Chapter 25: Easter at Privet Drive
"Harry," said Petunia, "Can you give me a hand with the shopping, I need to get some heavy things from the supermarket?"
Part of Harry's brain thought, 'But I used to always do that, all of it, single-handedly after the age of nine. You'd drive me to the store, send me in with cash and go get a coffee.'
His mouth said, "Coming! Dudley, are you coming too?"
Dudley walked out of the bathroom wearing a towel, "I'm just about to get in the shower."
Harry rolled his eyes and went downstairs.
Dudley quickly threw his clothes back on but waited until he heard the car reversing down the driveway before throwing floo powder in the fire.
"The Burrow!"
Dudley stepped out of the floo at the other end. The Weasley household was its usual bedlam. Molly was making sure everyone was set to go, and Arthur was trying to eat his breakfast but having to fend off the twins trying to nick his toast.
"Ready?" Dudley asked, "Mum's just taken Harry out for some groceries. We've got about 20 minutes if you're not ready yet."
"Are you sure we can't even take some magic stuff?" asked Fred, "There's so many things we want to try out in a muggle household."
"No," said Arthur, firmly. "You may take your wands for emergencies, but I do not want to be contacted by the ministry if you do underage magic for anything other than a life threatening situation. Got it?"
"Yes, Dad," said the twins resignedly.
Dudley noticed George pick up some of what he recognised as their pranking edibles. Dudley raised an eyebrow at George.
"Your mum will be a good sport, won't she?" asked George innocently.
Dudley paused for a moment. "Would you say we're kinda friends now?" he asked. George nodded. "Then, as a friendly warning, I'm just letting you know that if you prank my mum I'll knock your block off, whatever anyone says about it."
"Hey, it'll just be a joke," said Fred, defensively.
Mr Weasley very simply defused the situation. He put a hand on both Dudley and George's shoulders and looked both boys in the eye, and included Fred and Ron for good measure, "I will assure all of you, if any of you prank any muggle at all, especially Mrs Dursley, you won't be sitting down for your next meal. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Dad," said Ron.
"Boys?" asked Arthur.
"Yes, Dad," said the twins. Mr Weasley rarely threatened, but always followed through.
"Now, have a nice stay, and please, please, could you find out how electricity works for me?"
"Bye, Dad," said the boys as they disappeared through the floo.
Dudley heard the car first. "Quick, hide behind the sofa." All the boys ran behind the sofa.
"Just put them on the table, Harry," they heard Petunia say.
They heard sounds from the kitchen, then Harry came into the room and sat on the sofa they were hiding behind.
Fred quietly stood up, slid over the back of the couch and plonked himself next to Harry, "Wotcha doing?" he asked in a sing-song voice. Harry yelped. Everyone else piled over the couch.
"Surprise!"
"Right boys," said Petunia, after everyone had calmed down a bit, "Here's some cash. Take yourselves off out. Dudley has booked a tenpin bowling lane for 11am in the bowling alley just off the main street. Stay out for lunch, there's the cafe in the place or go somewhere like McDonald's. Stay out for the afternoon if you want. Dinner is lasagne, then the plan is the cinema this evening. You can go on the bus, but I'll pick you up and bring you home because it'll be late."
Dudley took the cash and all of them left the house, Harry looking a bit bemused.
While they were out, Petunia took their bags upstairs. She'd had Harry's room decorated when she'd got back from Shrewsbury. She'd put an extra camp bed in there. Dudley's room had two sleeping rolls and sleeping bags on the floor. They could sort themselves out. She had spare sleeping bags, if they all slept in one room instead she couldn't care less.
They came back home at 5pm. She was in the kitchen making dinner just listening to them. She had no idea which twin was speaking.
"When Ron's fingers got stuck in the ball and he threw himself down the lane! I was in tears with laughter."
"Is that more or less funny than you getting your head stuck in the ball dispenser?" asked the other twin.
"Well look, it has to be magic, balls go down the lane, disappear down the back and reappear back where we were. Muggles must have Apparition.
"El-ec-tric-ity," annunciated Dudley deliberately.
Harry burst out laughing, "No, no, no, the Mr Whippy ice cream machine at McDonald's!"
"God, don't remind me!" said Dudley, "'Serve yourself and pay at the counter', the sign said, not fail to work out the waffle cone, and stick your head under the nozzle."
Petunia stuffed a tea towel in her mouth to stop from laughing out loud.
Petunia picked them all up from the cinema. The drive home was an experience. Dudley was in the front seat and the others had squashed up in the back. It was only a short trip.
"Yes, but what makes the picture move for so long?" asked Fred. "Magical images only have a few seconds in them. I tell you, muggles are using charms!"
"El-ec-tric-ity," said Dudley in exactly the same tones as earlier.
Harry choked on his Pick n Mix.
"And what about the exploding corn?" asked Ron, "Corn is yellow and comes on a cob. How is it dry and white, and what makes it explode? The twins are right, that's a blasting spell."
"El-ec-tric-ity," said Dudley, even though Harry was still trying to recover from his coughing fit the first time. Tears were now streaming down his face.
Petunia woke at 1am. She was always a light sleeper and often up and down in the night. She got the bags of Easter eggs that she'd hidden in the bottom of the wardrobe and went downstairs. She heaped the Easter eggs on the table in five piles. Sound carried downstairs from Dudley's room. All the boys were in there from the noise.
"Yeah but how does sound come out?" asked Fred. This is just brown tape. You've put it in the box, pressed that and there's music."
