the seventh son of a seven son III
When Harry Potter first tried to befriend Ron Weasley, the boy told him a few things about his family. He memorised everything, from the accountant squib cousin to the names of his six brothers.
In turn, Harry shared a little bit of his childhood and the necessary isolation spent with Sirius and Remus after the former was released from his brief incarceration. It prompted a bit of a discussion about the fact that Peter Pettigrew had been found while attempting to cross the wards of the Weasley household. Then he listened intently to Ron, the boy who he hoped would be his first friend.
He catalogued which information mattered more to him. After careful observation, he gleaned that the oldest of Ron’s brothers was idolised by pretty much all of them but that his favourite was undoubtedly Charlie, the dragon keeper. He learnt that his friend would never fully trust the twins for they liked to make a fool of him and that something about his only younger brother deeply bothered him, no matter how guilty he felt about it.
When Harry inquired about Lance Weasley, Ron only shrugged, his mouth twisting, and said this:
“He’s the seventh son of a seventh son.”
The Boy-Who-Lived, who knew nothing of what that meant, simply nodded and asked another question about his family home. Judging by the pleased grin Ron threw at him, that was the right answer. Harry felt kind of unsettled by it, but he moved on. He had more things to worry about, his impending Sorting chief among them. Because he wasn’t sure he would end up in Gryffindor, and he had no idea how Sirius would react.
It turned out he was worried for nothing; the Hat laughed at his worries and sent him straight to Gryffindor, though not without telling him he would have done well as a snake. Harry gathered the courage to discuss it with his godfather, who told him he wouldn’t have minded either way. People were more than their Houses, he said with a wry grin that proved it had taken him a few years to learn that lesson.
Ron and him ended up as close as he’d hoped for on the train, though the envy he could sometimes see in his friend’s gaze made him uncomfortable. But that was all right: Harry and he befriended Hermione Granger who proved to be a good and reliable friend to have when they had to battle their way through ridiculous obstacles to stop a madman from resurrecting himself with an artefact that should have never been hidden in a school full of children. Between the two of them, they sometimes managed to make Ron forget about his jealousy and focus on better things.
Harry forgot all about it until he bumped into Lance the next year and was greeted with eyes like pale moons that seemed to see straight into his soul.
***
When Draco told his father Ron Weasley had befriended Harry Potter, the man was very displeased.
“Was this generation of Weasleys born to spite me,” had muttered his father when he came back home for Yule. “So be it. Since you failed where he succeeded, you’ll antagonise them as much as you can. Make sure no Slytherins approach them. If any of them tempts his lot into turning back to the Old Ways, our family is doomed, do you understand?”
Then he’d cursed the Weasleys’ fertility with a few choice words that had his mother side-eyeing him.
Draco wasn’t stupid. He knew that no matter how poor they were, the family they had been feuding with for two centuries now had obtained a substantial amount of political capital when the latest of their brood was born. It had started with people visiting Arthur Weasley in his stupid Office of Mudblood Pandering. Then they’d all started commenting on how excellently the three eldest sons had done for themselves and how creative the middle twins were.
Judging by the threadbare clothes Weasley wore at school, it hadn’t yet been enough to keep them out of poverty but that would probably change once Lancelot Weasley made it into Hogwarts. Once he was confirmed to be magic enough to attend, they would be regarded differently.
And now that Ronald bloody Weasley had made friends with Harry bloody Potter on the first day, speculations would only grow further.
His father wanted him to do damage control and make sure it wouldn’t go too far. Sure, the seventh son of a seventh son always developed an unheard-of magical talent that often brought prosperity to his bloodline, but they were Malfoys. They sat at the top of pureblood society since the decline of the House of Black. An improbable quirk of nature like the birth of Lance Weasley would not set them back.
In theory, his father had the right idea.
The Weasleys weren’t ambitious; they’d been shielding their son from the rumours since his birth, rarely letting him appear in public. If the boy wasn’t made to see how much power he could wield, he would be manageable. Magical power was nothing without the desire to make something of it, after all. Better let him fade into obscurity and keep their pride as Malfoys.
But even if the previous generation wasn’t ambitious, this generation of Weasleys seemed to be sharper.
Bill Weasley graduated with honours and threw himself into a curse-breaking apprenticeship, having the guts to apply to Gringotts of all places and being rewarded for it. Rumours even said he had been invited to learn to wield a goblin-forged blade.
Charlie Weasley dropped out before his seventh year because he saw no need to continue his education after being offered a position as a dragon keeper in Romania. More than that, he also declined a place as a reserve seeker on the Falmouth Falcons’ team.
Percy Weasley was a swot, but one who was on a clear path to become first a prefect and then Head Boy, and who clearly was angling for a position at the Ministry.
And Draco didn’t have to look too close to realise that no matter what people said about them, the Weasley twins were geniuses in their own right.
Really, only Ron was mediocre in every way, but — though he was pained to admit it — there must be something to him for the Boy-Who-Lived to have befriended him when he refused Draco’s held out hand.
None of that would matter if Lance Weasley proved to be a disappointment in the face of the expectations placed on him. And that was clearly what Draco’s father was hoping for.
But Draco wondered if it wouldn’t be better to finally settle their old feud instead.