Chapter Nine:
The next morning was rather boring compared to every other day spent at the burrow. Ari was still asleep, even though several attempts had been made to force her to roll out of bed. They never got anything more than a little mumbling and some incoherent sentences.
Harry was standing by the garden with Ron and the twins, just about to get started with the de-gnombing process. "What do you reckon about Ari," Fred asked, looking the most serious Harry had ever seen him, "Do you think she could go for a bloke like me?"
Ron doubled over with laughter and held the side of his stomach. George looked at Fred as though he were crazy and Fred looked highly offended.
"Well, bugger you two," he said, "What do you think, Harry?"
Harry had to concede that he thought Fred's chances of getting Ari to go out with him were slim to none. But this was not because he thought Fred unworthy. "Well, not much hope, is there? She's in love with Malfoy."
"Oh, posh," Fred spat, "what's he got that I haven't?"
"It's not about what he has or what you don't," Harry explained gently, "It's about how she feels. And she's in love with someone else."
Grumbling, Fred bent over to grab a gnome and flung it, head first, into a large tree next to the fence in their yard. Harry and the others cringed and made it a point not to get too close to Fred.
Two hours later, they walked back into the house, covered in dirt and sweat and longing for a nice shower. The first thing that met their eyes was the sight of people bustling in and out of rooms, collecting things from around the house.
"What is going on here," Harry said as he watched Hermione scramble past him with a pile of laundry in her arms.
"Oh, there you are," Ari said, walking into the kitchen after Hermione had left, "We thought you'd never get back. We've packed all your things already but you might want to check if we forgot anything."
"Packed?"
"We're going to Egypt," Ari said, "don't tell me you've forgotten."
"We didn't forget," Ron said, "we just didn't remember."
"Har-de-har-har," Ari said sarcastically, "We're leaving in an hour. It's a long trip and we have to take muggle transport because the muggle press will be waiting for us."
"How are we getting there," Harry asked.
"I've got a private jet," Ari explained, "it'll be fun. You, the twins, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Remus, Tonks, Bill Fleur and I are the only ones going. But Bill, Fleur, Remus and Tonks are coming out tomorrow. They have things to take care of before leaving. Mr. And Mrs.Weasely have to stay here. Charlie's going to meet us there after he picks up those dragons from Romania."
Harry nodded. He was very excited to be going to Egypt, but something in him just didn't feel right. He felt like something bad was waiting for them or something bad was going to happen. But then he thought about how easy everything had been so far. Nothing horrible had really happened. There were still attacks on wizarding families, but they seemed to have slowed down. Maybe he was just being paranoid.
An hour later, Harry and the others apparated to a spot near the Heathrow airport. They had a ridiculous amount of luggage, but then Ginny and Hermione had insisted on bringing their entire wardrobes even though Ari had said that she would share hers. They were glad that they wouldn't be going to baggage claim. Apparently, because of their private jet, it wasn't required, which was good because Fred and George had been planning to pitch their line to a few shops in Egypt and it would have been hard to explain all the magical junk in their bags.
"Come on," Ari said, walking onto the runway towards a very large and very expensive looking jet, "that is the Eye of Horus. We board right now."
Harry noticed the door on the side of the plane open and watched as steppes descended from them. He and the others ran towards it and climbed up the stairs and into the plane right after Ari.
There were two rows of reclining chairs on either side of the plane. A television sat in the corner near the cockpit. A refrigerator sat at the end. Harry and the others were awed by the jet's appearance. Ari threw herself in to the seat closest to the front and said, "Well, go on, sit down. Unless you plan on standing the whole way to Egypt."
The others quickly claimed their seats and looked around at each other silently. Then, Harry caught Ron's eye and they both broke into fits of laughter. And then, everyone else was laughing and giggling too.
"This is incredible," Ginny exclaimed.
"It's amazing," said Hermione.
"Yeah yeah," Ari said, "It's great now. But in the next few hours you'll probably come to hate it."
"What should we do the whole time," Harry asked.
"Let's talk," Hermione suggested, "we never just sat around and talked together before. It feels like everyone has their own little secrets that only one or two of the others know about. And we don't know anything about Ari. It'll be fun."
Ari lit a cigarette and asked, "What do you wanna talk about?"
Hermione shrugged and Ari threw the box of cigarettes at Ginny. She caught it with one hand before saying, "With conversations like that it's best to start with a topic."
"Okay," Harry said, "the topic will be; the weirdest thing that ever happened to you. Ari, you go first."
"Why do I have to go first?"
"You're in the first chair."
