Chapter 51 - Harry the Lion
The morning came too quickly and it wasn't even dawn when we got woken up. We packed the tent and shuffled towards the hill to get a portkey home, it was quite bad that I was counting the seconds until I could see Moony who was picking me and Harry up from Stoatshead Hill where we had set off.
"Oh, thank God." Where the words I heard when we landed before I was bundled into a tight hug. "Last night is all over the newspapers, I've rushed up here as soon as I read
'SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!'"
"Molly will be beside herself with worry, c'mon kids, you still alright to floo from ours, Remus?" Arthur asked him.
"I would be delighted." Moony replied.
"It's been a pleasure, Amos." Arthur smiled.
"As always, Arthur, see you when you get off your holidays." Amos replied.
"If not before." Arthur chuckled before the shook hands and went there separate ways.
"Thanks for taking me to the World Cup, it was probably the best day of my life." I grinned up at him.
"And thank you for your company, I'll have a house elf drop your stuff at the Burrow when I get in." Amos smiled jovially before I was pulled into a hug from Cho.
"It's been fun." Were her parting words.
"See you September, little sis. No more nightmares, alright?" Abe asked.
"Alright." I smiled back before I looked at Ced. "You can come visit me at my Uncle's if you want?"
"Yeah and maybe we could meet up in Diagon Alley again." Cedric smiled at me brightly.
"Yeah." I grinned up at him shyly as I could feel everyone's eyes on us. Then I thought, what the hell and threw my arms around him and kissed him. He didn't seem shocked and I think him and Amos were the only ones who weren't shocked.
"I'll write you." He told me with a goofy smile on his face.
"Damn right you will." I smirked while I felt the heat glowing off my cheeks, I could just tell I was blushing bright red.
"So, see you soon." Cedric said his farewell as my brother coughed. "Alright I'm coming, Bye, Ash."
"G'bye Ced." He winked at me before we went our separate ways.
"Me and you need a serious chat about what you can and can't do with my little sister when I'm around." I heard Abe growling at Ced making me laugh as Hermione and Ginny hooked an arm each through mine.
"So when did that happen?" 'Mione asked me.
"Last night." I replied still blushing a little bit.
"What happened?" Gin asked.
"I was shouting at him and he kissed me to shut me up I assume." I grinned at them. "I fell asleep in his bed the night before the cup and I heard Ced tell Abe that he liked me." They fell into girly giggles which made me laugh. "And Abe also likes Cho."
"And just what you were doing in another boy's bed?" I heard Moony ask. Damn werewolf hearing.
"Sleeping, weren't you listening?" I smirked.
"I can't wait to try that Wronski Fient." I heard Harry tell Ron.
"Maybe we can have a match before we got to Moony's? With all of us it'll be brilliant and we can all try out some of those moves." I spoke excitedly with them at everything we could try. Of course Hermione and Moony would sit at the side, neither of them liked Quidditch... brainiacs. Percy probably wouldn't either or Molly but the rest of us could.
"Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!" Molly cried as she came running from the house after seeing us from a distance. "Arthur — I've been so worried — so worried —" She sobbed into Arthur's shoulder and she crushed him into a hug. "You're all right," Molly muttered distractedly, releasing Arthur and staring around at them all with red eyes, "you're alive. . . . Oh boys . . ." And to everybody's surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.
"Ouch! Mum — you're strangling us —" Fred whined.
"I shouted at you before you left!" Molly said, starting to sob. "It's all I've been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn't get enough O.W.L.s? Oh Fred . . . George . . ."
"Come on, now, Molly, we're all perfectly okay," said Arthur soothingly, prising her off the twins and leading her back toward the house. "Bill," he added in an undertone, "pick up that paper, I want to see what it says..." Speaking about the newspaper Molly had been holding but had thrown the minute she hugged Arthur. He scanned the front page when they got into the kitchen while Percy looked over his shoulder.
"I knew it," said Arthur heavily. "Ministry blunders... culprits not apprehended... lax security... Dark wizards running unchecked... national disgrace...Who wrote this? Ah... of course... Rita Skeeter."
"That woman's got it in for the Ministry of Magic!" said Percy furiously. "Last week she was saying we're wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn't specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans —"
"Do us a favour, Perce," said Bill, yawning, "and shut up."
"I'm mentioned," Arthur said shocked, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he reached the bottom of the Daily Prophet article.
"Where?" spluttered Molly, choking on her tea and whiskey. "If I'd seen that, I'd have known you were alive!"
"Not by name," Arthur corrected himself. "Listen to this: 'If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged sometime after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.' Oh really," Arthur spat indignantly. "Nobody was hurt. What was I supposed to say? Rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods... well, there certainly will be rumours now she's printed that." He heaved a deep sigh. "Molly, I'm going to have to go into the office; this is going to take some smoothing over."
"I'll come with you, Father," said Percy importantly. "Mr. Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person." He bustled out of the kitchen. Molly looked really upset.
"Arthur, you're supposed to be on holiday! This hasn't got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?" Molly begged him.
"I've got to go, Molly," said Arthur. "I've made things worse. I'll just change into my robes and I'll be off. . . ." And then he and Percy left for the ministry.
"How about that Quidditch Match?" Charlie asked breaking the slight tension so we ran upstairs and grabbed our brooms and raced into the gardens. Each of the twins were captains and they took it in turns to pick. They flipped a coin and George got to choose first and he chose Charlie then Fred chose me. We managed four a side; a seeker, chaser, keeper and beater on each side. On team raging hippogriff's: Fred, me, Harry and Bill. And on team fiery dragons was: George, Charlie, Ginny and Ron. It was a close match, Ginny was a damn good Chaser and Ron was pretty good keeper but so was Bill and there's no denying I'm a good chaser, not that I'm boasting or anything, especially on a Firebolt. It was a bit mad to have George sending bludgers at me, no wonder they're such good beaters. And Charlie... Charlie was wow! He gave Harry a run for his money, even on the Firebolt, they were head to head when they saw the snitch but the raging hippogriffs were the champions with the ending scores 250-110.
