Untitled
Chapter Six;Happy Birthday
'Another day at its end' Alicia thought when she entered her flat Monday afternoon. 'Not for me no, I still have to attend to Harry's birthday party.' She practically collapsed onto the sofa.
She had dropped by the Burrow last night, right at the time when Harry and Mrs. Weasley had been talking about what he wanted to do at his Birthday, and it had turned out into Mrs. Weasley saying; "Why don't we invite Alicia too? She used to be your team mate after all." And then she had counted in that Alicia was also coming, and left the room before she had a chance to protest.
The practical class they had today was exhausting. They had an Illusion practice today. By that it meant that everybody the class was locked into a special room they had, and when the door closes, you are getting into an Illusion and the illusion doesn't end until you have finished the task, or if everybody dies.
They had been in a small village that was under attack from a vicious dark creature and it was their task to save the innocents and find a way to defeat the creature. The real cool thing in this reality was that if you were killed, you didn't really die. You were just thrown out of the game. Almost the same went for wounds, only that if you was wounded you felt the pain like it was real, and you still had to go through the game with your wound, but when the game ended, it looked like you never had been wounded.
Last night had Oliver been running his mouth to Mica, about Alicia going to a wedding and about George, and that Alicia was obsessed about him and wanted to look gorgeous for him. Where ever he got that from, Alicia didn't know. But anyway, Mica had barged into Alicia's flat and promised her to help with the preparations, and when Alicia simply answered that she didn't need any help, Mica had just shoed her off and told her that Alicia didn't have to be embarrassed to ask for help.
Mica was a person that in Hogwarts they had called the Bee-Queen, she was the perfect Barbie doll, Blonde and slim and stupid and incredible attractive to the guys. She had been in Ravenclaw, and one year older than Alicia. She had always been giggling and flashing her eyelashes at the cute boys at school, and through the whole wide record of boys that would fall for her way (in lack of a better word), when she put all her attention toward him., was there only one boy that didn't fall for it, and found her extremely annoying, that boy was Cedric Diggory.
Like you all know was he one of the more gorgeous boys that ever stepped a foot in the ground of Hogwarts and of course Mica was after him, every way possible. Luckily for him did she let go when the famous young Quidditch seeker Viktor Krum came to Hogwarts, she was known to be one of the girl that spied at him in the library.
Alicia could never understand why Oliver liked her so much; maybe it was because she was such good shag. But she had to admit to herself that she was disgusted to think about that, and frankly, Oliver could get a better girl than her.
She stood up from the sofa and walked over to her bedroom, which was the only room, except the bathroom, with a door. She looked at the dress she had gotten for the wedding, it hung on a clothes hanger at the door to the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom was placed in the bedroom; it was one of the few things that Alicia had immediately noticed when Oliver showed her the flat.
The dress was in a deep vine-red colour, strapless, the skirt of the dress was made out in layers and the top one, which was made out of satin like the top, it was leaning in a vertical direction, starting on the left side a few inches over her knee and ending just below it on the right side, under it, all the way down to the floor was several thin layers of a different material, but in a horizontal direction. And in the left side at the top of the dress were there four fabricated roses.
It was really a beautiful dress, with a matching scarf, and to the dress had Alicia bought a pair of shoes with a low heel, the shoes was in the same colour as the dress and on each shoe was there two roses on the outer side that matched the ones on the dress.
She stood in her bedroom and looked at the dress for a long time. She had to admit to herself that she was a little happy that Mica wanted to help her, she would look gorgeous at the wedding tomorrow and George would...
There it came up again, George. She realized that maybe Oliver was right; maybe she was obsessed with George? She stopped dead for a moment. Nah, she shook her head, it was just in Oliver's imagination that she was obsessed with George Weasley. Only in his lunatic mind. She shook he head once more for the poor Oliver with his crazy mind and walked into the bathroom to get refreshed for Harry Potter's birthday dinner tonight.
The party seemed to already have started at the Burrow when she arrived half an hour later. She sighed and walked up to the open door; she had been informed that they were going to have a big birthday dinner outside in the garden. But she still walked up to the door.
Inside in the kitchen was Harry Potter sitting alone by the kitchen table. He seemed to be reading a book. "Hi Harry." She said happy and sat down in front of him. "Having a good day?"
