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Chapter 20: Home Is Where the Heart Is

Harry thought he heard someone calling his name out, but he had been "hearing" things for almost as long as he had been lying there. He had been having hallucinations of his friends and dead parents for the past half hour.

"Harry!" Hermione yelled again. She had mostly been falling and sliding down the hill, making her clothes turn brown with mud, but she kept getting back up. She subconsciously started crying, but the she couldn't feel the tears. Her face was too numb from having the freezing rain hit it.

Harry heard his name again, he turned his head and looked from where he thought he had been hearing it called from. "Hermione?" he whispered in confusion. It looked like her, but he wasn't sure.

The others started coming down the hill, Ron even started sliding most of the ways. "Harry!" he started shouting.

"Ron?" he whispered.

Hermione finally reached him, as she slid to the ground beside him. "Oh Harry!" she cried throwing her arms around his neck. She was lying on almost his whole upper body. "Harry!" she cried again.

"Hermione..." he said happily.

She felt warm somehow. He hadn't felt any warmth since he stepped out of the house so long ago. "Hermione..." he said again, he slowly put his unhurt arm around her back, squeezing her closely to him. "How did you find me?" he asked weakly.

She let go of him and sat back up on the muddy, watery ground. "Well...we should probably get you back home and then we'll talk about this." She cried as she laid a hand on his chest. He grasped her hand in both of his as Ron and then other's started coming to him

"Harry!" Ron yelled as he also slid down beside him and hugged him. "Ron!" Harry laughed happily.

"Harry! You ole dog! You had us worried sick!" he practically shouted as he hugged him.

"Sorry! I guess I just can't help it…" he said rather weakly.

"Harry!" he heard two other women shout.

"MUM! HARRY'S ALL RIGHT!" he shouted up to her.

You could practically see the relief lift off of her as she and Ginny slid quickly, but carefully down the hill.

Ron and Hermione were trying to help him up as the other two women reached them. "Oh gracious my dear boy!" Mrs. Weasley cried in great emotion, "You had us worried sick! Are you all right? Are you hurt?" she began looking him over, although she would have been too frantic to notice anything.

"I think I'm ok. My arm hurts…I think I might have fallen on it..." he lied.

"We need to get you back to the Burrow, Harry!" Ginny spoke up as she took Ron's place. (Seeing as he wouldn't be of much help as he was hurt himself.)

"Yeah...I am a bit chilled through." He smiled weakly.

Fred and George were walking along some of the hilltops they had apparated to, holding the umbrellas low down on themselves to keep the top half of them dry. "Oi, George, do you see any of 'em?" Fred asked shouting above the wind and rain.

"I can barely see 50 feet in front of me!" he laughed.

"Wait…I think I see somethin' down there!" Fred said pointing to the foot of a hill.

George came over and looked to where he was pointing. "It looks like a bunch of big, wet bushes or something to me. Do you think it's them?" he asked leaning over further.

"I dunno, let's go find out!" George said making a small 'pop' as he disappeared. Fred did the same and they were instantly at the bottom of the hill.

"Oi mum! Whatchu doin' down here?" Fred asked as he put the umbrella over himself and her.

"Fred! Goodness gracious! How did you find us?" she yelped out of fright.

"Fred! George!" they all said in there own time of noticing that there were now two other people standing there with them.

"Do you folks need some help getting back to the Burrow?" George said laying an arm Ron and Ginny.

"Yes actually, can you get us all back?" Hermione asked stepping up to them.

"Did you hear the young lady George? She asks if we can get them all back!" Fred laughed. "Of course we can! We're the Weasley twins!" George smiled as they all disappeared with a small 'pop'.

They arrived in the attic of the house with a small thud. "Good grief! Can you not apparate right still, you two?" Mrs. Weasley said in frustration as everyone tried to shake some water off. They put the umbrellas down and started to shake them off, "WAIT! 'Til we get downstairs…" Mrs. Weasley said taking them quickly from the tall, red-headed twins.

They apparated down into the living room and Mrs. Weasley began bustling about. "We need to get out of these wet clothes or we'll come down with a bit lof something!" she said going into the kitchen to start some broth up.

"All of you go up to your rooms and change! Bring your clothes back down here and I'll dry them for you! And try to be mindful not to drip too much!" she said as she moved them all to the stairs.

"Oi Harry, did you hurt your arm or somefin?" Fred asked pulling his sleeve up. "I just fell. I'm fine." Harry said quickly as he jerked his arm away, somewhat painfully, and pulled his sleeve back down.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ginny asked quietly behind him.

He looked back to her compassionately, "I'm okay. I'm just a bit wet." He smiled.

Harry was about to reach over to open the door to his and Ron's room when suddenly Ron jumped in front of him and blocked the door, "Wait a minute!" he yelped.

"What's goin' on?" Harry asked taken aback.

"Er…well…it's a mess in there…I can't let you go in like it is." Ron made it up quickly, but Harry wasn't sure if he bought it.

"I don't care if the room is messy Ron. I want to get out of all of this!" Harry motioned to his sopping wet clothes clinging to his tall and somewhat muscular frame.

"Look Harry, Fred and George were testing out a new product in Ron's room and it went as they expected, but they ruined his room in the process." Hermione covered for Ron slyly.

"Yeah…what she said…I was going to bang 'em everywhere when I heard it happen, but then we couldn't find you and we went out to look for you." Ron added cautiously. He didn't want to ruin Hermione's perfectly good lie.

