Chapter 2: Life at the Burrow
They got out of the car and Cassia looked at the Burrow again.
"Okay, now we'll go upstairs really quietly and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and Cassia, and no one need ever know we flew the car," Fred told them.
Cassia wondered how that was going to be believable. It wasn't like there was some sort of wizarding bus system to take them here overnight. She frowned and looked at Fred. "How—" She trailed off, noticing how he seemed to have shrank back, along with George.
"Right," Ron interrupted. "Come on, Harry and Cassia, I sleep at the – at the top—"
Cassia looked at him confused and saw he had turned a rather greenish color and looked forward, noticing Mrs Weasley marching across the yard. Despite being looking like a plump, kind-faced woman, she resembled a saber-toothed tiger that Cassia saw in an animal book once when she was younger. She was wearing a floral apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.
"Ah," Fred said.
"Oh, dear," George said.
Mrs Weasley came to stop in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She said, "So."
"Morning, Mum," George said, trying to use a jaunty, winning voice.
"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" Mrs Weasley asked in a deadly whisper.
Ron said, "Sorry, Mum, but see, we had too—"
Mrs Weasley interrupted him, by shouting, "Beds empty! No note! Car gone – could have crashed – out of my mind with worry – did you care? – never, as long as I've lived – you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy—"
Cassia noticed that even though the Weasley boys were taller than their mother, they were cowering before her.
"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.
"You could do with taking a leaf out of Percy's book!" Mrs Weasley yelled. She prodded Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job—"
Cassia looked at Harry, who looked almost as awkward as she felt. It must've been embarrassing to the Weasley boys having their mother yelling at them, right in front of their friends. Harry looked back at her.
After a while, Mrs Weasley seemed to have finally shouted herself hoarse, turned to Cassia and Harry. The both of them backed away, Cassia was a little terrified that Mrs Weasley was going to yell at them, too.
"I'm very pleased to see you two dears," Mrs Weasley said, smiling. "Come in and have some breakfast." She turned and walked back inside the house as if she didn't yell at her songs.
Harry and Cassia looked at Ron, both equally stunned. Ron nodded encouragingly and the two Potters walked after Mrs Weasley.
They were led passed the living room, which seemed cozy, with a sofa, armchairs, a fireplace, and a wooden wireless set. There was a clock with what looked like multiple hands.
They entered the kitchen, which was small and cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle of the kitchen. Cassia set the cage on the table. The Potter twins both tried to sit in the same chair, only to slap at each other's hands for the seat. Cassia took the chair next to Harry's instead and looked at the clock on the wall opposite of them. It had one hand and no numbers at all. Written along the edge was 'Time to make tea,' 'Time to feed the chickens,' and 'you're late.' It had many pendulums and three bells on it.
She looked and found books on the mantelpiece, which had titles like, Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts – It's Magic!
"Now coming up is Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck," the radio announced.
Cassia watched as Mrs Weasley clattered around the kitchen, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons, while she threw sausages into the frying pan.
"I don't blame you two, dears," Mrs Weasley assured Harry and Cassia, tipping eight sausages onto their plates. "Arthur and I have been worried about you both as well. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really—" she added three fried eggs to each of their plates, "flying an illegal car halfway across the country – anyone could have seen you—"
She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves. Cassia found it a little weird having someone else give her food instead of her getting it herself.
"It was cloudy, Mum!" Fred said, through a mouthful of food.
"You keep your mouth closed when you're eating!" Mrs Weasley snapped at him.
George stated, "They were starving them, Mum!"
"And you!" Mrs Weasley responded, but she seemed to have softened. She cut some bread for Harry and Cassia, and buttered it for them.
Cassia was eating some sausage when she noticed a red-haired girl, wearing a nightdress walked in. Harry looked over and the girl squealed and ran out. The Potter twins looked at Ron.
"Ginny," Ron whispered to them, "my sister. She's been talking about you, Harry, all summer."
Fred grinned, "Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry." He caught his mother's eye, and lowered his head to his food.
Nothing more was said until all five plates were empty of food.
