I know, It's been a long time. I finished this ages ago, but could not be bothered proof reading it while it was so fresh in my head. I have now done so (maybe not perfectly) and so here is Rosenwald the Third.
I am currently up to Boxing Day with Book Four. However, this will not be up or completed until at least June, as I have a lot of work to do between now and then. And thats at the earliest.
Thank you all for waiting and I hope you enjoy the third instalment.
Chapter 1:
The dark-brown bricked house sat amongst the grove of trees, a curved paved driveway before it, heading towards the iron gates, flanked by the large brick wall of a fence, covered on one side by hedges. The black tiled roof shone in the streaming sunlight, lighting up the gardens that surrounded the driveway and hugged the walls of the house.
The house was silent, but it was not empty.
"Why do they insist on giving us homework?! We're on vacation!"
Two children were sitting in one of the many studies, opposite one another, a pile of books to one side and two open in front of them, with rolls of parchment, ink pots and quills in hand.
The boy with red-hair was leaning back on his chair, his head lolling over the back as he complained. The girl rose an eyebrow at him before she brushed the feather of the quill under her chin in thought.
"Suppose they don't want us forgetting everything."
She had auburn-hair, which hung in curls to her ribcage. Her eyes were blue like sapphires, a few shades darker than her friend's, who was tall, lanky and with a long nose.
"I thought that's what the holidays were for." Ron Weasley grumbled as he looked back at the book he had before him. It was A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, a large, leather bound book.
"It's not really hard though, 'Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.' Bathilda already has the answer, 'The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation'." Skylar Rosenwald read from her own copy of A History of Magic. "Not to mention that muggles didn't know magic if it hit them in the face."
"Doesn't mean I want to sit here writing it." Ron grumbled. He looked out the window behind Skylar at the gorgeous sunny day. The two had tried to do their homework outside, but the wind had been a little too harsh on their books and parchments that they'd had to move inside.
Another reason though was that Leon was outside riding around on Nick's broomstick. Leon Rosenwald was Skylar's younger brother. Twelve years old with brown hair and hazel eyes. Skylar was thirteen, turning fourteen in a few months. Nicholas was the oldest Rosenwald child out of the three, fourteen years old and with brown hair and brown-hazel eyes similar to his brother's. He was currently with Ron's older twin brothers of the same age, Fred and George Weasley, at the Weasleys residence of The Burrow.
"Have you heard from Harry?" Ron wondered.
"I've sent him a few letters in the dead of night with Rey." Skylar said. "Leon's quite happy to let me borrow his owl, I think he enjoys me asking him for something."
Harry Potter was one of Skylar and Ron's best friends. He lived in Surrey with his Uncle and Aunt, who were muggles, after his parents had been killed by the most feared wizard of the last Century, Lord Voldemort. Harry had escaped from the same attack with nothing more than a scar on his forehead, where Voldemort's curse, instead of killing him, had rebounded upon its originator. Barely alive, Voldemort had fled… Why You-Know-Who had been there to kill Harry in the first place, no one was sure about.
"Why in the dead of night?" Ron questioned.
"Well, for one, last year Hedwig was locked up so that he couldn't send us any letters. And two, you likely got him in trouble."
"Weird contraptions." Ron mumbled.
"You really shouldn't have shouted." Skylar muttered.
Ron and Skylar were sitting at the kitchen table at the Weasley's house, Mr. Weasley beside them looking expectant. Ron had a weird contraption before him that was apparently called a telephone. It was a box, with numbers on one side and a slightly curved rectangle with holes in it on the other. Apparently this bit was the phone that muggles spoke through.
Ron had the phone in his hand and there was a piece of parchment on the table beside him, a list of numbers written on it. Harry had given Skylar, Ron and Hermione the phone number for his aunt and uncle's house. Skylar wasn't brave enough to venture the strange contraption but Ron, with the guidance of Mr. Weasley, who loved anything to do with muggles, decided to give it a try.
He input the numbers on the parchment and his father told him to put it by his ear, which he did.
"It's making a funny noise." Ron admitted.
"It's ringing." Mr. Weasley beamed.
And then it stopped and Mr. Weasley and Skylar briefly heard a noise coming from the thing in Ron's hand.
"Vernon Dursley speaking."
"HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I — WANT — TO — TALK — TO — HARRY — POTTER!"
Ron suddenly bellowed into the piece so loudly that Skylar jumped, put her hands over her ears and looked at him in shock. Mr. Weasley had also put his hands over his ears and was looking very unsurely at his son.
The voice that responded was now loud as well… Skylar wasn't sure if that was what was supposed to happen.
"WHO IS THIS?" roared Vernon Dursley on the other end. "WHO ARE YOU?"
"RON — WEASLEY!" Ron bellowed back, as though he and Uncle Vernon were speaking from opposite ends of a quidditch pitch. "I'M — A — FRIEND — OF — HARRY'S — FROM — SCHOOL —"
There was silence for a moment and Ron looked at the thing unsurely. Was the thing dead? Had it stopped working?
And then there was another bellowing response.
"THERE IS NO HARRY POTTER HERE!" he roared. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT SCHOOL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! NEVER CONTACT ME AGAIN! DON'T YOU COME NEAR MY FAMILY!"
And then there was a beeping noise.
The three of them looked at the machine.
"Um…" Skylar said, "Well he sounded angry…"
"I don't think you needed to shout Ron." Mr. Weasley admitted as he took the phone from Ron and out it back down again with the buttons.
"He sounded really angry at the end there." Skylar admitted.
"Do you think we got the wrong number?" Ron thought, peering at the paper.
"No, 'Dursley' is definitely the last name of Harry's family." Skylar assured him. "We did think they'd be unhappy with us calling them…" she looked slightly worried.
"Think Harry's in trouble?" Ron wondered.
"Sounds like a given…" she mumbled. Ron frowned looking guilty. "I'm just glad you're the one who tried it and not me. But why were you shouting so loud?" She questioned.
"So he could hear me." Ron responded.
"What you think Muggles shout down those things?" She wondered curiously.
"I don't know, but I don't know how they can hear down these box things in the first place." Ron admitted.
It had been a funny ordeal to laugh about afterwards though. She just hoped Harry hadn't been punished too badly.
"Harry said his uncle had blown his top, that you didn't need to shout, and that you probably shouldn't have mentioned Hogwarts." Skylar admitted as she continued to write her essay while Ron looked around the study.
"How else were they supposed to know who I was?" He asked.
"You have to remember that Harry's family isn't normal." Skylar mumbled.
"I told Hermione about it, warned her not to call." Ron confessed.
"You know Hermione's muggle-born right? She'd actually know how to use the… what ever it was." Skylar reminded him.
"Telephone." Ron said.
"I'm surprised you remember that." Skylar mumbled.
Hermione Granger was the two's other good friend. She was muggle-born, bushy haired with rather big front teeth and the brightest student out of their entire year. She was capable of remembering their entire textbooks off by heart and always had information coming out of her ears.
"By the way did you hear that Hermione's going to France?" Skylar remembered.
"No?" Ron confessed.
"Yeah her parents have decided to take her to France for the last stretch of the holidays. She said she'll be back in time for the train obviously."
"Lucky. I can't remember when I last went away." Ron said.
"Well, you did miss going to see Charlie two Christmas' ago… and you chose not to see Bill last Christmas." Skylar reminded him, "So really it's your own fault."
"Not seeing Charlie wasn't my choice. And we had polyjuice potion to take last Christmas." Ron defended.
"You didn't have to take the potion."
"And miss out on getting a confession out of Malfoy?"
"But we didn't get a confession." Skylar smirked.
Ron and Skylar, along with Harry and Hermione, were both enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, all four going into their third year. The year before, the school had been plagued with attacks on Muggle-borns, petrifying them so they were basically statues. It had turned out a giant snake called a basilisk had been the culprit while a ghost like version of You-Know-Who had been behind it all. Harry had defeated both the memory and the basilisk in order to save Ron's younger sister Ginny Weasley.
There had been a point where the four were suspicious of Draco Malfoy, Harry's sworn enemy, being the culprit, and so they had devised a plan to get a confession. Hermione had decided they could take a potion that turned them into other people, Slytherins being the obvious choice, so that they could get a confession from Malfoy without him knowing it was them. They'd done it over Christmas, the four of them staying at the school for the holidays and so Ron had missed a visit to Egypt.
