Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.
Chapter 3- Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
I stare uncertainly at the two men, as Ron bursts forward from behind me to embrace the two men currently residing in the Weasleys' kitchen. "Bill! Charlie! When did you two get in?" Ron asks embracing one brother then the other.
"All in due time Ron. I believe that we have proper introductions to make first." The oldest looking one says to Ron, placing a hand on his shoulder in a calming manner. The other brother steps forward.
"Hello Jamie, I'm Charlie Weasley older brother to those three knuckleheads." Charlie introduces himself, holding out a big hand for me to shake. I return his handshake feeling the rough calluses and blisters on his fingers. So this is the famed brother who works with dragons in Romania.
"Nice to meet you." I respond. He smiles at me kindly and takes a step back towards the kitchen table. Charlie is built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who are both long and lanky. He has a broad, good natured face, which is weather beaten and so freckly that he looks almost tanned; his arms are muscular, and one of them has a huge shiny burn on it.
He seems to catch me staring at it. "Your namesake is quite the dangerous creature Jamie." Is all that he responds to my curiosity.
Bill the eldest Weasley son and child steps forward offering me his hand. "Bill Weasley, don't let anything these jokers tell you, give you the wrong impression of me Jamie, and welcome to the family. We met your brother earlier." He tells me. Bill comes as something of a surprise.
From everything I've gathered Bill works for Gringotts, and he had been Head Boy at Hogwarts. I had always imagined him as an older version of Percy, but that couldn't be further from the truth. There is no other word to describe Bill Weasley but cool.
He is tall with long hair that he has tied back in a ponytail. He is wearing an earring with what looks like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes look like he's ready to go to a rock concert rather than a day at the office inside of a bank. The boots on his feet are made out of dragon hide.
"Are you sure that you work in a bank?" I question him. Bill throws back his head in a surprised laugh, leading me to the table where the rest of them have sat down. We are talking for a few minutes when all of the sudden Harry comes face forward out of the Weasley's fire.
Fred thankfully catches him though, and I hurry over to them to make sure that Harry's okay (and maybe pummel the life out of him).
"Did he eat it?" Fred asks excitedly.
"Yeah," says Harry straightening up. "What was it?"
"Merely something grand." I say flippantly.
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," says Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, along with a little help from Jamie, and we've been looking for someone to test it on all summer…" Fred says jollily. The kitchen explodes with laughter and Harry's attention is diverted to George and Ron who are sitting with the eldest Weasley sons. Harry gets suck over to the pair of them for proper introductions.
Someone slips to my side and I glance over to see Luka standing beside me. "So you've met the golden duo?" He asks me softly so as not to be overheard by the group of boys in front of us.
I give my brother a slight reproving look. "They're nice Luka. There's no need to be hostile." I tell him.
"I'm not being hostile! It's just that now that all seven of them are back home, there's not going to be a lot of space around here. Maybe we will have to leave, and then Kingsley will see that we're better off with him, rather than here bothering the Weasleys who already have enough people in their home!" He says excitedly.
I sigh and slowly shake my head at my brother. This move has probably been the hardest on my brother. He and Kingsley had a greater connection than I had. "Kingsley works practically eleven out of the twelve months of the year consistently. He gets missions practically every other week, and most of the time we were on our own." I tell him attempting to keep my voice down as so not to attract attention from the happy greetings going on a few feet away.
"Don't tell me that you now care about all the times that he went away and worked. You and Kingsley were fighting for the whole of last year! You were probably happy to have him gone!" Luka cries. A hushed silence falls over my kitchen. I bite my lower lip hard, and attempt to keep my eyes from watering.
I can feel five pairs of eyes on us, and I grab my brother's hand and yank him into the living room. Thankfully it is empty now. "I care about Kingsley! He's been cleaning up my scraped knees and giving me soup when I've been sick for ten years! He's been the closest thing that I've had for a father since our parents died. But, that doesn't mean that I have to like him all that much at the moment! That's the liberty of being family." I state wiping at my eyes that are now running.
Luka grits his teeth and crosses his arms over his chest angrily. He shakes his head almost violently. "If you care so much for our family, then you should be willing to fight harder for it!" He shouts. I take a step back from the tone in his voice.
