Adventures of Harriet Potter

At Flourish and Blotts

Life at the Burrow was as different as possible from life on Privet Drive. The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered; the Weasleys' house burst with the strange and unexpected. Harriet got a shock the first time she looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, "Comb your hair, scruffy!" The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he felt things were getting too quiet, and small explosions from Fred and George's bedroom were considered perfectly normal. What Harriet found most unusual about life at Ron's, however, wasn't the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul: It was the fact that everybody there seemed to like her.
Mrs. Weasley fussed over the state of her socks — and clothes in general — and tried to force her to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Mr. Weasley liked Harriet to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard her with questions about life with Muggles, asking her to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked. Harriet was regularly moved to tears, feeling the love she'd been denied for so long. She regularly hugged Mr. and Mrs. Weasley as tight as she could. "Fascinating!" he would say as Harriet talked him through using a telephone. "Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic."
Harriet heard from Hogwarts one sunny morning about a week after she had arrived at the Burrow. Her and Ron — she'd had a bit of a lie in while Ginny had gotten up early — went down to breakfast to find Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table. The moment she saw Harriet, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter. Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harriet entered a room, and Harriet's heart gave a weirdly pleasant squeeze every time she saw the ginger haired girl she was sharing a room with. She dived under the table to retrieve the bowl and emerged with her face glowing like the setting sun. Pretending she hadn't noticed this, even though she had, Harriet sat down and took the toast Mrs. Weasley offered her.
"Letters from school," said Mr. Weasley, passing Harriet and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're here, Harriet — doesn't miss a trick, that man. You two've got them, too," he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas. For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. Harriet's told her to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September first. There was also a list of the new books she'd need for the coming year.

SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart

Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harriet's. "You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan — bet it's a witch." Harriet noted that the guide to household pests had been absent from the list, which surprised her as she'd been reading it regularly and found it fascinating. At this point, Fred caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.
"That lot won't come cheap," said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive. . . ." Harriet felt guilty as she could afford enough copies for everyone, probably wouldn't even put a dent in what was in her vault. "Well, we'll manage," said Mrs. Weasley, but she looked worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."
"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harriet asked Ginny, trying for the millionth time since arriving at the Burrow to get the youngest Weasley to open up to her. She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Fortunately no one saw this except Harriet, because just then Ron's elder brother Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest. She was certain it was technically a violation of statues of secrecy dress code but wasn't going to tell him. After all, Muggles tended to wear all manner of wild badges as well so Percy's wouldn't stand out too much.
"Morning, all," said Percy briskly. "Lovely day." He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a molting, gray feather duster — at least, that was what Harriet thought it was, until she saw that it was breathing. "Errol!" said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. "Finally — he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys." He carried Errol to a perch just inside the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so Ron laid him on the draining board instead, muttering, "Pathetic." Then he ripped open Hermione's letter and read it out loud: