Chapter Two
Morning came way to early the next day, and it brought with it a very hyperactive Ginny, she came bounding into my room, trying to encourage me to crawl out of bed in a sing-song voice which should be punishable by death or at least severe maiming. "Rise and Shine, it's a beautiful day, and breakfast is on the table!"
Deciding that I just could not deal with her yet a cast a quick banishing hex and sent her flying out of the room headed of the couch downstairs. As I crawled out of bed I realized that I was still in my clothes from yesterday, oh well, no point in changing until I could shower, I headed for the door hoping to find coffee before I had to deal with Ginny again. I checked my watch as I stumbled down the stairs, just after seven, I'd gotten less then four hours sleep, Harry and I had stayed out by the pond talking until after three. Getting to know Harry was so much different from getting to know the girls; there was a deeper understanding that I didn't have with the girls, like we were tied together by our rotten pasts. Mostly we talked about mundane stuff like school, and he tried to get me to tell him about the other person from my visions until I promised to tell him first when the time came.
I was the last one to arrive downstairs, I poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table and glanced around at everyone else, Harry seemed to be in just as miserable a state as me, and Ginny fortunately didn't appear to be all that upset about her unexpected flight, Ron seemed a little annoyed with me but I could sort that out later. Everything else seemed fairly normal except that we were all up at seven on a Saturday morning. I soon found out the reason for our unexpected early morning when Mrs. Weasley arrived with the food. "We have an appointment at Madame Malkins today, to get all of you clothes for the wedding, we'll be leaving in an hour."
I did another glance around the table, everyone but Harry and I seemed ready to go, Mrs. Weasley seemed to notice my confusion, and quickly offered an explanation, "I know that you and Harry were up late dear, I thought it would be best to let the others shower first so that you could sleep a little more."
"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley," I said standing up and grabbing a piece of toast, "I think I'll go shower I'm not very hungry anyway." I snagged my coffee mug and headed back up the stairs hoping the shower would do a better job of waking me up than the coffee was doing.
Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the steam filled bathroom once again clad only in a towel and feeling infinitely better. As I headed down the hall I heard a soft chuckling and turned to see Harry leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door. I raised an eyebrow "Can I help you with something?"
"Nope, I'm good, but I don't think Ron can handle running into you dressed like that too often."
"Well, I'm not likely to change my habits just because he wishes for me to do so."
"Suit yourself, I hope you left me some hot water."
"I'd imagine so, its amazing what you can do with magic." We each went our separate ways. I managed to find a suitable outfit for the days outing and headed back downstairs, half way there I ran into a road block in the form of a very put-out Ron.
"Morning Ron, what can I do for you?"
"You can stay away from Harry, for starters."
Well, this was interesting, "I'm afraid that's not going to happen, but might I ask why you feel the need to keep me away from him?"
"He belongs with Ginny, and you have no place trying to get between them."
"Ah, I see, fortunately for everyone involved then my interest in him is strictly platonic."
"You expect me to believe that, when you're obviously some type of scarlet woman?" he scoffed. "Look at the way you dress, and you walk around here in just a towel, you have no sense of modesty at all, it could not be more obvious that you're trying to seduce him."
I don't really get mad very often, but when I do my temper tends to be rather explosive, so I would just like to point exactly how much effort I put into suppressing it in this instance as I have rarely been so insulted in my entire life. I took a deep breath, looked down at my clothes, a teal spaghetti-strap top and a black gypsy skirt with strappy black sandals, not exactly my idea of skanky. "Tell me Ron, how exactly was I attempting to seduce poor, innocent Harry by walking around in a towel yesterday morning, when he wasn't expected to be here until tomorrow evening. Another thing, you are the one who saw me in the towel so how can you be so certain I wasn't trying to seduce you." In hindsight it probably wasn't the best answer to his accusations, especially since he was mad enough to miss the sarcasm in my voice.
His ears looked like they were on fire they were so red, and his voice was starting to rise, "Leave him alone, I mean it."
My voice rose to match his, "And what exactly are you going to do about it if I don't? Hmmm, Ronald tell me that, huh. Neither Harry or Ginny seems to have a problem with my actions, if they do they can be the ones to tell me and I will be happy to help solve the problem."
"You say that you have no interest in him, but you two were out until Merlin knows when, doing who knows what, how do you explain that!"
