Chapter 9
Surprisingly the year ended with minimal interruptions. Everyone packed up with little regret and amounting excitement for the upcoming summer. For me it meant traveling, something I missed ever since Fred banned me from running off until I completed the year. The train hissed to a stop at King Cross station and everyone piled out into the arms of their families, or in Harry's case the Weasleys.
I slipped my hand into my pocket, nervous flutters entering my chest. Fred then swooped me into a bone-crushing hug, pinning my hand in my pocket. When he finally set me down I smiled up at him and pulled out a piece of paper, my Tardis' number on it. I winked at him, "call me." He huffed and rolled his eyes before nodding. George then wrapped an arm around Fred's neck and pulled him into his family's circle.
I turned abruptly ignoring the dull throbbing of jealousy in my chest. I walked briskly, straight-faced until I found a slight hide-a-way. I enlarged my Tardis and entered, off into the time vortex.
0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0
A sharp ringing from my phone made me turn away from my console. A tingling in my gut led me to answering the phone in a flirtatious tone, "Hello?"
"Do you always answer your phone with that tone?" Fred's distinct voice rang in my ears.
I laughed, feeling light, "No. Only when it's you."
He laughed, and it rang pleasantly in my ear, "Well anyway, would you like to go to the Quiddich World Cup with me?"
I grinned, "Yeah, when do you want me there?"
"Next week," he said.
"That helps," I huff with false irritation.
"Oh, oops," he chuckles before giving me a time, date, and place.
"Much better, see you then," I hung up and put the coordination into the Tardis.
I landed not soon after and I cautiously opened my door. I glanced around for Fred, but before I could spot him arms wrapped themselves around my waist, enacting a small squeak of surprise from me. I twisted in his hold and wrapped my arms around his neck, smiling irked up at the ginger.
"Wow," an unfamiliar deep voice sounds just from beside Fred and I.
I smile at the man. He had long red hair and freckles spattered across his cheeks. He was obviously a Weasley, an older brother of Fred.
I glance at the Tardis and breath out, "I know."
The Tardis trembled delightedly, "He says thank you, but he's not interested."
The man looked rather taken aback and concerned. I brushed the look off and tug Fred aside so that the door would close. I then shrink the Tardis down and attach it to a ribbon before tying it around my neck. It's been quite a while since I've had it like this. It was nostalgic.
Fred pulls me away from my thoughts by clasping my hand and pulling me towards the Weasley's house.
As I had arrived rather early in the morning I spent the rest of the morning catching up and enjoying the company of the Weasleys' and Hermione who had arrived a while before I had. "So how long have you been away my dear," Mrs. Weasley asked at a point in our conversation. I glanced at Fred, he had obviously told her something.
"Er," I glanced at Fred nervously, "give or take a decade."
"What!?" Fred yelped jumping to his feet, "And you didn't call?"
"I was busy," I mumbled slightly.
"Alright, alright, enough of that," Mr. Weasley stood and clapped his hands, "it's about time we fetched Harry is it not?"
The rest of the family nodded and mumbled agreements. They all shuffled to the chimney and I looked on rather confused.
"Alright off we go," Mr. Weasley pulled out a draw-string bag and held it out.
"It's floo powder," Fred whispered to me, sounding a little upset. I guess he still wasn't over it.
I stared at him confusion still etched into my face. He chuckled and leaned over and whispered, "We're traveling by fireplace."
"Oh," I said feeling rather stupid.
We traveled in pairs, thankful because I wasn't entirely confident in my traveling by fire place skills. We were all jammed into a boarded up fireplace, obviously Harry's.
"Harry, dear, are you there?" Mrs. Weasley called out past the wood.
"I'm here!" We heard him shout back.
"Stand back," Mr. Weasley held out a hand and flicked his wand towards the entrance. With a blast the wood exploded outward, showering the other room with splinters and dust.
Fred and George strolled into the house and up to Harry's room. I tagged along after a moment. We waltzed into his room and grabbed his things as the rest of his family, namely his uncle yelled crossly at us. We just ignore it as Harry scrambled behind us, trying to carry his own things.
On our way down a brightly colored wrapped fell out of Fred's pocket, a little fat boy scrambled and picked it up, not hesitating to shove it in his chubby little mouth. I assumed this was the annoying cousin Harry told us about. He then frantically screamed as his tongue began to unravel to the floor. It kept spilling out of his hands as he tried to hold it. "Fred Weasley," I gaped at him, trying to hold back an amused smile.
Fred's shoulder went up into a shrug, "What? He was a git. You would have done the same thing."
"Er…well that's beside the point," I sighed. He was going to get yelled at by his mother anyway.
Indeed she did, she yelled at him for at least a half hour about him opening a shop, and the chaos it would only bring when we had arrived back. Mr. Weasley had stayed behind to assist with the tongue problem, it was rather amusing actually seeing the boy and his parents reaction to the situation. The mother had fainted and the fathers face now resembled a fire-truck.