"Faeries," said George with conviction. "They've tamed faeries!"
"El-ec-tric-ity," said Dudley and Harry together.
The boys got up a bit late next morning, it'd been three when they eventually called it a night.
"Wow! Mum!" said Dudley, "That's a lot of Easter eggs!"
"The Easter bunny was busy this year!" said Petunia.
"They've trained rabbits too?" asked Ron. Petunia looked at her shoes so they wouldn't see her smirk.
"That one's make believe," said Harry. "At Easter the Easter bunny visits people's houses and leaves chocolate eggs. It's the kids' parents really." Not that he'd know, was the thought he buried.
"This is all muggle chocolate?" asked Ron hopefully, picking up an egg wrapped in shiny gold foil.
"Yep, even you'll be sick if you eat it all in one go," said Harry.
"Everyone has a pile each. They're all the same. Don't make yourselves sick and save some room for lunch," said Petunia, "But knowing that you're going to pig out, I'm not doing a big dinner."
That afternoon they played a game of Monopoly on the living room floor. Petunia was washing up in the kitchen.
"And what's this one?" asked Ron.
"That's a Cadbury Creme Egg," said Dudley, "They're one of my favourites. It's milk chocolate, and it's put in an egg shaped mold and fondant icing is injected into the middle. I've been to the factory that makes them. It fills like a thousand creme eggs in a minute, it's amazing to watch."
"A thousand chocolate eggs are filled with this middle stuff in every minute?" asked Fred, thinking of the logistics. "How does it do that?"
Petunia bit her lip when Harry said, "You'll never guess."
Petunia got up early. The plan was to make them a Full English Breakfast and drop them off at the go-karting place in Greater Whinging. She was always put out that all the best amenities were in Greater Whinging. She came downstairs in her slippers so her footfall was silent.
"We are so dead if we don't get this back together," came the voice of one of the twins.
"Dad has one, I've seen it, but his doesn't do anything. We pressed this one and it got hot. Now it's not working."
"You took it apart to find the source of the fire spell, Fred, so yeah, it's not working," replied George.
"Yes, but I still don't know why it works," said Fred.
"El-ec-tric-ity," said Petunia from the doorway, adding 'new toaster' onto her mental list of things to buy, after she'd taken one glance at the toaster parts spread out all over the floor.
"That was a really nice breakfast mum, thanks," said Dudley, finishing his last piece of bacon.
"No trouble, it's just a shame there wasn't any toast," said Petunia, clearing the plates back into the kitchen.
"So this is a muggle car?" asked Ron, pointing at the go-kart. "I thought they were all bigger."
"No, but it works in the same way," said Dudley, "Let's watch a couple of races first. You'll soon get it."
"And they work using El-ec-tric-ity?" asked Fred, hopefully.
"Nope, petrol," said Harry with a grin.
"Merlin, that was just like flying on a broom, but on wheels," said Fred, elated and wired having done his practice lap. They were allowed to race each other but the track owner wanted to make sure they weren't going to hurt themselves. Dudley and obviously Harry hadn't ever driven a go-cart before either, although Dudley had gone on dodgems at the fair. George was out doing his practice lap. You could hear the high pitched manic laughter every time he took a corner.
The boys were good, they understood corners, turns and steering. It was, as Fred put it, a bit like a broom with wheels.
After finishing their practice laps and getting some tips from the owner, they got in and lined up on the start line. Five laps, first to finish won. The hooter sounded. It was carnage from the first bend. No-one was giving an inch. Breaking late, Fred took the lead. George took him on the next straight. Dudley cut Ron up into the chicane, Harry passed Dudley and Ron to take third position after the end of lap 1. Fred took a leaf out of George's book next lap and took the lead on the back straight. Dudley made an attempt to pass Harry but was denied in the second to last corner. Ron decided to wait to see if Harry and Dudley took each out before he had to try to overtake either.
Lap 4 was where it started to heat up. Fred was back in fourth. He made the error of speed plus tyre stack equals bad, clipped a tyre and spun. George, Harry and Dudley passed him before he could get it going forwards again. Ron couldn't get past Fred after that, but Fred made Dudley's life worrisome at every bend. That left George and Harry to compete for the lead on the last lap.
Harry knew how to brake late. His brain could compute tight turns easily. He was missing the message from his brain to his common sense sensor when it came to speed, but George had extra years' quidditch practice behind him. He was very aware of every one of Harry's moves to pass, and managed to keep ahead for three quarters of the lap. It was Harry's light weight that did him favours. Now that he wasn't fending off Dudley he could really hammer it on the long straight. He flew past George, broke late into the last bend, kept it on the track out of the curve and crossed the line first.
George second, Dudley third, Fred fourth, Ron last.
"Go-karting is is the best!" declared the twins over dinner that evening.
"Better than quidditch?" Harry asked.
"I wonder if we could make a track on the quidditch pitch," said Fred, refusing to answer, "Best of both worlds."
"Thanks for having us," said the boys, as they threw floo powder in the grate.
"You're welcome," said Petunia, "Just a moment before you go, I've got something for you." She went to fetch a box from the kitchen.
She passed them the now defunct toaster, a screwdriver, and the toaster manual. "Now remember, El-ec-tric-ity!"
"So how does electricity work?" Mr Weasley asked, as he and the twins poured over the toaster pieces, manual and screwdriver in hand."
"Dunno," said Fred, "Do you think petrol makes electricity work?"