A/N: Right, so it wasn't exactly two weeks. But it's up. And I have a new study hall moderator who has let me go to the library every single day for a week, so things are looking up.
I know, I know, I'm stealing chapter title(s) from CoS. This is why those glorious things known as discalimers exist. (Must I?)
RoumaniaRomania. Both are acceptable, technically. It's not like the Netherlands/Holland difference.
Her first impression of Ron Weasley's house was of semi-organized chaos and the color red, but that turned out to be the kitchen fire. Curiously enough, her second impression was also that of semi-organized chaos and the color red. It was, apparently, the kitchen, jam-packed with red-haired people.
Where there really this many redheads in the world? Wasn't it supposed to be a dying breed? And didn't they realize how incredibly disconcerting it was to be stared at wordlessly?
"Hi," she, Ron, and Hermione, who had gone previously unnoticed between Ron and his sister, said at the same moment.
"Merlin save us, it's her," said the twins synonymously.
"Hello," said everyone else at the table, somewhat uncertainly.
"Hi," she repeated, nervously scanning the table. Ron and Hermione sat beside each other, Fred and George opposite them, Percy in all his rigid glory beside them . There were five others she didn't recognize or know by name as well.
"Hello, Bellacine, dear," said a rather plump woman at the foot of the table who could only be Mrs. Weasley. "Ginny, will you show Bellacine where she'll be staying so she can take her things up?"
A red-haired girl rose up from next to Hermione and led Bellacine out of the crowded kitchen. "I'm Ginny, I'm in third year this year," she announced by means of introduction. "Mum's going to keep giving you the Harry look as long as you're here, you know," she added.
They went down a narrow hallway, through a crowded living room where all the furniture was shabby-looking, though bright, and were on the third step of a rickety old wooden staircase when Bellacine asked, "The what now?"
"The sort of look that Mum always gives Harry when he comes here. Those Muggles- his aunt and uncle- that he lives with since his parents died are really horrid to him. And Ron says you live with your aunt and uncle, and they're the Malfoys." Interpretation: Your parents are dead, you live with people seen by the rest of the universe as the worst thing since Grindelwald.
She would have to see how bad these Muggles were, and also do something about the apparently widely held opinion of her home life before any more analogies cropped up, before she was turned into some sort of tragic little hero.
"But they're just the Malfoys," Bellacine protested as they climbed upstairs, "they're not bad…."
"Mr. Malfoy put a book in my school things two years ago that made You-Know-Who possess me. And Dad says they were right in with You-Know-Who back then," she concluded, as though that settled the matter.
Bellacine stopped a step below Ginny and leaned against the wall. It creaked. She straightened hastily. "Percy is an incredibly irksome pompous prat, correct?"
Ginny nodded.
"But no matter how incredibly irksome or just plain stupid he can be, he's still your brother and your family and you still love him, correct?"
More nodding from the direction of her guide.
"Think about it?"
They reached the first-storey landing, first door on the left; Ginny opened it up and stepped into her room. Bellacine followed. It was a nice little room, seemingly smaller than it actually was due to the two additional cots alongside Ginny's bed and desk beneath the window, which overlooked what was presumably the Weasley's back yard. There were a few posters on the wall, mostly of Quidditch teams and bands.
"It's not much," said Ginny quietly, apologetically. "Sorry it's so cramped….."
Bellacine had never asked, but she was under the distinct impression that the Weasley family was very poor. She knew that Ron's former pet rat Scabbers, a.k.a. Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail, was a hand-me-down from Percy; his old wand, if she remembered correctly, had once belonged to Charlie. The general appearance of their house- tumbledown, careworn- heightened her opinion gleamed from experiences last year that affluent was just as good as an antonym as you could get.
"It's nice," she said. "I'd rather have a room I liked even if it was small. My room at home's a nice shade of Slytherin green."
The red-haired girl finally cracked a smile; her earlier, more serious expression wiped from her face entirely. Bellacine must have passed some sort of test. "Shall we go downstairs, then? We were almost done with dinner, and Mum made cake for afterwards."
They went downstairs together. When she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley stood waving her wand, and another chair was jostled into the limited amount of space around the table, between Fred and another Weasley she didn't know.
