation. Dealing with smug and arrogant devil nobles was exhausting. He took another four days off from curing the devils and while Sarael was all pouty about it, Tom had put his foot down.

Sarael promised him he would make some kind of manageable schedule and while that would massively increase the waiting time of the Pillar Families and make them dissatisfied, Tom didn't care about that. Fuck them.

He was only willing to cure four devils per week from now on.

Earlier, he did it to get stronger quicker but now that both he and Natasha were in the high-rank stage with their energy reserves, there was no immediate need for more energy. What they needed was time. Time to learn how to control their new power and massive energy reserves.

There was no need to speed-run the Sleeping Sickness curing anymore.

That's why Tom decided to accompany Hermione to Weasleys and have a look at how a real wizarding family lived, followed by watching the Quidditch cup. Getting the tickets to the ministry area was hilariously easy and quick after Tom delegated the task to Gringotts, giving the green light for them to buy two tickets for ten thousand galleons.

With that arranged, the only thing left was to get proper housing and somehow get there.

The housing part was easy. Tom just bought one luxury wizarding tent and that was that. No way was he gonna ask the Weasleys to house him, Natasha, or Hermione. They had enough on their plate with housing themselves.

As for getting there... Hermione had exchanged a few letters with the Weasleys and it was decided that Tom and Natasha would come with them via their portkey.

Not an experience Tom was looking forward to considering the portkey was an old boot but Hermione really wanted to meet her friends so Tom just inwardly sulked while outwardly agreeing to come with the Weasleys.

At least his new tent was easy to relocate...

They followed the country road for a bit more and suddenly, Tom felt them passing through a ward. It was nothing powerful but it would do its job as far as keeping the mundane people was concerned.

Putting the existence of the ward to the back of his mind, they quickly arrived near a... house.

Tom had to stifle the urge to grimace when he saw the disaster that was just waiting to happen in which the Weasleys lived. Logically, he knew the house somehow existed thanks to the providence of magic but even to a magician like him the deformed and crooked house in front of him seemed more like a danger than a suitable living place. It looked like the kind of place even thieves and squatters would avoid for fear of it falling on their heads.

'Well, to each their own, I guess.' Tom inwardly mused, offering a small prayer for Weasleys to whichever god was listening.

Natasha was not saying anything but her deadpan look said it all for Tom. It seemed he would definitely be getting rewarded tonight for having the foresight to arrange their separate housing.

Natasha pulled over and the three of them got out of the car. The Weasleys were already coming out of their house to welcome them and Hermione instantly rushed forward and gave Ron a quick hug before exchanging greetings with the rest of the family as her eyes wandered, looking for someone...

"Harry is not here yet?" Hermione asked with a twinge of disappointment in her tone.

"No, dear. He will arrive tomorrow." Mrs. Weasley said in a placating tone before looking at Tom and Natasha who were taking out their bags while Hermione was greeting everyone. "That's your cousin and his girl?"

Obviously, the Weasleys were very curious. Hermione did mention in her letters that Tom was a magician but they had no idea what that meant. They just thought she got it wrong and Tom was also a wizard.

"Mhm." Hermione nodded and seeing that Tom and Natasha approached them, she decided to do the introductions.

"That's Thomas Prest, my cousin, and his girlfriend, Natasha Romanova." Hermione gestured at Tom and Natasha before turning towards the Weasleys, "This is Molly Weasley, her husband Arthur Weasley, and their children-"

Hermione was abruptly cut off by one of the two identical gingers standing nearby, "Who can introduce themselves-"

"-just fine, dear Hermione." The other identical ginger finished.

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"Yes, Fred and Gorge." Hermione rolled her eyes at them.

This made them both dramatically gasp.

"I am Gorge." The left one exclaimed with a mock hurt expression that Hermione got his name wrong.

"And I am Fred." The right one nonchalantly added, "You don't-"

"-even know that?" The left one finished the statement.

Tom and Natasha watched the byplay with a small amusement but both knew this would get irritating quite fast if they had to interact with these two on a regular basis.

"Well, it's nice to meet you all." Tom spoke, offering his hand to Arthur, which broke the teasing atmosphere between Hermione and the twins, bringing the focus back on the introductions.

"Ah, yes..." Arthur took Tom's hand, "Arthur Weasley." His eyes instantly strayed towards Tom's car and gained an excited glint. "Is that a new version of cars muggles use nowadays?"

After Tom successfully disabused Arthur from molesting his new car, the rest of the introductions and greetings were utterly boring and went as usual.

Molly was... not a person Tom would like to interact with on a daily basis. But he and Natasha played nice and put on their forthcoming facades, simply exchanging pleasantries with the obviously overbearing woman in a way that would make them seem friendly.

By the end of Molly's introductions, they were both offered to join them for lunch tomorrow and from Molly's wording, in her mind, it was a foregone conclusion that they would indeed attend even before they accepted.

Yes... she was definitely not a person Tom would interact with if he could avoid it.

But he didn't see anything nefarious or scheming about her either. From the first impression, she was just an overbearing housewife with too big of an ego and that was hardly a crime, considering there were thousands of those worldwide.

Still, Tom decided he would not drop his suspicion too soon. The hundreds of fanfictions he had read in his past life would not allow him to do that and he went so far as to persuade Hermione to learn some nifty charms that would reveal potions in her food or drinks.

Just in case...

From the children, Ginny introduced herself first but she didn't show much enthusiasm or interest, which was fair enough in Tom's books. She was what? Twelve or thirteen? Just like any other kid her age would, she didn't see what was the big deal about these unknown guests.

Ron was somewhat similar. Just a lazy kid.

Both Tom and Natasha refused to shake his hand, however. It made the situation a bit awkward but when Tom pointed out that Ron had small chunks of food all over his hand, the lazy slob got what he deserved. A nice wince-inducing twist of his ear courtesy of Molly-bear as she furiously dragged him back into the house.

Tom had nothing against Ron. He might not have been his favorite character... oh, who was he kidding? He hated the git... but that was when it was just a story.

This was reality for him now and he was fully willing to throw whatever biased opinion of the boy out of his head and give him a new chance like he would for any other stranger. Tom decided he would observe the boy and make his own opinion of this Ron.

Alas, offering a handshake with a filthy hand did not make the best first impression.

But Tom just playfully rolled his eyes when he noticed the apologetic look Arthur gave him. Ron was just a fourteen years old kid and there was no harm done anyway.

The next was Percy and... let's just say he came off as the usual pompous git with his nose high in the air.

Oh, the boy was friendly enough but he was still just a boy. Tom might have found the blatant way Percy checked Natasha out a bit distasteful but he didn't mind that. His woman was gorgeous and he was proud of that.

What really ticked Tom off was the derision in Percy's eyes as they exchanged greetings. As if Tom and Natasha were something lesser than him. It was the milder version of the look Lucius Malfoy gave them in the bank and Tom felt a knee-jerk urge to make fun of Percy.

But he barely restrained himself...

One would think that coming from a blood-traitor family would erase any notion of wizard supremacy from Percy's mind but... one had to realize the boy spent most of his year away from his family in a school where at the very least a quarter of the populace were wizard supremacists.

Sadly, it was this quarter that had the most influential parents in the Wizarding Society society and Tom could see how someone ambitious like Percy could... stray from the teachings of his family, let's say.

After Percy, Tom turned toward the twins and when he saw their eyes sparkling with anticipation, he instantly knew they were up to something.

Well, if they expected Tom to just let himself be pranked, they had another thing coming.

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