I'm sorry this has taken so long. It was ready months ago and I just never posted it. Chapter 6 will be done soon, I swear.
Ms. Peachpreen escorted the group upstairs.
"Petunia!" She announced excitedly. "We have guests!"
A roly-poly woman who looked exactly like Rosalie looked up for the pot she was stirring. A look of awe spread across her face.
Rosalie started the introductions. "Mr. Potter, friends," she nodded at the rest of the group. "This is my twin sister Petunia."
"Oh my…Mr. Potter, what an honor." She said, rushing to shake his hand. Harry cordially responded. An awkward silence filled the room as the two Ms. Peachpreens stared at Harry reverently.
"This is a lovely home you have here." Harry tentatively offered, peering about the overstuffed upper room. Doilies, chinse-covered sofas and rose painted china filled the small space.
Petunia seemed to pop out of her trance. "Oh me! How rude. Please have a seat and I'll rummage about for some tea." With a wave of her hand, cups and saucers flew from their cabinets.
"Neville! Duck!" Hermione cried. A chipped china cup narrowly missed Neville's ear.
The sofas moved forward encouragingly. "I think we're supposed to sit down." Lorelei said with a laugh.
The cups had finally settled down nicely on the lace-covered table when a large teapot painted with ugly dusty lavender roses and grotesque furry kittens appeared out of nowhere and started filling their cups to the brim. The creamer and the sugar bowl bounced in and dropped their bounty into the seven cups, splashing their contents all over the table and its occupants.
"Sorry." Rosalie said apologetically. "My sister has always been rather…enthusiastic…when it comes to tea."
Lorelei took a sip from her cup. "Well, it's lovely." She said with a smile. She turned to Charlie. "Do you realize this is the third cup of tea I've had in my hand in the last thirty minutes?"
Charlie laughed and raised his cup in salute. "Here's to hoping you get to finish this one."
The group settled in. Teatime was comfortable – filled with the murmured sounds of chewing and polite conversation.
"Well then," Rosalie finally interjected. Petunia got up from the table and returned to the pot she had been stirring earlier. "What brings the infamous Harry Potter to Dowling-on-the-Green?"
"Infamous?" Ron queried. "Isn't that a bad thing?"
Harry chuckled. "I think I like better then being famous. Ten times better then being 'The Boy Who Lived'. It's got an element of danger to it." He finished with a flourish. The group laughed.
Lorelei put her teacup down. "To answer your question, we're on our way to Godric's Hollow."
"Godric's Hollow!" Petunia exclaimed in shock. "Why on earth would you, of all people, want to go to Godric's Hollow?" She pointedly asked Harry.
"I want to visit my parents last home." He said, eyes down on his cup, his recent jovial mood forgotten. He finally looked up and added, "I've never been."
Rosalie reached over and patted his hand. "Poor lad." Petunia clucked her sympathies from the stove.
"Your poor parents," Petunia said. "Rosalie, do you remember when Lily was in our Advanced Herbology class? She was such a wonderful student." She stopped, getting a little teary-eyed.
"Wait?" Harry said, looking up in shock. "You knew my mother?"
Both ladies nodded their heads. "And your father." Rosalie said. "We quit teaching not long after they graduated."
"Blimey." Ron whistled. "And here I though Professor Sprout had been teaching since the beginning of time."
"Oh darling Mona. She was one of our best students." Rosalie smiled.
Petunia absent-mindedly turned away from her pot. "You dear," She said, pointing her dirty wooden spoon at Lorelei. "Remind me very much of a former student as well."
"Sorry. I had Professor Sprout all five of my years at Hogwarts." Lorelei apologized.
Rosalie bounced in her seat. "Petunia I think you're right. She looks very much like that girl…oh what was her name?" She placed her palm to forehead to help her think.
"Her name was a stone or a precious metal or something like that." Petunia stirred her pot contemplatively.
"Jade?"
"No. Pearl?"
"Sapphire?"
"Beryl?" Lorelei whispered into her cup. Charlie cocked his head at her.
"Moonstone?"
"Didn't the bassist for the Weird Sisters just name his kid Moonstone?" Ron queried.
"Boy or girl?" Neville asked. Ron just shrugged. The sisters continued their memory search.
"Ruby?"
"Topaz?"
Charlie glanced over at Lorelei. "Ladies," he said, interrupting the old ladies game. "Was it perhaps Beryl?"
"Why yes! Young man, you are a genius." Rosalie clapped her hands together in glee. "Beryl. Beryl Weingarten. Delightful girl. Not very good at Herbology, but a delight nonetheless."
Lorelei gave a silent laugh that made her rock slightly in her seat. This time Charlie was not the only one who noticed.