Fred set down his knife and fork, and then yawned. "Blimey, I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed and—"
"You will not. It's your own fault you've been up all night," Mrs Weasley snapped. "You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again—"
Fred interrupted, "Oh, Mum—"
"And you two," she said, glaring at George and Ron. She turned to Harry and Cassia. "You two didn't ask them to fly that wretched car—"
"I'll help Ron," Harry interrupted. "I've never seen a de-gnoming—"
"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," Mrs Weasley said. She took a thick book off of the mantelpiece. "Now let's see what Lockhart has to say on the subject—"
George groaned, "Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden—"
Cassia looked at the cover of the book. There was fancy gold letters across the book that read: Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests. There was a big picture of a wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. In a way, Cassia figured that Gilderoy Lockhart was rather good-looking. The picture of Gilderoy Lockhart was winking up at them and Cassia felt her face heat up. Harry looked at her.
Mrs Weasley beamed down at the cover. "Oh, he is marvelous. He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book."
"Mum fancies him," Fred said in an audible whisper to Harry and Cassia.
"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," Mrs Weasley said, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come to inspect it."
The Weasleys got up and slouched outside. Harry stood up and walked with them, but he and Ron turned around to look at Cassia.
"Are you going to come with us?" Harry asked.
"I was thinking that I should do the holiday homework," Cassia told them.
"How can you work? We're on holiday," Ron stated.
Mrs Weasley looked at him, "because, unlike you, she's doing her responsibility."
Cassia shrugged. "Well, there's that. I also have to tell Lily, Sally-Anne, Terence, and Adrian what happened and why I wasn't responding to them. I think Hedwig would appreciate the flight, considering she was trapped in the cage for a while."
"But it's a de-gnoming," Harry said.
"I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities soon," Cassia countered.
"All right," Harry said.
With that the two boys went out back. Cassia set her messenger bag on the table and got out some parchment to send out some letters to her friends. She looked at the parchment and wondered how she should start with the letters. Finally, she managed to find the words and started writing out what happened. After she finished the letters, she set them aside and took out the things she needed for Potions class, one of her favourite subjects ever.
Mrs Weasley had made some tea and set the teapot down on the table. She even set a cup down and poured Cassia some tea.
Cassia looked at her, "Thank you, Mrs Weasley."
"It's no problem, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, smiling.
Cassia was halfway done with her essay when the front door slammed shut, causing her to jump up and send her ink bottle halfway across the table. "Oh, I'm sorry Mrs Weasley." She went to find a towl.
"It's okay, dear," Mrs Weasley said, walking over to table. She pointed her wand at the ink and said, "Tergeo." The spilt ink was removed from the table. Mrs Weasley picked up Harvest's carrier. "I'll put—"
"Harvest," Cassia answered
"Harvest's carrier in Ginny's room, where you'll be staying," Mrs Weasley told her. She walked out of the kitchen.
Mr Weasley walked into the kitchen, grabbed a teacup, and slumped into a chair. He was wearing what looked like dusty, travel-worn green robes. The three Weasley boys and Harry walked in. Harry sat down next to Cassia, as the Weasley boys gathered around their father.
Mr Weasley groped for the teapot, found it, and poured himself a cup. "What a night," he mumbled. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned." He took a long gulp of tea.
"Find anything, Dad?" Fred asked, sounding eager.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," Mr Weasley said. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness…"
George asked, "Why would anyone bother making door keys shrinks?"
In a way, Cassia thought it was odd that George would ask that since he was a prankster. Wouldn't his first thought would be to prank someone?
Mr Weasley explained that shrinking the keys was just Muggle-baiting. Of course, the Muggles wouldn't think it was magic and just assume that they keep misplacing the keys. "But the things our lot has taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe—"
"Like cars, for instance?" Mrs Weasley interrupted, appearing in the kitchen, holding a long poker like a sword.
What was she doing with that poker? Cassia wondered, staring at it.
Mr Weasley asked, "C-cars, Molly, dear?"
Mrs Weasley said, "Yes, Arthur, cars. Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, whilereally he was enchanting it to make it fly."
Cassia looked at her parchment.
