Ok, so if you tried to read this before but was SERIOUSLY intimidated by the huge chapters? Have no fear, for I have shortened them.
I realize there is no human contact in the beginning of this chapter, but it is important that there isn't any. Please give it a chance.
Oh, and this Fanfiction takes place in book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING THAT IS FROM THE BOOK SERIES: HARRY POTTER… or if I make any other references to anything published or copyrighted.
The top of the hill was gorgeous, with daffodils and asters everywhere. Weird little animals, that reminded her of chipmunks, were dancing through the flowers; they were obviously indigenous to wherever she was. Lexi slowly turned in a circle looking for a sign of some kind to tell her where she was. A neon sign post reading "YOU ARE [insert place here]" would be perfect, because she was completely lost. A loud bang behind her made her jump and turn.
"What the hell…" she trailed off as she realized that it was just her plane expelling more smoke. Even though she was stranded God knows where, she had to laugh at how jumpy she was being. Sighing, Lexi stood in front of her small once-white Cirrus SR22 with her hands on her hips. Yeah, there was no doubt that this little guy wasn't going to make it out of this crash. Lexi was almost positive she would be able to buy a brand new one, (well Joe would be able to by a brand new one, but whatever; details) for cheaper than having this one repaired.
She stood, as if willing the plane to put itself back together, because she knew how much trouble she was in already. As she was picturing how Joe would react to what had happened, she smelt the gasoline. Her eyes widened in realization. She had just enough time to take two steps backwards, and half turn around until the plane exploded. Compared to the movies, actually having a plane blow up less than ten feet away is way less cool. Lexi felt herself being hurled through the air, thankfully hitting something a lot more forgiving then, say, a rock or a tree. She remembered lying on her back looking up at the sky… and that was it.
It could have been seconds, or hours, she wasn't sure, but when she did regain consciousness, she had no idea where she was. Her eyes snapped open, registering the fact that she was not in her bed at home, but lying on the ground, with the biggest itch on her face. After a few seconds she started remembering, plane crash, Joe's going to kill me. Right, how could I forget? Slowly she stood up, looking around. The thick tall… (Grass?) Around her, was easily a head taller than her. As soon as she was on her feet, claustrophobia immediately closed in. Spinning in circles, Lexi could only see the tall yellow-green, grass-like stock. She knew she had to calm down, so she looked up at the sky taking deep, soothing breaths. Her heart beat slowly returned to normal, as did her breathing.
Forcing a smile, she convinced herself that she was being silly, she was perfectly fine. Happy place, happy place, happy place. Her eyes snapped open, and her heart jumped to her throat when she heard a rustle to her right. She couldn't swallow, and she couldn't' move. The curtain of hair that fell in her face made her start, and she slowly and cautiously lifted her hand to brush her dark wavy locks away. Her hair was constantly getting in her face but she had tried short hair before and didn't work for her at all.
Finally, she had been waiting so long for something to happen, that her legs were sore from staying in the same position, and she had convinced herself that she had defiantly imagined the noise. Lexi breathed a sigh of relief, shaking out her legs. Lexi almost fell over when she heard another rustling, this time to her left. Her head snapped in that direction so fast, she heard her neck crack. She winced, resisting the urge to move her hand to her neck. She didn't move—and she was pretty sure she wouldn't have been able to even if she tried. Her breathing became labored, worse than after she did the 20k two months ago. Common sense hit her, and she realized that if she was breathing as hard as she was, whoever was in the grass with her could probably hear her. She slowed her breathing—thanks yoga—and once she judged it had been long enough, she cautiously turned, trying to pick out anything off about her surroundings.
Lexi glanced at her watch, and, surprise, surprise it was dead. She looked around trying to find which way would most likely lead her back to the hill where her now-even-worse-off plane was. She glanced around herself, and psyched herself up to start moving. Lexi pushed a large clump of the grass-stuff away and took a step forward. She paused, as if waiting for someone to jump out at her. Lexi sighed, hating how up-tight and paranoid she was being. She turned, wanting to see how big of a hole she left in the field, and heard a loud-high-pitched screaming. She didn't realize that it was, in fact, her screaming; her eyes were wide in fear and shock as she half stumbled, half ran backwards. She turned and flat out sprinted. Lexi heard whatever it was behind her follow her, but she was too focused on getting away she didn't think about it.
