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33

Fourth-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 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."

I snickered as Fred caught mum's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade. "That lot won't come cheap," said George, with a quick look at mum and dad. "Lockhart's books are really expensive."

"Well, we'll manage," said mum, 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?" Harry asked Ginny.

I laughed as she nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Fortunately no one saw this except Harry and I, since just then Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest.

"Morning, all," Percy said briskly. "Lovely day."

He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him what looked like a molting, gray feather duster. I rolled my eyes as the rest of my family realized what, or rather who, it was. Errol.

"Errol!" exclaimed 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 to read it out loud:

"'Dear Ron, and Harry if you're there,

"'I do hope everything went all right and that Harry is okay and that you didn't do anything illegal to get him out, Ron, because that would get Harry into trouble, too. I've been really worried and if Harry is all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl, because I think another delivery might finish your one off.

"'I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course'-How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on vacation!- 'and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley?

"'And Ronald, hand this last bit for Roxanne. I'll send her a separate later, but she'll have to owl me first. I've missed you, Roxanne! I'm excited to see you... you've been busy with school work as well, right?

"'Let me know what's happening as soon as you can. Love from Hermione.'"

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too," said mum, starting to clear the table. "What're you all up to today?"

[][][][]

I'd been planning to go up the hill to a small paddock we owned with Harry, Fred and George. It was surrounded by trees that blocked it from view of the village below, meaning that we could practice Quidditch there, as long as we didn't fly too high.

We couldn't use real Quidditch balls, which would have been hard to explain if they had escaped and flown away over the village; instead we threw apples for one another to catch. We took turns riding Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand, which was easily the best broom; Ron's old Shooting Star was often outstripped by passing butterflies.