"We were talking Ron, it's a little like what you and I are doing now, but not as loud and less belligerent. Now, kindly get out of my way!"
He didn't move it was, maybe the only hope he had of avoiding what came next, three different voices rang out at exactly the same time.
"Ronald Weasley!"
"You Prat."
"Ron, you bloody git."
Ron flinched trying to get away from his assailants, no such luck, he was blocked in, Ginny and Hermione were behind him several steps down and Harry stood at the top of the steps. I took advantage of the movement to duck under his arm and head down the stairs, the girls parted to let me through and then started up toward the frozen red-head driving him in Harry's direction. I can't honestly say that I had any desire to witness the chewing out Ron was about to receive so I headed back to the kitchen to see if I could still scrounge up some food. As luck would have it Mrs. Weasley had saved me a plate, so I sat down and dug in.
Shortly after I finished eating a very contrite looking Ron was herded into the kitchen he mumbled and apology, and quickly fled to the living room. The others shot me apologetic looks and headed into the living room to join him, I followed unsure of the reception I would receive; Ron didn't even acknowledge my entry into the room. Despite all of the excitement we still had a few minutes until we had to leave, so he and Harry had decided to start a game of chess. Despite living in the wizarding world I still haven't gotten used to the game, nor have I ever learned how to play.
Hermione notice my interest in the game and came to sit besides me, "Do you play?"
"Nope, never learned," I replied shaking my head.
"Maybe Ron could teach you, he's a really good player."
"Yeah maybe, I always wanted to learn, just never really had the chance."
"Hey, Ron," she paused waiting for him to look up at her, "think you could teach Ren how to play chess sometime, she never learned."
"Never learned chess, next thing you know you'll be saying you can't fly."
I flushed, I been found out already, "No, I can, well sort of, I prefer to keep both feet on the ground. I'm a decent swimmer though."
"You really, can't play chess?" He seemed more than a little suspicious of me.
"Wouldn't even know where to begin."
"Sure, maybe we can work on it a little this afternoon, when we get back."
As he finished speaking the fire turned green, a witch with bubble gum pink hair stumbled out. "Wotcher, guys, about ready to go?"
They all returned her greetings and got up to go, Mrs. Weasley joined us from the kitchen and began giving us instructions for the day, "We are going to Floo directly into the Twins shop, and then exit immediately, without buying any of their nonsense, Alastor Moody and Remus Lupin will meet us in the Alley. Everyone will proceed directly to Madame Malkins, and will remain there upon arriving until the entire group is prepared to leave, at which time we will walk directly back to the twins shop, to Floo back here. Does everyone understand?"
The other four agreed grudgingly, although none of them seemed thrilled about it, I remained silent hoping that she wouldn't notice, she didn't seem to, but the pink-haired witch eyed me suspiciously. She made her way over to me as Mr. Weasley ducked into the fire to wait on the other side. "You a new one then. Name's Tonks"
"Ren Brooks, nice to meet you.
"You're Thomas Brooks daughter, yeah?"
"Mhmm."
"I've heard stories about him, he was a good auror. But I thought he gave some weird name…after a great-grandmother or something."
I sighed, I've been told that my father had many talents but choosing baby names was defiantly not one of them, "He did, its Rendylin really, but if you call me that I will be forced to call you Nymphadora."
"Duly noted, I think it's your turn."
Aside from clothing, there are very few thing that I think the muggles do better than wizards, travel just happens to be one of them. It may take a lot longer but its not nearly so unsettling, and almost never ends with me in a heap on the floor, something that is unfortunately not equally true of wizard transpiration. Ah, well shit happens, I guess, I did a quick check to make sure I was fully intact and that my skirt hadn't flown up and then I climbed unsteadily to my feet. Everyone seemed to be waiting for me, even Tonks had arrived.
"You alright?"
No, I wasn't alright, and I really wanted to knock that smug look off her face but that answer wasn't gonna help me make any friends, "Yeah, I'm good, the Floo and I just don't really get along. Shall we?" I gestured toward the door hoping we could move on without dwelling too long on my un-lady-like arrival. It worked, we all filed out the door joined by several Order of the Phoenix members, and one of the twins, no idea which one though, and we hurried over to the robe shop. Inside the shop seemed to be rather crowded, mostly full of a bunch of chattering blondes, well maybe there were only three of them but that's hardly any better. It was defiantly going to be a long morning. I'd met Fleur once, hadn't really cared for her then, and didn't hold out much hope for the rest of her family, besides nothing like being in a room full of veela to make a girl feel attractive, eh?