As soon as we got back Mr. Weasley had informed Mrs. Weasley about Fred'd miss doing; he just looked annoyed, but slightly ashamed. Good, that was a dirty trick, if not hilarious.
George, Ron, and Harry pulled me aside and started up a conversation. We caught up on how everyone was doing, although I brushed over my "adventures" lightly.
A while later after the Weasley parents had calmed down Fred walked back over to us, sulking ever so slightly. Mrs. Weasley ushered everyone to the kitchen and then the chaotic process of making and setting dinner up outside began. I got dragged in so I lent a hand.
The rest of the evening was filled with fantastic food and conversation and eventually we all went to bed, rather exhausted but content.
I awoke the next morning just as dawn was breaking and it's sounded as if no one else was awake yet. I got up and got ready, changing into mid thigh dark blue jean shorts and a fitter cap sleeved shirt. To top it off I but on a equally dark jean vest, clipping on a pocket watch and slipping it into my pocket. I slung my navy messenger bag over my shoulder and went downstairs.
A short time after everyone else made their way down stairs. Half of them were still half asleep so there wasn't much conversation. Once everyone was downstairs Mrs. Weasley led us out of the burrow.
We hiked a ways from the burrow until Mr. Weasley began searching around for something.
"What are you looking for?" Harry asked him.
"A port key. It could be anything, something muggles consider trash so they won't go picking up and playing with it," he answered still looking around intensely.
"I got it over here Arthur!" A voice sounded from the distance. Shocked I turned along with everyone else to look to where the voice came from. The owner was a middle aged man with graying hair and glasses. He had a boy with him that looked to be seventeen. He had short blonde hair and an attractive face.
Mr. Weasley rushed over to greet the man, "Amos."
"Amos these are some of my children: Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny. This is Harry and Hermione, friends of Ron, and this is Kali. Fred's Girlfriend." He motioned to each of us when he spoke and when he gestured to me a nodded a greeting and Fred's hand tightened on my for a second.
I glanced at him and saw him glaring slightly at the boy at Amos' side. Having a better look I realized that the boy was Cedric. He was watching me with curiosity, but obviously Fred didn't like it.
Hearing Amos speak I tuned back into the conversation.
"-beat you in Quiddich." I caught the last part of his sentence.
"Dad, I told you harry fell off his broom," Cedric told his father sounding quite embarrassed at his father's boastful tone.
"So it just tells you who's the better flier," he said ignoring his son's embarrassed visage.
"Actually," I cut in, "harry fitness because of the dementor, it had nothing to do with his flying." I would defend his skills.
Fred's palm connected with his forehead and he let out and exasperated sigh.
I smirked at him and whispered teasingly, "Oh you love it when I talk technical."
Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat at this point and said, "Are we waiting for anyone else?"
"No the Lovegoods' aren't coming and everyone else has already been there for a few weeks," Amos responded.
We then all approached and surrounded a worn out leather shoe. Mr. Weasley instructed us to all touch the shoe and we complied. Mrs Weasley then counted down from three and I felt a tug in my belly button as the world began to spin rapidly past.
"Let go kids!" Mr Weasley shouted from somewhere around me. I felt everyone let go and I followed. We all landed heavily on our backs, air leaving my lungs in a painful huff.
"I think I prefer traveling by Tardis," I groaned before jumping to my feet.
"Well at least you can't hit people with doors this way," Fred said treading from the ground as he proper himself up my his elbows. I rolled my eyes and helped him up.
"You still having trouble with doors then?" Mr Weasley asked.
"Yeah, but Fred never let's me open them anymore," I playfully pouted.
"Hey I'm not the one who hit King Arthur with a door," he continued teasing me.
"How many times are you going to bring that up!? And it wasn't my fault we landed right behind him."
I noticed everyone looking at me oddly before the Diggorys went on their merry way.
Mr. Weasley went to pay for the camp site while the rest of us headed over to said site. On our way there the Golden trio went off to get water for the fire. Fred and I set up the fire pit and when Mr. Weasley arrived he went about playing with a box of matches to start the fire. After several minutes I got slightly fed up, not that it was fun watching him learn like a child, and struck a match and lit the sawdust at the base of the wood. It instantly sparked and soon grew into a roaring fire.
We had finished cooking breakfast and everyone was gathered around the campfire either idly chatting or just lounging.
"Hey, why don't we tell scary stories?" George randomly spoke up and suggested. In the seconds after recovering from his out burst everyone nodded in agreement.
Fred nudged me, "Why don't you go first Kali?"
Several voices joined in and I was forced to comply.
"Okay, okay! Give me a second to think," and think I did. I ran over all the adventures I had had in all my years and if any of there were particularly scary.
"I've got it," I exclaimed finger in the air. I then cleared my throat as everyone leaned a little closer to me.
