Lucy Potter: Harry's little sister

Chapter 6: The floo trip

Ginny's POV:

The day after our Hogwarts letters had arrived, we were going to Diagon Alley, to get books and supplies.

"How are we gonna pay for these books?" George asked Mom at breakfast. "These Lockart books aren't cheap."

That's right: the entire book list existed of books by Gilderoy Lockart, a big author, who wrote many sorts of books and was pretty hot too.

Mom in particular, fancies him. She collects his books on housekeeping.

Apparantly, our DADA professor was a fan, according to my brothers, a woman.

We were having breakfast together, but Lucy was not there.

"Mom, is Lucy ill?" I asked my mom, who was piling food on Harry's plate. "I haven't seen her since yesterday evening, when she said she wasn't feeling well."

"Poor girl..." Mom sighed sadly. "I'm sure she's alright. I'll go and see."

She was about to go upstairs, when Harry hastily almost jumped up. "No, I'll go!"

Everyone looked at him with raised eye- brows at his sudden outburst. "I mean, you should... er..."

We were all quiet, but it was getting a bit awkward. Harry obviously didn't know what to say, so after a few minutes of thinking, he just went upstairs.

"Second floor!" Mom called after him. He disappeared upstairs and we sat there, in complete silence.

Harry's POV:

I quickly went upstairs, relieved to escape the tension with the Weasleys. Why was I being so awkward and weird?

There were two bedrooms on the second floor. One door was open and I could see it was empty.

"Lucy?" I said to the closed door, behind which Lucy was supposed to have been 'sleeping'.

No answer came. Wasn't she back yet?

"Lu, it's me. Are you in there?" Still no answer. Or so I thought: when I was about to speak again, I barely caught a small: "come in".

I opened the door and had to restrain myself from gasping too loudly. She looked awful, with quite a few new, fresh and bleeding cuts everywhere and many bruises and she was very pale.

She looked tired and pretty ill.

"Lu, are you OK?" I sat down next to her on the bed, where she lay. I could tell she was trying to lay as still as possible.

"I'll live." The answer came out weakly and quietly. She looked up at me and sighed.

"I'm not coming with you guys today," she said. "I can't, I'm completely messed up!"

I nodded in understanding. She was right: if she went out in public now, people would get suspicious, especially since she's Lucy Potter.

"I'll tell the Weasleys you're too ill to come. Can I get you something?"

"Maybe some water? I haven't had time to get some... or the energy."

"I'll take something to clean you up as well," and with that, I went back downstairs.

The hardest part was making sure Mrs. Weasley and Ginny wouldn't come up with me and see how she was.

"She's pretty tired, I'll just go up, give her this and she can get some sleep," I protested.

"But sweety, you still have to eat your toast! I'll give her those!" She tried to take the drink and food from me, but I stepped back.

"It's fine, I'll eat it after! I'll be back in a minute."