Chapter 4: Letting Her Know
In the evening, Josh was informed that it was time Harry would arrive at the Burrow. After half an hour he was informed, Josh went down the stairs and into the kitchen that was full of people, including Harry, and Mr. Weasley who happened to be shouting at one of his twin sons.
"That wasn't funny Fred!" Mr. Weasley shouted as Josh walked over to Harry and shook his hand, then walked over and sat in a chair. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. "I just dropped it… It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."
"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet -"
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.
"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"
Harry, Josh, and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.
"It isn't funny!" Mr Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons."
"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.
"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he, Harry?"
"Yeah, he is, Mr Weasley," said Harry earnestly and Sophie shrugged.
"That's not the point!" raged Mr Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother -"
"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them. Everyone'e head in the kitchen turned towards Mrs. Weasley, her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.
"Oh hello, Harry dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Mr. Weasley hesitated. Josh could tell that, however angry he was with Fred, and George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously. Then Hermione and Ginny appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley.
Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which Josh noticed, made Ginny go scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his and his sister's first visit to the Burrow.
"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.
"It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just - but I've had words with them -"
"What have they done this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -"
"Why don't you show Harry where they're sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the doorway.
"They know where they're sleeping," said Ron. "Harry's sleeping in my room -"
"We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.
"Oh," said Ron, cottoning on. "Right."
Josh snorted, and leaned on the table, wanting to see this. "You too, Josh," Hermione added, looking sternly at him. Josh raised his eyebrows and was about to tell her no, when she spoke before he could. "Now. Besides, I have to tell you something important."
Josh sighed and stood up.
"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.
"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.
Harry, Josh, and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories.
"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed, Josh lagging behind.
Ron and Ginny both laughed, although Hermione didn't. Josh exactly knew what they were, but he wasn't paying attention right at the moment as his thought were on Hermione and what she wanted to talk to him about.
"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," said Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that…"
"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise."
"Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous," said Ron, "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 all the order forms… She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected."
O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students took at the age of fifteen.
"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop."
Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.
"Hi, Percy," said Harry. Josh merely glanced and nodded, already having a run in with him earlier, when Josh tried to use the bathroom that was already occupied by Percy.
"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy, then saw Josh. "Hello, Joshua. I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office – and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."
"We're not thundering, "said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."
"What are you working on?" Harry asked.
"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardise cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year -"
"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."
Percy went slightly pink.
"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow bottomed products that seriously endanger -"
"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Josh, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.
Josh entered Ron's room the second time that day: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog spawn, now contained one extremely large frog. Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl.
"Shut up, Pig," said Ron, making his way to one of the two beds that had been put into the room. "You'll be staying with me of course, Harry. Hermione with Ginny, and Josh with Bill and Charlie."
"Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.
"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."
"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named him," he explained to Harry and Josh. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."
Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Ron had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers, but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.
"Where's Crookshanks?" Josh asked Hermione,having not seen the cat yet.
"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen any before." Josh nodded as Harry and Ron talked about Percy's work.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Hermione?" Josh asked.
"Oh," Hermione said, blushing a little. "I was just wondering if...if..."
"If what," Josh said, glancing at Ron who was pretending to be Percy. He turned he grey eyes back to Hermione who looked back into them. "If what, Hermione?"
"When did your eyes become grey?" Hermione suddenly asked, causing Josh to quickly turn away.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Josh quickly replied. Hermione grabbed Josh by the chin and turned his face towards hers.
"Look," she said, pointing at Josh's eyes. "They're grey, and not brown like I remember. And your hair, like i said on the train. It's darker. It's black. I'm pretty sure it was brown too."
"Oi, what are you doing?" Ron spoke, saving Josh who looked at Ron and Harry sideways. "Not trying to force him to snog you, Hermione, are you?"
"No, I'm not," Hermione said, blushing and letting go of Josh's face. "Honestly, Ron." Hermione then turned to Harry.
"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" said Hermione. "Did you get our food parcels and everything?"
"Yeah, thanks a lot," said Harry. "They saved our lives, those cakes."
"And have you heard from -?" Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell silent.
Josh knew Ron had been about to ask about his father, Sirius. Ron, Hermione, and Josh had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harry's godfather as he was.
However, discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his innocence. Josh and Harry glanced at one another, both thinking if one or the other had contact with Sirius. Everyone knew Sirius was Harry's godfather, but only Harry knew that Sirius was Josh's father.
"I think they've stopped arguing," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron, to Harry and to Josh. "Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?"
"Yeah, all right," said Ron. The five of them left Ron's room and went back downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered.
"We're eating out in the garden," she said when they came in. "There's just not room for twelve people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you three," she said to Ron, Josh, and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.
"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Josh knew she meant Fred and George. "I don't know what's going to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can…"
Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as she stirred.
"It's not as though they haven't got brains," she continued irritably, taking the saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office."
Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harry, Josh, and Ron all jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, nearly missing Josh's face, flew across the kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the sink by the dustpan.
"I don't know where we went wrong with them," said Mrs. Weasley, putting down her wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. "It's been the same for years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to - OH NOT AGAIN!"
She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and turned into a giant rubber mouse. "One of their fake wands again!" she shouted. "How many times have I told them not to leave them lying around?"
Mrs Weasley grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove was smoking.
"C'mon," Ron said hurriedly to Harry and Josh, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie."
They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard.
They had only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat, Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air, chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harry and Josh recognised it instantly as a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the Wellington boots that lay scattered around the door. They could hear the gnome giggling madly as Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it.