Mr Weasley started to explain, "Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if – er – he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth…There's a loophole in the law, you'll find…As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that car could fly wouldn't—"
"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" Mrs Weasley shouted, interrupting her husband. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry and Cassia arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"
Cassia looked up to see that Mr Weasley looked confused, "Harry and Cassia who?" He looked around and saw the Potter twins. He jumped, "Good lord, is it Harry and Cassia Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about you t—"
"Your sons flew that car to Surrey and back last night!" Mrs Weasley shouted again. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
Mr. Weasley looked at his sons, and sounded eager, "Did you really? Did it go all right?" He saw Mrs Weasley and Cassia could've sworn she saw sparks flying from her eyes. "I – I mean, that – that was very wrong, boys – very wrong indeed…"
"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Harry and Cassia. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom."
"But – homework," Cassia said. She noticed how Mrs Weasley swelled up. "In second thought…"
She followed after them as they went down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound and zigzagged up through the house. On the third landing, a door was opened ajar and it closed. There was a plaque that said: Guinevra's Room.
"Ginny," Ron explained. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally—"
Two more flights in and they stepped outside a door that had peeling paint. A plaque said: Ronald's Room on it.
When Ron opened the door, Cassia's first thought was, Orange! It's hideous!
Everything was orange; the bedspread, the walls, and the ceiling. There was a bunch of posters of the same seven witches and wizards covering the wall.
Harry's head almost touched the ceiling.
Cassia noticed a pile of comics titled The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. She went over and grabbed the top comic. She picked it up and looked at it.
Harry asked, "Your Quidditch team?"
"The Chudley Cannons," Ron explained, "The ninth in the league."
Cassia opened the comic and looked at it. Strangely enough, the pictures weren't moving. She looked at Ron, "Hey. How come the characters in the panels don't move?"
Ron shrugged, "Don't know. I think it would be hard to have each panel move."
Cassia looked at the panels, "Oh."
Ron said, "It's a bit small. Not like that room you both have with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on the pipes and groaning…"
"This is the best house I've ever been in," Harry asked.
"Yeah, what he said," Cassia agreed, not looking up from the comic. It seemed interesting.
Later that night, Ginny led Cassia up to her room, after Harry and Ron retreated to Ron's room. Ginny opened the door and Cassia stepped inside the room.
The room was small and had pink walls. There was a desk facing the window that Ginny's desk was beside. Right next to Ginny's desk was Cassia's trunk where Harvest's carrier was resting on. There was a rolled-out mattress on the floor, with a blanket and a pillow laid out on it. She went to the mattress and sat down on it. Cassia walked over to her trunk and put her messenger bag down and opened Harvest's carrier. She looked out the window to see what would be a nice view of the orchid during the daytime. She nodded, "Nice view."
"I know," Ginny said with a smile.
Cassia looked and noticed a large poster of an eight-member male band. They were hairy and wore black robes that seemed to be torn in an artful way. Cassia thought that some of the band members were kind of good-looking, despite the hairiness.
"They're the Weird Sisters," Ginny explained, noticing Cassia looking.
"Ah," Cassia replied and looked noticed a poster of a dark-skinned witch in dark green robes and there was a golden talon on the chest.
"Gwenog Jones. She's the Captain and Beater of the all-witch Quidditch team, Holyhead Harpies," Ginny explained. She grinned broadly, "One day I'm going to play for them."
Cassia questioned, "Which position?"
"Either Beater or Chaser," Ginny explained.
"Good idea," Cassia stated and went to her trunk. She opened it and took out some origami paper that she found in Dudley's room. She went to the mattress and sat down cross-legged. She started to make a paper crane in the instruction book that she had read during the time she was on lockdown.
"Sorry for not being a great conversationalist," Ginny said. "I just never had what amounted to a sleepover before."
"I feel the same way. I never really had a friend before. It was just me and Harry," Cassia admitted. "Growing up with two boys, you know…"
"I know," Ginny said. "You never had a friend before?"
"Yeah," Cassia admitted. "My cousin is a bully. He didn't want me and Harry to have friends. If we did, he would scare them off."
Ginny asked, "What did the Muggles do?"
"My aunt and uncle just turned a blind-eye to it all. My cousin's friend, Piers, was…the worst of the lot. The teachers thought that Piers had a crush on me," Cassia admitted.
Ginny asked, "Does he?"
"Hell if I know," Cassia muttered.
Ginny asked, "What does Harry do when Piers picked on you?" Ginny asked.
"Harry tries to stop him. When they target him, I try to step in and help," Cassia explained. "I protect him and he protects me. That's how it goes."