"So far." He started.
"Happy birthday." She said and held out the envelope with the present she got for him.
"Thanks." He said and took it. "But you didn't have to." he started but Alicia cut him short.
"Don't worry, between you and me... It only cost me four knuts."
Harry smiled and looked like he was about to respond, but they were interrupted by a bellow from the floor above.
"GIVE THAT BACK TO ME!!!" Ron bellowed.
"In your dreams Won-won!" Fred said back and two seconds later was he coming down the stairs and out into the kitchen with Ron behind him.
"I'll curse you ass off if you don't give me that back!" Ron said angry as he chased Fred around the kitchen table, knocking over a bowl and two chairs on the way, making both Harry and Alicia laugh.
"You can try." Fred laughed back and ran out the open door.
"Oh Alicia you came." A happy Mrs. Weasley came into the kitchen. "Oh no, what have they now done?" She muttered to herself when she saw the bowl lying on the floor. But she just sighed and waved with her wand and the bowl and the salad in it was on their previous place before Ron and Fred had been chasing each other. "The dinner starts in ten minutes." She told them.
Mrs. Weasley took the bowl and walked out to the tables outside. At the same moment that Charlie Weasley came into the kitchen.
"Hey." He said smiling when he saw Alicia. "Alice right?" He guessed, not really remembering her name.
"Oh my goodness." Alicia said out loud when she saw him. "What the shit happened to your hair, did it burst into flames and became irreplaceable?" she said shocked and Charlie's expression changed from happy to annoyed.
"Ha ha ha." He said sarcastic. "Mum didn't like my long hair. So she made it as short as possible." He sat down next to Harry.
"My name's not Alice, its Alicia." She reminded him.
"I knew that, just wanted to check if you did." Charlie muttered, and Alicia could clearly see from where Ron got his thickness.
"Fred!!" Ron yelled and Fred came into the kitchen again, still chased by Ron.
"Alicia!" Fred said happy as he saw her and stopped for just a second when he saw her. But by the time had Ron already come into the kitchen and he tackled Fred so that he fell onto the floor on his stomach, not so differently from Percy the day before.
"I'm sorry that you have to witness the immatureness of my brothers." Charlie said apologizing as they saw Ron sit on Fred's back as he took the letter from him.
"Don't worry; I have been in the same class as George and Fred for seven years." Alicia responded, and Charlie smiled.
"My Goodness, what is going on in here?" Tonks muttered as she and Lupin came in through the open door and saw the scene in the kitchen.
"Nothing." Ron muttered as his cheeks turned deep red and walked out of the kitchen.
"Ron woke up this morning and decided that it was time that my back felt some hardcore pain." Fred muttered and stood up, rubbing his back.
Nobody responded to Fred's comment, so he just walked out of the room. Harry stood up to greet the two new comers. He shook hand with Lupin, who looked rather unhappy, and then he received a birthday hug from a radiant Tonks. "Happy Birthday Harry." She said smiling. But then she turned toward the others. "Why isn't everybody out in the garden?"
"I needed some piece and quiet. The garden is so full of happy and French People." Harry answered.
"You sound like Alicia." Tonks answered when she and Lupin had sat down by the table.
"What do you mean by that?" Alicia exclaimed, feeling offended by Tonks comment.
"Sweetie, don't you remember that you ran away from your own 14'th birthday party?" Tonks reminded her. Everybody around the table laughed.
"I just didn't like the attention." Alicia muttered to her defense.
"And you Tonks? Don't you remember any common sense? Wasn't it you who once reminded me that it was common sense to greet old mates?" Charlie asked her.
"Oh do I know you?" Tonks looked confused at him. "Well you do look a little like Charlie Weasley, but the Charlie I know has a proper hair cut and his skin was white, not almost as red as his hair."
"Okay..." Charlie said, he was the only one that wasn't amused about Tonks comment. "The hair cut can you blame on my Crazy mum, and I actually work in Rumania, and it was Merry's stupid idea to spend the day in the sun up at the roof. Merry is a girl if anyone is wondering, a very pretty Texan girl." He said.