I saw a sign in one corner advertising muggle attire and so I headed that way, I noticed Hermione close on my heels and couldn't help but feel sorry for Ginny, stuck with the others because she was a bridesmaid. But I decided to make the best of it, I hadn't gotten new clothes in quite awhile, I always wore the same things to classes so I'd rarely needed other clothing. "So what are you looking for Hermione, just a dress for the wedding?'
She shook her head, "No, I need some new muggle clothing as well. It's been awhile since I had a chance to get any."
"Makes sense, I'm in the same boat, always wore tank tops and athletic pants to classes so that's almost all I have."
We passed the next several hours digging through racks, and trying on clothes, we both ended up with way more than we needed but at least we wouldn't have to try to talk anyone in to letting us go shopping again. Hermione selected a strapless bronze-colored dress with an a-line skirt that came down to her knees, which managed to look fun and elegant at the same time, for the wedding. While I ended up with a full length royal purple spaghetti-strap dress, with a belt made of interlocked gold hoops. But my favorite part of the dress was the skirt, it was had three layers, each one made of eight inch strips of fabric. The top layer was the same color as the rest of the dress, but the two lower layers were out of the same color purple as my eyes, the lighter purple became visible every time I took a step. After paying for our new clothes, we headed back over to the main group, they had Ginny and Fleur's little sister Gabrielle standing in the middle of the cluster wearing very pretty wine colored robes, well they were very pretty on Gabrielle at least, not a good color for Ginny with her red hair. Poor Ginny she looked miserable, but no way were we going to interfere and get dragged into the mess so we joined Ron and Harry who were seated on the floor practically asleep.
We sat down next to them, leaving our sea of shopping bags to surround us, our arrival seemed to perk them up a bit. They filled us in on what we'd missed, apparently there was some disagreement about the color scheme, Fleur had wanted to use a Kelly green, but her mother was insisting that Gabrielle could not wear that color so the had proceeded to try purple, yellow, and blue, until they ended up in the wine colored dresses, which were the first ones that Mrs. Delacour agreed to and unfortunately the first ones that Ginny and Mrs. Weasley didn't agree with. I was about to ask if they had considered beige or something similar, when the vision struck me.
Fleur and Bill were on the dance floor for the first dance as man and wife, the crowd was gathered around to watch them when a loud bang sounded from the outside, an eerie orange glow lit the tent as the Burrow caught fire. I turned toward the noise to see a large group of Death Eaters, they began firing spells into the crowd, people began falling left and right, I saw Gabrielle fall to the ground, hit by a killing curse, Fleur screamed and began running toward her fallen sister, she never made it there. I saw one of the Weasley boys laying face down in a pool of blood. Harry was fighting his way toward Ginny as she was dragged off by a death eater. Tonks was crying over the body of Remus Lupin, I saw myself throw a reductor curse at a masked Death Eater, as he fell to the ground dead his mask came off, he was barely older than me, if at all and he stared up at me, angelic and peaceful with his blonde hair and silvery grey eyes.
I shook myself to clear my mind of the vision, alright this required action, step one, dresses so we could leave, step two, find a way to stop the vision. At the very least I could accomplish the first, after all the vision had showed me which dress they would all agree on. I jumped up and trotted off to the muggle section again, and located the dress I needed in what I thought were the correct sizes. Both girls were a little bigger than me, a few inches taller and a size or two above me. When I returned to the main area they were still squabbling over the wine colored dresses, I tried in vain for several minutes, to get their attention, until I finally gave up and let out an ear-splitting whistle. They stopped fighting and turned to face me, glaring, as if it was my fault they'd all been acting like children. "Right so I think I've solved your problem."
I held up two slinky black dresses with cap-sleeves and a slit up to the mid-thigh on either side. From the looks on both girls' faces I could see that they agreed, so I turned to Fleur.