"I'm Charlie." He shook her hand as she sat down- so this was Ron's second-oldest brother, the one who worked with dragons in Roumania. He was shortish, like the twins; his hand was calloused and there was a fading burn mark running down his arm. "That's Bill, and you know Percy and everybody else."
Percy she knew, of course; he sat beside George and nodded politely in a highly formal, Percy-esque sort of fashion. The only things spoiling the general effect was the large helping of Mrs. Weasley's chocolate cake on the table before him. And then there was Bill. Only he looked nothing like she had thought he would.
She'd known he worked for Gringotts, and that he'd been a prefect or something back in the day at Hogwarts, and with this in mind, she had expected a precursor to Percy, something his brother was attempting to live up to in thought, word, and deed. He certainly wasn't, or else Percy had a wild streak she had never seen before.
Bill's hair was long—not you're-not-going-to-military-school-long-but-otherwise-you're-fine long, it was remarkably lengthy, at the very least to his shoulders. And he wore an earring, and dragon-skin boots.
Bellacine, startled, accepted a plate from Mrs. Weasley and took her seat.
"Ourmaung?" Ron stammered through a full mouth.
""Don't talk with your mouth full," his mother sighed.
"Mmph!"
"What does mmph mean?"
Ron began a one-handed, complex (or as complex as one can get with the use of only one hand) mime involving waving his left hand around for a bit, curiously alike to an orchestra conductor, although conductors generally retained the ability to make some sort of sense.
"He means the Malfoys, he means your summer, and how was it," his sister interpreted suddenly. Around the table everyone glowered at their plates; Mr. Weasley clenched his fist around his fork, stabbing it into his cake, which fell to one side.
"Well, it was okay," Bellacine said. "They were a bit mad about me ending up in Gryffindor- at me for ending up in Gryffindor- but I fed them the line about Sirius Black being in Gryffindor, and he ended up with the Dark Lord, so they took it rather well." They- she, Harry, Ron, and Hermione- had decided to tell no one, including family, especially family, what they had learned about Sirius; the Malfoys didn't know a thing about their plan, and so it had been a perfect excuse.
She looked up from her delicious cake to find most of the table- rather, those that didn't know her personally- giving her that suspicious, yet very innocent 'Who me? Suspicious? Of what?' expression she was sadly accustomed to receiving.
"Mum," Ron growled crossly. "Seriously. She's all right."
"Oh- oh yes, I know," said Mrs. Weasley hastily, looking flustered."Yes, yes, I know- Bellacine, dear- yes, of course, of course- boys!"
Fred and George had pushed back their chairs silently and begun to tiptoe out of the room while their mother spoke. Fred dove for the doorway upon hearing her voice, but Mrs. Weasley rapped her wand on the table like a gavel and they both came trudging back dejectedly.
"I haven't finished with you yet, boys! I told you when Bellacine came that you were not to leave the table until I have had my say. Now, I was cleaning you room this afternoon, and I found- this." She whipped out a long sheet of parchment that almost trailed onto the floor; to Bellacine, it looked like a list.
Fred stifled a grin.
George choked back a smile.
"Oh, that old thing," they chorused, but Bellacine also noticed the way they glanced from each other to the door (time to escape) to each other-
"Explain," Mrs. Weasley commanded sharply.
"It's nothing, just a prototype sort of thing," Fred explained hurriedly, following his mother's instructions to the letter, unfortunately. He caught himself a moment too late, as his mother shook the list in his face, she saw what it appeared to be: a price list, with a great deal of items that sounded like joke shop stuff, with a price amount in Knuts, Sickles, or Galleons after each.
"Prototype of what!" she shrieked. "So this is what you've been doing all summer, locked up in your room, frightening me half to death every time something goes bang- like as not you've been doing this all last year too- no wonder you barely got any O.W.L.s-"
"Mum," George began, looking seriously concerned.
"Don't you 'Mum' me, boys!"
"You know," said Bill, rising from his chair, "Mum, I think I'll go de-gnome the garden like you asked me to. Would anyone care to assist?"
Bellacine found herself agreeing with everybody else; although she hadn't the slightest clue what de-gnoming was, it was probably a wee bit less dangerous than the Weasley's kitchen at the moment.
"Yeah, we'll come too," Fred suggested brightly.
"You will not."
