Standing at the door of The Burrow, Hermione Granger was concerned that Harry's temper would get him in trouble with Mrs. Weasley. The young witch wanted to read the newspaper too, but Mrs. Weasley was adamant that none of the children should read it. When Molly pointed her wand at Harry and cast the first hex, Hermione covered her mouth.
There were two more hexes without Harry moving though he did flinch when the third hex slashed his buttocks. Then, from the sky above the path leading to the orchard, Hedwig dived onto Molly Weasley and hit the witch hard enough to make her stagger. The owl grabbed the witch's wand in one clawed foot, and a hunk of red hair in the other. Then the snowy owl used her own postal owl magic to launch herself back into the air. As she flew away, Hedwig's claws carried away the wand and a bloody piece of Molly's scalp.
Molly Weasley screamed, Ron shouted, and Harry ran. While Molly held onto her bleeding head and Ron led his mother back to the house, Harry vanished along the path away from The Burrow. Watching Harry run away, Hermione saw that the seat of her friend's pants was dark with blood where Molly's welt hexes cut through the skin.
The twins were summoned from their room and told their mother's version of the story. Fred cast healing charms on his mother's head, and George used the floo to call their father's office at the ministry. However, the ministry was in chaos because of the financial crisis, and this prevented George from making the floo connection for more than an hour.
During that time, Harry's belongings disappeared from The Burrow. The trunk with Harry's textbooks, potion ingredients for the coming year, and new clothing vanished in a single snap of a magical friend's fingers. And Harry never told Ron that he'd received a special pouch from his godfather as a birthday present that was invisible to everyone else, and able to hold his most precious belongings – his broom, his cloak (when it wasn't in a pocket), and his photo album. His coin pouch was hidden there as well because Ron was likely to help himself to galleons again this year.
SCENE CHANGE: What Happened?When Arthur finally arrived home, he listened to his wife's story about Harry's disrespectful behavior and the attack by the owl before he asked a few questions. He sent Ron, Fred, and George out to search for Harry from their brooms, telling them, "Fly around. Check with the Diggory and the Lovegood families."
"I can't imagine what's wrong with that boy!" Molly shouted. "Find Harry and bring him back here now! I'll teach him to defy me in my own home! And find that bloody owl. She stole my wand!"
Arthur was disturbed by the events, but unsure how to proceed when Ron returned after only two minutes and complained, "No sign of him anywhere. The blighter's done a runner for sure."
Then Arthur looked up to see Hermione Granger standing near him and as far from Molly as possible. In a shaky voice, the teenage witch said, "Mr. Weasley, I want to go home."
"Hermione! There's no reason for you…" Molly shouted but everyone in the kitchen saw the young witch flinch when Mrs. Weasley bellowed.
"I thought the headmaster wanted you to be here until the first?" asked Arthur. "That's only a few days."
"I can't stay here after I saw Mrs. Weasley hit Harry with welt hexes while standing in your front yard! There was blood on the seat of his pants when he ran away," she explained. "She treated him just like his muggle relatives."
"How dare you tell such a monstrous lie!" screamed Molly as Hermione flinched again and dissolved into tears. When Arthur saw Ron smirking on the stairs and Ginny looking anywhere but at her father, he motioned for his wife to be silent.
"Are your things packed, Miss Granger?" Arthur asked between his wife's shouts refusing to be quiet.
"Yes sir."
"Then bring your trunk down and I'll get you home."
"Arthur, you can't believe that girl! She's practically a muggle!" protested Molly.
When Ron blocked Hermione from the stairs, Arthur stepped closer and asked his son, "How many welts did your mother cast on Harry?"
Moving to the side to allow the muggle-born to run up the stairs, Ron refused to look at his father and lied, "I didn't see."
While Hermione came down the stair with her trunk, Mr. Weasley turned to his wife and asked, "Why did you…what did Harry do that made you so angry?"
Molly puffed up and said, "His owl brought him a copy of the Daily Prophet and he hid it from me. He took it outside and read it. Ron told me about it and when I demanded that he give it to me, he defied me."
"Molly, Harry's a guest in our house," argued Arthur.
"Yes, OUR house and he must do what I tell him. We took him in out of the goodness of our hearts and this is how he repays us."
"That's what the Dursleys tell Harry," Hermione said though she refused to look at Molly while Arthur shrank her trunk. When he handed the thumb-sized luggage to the witch, she slipped it into her pocket.
"You can restore it to full size by pressing the tip of your wand on the trunk. It won't violate any prohibition on underage magic if you do that," Arthur said. "Let's go outside and I'll apparate you home."
After Arthur opened the door, Ron began making rude comments about Hermione being a coward. Then the moron shouted, "Three welts is more than I ever got! Potter won't be able to sit down on the Hogwarts Express!"
SCENE CHANGE: EscapesThis loud declaration started another argument between Molly and Arthur, with Ron and Ginny running up the stairs. During the verbal battle, Hermione ran from the house. As soon as she was beyond the wards and hidden by some trees, she lifted her wand into the air and summoned the Knight Bus.
Paying her fee and giving the conductor her address in Crawley, she took the first available seat and held on. Absently, she heard Stan Turnpike mention she was his second fare from Otter Saint Catchpole that afternoon.
"Where did the other passenger go?" asked Hermione, thinking of Harry.
"London. Every pickup in the countryside goes to London…I think she went to London, yeah."
"She?"
Stan nodded, "Yeah, Mrs. Diggory, she went to London. Or was that yesterday?"
Hermione didn't pay attention to the wild ride or flashing scenes that passed. When Stan brought the bus to a halt one street over from her home in Crawley, she thanked him and walked home. When the Grangers returned home from work, they were pleased to see Hermione but became disturbed when they learned the circumstances of her return. They called their office to cancel their appointments for the next day to have a complete, heart-to-heart talk with their daughter.
"And there'll be no more visits with the Weasel family," Mr. Granger declared. Neither woman corrected his pronunciation of the family name.
SCENERY CHANGE:The rest of the day and the next, Arthur Weasley dreaded messages arriving by owl, floo calls, or knocks on the wards. Dumbledore forgot to check on the Weasleys while the ministry remained in disarray. The attempt to 'do something' backfired spectacularly. There were three different riots in Diagon Alley, and the Wizengamot met continually to try and find a solution as businesses panicked.
When he returned from work each evening, Arthur stared at his family as if he'd never seen them before. He spoke quietly to his four children still living at home, avoided his wife, and slept in his shed.
End Scene
