Oh, before I start, I was looking for info on the next movie, and I found
that they have cast a boy named Hugh Mitchell as my favorite character,
Colin. If ANYONE can find me a picture of this child, one hundred points
to you. Just drop the URL in a review. I've already checked IMDb and
found nothing. I just have to see if they can read my mind as well as they
did with Harry.
"Harry Potter is coming to my house? Oh dear." Colin said as he turned as pale as the tablecloth.
"How are they getting here?" Dennis asked, "we don't have a fireplace."
"They can't take Ron's father's car, it is still in the Forbidden Forest somewhere," Hermione replied.
"Surely they aren't going to fly here, on broomsticks, in the middle of the afternoon, are they?" Colin asked, reading Hermione's mind.
"Yes, that's probably exactly how they'll get here," she answered…..
Meanwhile, Back at the Burrow
"Ron, wake up Ron!" a high pitched voice was very close to his ear. "Wake up. You got a letter from someone."
"Ginny, how many times have I told you not to wake me this early in the morning?"
Looking out the window to confirm her next statement, Ginny lashes out, "Ron, it is nearly noon, which is nowhere near morning. So get up and get the owl. It won't let me take the letter off."
Ron opens one eye and glances out the window. So there is sun. That doesn't mean it's noon. A glance at the clock beside his bed does confirm the fact that it is 11:53 am. "Blimey," he says, yawning fiercely. Harry is deeply buried in the bed sheets. Only his hair and one elbow can be seen. "Don't get up Harry, I'll handle this," he says to the sleeping form that might be a person and was answered with a snore.
"Mum told me to wake you up at noon anyway before she left, so you are only missing out on a few minutes of sleep anyway."
"Where'd she go?"
"She went into London for some things. She didn't say exactly what. Maybe a few going to school surprises."
"Hopefully so," Ron said following her down the stairs and stealthily pulling the pajama wedge from his posterior. "Where's the owl at then?"
"He's out back on the porch." Ginny went one way and Ron went out to the porch to collect his letter. The oddly colored owl hopped over to him and offered him his leg. Ron untied the parchment and instantly knew it was from Hermione from the extremely perfect script.
"Holy Shit!" he exclaimed from the back yard. The owl hopped back over near Hedwig and watched as he ran back inside. "Ginny, where's the Daily Prophet?"
"Um, I think it's on the kitchen table."
Ron ran into the kitchen and slid past the table. Silently cursing his socks, he hopped over to the Prophet and picked it up. He unrolled the paper and started scanning the headlines. "Oh Bloody hell!" Ron read for a few minutes and then ran back up the stairs to Harry at top speed, nearly falling once on account of his broomstick laying on the steps.
"Harry, wake up! wake up! wake up!" Ron was talking nearly inhumanly fast. Harry rolled over and gave an incommunicative snurfle and rolled back over.
"This is important Harry, *wake up*!" Ron proceeded to begin ripping sheets and blankets away from Harry. The final one he pulled happened to be thoroughly wound around Harry, so the big pull took both the blanket and Harry off the bed. With a loud crash Harry hit the floor.
A hand was reaching for the bed from the floor. Finding that, the hand meandered to the table. Finding a pair of glasses, the hand picked them up and took them back down. A head popped up a few seconds later. Tousle headed and tired-eyed, Harry looked at Ron. "If I took your half of the covers, just say something next time, Ron. I'll move."
"Sorry Harry, but this is important." the next few sentences was Ron giving an account of Hermione's previous evening and her letter, but with his excitement Ron was just slurring all the words together and making everything unintelligible.
"Ron, deep breath." Harry had seen Ron like this before, mostly during quiddich matches, so that was the first thing he thought of.
"Right. Harry, Hermione - her family was - attacked last night. Death Eaters." Ron was getting under control now and the deep breaths and pauses between words ended. "They attacked her parents while she was out at a Muggle movie."
Completely surprised, all Harry could do was look at Ron with his mouth agape. He eventually kick-started his brain and said "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine. No one knows what the Death Eaters did to her parents yet though."
