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. Harry got a shock the first time he looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, "Tuck your shirt in, scruffy!"
Fred and George snorted at his expression.
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.
"No one is concerned by the sudden explosions?" Lily frowned.
"If that was me and Sirius would you be surprised?" James asked.
"I see your point," Lily nodded.
What Harry 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 him.
"That's really sad."
Molly fussed over the state of his socks and tried to force him to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Arthur liked Harry to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard him with questions about life with Muggles, asking him to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.
"Fascinating!" he would say as Harry talked him through using a telephone. "Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg. They sent people to the moon in 1969," Colin told people.
"Seriously?!" Arthur gasped.
The screen changed to one sunny morning about a week after Harry had arrived at the Burrow. He and Ron went down to breakfast to find Arthur, Molly and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table.
The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter. Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harry entered a room. She dived under the table to retrieve the bowl and emerged with her face glowing like the setting sun. Harry sat down and took the toast Molly offered him.
Ginny hid her face in Luna. "Oh Godric," she muttered.
"Letters from school," Arthur said, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're here, Harry—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. Harry's told him to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September first. There was the list of the new books he'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.
"Oh not Lockhart," Bellatrix sighed. "Pain in the arse."
Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harry'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." At this point, Fred caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.
YOU ARE READING
MAGIC AND MYSTERY
FanfictionHermione Granger has a secret. She is the daughter of Bellatrix Black, and a member of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black However, one day, movies arrive in the great hall depicting her alter life as Enola Holmes and the secret starts to unra...
