It was the sixth of February, Arthur Weasley's birthday. Molly bridled the celebration to the company of family, exclusively.
Hermione genuinely smiled at the sight of Ginny and Harry, who were sitting by the eight-seater wooden table in the compact kitchen. With steaming mugs of coffee and an unfinished game of Scrabbles laid open in front of them on the table, they both looked up at the fireplace, where Hermione had just showed up. She traipsed over to the end of the table farthest from the fireplace, where the couple was seated, shoving out of her way about four heavy wooden chairs in the process. She wrapped an arm around Ginny's shoulders and lowered her eyes at Harry.
"You know, it's one of those occasions that make you want to send those mumbling gnomes flying."
They were virtually guffawing when a precipitous arrival of Ron grasped the trio's attention.
"The Burrow's never been more…noiseless." Ron marked, briefly scanning around.
"The crowd is outside, setting up the garden. We were just heading that way." Harry gestured towards the door, opened outward to the garden behind the house.
Squeezing himself past the multiple chairs that obstructed his way, he tapped Ron's back as he headed out of the door. Harry stopped, with his back resting against the frame of the door; he turned back to see Ron, standing still, watching Hermione, as she involved herself in a conversation with his wife inaudible to him. He had picked up on the building up distance between his two best friends. He would be gulling himself, if he said, he had no clue why. But he wished that were the case, because there was no way he was abetting Ron, neither did he want to impel an argument trying to talk Ron out of his misconceptions, for this time, he was impossibly fixated.
"We should really go now. Party's going to start without us, otherwise."
"Yeah Harry, be there in a minute." Ron paced out following Harry, leaving the ladies to themselves.
"Just give me a moment here, Ginny." Hermione hastily walked to the tiny circular table at the centre of the living room. She had to significantly bend down to place her purse on it. Feeling the chill, she pulled in the break-point edges of her black coat and buttoned them together. Balancing herself on a knee, dug into the cushiony brown sofa, she leaned over to get to the window. A last wave of freezing wind stung her face as she shut the window with considerable force.
"Gets really windy here in St. Ottery" Hermione quibbled, pulling the weary red curtains over the couple of panes.
"It sure does. Have you heard from Luna lately?" Ginny asked from the kitchen, piling a tray with chocolate cookies.
"I haven't, is she here?" Going back to the kitchen, she freed her hair from the tight bun, letting her curls cascade down her back.
"No, I don't think she's coming back any time soon. One of my colleagues confirmed that she's in Africa, though" Ginny roughly pulled out another tray from the packed shelf.
"Africa? Are there still African eccentric species left for her to discover?" Hermione playfully jested.
Ginny chuckled. "Well, she's going to be talking about this side of the globe a bit in some kind of a seminar. And besides that, she will be meeting the Headmistress of Uagadau School of Magic with a proposal of a cultural exchange programme."
"That's big… here, let me take that." Assisting Ginny, she carried a tray full of cookies out of the kitchen and Ginny followed her with another.
Around the wide circular ebony table were fifteen chairs. From her angle of view, Ginny could see Arthur, in a brown plaid shirt and a black coat, seated at the centre with Molly to his left and Bill, his right. Fleur, settled next to Bill, locked her arm around his elbow and leaned over the table as she talked to Arthur. Shifting her gaze beyond Fleur, Ginny could see a stretch of four empty chairs, which were for her, Hermione, Ron and Harry of course. At the other end of the empty chairs was Charles, the bachelor in the family, who was holding his glass of white wine and was apparently looking at something hilarious at some distance. Ginny tried to follow the trail of his gaze, but could see nothing, to her disappointment, as he was looking towards the dingy perimeter of the garden. Charles laughed away to his heart's delight, while Audrey, sitting next to him, lifted her flawless pearl away from her chest with here index for Angelina to see. With a glass of wine placed on the table in front of her, Angelina went on talking and subtly emoting, in the admiration her necklace, probably. Percy and George, sitting beside her, were trying too hard to stifle a laugh to a joke no one in the family could know. To George's right was Teddy Lupin, a soon to be lifelong member of the extended Weasley-Potter family. He could not stop admiring the glamourous, part Veela, Victorie, dressed in a lavender dress, sitting beside him. Victorie would steal glances at her beau and blush, between her conversations with her grandmother.
"Right, it's a small get together." Hermione nodded, looking ahead at the table.
