Chapter Three: The Weasleys Meet the Dursleys
The next morning Harry was startled to find himself in a bed in a room of the house that he had not seen before. He vaguely remembered passing out in the attic and wondered who it was who had found him there and brought him here. As he raised his head and looked for his glasses, he realized that someone was in another bed in the room, someone with flaming red hair. Harry wondered when it was the Weasleys had arrived at Grimmauld Place. As Harry sat up in his bed he saw his best friend, Ron, begin to stir and wake.
"Good morning, Harry," Ron said with a hint of a laugh in his voice. Harry was sure he must have looked confused because Ron continued with an explanation. "Mum and Ginny and I got here last night pretty late. No one had seen you for hours so Ginny and I went looking for you. Ginny found you in the attic when you screamed and Lupin levitated you here. When I came back later you were smiling like an idiot. Whatever you were dreaming about must have been good!"
Harry began to remember his dream. There had been a garden, filled with flowers and sculpted lawns. Beside a water-fountain with a statue of a unicorn sat a lovely girl, one Harry knew from somewhere, but he could not remember who it was now that he was awake. The dream contrasted so sharply with the last bits of consciousness he'd had the night before, he wondered if he hadn't been given some sort of potion to cause it. "It was nothing special," Harry replied feeling that if it had been important he would have remembered it.
"Sure," Ron said, clearly not believing him, but not wanting to press the issue too hard. Harry supposed Ron was still not sure when to expect Harry to start screaming or crying or something. Harry was annoyed that Ron was being so wary with him, but he couldn't blame Ron. Harry had, after all, been mightily unpredictable since the end of last term.
"Well, I expect Mum's got breakfast started by now," Ron said as he began to climb out from under his covers. Harry was about to follow suit when the door creaked open.
"Ginny, bloody hell, we're not fully dressed in here!" Ron yelled at his little sister.
A chill went down Harry's spine as he looked up at Ginny's face poking around the door. He suddenly couldn't help contemplating the unicorn statue in the fountain of his dream. Ginny smiled mischievously, "Mum said to come get you two up. Breakfast is on and Harry's cousin looks hungry enough to eat the table itself."
Harry laughed at Ginny's assessment of Dudley's appetite. When Ginny had closed the door, the two boys emerged from under their covers and quickly dressed to go down to breakfast. True to Ginny's word, there was Dudley, a stack of pancakes and syrup, sausage, eggs, and bacon piled onto his plate and quickly disappearing. Aunt Petunia sat nervously in the chair next to Dudley picking at her own eggs and toast, while Uncle Vernon looked almost as shocked as he had the night before. Harry was willing to bet the shocked look had come from having watched Mrs. Weasley produce a mountain of very normal looking food through very abnormal (at least to the Dursleys) means. Harry stifled a laugh as he sat down at the opposite end of the table from his relatives.
"It's ok, Uncle Vernon, the food is quite edible," Harry eyed his Uncle who seemed to be regaining some of his regular personality as he was starting to turn an interesting shade of puce. "And it's quite good, too," Harry said through his first mouthful. "You should really try some of this bacon! This is great Mrs. Weasley!" He added, addressing his last phrases to Ron's Mother who still stood at the stove looking nervously at Dudley, obviously wondering if she should be making more.
"Oh, thank you, Harry. That's very kind of you. Tuck in now, Mr. Dursley," she said in the same manner she might have addressed one of her own sons. "I'm sure you must be famished after the harrowing day you had yesterday. Honestly, I simply cannot understand how they got into that house!" She continued to rant and worry about the safety of the house at Privet Drive having been compromised.
Uncle Vernon did finally manage to eat a few bites after seeing his son go unharmed by it. He then turned his attention to Dumbledore who had just entered the room and who obviously, by the ease with which Uncle Vernon addressed him, had introduced himself to the Dursleys sometime during the previous evening.
"How do you propose I manage to get to work and back while I am stuck here in this place?" he asked Dumbledore. Harry noted that Uncle Vernon did not refer to the Black Manor as a house, but rather a 'place' as though it was an inexplicable twist of nature that the walls surrounding them all should be there at all. 'And how else would a muggle like Uncle Vernon view a house that suddenly appears out of nowhere?' Harry thought to himself.
"You could call in a sick day," Dumbledore suggested, seeming to suddenly know all about muggle office procedure somehow. There was a twinkle in his eye behind the half moon spectacles, and Harry could have sworn he saw the hint of a smile playing around the old wizard's mouth, just for an instant.
"I've never taken a sick day in my life," Uncle Vernon replied vehemently, as though repulsed by the idea, "And I will not allow you people to hold me here like a hostage when I have a job to do at my office." Uncle Vernon was clearly searching for some bit of normalcy to cling to. A day at the office would be far more enjoyable to the old walrus than a day spent with a lot of wizards and witches bustling about.