Ginny seemed a little proud at the thought of Harry protecting Cassia. "He's a good brother."
"He is, although we had some fights when we were younger on what chores to do," Cassia said.
There was a small explosion from upstairs and Cassia jumped up at the sound. Ginny laughed, "Oh, that's Fred and George. Those explosions occur very frequently. You'll get used to it."
Cassia looked at her, "Good to know." She finished the crane and held it out to Ginny, who took it, setting it on her desk.
Cassia lay back down on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Strangely enough, the mattress was actually comfortable. "Good night, Ginny."
"Good night, Cassia," Ginny replied, a little confused.
Cassia fell asleep.
The next morning, Cassia made her way to the living room. She had almost walked by the other clock and went to look at it. It also didn't tell the time as well. She noticed that it indicated the status of each Weasley family, because it had nine hands, for each member, along with their pictures. There were phrases like, 'home,' 'school,' 'work,' 'traveling,' 'lost,' 'dentist,' 'hospital,' 'prison,' and oddly enough, 'mortal peril.'
So far, the nine Weasleys had their hands pointed at 'home', but she noticed two other Weasleys that she didn't recognize.
"That's one Bill and that's one Charlie," Ron told her, as he noticed her looking.
"Oh," Cassia replied. "What does Bill do? I don't remember if you said."
"He works as a Curse Breaker in Egypt," Ron explained.
Cassia asked, "What classes do you take to become a Curse Breaker?"
"From what I've been told, being a Curse Breaker is challenging. It involves travel, danger, adventure," Ron explained.
Cassia nodded, remembering that Ollivander told her that her wand, made out of maple wood, needed fresh challenges and regular changes of scene to make it literally shine. Being a Curse Breaker sounded like a job for maple wand users. "What is required for that job?"
Ron gave her a strange look, "I don't know. I'll owl Bill for you."
"All right, thanks," Cassia said with a smile, and Ron walked in the kitchen, muttering something like 'Hufflepuff Hermione.'
That afternoon, Cassia rewrote the letters that she hadn't sent off, explaining that a house-elf had been stealing their letters and didn't return them, and Uncle Vernon had locked Hedwig in her cage, so they had no way to get her out. She wasn't sure where her friends were, but she knew that Hedwig would find them. She considered getting her own owl, so she wasn't relying on Hedwig or the school owls.
It took a few days for Hedwig returned with replies from Cassia's friends. They said that they were relieved that nothing to serious happened. She sent out some letters wondering if they wanted to hang out together some times.
Two days after Cassia asked about it, Ron had given Cassia the reply from Bill about the requirements to become a Curse-Breaker.
Apparently she needed an OWL in Arithmancy because banking and transacting is required. She needed NEWTS in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguartion, Charms, and Ancient Runes.
When she saw Arithmancy and the Study of Ancient Runes, she was sure they were electives. She asked Adrian and Terence about it, so they replied back with lists of extra-curricular activities and electives for third-year.
Life at the Burrow was interesting. The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he felt that things were getting too quiet. Ginny was right when she said that the explosions from the Weasleys twins' bedroom was a frequent thing. When Cassia had looked in the mirror on the kitchen mantle, it shouted at her, "Straighten your clothes!"
It seemed that the Weasleys actually seemed to like her and Harry. Mrs Weasley fussed over their socks and tried to get Harry to have fourth helpings at every meal, while she tried to get Cassia to have third helpings. Mr Weasleys had made them sit next to him so he can ask them questions like how plugs and the postal service worked. He even asked Harry what the function of a rubber duck was.
Cassia even explained what a desktop was and what computer games were like, much to Mr Weasley's delight.
Sometimes at night, Ginny would drag her out to the paddock where the Weasleys store their broomsticks, and test out each broomstick. Cassia had been taking Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand out for these nightly strolls and allowed Ginny to ride it.
One day, Harry had dragged Cassia out back to de-gnome the garden. After showing her what to do, Cassia had to say, "I never thought I would know what the feeling like what a home is like."
Harry threw a gnome over the garden wall. "What about Hogwarts?"
Cassia started, "I know there's Hogwarts and it does feel like home, but the Burrow…"
"Feels like home, too," Harry finished for her.
Cassia nodded, "Yeah."
"It feels like home to me, too," Harry admitted.