Ember. It means fire. Ember was never safe. Even before she was born she was coverted. Hunted. She's the last of her kind. Once there were many. Once there were four. Four families. One for each element. Air. Water. Earth. Fire. Every other family e...
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"I knew it!" yelled Ron, punching the air. "You always get away with stuff!"
"Oh thank god!" Ember said in relief and she hugged Harry tightly.
"They were bound to clear you,'' said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, "there was no case against you, none at all."
"Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I'd get off," said Harry, smiling.
Mrs. Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George, and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: "He got off, he got off, he got off -"
Ember laughed at them.
"That's enough! Settle down!" shouted Mr. Weasley, though he too was smiling. "Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry -"
"What?" said Sirius sharply.
"He got off, he got off, he got off -" Fred, George and Ginny chanted.
"Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, then they went up to Fudge's office together. Dumbledore ought to know." Mr Weasley said.
"Absolutely," said Sirius. "We'll tell him, don't worry."
"Well, I'd better get going, there's a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner -"
"He got off, he got off, he got off -"
"That's enough - Fred - George - Ginny!" said Mrs. Weasley, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen. "Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast. . ."
Ron and Hermione sat themselves down opposite him as Ember sat next to him, looking happier than they had done since he had first arrived at Grimmauld Place, and Harry's feeling of giddy relief, which had been somewhat dented by his encounter with Lucius Malfoy, swelled again. The gloomy house seemed warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden; even Kreacher looked less ugly as he poked his snoutlike nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.
" 'Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,'' said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potato on to everyone's plates.
"Yeah, he swung it for me," said Harry. He felt it would sound highly ungrateful, not to mention childish, to say, "I wish he'd talked to me, though. Or even looked at me."
And as he thought this, the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand to it. . .
"I know it sucks, Harry, but he is busy - what's wrong?" Ember said, alarmed.
"Scar," Harry mumbled. "But it's nothing. . . It happens all the time now. . ."