The sight of the 2-3 foot tall, mini-Santa Claus, the concussion that she had sustained from the explosion and the fact that she had no idea where she was freaked the hell out of her. Lexi felt like she had been running for hours, but knew that it had only been minutes. Her heartbeat was erratic, her breathing coming in gasps and she could feel tears of panic starting to come. Lexi tried to focus on running in a straight line, but the stock in front of her reminded her of some sick horror movie she had seen. Her green eyes flashed in all directions and ended up staring over her left shoulder.
Before she even had the chance to turn around, she tripped and fell forward. Stretching out her arms to lessen the fall was a bad idea, and she knew, even before she hit the ground, that she would regret that action. Pain shot up her arm, but the first aid training that she had to get to be a summer camp counselor, told her it wasn't broken. Adrenalin pushed her onward though, as she jumped up and kept running. Pumping and pushing her legs faster and faster; she could almost imagine that she was in the woods behind her house.
As she continued her flee from the little… whatever, she realized how utterly ridiculous this was. I'm running away from Santa Claus and he's three feet shorter then me. He looks completely stupid and was eating worms. Wow. Sounds terrifying. Even though she tried to convince herself she didn't have to be afraid of… it… she was still scared, and kept running, trying to go faster. Finally, she looked up, and saw The Hill. She squeaked in anticipation, almost tripping again. When she got to the edge of the grass, she took a few extra steps, before putting her hands on her knees, and looking over her shoulder at the field. She stretched her back as she half laughed, half cried in exasperation. Where she had landed, was clearly marked by an almost-crater in the field. Of course with her luck she shouldn't really be that surprised at where she had landed. If only Lexi had gone in the other direction, she would have been out of the field in less than five steps. Although, then I wouldn't be near the plane. Silver lining Lexi, come on. She shook her head, and was about to go up the hill to get a better view of the where she was when she heard voices near her plane.
Her head snapped up the hill, and saw that she was half hidden by a few trees, so whoever was by her plane couldn't see her. Thank God. Lexi refrained from rolling her eyes as she counted how many things had gone wrong today. This whole luck-not-on-her-side thing was getting old. She snuck up the hill and hid behind one of the pine trees, eavesdropping on the group of people. Oldest to youngest (from what she could tell) there was an older man, twins, a boy and a girl all with red hair. There was also a girl with a lot of brown curly hair. They all had their backs to her, staring at the plane.
"…so this is one of those air-o-panes that muggles fly in?" the oldest man (father?) asked the girl who did not have red hair in awe.
"Well, it was an airplane, Mr. Weasley… I wonder what happened…" the girl with brown hair said. She stepped forward, waving a stick in front of her, as if it would clear away the smoke. Lexi glanced at the other people, and realized that they were all caring sticks in their hands. When she looked back at the girl with brown hair, to her surprise, the smoke was gone—completely cleared. It wouldn't have been that much of a big deal, if the smoke hadn't still been black and thick less than thirty seconds ago. It should have taken another hour—at least—to get rid of the smoke.
"How many people Hermione?" Mr. Weasley asked the girl with brown hair. Lexi finally recognized the accent as British.
"Well…" Hermione started.
"It's probably too gruesome for a little Miss. Know-it-all," one of the twins muttered.
Hermione turned around and glared at the twins, "it is not 'too gruesome'" she said, making her voice higher pitched as she said the last two words, "there just isn't any one in the plane. Whoever crashed the plane, got out before it crashed!"
"Well Hermione… was there any… you know… remainders?" the youngest red headed girl asked.
"No nothing but the plane," Hermione confirmed.
"…and that means they could still be alive…" said one twin.
"…and probably a muggle…" said the second twin.
