'MUM!' Charlie yelled, launching himself down the spiralling Burrow staircase. 'SOMEONE'S HERE!'

'Alright dear,' Mrs Weasley called from the kitchen as Charlie jumped the last five steps and careened through the kitchen to reach the front door. He'd been up in Bill's fourth floor bedroom, eagerly watching for visitors out of the window. He'd been sat there for at least an hour, watching twelve o'clock tick closer. Exactly on the dot of twelve, two figures had appeared by the gate of The Burrow.

Charlie hurdled a couple of chickens as he ran to meet the visitor.

'Hey Charlie!'

'Hey Buck!' Charlie grinned at his fellow Gryffindor. He'd been waiting for this day for weeks. He'd owled his friends as soon as his parents had said when he could have them over. He had been quite worried that Errol was going to crash land before he'd delivered the letters, but the old and unreliable bird had actually come through – sure he'd needed about a week's sleep before being able to fly again, but at least he had done it.

'Anyone else here yet?' Buck adjusted his backpack.

'Nope, you're the first! Come on in, I'll show you around.'

'Okay, bye Dad!' Buck waved at his tall blond father and followed Charlie back across the front garden. As they avoided stepping on chickens they heard the tell-tale crack of Buck's Dad disapparating.

'Hello!' Charlie's Mum said when she saw Buck. 'Buckley isn't it?'

Buck nodded. 'People call me Buck though, only Buckley when I'm in trouble.'

'It's lovely to see you dear. Charlie, why don't you take Buck up to your room so he can drop his bag off?'

Charlie did just that. On the way up to Charlie's room on the first floor they saw Bill coming down the stairs with little Ron on his shoulders.

'Oh hey Buck!' he said when he saw them, 'Charlie, I've moved the spare beds into your room so you two, Don and I can all squish in there. The girls can have my room – don't worry, I've cleaned it.' Bill reassured him before Charlie could protest. 'Seriously, even Mum would be impressed by my Muggle cleaning of that room.'

When Charlie and Buck returned to the kitchen a purple haired Tonks and her father were sat at the dinner table.

'Tonks!'

'Hey Charlie, Buck,' she stood up from the table, almost knocking her chair over, and gave them both a hug. 'How's your summer been so far?'

The two boys shrugged, 'alright,' Charlie admitted. He'd been trying to teach Ginny to say different words for a couple of weeks. He was very impressed that she could now identify a gnome, a chicken, and Charlie. Though she did sometimes get "Charlie" and "chicken" mixed up.

'How about you kids go and wait for the others outside in the garden?' Mrs Weasley smiled, 'Ted and I are just having a little chat about old times.'

Charlie rolled his eyes, 'C'mon guys, I'll show you around.'

Soon after, Annie and Don turned up together in a proper Muggle car.

'It's just as well my Dad is at work,' Charlie told them, 'or your parents would never be able to leave – he's obsessed with Muggles.'

'Everyone's here Mum,' Charlie called in his mother's direction, 'I'll just show them around!'

'Lunch is in an hour!' She called back.

'Come on guys,' Charlie beckoned, 'I'll show you the Quidditch paddock!'


'Charlie!' Mrs Weasley called from the front door, an almost three year old Ginny in her arms. 'Where are you and your friends going now?'

'I was just going to show them around the house,' Charlie shrugged.

'Well before you do that, supper will be ready soon and we won't all fit in here,' she gestured to the kitchen behind her while Ginny made a grabbing motion at her brother with her podgy little hands. 'If you could de-gnome the garden then we can all eat outside when your father gets home. Get Bill to give you a hand.'

Charlie was just about to rejoin his friends when his mother called him back.

'And can you take Ginny as well? She just keeps crawling around under my feet while I'm cooking, thanks Charlie. Oh, do you want to use Lockhart's book?' she added.

'I know how to de-gnome a garden Mum,' Charlie said, rolling his eyes as he took Ginny from his mother's arms.

Laden with his youngest sibling he rejoined Tonks, Buck, Annie and Don as his mother returned to her busy stove.

'Have any of you de-gnomed a garden before?' he asked them. They answered with blank stares.

'BILL!' Charlie yelled. Ginny scrunched up her tiny face at the noise.

'Sssshhhh!' she ordered.

The fourth floor window opened and Bill's long red haired head poked out of it. 'What?'

'Mum wants the garden de-gnomed!'

'Why can't you do it?'

'I can, but Mum wants you to help!'

'Fine, I'll be down in a minute!' Bill called back down, retreating back into his room.

'Right this way ladies and gents,' Charlie smiled, leading his friends behind the Burrow to their large and busy garden. He put Ginny on an upturned flowerpot in the corner of the garden.

The Weasley's garden was massive. There were plants everywhere, with weeds creeping up in the spaces between flower beds. The grass needed a good cutting and the walls were lined with gnarled trees. A croaking sound could be heard near the moss covered pond, but no frogs could be seen. Rays of sunlight warmed patches of the garden where it could get through the leaves of the trees.

'Woah! There's about as many plants here as in the Greenhouses!' Tonks exclaimed, looking around at the crowded garden.

'I've got garden gnomes in my garden too,' Don said as Charlie stuck his head in a bush.

'Not like this I bet,' the bush shook violently. 'Your gnomes are the fishing Father Christmases right? Well take a look at a proper gnome,' he straightened up, bringing with him a small, leathery creature with a large, bald, potato shaped head. The gnome flailed with its stubby arms and legs as Charlie held it at arm's length.

Don and Annie looked mildly horrified by the creature, but that was nothing compared to their reaction when Charlie began swinging the gnome around his head.

