After a quiet trip on the Knight Bus (or at least as peaceful as the Knight Bus can get) Harry arrived at the burrow an hour or two before dawn. Dragging his heavy trunk as quietly as possible, he hoped that he wouldn't wake anyone. So then of course, he was thoroughly shocked when he was confronted by a blaze of light and a clamor of voices shouting words of welcome. "What's going on?" Harry blurted out, utterly stupefied.
"Your friends are throwing you a party, that's what!" Said Ron, flinging one arm around Harry's shoulders.
"Why?" he queried, still nonplussed.
"We just thought it would be nice. What's wrong with wanting to welcome you back?" Hermione stated, although slightly too quickly, Harry thought. Looking around at the bright smiling faces and table loaded with food, Harry was gripped by a sudden and urgent desire to go to bed. However, he allowed his friends to drag him about the room to be greeted by everyone. After half an agonizing hour, Harry feinted tiredness and traipsed off to bed.
Having only gotten ten minutes of faked sleep, Harry was 'woken up' by Hermione. "Harry, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he muttered as he rolled over to face the wall. "Why are you worried anyway?"
"Well, uh…" She stuttered, fidgeting. "We're just concerned that you may not be coping with…" Here she broke off for a moment. "Well, you know."
"Look, I'm fine. Just let me deal with it in my own way. Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to sleep." As Hermione walked slowly out of the room Harry thought to himself, "What does she know about coping? She's still got all of her family."
"What about this book dear?" She asked again, holding up yet another book not on the list. "I read this one a little while ago, and found it rather witty."
"No Granna." Morgan sighed deeply, her hand over her eyes. "I only need the ones on the list. Tell you what. To save us some time, I'll get my school books while you go and pick up my robes from Madame Malkin's shop and I'll meet you back here." she said hopefully, craving some solitude. Although she loved Granna very much, she did tend to get on her nerves when she tried to help to the point of obsessiveness.
"That sounds like a brilliant idea Morgana. I'll see you soon." As she left Morgan physically flinched at the use of her full name. Even though her grandmother knew she despised it, she still refused to call her Morgan like practically everyone else did. Giving a massive sigh of relief, Morgan turned back to her search for the level six spellbook.
"Just the Care of Magical Creatures book left to get." Morgan turned. That voice was familiar. It was the boy she'd met the other day.
"I don't mind, as long as these ones don't bite." That comment came from one of his companions, a tall befreckled boy with bright red hair. Then the other, a girl with bushy brown hair, spoke.
"Don't worry Ron, Hagrid promised us the books would be perfectly normal this year."
"Hermione, normal for Hagrid wouldn't be normal for anyone else. Remember Norbert. And Aragog. He thought they were perfectly normal." This Ron came across to Morgan as a bit of a whiner.
"I might as well go over and say hi, what's the worst that could happen?" As she was about to head over she heard another familiar voice, although this one wasn't so welcomed.
"Well if it isn't Potter and his little groupies. Tell me Weasley what did your family have to sell off to buy your books this year? That pigsty you call a house wouldn't sell for much."
"Really Malfoy," Hermione said scathingly. "Can't you come up with any new material? We all got tired of that one ages ago."
"Whatever you say Mudblood. Not that anyone was talking to you. And Potter. Have a fun holiday did you? Just sitting around waiting for them to come get you, I expect." Malfoy's sneer was venomous.
"Wait a minute. That guy… Harry... he's…" she slipped back into silence as Harry snapped out his reply.
"Shut your face, you evil little twerp. At least I know I'm on the right side." He was fuming.
"Well Potter, just remember that the 'moral' side isn't necessarily the best one." To add insult to injury, Malfoy casually flicked Harry's hair and sneered, "Certainly not the best styled." And walked away. As Harry re-flattened his hair, or at least attempted to, muttering under his breath, everything came together in Morgan's mind.
"Scar. Potter. Hmm… Well that's pretty obvious."
"What is dear?" Morgan jumped so far she practically hit the ceiling. She wondered with a hand over heart if Granna did this sort of thing on purpose to scare her, or if she generally expected everyone to be on a constant alert or something.
"Nothing Granna. Nothing. Did you get the robes?" Granna held them up.
"They're all finished. Did you find all the books you need?" This was the question she'd been dreading. She'd been so preoccupied by the show that the famous Harry Potter had put on that she had completely forgotten to even look for her final book. She cringed as Granna held up another volume. "Because I think this was the one you were looking for. I found it over by the door."
"What?" Morgan couldn't believe her ears. She was going to need a lie down when she got home; this day had simply been too much for her.
"This book. Isn't it the one you were looking for? Spells level six?" Morgan took the book out of her hands and nodded distractedly. "Are you alright dear?" She asked, concern radiating from every pore.
"I'm fine." She shook her head lightly to clear away the mental cobwebs in her brain. "Just a little tired. We've got everything I need now. Let's go home."
All the way home, Morgan couldn't help but think about the episode in Flourish Blotts'. "So he's the Harry Potter huh? Well I guess that rules out any chance of us hanging out when the term starts, especially when he discovers who it is that I'm related to." She sighed and returned to gazing out the window.
A/N: More to come. R R!
