W E A S L E Y ' S W I Z A R D W H E E Z E S "I just dropped it. . . . It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
AURORA SPUN FASTER and faster, elbows tucked tightly to her sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past her, until she started to feel sick and closed her eyes. Then, when at last she felt herself slowing down, she threw out her hands and came to a halt in time to prevent herself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.
"Did he eat it?" Aurora heard Fred say excitedly.
"Yeah," She heard Harry say.
They were only meters away from her. They pulled her out and Aurora asked, straightening up. "What was it?"
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," Fred said brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Aurora looked around and saw that Ron and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people Aurora had never seen before, though she knew immediately who they must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.
"How're you doing, Harry, Aurora?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at them and holding out a large hand, which they shook, feeling calluses and blisters under her fingers.
This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather- beaten and so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it.
Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's and Aurora's hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Aurora knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Aurora had always imagined Bill to be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone around.
However, Bill was — there was no other word for it — cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Aurora recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than Aurora had ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," Fred said, 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!" Mr. Weasley roared. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.