"Well, just family." Ginny joined in.
Moving closer to the gathering, Ginny got a better view at the edges of the garden. Harry and Ron, bent half way down, were looking around for gnomes and would chase to grab it once they spotted one. Harry rose up and swung his arm over the hedges with full force, sending an adult gnome out of the perimeter of the house.
Ginny pulled herself the chair next to Charles and burst out laughing; joining him in the sheer joy of watching the two men run around the garden and tackle the gnomes like chickens.
After the Weasley-Granger and Weasley-Potter wedding, the whole of Weasley clan and the Grangers agreed to meet up and vote over finalizing their residential settlement. After hours of Molly Weasley standing firm and alone, up against everyone, on her decision of her son-in-law and daughter-in-law moving in with them, they decided, both the couples would get their own accommodation.
Walking a distance of half a mile from The Burrow, under a brilliantly lit starry sky, the couples got home after snacks and an early dinner. The Potters had built a three storeys high white and red house, equipped with every modern muggle technology. Right across street was the Weasley residence. It owed its state of art stone walls, stretching over two storeys, to Hermione's taste in designing.
Ron tucked himself in. Shutting his eyes, he tried to forget every sour memory from the day earlier today. And braced himself for yet another day at the Ministry of Magics.
XXXX
"Where the hell is my map Russell?" James roared. "You and Albus will be permanently settling in the infirmary if I find it here, again!"
James restlessly flung all the sheets off the beds in the dorm.
Getting off the spiral staircase descending from the seventh floor, Albus swiftly pulled the Cloak of Invisibility over himself. The cloak was passed down to him by his father, for adventures just like the one he was having. Sitting in front of him were Harvey and Henry Sage. The gaunt, blonde, Muggle born twins, who were his other roommates, sat snug on the maroon couch by the fire, doing their homework. He got past them, unseen. Standing outside the Gryffindor Common Room, he unfolded the Marauder's Map under the cloak.
"Lumos," he pointed his wand at it "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Leaving the Gryffindor Tower close to midnight, after it was restricted, came to him naturally. Just the way speaking parseltongue did. But probability of ebbing circumstances rose, when Albus's Prefect brother, James, stormed past him in the corridor by the quad. Albus realized that he had undoubtedly latched on to the disappearance of his belongings. Fortunately for Albus, James did not catch the faintest whiff of his presence there in the corridor under the cloak.
The map revealed Neville Longbottom's, his godfather's, footsteps advancing towards the quad from the Defence Against the Dark Arts Tower. A guilty chill ran down Albus' spine. He glued to the uneven, rocky wall, his back against it. He held his breath as Neville walked past him. He watched his godfather walk a healthy distance away from him before he turned in the direction of the DADA Tower and ran to it breathlessly, seizing the opportunity of vacant vicinity. Leaving the tower behind him, he was now again on the bridge. This side of the bridge extended to the Training Grounds Tower. His destination for the night.
Walking up hastily, he found himself at the top of the spiral staircase, ascending to the fourth floor. He was standing in the Library Corridor. To his right was the library. He checked the map for any traces of approaching footsteps. And double checked. He held his wand out of his cloak, for the library was pitch-black. He tranquilly walked past every section holding his wand up against them. Finally, after passing his last stoppage of search, the Reference Section, he got to the Restricted Section.
It was embedded in the most secluded corner of the room. More like being abandoned. It was closed off by a rope, separating it from the rest of the room and sending a clear message of 'no-entry'. After going over the red rope, he thoroughly scanned the titles of the books in that section. Fishing through the books in all the racks of the section, a book in a blue jacket, placed in the bottom shelf drew his attention. His traced the title with his index. It read – The Tale of the Three Brothers.
He impatiently yanked it out. The cover on the upper side had a small sketch of Beedle the Bard in white on the sky blue background. The bottom of the cover which should have had the author's name, 'Beedle the Bard', printed on it, was empty. Cutting through the chase, he flipped through, to the part of the book he was there for. The last chapter. It was titled – Death's Animosity.
The addition of this particular chapter made the copy of the folklore so exclusive that it was veiled from the masses of the wizarding society. Protected by Hogwarts.
Resolving to go through its content intensively later in the comfort of his dormitory, he pulled out a piece of parchment from his trouser and copied the text from the book using a Cribbing Spell, a spell primarily used to assist a student to cheat in exams.