"What family Luka? All I see is you and me with one guardian who has good intentions and two more who are just trying to keep us out of the orphanage! Add to that the fact that there is our psychotic murderer of an uncle who's locked up! What more is there to want… so I'm sorry if I don't want to mess with the arrangements anymore in case we do end up with no one!"
"Because as much as Kingsley loves us which I am positive that he does— that's not going to be able to make him come and take us back! Then we'll truly have no one." I cry holding myself to try and keep in my sobs. Luka stares at me for a long time before shaking his head at me.
Before any of the boys from the kitchen or us could say anything else, there is a faint popping noise, and Mr. Weasley appears out of thin air at George's shoulder. He is looking angrier than I have ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouts. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," says Fred, with another evil grin having recovered from our outburst. "I just dropped it. . . . It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."
"You dropped it on purpose!" roars Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"
"How big did his tongue get?" George asks eagerly.
"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!" Harry and the Weasleys roar with laughter.
"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouts. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard–Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons —"
"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" says Fred indignantly.
"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git, and has a thing for Jamie" says George. "Isn't he, Harry?"
"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," says Harry earnestly.
"That's not the point!" rages Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother —" I feel a presence come up from behind me, and nearly jump a foot in the air when I feel a hand on my shoulder. Mrs. Weasley is taking in my tear stained face, and upset expression.
"I'll deal with you two later." She promises the pair of us before turning her attention to the kitchen. My brother and I shoot each other wary looks. Can we actually stand untied against her attack on us?
"Tell me what?" asks Mrs. Weasley entering the kitchen from behind them.
"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she says, spotting Harry and smiling. Then her eyes snap back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Mr. Weasley hesitates. I can tell that, however angry he is with Fred and George, he didn't really intend to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There is a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyes his wife nervously. I jump again when I feel a pair of arms wrap around me. From the bushy hair though I can tell that its only my best friend Hermione. She must have arrived a little while ago, and heard the fight.
Ginny squeezes my hand and glares at Luka. As Ginny always loves to say, girls in the Weasley house have to stick together. I don't miss the way that she goes red though when seeing Harry.
"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeats, in a dangerous sort of voice.
"It's nothing, Molly," mumbles Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just — but I've had words with them —"
"What have they done this time?" says Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes —"
"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" says Hermione from the doorway beside me.
"He knows where he's sleeping," says Ron, "in my room, on the camp bed between Luka's and my bed he slept there last —"
"We can all go," says Hermione pointedly.
"Oh," says Ron, cottoning on. "Right."
"Yeah, we'll come too," says George.
"You stay where you are!" snarls Mrs. Weasley. I'm sorry boys but I'm really happy that she's too busy dealing with you two rather than the issue between Luka and I. I don't know how much more of this I can take.
Harry and Ron edge out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, Ginny, and I set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories. Luka has vanished outside somewhere with is unusual for him, but I guess that things really have changed around here now that he has to share a room with Ron.
"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asks as we climb. Ron and Ginny both laugh while I manage to chuckle, although Hermione doesn't.
"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," says Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that . . ."
"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," says Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise. That is until they let Jamie in on it."
"Yeah there's some pretty neat things that they got in there. Yesterday one of their er— experiments got out of hand." I say scratching my head.
"Only, most of the stuff — well, all of it, really — was a bit dangerous," says Ron, "and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms. . . . She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected."
O.W.L.s are Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students take at the age of fifteen.
"And then there was this big row," Ginny explains, "because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop." Ah yes, that night was one for the record books. I honestly didn't know that Mrs. Weasley's voice could get that high.
Just then Percy's door on the second landing opens, and a face pokes out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.
"Hi, Percy," says Harry.
"Oh hello, Harry," says Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know — I've got a report to fix for the office — and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."
"We're not thundering," says Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."
"What are you working on?" asks Harry. Ron, Ginny, and I all groan in unison despite the confused looks from Hermione and Harry.
"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," says Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin — leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year —"
"That'll change the world, that report will," says Ron. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks." Percy turns slightly pink.
"You might sneer, Ron," he snarls heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-bottomed products that seriously endanger —"
"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he starts off upstairs again. Percy slams his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and I follow Ron up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echo up to us. It sounds as though Mr. Weasley has told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.
The room at the top of the house where Ron and Luka sleep look much as it had the last time that Harry had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog spawn, now contains one extremely large frog.
