First, sorry to anyone who has actually been waiting for this (bet there aren't many of you!) Honest, I tried to type quick,, but my life was held hostage by school. Would you believe schoolwork is supposed to come first? Well I never did!
Disclaimer: It is very unlikely that I do actually own Harry Potter and have somehow forgot about it, so lets just stick with the whole "JK Rowling owns this not me" thing until IO know otherwise, OK?
Ginormous Thank you Goes to Truckles, who beta'd this, and listened to my rambling.
On with Chapter 4
When Harry woke, he couldn't remember his dream, although he was fairly sure there was a pirate in it, and possibly an ironing board.
Ron had disappeared, and Harry could hear some sort of muffled commotion downstairs, which, miraculously, had not disturbed Sirius' mother.
He dressed quickly and went downstairs.
At the sight of the chaos in the kitchen, he stopped short.
"I forgot to mention this bit, didn't I?" Chrissie was saying to Mrs Weasley, as the kitchen turned into Piccadilly Circus, much to the bemusement of the assorted occupants of Grimmuald Place.
Ginny, Ron, Chrissie and Mrs Weasley were all sitting around the kitchen table, but these were the only people Harry recognised. The kitchen was stuffed full of strangely dressed, noisy, and apparently starving people. He was convinced he'd never seen any of them before in his life.
"I think so, dear." said Mrs Weasley, watching two teenagers argue about a pair of socks.
"Sorry," Chrissie mumbled, and sat down next to Ginny, looking a bit forlorn.
"Don't worry," Ginny said as she passed Chrissie a piece of toast. "Mum doesn't really mind. She loves feeding anyone, and huge amounts of people suddenly turning up to breakfast is her idea of a dream come true."
"It's the most important meal of the day," Mrs Weasley announced.
Harry, who had been standing by the door in a sort of sleepy, surprised rapture, was nearly knocked flying by a person coming through the door at an immense speed.
"They're supposed to eat at their own homes," Chrissie said pointedly, as the boy who'd just pushed past Harry, pinched half her toast from over her shoulder. "Oi! Danny!"
Harry sat down and grabbed a bit of toast and some butter. It was only then that he noticed how Chrissie was dressed.
She wore a red beret and a red tunic, with cream trousers underneath. The tunic was tied with a cream rope, like a belt. Her long plait protruded from under the beret, which was already sliding off.
It was the same uniform as the rest of the people.
"What are you wearing?" Ron asked bluntly, as Harry opened his mouth.
Chrissie coloured slightly.
"It's my school uniform."
Ron gaped. His mouth hung open, in a gormless expression, like a fish.
"It's summer!" He said, when he'd finally regained the power of speech. "We're supposed to be on holiday!"
"Mages don't get holidays," she said gloomily. "Our teachers have never even heard of the concept of this 'holiday' you speak of."
The boy called Danny sniggered.
A girl, wearing her school uniform infinitely better than Chrissie and about Chrissie's age walked in at that moment.
She tapped Chrissie on the shoulder.
"And talking of the slave-drivers, we're going to be late," she said, hoisting her school bag onto her shoulder.
"This is Ollie by the way." Chrissie said, pointing at the girl who was eyeing Danny, as if she'd like to slap him. "My best friend."
"School." Ollie said, as she rolled her eyes, smiled at the Weasleys and Harry, then dragged Chrissie out of the door.
Harry hadn't realised that the people had left when they did, and now noticed that the kitchen was empty.
"Who were they?" He asked, into the sudden silence.
"Other mages, dear," said Mrs Weasley, tipping a couple of fried eggs and a mound of sausages onto his plate.
Hermione walked in at that moment. Yawning, she sat down on a chair and promptly jumped up again, with a squeak of horror. She picked up a lumpy brown thing and held it at arms length.
"What is that?"
Just then Chrissie dived back through the door, grabbed the repulsive object from Hermione's hand and ran straight out again.
"Sorry!" She shouted over her shoulder. "Objectry homework."
"What's Objectry?" asked Ron.
"No idea." said Hermione. Harry and Ron's jaws hit the floor simultaneously.