"Where is she? Is she safe?"
"She says that she's fine. She's at um," Ron checks the letter again to be sure, "Colin Creevey's house."
"At Colin's? Why, he lives in Newhaven. How'd she get all the way there?"
"I don't know Harry. That is where she says she's at." Ron looked out the window for a second, trying to figure out something that just wasn't quite right with Harry's reply. Eureka. "Harry, how do you know where Colin lives?"
"Believe me, Ron, there are few things that I don't know about that boy. I've heard everything from him many times over. Do you want to hear about his scar on his shoulder?"
"Um… No, I don't actually."
"Good. Although the story is actually sort of funny in that I'm- glad-it-didn't-happen-to-me way. Let me see the letter."
"Here you go, and here's the article from the Prophet about it." Harry took both and sat back on the bed and read the article and Hermione's post. Three minutes later he put them down and rummaged in his bag for a piece of parchment of his own.
"What're you doing?" Ron asked, and then figuring it out, got a bottle of ink from the desk.
"Stay there," the letter said among other things like "We're sorry to hear about that" and "Does Dumbledore know?". Ron took the quill after Harry finished and wrote a postscript. "We'll be there as soon as we can, probably in a couple of hours."
They walked downstairs and out into the backyard. "Hey Thierry, come over here," Harry called to the purply-brown owl."
"How did you know…never mind" Ron said as the owl came over to Harry.
"Like I said, there isn't much I don't know about him," Harry replied smiling a bit as he gave the owl a snack. " 'mere Hedwig," he called. The snowy owl came over and stuck her leg out. Harry quickly tied the message and said, "Take this to Hermione. Just follow Thierry." With that, the two owls went skyward and started their journey.
"How far is Newhaven, Harry?"
"Oh, about 200 miles from here."
"Um, you aren't planning on walking are you? 'Cuz that is quite a way."
"Of course not. We'll fly."
Ginny had stepped outside and overheard the last part. "Where are you flying to?"
"We're flying there?" Ron asked.
"We have to, they don't have a fireplace.
"Where are you going?" Ginny pleaded.
"No fireplace? Well what kind of wizards are they, anyway?"
"Only his mum is a wizard. His father's a milkman."
"WHO?" asked Ginny, absolutely dying to know who they're talking about.
"A milkman? That's silly."
"Aarrgg. Who are you talking about? Who was that letter from?"
"Oh, morning Ginny," Harry said, grinning at her. Ginny wasn't positive, but she thought that Harry was having fun with her. "We were talking about Colin."
"Colin Creevey? Why would he send Ron a letter?" a puzzled Ginny asked.
"He didn't. Hermione did." Harry answered.
"What?" Ginny obviously had no idea of what was going on.
"Read the second page of the Prophet, Ginny, and you'll understand what we're talking about. Come on Ron, you need a shower worse than I do. You first."
"Right. Are we really flying there?"
"Yes we are, unless you want to walk it. We can stick to the fields and skim the rivers if we need to. We'll be fine," Harry said, trying to convince himself also. "Besides, it's Hermione. We *have* to go."
Ron heads upstairs to shower and Ginny has just finished skimming the Prophet article. "That's horrible. She's okay, right?"
"Right. As far as I know, she is at Colin's and she is fine."
"You know, you really shouldn't fly there on broomstick. That is just asking for trouble."
"Well, we don't really have any other choice. Like I said, we have to go."
"I'll make you boys a lunch. It is a ways away. Tell Hermione that I'm sorry."
"Thanks, Ginny, I will," Harry said as he walked upstairs to prepare for his quick shower. For the first time all sorts of questions swarmed his mind about Hermione. How was she taking all this? She seemed composed in her letter, but he wasn't sure. "Oh well, we'll find out in a while, I guess," he said to no one but the poltergeist who was turning the hot water off and on for Ron's shower.
Back at the Creevey's
"Hermione seems to be doing okay, huh Colin?" Dennis asked his brother while Hermione had gotten up to use the ladies room.
"She seems okay. She said that she cried all last night and she was over that."
"I do hope they can help her parents," Dennis said to no one in general.