"…which could potentially be a problem," finished the first twin. Lexi had no idea what a muggle was, or why 'a muggle' was a problem, but she figured that they were talking about her. She thanked God that they didn't hear her scream, before. They seemed nice enough, but something about them still seemed off, and she was still really paranoid from the field incident.
The six people, almost in unison, turned down the hill. Lexi cursed, wishing that the forest was thicker than it was. Truthfully, she was stretching it by even calling it a forest, but luckily the trees were huge; at least two feet in diameter. A tree directly to her left was—no joke—five feet in diameter. After a few moments she slowly edged her head around the side of the tree to look at the people.
All of them had turned their attention to the field that was behind her, and slightly to the right. She decided when they started moving closer to her, that it was time to leave. While she tried to imitate James Bond as best as she could, she slipped behind the five foot wide tree. Her breathing had picked up again. The fear of being caught was making every nerve in her body tingle. She chanced a glance around the tree, and saw that they were getting closer to the group of trees she was hiding in. Lexi was about to move again, when she heard someone—it sounded like Hermione—gasping, and exclaim, "look!"
Lexi froze. She knew that there was no way that she would be able to hide behind these trees forever. Lexi heard footsteps getting closer and closer. Pressing herself as close to the tree as she could, she turned her head to the right in some misconception that it would hide her better. Two people burst out laughing in unison—no doubt the twins—and a few other people were chuckling. Lexi's face turned hot with anger. They were laughing at her? She was breathing through her teeth, as her face colored even more, but this time in shame. How embarrassing was it going to be when they find her in this awkward posting behind a tree and laughing at her? Listening to the footsteps get closer, she considered her options. Suddenly, a very familiar, very not welcome, sound came from behind her. Immediately the picture of the mini-Santa Clause flashed through her brain. The rustling noise came again.
"It's a garden gnome Hermione! Geez, you're afraid of one of these guys?" Someone choked out through laughter.
Lexi felt everything inside of her relax. They hadn't found her. She was fine. She was getting worked up over nothing. She glanced around the tree to see them moving down the hill, parallel to her position. She was easily able to run through the trees up the hill, as the group gathered around the garden gnome. She slid into the plane as quietly as she could. Everything had been blacked, and saw that absolutely none of her personal belongings had survived. Lexi sighed and, after making sure the group was still occupied, slid under the front consol to reach the safe.
The safe was probably almost everything proof: fire proof, water proof, bullet proof, missile proof, you name it. When Joe had put in the safe, Lexi had argued about how difficult it was to reach, and how awkwardly one had to contort their body to reach it. Now though, since half of the control board was missing, it was much easier to access. She popped off the front face plate and entered in the 25 digit code. In her haste, she had pressed a wrong button and alarms blared. Her face colored in embarrassment, and her heart beat fitfully. She immediately started pressing buttons, praying that they group had not heard. She bent backwards to look out the huge hole that was right behind her, making sure the coast was clear. Lexi started moving her legs as she leaned backwards getting ready to slip away before the group realized that the alarm had gone off.
"Well who do we have here?" Mr. Weasley was standing less than two feet away, staring curiously at her. Her throat closed off, preventing her from speaking. He sounded friendly enough, but the ominous way all of them were pointing their sticks at her had her speechless.
"Are you a muggle?" the boy with red hair asked.
"Honestly Ron, if she was, she wouldn't know what that means, and if she wasn't, she would have stopped the plane from crashing in the first place!" Hermione said in a very bossy voice. It was obvious that all of the people with red hair were related, and she figured Hermione was a family friend or something.
Ron's ears turned bright red as he glared at Hermione. "Fine," he said, "let me rephrase that: are you a wizard?"
One of the twins slapped him over the back of the head.
"You can't just go around asking questions like that Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, glancing worriedly in Lexi's direction.