The rest of the table (excluding Mr. Weasley, who was semi-ordered to remain as well as the twins) flinched at this harsh order and quickly slipped out the back door to the kindly background music of Mrs. Weasley berating the twins.
"Two questions," said Bellacine to Hermione once they were free of the war zone, away from the house." "One, what was that about, and two, what on earth is de-gnoming?"
"One, they've apparently made a price list for a joke shop; I think they'd really like to open one," Ron said moodily. "Two, this"- he yanked what she had previously assumed to be a potato from the earth and twirled it a few times by its mop of brownish hair-"and this is de-gnoming." He swung the gnome about one last time and let it fly, which it did so, over the garden wall and into the field surrounding the Burrow.
"They always come back," Ginny said, a little sadly, "but Mum doesn't like them much at all. We have to get rid of them, Then they straggle back in and we've got to go outside and do it all over again." She ducked, narrowly escaping a flying gnome that Bill or Charlie had just thrown. "Where's Percy?"
Charlie bunted a gnome over the wall; it flew through the air with a loud whoop followed by a "Wheeee;"the second-floor window was thrust open and Percy stuck his head out.
If you would mind keeping that racket down!" Percy shouted. "I'm working on a very important report right now, I'll have you lot know!"
"Aw, shut up. Perce, we're not making noise," Bill shouted back. "It's the gnomes. Do we resemble gnomes?"
"No, but"-he glared wordlessly for a second before finding an argument- "this is really incredibly important, you've no idea at all- this is the Department of International Magical Cooperation, I'll have you know-"
"Oh," said Bellacine quickly, expecting this could be something interesting (a definite first for Percy, no?), "what do you do?"
"Cauldron bottoms!" he bellowed, going red in the face, "Cauldron bottoms! Did you realize that there is absolutely no standard thickness for cauldron bottoms? The British market is positively drowning in a deluge of shallow-bottomed imports-"
"I'll tell you who's shallow!" Charlie yelled, and let the gnome he was swinging rip directly at Percy's open window.
Percy slammed the window shut just in time, and the gnome hit the glass with a dull thud, sliding slowly down to the ground, quite unconscious.
They finished de-gnoming the garden; Bill and Charlie and Ginny went inside. She, Hermione, and Ron sat down on the back steps, which were crowded with a miscellaneous collection of boot-scrapers and rusty old watering cans.
"You know," Bellacine said, after a long silence while they all watched the red sun sink slowly below the garden wall, and, judging by the changing shadows, the horizon, "this is a nice house…." She had been gazing around the garden, which, for all its clutter and mess, looked much more comfortable than the Malfoy Manor ever had. Inside the bordering wall were a number of tall trees that screened the Burrow from the nearby Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole.
"It's all right," Ron mumbled, and kicked at a pebble, which skittered across the yard. "Not much to your place, I bet."
"This is better," she corrected. "That's like a mausoleum- you can actually tell people live here."
Shrugging disbelievingly, Ron stood. "Let's go inside." He led them up the rickety staircase, past the first-floor landing for Ginny's room and all the way to the top floor, where he opened the only door.
The room was orange. Very very orange. For a good thirty seconds, all her mind could process was orange. Once she got past orange, Bellacine saw that it was specifically Chudley Cannons orange. Somewhere in her mind in a very snide place that hopefully had no connection to her vocal cords, a voice was whispering, He's miserably poor and now he supports the Cannons too?
Apart from that, Ron's room (presumably) was as crowded as Ginny's, with three cots shoved in between the bed and the window; a glass cage containing a frog beneath that. In terms of human life, aside from the three who had just entered, there appeared to be no one else…until she heard a long, drawn-out noise issuing forth from the other side of the room.
"What is that?" she asked quickly; Ron rolled his eyes, crossing his room to stand by the window.
"Look up there." He pointed towards the ceiling; she glanced up and saw the outline of a trapdoor. "No, that's not Fred and George hiding out in the attic being the gits that they are. What it is, I'm the luckiest person in the house. Lucky enough to have the only bedroom directly underneath the favorite hideout of the world's loudest, smelliest, most revolting ghoul, that's me."
Hermione winced. "And this ghoul, you can't get rid of it?"
"Nope. Dad's tried everything. I think it moved in around the time Charlie was born, but it used to be a whole lot nicer"- he broke off at the sound of a loud wailing sound- "quieter, too."
