On the Saturday before the first task, and the night when Harry and I were going to see Sirius after midnight, there was a Hogsmeade trip. The twins and Lee had cornered me and brought me along with them, giving me no choice but to be in their company as they had all had enough of me trying to avoid them. "I was joking about the kidnapping thing you know, besides, I didn't mean me in the first place!" I yelled at them brightly as they dragged me away from the castle, one arm each under my own like hooks, referring to the time I had offered to kidnap Ludo Bagman for them.
"We've had to resort to desperate measures, Mia." George said to me as I went all floppy, accepting my fate. "You've had your time to throw a tantrum, now it's time to get the gang back together."
"Exactly, we were starting to think you might actually be mad at us about something." Fred agreed as I scowled at them both. "But we knew that had to be impossible, after all. You love us."
"It comes and goes." I retorted tartly before managing to make them let me go so that I could at least walk on my own. Ron ended up coming along with us, though he shuffled and grunted at me awkwardly as we met up in the courtyard. "Oh come here you miserable sod. I missed you." Grabbing him around the neck, I ruffled Ron's longish hair roughly then fussed over him, teasing him that he needed a haircut and that if he didn't start smiling soon I was going to shave his head bald in the night. Seeing that bygones were bygones, Ron cheered up very quickly and started asking me eagerly about the first task and whether I knew anything about it yet.
We talked about it all the way into the village, everyone sharing their thoughts on what it was going to be. Each idea was as wild and dangerous as the last, and some of them even made me a little nervous to think about, but I tried not to let it show. We went around the village, though we didn't really buy much and ended up in the Three Broomsticks for a pint of butterbeer, still talking to one another eagerly. "Mum's in a right old state since both you and Harry are in." Fred was saying to me as Lee got the round. "Told us we'd better be helping you rather than being a pain in the backside, though it's not like we'd purposefully hinder your way to success, Mia."
"Of course not, that would be so unlike us to be annoying, persistent little pricks." George agreed with a grin at me. "But on a more serious note, are you sure you're ready? You don't know anything!"
"That's an unfounded statement, I know lots of things. A lot more than you boys in any case." I responded smoothly, thanking Lee as he passed the drinks around then sat down. "I guess all I can do is turn up on Tuesday and see what they have in store for me. It's not like I haven't improvised before. Remember that time with Filch when he'd cornered us in that classroom in second year after we'd booby-trapped his office? I like to think it was my heat-of-the-moment genius idea that got us out of it."
"You made us all jump out the window." Fred reminded me, shuddering at the memory as he paled slightly. "I've never liked heights much since. Besides, we still got caught."
"We survived, didn't we? Sure it took a while for me to remember the right charm but we didn't die or become horribly incapacitated, so we learned never to get cornered again. Plus, we avoided getting caught by Filch, which was the entire point. It's not my fault McGonagall happened to be watching at the time." I pointed out as Ron grinned.
"Brilliant. I remember you writing back about that one. Mum went mental when she got the letter saying you guys had jumped from one of the towers to try and escape punishment." This time, George was the one who shuddered.
"Yeah, she was still mad about that even after we got home weeks later. She threatened to feed us to the ghoul."
"Yet oddly, our dear Mia got away with it." Rolling his eyes at me, I just smirked cheerfully.
"That's because your mother loves me more than you two."
"Oh that we can't deny. You're practically her favourite child." They both agreed without hesitation, George continuing with a wry look. "I think she's been secretly planning our weddings in her head for the last three years now. She's just waiting for you to pick a brother. Just don't pick Ron, he's probably got some kind of disease."
"Yeah, and he's a miserable git to boot." Fred agreed as Ron's ears went pink as I laughed.
"If I'm going to be marrying any of you, it would be Bill or Charlie. At least they know how to treat a girl nicely. You boys only know how to try and trick her into eating something suspicious that makes her grow feathers." Giving them a pointed look, I brushed aside some of my hair to reveal the feather like patterns on my neck which looked like rather intricate birthmarks. "The marks are still there!"
"Well at least we know the Canary Creams are almost ready." Lee pointed out so I kicked him under the table. Dropping my curling hair, the butterfly ornament the twins had given me pulled back the larger section of my hair, fluttering lightly like it was dreaming whilst nestled among the inky black tresses. "Here's a question, why is Hermione sat over there on her own?" Looking around, I saw that Hermione was indeed on her own with her box of S.P.E.W badges in front of her, working on them with a butterbeer in front of her. "Should we invite her over?" Having a sneaking suspicion that Harry was probably nearby under his invisibility cloak, I told them I'd go ask her.
Walking over, Hermione quickly looked up in alarm but relaxed when she saw it was me. "This seat taken?" I asked her, touching the back of one of the chairs and her eyes quickly glanced to her right where Harry must have been sitting right next to her. "Don't you think you're being a little silly Harry? Poor Hermione here looks like quite the loner."
"I'm avoiding certain people today. We've already seen that Skeeter woman." Hearing the mention of that person immediately made me frown.
"Ugh, I got a letter back from the Daily Prophet saying that they only printed what their journalist provided. I replied saying that their so-called 'journalist' was a lying trollop and if they couldn't be bothered with writing a single line of truth in their paper then they might as well say that goblins were a cheerful, charitable bunch and that leprechaun gold was going to be the new currency." I said to them both, taking a sip of my drink which I'd brought over with me as Hermione gasped lightly.
"You didn't!"
"Actually, there was a lot more swearing and obscenities involved but I thought I'd give you guys the child friendly version considering you're both still underage." Harry snorted with laughter lightly as I smirked. "Anyway, needless to say they didn't like that so I expect Rita Skeeter will be writing more horrible things about me in our next interview. Maybe I'll just turn her into a worm and put her in a jar. I would be doing the wizarding world a great service. Order of Merlin First Class, I'd say." Even Hermione allowed herself a little giggle at that, still working on her campaign.
No sooner had we fallen silent, Hermione noticed Hagrid from within the crowd of people attending the pub. From what I could see, he had been stooped over talking to Moody and I heard a rustle of fabric near to me, making me frown quizzically at Harry, though Moody was now looking over at us. He said something to Hagrid then the two of them made their way over, Hagrid's large form easily persuading people to hurriedly move out the way. "Alright Hermione? Mia?" Hagrid greeted us both with a broad smile as we returned the greeting.
Moody came and sat down, to my surprise, in another chair that was positioned between me and where I presumed Harry sat, who must have been visible to Moody as he then spoke up. "Nice cloak, Potter." I looked at him sharply as Harry choked slightly in surprise before trying to ask if his fake eye could actually see through the invisibility cloak which Moody confirmed. This guy really was the coolest. Hagrid leaned over the table, seemingly interested in what Hermione was working on but when he whispered, both Harry and I looked at him as he addressed us quietly.
"Harry, Mia, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak." Then with a final grin and goodbye, he and Moody left, leaving Harry and me blinking at each other. At least, I think I was blinking at him. It was rather hard to tell with him wearing the cloak. For all I knew, I could just be staring at the wall like a prat.
