I apologize (again) for updating after such a long time, but you know how it is at school – exams exams exams…
Sweet Merlin, I really kind of left Ron out from the last chapter, didn't I ?
Sorry, I always imagine the whole family and what they're doing and then just kind of spit it on the paper really fast and sometimes I forget to write what everyone's doing – it won't happen again, I'll make sure to count my Weasleys :)
Thank you for reading.
Enjoy!
The car was in a bad shape. It was grey and paint was falling off on many places, leaving big parts of rusty metal exposed.
There was only one front light, but there was no light-bulb in it, tires were flat and one of the back windows was broken.
"Fancy." Commented Percy and rushed back inside from the cold garage.
"Well, it will take a lot of work…" Arthur scratched his head, " but this is real muggle car. They ride this …"
"…drive…" Jade quietly corrected him, but smiled when she saw how excited Arthur looked.
"I could take it all apart and see how it works! Wouldn't that be fun?" he asked, beaming at the sight of his new car.
"Ok, everyone, let's back inside, I have cookies in the oven and you are not dressed for cold." Ordered Molly and smiled when she saw Arthur bend down and polish the side mirror with his sleeve. "You too Arthur, you can take it apart some other day."
The evening was uneventful at first. As it was winter, the sun set down around five and there was no way Molly would let her kids out alone. Moon wasn't shining because heavy snow clouds covered the whole sky, and she didn't want anyone getting lost.
But when you try and keep six children in such small house like Burrow it can turn into madness pretty fast.
Ginny was still camping on the living room sofa, feeling even worse than yesterday, so she was just snoozing on and off with her Harry doll by her side, but the rest of the small Weasleys was going crazy for being kept inside almost all day.
Fred and George made Ron try one of their inventions, which tasted terrible and made him bleed from his nose, but they didn't have an antidote yet, so after half an hour of trying to stop it on their own, Jade said it was enough and they carried now almost unconscious Ron downstairs, leaving red-bloody track on the stairs.
Ron recovered quickly but Molly was furious, and Arthur's comment about finding an antidote first and then trying their inventions on Ron didn't help much.
They raced back upstairs and went through few more experiments, none of them ended as catastrophically as the first and they did have a lot of fun, until Molly decided to go upstairs with a handful of clean Laundry and found the whole corridor carpet covered in drying blood.
Then the four of them spent the rest of the night scrubbing the carpet with soapy water and brushes, "because when you act without thinking, you have to face the consequences" George imitated their mother's voice realistically which made the others laugh pretty loud and Jade accidentally knocked over her bucket full of soapy bubbles. That, of course led to foam-fight, before Molly made them stop and each of them had to work on different part of the staircase. It did speed up their work, but it wasn't fun at all.
After quick dinner and good-night kisses, they were sent to bed without hot chocolate, because as Molly said, more sugar in their systems would just make it hell to get them to bed.
Jade changed into her PJs and climbed to bed. It wasn't late enough to sleep so she decided to read a bit.
There was a soft knock on the door and when Jade raised her eyes from her book, she saw Arthur and Molly standing awkwardly at the door.
"Come in." she smiled softly, already knowing what this was about.
"Well, honey, we just wanted to make sure you'll go to sleep tonight without worrying ok?" Said Molly softly, sitting down on the side of Jade's bed.
"Ok." She agreed, not sure of she should ask them to just soundproof her bed like it was at Hogwarts or not, but it was the only way she could sleep without worrying so she gave it a try.
"Could you charm my bed the same way it is at school? So even if I had a nightmare, I wouldn't wake you up? That would make me sleep without worrying." Jade explained truthfully, but Molly just looked at her with a very sad smile.
"Jade, we don't mind waking up for you. That's what we do. We had to wake up couple of times last night when Ginny threw up and then couldn't go back to sleep because her head hurt too much. That's just what parents do." Said Arthur and then added. "So no, we're not going to charm your bed. But you can sleep and then wake us up if you have a bad dream. It doesn't matter much to me if I have to wake up few times during the night. We'll just make sure you're ok an then go back to sleep so don't worry about us ok?"
"Alright…" said Jade, but she didn't sound too persuaded.
"Well, don't be up to long, we're going to the Diagon Alley tomorrow morning!" said Arthur cheerfully "…to escape from more cleaning here at home."
Molly playfully smacked his tight and then got p from bed.
"Don't worry, cleaning will wait for you until you get back." She teased and then turned to kiss Jade on her forehead.
"Good night darling, and go to sleep." She rushed Arthur out of the room and closed the door, leaving it open just a crack.
Jade sighed and went back to her book. It was a very interesting one from advanced Defence against the dark arts which she borrowed from the school library. It was an old edition which was no longer used as it only had black and white pictures.
She almost finished the chapter about vampires, when she finally fell asleep, with book abandoned on her lap, with light still on.
She didn't sleep long, when strange sounds woke her up. It was coming from the bathroom. Jade tip-toed across the corridor, walking slowly to the door which was left open, and light was coming from inside.
There she found Ginny, sitting on the floor, wiping her mouth with a piece of tissue. She looked terribly sick, with white face and greyish lips. She was going to say something but another wave of sickness overcame her and she turned back to the toilet.
Jade kneeled down on the floor next to Ginny, holding her long red hair our of her face, while she made slow soothing circles on her back with the other hand.
"Breathe, Gin. It will be ok, I'll go get your mom ok?"
