Potter47
Old Friends
Robot B9
To the Burrow
"So, how messy is your attic, exactly?" asked Ron as he followed Luna up the staircase, lion hat in place atop his head.
"Oh, it's pretty bad," said Luna conversationally. "It hasn't been cleaned since Mum died."
"Five years?" asked Ron, shocked.
"Almost six."
Ron was going to comment further, but he caught his tongue. Did Luna want to talk about her mum? He couldn't imagine that she would. If his mum had died, he would probably have locked himself in the attic. But Luna seemed entirely okay about it. Conversationally seemed to be the adverb of choice, for Luna Lovegood.
The two continued their trek.
It was as if someone in Harry's mind had pressed "replay."
The conversation that had taken place within Harry's mind replayed itself, and he basically heard it all again. It was very like what had been happening at the end of last year; Harry's flashbacks.
Has dear Ginny not informed you of what it is like to be possessed?
GET OUT OF MY MIND!
Sorry, I can only be out of my mind. As I have been since I was born. Besides, there's plenty of room. What's Dumbledore been teaching you all these years? Only the Disarming Jinx?
Oh, Severus taught you that? I guess Dumbledore hasn't taught you anything... Who taught you the Time Freezing spell? Quite the spell, Harry. Of course, you won't be getting away with that one again. Precautions have been taken.
I taught you that? Never would've guessed...
GET OUT OF MY MIND!
Develop a mental vocabulary, boy. Has dear Ginny not informed you of what it is like to be possessed? Irrelevant, I suppose. But this isn't possession, per se. You would not be conscious if this was possession. It's more of a...mental conversation. New experiment of mine. Of course, it has been a bit one-sided...
Quite the spell, Harry. Of course, you won't be getting away with that one again. Precautions have been taken.
The Time Freezing spell?
That same person now pressed the "stop" button, and Harry returned to the present. The Time Freezing spell...Tempus Fugit. Harry had learned it in the Chamber of Secrets, when Tom Riddle had seemingly killed Ginny.
Ginny...
Was Ginny alright? He had no way to know.
Wouldn't it be great if Dumbledore just showed up here right now, and let me go to the Burrow? Harry thought. Wouldn't that just be perfect?
Well, it seemed life wasn't quite that perfect, but it wasn't that bad, either. A flash of flame erupted across from Harry, atop his bed. Harry had wished Dumbledore would come to Privet Drive, and take him away. Well, that was pretty damn close to what did happen; who did show up.
"Fawkes?" Harry said disbelievingly. "What the-"
Harry then realised that Fawkes had not come simply to trill hello. A letter had fallen on the bed next to the great bird. Harry quickly picked it up. It was, unpredictably, from Professor Dumbledore.
Harry,
You may have heard...though I doubt you have. It seems Voldemort has already begun his new plan. I had hoped it may have taken longer...but alas, it has happened.
The Dementors have revolted. It seems Voldemort is so sure of himself that he has no worry of making his presence known. Of course, it will not be very easy to convince Cornelius that it was indeed Tom who was behind the revolt, so Minerva will continue as Headmistress for now.
Last summer, as you know, Dolores Umbridge set two Dementors on Privet Drive. You were quite lucky to escape, and your cousin as well. By putting two and two together (which has taken the greater part of the last year) I've realised that the ancient magic that protects you from Voldemort when at Privet Drive does not extend to protect you from Dementors. It is quite likely that Voldemort's first act, while in control of the Dementors, will be to attack your home. You must leave as soon as possible.
And here lies the good news:
You will be going to the Burrow. It is the logical move, for you to be taken there, as the more wizards casting Patroni, the greater chance against the Dementors. You could, of course, be taken to headquarters, but there would be a chance only you and Sirius would be there to fight, if the location was compromised in some way -- not that we think it HAS been, or anything like that. Anyway, your best chance is with the Weasleys.
When you are ready (first, I strongly suggest you pack your things and consider a toothbrush), take a firm hold of Fawkes' tail feathers, and indicate to him that you are all set. He will take you directly to the Burrow. Hopefully, you don't pop up in Mssrs. Fred and George's room...just the type of trick Fawkes would play...oh, well. It is a chance we have no choice but to take...
Be careful, Harry.
-- Albus Dumbledore
Harry couldn't believe his luck. He was going to the Burrow.
Of course, on second thought, he realised it wasn't exactly lucky to have Dementors about to attack your house...but he could see Ginny!
Harry quickly gathered all his things. He took a firm hold of his trunk with one hand, and grasped Fawkes' tail feathers with the other.
"Go on," he told the bird. "I'm ready."
Fawkes didn't do anything, save look at Harry with a much more condescending look that Harry ever thought he'd be getting from a bird.
"What?" Harry asked, impatient to see Ginny again. "Dementors could be coming any minute! I need to get to the Burrow!"
Fawkes lifted a wing in the vague direction of the hallway.
"What, you want me to walk? Dumbledore said to take me." Harry was growing more impatient by the minute.
Fawkes nodded his head in the less vague direction of the bathroom. "What?" asked Harry again. The phoenix opened it's beak, and Harry half expected it to explain verbally what he couldn't get across. However, the bird simply looked at Harry, beak wide.
