(Author's Note: This takes place a few weeks after chapter 12)

"I wish you would just tell me instead of trying to engage my enthusiasm because I haven't got one."

From The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Chapter 13: Madeline's Return

Boom!

Percy began to whimper.

"Percy, Percy, it's just thunder, dear," said his mother soothingly. The three-year-old crawled up into his mother's lap. Her knitting needles worked away in the air beside them creating a long purple scarf with moons.

The morning was full of dark clouds and the rain had just begun. Molly and the children were waiting for Madeline and Alastor. The auror had healed enough to return to work and so his sister would return to the burrow that day.

Charlie was laying on the floor with the cat and reading a magazine about Quidditch, Bill sat at the writing desk building a pyramid with a set of magic linking blocks, and the twins played on the floor with a bucket of baby toys. Outside, the wind whipped the trees which scraped the side of the house. Percy was a bit unnerved by it. Suddenly there was a loud knocking on the door which made him cover is face with his little hands.

"They didn't take the floo?" said Molly scooting Percy off her lap to get up. He whined in protest.

"Relax, Perce, it's Madeline," said Charlie getting to his feet.

Molly answered the door with Percy hanging on to her frilly house coat and there stood Alastor, his traveling cloak and hood dripping wet. He had a large staff in one hand and his broom in the other. Half of his nose was missing and he had a few new scars. Lightning flickered violently across the sky behind him followed by a boom! It was just your average cliche gothic scene.

Charlie tried to get a better look at the wooden leg that the auror had carved to replace the one he had lost. It had a claw at the bottom and Charlie thought it looked keen. Alastor rapped his sister on the head with his wand and she shuttered as she slowly became visible. Molly dried them with her wand as they step inside and shut the door against the storm.

"Hello Molly," said Alastor as he pulled back his hood to reveal a mop of severely graying ginger hair. "Madeline insisted on taking the broom. I thought I could outfly the storm," he growled. Madeline's face was glowing with from the excitement. The flight had felt like a real adventure.

"Oh, dear. You poor things. Well, I'm going to get some tea," fussed Molly.

"Naw, I shouldn't stay. I've got to report to the Ministry," he protested.

"That's ridiculous!" declared Molly. "You've barely recovered and the weather is so foul. Really, isn't it about time you retired, Alastor?" She waved her wand at the knitting and the project curled itself neatly into a wicker basket. "They shouldn't have asked you to come in yet."

"No, I'm fine, Molly," he said as he stumped along noisily.

Their conversation faded as Alastor allowed himself to be led into the kitchen.

Madeline dropped a large carpet bag on the floor with a thunk and plopped herself down onto the sofa. Percy crawled up beside her. Charlie sat on her other side. Bill and the twins knelt on the floor looking expectantly as if Madeline were a small demented Father Christmas. She wore an overcoat much too big for her, a pink dress, and a blue and silver necktie and carried a yellow top hat with a blue feather. She looked like a secondhand store disaster, not the legendary patron saint of children.

"I built the fort!" blurted Charlie with pride.

"Without me?" exclaimed Madeline. "We were going to do that together." She had a strong urge to pout.

"You were gone a long time," he said in guilty explanation.

"I suppose I was," Madeline admitted thoughtfully, "but I had to help Alastor," she said importantly. She noticed his distressed look. "Charlie, It's all right. I'm not angry, and," she added, "I can't wait to see it. I expect it's just super," she said with genuine enthusiasm.

Charlie was relieved she didn't scold him and wondered how long his luck would last.

"I want to show you what I brought!" She pulled the big carpet bag toward herself and opened it. Percy hopped off the sofa to peer inside. Madeline pulled out a pear shaped stringed instrument and held it over her head when Fred tried to grab it. "No," she said.

George laughed and repeated, "NO!" which made Fred scowl. Bill pulled Fred onto his lap.

"This is a mandolin," said Madeline plucking at the strings of the instrument, "and," she continued with pride, "I can play it." She began playing an Irish tune very carefully and haltingly. "It's called 'Dragonfly'."

"Dwagons f-f-fly?" asked Percy as he leaned Madeline's her knee and gazed up at her.

"Well, they do," she laughed, "but the song is about dragonflies."

"Do dey fly?" he asked, still confused.

"Yes, they do. Hence the name, 'fly.'"

"Dey name hens?" asked Percy.

"And are they really dragons?" laughed Charlie. Both he and Bill were in a full on bell-laugh now which was causing the twins to giggle loudly.

"Or are they hens?" snickered Bill.

Madeline cocked her head to one side. "You boys aren't helping." Then she smirked, "Percy, they're just very small dragons, ok?"

"Otay," said Percy.