*……..*
The doxys in the drawing room had turned out to be even worse than expected. There was also a suspicious something, which turned out to be a stuffed cat's head in a cupboard, under a decanter full of what Sirius was quite sure were an ancestors ashes.
All in all it was an eventful day.
Although Chrissie did not contribute to making Grimmauld Place habitable that morning, she did turn up, a little after three o'clock and found herself promptly enlisted to the cleaning brigade by Mrs Weasley.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Fred and George were all trying to prise open a box encrusted with jewels, and, more interestingly, blood, when Chrissie arrived. At that moment Sirius came downstairs and confiscated the box, because he 'Didn't like the look of it' He then proceeded to open it, in true Sirius fashion, using a lemon, several pairs of socks, and some pliers, revealing what appeared to be a shrivelled black onion amidst a sea of suspicious yellow liquid. The box was quickly disposed of.
Ollie turned up again after this, on the pretence of homework. In actual fact, she and Chrissie sat in the kitchen, knitting and talking like old ladies. They then moved on to playing with lots of bright, shiny fabric. When Mrs Weasley asked what they were doing, they replied it was objectry homework.
It looked like no homework Harry had ever seen.
At dinner, Lupin turned up.
"How was school?" He asked, passing Chrissie the carrots pointedly.
"Horrible." Chrissie said bluntly, taking some, and passing the dish to Harry. "How was… whatever?"
"Whatever was fine."
"Chrissie?" Chrissie looked up at the sound of her name.
She peered up the table.
"Hermione?" Chrissie replied.
Hermione fidgeted with her fork, hesitating, as if weighing up how to phrase her question.
"What's objectry? I've looked everywhere I can think of and I can't find any mention of that subject…"
Chrissie put down her cup, and coloured slightly.
"Objectry is the study of how different objects affect our magic."
"Objects affect magic?" Hermione leaned towards Chrissie, nearly putting her elbow in the butter dish.
"Only our magic, we think." Seeing Hermione was waiting for more of an explanation, Chrissie sighed. "It's like… if something's bright and pretty or whatever, it makes magic happen easier than if it's slimy and depressing."
By now most of the table were listening in.
"I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder," Lupin said, cutting into his potato.
"Yeah. So, I suppose, it's whatever you find pretty…" Chrissie shrugged.
There was a muffled explosion behind the door. They all looked up.
"Oh sh...ells on a beach!" Chrissie nearly swore then looked at Remus. He'd raised a warning eyebrow.
Ron sniggered
Chrissie dived out of her chair and opened the door, allowing a large quantity of thick black smoke to billow into the kitchen.
Two people stumbled into the room, arguing loudly. The girl seemed apologetic. The boy was just angry.
"I meant never!"
"YOU SAID ALWAYS ADD BELLADONNA AND FIRE-GRASS TOGETHER!"
"I meant never…"
"YOU SAID-"
Chrissie cleared her throat pointedly.
"Oh. Right." The boy had the decency to look abashed at the sight of their audience. He pointed towards the door. "Don't suppose you have any chalk?"
"Why don't you?" Chrissie said, kneeling on the floor to look in her bag.
"I do. It's just back there in all that…" He looked around. "Where's Dara gone?"
Chrissie shoved a stick of white chalk at him, shrugging.
He walked back into the thick smoke, waving the chalk around like some kind of air freshener.
Chrissie pushed the tin back in her bag, and sat down again.
"Sorry."
"Chalk isn't pretty," Hermione remarked a moment later. "Nobody could find chalk pretty."
Chrissie gave her a look.
"You'd be surprised. But you're right. It's the chalk in its own right. It's good for directing magic."
"Like a wand?"
Chrissie looked perplexed by the question.
"No." Her tone was a little sharp.
"These things are not obvious to everyone, you know, Chrissie." Lupin said, his voice lightly reproving.
"What I meant was," Chrissie elaborated "if you wanted to put a shield around yourself say, you'd draw a circle around yourself, then cast the spell."
"I see." Hermione nodded with interest. She began to ask another question, but Ron cut in.
"Let the girl eat Hermione!"
Harry grinned at the look on Hermione's face.