Ginny bolted upright in her bed early Sunday morning, much too early for any normal person, to Bellacine's chagrin. "Harry's coming today!" she gasped excitedly. "Ron said so, he's coming! Today!"
"Why do I care?" Bellacine mumbled, bleary-eyed.
Hermione rolled over on her cot and gestured for her to lean closer, which she did. She whispered quickly, "She fancies him- has for ages." They leant apart as Ginny glanced at them. "Yeah, it's been like this for a while," Hermione continued. "I think it always has been, or at least for a long time-"
"What?" said Ron's sister sharply. "What are you talking about?" She didn't wait for an answer, however, and within seconds had bounced happily out of bed and downstairs with great excitement. "Hurry up!" she shouted up the stairs on her way down. "He could be here any minute!"
"Right, like he's going to show up at dawn," she muttered grumpily, falling backwards.
A quarter hour later, at least, Hermione leaned over her and said, "Are you going to lay there the whole day staring at the ceiling or are you going to get up? Everyone else is up already. You want proof? Look"- she wrenched open the drapes; Bellacine winced- "the sun's up."
"I hate sunshine," she mused. "I like staring at the ceiling. It's a very pleasant view of it that I have from here. Look at it, Hermione. Isn't it beautiful?" Her friend stared momentarily at Bellacine, then turned swiftly to stare at the ceiling. "Made you look," she laughed, and, turning into the black cat, dove hastily under the cot.
There was a brief pause, during which she assumed Hermione was looking for her in a room with relatively few spots to hide a fourteen-year-old girl; just as she made to sneak behind Hermione and duck out the door- she'd pop up downstairs and surprise her- Hermione bent over and peered beneath the bed.
"What did you do that for, you idiot!" she half-whispered angrily. "It's bad enough you're an Anima- well- one of them- without even being registered, and you promised Professor Dumbledore you wouldn't do a thing with it unless it was absolutely necessary- you can't go around transforming in a place like this, you barely know half the people in this house, just imagine if someone like Percy caught you- STOP IT!"
For the cat that was Bellacine had streaked out from her hiding place to the far, empty wall, out of view of anyone in the back-yard or anyone who would suddenly open the door, and begun to flash quickly between her two forms. "Stop what?" she asked, with an innocent smile, as she took- and retained- her human shape.
"You know what I mean," she said tersely. "Just- would you please stop changing back and forth and back and forth and back-"
"It saved my life once," Bellacine interjected quietly before Hermione could really get going on a rant. "It did and you know it did. If I hadn't known enough then it's not likely that I'd be here now,"
"That's very nice and all, I understand what happened back at Durmstrang, but it's not last year anymore—You're perfectly safe now- nobody's trying to attack you or anything, both in the real world and in your supposed mental world where Lupin is evil- you're only doing this to show off-"
"So quoth she who answers every question in every single class with the direct quotations they've memorized from the textbooks," she complained.
Hermione pointed out, "You answer quite a bit too."
"Hermione," sighed Bellacine, "I read through the book once at the beginning of the year and once before exams. I don't sit up in bed every single night revising even when we don't have an exam coming up. I don't waste my time like that."
Hermione threw up her hands in exasperation, surrendering altogether. They headed downstairs for breakfast- she had found Mrs. Weasley to be an excellent cook, proven more so by finding Fred and George with their mouths stuffed full at the breakfast table.
"Enreleeinorrow?" Fred coughed.
Mrs. Weasley frowned disapprovingly at him until he chewed, swallowed, and repeated, "When are we leaving tomorrow?" The World Cup was that Monday, the next day, and as of that moment Bellacine had no idea how they would be reaching the location.
"Early," George muttered, and pretended to stifle a yawn. "Much too early, because of course we can't Apparate so of course we have to go find a Portkey that's likely in New Zealand-"
"It's on Stoatshead Hill," put in Mr. Weasley, unfolding the Daily Prophet. "I've told you boys before, under no circumstances will you be allowed to Apparate before passing your tests, or you're going to get yourselves Splinched."
"Or you'll end up like me and reappear five miles off target on top of some old grandmotherly-type Muggle out doing her shopping. Nearly gave her a heart attack, I did," Charlie added ruefully.