Lexi snorted softly, trying to hold back laughter. What kind of club would call themselves 'wizards' and carry around—what she now realized was supposed to be—'wands'. Of course the state of fear and panic she was in, she started worrying that maybe there was such a thing as wizards. Hermione clearing away the smoke; somehow they got here when she was sure that there had been no one for miles when she was parachuting down to Earth. Come on, get a grip. There's no such thing as wizards! Geez, next I'll believe in werewolves and giants.
"I dunno George…"
"…look at her clothes…"
"…mhm… definitely muggle…"
"…and she drives one of these…"
"…although she did crash it…" The twins said, finishing each other's sentences. They then looked at each other than back at Lexi. In unison they said, "Muggle."
"Oh, stop it you two," the youngest red head said.
Mr. Weasley waved off the group, and asked, "Are you from Britain? What's your name?"
Lexi stared at him, not processing that he was talking to her. "I…well…no…I mean—yes, I mean—no, I mean… well no… and I… but you…" Lexi sat there feeling like a fish out of water, with her mouth moving up and down, and nothing coming out. Finally, she muttered out, "Well… you… and…" she sighed, "Lexi."
"Lexi, alright, my name is Arthur Weasley," he said, holding out his hand. She stared at it. Then, hesitantly, she reached out and took it.
"Hi, Mr. Weasley," she said shyly.
"Do you have anywhere we can take you to?" he asked.
"Right Dad…" the twins started again.
"…let's just apparate a muggle…"
"…that's a wonderful idea…"
"…just brilliant," they finished.
"Oh, no, I'll be fine here, someone is on their way to get me," Lexi lied. She glanced down at her watch, expecting it to be dead. It was working, though. 6:13 pm it read. The weird thing was, was that when it had stopped working in the field, it had said 2 something.
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. She obviously wanted to leave, but it was nice of her to ask anyway.
"Oh, yeah, I'm good," Lexi answered quickly.
"You're American," they youngest red headed girl stated. Before the twins could make a sarcastic comment though, she continued, "Are they going to know to come over to Britain?"
"It's kind of a long story, but yeah, they'll know," she answered, still anxious to get away from these people.
"Okay, well if you're sure…" Mr. Weasley said, trailing off. His face contradicted his words. He definitely wasn't going to leave her without solid proof that she would be okay.
"Yes, I'll be fine, really," she said, trying to get them to leave. She still felt on edge about them, but she wasn't really sure why. Part of it was probably because her cell phone had been going off for the past ten minutes. "Besides," Lexi added quickly, "the alarm that you hear going off, well, my dad has an alarm connected back home that tells him it crashed. I bet he's half way here already."
"The alarm… oh, do you know how that works?" he asked excitedly.
"Mr. Weasley," Hermione said sternly, "now is not the time."
Lexi looked at Mr. Weasley, how does an alarm work? What kind of question is that?
"Alright you lot, let's head back to The Burrow," Mr. Weasley said. The Burrow? Who are these people? All six of them slowly made their away around the plane to other side of the hill. Each of them had their own sideways glance to give Lexi as they walked past. She glanced over the side of the plane, watching them walk away. Her eyes widened in surprise at how much like a war zone this side of the hill looked—not that she had ever seen a war zone, but this must be like what one looked like. There were huge patches of blacked grass; one of the plane's wheels was lying on top of her now blackened parachute; a blade from one of the side propellers was sticking out of a pile of blackened metal like the sword Excalibur.
Trees had been knocked over, and the ones that were still standing had been burnt in half. Over all, it was basically not a pretty site. Lexi glanced back at the people walking down the hill making sure they didn't come back. After a few minutes they stopped moving, and a glowing horse came galloping towards them. Uh…What? She refused to let her brain even attempt to process this new piece of information. Really, ghosts? THERE IS NO SUCH THING! Lexi watched the scene unfold in front of her. She was frozen in shock, her brain was telling her what she was seeing wasn't possible, but her eyes were telling her otherwise. The ghost, maybe, was talking to them. Lexi shook her head back and forth and blinked a few times before looking up again. The conversation that was taking place was obviously important, by the look of intense concentration on the oldest man's face. Mr. Weasley glanced up the hill at the plane, then back at the ghost. They were obviously talking about her, the pointing and exasperated glances her way was a dead giveaway.