Meanwhile, a very loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Bill and Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.
Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.
"Will you keep it down?" he bellowed.
"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"
"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.
By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, Josh, and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.
At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on cauldron bottoms.
"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, its extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman -"
"I like Ludo," said Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favour: his brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over."
"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," said Percy dismissively, "but how he ever got to be Head of Department… when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"
"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was someone in my department, I'd be worried…"
"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth… but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However" - Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine - "we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."
Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table where Harry, Ron, Josh, and Hermione were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."
Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry, "He's been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons."
Hermion and Josh were in a little heated argument.
"Will you please tell me about your hair and your eyes?" Hermione asked.
"Hermione, I honestly don't know what you're talking about," Josh lied, eating his food.
"Don't you make me hex you," Hermione whispered fiercely at Josh who rolled his eyes.
"Like you could," Josh mumbled, as his legged was kicked. "Ow, what the bloody hell!?"
"You're obviously hiding something Anderson," Hermione said. "You can't keep secrets from me- er- us!"
"Alright, Hermione," Josh replied with a heavy sigh. "I'll tell you later, ok? Now, can you please let me eat my dinner?" Hermion nodded and went back to her dinner with a small triumphant smile on her face.
In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring, which seemed to be a recent acquisition.
"… with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"
"Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," said Bill patiently.
"And your hair's getting silly, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand lovingly." I wish you'd let me give it a trim…"
"I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned, Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's…"
Meanwhile, Fred, George and Charlie next to Mrs. Weasley, who were all talking spiritedly about the World Cup.
"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals."
"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.
"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."
"What happened?" said Harry eagerly, regretting more than ever his isolation from the wizarding world when he was stuck on Privet Drive.
"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."
Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle. Josh was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with the world as he watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes, laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
Ron looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy talking, then he said very quietly to Harry, "So - have you heard from Sirius lately?"
Hermione looked around, listening closely and Josh leaned in casually.
"Yeah," said Harry softly, glancing at Josh who was staring back, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He might write back while I'm here."
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "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, Joshua, if you leave your school lists out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow - hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.
"That was a sample of fertiliser from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry and Josh as they got up from the table.
"We sent it," George added.
Half and hour later, Josh was emerging frome the bathroom wearing his a t-shirt and blue pajama pants with a towel over his shoulder and his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. Ginny was waiting outside and smiled at him and entered the bathroom with her own towel. Josh was about to enter the room he was to sleep in when he heard someone whisper his name from the stairs.
"Joshua," the familiar voice of Hermione whispered. Josh sighed and walked over to the stairs.
"What?" he said at the top of the landing, seeing her halfway up the stairs.
"Well, you're going to tell me what happened to your eyes and hair, remember?" Hermione remimded Josh who sighed.
"Now?" he said, pulling his toothbrush out of his mouth. "Hermione, it's late and I'm tired. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"
"No," Hermione said simply, grabbing Josh's hand and dragged him all the way down to Ginny's room, shut the door and sat him on the bed. "Spill it. What happened?"
"Glamour charm," Josh answered with a sigh, looking around the dimly lit room, which wasn't really girly-looking at all.
"Your using a glamour charm? Why?" Hemione asked, sitting next to Josh.
"No, I'm not using one," Josh replied. "I was put under one for 12 years."
"Why?"
"Hermione, if I tell you this, you have to swear that you can't tell anyone else, at least not until I'm ready for them to know, okay?"
Hermione nodded and grabbed Josh's hand. "I swear."
Josh took a deep breath, let it out, and began to tell Hermione all about his real father and about how he was jailed when he tried to kill someone. About how he left his mother and him as a baby for revenge, about how his mother was angered and then try to erase him from his son's life, though he didn't know his real father was his real father until the truth was revealed to him some weeks ago when his real father had escaped from prison. All he left out was his stepfather, what he did, what Josh did, and his father's name.
"So, your muggle father ecaped prison to tell you that he was your father?" Hermione asked, thinking over what Josh had just told her.
Josh sighed and stood up, scratching the back of his neck. "My father wasn't a muggle," he said, puzzling Hermione. "He was a wizard..."
"A wizard," Hermione repeated. Josh nodded and waited for Hermione to make the connection. Hermione looked back up at Josh with a puzzled epression. "I don't..."
Josh breathed through his nose and sat back down, next to Hermione. "Think about what I just explained to you, but think of a wizard," Josh said, and Hermione nodded. After a minute of thinking, she gasped, covering her mouth as she figured it all out.
"You're father is...Sirius?"
Josh nodded. "Yeah."
Hermione stood up and began to pace. "Oh my," she said. "This is...I don't know what this is. It's strange, unbelievable."
"Let's not make a big deal about this, Hermione," Josh said.
"A big deal?" Hermione said, facing Josh. "Josh, you were lied to your whole life," she said. "Your mother lied to you, lied about who you really are."
"Yes, I know," Josh said. "But I don't care about it, anymore. She only did it, because she thought Sirius was a murderer. And I understand that now. I accept that I'm not an Anderson, but a Black. Pureblood, Joshua Malcom Black, Heir of Slytherin."
"Wait, What?" Hermione said. "Heir of Slytherin?"
Josh grimaced. I really need to think before I speak, he thought to himself.
A/N: Boom! Another chapter! Yes, this is fun! Man, GoF is my all time favorite book. Anyways. Quidditch World Cup is near! and then dangers are coming up! Sweet!