"Thank you, Charlie," Fred said dryly. "Not only do we have to be short like you, you've cursed us with the gift of failing miserably at our Apparition tests!"
Afterwards Bellacine went out into the back-yard with Ginny, Hermione, and Ron- he and Ginny wanted to play two-on-two Quidditch but Hermione was horrible and she still staunchly refused to play. But for the first time in a long time she truly wanted to, for no reason, she had the urge back in her again….
To fly was acceptable, alone, away from others- away from anyone who could be hurt, because it had been her fault once and she would never again give it the opportunity. Hardly did it hurt so bad, now, she had noticed over the summer that there was a distance between the events of two years ago, but guilt kept her the way she was. To play was not acceptable, dangerous, even; an insult of the worst kind, perhaps, to his memory….
Instead she climbed into one of the leafy green trees surrounding the Burrow's yard, because it felt like being high off the ground on a broom, gliding, flying, hovering. Ron and Ginny played on their own; both were decent players although she found Ginny to be quite a bit better. Ron kept glancing at the ground, like he needed a reminder it was there.
The name of the star from which the planet earth receives light is Sol. Sol moved slowly in its diurnal course.
At five o'clock Mrs. Weasley called Ron inside; he, the twins, and their father departed by Floo to the Muggle house where Harry stayed during the holidays. With no Quidditch game- not that there had been much of one in the first place- to keep the girls occupied, they went inside and were summarily roped into helping with dinner. Bill and Charlie sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out the Sunday crossword; only Percy was AWOL- upstairs, working, she presumed.
The fireplace she had come out of a few days previously begin to fill with green light and a single figure came spinning out of it. Fred jumped into the kitchen, laughing hard. Seconds later, a larger figure- no, just George and a trunk- came, also gasping with mirth. Third was Ron.
Almost before the boys moved out of the way, Harry toppled out of the fireplace too, and judging by his face, he was far from experienced with Floo Powder. Before he had eve stood properly, Fred was interrogating him, and she and Hermione soon found out why they were so breathlessly in hysterics: The twins had tricked Harry's Muggle cousin Dudley into sampling one of their joke shop inventions, Ton-Tongue Toffee, which had the desired effect.
Then, all too soon, Mr. Weasley returned and began to reprimand the twins; Mrs. Weasley had overheard enough by now and joined in. She, Ron, Hermione, and Harry, trailed closely by Ginny, made their usual, narrow escape to his bedroom.
"What's Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" he asked as they climbed upstairs. Ron laughed.
"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," he explained quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, you know. Loads of stuff. It was brilliant. Only most of the stuff- well, all of it, really- was a bit dangerous and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned the order forms….She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get near as many O.W.L.'s as she expected."
She wanted so badly to ask Harry if recently he had heard from Sirius, but she didn't dare mention him while Ginny was around. Bellacine hadn't been able to write Sirius herself, partly because she didn't have her own owl and partly because the Malfoys would start to ask uncomfortable questions if they found her writing to an uncle who was a fugitive from the law. The only contact she had had with him since his second escape was one letter, towards the beginning of the holidays. But later that evening as they are, outside, Ron surreptitiously checked to make sure the rest of his family was engaged in a debate about the World Cup and softly said, "So- have you heard from Sirius lately?"
Bellacine and Hermione leaned in closer, until they were forming a peak of sorts over the table.
"Yeah, twice since July," Harry whispered. "He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday, He might write back while I'm here."
She considered grilling Harry for more information; how Sirius was doing on the run, where he was (if they knew) ; at the same time, she started to feel angry- how could this even be fair, that Harry had open lines of communication with Sirius but she herself hadn't heard from him in ages, he was her uncle, didn't she have the right-?
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley announced suddenly; Bellacine jumped, startled. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you- you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, Bellacine, I'll get your school things for you if you leave your lists out. Oh"- she glanced at her, frowning-" do you- have money with you, or ought I to get it from Gringotts- that is-"
"I have one- well, it's not mine, it's the family's, but I'm the only one who can get into it now, because somehow Sirius has been blocked. We found out last year, after he escaped, we were checking to make sure it was all safe," she said in a rush, feeling awkward discussing money in front of the Weasleys. "That is- as far as we know, but most likely, yes." She shot Hermione a get-me-out-of-this-now grimace.