"What do you have there?" Lupin asked Harry, pointing on the envelope Alicia had given him.
"It's my birthday present from Alicia." Harry said, he hadn't opened the envelope yet, but he did it now. He took out the two pictures from the envelope.
"The first photo is from when we won the Quidditch cup." Alicia explained. "And the other one is from when..."
"James won." Lupin ended her sentence when he saw the photo of the smiling James.
"Thank you." Harry said and looked up at Alicia. "It's really..." he didn't know how to express himself.
"I just thought that you'd like to have it." She responded. "Oliver found it when he stalked me to the library yesterday. He was only exited about the fact that his uncle had played on the same team as your dad."
"This is actually one of the two times that I have ever witnessed you dad cry." Lupin said, he was smiling at the memory.
"When was the other time?" Charlie asked.
"17 years ago to the date." Lupin answered. "When you were born Harry."
"You were there?" Harry asked him.
"Yes, so was Sirius." Lupin answered him. "I remember when James came out into the waiting room with you in his arms, he was crying. Holding you like you was made out of glass. Having this goofy grin on his face, goofy may not be the best word, but Sirius called it that. So I guess that it kinda stuck."
"Alicia, you didn't happen to talk to Nymphadora or Remus earlier today? They said that they were going to..." Mrs Weasley started to talk to Alicia before she even entered the kitchen, but she stopped when she came into the kitchen and saw the gathering at the table. "Evening everyone." She greeted them. They all greeted her in another way or two.
"It seems that Hagrid and Arthur are running a little late." Mrs. Weasley informed them. "Everybody is waiting for the birthday boy in the garden, why doesn't everybody go and join them?" That didn't really sound like it was a question, it more sounded like it was a demand.
"Harry, where're you going?" Mrs. Weasley said when she saw that Harry didn't go out to the garden.
"I'm going upstairs to put away this." He said and showed her the book and the two pictures.
"Just don't let it take a long time, okay." Mrs. Weasley said and followed out the others into the garden.
Five minutes later did Alicia found herself standing out in the yard, not so sure what to do. "You know that you look lost right?" somebody came up to her and said. She spun around and found herself standing face to face with George.
"Oh, no, I'm not so lost." She smiled, god he was looking pretty. "I always look like this." She joked.
He smiled. "I don't remember you ever looking like that."
"I'm just tired." She answered. "Had a long day, I wouldn't be surprised if I fell asleep at the dinner table."
"So..." George began and Alicia somehow knew that he was going to ask the question that would come up sooner or later. "How is life after school treating you?"
"It's... Great." She answered simple.
"Seeing anyone?" He continued casually, like it was an everyday question.
"No, not at the very moment." She answered and hoped that he wouldn't through her answer and realized that she had been all alone since the two of them broke up. "You?"
"Not at the moment either." He answered, looking down in the ground as they slowly walked toward the table. "Are you coming tomorrow?"
"Yes, your mum made me promise."
"Sounds like mum." George turned his gaze toward the others, but still not her. "If I don't know better I would reckon that Mum was trying to get you and me together."
"Crazy huh?" she realized that the conversation was going really slow and when none of them spoke, there was an awkward silence between them.
"I actually miss school." George said just out of the blue.
"That is crazy." She smiled.
"I mean, everything was so much easier in school." George claimed. "Now... it's so terrible." He said and Alicia couldn't help but agree with him.
"Well, George, that is a part of growing up." She answered him. "When you are young you wish that you were older, and when you are old, you wish that you are younger. The same goes for summer and winter."
"Are you calling me old?" He smiled and jokingly pushed her shoulder.
"Well, the first sign of that you are old is that you wish that you were younger." She laughed back.
"And I thought that was when your kids got married and started families of their own and your hair are turning gray." He considered.
They laughed at that and moved over to the others that had sat down by the table. The only one that they still were waiting for was Mr. Weasley, who actually was supposed to have been back ten minutes ago. So Alicia wasn't really that surprised that all of them was a little worried.
"I wish that dad could hurry up and get here." Charlie said to the others with a low voice as he looked at his mum over his shoulder. "Mum's getting edgy."
But just when Mrs. Weasley said that they'd better start without him, a silver weasel patronus appeared on the table; it stood up on its two back legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley's voice. "The minister of Magic is coming with me." It said before it vanished.