As she watched, she realized that they were in an argument of some kind: the ghost and all of the red headed kids, verses Mr. Weasley and Hermione. Finally, Mr. Weasley gave in, bowing his head and shaking it back and forth slowly. With his head still down, he reached out his hand for the youngest red headed girl and Hermione. Ron held on to one of the twins arms like it was his life line or something. To Lexi's shock, the group then spun on their heels, and disappeared. As in, one moment they were standing there, and then they were gone.
Lexi leaned back in alarm, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes were wide, searching for a logical explanation of what the hell just happened. She sat there staring at the spot they had just been. Lexi looked around again, to see if anyone else had witnessed the group disappearing. Eventually, she stood on shaky legs, stumbling her way down the hill. The loud 'crack' she had heard when they disappeared must have been a trap door or something because it is impossible to just disappear like that.
Wizard…
No! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WIZARDS OR MAGIC!!! Her brain yelled at her.
Her phone vibrating pulled her back to the present. Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped her phone twice before she was able to read the caller ID. She looked around making sure she wasn't being watched, before she slowly pushed open her phone.
"H-h-hello-o?" she stuttered out.
"Lexi, would you care to explain why I had to lie to Mr. Jones this morning?" Joe asked. The quiet voice he was using was not very reassuring.
"M-Mr. Jones?" Lexi asked, slightly frightened. Mr. Jones was a very important business man; Joe's biggest rival.
Lexi sighed and collapsed to the ground, her feet stretched out in front of her. "I swear to God Lexi, if you tell me that you took the plane out again, I will hunt you down," Joe (her adopted father) yelled through the phone.
"Joe, I—"
"AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT CALLING ME JOE?!" he snapped, making her jump at the tone of his voice.
Knowing she couldn't win, Lexi inwardly cringed as she said, "Dad," she closed her eyes, knowing she was screwed, "Dad, I… crashed… and I have no idea where I am…"
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. It was so quiet that she didn't even hear Joe breathing. "You don't know where you are," he said, clarifying. His voice was deadly calm, making Lexi squirm even though Joe couldn't see her.
"Uh… yeah, well I'm in Britain somewhere, but that's all I know…"
"Right, you can't even be sure of that Lexi," Joe spat.
"Well, there was a group of people here that basically said I am in Britain, so…" she trailed off. Lexi sat picking at a hole in her faded jeans. Why did she even pick up the phone? She knew how helpful Joe was going to be—which is to say—he's going to be absolutely no help at all. Joe sighed in frustration. Lexi could picture him perfectly. He was probably sitting on the big, old, smelly red recliner in the basement, next to the stained wooden side table that was going to break soon from the amount of junk on it. He was probably eating—finishing off—his first box of Twinkies and drinking his seventh can of beer. His greasy hair slicked back, and his once-toned-now-gaining-weight-body wearing old, smelly, grease stained clothing. He was, without a doubt, with a girl… or five, since he only yelled at her once. "Whatever," he finally said, "just find out where you are and get your ass back home."
He hung up on her. Not very surprising, since she could count the amount of times he had said good-bye to her on one hand. Oh no wait, she wouldn't need any hands because he's never said good-bye to her before. And he wants me to call him dad…
Lexi looked down at the ground again where those people left. Kneeling down to the ground, she cleared away little pieces of debris, and ran her hand over the ground looking for some way to disappear, or a trap door. Finally, she gave up, but pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind. She sighed, and finally stood. She looked around and shivered. The thin, once-white tank-top she was wearing did not keep her warm in the fast-falling temperature. She decided to just start walking and see where she ended up.
Lexi stood in a sort of valley—her plane behind her, and trees sparsely scattered along the slope of the hills surrounding her. She judged that the valley was only about six miles across. Only six miles, she snorted to herself. With her arms wrapped around herself, she started forward. As she was walking, she watched a rabbit dart through the trees and up the hill to her left.