The only difference is that there is now another bed in the room permanently and one half of the room is immaculately kept while the other is disorderly now after Ron was forced to clean. I go over to my brother desk and can practically see my reflection in the wood for he's polished it so much.
There's a tiny gray owl hooting from atop Ron's dresser, with the gleaming eyes of Sophocles Luka's cat gleaming at it. The owl is hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly.
"Shut up, Pig," says Ron, edging his way between two of the five beds that have been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room, and Luka now lives with me," he tells Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."
"Er — why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asks Ron, attempting to calm Ron down.
"Because he's being stupid," says Ginny. "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."
"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," says Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named him," he explains to Harry and Hermione. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."
Pigwidgeon zooms happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. I know Ron too well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers, but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.
"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asks Hermione now.
"Out in the garden, I expect," she says. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen any before." I smirk at the thought of that fluffy ginger puff ball biting gnomes bottoms. Well if that won't cheer a person up, then I don't know what will.
"Percy's enjoying work, then?" asks Harry, sitting down on one of the beds and watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.
"Enjoying it?" says Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch . . . as I was saying to Mr. Crouch . . . Mr. Crouch is of the opinion . . . Mr. Crouch was telling me . . . They'll be announcing their engagement any day now." I laugh out loud at that. I can easily attest to the amount of times that he's mentioned his boss. Its starting to get very annoying.
"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" asks Hermione. "Did you get our food parcels and everything?"
"Yeah, thanks a lot," replies Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes."
"So Jamie… I know this might be kind of a sore subject at the moment but… how do you like living at the Burrow?" Harry asks me turning to look at me. All four sets of eyes are on me now. I bite my lips and glance at my brothers bed that's been cramped into the wall.
"Personally I love it here. There's always someone around, and there's never a dull moment— but Luka has been having trouble adjusting and so have I. We've been with Kingsley for our whole lives but, now we're not anymore." I say. Silence greets me for a few seconds.
"Is there anything that I can do? You can have more drawer space if you want." Ginny pipes up, coming to stand next to me. I smile at my friend softly and shake my head.
"No such thing needed. Just adjusting to big family life I guess. Its not as easy as it looks." I say with a chuckle.
"I'll say! You can't get any privacy around here!" Ron cries. We all laugh at that. Harry looks wistfully at the three of us who live here.
"I'd be fine with it, I would take your place any day." He tells us. I give my friend a sad look and shake my head. I do feel sorry for Harry. The Dursleys is no place for a kid to live, especially a kid like Harry.
"And have you heard from — ?" Ron begins looking at Harry, but at a look from Hermione he falls silent. I know Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron, Hermione, and I had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that we are almost as concerned about Harry's godfather as he is. However, discussing him in front of Ginny is a bad idea. Nobody but us and Professor Dumbledore know about how Sirius had escaped, or believe in his innocence.
"I think they've stopped arguing," says Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny is looking curiously from Ron, Harry, and finally settles on me. "Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?"
I feel guilty about lying to the girl but there's no other way around it. "Yeah, all right," says Ron. The five of us leave Ron's room and go back downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered. This can't be good.
"We're eating out in the garden," she says when we come in. "There's just not room for thirteen people in here. Can you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she says to Ron and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shoot out of their skins so fast that they ricochet off the walls and ceiling.
Hermione, Ginny, and I take the plates and run out of the kitchen, not having to be told twice. We have only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat, Crookshanks, comes pelting out of the garden, bottlebrush tail held high in the air, chasing what looks like a muddy potato on legs. I recognize it instantly as a gnome from all the times that I've degnomed the garden now. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet patter very fast as it sprints across the yard and dives headlong into one of the Wellington boots that lay scattered around the door.
Harry and Ron join the three of us quickly. Meanwhile, a very loud crashing noise is coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion is revealed as we enter the garden, and see that Bill and Charlie both have their wands out, and are making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out of the air. Fred and George are cheering, Ginny is laughing, Hermione was hovering between amusement and anxiety.
I laugh at the antics that the two oldest boys are doing. They're full grown adults and now they're still acting like children. With a pang of sadness I realize that while Luka and I are close, we have never done any of the childish things together. I glance around the yard attempting to find him, but am unable to. I wonder where he got off to?