The minster? Alicia thought. What did he want? She hoped that it didn't have anything with her dad to do. The minister himself had been asking Alicia time over time if she knew anything at all about her father's mysterious disappearance, she had trying her hardest to avoid him, which was pretty hard since she had to spend several hour a week at the ministry.
"We shouldn't be here." Lupin said when the patronus had spoken its message. "Harry... I'm sorry... I'll explain another time." He sized Tonks wrist and pulled her away from the others; they reached the fence and climbed over it, and vanished from sight.
"The minister?" Mrs. Weasley asked bewildered. "But why...? I don't understand."
But there was no time to discuss the matter, a mere second later Mr. Weasley and the minister of magic appeared outside the gate.
Both of them marched across the yard and over to the others in the garden. Alicia tried to hide herself behind George so that Scrimgeour wouldn't see her. But no one seemed to notice what she did, except from George himself that sat next to her.
"Sorry to intrude." Scrimgeour said when he stopped at the front of the table. "Especially when I now see that I'm gate crashing a party." He said, but his voice showed no remorse. He must have seen the giant snitch cake since he next said. "Many Happy Returns." Still in that emotionless voice.
"Thanks." Harry responded and Alicia could hear at his voice that his evening would have been so much better if the minister hadn't appeared.
"Well..." Scrimgeour continued and looked at the guests by the table. "Spinnet?" He said shocked, he must have seen her. "Miss Spinnet, I mean." He added quietly.
"Oh, shit." Alicia cursed under her breath and leaned forward so that she had eye contact with the Minister. "Minister." She replied.
He seemed confused by why she was there. "Any news about your father that I should know about?" He asked, and everybody's attention turned toward Alicia and what she about to say next.
"No." She answered in a cold tone. "And even if there was any... I wouldn't be the one to tell you, I still have the same opinion about you as my father has." She said in a mean but sweetly tone.
"Okay, well, congrats at your success today, the rumour even reached my office." He added. "Anyway, The reason that I'm here... is that I would like to require a word with you, Mr. Potter." He said, turning his gaze away from Alicia and over to Harry. "Also with Mr Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger."
"Us?" Ron asked, sounding surprised. "Why us?"
"I shall tell you when we are somewhere more privet." Scrimgeour said. "Is there such place?" He said in a little demanding voice to Mr. Weasley.
"Yes, of course." Mr. Weasley responded, slightly nervous. "The, er... Sitting room, why don't you use that?"
"You can lead the way." Scrimgeour said to Ron. "There will be no need for you to accompany us Arthur." He added toward Mr. Weasley, who changed a worried look with his wife. Harry, Ron and Hermione stood up and walked with the minister toward the sitting room.
"What was that all about?" Mrs. Weasley asked out loud. Then she turned toward Alicia. "What success?" She asked Alicia.
"Oh, right." Alicia smiled, it must have been Percy that had something to do with that 'the rumour even reached my office' she had met him afterwards and told him what had happened and maybe that was how the rumour spread. "I made some... advances at the Illusion game today." She explained. "You can also say that I discovered ten different ways how to kill a Quintaped."
"What is the Illusion Game?" Ginny, who sat next to Charlie that sat in front of Alicia, asked.
"It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like." She answered. "An illusional game."
After Alicia had stopped talking there was a bit of awkward silence, everybody was probably curious about what Scrimgeour wanted to talk to Harry, Ron and Hermione about.
"Why don't you like the minister of magic?" George turned toward Alicia and asked.
"Well, I think it started when I was following my dad to work at the age of six." Alicia responded.
"What did you do? Look at him?" Fred joked; Alicia had somehow managed to get between Fred and George at the table. Luckily for her, she had Georges working ear toward her, He was sting at the end of the table, and at the side of the table was Hagrid sitting.
"No, He gave me a lollipop." She answered.
"You don't like him because he gave you a lollipop?" Charlie answered, sounding like he didn't know of he was going to laugh or stay chocked.
"I didn't take it because I was offended of being thought of as little child." She simply answered, several people started to laugh. "Well, I was a really strange one as a child."
