Chapter 21
The Weasley's followed a similar routine for most of their holiday in Egypt. Some days they stayed at home and relaxed while other times Bill would take them out to see all there was to see in Egypt. They went on camel rides and explored more pyramids, some of which Ginny wasn't allowed in and several of which Fred and George tried to shut Percy in. They also went shopping, visited ancient ruins and even went on a thrilling hot air balloon ride.
It was the best holiday ever and nobody wanted to leave. The mood on their last night was both solemn and content.
"It's alright for you," Bianca said to Bill that night when, as usual, the five gathered in one room before bed, "You don't have to go anywhere!"
"That's the problem," Bill moped, "You're all leaving me here alone!"
"How could we be so rude?" Fred said sarcastically, "Abandoning our poor brother in a hot, tropical, beautiful country with a thrilling job that he loves all on his lonesome."
"How terrible of us!" George cried, "Poor Bill, all alone while we sit at school having the time of our lives."
"Alright, alright," Bill chuckled, "But at least you have each other. The closest family member to me is Charlie, and he lives in Romania!"
"That's true," George nodded, "We usually only have to walk across the room to talk to each other, not across seas."
"See how easy you have it!" Bill cried jokingly.
"May I remind you that you chose to live here," Bianca pointed out.
"Not that we're complaining," Fred said, "We're glad you finally moved far away enough so that we can't smell you."
"Oi," Bill said, "I don't smell!"
"I beg to differ," Charlie laughed, "I've slept in the same room as you for quite a while now and I'm glad to be moving back 1300 miles away."
"Well if I knew you all felt like that, I never would have stayed with you. Then Ron might not have had to bunk with Percy. Or maybe you three wouldn't have had to share a bed."
"Awh, don't sulk, Bill," Bianca said, "I don't think you smell. Much."
Bill frowned, "Well if you all hate me that much, then I guess I'll just go to bed and leave you all here to mope about how you're all leaving tomorrow. And here, I was ready to help you pack."
The twins looked around the room, suddenly realising how much stuff they had to pack and how little time they had to do it.
"Now, Bill," Fred pleaded, "We were only joking, you know that."
"All it takes is a flick of your wand," George added, "And it'll be all done!"
Bill considered this, "Hm, you're right. Maybe I will help," he paused, "Bianca. I'll help Bianca."
"What?" the twins shouted in unison, "That's not fair!"
"It is," Bill said, "You two need putting in your place a bit."
A few seconds later, all of Bianca's possessions were packed neatly in her bag, leaving Fred and George's items strewn across the floor.
The boys turned to their other brother, "Charlie," George said, "You love us, right?"
"Of course," Charlie nodded, "But you can pack your own things up while we sit here with Bill and Bea."
For at least an hour, the twins scrambled around the room, shoving everything into their bags while their siblings laughed at them from the bed. Bianca sat squished between the two even though they had lots of space on the bed. They watched Fred and George wrestle their bags closed before flopping onto the bed in exhaustion. They crawled so Fred sat next to Charlie and George next to Bill. The five of them sat together as they had every night of their holiday and chatted and laughed until late. But unlike other nights, Bill and Charlie didn't return to their room, instead switching places with Fred and George so that they were on the edges, embracing their younger siblings as they all fell asleep.
Only one or two hours later, they were being woken up by Mrs Weasley who was storming around the house in a mad rush to tidy everything up. She insisted on everything being left exactly how they found it so was washing and wiping every surface, floor and bedsheet at least twice.
Managing on barely any sleep, the five untangled themselves from each other and clambered lazily out of the bed.
"I need a nap," George yawned, "What time is it?"
Bill checked his watch, "Seven," he replied sleepily.
"And what time did we go to sleep?" Fred mumbled.
"Five?" Bill guessed.
They all groaned.
"Come on, you can nap later," Bill said, "Let's go help mum before she washes everything so hard, she leaves holes in it."
"Does she know she can wave her wand and in two seconds everything will be back to normal?"
Yawning and groaning, the group grabbed their bags and dragged themselves down the stairs where they deposited their bags next to the door. A few hours and multiple cups of coffee later, they were ready to depart. There were emotional goodbye hugs and Ginny didn't want to let go of Bill or Charlie, but eventually, they pried her away and they all took their separate portkeys home.
When they arrived back at the Burrow, six letters were laid out on the kitchen table addressed to the children.
"I've got it!" Percy yelled suddenly, "I'm head boy!"
Fred sighed, "So Perfect Prefect Percy is now Perfect Head Boy Percy. Doesn't sound quite as catchy if you ask me."
"Fred, be quiet," Mrs Weasley scolded, "Oh, Percy, I'm so proud of you! Ron, did you hear back from Harry, dear? Will he be meeting us?"
Ron shrugged, "Yeah, I think so."
"Excellent," Mrs Weasley said, "We'll head there a week or so before school starts."
"Oh," Mr Weasley said solemnly. He'd picked up the newspaper from the kitchen table and was flicking through it, "Oh, that's not good at all."
"What is it, dad?" Percy asked, "What's happened." He leaned over to read the paper over his father's shoulder, "Oh."
"Well," Mrs Weasley came over with several mugs of steaming tea, "What is it?"
"Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban," Mr Weasley said.
If it weren't for the fact the drinks were floating beside her magically, Mrs Weasley would have dropped them all.
"Who's Sirius Black?" Fred asked.
"He's a mass murderer," Mr Weasley explained grimly, "He worked for You-Know-Who back in the war."
"He killed thirteen people with one spell," Mrs Weasley sighed, passing out the drinks, "He's very dangerous."
"I had better go to the ministry," Mr Weasley said, taking a large gulp of tea and standing up.
"Oh, Arthur, we've just got back!"