As it had turned out, Ginny had been the one opening the chamber and attacking the Muggle-borns. She was being possessed and controlled by You-Know-Who through a diary he had put his memories into. A diary in which Ginny wrote and confided in for the year.
"Well, it seemed very likely that it was him at the time."
"Probably why we were so wrong." Skylar said. "If you're trying to kill people, the last thing you want is everyone suspecting you."
Ron rested his arms on the desk and leant his chin on his arms in his boredom.
"Are you even going to try and finish this essay?" Skylar sighed.
Ron just looked at her.
"You're going to have to do it regardless of whether it's today or tomorrow." She said.
He still just looked at her.
"What difference does that make?" She questioned. "And just because I can hear what you're thinking doesn't mean you shouldn't make the effort to actually talk to me." She grumbled.
The Rosenwald family was a pureblooded family, like the Weasleys, only with a special gift to the name. All those with Rosenwald blood were capable of legilimency, the skill to interpret people's thoughts. Muggles called it mind reading, but a legilimens was capable of reading, manipulating and controlling another's mind. Skylar was the most gifted of the three Rosenwald children at this gift, while Nick was rather skilled in its opposite, Occlumency, the ability to keep Legilimens out of one's head.
The two turned as there was a distant pop from outside and then the front door sounded.
"Sky!" The girl looked towards the door as her father's voice travelled through the house towards her.
"We're up here." She responded.
There was a scuffle as Skylar assumed Midori was collecting her father's coat and briefcase, before his footsteps sounded up the stairs and then down the hall before Nathaniel Rosenwald appeared in the doorway. Like his sons, he had brown hair and like his daughter he had bright blue eyes. Head of the family, he was the original legilimens of his children, though all their ability far surpassed his.
"Ah, Ronald, you are here." He grinned. He looked most excited.
"Yeah?" Ron looked worried like he'd done something wrong as Nathaniel walked into the room.
"I highly suggest you pack up your things and head home, your father has something to share with you." Nathaniel said, and he was grinning as he said it.
Ron looked at Skylar who rose an eyebrow.
"Something bad?" Ron asked carefully.
"Quite the contrary." Nathaniel assured. "He made me promise not to tell you before he could."
Ron now looked curious. He turned to Skylar who shrugged before he began to roll up his essay, which only had a few inches on it, grabbed his books and began to move to the door.
"See you tomorrow Sky." He said.
"Get that essay finished!" She responded as he disappeared through the door and down the hall.
"Yes, Hermione." He called back and she grumbled under her breath.
Skylar turned back to her father. "What's up?"
"Every year the Daily Prophet has a Grand Prize Galleon Draw. This year, Arthur has won it." Nathaniel said grinning.
Skylar beamed. "Seriously?!" She asked and he nodded. "Wow! That's amazing!"
The Weasleys were a very large family, with seven children, and the two parents. Ron was the last son, being followed by the only girl, Ginny. Above him were the twins, Fred and George, Percy, who would be going into his final year of Hogwarts, and finally there was Charlie, and the oldest, Bill. Charlie and Bill had both already left Hogwarts. Charlie was pursuing his dream of dragons by working with them in Romania, while Bill worked in Egypt as a curse breaker for Gringotts, the Wizard Bank. The large family were warm, welcoming and lovely to be around, but they were, unfortunately, extremely poor, and no one deserved such a prize as they did.
"Fantastic! Ron can get a new wand!" Skylar grinned.
The year before, Ron and Harry had missed the train to school on the first of September and so they had decided, in their infinite wisdom, to steal Mr. Weasley's Ford Anglia. Mr. Weasley had charmed the car so that it could fly, and the two boys flew the car to school. In this ordeal, the two had ended up crashing into a tree on the school grounds. The Whomping Willow however was a tree that gladly hit back, and Ron had broken his wand during the process. Ron had struggled through all of his lessons the year previously due to his wand backfiring, hissing, puffing smoke and messing up even the simplest of spells.
"I think Arthur is thinking of treating his entire family with it." Nathaniel admitted.
"By doing what?" She wondered curiously.
Nathaniel shrugged and turned to leave the room with a grin.
Skylar gapped at her father before she got to her feet. "You can't keep secrets from me old man! I will find out!" She called after him as he turned the corner.
Nathaniel's laughter sounded down the hall as his daughter grumbled and sat herself back down to continue her essay.