"Oui, zat dress is perfect for both girls." Neither mother looked convinced but they didn't seem inclined to start the argument again. They paid for the dresses, and Mrs. Weasley invited the Delacour's for dinner, they agreed and we were all scouted out the door and toward the twins shop. I noticed that Lupin and Moody were sitting on the steps in front of the shop and thought that they were probably the smartest of us all to have avoided the mess all together. In the street we parted company, and said a temporary good-bye to Fleur and her family.
When we arrived back at the Burrow everyone took their things up to their rooms, and promised we'd be down in an hour for lunch. I was half way through putting my new clothes a way when I was nearly wiped out by a flying Ginny. She threw her arms around me hugging me so tight I could barely breathe, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was so worried that I'd have to wear that hideous dress!"
"No problem," I rasped, "can you let me go now, I need air."
She laughed, releasing me, "Sorry, I'm just grateful."
"No problem, I didn't come up with it by myself anyway."
"You had a vision about the wedding?"
"Yep, and we really need to convince them to have it somewhere other than the Burrow."
"How come?"
"Let's get Harry, Ron, and Hermione, so I don't have to explain it to many times." After the others joined us in my room I quickly ran down my vision for them, though none of them seemed to sad about the death of the blonde boy, and then we spent the rest of the hour trying to decide what to do but didn't come up with a solution.
After lunch we decided to move our brainstorming session outside hoping that the fresh air would jog our brains. Hermione of course seemed rather set on the answer that she had come up with that morning and was refusing to let it go, "Why don't we just tell them that you're a seer, that way we can tell them exactly what you saw."
"Because, Mrs. Weasley will become more concerned about us and we will never get the freedom that we need to get ready to destroy Voldemort. And the fewer people who know that I'm a seer the better for all of us, it gives us an advantage."
"Where exactly do my parents think that you went to school?" Ron still didn't seem ready to accept me.
"Beats me, they've never asked, I've never offered."
Harry cut in trying to stop another fight, "Okay so what we really need to do is convince them that we've found a better place, one that still doesn't cost money."
"Hogwarts," Ginny interjected.
Hermione shook her head, "No, I doubt that Fleur would want to do that. She didn't go to school there, or anything. She might be more inclined to agree with Beauxbatons but I doubt that Bill would want that."
"So, more or less, we need a location that neither of them have any connection, but somewhere that still has decent wards to make sure everyone is safe. I have an idea, I don't know if it's quite what we are looking for though, I have a house."
They all turned to look at me, Hermione got that look on her face that suggest that she knows something that no one else does, "Your house, as in the Brooks Family Estate, its actually yours?"
I nodded, and she continued to talk, "I think that might be perfect, the estate is said to have the most impressive grounds of any magical estate in Britain, and they wanted an outdoor wedding. We should go check it out."
"Yeah, umm there in lies the problem, I actually can't go see it for another week and neither can any of you."
"Why not, it could be the solution to all of our problems, and you're refusing to go, I don't understand."
"I'm not refusing to go, I just can't, no one can access the estate until I have been there to claim it, which I can't do until I turn seventeen, which doesn't happen for another week."
"So if the Estate isn't ready for the wedding that would only give us fifteen days until the wedding to fix it."
"Well, I know for sure that the ruling applies to witches and wizards but it might not apply to house elves, so I could try to send my house elf to fix it before we get there, but as I understand it the estate is massive it might be to much work for her to do alone, I don't know if there are still other elves living on the estate."
Harry cleared his throat nervously eyeing Hermione, "I could probably get Dobby and Winky to help, I could try to order Kreacher to help but I don't think he would be very useful."
"Nah, don't worry about it, if we get Fleur and Bill to agree, I'll call my elf in the morning, if she can get through, then you can have Dobby and Winky join her to do the cleaning. I know at one time the estate had a staff of six elves so, there a probably still a few living there."
By dinner time we'd worked out exactly what we were going to say to bring up the subject. As it turned out Fleur had heard of my family's home and was thrilled at the idea of having her wedding there, she'd actually seen picture of my gardens as a child and dreamed of having her wedding there. So as it turns out, as of August One, eight Weasleys, five Delacours, one Granger, and a Brooks, would be moving in to what from every description I heard was not so much my house but something more palatial. Mr. Weasley told us about visiting my father's house when they were in school, and according to him they had at least twenty bedrooms that he was aware of, and I was beginning wonder just what I'd gotten myself into.