Some people got smiles on their faces, and some people didn't. But the tension of the arrival of the minster seemed to have lifted a lot because the garden soon filled with talking. Mrs. Weasley, who was still worried about what the Minister wanted with Harry, Ron and Hermione, had walked off from the table and tried to listen through the back door.
"How come that you can be so evil toward the minister and still be able to go on the Auror Program?" George asked.
"Oh, George, dear brother, I thought that you of all people would know." Fred interrupted her answer. "They need a pretty face to represent the Aurors. I think that they got pretty bored of having Mad-Eye's face representing them." He joked.
"Idiot." George snapped and leaned back to hit Fred, who didn't stop smiling.
"The same reason that my dad has never been fired and the exact same reason that they try over and over again to get Harry Potter to their side." Alicia explained.
"'Yer too damn good." Hagrid answered, happily.
"Yes... Hagrid." Alicia answered him. "That is the exact reason. My dad always told me that the ministry was using the Aurors and hit-Wizards as soldiers to fight their war, the same have always went for You-know-who, because he uses his Death Eaters as soldiers, to fight his war, he doesn't care what happens to them, 'cause they are just soldiers, nothing else." She stopped talking for a second to remember what her dad had told her. "That is what I, and my dad, like so much about the order, it's not lead by an egocentric dictator. It is lead by all of us, everybody gets have something to say, everybody gets to have a say in everything.
"My dad said that the Order of the Phoenix is a democratically lead group, which means that it's not one person that decides what everybody will do, and who's the leader. It's decided by all of us, by vote, what we do and who is leading, who makes the more major decisions. We don't vote on who becomes the next minister of magic. One person do, it was Fudge who decided that Scrimgeour becomes the next minister of magic. If, now I say if, if... the ministry had been lead by democracy, I bet that Kingsley would have a better chance than Scrimgeourto become the next minister.
"There are far more people that like Kingsley as a leader, than Scrimgeour, because if we look at the records of mistakes, Scrimgeour may have few, but they are far bigger ones than Kingsley's. And there is few, I would say that it's a dozen or less, that knows that Scrimgeour is the good guy that you can blame what happened to the Longbottoms on, My dad said that if Scrimgeour hadn't taken that risk that night, They wouldn't have been there... maybe they didn't get tortured only 'cause they were there, but, if they weren't there that night. Neville would still have his parents.
"Look at Fudge; he is for crying out loud a puppet..." The people that had been listening at her looked at her with a slight surprise. "A puppet." She repeated. "C'mon, just look at him, he let his fear of you-know-who control him, and if he hadn't... if he hadn't turned away the two most important players in this war... Our side would have a much better position today, than we have now.
"We have already lost one of the biggest weapons we have, not magical one, no... Media. Everybody reads the daily prophet, everybody listens to the radio, and nobody can escape the media. Some people that didn't believe what happen the night of the third task of tri wizard tournament, they have gotten their opinions about Harry and Dumbledore from the media, 'cause you just can't escape it. There's no way around the media." Alicia stopped talking and realized that the most people had stopped talking and listened to what she said, and that made her blush a little. "Sorry, I have a tendency to start babble." She apologized.
"Don't be sorry, that was really good said." Bill said from where he sat next to his wife to be.
"So..." Charlie, who looked like he only understood ten percent of what she had said. "Things would have been much better if Fudge wouldn't have been a puppet?" He said, faking an understanding face pretty badly.
"George." Fred said.
"Fred." George said.
"Wouldn't you say that she turned out..." Fred said with a smirk.
"... pretty smart for being friends with us so long?" George responded mimicking the smirk exactly. "I would say that you were right."
"But I was going to say pretty damn smart..." Fred said.
"I would say very damn brilliant." Alicia cut in.
"Only in your mind, Alicia." Fred responded and ruffled her hair. "Only in your mind."
"Arthur." Mrs. Weasley, who had been standing over by the kitchen door said to her husband. "Come over here, I think that I heard raised voices." She said, happy that she had found a reason to interrupt them, as she opened the back door to the kitchen.
And big thank you to my two reviewers; Pingpong21 and bik, I like you bik, you sound so energetic, just like me (Smiling). So just keep reviewing, and to you who could, but didn't... Bark, bark.
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