"Tucker, you there?"
"Danny you survived getting to England! Sam!" the last bit was hollered across the room to Sam, who was currently planning her latest campaign to change the lunch menu, "Danny's arrived in England! ARRGH!!"
Danny who was currently collapsed on his bed in the hotel room, shot up a few feet at the scream, and had a minor heart attack until Sam came on the phone.
"Danny?"
"Hey Sam, erm ... why the screaming?" he asked worriedly.
"Tucker refused to give me the phone", she replied in a matter-of-fact manner, un-nerving Danny who could hear Tucker's faint moans of pain in the background. "Anyway Danny, how was the journey? What's London like? Have you met any other wizards yet?"
"Cool it Sam", Danny laughed, "the journey was fine, Mom and Dad only asked to stop the plane twice to get rid of the 'inter-com ghost', London is absolutely manic, and yes, I have met other wizards. Dad took all of us to the wizard shopping mall, Diagon Alley. Oh my god it's amazing, they have shops for absolutely everything – from newt-eyes to broomsticks, and the bank is manned by goblins!"
"Goblins?" Sam asked, and Danny could hear her frown over the phone. "Are they paid?"
"I think so, but they're seriously creepy, they sound like a nasally Mr Lancer, but without the weird streak of niceness."
"Danny? Have you got your wand?" Tucker chimed in from the other end of the phone, and Danny figured that Sam had forgiven him for not passing the phone, and had put it on speaker. He looked down at the length of wood in his hand, and smiled.
"Yeh ... Dad and Mom almost cried, especially as it took so long to choose one..." Danny thought back to the time spent in Ollivander's, a pile of rejected wands building up on one side, his dad unable to stop fiddling with them (eventually being forcibly restrained by Maddie), and Jazz furiously scribbling in the notebook, until Ollivander pulled a box from a locked drawer, and carefully handed it over to Danny. Danny, already slightly weirded out by his milky white eyes and prescience, took it carefully, and Ollivander spoke with a small sense of awe.
"This wand Mr Fenton, is 11 ¾ inches, is made of oak and contains the hair of the shishi dog... a guardian ... of the spirit world Mr Fenton. An excellent wand for working against the Dark Arts", and Danny shivered at the knowing look on Ollivander's face. Grasping the wand, he could feel a strong, comforting presence, and he spoke in a firm tone: "this one. This one is the one".
With a strong, confident flick, he sent a burst of glowing green stars from the tip. Ollivander smiled, and merely gestured to the other wands, sending them sailing to their respective shelves, and as though nothing untoward had occurred, he asked Maddie and Jack to pay for their son's wand.
"What happens now?" asked Tucker and Sam, almost at the same time – from the other end of the phone.
"Well, we've got everything else, so now it's a case of waiting until the 1st. Dad said something about maybe visiting his grandparents, and of course I've still got loads to learn before I go to Hogwarts."
"Be careful Danny" said Sam, "I mean, not that you're not careful anyway, but you always seem to attract trouble."
Tucker agreed, "Have you been attacked by any ghosts yet?"
Danny shook his head. "Nah, they've been asking me to 'send them to the other side', sort out problems and stuff. They're not like the ghosts at Amity Park, they seem fairly nice – well, except for the one in the downstairs bathroom. He's horrible, but I just don't use that bathroom, he doesn't seem to leave it."
"Well ... I'm glad Danny", spoke Sam. "Now go and learn magic! And remember, we'll be there if you need us, I promise."
"I know guys, see you later, I'll write to you", and with the exchanging of goodbyes, Danny ended the call, leaning back on his bed, unconsciously turning the wand in circles. Sitting up, he saw the crowd of ghosts at the end of his bed, and sighed.
"Okay guys, which one was next to have their problems sorted?"