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, dropping the feathers and trunk handle. He muttered to himself as he walked out of his bedroom door, "Forgot my toothbrush..."
"There, good as new..." muttered Molly Weasley under her breath. She looked at the table leg shrewdly. "No one will notice a thing."
After Ron had left, no doubt to wander-aimlessly-through-town-until-he-just-happened-to-end-up-at-Luna-Lovegood's-house, she had had a great deal of coffee, which brought her back to her normal self. She shook her head. It was always the same; of course, it was much more convenient when the girl in question lived rather near....She could remember that time, when Charlie--
"Hello there, Mum," said Fred -- or George -- coming into the kitchen and immediately going for the cabinet. No doubt planning on eating that cereal again... She still hadn't forgiven her husband, for bringing home "Lucky Charms" or whatever it was called. Neither Fred nor George had eaten her breakfast since. There was, apparently, "no time."
Might as well try...
"Don't you want some eggs?" she asked her son. She realised that for some reason or another, the twin rummaging around in her kitchen cabinet was alone. No brother in sight. That can't be good. "Or bacon? You used to love bacon and eggs..."
"No time, Mum. Ah, here it is..." As his arm came out of the cabinet, a suspicious expression formed on his face. "This is empty...who's been eating my cereal?"
She chose not to comment on the fact that it was his father's cereal, despite the fact her husband hadn't gotten a bite of it since the first day. "I don't know...your brother, maybe?"
"That helps a lot, Mum," he muttered sarcastically. "I bet it was Ron....he's always been a human cavoom cleaner..."
"Vacuum cleaner," she corrected automatically, scowling. She didn't like the idea of vacuum cleaners...they seemed so unnatural. And where did it all go? With magic, everything was perfectly understandable: dirt disappeared. Muggles can't do that, make things disappear. It probably ended up on your shoes. "And Ron didn't eat a thing this morning."
"Of course he didn't. He never eats while he sleeps. And he never sleeps while he eats. Those are the only times he isn't doing one or the other." The twin -- Molly thought it was George now -- was heading over to the stairs. "Ronniekins! You got some 'splaining to do!"
"He's not up there," she told him. "Like I said, he didn't eat anything this morning. He went out for a 'walk.'"
George -- she would think of him as George and not doubt herself another time! -- turned around to face his mother. Despite him being one of the shorter Weasleys, he still was a good foot over Molly. I'm tiny, aren't I? When did this happen?
"You said 'walk' as if there were quotation marks around it...that would mean that you don't actually think he just went for a early morning stroll..." George had a dubious look in his eye. "Where did he go?"
Merlin, he's perceptive... "Now, that is none of your business, George--"
"Fred."
Damn. "Now, that is none of your business, Fred. If Ron goes for a 'walk,' if he goes for a 'run' or if he goes for a 'ten-mile-hike,' it doesn't matter." She tried to put a stern expression on her face, but she got the feeling she wasn't up to her usual sabre-toothed-tiger self. He noticed, and didn't back down.
"Or, perhaps, who did he go see?"
Where did he get this perceptiveness from? Oh, yes. Me.
"That also is none of your business--"
"Aha! So he did see someone!"
"George!" He opened his mouth. "Oh, right, Fred...." She paused, and gathered herself. "Fred! Mind your own business!"
"It must be a girl..." he muttered, ignoring his mother. "I doubt Ron would leave this early to visit, say, Neville Longbottom. Must be...Hermione!"
"No, it is not Hermione, and that is all I am going to say." Molly walked over to the stove and started magically cooking some eggs.
"Fine! Be that way. Humph! That's the last time I try to get you to spill some information!"
Please don't be joking...
Fred just looked at his mother, miffed, for a minute or two. Small clinks sounded when his mother retrieved a plate from the cabinet. He didn't even realise what was happening, as a plate of eggs -- sunny-side up -- was forced into his hands.
"Hey!" He glared at his mother.
"Well, you're not about to waste my food, are you?" she asked, sabre-toothed-tiger face working its wonders once again.
"Oh, fine. I need to get to the shop early, though," he grumbled, opening a drawer and pulling out a fork. He then seemed to remember something. "Hey, if Ron didn't eat anything, then he didn't eat my cereal."
"Very insightful of you."
"No, I mean, someone else had to have eaten it..."
Fred swallowed a mouthful of egg. "Then it must have been...GINNY!"
"Don't be silly. She's still asleep."
"Not a chance. She may have everyone else fooled, but I happen to know that my little sister always wakes up early, and is just too lazy to get up!"
Molly looked at her son, exasperated. Not only was he not finishing the egg that he left on the table, but he wasn't nearly as perceptive as he had seemed just five minutes ago. Now, he seemed a great deal more like Ron. "Then how would she eat your cereal!" she called after him, but he didn't even hear.
"...that was 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' by the Beatles, though I doubt any of our listeners really needed to be told that bit of information...next up, 'Eleanor Rigby' which is by -- would you look at that, the Beatles, once again..."