"I am terribly sorry, Mr. Dursley, but as you are clearly in a great deal of danger, and would put everyone in this house under the same threat were you to leave here and return again every day, I must insist that for the time being you remain here. I will, however, look into the possibility of arranging a floo connection with your place of work should this become a lengthy stay, which I am sincerely hoping it will not. Has your office a fireplace anywhere in the building?" Dumbledore's voice betrayed no emotion, but Harry could tell by the loss of sparkle to his eyes that Dumbledore truly did hope the Dursleys would not stay at Headquarters for long. Harry wondered briefly if their stay was interfering with meeting plans or communications with order members.
"A fireplace! I should say not. Ours is a very modern building, with a furnace and boiler room. What use would Grunnings have with fireplaces?!" Uncle Vernon was clearly perplexed.
"I see, well, then we shall have to devise a portkey, I suppose." And then, as though to demonstrate the usefulness of a fireplace to Uncle Vernon, Dumbledore strode over to the grate in the kitchen, bid good day to everyone, and disappeared in a flash of green flame.
Uncle Vernon stared at the flames in the kitchen fireplace for a long moment as though willing himself not to believe he had just seen a man disappear there. He turned his eyes to his wife who seemed a bit taken aback by Dumbledore's sudden departure, but not terribly surprised at his means of travel. "It's how they travel, Vernon," she comforted him. "He is quite right though. We really are in danger. And who knows how far we are from the office here. We'll tell them you injured your back. It'll be fine."
Harry stared at his Aunt as she spoke. He had never heard her speak so lovingly toward anyone. It suddenly became very clear to Harry that his aunt and uncle were a married couple, that they must love each other. And even though it was strange to see it, he had to admit, they were not so unlike his own mother and father in the pictures he had seen of them. 'If only they could have loved me as they do their son…"Harry thought, but then, there was no point in thinking on it. What was done was done, and nothing would change that now. The future was all he had to work with now. He decided then that he had done the right thing saving his relatives from the Death Eaters, no matter how nasty they had been toward him, and that he would do the same thing again if it ever became necessary.
But Uncle Vernon had to have the last word, "Who says we're any safer here among these freaks than we would be anywhere else?"
Mrs. Weasley looked shocked, Ginny's face was turning red and white in succession, and Ron looked like he wanted to pound the man's face in. Harry was livid that his horrible uncle could behave so ungratefully. He stood opening and closing his mouth as Uncle Vernon rose from his seat and left the room and Aunt Petunia followed sheepishly after him. Dudley was left staring at all the angry faces on his own. He quickly finished his plate and then followed his parents to the room they all were sharing. Harry later learned that Dudley had been offered the choice of a room of his own or sharing with Harry and Ron but had refused to leave his parents' sides resulting in Lupin's having to enlarge the beds in the room to accommodate the family. Harry wondered if Lupin had also enlarged the room. One thing was certain, Harry would be glad of it when the Dursleys did go home.
It was not long before Mrs. Weasley found something to occupy everyone. She left the Dursleys to themselves, and they obliged by staying mostly to their own room. But Harry, Ron and Ginny were put to work cleaning the parlor and drawing room the same as they had done the previous year. Only this year there were no doxies to be rid of. They were poking through a cupboard when Ginny yelped loudly.
"Ouch," she cried holding her left hand up to reveal a nasty red spot on the end of her ring finger.
"What happened, are you ok?" Harry asked her as he looked up from his cleaning.
"Something bit me," she exclaimed as she peered into the cupboard to find the assailing object or creature.
"I think I know what," Ron supplied holding up a sapphire blue insect as it wriggled and tried to spin out of Ron's reach.
Suddenly Ginny began to giggle, then laugh. Her body began to rise off the floor. Her face looked alarmed, but she continued to giggle. Harry could tell that something wasn't right about the way she was laughing.
"What's so funny Gin?" Ron asked clearly not understanding what was going on.
"N-nothing is f-funny," she choked out between giggles, "I c-can't help it, oh, m-my g-gosh, he he he he, get me d-down." She gasped as she rose all the way to the ceiling.
"I'll get Mum," Ron cried as he hurried out of the room, still holding the insect.
Harry looked up at Ginny, "Are you OK?" he asked, knowing he sounded stupid. Of course she wasn't OK, something in that insect bite was making her laugh uncontrollably and float around the room. Tears were streaming down her face from laughing so hard.
"Harry, c-can you t-try and get me d-down? I'm, ha ha ha ha, I'm sort of, ha ha ha ha, sc-scared of h-heights." She did look terrified behind all the laughing.