Petunia continued to reminisce. "If I remember correctly, she married that older boy, oh what was his name? The one with the bushy red hair."
Charlie chuckled and turned to openly stare at Lorelei. "What?" She said, blushing slightly. He just shook his head, smiled and turned back to their hostesses.
"I remember thinking it was very appropriate that he was a Gryffindor, what with that lion's mane of his." Rosalie said.
"That's it!" Petunia exclaimed, waving her spoon in jubilation, splattering green gook on the walls and ceiling. "Lion's mane. Lionel. Lionel Croft. That's his name." She did a little jig in celebration.
"Oh yes!" Rosalie said. "We went to their wedding. Lionel and Beryl were just lovely people. I was so sad when they were murdered." She shook her head.
"I'd forgotten about that." Petunia said, abandoning her victory dance. "Oh but there is a nice connection for you, Mr. Potter." She pointed her goopy spoon at Harry. "Beryl was a cousin of your father's. On his mother's side, I think." She tilted her head. "Or maybe it was his father's." She placed her spoon on her chin, deep in thought.
"Why didn't anyone ever tell me about my father's cousin?" Harry said rather defiantly.
"Well…" Rosalie stuttered. "They were dead. I suppose no one wanted to cause you any more heartache."
Petunia pulled her potted from the heat and came back to join the group.
"I think the Crofts had a little girl. The papers never intimated if she was killed as well. And then not long after that…"
"Maybe a week." Rosalie interjected sadly.
"…your parents were taken too, Harry." Petunia finished.
Harry tried to process all of these new relations he'd just learned about. He felt instant sympathy for them because they'd been cut down like his own parents and he wondered if their daughter had survived. I would like to have a cousin. He thought to himself. A cousin other then Dudley.
Lorelei took the momentary lull to pose the question of escape. "I'm sorry to sound like we're in a rush to leave, but we really should be going. Is there an alternate route out of town? I have high suspicions that Malfoy and his goons are watching the diner."
"Oh my yes!" Rosalie said, shaking her fist. "Spiteful little boy."
"I suppose you could take the east route, along the wall." Petunia suggested. "It takes you a while and you'll have to be careful, but I doubt anyone's thought to watch it."
Charlie clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Great. Just point us in the right direction."
With much hustle and bustle, the group got up to leave. Hermione and Lorelei tried to help with the dishes but got thoroughly shooed away by Petunia.
"…then you just duck behind the Three Hags Pub and you'll come to the wall. Be careful because there's a lake behind the wall and only about a foot of grass between the two. Take it all the way down and it ends after the Muggle town so you'll be on the road again." Rosalie directed Harry and Charlie, who listened attentively.
"Now be careful children. We expect full reports." Petunia said, bustling about to kiss all of them on the forehead. Rosalie smiled kindly at them.
The group thanked the sisters and went on their way. They were at the wall before anyone spoke.
"Why is it…" Hermione broke the silence. "that I get the feeling you know more about Harry's cousins then you were letting on?" She fixed a hard stare at Lorelei.
"Whatever do you mean?" Lorelei tried to feign innocence.
"You seemed to remember them like the Ms Peachpreens did. I'm sure if your parents were friends with the Potters you must have met the Crofts too." Hermione was on a roll now. "Why wouldn't you tell Harry about something like that?"
"The right moment just never came up?" Lorelei tried to remain as vague as possible. "Why don't we concentrate on not falling into the lake?
"Hermione's right. Why haven't you told me about my relatives?" Harry angrily demanded.
They reached the end of the wall. Lorelei turned to face them exasperated. "Has it ever occurred to you that I didn't tell you because I'm no supposed to tell you? That there was a reason no one knows whether the daughter is alive or dead? That there is some design behind this madness?" She stalked off. Harry hurried after her.
"Now that I know, can't you at least tell about them? Anything you can remember." He begged.
Lorelei stopped walking and gave a hard, disapproving look. Her features suddenly softened and she said, "Fine. I suppose I can do that."
She got a wistful look on her face. "Beryl, your father's cousin, was full of laughter. You could hear her in every room of the house when she got going. She refused to believe she had a black thumb and almost every surface of the house had a plant on it, each at a different stage of death." The group laughed. "Lionel was much quieter. He would just look at his wife when she was balled over in laughter and smiled. The thing I remember about him was his books. He had books. Lots of books. And sometimes…he would read them…out loud."
Lorelei fell silent. She was walking fast with her eyes glued to the road.
Hermione hazarded a comment. "You sound like you knew them fairly well. That must have been…nice."
A rueful smile spread across Lorelei's face. "I did know them well." She paused, wiping away the big, shiny tears that had escaped her eyes.
"They were my parents."