"Ugh. I hate that song..." Ginny muttered, finally sitting up in bed. When her father had brought home the Muggle wireless -- a gift for his only child that seemed interested in Muggle eckeltronics -- he had told her that he couldn't figure out how to turn off the alarm. Of course, Ginny most definitely hadn't a clue as to how to disable it. If only I could use magic... She didn't exactly use the wireless much, but she kept it so not to hurt her Dad's feelings. Perhaps it was good, that she couldn't use magic out of school. Otherwise, the little box would long ago have fallen victim to the Reductor Curse.
So, at precisely six fifty-eight, every morning, the wireless turned on. Always to the same station, which seemed to play nothing, save the Beatles. And the damn announcer always acts surprised... Of course, Ginny never got up with the alarm. When she could help it, she never got up early.
She smiled, remembering the incident in nineteen seventy-eight... She frowned, remembering the water. That was cold! And the water wasn't that nice, either.
It didn't help her frowning, that she missed him so much. It seemed so much longer than two weeks, since Harry and Ginny had parted ways at King's Cross. She couldn't believe she hadn't even gotten a chance to watch The Wizard of Oz yet.... Of course, she doubted she would, even if she had the chance, unless Harry was there. It just wouldn't be the same.
"...all the lonely people...where do they all come from...all the lonely people...where do they all belong..."
Eleanor Rigby, Ginny thought, knows nothing about loneliness. Neither does Father Mackenzie, or anyone else.
She had gotten to know each and every (at least, she thought so) Beatles song quite well over the previous fortnight. Eleanor Rigby had to be the one she hated most. It was just...creepy. Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave? Ginny shivered. It was most definitely creepy.
Ginny pushed the little button that turned off the music. She really needed to figure out how to turn off the alarm. She might just go insane, if she didn't.
She leaned back, preparing to nod off for another hour or so. However, as Fate would have it, she didn't fall back to sleep. Someone else did fall however. Right atop her, as a matter of fact.
"Harry!" she exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"
Harry hardly had a chance to realise that he had fallen on top of his girlfriend, when a slam told them the door had opened, and crashed into the wall behind it. Both their heads snapped to the doorway.
A shocked Fred -- or was it George? -- Weasley stood, staring at them. Of course, it was a sight to be staring at: Harry Potter atop his youngest (and only) sister, who wore only a pair of pyjamas that were far too big for her, having been handed down from sibling to sibling. Harry promptly toppled off the bed, landing with a muffled thud on the covers that Ginny had apparently knocked off in her sleep.
"Bloody hell!" George exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I could ask you the same thing!" shouted Ginny. "Ever heard of knocking?"
This didn't seem to help. Now not one, but two twins were standing in the doorway.
"Harry, you can Apparate?" asked the other twin, gritting his teeth. "For your sake, I sure hope you can..."
"What?" asked Harry, popping up on the other side of the bed, and looking worriedly at the twins.
"Because we can Apparate, and there's no way you'll be able to outrun us..."
"You are so dead, Potter..."
"HOLD IT!" two female voices screamed at the tops of their lungs. One, of course, was Ginny, who had jumped from the bed and was now looking like she wanted to kill the twins. The other was Mrs Weasley, who had apparently run up the stairs at the sound of the first scream.
"George, you are not killing Harry. You either, Fred." She turned to Ginny. "Ginny, you may not kill your brothers."
"They didn't even knock! They just barged in!" yelled Ginny.
"He was on top of her--"
"--and if we hadn't shown up in the nick of time--"
"--there's no telling what would have happened!" the twins finished together, as was their style.
"Er..." was the only thing Harry could say. He had been in some peculiar situations over the years, but this had to be at the top of the list...
"First of all," said Mrs Weasley, standing between Ginny and the twins, as if a referee at a duel. No, not a duel to the death, or an actual duel with people trying to hurt each other; but like in a duelling tournament. People don't stand between people in the other kind of duel; it just wouldn't be wise. "What have you been told about barging into your sister's room? Day after day, we tell you, and it just goes in one ear, out the other, in another ear, out the last. Knock!
"Second," she turned to Ginny, "you do not kill your brothers without my permission."
She turned to Harry. "And third, what in Merlin's name are you doing here, Harry?"
Harry swallowed, and began to tell his story. "You see, I woke up this morning, and got this letter from Dumbledore. Fawkes delivered it--" Harry stopped, realising for the first time that the Phoenix had disappeared, "and it said that I had to come to the Burrow, right away. Fawkes took me. Fawkes must have missed his target or something, and I ended up here. That can happen, right? I mean, people can mess up when Apparating, so can Phoenixes?"
"He's not even sure of his story!" cried out one of the twins. "I say he's lying!"
"And I say his story makes perfect sense, and are you hungry Harry?" Mrs Weasley asked Harry nicely.
"Er, not really."
"Are you sure?" she said, wishing he would change his mind. "What about you, Ginny? I can make eggs..."
The next chapter will likely not be up until 18 June.
and it'll be taking up my time for a while. It should be up in a few days.
Next Chapter
Every Picture Tells a Story
Sir James M. Barrie