Grumbling, Ari said, "Okay. The weirdest thing that ever happened to me," she took a moment to think. Then her face lit up with a smile and she seemed rather anxious to share her story, "Okay. So, I was in L.A, for the gay pride parade." Fred and George snorted loudly and Ari stuck her tongue out at them before continuing, "Alright, so this one float was throwing love beads into the crowd. And one guy looked right at me and threw a handful at me. So, I reach back and jump so that I could catch them. When I did, I hit this guy and he fell over," she started to giggle now, "When he fell, he knocked over this girl who was standing next to a pole that hade a rope on it so that people couldn't walk in the way of the parade. So, it falls over and it trips this one guy who was marching in the parade," everyone was listening closely now, "and I guess he tried to grab onto the float to support himself but, instead, he gabs the go-go boy on it. The guy falls over anyway and when he hits the ground, he rips the go-go boys shorts right off of his body! He had to wear a rainbow flag like a skirt for the rest of the day!"
Harry and the others all laughed loudly. It sounded so ridiculous and hilarious. Then Fred said, "Okay, my turn," he took a deep breath before saying, "When I was about ten, George got really sick and mum had to take care of him. So I got to go to work with dad. Now, I'm not used to not having George around to have fun with, so I get a little restless. I decide that, since dad's so busy, I could go for a little walk. So, I start running round the whole building just out of curiosity. Then, I come across this door. It didn't look any different from the others, except that it had a gold plaque next to it that I didn't bother reading. So, I open the door and there's nothing in there but a desk and some chairs. It looked boring so I turned around to leave, but then I saw that the door knob was moving. I ran over to the desk and hid under it. then, the next thing I knew, in walks Fudge with some guy who I didn't know. Their talking about some golins making trouble at the bank. Now, I'm scared out of my wits. So, then the guy leaves and in walks dad two minutes later. I hadn't told him I was leaving and he was freaking out. He asks the minister to help him find me and, all the while, I'm sitting under the desk thinking that I should have stayed home with mum!"
Another outburst of laughter swept through the plane. Ginny was holding a stitch in her side, while Ron was doubled over in his seat. George said, "Okay, okay, my turn."
Things went on this way for a very long time. George told about how, when he was at school, a firework went off in his pocket and lit his robes on fire. Then, Ron talked about a time, when he was seven, that his mum showed him how to de-gnome the garden and he ended up being attacked by a swarm of them and didn't go back outside for a month. After that, it was Hermione's turn. She said that one summer, when she went to france, she found a kitten on the street. She picked it up and it was so small that she could fit it in the pocket of her jacket. Then, she went to dinner with her parents and the thing jumped out of her pocket and landed in someone's dessert. Ginny said that, at the quiddich world cup, she met and irish guy who was completely drunk. He told her a story about a male Cinderella who had huge feet and fought dragons. She said that she didn't believe him but then she met another guy, with really big feet, and almost ended up kissing him at the end of the night. Harry told the story of speaking to the boa constrictor at the zoo and the vanishing glass. This seemed to amuse everyone sufficiently.
When the laughter calmed down Harry said, "What's the next topic?"
"First love," said Ari, "everyone has to tell about the first person they ever fell in love with. And this time, Harry goes first."
"Ginny," he said simply, "I've never been in love with anyone before her. I once had a crush on another girl but that was nowhere near what I feel for Gin."
Everyone gave a resounding 'awww'. Ron and the twins' sounded sort of mocking though.
"Ginny, we can kip you," Ari said, "we all already know that your first love was Harry." Ginny blushed and nodded wrapping her arm around Harry's shoulder.
"Okay," Hermione said, "the first time I ever fell in love was the first grade. He was the cutest guy in the whole school. I kissed him once under the jungle-gym." Everyone laughed at this story.
Now it was Ron's turn. "I've been in love with Hermione since third year," Ron said, causing Hermione to snap her head in his direction, "What? You lot knew that! It isn't as though you've all been living in a cave for the last few years! Anyway, I was only thirteen then. I never fell in love before that."
Hermione flung her arms around Ron's neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. The twins gave a series of cat calls while Ari stared at them wide-eyed.
"Alright, break it up," George said, "no one is joining the mile-high club today. Now, the fist time that I ever fell in love was when I was in second year. Alicia Spinnet. She was the prettiest little thing in our whole year."
Fred rolled his eyes. "She was not. Angelina was prettier than her. She was my first love. I wonder what she's doing now?"
"Okay," Ari said, "My first love was actually a little strange. You guys are going to think that I'm totally sick. But, when I was about seven, I had the biggest crush on professor Snape."
"Ewwwwww," everyone on the plane said together. Ari laughed with them. "I was a little kid. I thought he was the coolest person in the world."
They spent the rest of the trip bonding. By the end of a few hours it was as though they had always been the best of friends. Ari was one of them now. It didn't matter that she was a queen and it didn't matter that they had only met a short time ago. Harry felt as though she had always been there. And then he thought, if it hadn't been for Voldemort, Ari and I probably would have grown up together. Who knows, I might have even ended up marrying her instead of Ginny.
But then he looked over at his fiancé and his heart turned over. He thought, okay, maybe not. And he had seen Ari's face when she had spoken about Malfoy. She obviously loved him very much.