'What are you doing?' Annie squealed as the gnome cursed at Charlie.

'It doesn't hurt them,' Charlie assured her, 'it just makes them so dizzy they can't get back to their gnome holes.' As he said it, he let go of the gnome's ankles and it flew twenty-five feet into the air before landing in the next field with an audible thud.

'That is so cool!' Tonks eyes were wide, 'show me how.'

Bill popped down and in a few minutes Charlie, Bill, Tonks, Buck, Don and even Annie were tossing gnomes through the air and into the next field. Stupidly, the gnomes all started coming out of their gnome holes as soon as they realised the de-gnoming was happening.

'They're not the smartest creatures,' Bill said, throwing two gnomes simultaneously through the air.

'I bet you can't hit that stump,' Tonks teased Charlie, and for the next couple of gnomes they both tried hitting a tree stump with their gnomes.

'Look, you can see them starting to get back up,' Buck squinted. Sure enough a line of gnomes was forming as they wandered uncertainly away from the Burrow.

'They'll be back soon enough,' Bill assured them, picking up Ginny and spinning her around in the air. 'Dad thinks they're funny so he's a bit soft on them. I'll tell you, if it was up to Mum there'd be no gnomes in a 10 mile radius of our house.'

Charlie nodded in agreement.


'Dad's on his way home,' Charlie observed, checking the clock in the living room. The clock had nine golden hands and no numbers. Instead, words were written on the outside of the clock face such as: travelling, work, school, mortal peril. The hand with Mr Weasley's face on had just moved from work to travelling, and a few moments later it moved to home and the front door opened as Charlie's father stepped through into his house.

'Afternoon Weasleys!' he called,

'Afternoon Dad!' Charlie and Bill chorused back. From upstairs there was a scrambling sound as Fred and George raced down the stairs.

'Dad!' They cried as they almost knocked their balding father off his feet.

'Arthur, can you move the table out into the garden?' Mrs Weasley asked her husband, giving him a peck on the cheek. 'Everyone, out into the garden!'

They all sat down around the magically expanded table in the garden – all nine Weasleys and Charlie's four friends.

'So Tonks,' Mrs Weasley said as they dug into the fantastic spread of food. 'How's your mother been lately? I've not properly spoken to Andromeda for many years now.'

Tonks gulped down a mouthful of chicken before answering.

'She's alright, thanks,' Tonks replied, going on to talk about her mother's work. Charlie turned to his brothers' conversation.

'You've got to come out and play Quidditch with us Perce,' Bill was telling Percy, 'it's great fun and it'll do you good to get some fresh air.'

'I do get fresh air – I read outside,' Percy retorted, pushing his horn-rimmed glasses back up his nose where they had slid down.

'So Annie, what is it your parents do?' Mr Weasley asked. Fred and George however, were entertaining Don and Buck with jokes. They weren't particularly funny jokes, but when told by two identical seven year olds anything is amusing. Ron and Ginny, the youngest Weasleys, were at the end of the table playing with their food.

When everyone was bursting with food and Ron had successfully launched a spoonful of mushy peas at Percy, the Weasleys and friends headed back inside to bed.

'Tonks and Annie, you're up in Bill's room on the fourth floor,' Charlie told them, 'Buck, Don and Bill are in my room on the first floor. I'll show the girls up to Bill's room.'

Charlie led Tonks and Annie up the rickety stairs of the Burrow. The Weasley parents were clearing up downstairs; the clanking of dishes as they were piled into the sink echoed through the house.

'Mum and Dad's room is right across this landing,' Charlie pointed out as they reached the fourth floor. 'If you want you can sneak downstairs and we can all talk in my room for a bit, but wait until my parents have gone to bed.' Tonks and Annie nodded.

'The top few steps creak so be careful,' Charlie whispered as he heard his parents starting up the stairs. 'See you in a bit!'

It was just gone half past ten when a quiet knock on Charlie's door announced that Annie and Tonks had made it past his parents' room. They settled down on the mattresses laid out on Charlie's floor. The red carpet was mostly hidden under the extra mattresses, and the walls were covered in posters. Charlie's favourite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, who were also the Weasley family's team, had a huge poster over Charlie's bed. The orange robed wizards flew in and out of the frame, waving Quaffles, Beater's bats and their fists at every opportunity. On the other walls there was a picture of a huge black dragon breathing fire, a smaller poster of the English National Quidditch Team doing their signature Rowntree Counter move.

'Cool room,' Tonks said, settling herself down on one end of Bill's mattress.

'And mine isn't?' Bill raised his eyebrows in mock offence.

'Well for a start it's way too clean in there.' Tonks smirked.

'I cleaned it especially!'

'Ssshhh!' Charlie hissed, pointing at the ceiling, 'Mum and Dad are up there, remember!'

Bill rolled his eyes and shut up.

They talked for ages about everything: music, school, other people in school, and teachers in school – that conversation lasted a while on its own when they started discussing Professor Snape.

'That greasy haired git needs to lay off us Gryffindors,' Bill said, everyone else agreed.

'And us Hufflepuffs,' Don added.

'Of course, we can't forget the Pufflehuffs,'

'Oi!' Tonks punched him in the arm.

'Cor, Charlie, where'd you find this one?' Bill laughed, rubbing his arm, 'she's got a tough streak.'

Eventually they all ended up dropping off to sleep where they sat. When Molly Weasley came in the following morning she smiled to herself, closing the door as quietly as she could, and waited until the children all woke up to the smell of cooking bacon and sizzling sausages.


And that's the end of Charlie's first year at Hogwarts... Stay tuned for the second year!

LittleGuitar94