"They will. The wizards at St. Mungo's will do everything they can.
Hermione walked back into the room followed seconds later by Mrs. Creevey. "Do Harry and Ron like hamburgers for dinner, Hermione? Colin?"
Hermione thought to the hysterical letter that Harry had sent her after the trip to Ottery and smiled for the first time all day and said "I think that will be fine." She proceeded to tell the story to the boys once Mrs. Creevey went back into the kitchen. Dennis gave her his complete and undivided attention and Colin smirked at his brother. After Hermione was finished they were all rolling around on the floor laughing. Tick tock, said the clock. Time passed at the Creevey's.
Flying low over the English countryside wasn't as easy as one might think. It was amazing how many cows there were. Even though they were a little more difficult than normal to see, thanks to a halfway effective invisibility charm Ginny cast, they still had to dodge livestock. The two stopped about halfway to Newhaven by a small lake to eat the sandwiches that Ginny packed them. Peanut butter and jelly. Not too bad.
"Harry, how much longer do you figure we'll be? I really have to, you know."
Harry shakes his head in the typical disbelief motion. "Ron, if I were you, I'd head over into the trees. We're still about two hours away. Just watch out for poison ivy."
"Gross, Harry. Funny, but gross." Ron headed into the growth of trees and was, shall we say, indisposed for a bit. Harry was sitting by the water's edge, skipping rocks when his vision doubled then trebled. His scar felt like it was full of molten glass. He fell backwards and passed out from the pain.
Ron came out of the woods a minute later and saw Harry laying rather awkwardly in the grass. He came at a run and slid beside Harry. "Harry, wake up!"
"Huh? What the?" Harry came to rather quickly.
"Are you alright?" Ron pleaded.
"Um, I think so. I was skipping stones and then my scar started burning again. I guess I passed out." Harry sat up and was rubbing his forehead while Ron knocked the grass off his back.
"We should probably be going now, I think." Ron said, looking everywhere at once. "I think something is wrong with this place. Do you hear anything?"
Harry hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary before, but now that he was listening, he heard absolutely nothing. "It is way to quiet. We need to go now." With that the two boys jumped on their brooms and hauled ash (ha) southward.
"Harry Potter is coming to my house? Oh dear." Colin said as he turned as pale as the tablecloth.
"How are they getting here?" Dennis asked, "we don't have a fireplace."
"They can't take Ron's father's car, it is still in the Forbidden Forest somewhere," Hermione replied.
"Surely they aren't going to fly here, on broomsticks, in the middle of the afternoon, are they?" Colin asked, reading Hermione's mind.
"Yes, that's probably exactly how they'll get here," she answered…..
Meanwhile, Back at the Burrow
"Ron, wake up Ron!" a high pitched voice was very close to his ear. "Wake up. You got a letter from someone."
"Ginny, how many times have I told you not to wake me this early in the morning?"
Looking out the window to confirm her next statement, Ginny lashes out, "Ron, it is nearly noon, which is nowhere near morning. So get up and get the owl. It won't let me take the letter off."
Ron opens one eye and glances out the window. So there is sun. That doesn't mean it's noon. A glance at the clock beside his bed does confirm the fact that it is 11:53 am. "Blimey," he says, yawning fiercely. Harry is deeply buried in the bed sheets. Only his hair and one elbow can be seen. "Don't get up Harry, I'll handle this," he says to the sleeping form that might be a person and was answered with a snore.
"Mum told me to wake you up at noon anyway before she left, so you are only missing out on a few minutes of sleep anyway."
"Where'd she go?"
"She went into London for some things. She didn't say exactly what. Maybe a few going to school surprises."
"Hopefully so," Ron said following her down the stairs and stealthily pulling the pajama wedge from his posterior. "Where's the owl at then?"
"He's out back on the porch." Ginny went one way and Ron went out to the porch to collect his letter. The oddly colored owl hopped over to him and offered him his leg. Ron untied the parchment and instantly knew it was from Hermione from the extremely perfect script.
