Chapter 3:
What we saw outside made us both start laughing and jumping for joy. It was Ron and his two twin brothers, Fred and George. Except, they were in a flying car! "Watch out Harry, Arrington, we have to pull the bars off the window." Fred said, or maybe it was George it was to dark for me to tell. We backed up towards the closet, and waited there as Ron took the hook and attached it to the window, and attached it to the car. Then Fred, or George, drove froward yanking the bars straight off the window. "Hurry Harry." I moaned because we could hear Uncle Vernon shouting.
Luckily we had never unpacked because we had hoped somebody may come and get us eventually and wanted to be ready. I grabbed our bags, and Harry grabbed Hedwig, as the car moved backward to the window so we could put our stuff in the back. I threw in the bags and Harry put Hedwig carefully in the back.
I could hear Uncle Vernon stomping up to the door and jingling with the locks, as the car was pulling in horizontal to let us in. I hopped in the car first, and yelled at Harry to get in when he dived to get the scrap book. He grabbed it and I thought he was going to make it until at that second Uncle Vernon burst in through the door like an angry bull.
Harry hopped in the car, but Uncle Vernon lunged and grabbed his foot. Everyone was screaming and suddenly the car lurched forward causing Uncle Vernon to tumble out of the window and fall into the bushes below. As soon as we were finally safe, we all burst out laughing. "Why haven't you been answering any of my letters? I've been asking you guys to come stay for weeks now. What's going on?" Ron asked. Harry told them the story about Dobby and I chimed in a couple times to add some things he missed.
When we were done it was silent until Fred spoke up, "Maybe somebody just didn't want you at school this year, and ordered their house elf to come tell you that. Know anybody really rich with old money?" Fred asked. Ron, Harry, and I all looked at each other and knew exactly who could have done that. "Yeah Draco Malfoy he hates us. But I don't know if he has a house-elf." I said. "Lucious Malfoy son? I've heard Dad talk about him, he was a big supporter of you-know-who." George said. A silence fell over the car, so I asked "So did your Dad let you use the car?" "Umm well no. He's working tonight at the department of ministry. He works with the misuse of muggle artifacts division." Ron said.
The rest of the flight was silent, and when we finally touched down I couldn't wait to get out of the car. It reminded me of an old rickety airplane, which equals not at all safe. When we touched down we all got out of the car, and me and Harry took our luggage out and set it on the porch. "So now we all are going to go up to our bedrooms, and pretend to wake up and say oh what is Harry and Arrington doing here. And then all will be good." Fred and George said proud of their plan. I was going to point out some problems with it, but Mrs. Weasly came walking out extremely mad, so all plans were thrown out the window. "Great." George said. "Oh dear." Fred sighed. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? BEDS EMPTY. NO NOTE, CAR GONE. YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN! YOU COULD HAVE DIED! Course I don't blame you dears." She said looking at us and smiled, then her smile faltered a bit when she us.
I knew how it must look, two stick skinny kids with baggy clothes unclean clothes. My clothes were a little bit better than Harry's though because I at least got Aunt Petunia's old ones, and the ones I took from my house. Ron took that chance to explain seeing how she was softening a bit. "They put bars on the window. And they were starving them!" Ron said in defense. "You best hope I don't put bars on your window Ronald Weasly." Mrs. Weasly said sternly. She then walked inside and I could tell the storm was over. She then turned over her shoulder and shouted in a much nicer tone, "Come and get some breakfast Harry and Arrington." We looked at Ron and he nodded encouragingly, so we followed her into the house and into the kitchen.
The kitchen was small, but I thought it was amazing. The twins and Ron just moved on right through it but we kept stopping and staring at everything. There was a brush washing dishes all by itself, and an amazing clock, but instead of showing time it showed where everybody was and if the person was in trouble or mortal danger. When me and Harry caught up to them, we found them sitting at a table so we went and joined them. Fred and George were hi-fiving under the table and grinning at each other. "What are they so happy about?" I asked. Ron just shrugged and I saw he was staring at them suspiciously also. Every once in a while we could hear Mrs. Weasly mutter something under her breath like, "can't believe they did it," or "they could have died!"
She bustled out of the kitchen and started handing out food, giving me and Harry extra helpings. The breakfast was a delicious helping of everything I could ever want, more than me and Harry ever got except for possibly at Hogwarts. "Well I think I'm going to bed now, I'm tired." Fred yawned. "Oh no you won't. It was your fault for driving that car in the middle of the night. You all are going to go out and de-gnome the garden. Except for you guys Harry and Arrington. You didn't ask them to drive the car in the middle of the night." I didn't know about Harry, but I was kind of excited to see what gnomes looked like. "I'll stay, I'm not tired." I said quickly. Harry nodded, and Mrs. Weasly just shrugged, and walked back into the kitchen.
Ron groaned as soon as she had fully disappeared into the kitchen, "I can still hear you Ron!" Mrs. Weasly shouted. Ron turned a delicate shade of red, and he got up and walked outside. The twins snickered behind Ron's back as we all got and followed him out. "What do gnomes look like?" I asked curiously. "Do they look like garden gnomes?" Harry asked. "Like those Santa red looking things? No, they look like this." Ron said and pulled up a bald, scabby kneed, puke green creature. "You have to spin it first, it doesn't hurt them, it's just to get them dizzy so it can't find its hole again. Then you throw them." He said and his gnome flew through the air, and landed about 15 feet away. "Psssh, I can throw farther than that." Fred said.
Soon the gnomes were flying away, and with the 5 of us it took short time to clear them all out. They walked away in a line with shoulders hunched over in a sign of defeat. "Don't worry they'll be back tomorrow. Dad's to soft with them, he thinks they are cute and funny." George told me when I commented to him about how sad they looked. Personally I thought they were cute and annoying could be good, and I could just imagine how mad Uncle Vernon would get if he came home to a yard full of gnomes everyday.
Suddenly we heard a door slam in the house, and Ron and the twins both stood up straight and smiled. "Cool Dads home." Ron said. I had never met Mr. Weasly before so I wondered what he looked like. We all ran inside and found Mr. Weasly slumped over at the table looking very tired, "Nine raids, nine!" He said. "Raids what are raids?" I asked I didn't think I asked that loud but then Mr. Weasly looked up and said, "Blimey is that..." Ron quickly jumped in blushing scarlet saying "Dad this is Arrington and Harry. I told you about them over the summer remember?" "Oh yes, yes. How exactly did they come here?" He asked curiously but I remarked on how it seemed a lot more normal to them then it would to a muggle. "Our boys flew that enchanted car of yours to Harry's and back last night." Mrs. Weasly said still a little cranky about the whole situation. "Really how did it go?" Mr. Weasly said. All of the boys started saying "oh it was great!" or "really cool." When Mrs. Weasly shrieked "Arthur!"
Ron turned from a bright shade of red to an even darker color and then whispered to us, "C'mon lets go to my room." Me and Harry shared a smile because we were used to the yelling, having experienced it every day over the summer. We walked up two flights of stairs of a seemingly endless house reaching upwards, when suddenly on the third floor, a little girl walked out of her room right into me. Her face instantly went bright red and she clumsily fell back in her room and shut the door. "Who was that?" I asked looking at the shut door. "Ginny. She's my little sister. You don't know how weird this is, her being shy. She usually never shuts up." He then continued up one more flight up stairs until we reached a door labeled Ronald's room. "This is my room. So how do you guys like the house?" Ron asked a little tentatively as of afraid of the answer. I smiled and said "I love it." "Yeah of course. Me too." Harry said.