I'm coming, Gin, hold on," Harry said. He grabbed a chair from a nearby game table and pulled it over to the spot just below where Ginny was hovering. He climbed up on the chair to try to reach her. "Blast it, I'm too short!" Harry cried.
"Non… ha ha ha ha… Nonsense, Harry…ha ha ha ha…this ceiling is j-just too high!" she squealed, a note of panic in her voice.
Just at the moment when Harry was reaching up for a second try and telling Ginny to reach down as far as she could, Harry heard loud footsteps coming into the room. Thinking it was Ron coming back with his Mum, Harry quickly asked "Can you lift me up, mate? I can't quite reach her."
"Blimey, what's she doing up there?" Dudley's voice came pounding up into Harry's ears.
"Dudley?" Harry was shocked to see Dudley there, but Dudley just followed Harry's previous instructions and lifted Harry up by the feet. Harry quickly grabbed Ginny's outstretched hand and pulled her to him. She clung to him as Dudley put them both down on the floor.
Ginny continued to cling to Harry since her body was still trying to float back up off the ground. Harry held her around her waist with one arm and around her shoulders with the other to keep her on the floor. The close proximity to her was starting to cause his cheeks to flush as he looked into her face.
"Thanks, Harry. You've saved my life again." She spoke quietly as though afraid that speaking any louder would make her start laughing again. Harry turned his face to look at Dudley.
"Thanks," he said, shocked and amazed that Dudley had helped him that way. "Why'd you do that?"
"You saved my life, and my parents too. So, I helped save your friend." Dudley shrugged his massive shoulders. "Just don't go spreading it around. What on earth was she doing up there in the first place?"
"I don't know, something bit me and I just sort of floated up. Ron's gone to get my mum." Ginny replied
"Bit you?" Dudley exclaimed looking around the room, suddenly frightened.
"Stung her, actually, I'd say," Lupin's voice came from the doorway. There was a sparkle in his eye and a smile was creeping up onto his lips as he surveyed Harry and Ginny, arms clasped around each other, Ginny holding on for dear life. "I'd say we should get a picture of this hilarious scene before we try to undo the effects of that Billywig sting. This is precious!" He laughed outright then just as Mrs. Weasley came into the room closely followed by Ron. Mrs. Weasley laughed too, but Ron looked a bit concerned.
"What are you doing to my sister?" he asked Harry.
"I'm trying to keep her down off the ceiling. She says she's scared of heights." Harry replied, and then Ron laughed too, at the incredulous look Harry was giving him.
It seemed Ginny was experiencing a mild allergy to Billywigs since the effects of the sting didn't seem to be wearing off. As they sat at the dinner table that night, Ginny had to keep one hand on the seat of her chair the whole time to keep from rising off of it.
"How did Billywigs end up here?" Ginny whined, "They're supposed to be in Australia, not England. Good grief, what a day!"
"Don't worry, Gin, I'm sure it will go away soon," Harry comforted her.
"What if it doesn't?" she worried. "What if I'm severely allergic to them and I keep floating around for the rest of my life?"
"Then Potter here will just have to stick around so he can keep pealing you off ceilings!" Dudley laughed, and Harry's cheeks went involuntarily red. "And don't go outside whatever you do."
"Maybe your lack of gravity will make you a faster chaser," Ron teased.
"Are you planning on trying out for that, Gin?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I mean, since all of Umbridge's decrees were repealed, I'm sure you'll be allowed back on the team, Harry. And no one's a better seeker than you. But I always wanted to be a chaser, anyway," she replied.
Harry blushed at the compliment, but tried to remain modest about it, "I thought you did a great job last year as seeker. Ron said you grabbed the snitch right out from under Cho's nose."
"Yeah, well, Cho had it coming, didn't she?" Ginny smiled as she remembered that last match. "She had her eye on Michael Corner the whole time. I can't believe I ever dated that git."
"So, how do you fly when you're afraid of heights?" Harry queried suspiciously.
"It's not as bad when I have the game to distract me, and a broom to hold on to. But just floating like that, with nothing to hold me up…" she shuddered and almost lost hold of her chair. Harry automatically placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her while she re-established her firm grip on the seat.
"So, how's it going with Dean?" Harry asked, wanting to know more than he wanted to let on.
"Oh," Ginny giggled again, and Harry couldn't tell if it was the effects of the Billywig sting, or the question he had asked. "I never was going out with him, actually."
"WHAT?!" Ron exclaimed, spraying a bit of his food across the table as he stood and stared at Ginny.
"I just said it to get you mad," she laughed, and this time Harry was quite sure it was genuine. Everyone else laughed too, but Ron sat hunched in his chair a bit, muttering that he didn't think it was very funny.