"Holy Shit!" he exclaimed from the back yard. The owl hopped back over near Hedwig and watched as he ran back inside. "Ginny, where's the Daily Prophet?"
"Um, I think it's on the kitchen table."
Ron ran into the kitchen and slid past the table. Silently cursing his socks, he hopped over to the Prophet and picked it up. He unrolled the paper and started scanning the headlines. "Oh Bloody hell!" Ron read for a few minutes and then ran back up the stairs to Harry at top speed, nearly falling once on account of his broomstick laying on the steps.
"Harry, wake up! wake up! wake up!" Ron was talking nearly inhumanly fast. Harry rolled over and gave an incommunicative snurfle and rolled back over.
"This is important Harry, *wake up*!" Ron proceeded to begin ripping sheets and blankets away from Harry. The final one he pulled happened to be thoroughly wound around Harry, so the big pull took both the blanket and Harry off the bed. With a loud crash Harry hit the floor.
A hand was reaching for the bed from the floor. Finding that, the hand meandered to the table. Finding a pair of glasses, the hand picked them up and took them back down. A head popped up a few seconds later. Tousle headed and tired-eyed, Harry looked at Ron. "If I took your half of the covers, just say something next time, Ron. I'll move."
"Sorry Harry, but this is important." the next few sentences was Ron giving an account of Hermione's previous evening and her letter, but with his excitement Ron was just slurring all the words together and making everything unintelligible.
"Ron, deep breath." Harry had seen Ron like this before, mostly during quiddich matches, so that was the first thing he thought of.
"Right. Harry, Hermione - her family was - attacked last night. Death Eaters." Ron was getting under control now and the deep breaths and pauses between words ended. "They attacked her parents while she was out at a Muggle movie."
Completely surprised, all Harry could do was look at Ron with his mouth agape. He eventually kick-started his brain and said "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine. No one knows what the Death Eaters did to her parents yet though."
"Where is she? Is she safe?"
"She says that she's fine. She's at um," Ron checks the letter again to be sure, "Colin Creevey's house."
"At Colin's? Why, he lives in Newhaven. How'd she get all the way there?"
"I don't know Harry. That is where she says she's at." Ron looked out the window for a second, trying to figure out something that just wasn't quite right with Harry's reply. Eureka. "Harry, how do you know where Colin lives?"
"Believe me, Ron, there are few things that I don't know about that boy. I've heard everything from him many times over. Do you want to hear about his scar on his shoulder?"
"Um… No, I don't actually."
"Good. Although the story is actually sort of funny in that I'm- glad-it-didn't-happen-to-me way. Let me see the letter."
"Here you go, and here's the article from the Prophet about it." Harry took both and sat back on the bed and read the article and Hermione's post. Three minutes later he put them down and rummaged in his bag for a piece of parchment of his own.
"What're you doing?" Ron asked, and then figuring it out, got a bottle of ink from the desk.
"Stay there," the letter said among other things like "We're sorry to hear about that" and "Does Dumbledore know?". Ron took the quill after Harry finished and wrote a postscript. "We'll be there as soon as we can, probably in a couple of hours."
They walked downstairs and out into the backyard. "Hey Thierry, come over here," Harry called to the purply-brown owl."
"How did you know…never mind" Ron said as the owl came over to Harry.
"Like I said, there isn't much I don't know about him," Harry replied smiling a bit as he gave the owl a snack. " 'mere Hedwig," he called. The snowy owl came over and stuck her leg out. Harry quickly tied the message and said, "Take this to Hermione. Just follow Thierry." With that, the two owls went skyward and started their journey.
"How far is Newhaven, Harry?"
"Oh, about 200 miles from here."
"Um, you aren't planning on walking are you? 'Cuz that is quite a way."
"Of course not. We'll fly."
Ginny had stepped outside and overheard the last part. "Where are you flying to?"
"We're flying there?" Ron asked.
"We have to, they don't have a fireplace.
"Where are you going?" Ginny pleaded.
"No fireplace? Well what kind of wizards are they, anyway?"
"Only his mum is a wizard. His father's a milkman."