Very helpfully, Hermione compliantly interjected, "If we're getting up early oughtn't we to go to bed? Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Weasley, it was excellent."
Grateful for the escape, Bellacine thanked Ron's mother with everyone else and went to Ginny's room with the other girls. She took the cot near the cot near the window, shifting on her side to avoid being poked by a protruding spring, staring out the window.
For the first time in a long time it occurred to her to miss her parents- moreover, that she was jealous of her friend's contact with Sirius because he was her most genuine living link with her father, with parents she had never known and had no right to miss. But there was no sense in fretting, or in missing them: She drifted to sleep.
All too soon Mrs. Weaskey was knocking at Ginny's door, calling for them to wake up. This time Bellacine was the first one out of bed, merely to be contrary, and she dressed. When Hermione opened her eyes a few minutes later the first thing she said was, "You're meant to look like a Muggle, not a witch."
She almost retorted that she was a witch, a pureblood at that, and had no wish to associate herself unduly with the Muggle class, then recalled Hermione's birth and decided maybe this wasn't such a great idea. Instead she rejoined. "I haven't got any Muggle clothing though, have I?"
By this time Ginny was out of bed as well, digging through her wardrobe, where she located several oldish pieces of mismatched non-magical clothing, and loaned jeans and a long-sleeve jersey to Bellacine. Examining this outfit in the mirror, she plucked at the sleeve anxiously. "I still don't see why-" she began.
"Because we have to find the Portkey inconspicuously, and if Muggles come across us while we're dressed as witches-"
"Which we are-"
"There'll be too many awkward questions that nobody will want to answer truthfully."
"So lie, then," Bellacine responded cheerfully. "They're Muggles, Hermione, they never notice what's right under their noses. Come to think of it, they never notice anything five feet from their noses either, or they might've thought to worry about the masses of people running into a wall at King's Cross."
"That's not a big deal," she mocked. "You've run into walls before- the solid kind, mind you. I think I'll buy a little flashing red light and attach it to the walls so you notice them."
"People running into walls is nothing new, same as talking to inanimate objects. Ron runs into doors all the time. So do Fred and George, although I suspect they do it for the laughs. Funny sense of humor they've got, eh? Harry actually has apologized to a wall after walking into it. Peeves once put a rubbish bin in the hallway one day and two kids walked straight into it without realizing a thing. Supposedly Lupin fell in, but it was the day after the full moon, admittedly, so at least he had something of an excuse."
"That really was a pity," Ginny said as she dressed. "About Professor Lupin being a werewolf," she clarified. "He was the best teacher we've ever had. Before him it was Gilderoy Lockhart, and he almost got me trapped in the Chamber of Secrets."
"Be glad you missed out on Professor Quirrell," Hermione muttered. "Nothing worse than your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher having You-Know-Who sticking out the back of his head."
"Girls, hurry up!" called Mrs. Weasley from the hallway. "The boys have been waiting for ten minutes!"
They went downstairs, into the kitchen, where Harry, Ron, the twins, and Mr. Weasley waited. All were clad in sometimes-odd-looking Muggle clothing; Mr. Weasley juggled a bag that likely contained their tents and other camping equipment, and a thermos of coffee. Ginny moaned, "Why do we have to be up so early?" and rubbed her eyes.
"We've got a bit of a walk," said her father. "No, not to the Cup itself- that's miles away. We only need to walk a short distance. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the World Cup-"
"George!" Mrs. Weasley reprimanded sharply.
George let out an innocent "What?"
"What is that in your pocket?"
"Nothing!"
"Don't you lie to me! Accio!" She pointed her wand at George's pocket and several small golden objects that looked a bit like misshapen snitches zoomed out. George made a grab for them but missed. "We told you to get rid of them!" she shouted furiously, holding in her other hand many gold-foil wrapped sweets, presumably the Ton-Tongue Toffees of legend. "We told you to get rid of the lot! Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"
In the end Mrs. Weasley managed to extract a number of the toffees from every unlikely place Fred and George could think of to hide them (she had to admire taping them on Fred's neck, where his hair and the collar of his jacket just covered the hiding place) only by using the Summoning Spell. Finally their group departed from the Burrow; they trekked around the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole. Harry caught up with Mr., Weasley to have a conversation about the technicalities of a large group of wizards assembling in one place.