"This is important, Molly, dear, he's a very dangerous man, they'll need all the help they can get to find him."
"It's not even your department, dad!" George protested.
"I'll just pop in and see what's going on," Mr Weasley said, going around the table and giving everyone hugs and kisses, "Help your mother with unpacking and washing," he added and he was gone.
Mrs Weasley sighed, "I think we'll all have a rest before we get on with the chores."
Bianca spent the rest of the holiday before going into London, busily doing schoolwork in preparation for her O.W.L. year. The twins switched between doing their homework and thinking of ways to prank Percy for being a prat as well as being snobbish and arrogant about being Head Boy. They changed his badge so it read various messages and waited to see how long it took for him to realise.
While they were in the Leaky Cauldron, Bianca made a decision.
"I want to talk to more people," she said boldly to the twins one morning.
Fred gasped, "What?"
"I'm sick of feeling like I can't talk to anyone. It makes me feel stupid and vulnerable. Everyone thinks I'm a wuss! I'm not three years old. It's also a right pain in the ass in class when I don't understand something."
George shrugged, "Ok."
Fred nodded, "Fair enough."
"That's it?" Bianca said.
"What else do you want us to say?" George asked.
"Exactly, you want to talk to more people, then talk to more people."
"It's not that easy," Bea said, "You both know that."
"Well what do you want us to do?"
"Help me," Bianca said, "Make me talk to people."
Fred got up, "No one thinks you're a wuss, by the way. Most people understand it's a real problem."
"It shouldn't be though," Bianca walked towards the door.
"Where are you going?" George asked.
"To talk to Ron and Percy."
And so, she did. For the first few minutes, the boys looked at her like she was mad and it was very much a one-sided conversation as they were too shocked to respond.
"Well," Bianca said, "It was nice talking to you, I'll be off."
They just gaped at her and she continued, "Oh, and Percy, you might want to check your badge."
Mrs Weasley beamed at her proudly as she passed.
The rest of the year, Bianca worked very hard on improving her social skills. She started off just chatting quietly to people in the common room and gradually escalated to taking part in large group discussions at dinner and even contributing in classes. There were, of course, some people she still found herself unable to speak to, no matter how hard she tried. It was like there was a barrier around her voice box, preventing any sound from coming out. There were also some days or situations which she struggled in. For example, when Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw in Quidditch and suddenly half the school seemed to be swarming around the team to congratulate them.
She was extremely unnerved by the escape of Sirius Black and the presence of the dementors. When they had invaded the train on the way to school at the start of the year, she'd reacted the worse out of her friends. She found herself shaking and trembling, unable to speak to even the twins, and spent the remainder of the journey snuggled into Fred's chest with his arm around her. She had horrible images flashing through her mind of flashes of light, horrible screaming and death. George had guessed it must just have been her anxiety reacting to the dementors, while Lee had said it might have been something to do with her past seeing as she had got a lot less anxious as she had got older. Bianca had ignored them both, unable to think of anything except the horrible, miserable, drained feeling that had engulfed her. She did her best to avoid the dementors for the rest of the year, choosing instead to focus on her exam work instead.
She was glad Dumbledore seemed to have found a competent Defence Against the Dark Arts professor so she now felt much more confident that she'd actually pass that exam. It was slightly disappointing that Fred and George had decided to give Harry the Marauder's Map, but they knew where all the secret passages were and had found that Bianca was surprisingly good at talking them out of situations, so if they were going to run into anyone unexpected, their punishment would be lessened.
"Honestly, I don't know why you didn't speak earlier," Fred said when they'd narrowly missed getting a detention from a prefect because they were out after curfew.
"I enjoyed seeing you getting into trouble and not doing anything about it," Bianca joked.
"Huh," Fred sighed, "All these years we thought you were so innocent."
"Gone are the days we get you out of detention," George said.
"Can I remind you that I just got you out of detention?" Bianca supplied.
But the three continued to look out for each other. The boys were there immediately when Sirius Black broke into the school, knowing that Bianca would be spooked, and could always tell when she wasn't in the mood to talk to people so they could easily get her out of the situation.
When it got closer to summer, the fifth years had very little time for anything except work and, in some cases, Quidditch- Wood was still determined to win the cup. Their exams grew nearer and they spent more and more time revising and doing work, staying up late into the night and sneaking down into the kitchens for multiple coffees. The exams went well. Fred and George kept making jokes about how they at least hoped they'd passed one exam each but Bianca knew they wanted to do well in reality. They had a celebratory party after their last exam in the kitchens. The house elves were more than happy to supply them with food and drinks.
They were all shocked and devastated when they found out Professor Lupin had resigned and was a werewolf. He'd been the best Defence professor they'd ever had and, as they found out a few weeks later by owl post, had got them through their exams with flying colours. Bianca suspected the twins were a little disappointed with their results, but put smiles on and told themselves that it didn't matter because they had enough for their N.E.W.T.s and seeing as they'd have their own shop, they didn't need to worry about what employees thought.
Throughout the summer, Bianca, George and Fred spent a lot of time in their room working on products. They had decided to start work on them now that exams were out of the way and their first invention was a Ton-Tongue Toffee. They had done all the preparation charms at school, seeing as they wouldn't be able to do legally at the Burrow, and just used their cauldrons to mix their ingredients. Once or twice they had to steal Percy's wand to do a couple of charms and their safety spells which they always used as a precaution to make sure that they wouldn't die when eating the product. Too scared to test it on each other at home where Mrs Weasley would find out, they hid the sweets, waiting for the perfect opportunity to use them.
When they got tickets to go to the Quidditch World Cup, there was much excitement in the Burrow. Bill and Charlie would be coming and Ron invited Ron and Hermione because otherwise, they'd have no chance of going. Everyone was in very high spirits in anticipation of the match.