Chapter 76: Reunited

A couple seconds later, Harry came through the fireplace, laughing hysterically as he fell on his ass.

"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his feet.

"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer."

We all laughed loudly and long as we sat down at the table with our older brothers.

"How you doing, Harry?" said Charlie, holding out his massive hand for Harry to shake. Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Harry looked impressed by Bill the most. He probably didn't picture someone working for a bank to look as cool as my brother did.

Before any of us could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Dad appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking very angry.

"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. I just dropped it. It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Dad. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet!"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

Harry and the rest of us, including Charlie and Bill, roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny! That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he, Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry.

"That's not the point! You wait until I tell your mother -"

"Tell me what?" said a voice behind us, causing my blood to freeze.

Mum had just entered the kitchen, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped back to Dad. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

Dad hesitated. However angry he was with Fred and George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mum what had happened. There was a silence, while Dad eyed Mum nervously. Then Hermione and Ginny appeared in the kitchen doorway, giggling. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go all red. Guess she still wasn't over her stupid crush.

"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mum repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.

"What we miss?" mouthed Ginny.

"It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Dad "Fred and George just - but I've had words with them -"

"What have they done this time?" said Mum. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -"

"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the doorway.

"He knows where he's sleeping," I said, looking at Hermione like she was barmy, "in my room, he slept there last -"

"We can all go." said Hermione pointedly, eyes signalling me.

"Oh," i said, catching on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mum.

Harry and I edged out of the kitchen. We, Hermione, and Ginny set off along the hallway and up the stairs leading up to my room.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as we climbed.

Ginny and I both laughed, although Hermione didn't.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room." I explained quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise."

"Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous, and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms. She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected." I said.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny continued, "because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office - and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."

"We're not thundering." I scoffed. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" said Harry.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year."

"That'll change the world, that report will," I mumbled. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-bottomed products that seriously endanger -"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," I said, as I started off upstairs again. Percy slammed his bedroom door shut. Soon, we heard yells. Mum must had found out about the toffees.

We entered my wonderfully orange room where Pig was in his cage, hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly.

"Shut up, Pig," I said, edging my way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into my room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room. Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."

"Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," I said sarcastically. "Ginny named him. She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."

It wasn't all that true. He did irk me from time to time, but he was a very entertaining bird.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry.

"Enjoying it?" I said darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. 'According to Mr. Crouch...as I was saying to Mr. Crouch... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion...Mr. Crouch was telling me...' They'll be announcing their engagement any day now."

"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" said Hermione. "Did you get our food parcels and everything?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot," said Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes."

"And have you heard from -?" I began, but Hermione had given me her "shut the fuck up" look. Ginny was in the room, and she still didn't know was really going on with Sirius.

"I think they've stopped arguing," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously at us. "Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?"

"Yeah, all right," I said, trying to be casual. The four of us left my room and went back downstairs to find Mum alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when we came in. "There's just not room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she said to Harry and I, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Harry knew she meant Fred and George. I don't know what's going to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can..."

As Mum got angrier and angrier with the twins trick wands, I decided to get out of there, so not to feel her wrath.

"C'mon," I said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie."

We had only gone a few paces when Hermione's more tolerable menace of a cat, Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, chasing a gnome. The gnome giggling madly as Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it.

Meanwhile, a very loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion was revealed as we entered the garden, and saw that Bill and Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.

"Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed.

"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.

"Wotcher, Ron, Harry." said Bill as Harry and I walked up to them.

"You seen to have fun making Percy mad like the twins do." said Harry to Bill.

"Ol Perce is alright." said Bill as he started to adjust the tables correctly. "He just takes himself too seriously."

"I think it's because of his name." said Charlie. "Percival is rather stuffy and boring, isn't it?"

"We've talked about this, Charles." laughed Bill, dragging Charlie's name out.

"Anyways," said Charlie, annoyed with a joke that Bill shared in between them. "you two ready? After dinner is when we will have it."

I groaned. Harry looked at me, confused.

"Have what?" asked Harry.

"Apparently, we are to have 'the talk' with Bill and Charlie" I said, moving Harry along.

"The talk? You mean we- ohhhhhhhh."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"No idea. Apparently Hermione's to blame. Something about approvals or some shit." I said, quickly.

"Is she going to get the talk too?"

"Hell no!"

"Okay, good. That would be embarrassing."

By seven o'clock, the two tables were filled with dishes and dishes of Mum's excellent cooking, and us nine Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were settling ourselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. Harry looked as if he had died and gone to heaven, and Mum encouraged him to stuff his face.

At the far end of the table, Percy was telling Dad all about his boring ass report on cauldron bottoms.

"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, it's extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman -"

"I like Ludo," said Dad mildly. "He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over."

"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," said Percy dismissively, "but how he ever got to be Head of Department...when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"

"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Dad, frowning. "He says Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was someone in my department, I'd be worried..."

"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth...but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However" - Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine - "we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."

Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table where Harry, Hermione, and I were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."

I rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, "He's been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons."

In the middle of the table, Mum was arguing with Bill about his earring, something she very much didn't approve of

"...with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure." said Bill patiently.

"And your hair's getting silly, dear," said Mum. "I wish you'd let me give it a trim."

"I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned, Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's..."

Next to Mum, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking about the World Cup.

"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals."

"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

"What happened?" said Harry eagerly. I bet it sucked to be out the loop on such things.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."

Dad conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before we had our homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time we had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle.

I looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy talking, then I said very quietly to Harry, "So - have you heard from Sirius lately?"

Hermione looked around, listening closely.

"Yeah," said Harry softly, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He might write back while I'm here."

He looked like he had note to say, but had stopped talking.

"Look at the time," Mum said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."

"Wow - hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.

"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy, as if it was an inconvenience. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."

"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.

"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"

"It was," Fred whispered to Harry and I as we got up from the table. "We sent it."