"Otay," repeated Bill and Charlie together. Percy looked perplexed at their laughter but smiled when Madeline hugged him and kissed the top of his head. She handed the instrument to Charlie. She pulled a glass orb out of her bag, just a little larger than a walnut. Bill swiped it out of her hand to examine it.

"That's a troll orb," she said, taking it back from him with annoyance. "If a troll comes near, it glows," she said slowly, attempting to induce amazement.

"Couldn't you just smell them coming?" asked Charlie very seriously.

"Good point," she acknowledged. "Maybe that's why Alastor let me have it," she muttered. "Here, Percy, you take it and let me know if it glows." He happily took it and tasted it which caused Madeline to giggle and kiss him again.

"Hey, why can't I have the Trollembrall?" asked Bill?

"Troll orb!" corrected Madeline. "You're just not as cute as Percy," she teased.

Later in the day there was a break in the storm and Madeline and Charlie squelched out to the fort against Molly's protests that it was too cold and wet. She had a hard time keeping those two indoors for any length of time. Percy, not wanting to let Madeline out of his sight, accompanied them riding on Charlie's broad shoulders.

"It's lovely, Charlie, like a tiny house," said Madeline as she crawled into the little fort. It was built against the big oak tree, like a little makeshift lean-to out of branches, logs, and some old wood the kids had found washed up on the bank of the river. Under the highest part of the sloped roof, they could sit up straight. Madeline pulled a knitted blanket out of her carpet bag and spread it on the floor. Percy lay down on it and Madeline sat beside him and rummaged in her bag and found a dark green kerchief which she played with it lazily.

Charlie began excitedly, "You know what I used to tie it together?" He got no response, so he continued anyway, "I used sure cinching string and wound it around the wood in a figure eight pattern and patched up any holes with leaves and spello-tape. I figured out that if you put the branches pointing downward on the top, most of the rain runs off. Water still gets in, but dad said he'd come out put a charm on it..." He kept right on talking for a while as Madeline curled up beside Percy and yawned. She had that same glazed look Molly wore whenever Arthur started going on about Muggle plugs. "...then I made a sort of hinge so you could open the flap as a sort of window-"

"I'm going to fight in The Order when I grow up," interrupted Madeline suddenly as she tossed the kerchief into the air and let it float down slowly onto her face..

Charlie just blinked at her for a moment, then reoriented his mind to follow hers. "Why?"

She sat up. "To fight evil wizards and kill You Know Who, of course," she said tartly. "I'm going to be an auror."

"But you're a girl," he argued.

"Bah!" she said indignantly. "That's rubbish." She threw the cloth at him. "Girls can be aurors and be in The Order. There are lots of girls in The Order. She hastily searched through her bag and came up with a photograph of over twenty witches and wizards smiling and waving.

He snatched it out of her hand. "Give it here!"

"Oi! Don't rip it! I'm not even supposed to have this. Alastor would be furious if he found out I brought it over here."

"I'm not ripping it. I just want to see it." Charlie scanned the faces. "Blimey, I didn't realize there were so many. Mum and Dad never talk about the war.

"Well, there aren't that many anymore. Some of them died," she said very solemnly.

"Look, there are my uncles...and there's your brother."

"And see! Witches," she paused, "except that one got killed." She pointed to Marlene McKinnor. "And I met him and him," she said indicating Sturgis Podmore and Remus Lupin.

"I thought you were supposed to be hidden."

"I guess they're all right because they're in The Order. They were really nice. That one, Mr. Lupin, brought chocolate," she explained as if it were proof that he could be trusted. "Anyway, my brother told me all about battling dark wizards and it sounds so exciting."

"And dangerous," he said handing the photo back to her.

"That's why I'll become an auror. I'll learn lots of spells and I'll live with Alastor and we'll fight together and then come home and have dinner and play wizard's chess. I'm getting really good at it..." she went on and on. Percy fell asleep.

Charlie looked at her glumly. He had enjoyed the time while she was away, but that was partly because he knew she'd return. Now she was saying that she would someday be gone forever. Before this, they had always made plans together. Well, he'd show her how he could make plans without her too. "I'm going to be a famous Quidditch player." He let it hang in the air for a moment, watching her reaction.

"Then, I expect you'lll need a good broom. So will I."

His eyes lit up. "Dad took us to Diagon Alley. There was a shop thee full of all sorts of Quidditch supplies. They had broomsticks that-"

"You went to Diagon Alley?"

"He chewed his lip as the words echoed in the silence."

"Wow." She quickly tried to hide her burning jealousy. To her, it may as well have been the moon, or a paradise on Earth. "That's lovely."

"It sure was," he said, all relieved by her seeming approval. His optimism was rather endearing.