"In one of my adventures I ran across a group of...people searching for a lost artifact of their people. I had stumbled upon their ship as they were taking off across...a lake towards an...island and they were rather cross at first, me being a stoy-away and all, but we got to know each other and I promised to help them.
"So we made it to the...island and we were rather surprised to find a pristine conditioned city. It was completely abandoned, as if everyone had simply disappeared. Vanished into thin air. The only thing we found was piles of black ashes blowing across the city.
"We searched around the city for at least half a day before we found anything. The only place that had any signs of destruction was this old capital building in the center if the city. The inside was all torn apart, walls busted in and everything smashed to bits. Now we were getting quite nervous, I'm sure you can understand. Something had scared these people out of their wits.
"Now in the main room of this building there was a big metal crate, sealed shut. And there was nothing around it, like the chaos, the destruction of the room couldn't touch it. I analyzed it and found there to be a strong barrier around for non-biological items.
"I warned them. I had this gut feeling we should muck about with it, but they didn't listen."
At this point everyone's eyes were wide and they leaned forward so far I feared they would fall out of their chairs. I continued on, getting wrapped up in my story.
"They opened the crate and found this camera mechanism. Now here they laughed. Wondering what all the fuss was about, it was only a camera."
I shook my head, "but it wasn't only a camera. It was a death machine. They began taking photographs, laughing and having a good time. But that's where things went wrong. Five minutes after they took the first photo a girl by the name Kayika eyes began to bleed. Her eyes melted right out of her head, and then her blood turned to ink. The rest of her followed and soon half of the group began the same process. They turned into ink and then to black ashes.
"They threw away the camera at this point, as if it was a monster. There were three of us at this point. I had been lucky enough to not be looking at the flash when the photos were taken. That's what did it. The flash.
"See the camera was a device that was supposed to be used for medical purposes. The flash contained advanced micro-little...uh little machines that were the size of blood cells. They entered the eye when the iris expanded with the flash. However there was a glitch in the machine that tried turning the people into photographs. It rewrote their biological DNA with that of ink, which dried from contact with the atmosphere.
"I destroyed the device, but it was too late to save them. The device killed nine people in our group, leaving only the three of us, and I couldn't apologize enough to the survivors."
There was a pregnant silence for several minutes after if I finished speaking. I didn't think it was that scary...
We then saw everyone start making their way to the stadium, so we doused the fire and followed suit. The excitement of the air outside the camp broke the tense silence and we began talking joyfully about it.
We climbed the long way to the top box in which the minister of magic, and some other important figures and families were.
The Minister greeted Harry, whom greeted him back with the same stiff politeness.
"Harry, I'd like you to meet the Bulgarian Minister of Magic," Fudge started gesturing between the two. "He doesn't know any English so he has no idea what I am saying."
I watched the Bulgarian Minister as he obviously pretended to not speak English as he was introduced to Harry. I let out a snort of laugher and Fred asked me what was so funny.
I gestured to the Bulgarian Minister subtly, "He knows English."
"Really?" Fred asked interested.
I nodded, "I know a confused man when I see one and he isn't. He's probably just messing around with Fudge."
Fred chuckled and we sat down with the other Weasleys. Our hands were intwined and resting on his lap, and he run his thumb over my hand occasionally, enticing a pleasurable tingle down my spine.
The match was intense, and it was a bit hard to keep up with all the men zipping about on their brooms. I still dislikes riding on them, I felt so unstable.
Not unlike Krum. Watching him fly about he looked weightless, as if he was born riding a broom. Eventually Krum caught the snitch, winning the cup for Ireland. The roars of the crowd were deafening, even up here.
The Golden trio were discussing this outcome when the Bulgarian Minister spoke up.
"I zink he was very brave."
"You called it," Fred grinned at me.
I smirked proudly back as Fudge sputtered at the Bulgarian, "What?! You knew English this whole time?!"
He laughed, "Vell it was very funny." He turned to me, "Vhy didn't you turn me in if you knew I spoke English?"
I grinned at him, "You have sharp ears. It's because I didn't want to ruin your fun."
The celebration lasted well into the night and I had barely fallen asleep when the air was filled with screams. I ran outside to see what was happening. I saw men cloaked in black wearing white masks were enchanting the camp directors and their wives in the air. Everyone else ran around in a blind panic.
I was enraged, and it burned in my veins. How could they interrupt a happy celebration like this? I marched up to one and punched them square in the face. I felt the makes crack under my throbbing fist. The man fell away, but before I could do anything else my wrist was grabbed roughly and I was suddenly picked up and slung over another cloaked figures shoulder as if I was nothing but a sack of potatoes. They ran off with me bouncing on their shoulder.
Editor note: sorry for taking so long with this. Life sucks when it's busy and you never have time to write. This is an exciting development and I hope you guys enjoyed it because Empress has been bothering me to edit this. Good thing she did. I have the next chapter and I will edit it quicker this time.