"WHO?" asked Ginny, absolutely dying to know who they're talking about.
"A milkman? That's silly."
"Aarrgg. Who are you talking about? Who was that letter from?"
"Oh, morning Ginny," Harry said, grinning at her. Ginny wasn't positive, but she thought that Harry was having fun with her. "We were talking about Colin."
"Colin Creevey? Why would he send Ron a letter?" a puzzled Ginny asked.
"He didn't. Hermione did." Harry answered.
"What?" Ginny obviously had no idea of what was going on.
"Read the second page of the Prophet, Ginny, and you'll understand what we're talking about. Come on Ron, you need a shower worse than I do. You first."
"Right. Are we really flying there?"
"Yes we are, unless you want to walk it. We can stick to the fields and skim the rivers if we need to. We'll be fine," Harry said, trying to convince himself also. "Besides, it's Hermione. We *have* to go."
Ron heads upstairs to shower and Ginny has just finished skimming the Prophet article. "That's horrible. She's okay, right?"
"Right. As far as I know, she is at Colin's and she is fine."
"You know, you really shouldn't fly there on broomstick. That is just asking for trouble."
"Well, we don't really have any other choice. Like I said, we have to go."
"I'll make you boys a lunch. It is a ways away. Tell Hermione that I'm sorry."
"Thanks, Ginny, I will," Harry said as he walked upstairs to prepare for his quick shower. For the first time all sorts of questions swarmed his mind about Hermione. How was she taking all this? She seemed composed in her letter, but he wasn't sure. "Oh well, we'll find out in a while, I guess," he said to no one but the poltergeist who was turning the hot water off and on for Ron's shower.
Back at the Creevey's
"Hermione seems to be doing okay, huh Colin?" Dennis asked his brother while Hermione had gotten up to use the ladies room.
"She seems okay. She said that she cried all last night and she was over that."
"I do hope they can help her parents," Dennis said to no one in general.
"They will. The wizards at St. Mungo's will do everything they can.
Hermione walked back into the room followed seconds later by Mrs. Creevey. "Do Harry and Ron like hamburgers for dinner, Hermione? Colin?"
Hermione thought to the hysterical letter that Harry had sent her after the trip to Ottery and smiled for the first time all day and said "I think that will be fine." She proceeded to tell the story to the boys once Mrs. Creevey went back into the kitchen. Dennis gave her his complete and undivided attention and Colin smirked at his brother. After Hermione was finished they were all rolling around on the floor laughing. Tick tock, said the clock. Time passed at the Creevey's.
Flying low over the English countryside wasn't as easy as one might think. It was amazing how many cows there were. Even though they were a little more difficult than normal to see, thanks to a halfway effective invisibility charm Ginny cast, they still had to dodge livestock. The two stopped about halfway to Newhaven by a small lake to eat the sandwiches that Ginny packed them. Peanut butter and jelly. Not too bad.
"Harry, how much longer do you figure we'll be? I really have to, you know."
Harry shakes his head in the typical disbelief motion. "Ron, if I were you, I'd head over into the trees. We're still about two hours away. Just watch out for poison ivy."
"Gross, Harry. Funny, but gross." Ron headed into the growth of trees and was, shall we say, indisposed for a bit. Harry was sitting by the water's edge, skipping rocks when his vision doubled then trebled. His scar felt like it was full of molten glass. He fell backwards and passed out from the pain.
Ron came out of the woods a minute later and saw Harry laying rather awkwardly in the grass. He came at a run and slid beside Harry. "Harry, wake up!"
"Huh? What the?" Harry came to rather quickly.
"Are you alright?" Ron pleaded.
"Um, I think so. I was skipping stones and then my scar started burning again. I guess I passed out." Harry sat up and was rubbing his forehead while Ron knocked the grass off his back.
"We should probably be going now, I think." Ron said, looking everywhere at once. "I think something is wrong with this place. Do you hear anything?"
Harry hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary before, but now that he was listening, he heard absolutely nothing. "It is way to quiet. We need to go now." With that the two boys jumped on their brooms and hauled ash (ha) southward.