"Just shoot it! God damnit Lexi, I did not raise a wimp!" Lexi could hear Joe yelling at her. Joe loved hunting. He was one of those guys that had heads of animals along walls, and bear and deer skins framed. She would have been able to get over the animals… eventually… but shooting a gun and knowing that she was the one to kill… anything really, would be way too much guilt. Plus, killing something is so against everything she believes in… and seeing as she can't even kill mosquitoes, shooting a gun wasn't going to happen in this life time. She smiled, remembering all of the… "Good" times that she had at her adoptive parent's house.
Lexi sighed and wrapped her right hand tightly around the round locket necklace. It was the only thing that she had that was her mother's. Inside of it, was a picture of her father. Apparently, the story goes that he was falsely accused of killing a bunch of people, and was in a jail somewhere. Every time she asked where he was, Joe and Brianna got angrier. Lexi decided that asking was not going to get her anywhere, when Joe slapped her. Lexi had figured—falsely—that Joe would be more willing to tell her if he was drunk. Yeah, it didn't go over well. The little respect that Lexi had for Joe flew out the window that night. She had been planning to run away, but with Brianna being the most well known business women in Europe and the U.S.A, and Joe owning a shot gun and holding first place for the best shot, (the competition included military officials and police officers as well), and it would be suicide.
A little over an hour and a half later—from what she could tell—Lexi got to the other side of the valley when her shoe sunk into the mud. The disgusting squelching noise it made, made her face contort in repugnance. She pulled and pulled but her foot wasn't moving. Tears of frustration prickled at the back of her eyes. She had just been walking for almost two hours, freezing cold, hungry and completely lost. Yes, her situation could be worse, but really? Was someone out to get her or something? Breathing heavily, she stared angrily at her shoe, as if giving it the evil eye would make it jump out of the mud.
Taking three deep breaths first, she pulled as hard as she could. To her surprise, her foot started sliding out of the shoe. Off balance, she stumbled forward, effectively getting her other foot caught. She blew her hair out of her face, definitely pissed off. It had taken her at least five minutes to get her first foot out, now her other one is stuck. She stood in her awkward position for a second, just breathing. Her foot, now with no shoe, was stretched forward, not stuck, and not in mud. Her other foot was turned sideways and only the tongue of her etnies were visible over the mud. "Okay," she said out loud, "this could be worse, just pull. I'm fine, it could be worse," she told herself.
Lexi could safely say that today was not one of her better days. That was the honest-to-God truth. She took a deep breath, and then leaned all of her weight on her left foot, slowly pulling out her right foot. Wonderful she thought no shoes and no coat. Excellent. She stood there, glaring at the puddle of mud, feeling sorry for herself, until she finally said, "it could be worse, just chill and think. This is just more motivation to get the hell out of here."
Turning around, she slowly made her way up the hill. Judging by the setting sun, it was around 8:00 or 9:00. When she got to the top, she looked straight ahead, praying for civilization. Instead, she saw the craziest house she had ever seen. She swore that there were invisible poles or something holding half the house up, because of how far to the left it was leaning.
She slowly walked up the path towards the house. She heard people inside shouting "HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF!" whatever that meant. She tried looking through the window to see who was inside. Laughter and happiness seemed to be radiating from the house, and she felt bad needing to break up their family time or whatever.
She kept searching for an open window, but flowers were obscuring her vision, so she couldn't see through the windows. Finally, someone came to the window directly to the left of the door.
She groaned. It was 'Ron', one of the boys she had oh-so-nicely-met at her plane. There was no way she could ask them for help that would just be embarrassing, since she had already lied to them. "THE BURROW" read a sign on the right of the path. She couldn't believe she had missed it before. That was what they meant when they said 'let's head back to the burrow' or whatever. Lexi weighed her options. No, she couldn't. With all the weird stuff that happens around them, there was no way she would voluntarily involve herself with them.
Per usual, luck was not on her side.