But when Ginny whimpered a little, not wanting to be left alone, Molly was already there, with a damp washcloth and potion to help with the sickness.
"Oh Ginny dear, here, swallow this." Molly gave her youngest child big spool filled with disgustingly looking liquid.
"It tastes terrible, I know, but it will help." She said when Ginny's face contorted in a grimace of absolute disgust.
"Let's get you back to bed now." Suggested Molly after a silent moment when Ginny looked like she will be sick again, but then settled down and leaned against her mom.
Walk back to the small white room was slow, but finally they managed to settle Ginny back into her bad. She was now safely tucked in, under the covers.
"Oh Jade, I'm sorry we woke you up, I had to run down to the kitchen to get the medicine and I'm afraid I wasn't very quiet." Apologized Molly.
"That's fine…really. Will she be ok?" asked Jade, looking at the half-closed door behind which Ginny was snoozing off.
"Of course dear, she just needs some rest and regular doses of the potion. Don't you worry. Off you go now, back to bed, Arthur's taking you lot to the Diagon alley in the morning, and you don't want to miss that, do you?" asked Molly and softly pushed Jade in the direction of her bedroom.
"Good nigh." Jade whispered before closing her door and climbing back under the covers.
Her bed was still nicely warm and comfy, so she didn't even realized how she fell asleep, with the book next to the pillow.
Jade woke up in the morning, surprisingly well rested and ready to get up. Sun wasn't even up yet, but the horizon was just one hue more pale blue than the rest of the sky, indicating that sun will rise soon.
She checked her clock, which indicated it was only quarter past six. There was no rush to get up, although Molly was surely up already, busy with breakfast preparation.
She picked up the book, which slid down to the floor during the night. The bookmark was still in place, marking next chapter – 19 as the place where Jade finished yesterday. Werewolf transformation. Written in clear black letters, over the horrific picture of a creature, partly human, partly animal, representing the middle phase of transformation.
Then there was brief history about first documented bites and some laws, which Jade skipped over. She wouldn't be studying this in school for two more years so she could afford skipping to the more interesting articles.
The part where author described werewolves in general was terribly insulting and inaccurate.
Jade remembered Mr. Lupin, sitting at the table in their garden, silently hugging the mug of drinking chocolate Molly offered him. She remembered how he talked to her and how he helped Ginny fix the ribbon which slipped down from her plaid.
And then the talk not too long after their first meeting, when Molly explained how Mr. Lupin is a very kind gentleman, who knows Arthur and her from work, and how him being a werewolf doesn't mean anything, just a small inconvenience once every month when he has to spend the night inside in a safe place, guarded by magic, because he can not control the transformation.
Weasley family never kept secrets, and Molly agreed with Arthur that their children had to learn not to judge people just because everyone else did.
That's why every Weasley child grew up knowing Mr. Lupin as a kind, rather quiet colleague of their dad, who came from time to time and spent time with the family.
They knew he was werewolf because Charlie once heard him discuss it with dad, and after that incident, Molly insisted they explain to the boys why it doesn't matter, and why they shouldn't take Mr. Lupin's condition as something important.
Then when other kids were old enough Molly explained again and again, knowing she is rising smart kids who won't rely on prejudice and won't be scared to stay true to their believes.
Now when Jade read the book chapter, describing werewolves as sneaky, not trustworthy and aggressive she got angry.
Being raised by muggle institutions and foster families she has never faced the reality of magical world, where most of the people still believed the old tales and nuances established long time ago when magic and muggle world were still interlocked.
She grabbed the book and jumped out of the bed, her leg getting stuck in the covers.
She landed hardly on the wooden floor. The situation would have been hilarious if she wasn't furious. She picked herself up and run down the squeaky stairs, still barefoot, wearing her pyjamas.
"This is terrible!" she exclaimed without any greeting, pushing the book right in front of Molly who quickly put away her knitting, covering it with a tea towel.
"What is it dear?" she asked, taking the book from Jade's trembling hands.
"They can't say things like that! It's book from school library, why would they keep books which have such terrible opinions printed in them?" Jade wanted to know.
Molly went through the article really fast, realizing that it was an old edition of the book and she was almost positive that the newer version didn't contain most of the worst words, but still, the idea pretty much described the current situation of the magical community, where werewolves were feared and rejected with prejudices.
She tried to explain to Jade, how things were but it didn't help with at all.
"They can't think like that! What about Mr. Lupin! How can they think he's dangerous? He should just tell them, surely they would understand if he talked to them. Or he could…" Jade was trying to think really hard to find the solution, but Molly stopped her.
"He can't do much honey, there are laws and rules which he has to follow. All we can do to help is to tell people who wan to listen, but you can't force your opinion on others, even if it's the right one. It took centuries to build up that general hate against werewolves and that set the laws we are still using now. I suppose situation could get better if new laws were released but that's not your job to worry about. You still have years and years of school to learn more about magic world, and learn to understand how wizards think nowadays." Molly smiled sadly and set a plate with scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast on the table. "Why don't you eat your breakfast and then hurry upstairs to get ready for the day?"
Sun was up, shining brightly over the hills covered in snow. Jade was sitting at her bed, packing small things to her small bag, the anger over the book forgotten for now.
There were five whole pounds laying on the covers, waiting to be carefully wrapped in her handkerchief and put on the bottom of the bag.
It was all her money she saved in her life and she kept it all the time, saving it for something important, but now she was going to spend it on Christmas presents.
Important Christmas presents for important people in her life.