Bill's table catches Charlie's with a huge bang and knocks one of its legs off. There is a clatter from overhead, and we all look up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.
"Will you keep it down?!" he bellows.
"Sorry, Perce," says Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"
"Very badly," says Percy peevishly, and he slams the window shut. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie direct the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattaches the table leg and conjures tablecloths from nowhere. I really wish that I am allowed to use magic on my own.
By seven o'clock, the two tables are groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, Luka, and I are settling ourselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.
At the far end of the table, Percy is telling his father all about his report on cauldron bottoms.
"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy is saying pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, it's extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman —"
"I like Ludo," says Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble — a lawnmower with unnatural powers — I smoothed the whole thing over."
"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," says Percy dismissively, "but how he ever got to be Head of Department . . . when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"
"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," says Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now — though I must say, if it was someone in my department, I'd be worried. . . ."
Right now I'm just sitting back and allowing everyone else to talk for a while. I'm drained from my fight with my brother. I keep glancing over at him but he's been brooding down at his plate for the whole while.
"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," says Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth . . . but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her — but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However" — Percy heaves an impressive sigh and takes a deep swig of elderflower wine — "we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."
Does he ever stop talking? Percy clears his throat significantly and looks down toward the end of the table where Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I are sitting. "You know the one I'm talking about, Father." He raises his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."
Ron rolls his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, "He's been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons."
In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley is arguing with Bill about his earring, which seems to be a recent acquisition. ". . . with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"
"Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," says Bill patiently.
"And your hair's getting silly, dear," says Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand lovingly. "I wish you'd let me give it a trim. . . ."
"I like it," says Ginny, who is sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned, Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's. . . ."
Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie are all talking spiritedly about the World Cup. "It's got to be Ireland," says Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals."
"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," says Fred.
"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," says Charlie shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."
"What happened?" asks Harry eagerly wanting to get back into the Quidditch mood. I'm not really up for talk of this though.
"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," says Charlie gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."
Mr. Weasley conjures up candles to light the darkening garden before we have our homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time we have finished, moths are fluttering low over the table, and the warm air is perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle. I am feeling extremely well fed and at a little better as I watch several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes, laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
Ron looks carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family is all busy talking, then he says very quietly to Harry, "So — have you heard from Sirius lately?"
Hermione looks around, listening closely, and I casually turn in my seat to face them more closely. "Yeah," says Harry softly, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He might write back while I'm here."
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley says suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you — you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow — hope it does this time!" says Harry enthusiastically.
"That would be wicked!" I cry.
"Well, I certainly don't," says Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" says Fred.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" cries Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to me as we get up from the table. "We sent it." I snicker behind my hand and follow everyone else inside.
I'm woken up after what seems like five minutes. I groan into my pillow. Hermione, Ginny, and I were up for an hour talking last night, and I really need my beauty rest now. I'm shaken again just as I'm about to roll over to go to sleep again.
"Jamie… come on dear." Mrs. Weasley's voice comes through to my sleep addled brain finally. I crack open my eyes to look at her.
"Mrs. Weasley…" I grumble. She nods her head and pulls the blanket off my form.
"Quickly Jamie come now." She tells me helping me get off my bunk, and out into the hall silently so as not to wake up the other girls. Once out in the hallway I rub my eyes, and yawn.
Why am I up when everyone else is asleep? I'm a growing girl and sleep is something that I tend to need if I want to be a fully functioning human being the next day. "Wha's going on?" I yawn stretching my arms behind my back not noticing the worried looks of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Bill.
"Jamie, did you see Luka before you went to bed tonight?" Mr. Weasley asks me seriously. I freeze shocked at the question that she's just asked me.
"No… why do you ask that?" I ask hesitantly not sure if I want to know the answer or not.
"Well… we can't seem to find him anywhere are the house at all, and the fireplace looks like its been used." Bill tells me softly.
"What are you saying?" I ask a hysterical edge to my voice.
"What we're saying dear is that we can't find him. I don't believe that Luka is here." Mrs. Weasley says lightly. I can feel the blood rushing to my ears, and it feels like my heart is beating in my throat.
"So you're saying— you're saying that Luka has run away. T-that he's gone?" I ask. There is no negating response to deny the finality of my claim.