After the match we went in the floo back to Moony's house in Godric's Hollow.
"I was so worried about my poor godchildren after Remus told me you were there." Sirius said as he leaned against the door frame in the living room.
"We just love to be in the thick of it." I smirked and winked at him.
"It's how we roll." Harry grinned. The escaped convict didn't look so much like it, he was wearing clean clothes, had had a shave and a haircut. He looked ten years younger than he was.
"Get over here." He ordered and we ran and was pulled into a hug.
"You look great Sirius." I smiled at him.
"Thanks babe." He winked at me.
"How's the search been?" Harry asked seriously.
"What search?" Sirius asked innocently.
"C'mon Paddy, I would have gone after that rat, we know you did." I raised my eyebrow at him.
"I followed him to Albania but then I got your letter and Moony's letter about you both being here so I came back. With what your letter said, I reckon he did too." Sirius explained after releasing us.
"Gets a godfather and leaves out big sis. What's happened?" I asked him seriously.
"I had a nightmare. But I think it might have been real..." Harry started.
"Like mine last night." I mumbled to myself.
"Voldemort was there but I couldn't see him with Pettigrew and a strange man they were talking about a witch they'd killed and after the Quidditch tournament and then a strange muggle got found and Voldemort killed him." Harry explained.
"Did you recognise where he was?" I asked him.
"No, it looked old and there were boards on the window that I could see." Harry said thoughtfully.
"What about the witch, did you hear who it was?" Asked Moony.
"They said her name but I can't remember it." Harry scowled and scrunched his face up in concentration, he looked quite stupid so I couldn't help but giggle at him. He whacked me with a pillow and soon chaos ensued between the four of us. We eventually stopped for dinner where Harry and Moony went into the kitchen to rustle something up while I caught up with Sirius.
"So what are we going to do about Peter?" I asked him seriously.
"We?" Sirius sputtered. "You're going back to Hogwarts next week, I'm afraid it's just me and my hunt for Peter."
"At least you know he's in England now." I replied dryly.
"Through a vision from Harry. I'm worried how he got a vision of Voldemort and what it must be doing witnessing that monster murder." Sirius glared at the floor.
"We'll go to Dumbledore when we go back to Hogwarts, I'm sure he'll know what's going on and how to stop it." I reassured my godfather.
"If you say so." He sighed.
"C'mon, Dumbledore knows pretty much everything, so cheer up! You have the first week ever with both of your godchildren." I smirked at him.
"Yeah, you're right, Ash." Padfoot grinned and slung his arm around me.
"At least you don't smell this time." I said dramatically.
"At least you don't smell this time." He repeated mockingly before hitting me with a cushion and restarting the fight while Harry and Moony walked back in with the food. We chowed down before getting started with teaching Harry how to become an animagus before having a Quidditch match in the garden. Luckily Moony's garden is disillusioned so no one can see in it. We stayed up late listening to the stories about the marauders at Hogwarts, Peter was obviously left out, before we fell asleep on the sofa.
Me and Sirius were awoken to a full English smell coming from the kitchen, Remus had managed to crawl into his bed but it seemed that Harry had woken up and cooked for us. Remus ran out of his shock, I think he was worried that Sirius had attempted cooking, even though it smelled delicious. Except for the bacon. I hate bacon.
"Morning Harry." I said hugging him as he faced the stove, frying eggs. "Need a hand?"
"Err, you could start plating up for everyone." He replied smiling.
"Everything smells spectacular, Harry." Sirius grinned at his godson while I placed his food in front of him and Remus.
"Sit down, Harry, I'll do that." I ordered and forced him down with a plate of food in front of him then placed fried eggs on everyone's plates.
"Thanks Ash." He smiled then dug in. I dumped everything in the sink and joined them for breakfast.
"So what's the plan for today?" Remus asked us.
"I was thinking we could start on training Harry as an animagus." I replied.
"Brilliant." Sirius added.
"That would be great." Harry smiled.
"But first," I paused as we all started to finish our breakfast and put my finger on my nose. "Not washing up." I smirked as Harry quickly followed me then Remus leaving Sirius to wash up.
"Damn it." He cursed.
"Getting old there Padfoot." Harry grinned sending me into giggles.
"Excuse me Prongslet, I'll put you over my knee." Sirius threatened while fighting a grin, trying to look serious.
"He can't be Prongslet all his life, he needs his own nickname." I interjected.
"Well, to get his own nickname we need to know what animal he wants to be." Uncle Moony replied.
"Did you choose your animal like I told you to last year?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I know it's kind of cheesy but I want to be a Gryffindor Lion and I like how you have your own thing with the pink stripe so I thought I could have a red mane. I researched it and it should be possible." He replied thoughtfully.
"Like a true Gryffindor." Sirius grinned. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"I think the better question is, why didn't James? He'd be very proud." Moony smiled.
"Yeah, what Dad wouldn't be proud that there son was becoming an illegal animagus?" I said sarcastically.
"A Marauder." Moony and Padfoot replied together grinning.
"Yeah well I'm sure Aunt Lily would have been pissed." I argued.
"Terrifyingly so." Moony concurred.
"Well, I'm done. How about a quick game of Quidditch then we start the breathing exercises with Harry?" Padfoot suggested.
"Good idea, you three go ahead, I'll try and search out my journals from when you first changed." Moony smiled before climbing upstairs.
"Come on kids, let's get to kicking your arses." Padfoot grinned wolfily before racing outside.
"We're not kids!" I hollered before we chased after him.