I'm a very bad girl... I've been neglecting my reviewers... I'll start now and if I miss a chapter... you must hang me!
Ash night: Hey, just cos I wrote it doesn't mean I own it! I would love to unleash one on my school. It'd be very very fun. Your mum would call 911? Hmmm... well when I was late home one night cos I had netball practise (I was only an hour or so late) dad was like taking the car out looking for me! And I'd told him multiple times I'd be late... Ah, he likes the Southern cross nightly news too much to let a simple daughter get in the way.
Hye em yes: In a few of my previous years, I have been known to make the characters extremely OOC...
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Harry Potter leant against the doorframe of his room, humming a tune he heard on the radio. It was a high, bouncy tune, easy to get stuck in your head. He didn't particularly like this song, but it was Dudley's favourite, so whenever it came on the radio Dudley turned it up to the highest volume.
Harry was anxious to go to Hogwarts this year, partly because it was NEWT year, and partly because it was his last year at Hogwarts. What would happen after that? He couldn't bear to go back and live with the Dursleys. He assumed he'd get a job somewhere, but the only thing he could think of to be was an Auror. Then again, there was always professional Quidditch. He doubted he could get a job as an Auror this young. He was only seventeen.
His birthday had passed without mention from the Dursleys, but Hermione had sent him a large box of chocolate frogs, and Ron had sent him a small, working snitch. He had had fun letting the snitch go then catching it a second later, but stopped quickly when he realised his father had done the exact same thing before bullying Snape. Hagrid had sent a large ball of white fluff that quivered whenever there was rain coming, and Mrs. Weasley sent two homemade apple cakes. He had finished them both in a matter of days, (they were delicious) and had a lot of fun scaring Dudley with the shuddering fluffball. Now, whenever Dudley saw the white weather seer, he tried to subtly move into the next room.
Harry was jerked out of his train of thought by a crash coming from the living room, then screams. 'Oh no...' Harry thought, 'they don't know about the Weasleys coming...'
"BOY!" Came Vernon Dursley's bellow from the other room. "GET IN HERE!"
Harry raced through the door and saw Arthur Weasley's grinning face, brushing soot off himself. Also there was Ron and Ginny.
"Hullo, Harry!" Mr. Weasley said.
"Hi, Mr. Weasley," Harry said. "I'll, er, just go and get my stuff."
"Oh, no you won't!" Vernon Dursley said. "You'll stay here and explain why these crackpots have just flown into my fireplace!"
Harry pretended to remember something important, slapping himself on the forehead. "Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to tell you... I'm staying at Ron's for the summer." Then he raced upstairs before Vernon could say anything to contradict him.
"Ah, I see you've gone and got yourself a new tillavickson, Mr. Dursley," Arthur said friendlily, indicating a silvery television mounted in an entertainment system cabinet. "I learnt all about those things last month. Apparently they're very interesting."
He cocked his head, presumably to see what was so interesting about a big silver box, but Vernon cleared his throat loudly and he straightened up again quickly.
"Er..." Vernon said, clearly at a loss for what to say. "You, er, come here often?"
"Well, I'm assuming you mean this neck of the woods, as I've only been in this house once before... yes, yes, but no, I'm usually only at my house and the Ministry of Magic, where I work... though sometimes I'm called out to see to a matter of my job..."
He trailed off, realising that Vernon wasn't really after an answer longer than one word. He nodded slowly. Harry came back into the room, lugging a large trunk behind him. Arthur clapped his hands together, grinning again.
"Ah! Well, let's, er, be off then!" He said, flinging some powder into the fireplace from a pouch he had in his pocket. The fire turned emerald and flared up, and he sent Ron off with Harry's trunk, shouting "The Burrow!" Ginny went next, followed by Harry.
"Bye then!" Arthur said cheerfully to Vernon, who stayed silent, staring in terror at the green fire, before following Harry to The Burrow.
They emerged in the living room of The Burrow, brushing soot from their fronts. Harry noticed that he was ankle deep in some kind of dry water, as he was standing in it but his feet were not wet.
"What...'s this?" he asked as he hopped around as if he was on hot coals.
"Fred and George's prank," Ron answered. "It all drained off except this bit... we're still waiting for it to go."
Harry stopped hopping around and stood still, feeling slightly embarrassed to have been doing a kind of odd dance while the Weasleys stood there. He looked at Ginny. Her hair was curly... or had it always been like that? He couldn't really remember. She looked a lot better too... nah. Was it just his imagination, or was he starting to have non-platonic feelings for Ginny ?
"Hello?" Ginny said, waving a hand past his eyes.
"Oh, sorry, a million miles away." Harry said, snapping himself out of it. Ginny rolled her eyes and left. It had been her choice to go with Ron and her dad to collect Harry, but it was kind of boring. She had never been to Harry's house before, and wanted to know what a real muggle's house was like. It turned out it was quite like her own, but with more gadgets and things to do with electricity that she didn't know about. It was like being in Dumbledore's office, but the welcome had been much less warm. She hadn't seen the infamous Dudley, or Petunia, just a fat man with a moustache who she assumed to be Harry's uncle Vernon.
She walked up the stairs to Ron's room, with Harry and Ron in tow. She pushed open the door and found Hermione sitting on his bed, laughing over a copy of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. She recognised it as the one Hermione had snatched out of Ron's hands the other day.
"This is so funny!" Hermione exclaimed. "Some of the things we think muggles do... extraordinary!"
They sat on Ron's bed; Ron fascinated by Hermione's interest in his comic. Harry was still looking at Ginny strangely, and she was still wondering why.
"You look really nice, Ginny. Have you, er, done something different to, er, your hair?" He said, eyes wide with curiosity.
"Yeah, I noticed it too, Gin." Hermione said. "You look fantastic."
Ginny smiled and looked at her shoes. "Well, Zoe did some stuff, like, before we went out yesterday. I think she's curled my hair permanently."
"Wha...?" said Ron, who had not noticed a thing.
"Oh, never mind , Ron." Hermione said exasperatedly. "Boys... they live with you your entire life and don't notice, eh Gin?"
Ginny smiled. At least Harry noticed. 'He thinks I look really nice...' She thought, grinning to herself. Not that she liked him anymore. No way. Not even a little bit. She got over him loooooooooong ago. And that was LOOOOOOOOOOOONG ago. It was just nice to be appreciated.