"Okay…" Harry said looking at the both of them curiously. "Well...what am I going to do then?"

"Uh...let me go in…I'll get some stuff for you." Ron started t turn the handle.

"Oh I forgot, I can dry you off if you like. I am a witch you know!" Hermione smiled and pulled her wand out of her pocket.

"Oh yeah…" Harry laughed leaning against the wall tiredly. "Okay…if you want to." Harry stood against the wall and watched as Hermione dried him off meticulously with her wand.

Ron had slipped into the room and stood there for a minute with the door closed behind him. The room was torn apart, literally.

The mattresses had been slashed apart and the covers were torn and blood spattered. There were burn marks on the walls as if spells had been cast onto them. There were dents and scratches on the wooden floors of his room.

Ron saw a pool of water by his window; it had been broken and lay shattered on the floor. "Who would do this? If they knew Harry wasn't here…why would they do something like this?" he took a few steps into the room and heard someone walking down the stairs.

He opened the door back up and stuck his head out. Harry was walking slowly own the stairs when he heard a door open behind him. "Is your room okay Ron?" Harry turned around on the stairs.

"It's going to take some work to fix up…but I think it'll be fit to sleep in in a few days or so…" Ron said nervously.

Harry nodded and continued on his way down the stairs. "Hey Ginny." He smiled to her as he saw her coming down the steps behind him.

"Hi Harry…how are you feeling?" She asked stopping on the stairs behind him. He turned around and looked at her. She was wearing a long sleeve, light pink shirt and some somewhat baggy blue jeans; no doubt some old hand-me-downs from her older brothers.

"I'm okay mostly. My arm's twinging a bit...I'm really tired as well..." he yawned quietly.

"What happened to your arm?" she looked at it as if he was hiding something from her.

"Oh nothing really…I just fell back on it…its just sore." He smiled and turned back around.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, "Would you stop lying? It gets annoying."

He turned around and saw Ginny with an all too knowing expression on her face. "Look…it's nothing really! It's nothing to worry about." He tried to play it off cool but it didn't seem to be working. "Ginny, seriously!"

"Seriously Harry! Just tell me what happened-" "What are you two talking about?" he heard Fred and George's voice call from the landing up from them.

"School." Ginny lied and continued down the stairs. "Oh school eh?" Fred and George followed after them teasingly. "Is that all?" "Oh shut up you two!" Ginny said getting lightly flushed. The twins snickered at them and apparated off to somewhere else.

Mrs. Weasley had some soup prepared for them when they got downstairs and a loaf of bread was cooking in the oven at the moment. "Harry! Are you feeling warmer yet?" she wrapped her arms tightly around him.

"Er…yeah. I'm glad to be dry again." He said trying to breathe properly.

She let go of him and looked into his eyes for a moment, "You look so tired my dear boy! Your eyes are so dull!" she said looking worried. "I'm just worn out I guess…" he felt a sharp pang in his arm, he tried to ignore it but he felt the right side of his face cringe slightly.

"Are you all right dear?" she put her hands on his arms. His whole back tensed and he tried not to let her see he was hurting. "Yeah…my eyes are just feeling a bit drowsy."

He saw Ginny looking at him somewhat angrily. "Why doesn't he just tell her?" she thought angrily to herself. "If he doesn't...I will…I know he's lying about his arm, but I want him to be able to say it."

Mrs. Weasley didn't believe him really but decided to let the matter drop as she heard some distant footsteps upstairs coming down. "All right, sit down and I'll get you a bowl." She smiled.

Harry smiled back and sat down beside Ginny, "Look…I'm fine all right! You don't have to worry about it!" he whispered as quietly as possible.

"Stop lying Harry. You can say your arm doesn't hurt all you want to my mother, but don't tell that to me." She said equally low, but somewhat angered.

He sat back properly into his chair as Hermione and Ron came downstairs, Ron's hair seemed a bit out of place he noticed. "Hey!" Hermione said cheerfully. "Hey!" Harry laughed a bit in his greeting.

"What?" Hermione asked, she seemed suddenly paranoid and began to try and rake her fingers through her hair and fixing her shirt.

"Nothing…you just seem so...cheerful." Harry laughed.

"Well…we found you! That's a good enough reason...right Ron?" she looked over at him shortly. "Yeah!" his voiced cracked. They all looked at him, "Yeah." He cleared his throat and made his voice purposefully lower.

Harry's arm began to throb painfully. Mrs. Weasley gave them all a very full bowl of soup and then a mug of tea. "Drink it all up, all of you, especially you Harry." Molly Weasley said in a motherly way.

Harry smiled to the best of his ability, but the pain in his arm was affecting the rest of him. The right side of his face was cringing again and he rubbed his hand over it as if he was just tired. Ginny noticed this and gave him a worried look. He shook his almost invisibly and smiled softly.

His vision was darkening as the pain in his arm got stronger. " 'Scuse me for a minute…" he said getting up and heading up the stairs.

He was up at the top of the first landing before anyone could really protest to his leaving. He was halfway up the second set of stairs when the pain in his arm became almost unbearable, "What's going on?" he muttered in pain as he sat on a step and rubbed his arm feverishly.

A wave of drowsiness came over him as well as nausea. He felt his throat contract the smallest bit as his head hit the stairs behind him.

sorry if there's still some grammatical errors or whatever...i edited this in a hurry...sorry. lol.

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