When she caught his voice saying, "People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand…." it occurred to her that this implied not only that they had decently good seats, but it struck Bellacine that the rather poor Weasleys were paying for her ticket when she could've at least gotten something from the Malfoys.
Oh. Well then.
She didn't speak up, mainly because they were now climbing a very steep hill, stumbling in the dark into abandoned rabbit holes, and she was getting short of breath. Hermione, panting, muttered something nonsensical about white rabbits and pocket-watches that she didn't quite catch.
"Now we just need to find the Portkey," Mr. Weasley gasped upon cresting the hill, sounding as if it would be no mean feat. "It won't be big…..Come on….."
They had only been examining the dewy, scraggly-weed-covered ground for a few minutes when the air was rent by a summons.
"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son! I've got it!"
Two tall figures were outlined by the still-starry, yet paling into grey, pre-dawn sky. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn they looked as if they were about to be beamed up into space any moment.
Mr. Weasley led them over to a red-faced, jocular looking wizard with a beard holding a rotting leather boot. "This is Amos Diggory, everyone," he introduced the man. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"
For a tense moment the school-age people present stared wordlessly at each other: She knew Cedric to be the Captain and Seeker for Hufflepuff, the team which had given Gryffindor its first-ever defeat of the Harry Potter team the previous year. Admittedly it had been far from Harry's fault. Bellacine herself had missed the actual climax due to an intriguing combination of horrid weather and flashbacks to some rather awful memories, but as she had heard, it was terrible.
"Long walk, Arthur?" Mr. Diggory offered.
"Not too bad. We just live on the other side of the village there. You?"
"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his Apparition test. Still…not complaining…Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it for a sackful of Galleons- and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy…." Mr. Diggory nodded to the Weasley children present, Harry, Hermione, and Bellacine. "All these yours, Arthur?"
"Oh, no, only the redheads," he responded. "The girls are Hermione and Bellacine, friends of Ron's- and Harry, another friend-"
"Merlin's beard," Diggory interrupted astoundedly. "Harry? Harry Potter?"
Bellacine restrained a snort as Cedric's father's eyes widened; he glanced at Harry's scar for a time longer than an ordinary glance, and then into his face again. It always happened. Everyone noticed Harry the Infinitely Wonderful and Saviour of the World first, and often only. Not that she minded. Nice change from the Black look of doom.
"Ced's talked about you, of course: he continued, still staring at Harry. "Told us all about playing against you last year….I said to him, I said- Ced, that'll be something to tell your grandchildren, that will….You beat Harry Potter!"
"Dad-" began Cedric, clearly embarrassed. "Dad, I told you-"
"Must be nearly time!" Mr. Weasley shouted genially, checking the time on his battered watch again. "Do you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"
"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't get tickets," Diggory said. "There aren't any more of us in the area, are there?"
"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off….We'd better get ready…."
They crowded around the mouldy boot, shifting to allow room for their large bags of camping equipment. Mr. Weasley, watching the second hand of his watch, began the countdown: "Three…two…one…."
Immediately Bellacine felt a rush, a flash of azure imprint itself on the inside of her eyelids, which she had blinked closed in anticipation, foresight. She felt the invisible power of the Portkey dragging her forwards; she was dimly aware that this strange form of motion likely disrupted several of those strange Muggle theories about apples and trees. (see footnote)
That was their fault, then.
They crashed sharply onto a grassy stretch somewhere; at Ron's end of the apparatus a domino effect began and she found herself toppled over. The sky felt dizzy as her head when she looked at it. The only travelers that remained standing were Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, and Cedric.
"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said an unfamiliar voice.
She disentangled herself from the mess of people and rucksacks and stood. They had arrived onto a stretch of moor covered in a heavy mist that seemed none too eager to dispel. She could hardly see the two wizards standing a yard away from them, one of which was now collecting the used Portkey from Mr. Weasley. Nor could she see anything else farther away than, say, her hand. It was an almost eerie atmosphere and she half-expected a voice to suddenly speak from the early-morning fog around them, so it hardly came as a surprise when it happened.
Someone else interrupted Mr. Weasley and the tired wizard, Basil; he asked in accented English the time of arrival for the next Portkey, from the Black Forest: It was Leszek.
Footnote: Genesis, Sir Isaac Newton, what's the difference?