Chapter 12: What I'm trying to say
Mid-April, 1999
A week or two later, on a Wednesday evening, George Weasley Apparated with a loud crack onto the Quidditch pitch south of Diagon Alley. There were already eight or so people sitting on the bench at the side, almost finished with lacing up their Quidditch gear.
They all turned around and looked at him.
George looked as if he wasn't quite sure how he had gotten there. "Er…Is Angelina Johnson here?"
"No," said a young man George vaguely recognized as having been a few years older than him at Hogwarts. "You're George Weasley, right? She said you might be coming—ages ago, though."
"Yeah—sorry. …I thought Angelina was captain?"
"Yeah, she is, but she had to work late tonight."
"Work late?" George repeated.
"Yeah," said the young man. "Guess a bunch of Ministry people are working late again. It's probably Angelina's turn to do the overtime."
"Of course they're working late!" said a blonde girl that George thought was a member of the Bones family. "Got quite a lot of shit to sort out, don't they?"
"Angelina works for the Ministry?" said George blankly.
"Yeah." The others on the team were now giving him odd looks, as if they suspected he might be a particularly bungling Death Eater. "You didn't know?"
George shook his head.
" She works in the daycare, watching the Ministry witches' and wizards' kids."
"That's in the Ministry of Magic building, right?" said George.
"Yeah—but aren't you going to play Quidditch—"
"Er…not today, sorry—excuse me—" And with that George turned on his heel and vanished from the pitch.
…
The last time George had been in the Ministry building was the summer of his and Fred's twelfth year, when Mr. Weasley had taken the twins to work with him to give a much-harassed Mrs. Weasley a day's peace. One hundred diarrheic owls later, Mr. Weasley had been forced to promise never to bring Fred and George to work again. Uncoincidentally, this was also when the Ministry switched from owls to charmed paper airplanes for inter-departmental memos.
Despite his long absence, however, George was able to find the daycare without too much difficulty: It was a large, steeple-ceilinged room just off the Atrium, with cheery yellow walls and windows that all looked out onto a beautiful sunset. Only ten or so children, all under the age of ten and all looking rather dejected, were grouped around a tall black woman with thick, curly, poofy hair, who had her hand on the head of the nearest child.
"I'm sure Daddy will be here soon, Samantha," she was saying in a firm but kind voice, "but we'll have fun in the meantime, won't we—" She looked up as George entered.
"George?"
"'Scuse me, I was looking for—Angelina?"
The woman pushed back a strand of her thick hair. " What're you doing here?"
"Woah," said George. "Done something with your hair, I see."
Angelina's hair, which she had kept braided in tight cornrows since their second year at Hogwarts, now hung free about her shoulders, thick and curly and even bushier than Hermione's.
"Oh." She took a hair band off her wrist and bound back her clouds of hair (it poofed out again after the tie, almost as big as before). "Yes, thought I'd try a change."
"Looks nice," said George.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Your hair's now so big, it makes the rest of you look tiny in comparison."
Two of the little girls at Angelina's side giggled.
She gave an impatient sniff. "Ha ha. Very funny. What're you doing here?"
"You weren't at Quidditch practice. The others told me you were working late."
"Oh. Well, you might have told me you were going to come to practice today!"
George shrugged. "I didn't know—It's busy, you know, at the store—"
He was cut off by a sudden gasp from Angelina.
"KEVIN!"
George jumped as Angelina raced past him to the far wall—where, perched at the top of a toy cabinet was an aquarium filled with many multicolored, plainly terrified fish. and one little boy whose legs were kicking in the air.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" shouted Angelina, brandishing her wand, and the dripping little boy soared out of the aquarium and, shrieking and spattering water, landed with a gentle bump by Angelina's feet.
"Kevin!" Angelina said sternly. "How many times have I told you? Tergeo!" she added, waving her wand over the boy to siphon the water off him. "You mustn't torment the fish!"
"You wouldn't let me see your wand," Kevin muttered darkly.
"You're not allowed a wand."
"I asked nicely."
"Your mother specifically told me to watch my wand around you—"
"You want a wand?" George interrupted. "You can have this one."
"George!" cried Angelina as George held out a wand to the little boy. Kevin snatched it quickly before Angelina could stop him, his face alight with glee—and then let out a squawk of outrage as the wand belched loudly and turned into a long, thin, slimy slug.
"That is disgusting," said Angelina.
Kevin, however, looked delighted. He gave the slug a good shake, and with a squelching sound it turned back into a wand again.
His and George's chuckles, however, were cut off by another shout. "'Leena! 'Leena, Jerry said I smell like troll bogies!"
Angelina looked back at the other children, still sitting on the carpet: two had started fighting over a toy broomstick, and Samantha was now crying openly as the boy next to her chanted, "I can't stop, I can't stop! I've chugged Veritaserum, I have to say the truth, and the truth is, Samantha smells like troll bogies, Samantha smells like troll bogies—"
"Merlin's beard," muttered Angelina. She seized Kevin's hand. "Come on, Kevin—"
"No!" Kevin shouted.
"'LEENA!" shrieked Samantha.
"Yeech!" Angelina cried; Kevin had just struck her hand with the slug.
"I'll watch Kevin," spoke up George. "If you don't mind."
"No, I—that's not really—" ("TROLL BOGIES, TROLL BOGIES, TROLL BOGIES!") "Oh, all right! But behave yourself, won't you, George?"
"Who, me? C'mon, Kevin, I've got something to show you."
Angelina hesitated for a moment, watching as George led Kevin away. Then, with a shake of her thick hair, she turned around and planted her hands on her hips.
"All right, kids! Sorceress Says…line up behind me!"
A chorus of delighted shrieks and shouts filled the room as the other children scurried to line up behind Angelina. She waved her wand and a thick red ribbon streamed out of the tip, forming itself into stairs up to the ceiling.
Her wand aloft, Angelina marched onto the ribbon, and like ducklings following their mother the children followed her one by one up the satin stairs. From the top, she could see George and Kevin, hunkered down at one of the low tables, whispering together. The scowl was slowly melting from Kevin's face.
Angelina smiled.
…
…
A/N: The boy 'Kevin' is the same boy from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, who is mentioned at the Quidditch World Cup campgrounds, where he stole his father's wand and blew up a slug. 'Samantha' is named after my friend, who was herself named after the witch from the old TV show 'Bewitched,' so it still fits :)