"Hey, Dad, isn't that the girl that we were talking to earlier?" Fred or George (one of the twins) yelled from inside they house. They had joined Ron a few seconds ago, and were just standing there, staring out at her.
Lexi flushed, immediately turning, planning to run.
"Blimey, I recon she doesn't like us much!" the other twin said.
"Oi! Wait up you," Mr. Weasley yelled, bursting out the front door. Lexi would feel terrible if she just left. So, against her better judgment, she turned on her heel and faced them.
Mr. Weasley finally made his way over to her, and gasped out, "I though… you… a ride…?"
"Well, it turns out Joe can't get over here until I know where I am… so, where are we?" Lexi asked awkwardly. She still had mixed feelings about these people, so she didn't know how to act around them.
"We're in the southern part of Britain, but why don't you com in and wash up?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Oh no, I can go wait… um… well I can wait… by my plane…" she finished lamely.
"Come on dear, we won't bite," an older women who—yes, had red hair—was trying to push Lexi towards the door.
"I—" Lexi stopped once she saw the inside of the house. Amazing didn't really cover it. It was the coziest house she had ever seen, ever. She turned her head as she heard someone running down the stairs.
"Mum, there's been a problem at the Min—" the boy had just realized Lexi was standing in the doorway, and finished with "—istry."
Her first thought, was simply he's gorgeous, and then she realized she was staring, and quickly held out her hand. "Lexi," she said, blushing.
"Charlie," he answered, looking at his parents confused.
The awkward silence that followed was very… well, awkward for Lexi. Charlie and his parents seemed to be having a silent conversation that everyone, except Lexi, was following like a tennis match. The silence just kept gong, and going. Lexi got so used to the silence, her phone vibrating broke the silence like a knife; it was that loud. All the red headed people were looking around startled, as if they had never heard a phone vibrate before. She ignored them as she pulled out her phone. "I'm," her voice was weak. She cleared her throat and tired again, "I'm going to have to take this, sorry."
She opened her phone and turned around, "yeah?"
"Joe told me," Brianna said, sounding everything but remorse. Seriously, my plane crashed, and I could have died. Thanks for caring.
"I'm at… some people's… house," she forced out, choosing her words carefully.
"Mhm…" she heard a computer taping on the other end, and knew that Brianna was already onto the next dilemma she had to 'waste her time' fixing (Brianna's words). Lexi stared out the window, waiting for something more than just a 'mhm'.
The silence was killing her. This is the second time today that she had been standing around listening to complete silence. Lexi was about to open her mouth to show her impatience, but Brianna said, "ok, your phone has been traced, the helicopter will bet here in a few minutes."
"I can find—"
"Actually, they're already there, see you at home," Brianna said, hanging up. Lexi could hear the helicopter's blades rotating, and knew that she had to leave.
Lexi held the phone to her ear for a few mores seconds—just enough time to hear Mr. Weasley say, "A portable fellytone! Ingenious, these muggles!"
She sighed, confusion and frustration making her eyes roll. "Well, my… mom… sent over a helicopter for me. Thanks for all your help," she said, slipping out the door. The helicopter was landing twenty or so feet away, but she couldn't resist turning around and saying, "It's actually pronounced 'telephone', not 'fellytone'… but you were close."
Mrs. Weasley was obviously not happy that Lexi had heard that, and Hermione looked nervous. Lexi just shook her head, knowing she would never understand these people. Did they ever even leave their house?
Lexi got on the helicopter. Part of her really wanted to see them again, which was just weird in general. She sighed and gazed out the window watching the house disappear.
"Miss. Black, Mrs. Brianna said she will meet you in the back room at 9:30pm sharp.
"Thanks Kevin," Lexi said, sighing. She opened her locket, and looked at the man that was her father. His chin length black hair and big smile made Lexi smile.
*****
"That's the girl Sirius told you about?" James asked.
"Yeah, I figured she was older, if Sirius was so worried about her," Jacob answered.
"Come on, we've got to go give him the message."
They got up slowly, trying not to rustle the bush they were hiding in, then quickly disapperated.