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
In Sirius' house, the same busy packing of school stuff was happening, causing Molly Weasley to tear her hair out in frustration at not only Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, Harry and Hermione, but also Arthur, Sirius and Remus' attempts to hide from the packing frenzy. Their current plan was to barricade themselves in Sirius' room on 'important order business', and the combination of locking, privacy and shielding spells meant that even Molly – with all her years of experience in getting her family out of their rooms and out of trouble – couldn't get in to force them to help. However, she was not a mother for nothing, and she merely sent up a fresh home-baked cherry pie to sit outside the room, wafting the sweet heavenly smell inside. She knew that Arthur had never mastered a protection spell that guarded against smells, as it was her who had placed the one outside the attic where the ghoul resided.
Back in the kitchen, Molly busied herself with sewing labels in the collection of robes that were needed for the next school year, and making lunch. Her back turned, the twin's confined in their room, Harry and Ron being forced to practise spells by Hermione, in preparation for teaching Danny Fenton, and Ginny sullenly cutting up vegetables for the soup, she smiled, as the creak on the stairs heralded a head peeping round the door.
"Molly dear? Is it perhaps possible that we could have a spoon for the pie please?" Arthur asked.
"Ah, Arthur! And you Remus, and Sirius! While you're down, you can get the table set and the dishes washed, come on chop chop!"
Sirius stood tall and firm, ready to defend his honour.
"Mrs Weasley, this is my house, and while I am here I will not clean any dishes, no ma'am no more!"
Remus hid his head in his hands. It seemed Sirius STILL hadn't to pick his fights. Molly drew herself up, and spoke with the anger of a fully-coiled snake ready to strike.
"Well, Mister Sirius Black, perhaps you would be happy to no longer eat the food I cook for you, and to no longer have a clean house?"
Remus and Arthur edged away from the suicidal Sirius. Noticing that his back-up had defected to the other side, and that Remus was frantically gesturing from behind Molly's back that to continue this would be tantamount to suicide, Sirius's shoulders slumped. Smiling winningly, Molly levitated the dishes into Sirius' hands.
"Thank you dear, for being so helpful."
Sirius muttered as he headed to the sink.
-x-x-x-x-x-
From the other end of the Extendable Ears that had been hanging in the doorway of the kitchen, Harry sniggered, and turned to Ron.
"Perhaps we should send your mum to get the Ministry on the side of the Order?"
Ron agreed. "That woman is an army in five feet of pure mother-ness."
"Really Ronald! That is hardly any way to talk about your mother!" Hermione interjected, face briefly appearing from behind the 'Teach Yourself OWL Standard magic in a week!' as she waved her wand to send Ron's owl from one end of the room to the other.
"It's true Hermione! Mum is a menace to those who get in her way!" Ron replied, getting his wand and rescuing Pig from Hermione's absent-minded menacing. "Besides, how is this going to help Danny? He's surely likely to have learnt levitation and locomotion spells! In fact, why don't we have a game of wizard chess? That's always much more fun!"
"Because Ron," replied a bored Harry, who had wound up the Extendable Ear, and was now sitting on the other bed, "you always win wizard chess, and apparently he hasn't learnt magic – he only found out a couple of weeks ago that he was a wizard."
"I wonder what house he'll be in" mused Hermione, turning the page to look at 'Chapter Five – Transfiguration Fun!', "it should be interesting, seeing as he's related to Sirius."
"He's related to Sirius? How?"
"His dad's Sirius's cousin three, four times removed. His mum and dad are some of the most eminent ghost-hunters and researchers in the whole of North America" replied Hermione, nose still buried, hand twitching as she practised the wand movements.
"But when did you find this out?" asked Harry.
Hermione marked her page, and shut her book.
"I found out they were related when the letter to Sirius arrived, while you were at your trial. The rest was through research."
Ron looked worried, "do you think he knows that Sirius is innocent?"
Harry looked at his hands. "We're the only ones that know."
Hermione looked at her watch, and yelled in a tone that made Ron and Harry jump about a foot in the air.
"We've got two days till we leave for Hogwarts and we've only covered up to Chapter Five! Come on you guys!"
Ron shuffled next to Harry, and murmured "do you think this is the best time to say that actually she's the only one who's got to Chapter Five, we've been plotting against Fred and George?"
Harry furiously shook his head. "It will NEVER be the best time to say that. EVER."
