meant to be (2)

4

We got out of the car. Harry offered me his hand but I happily ignored him.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly." explained Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then Ron, you come bounding downstairs going "Mum, look who turned up in the night!" and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one will ever know we flew the car."

"Right" said Ron. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the-"

Ron had gone a nasty greenish colour, his eyes fixed on the house. We all wheeled around.

Mrs Weasley was marching across the yard, catering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a sabre toothed tiger.

"Ah" said Fred.

"Oh dear" said George.

This was going to be bad.

Mrs Weasley came to a halt in front of us, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.

"So." she said.

"Morning Mum" said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice. How I managed not to laugh in this situation is beyond me.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs Weasley in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to-"

All three of Mrs Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone... could have crashed... out of my mind with worry... did you care?... never, as long as I've lived... you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy..."

"Perfect Percy" muttered Fred.

That was a huge mistake.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCYS BOOK!" yelled Mrs Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job, you-"

"Excuse me, Mrs Weasley..." I piped up, guilt for the three Weasley's flooding through me. "It's my fault.."

"What?" Mrs Weasley asked looking equally as shocked as the others. I cringed before continuing.

"I told the boy's I was worried about Harry. If I wouldn't have said anything we wouldn't have gone and got him."

To my utter surprise Mrs Weasley pulled me into a hug.

"Thanks for being honest, dear" she said. "Arthur and I have ben worried about Harry too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get him ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear." she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."

She turned and walked back into the house and we followed her.

"You were worried about me, Jules?" Harry asked me. We were the last ones and a bit behind everyone else, so no one heard us.

"Of course I wasn't." I hissed. "I just felt bad for Ron and the twins. I didn't want them to get yelled at."

"And yet you still love me." Harry answered. I stuck my tongue out at him while entering the house.

The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle and I slid in a chair between Harry and Ron.

"Pretty cool, right?" I asked while Harry nodded and looked at the clock which had only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like 'Time to make tea', 'Time to feed the chickens' and 'You're late'.

Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like 'Charm Your Own Cheese', 'Enchantment in Baking' and 'One Minute Feasts - It's Magic!' The old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck.

Mrs Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like 'don't know what you were thinking of and 'never would have believed it'.

"I don't blame you three" she assured Harry, Mason and I while throwing loads of sausages onto our plates.  "But really, (she was now adding three fried eggs each on our plates) "flying an illegal car halfway across the country - anyone could have seen you-"

She ficked her wand casually at the washing-up in the sink, which began to clean itself, clinking gently in the background.

"It was cloudy, Mum!" said Fred.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs Weasley snapped.

"They were starving him, Mum!" argued George.

"And you!" said Mrs Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression as she started cutting bread and buttering it for Harry, Mason and I. At that moment, Ginny in a long nightdress, appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal while looking at Harry, and ran out again.

"Ginny." said Ron in an undertone to Harry. "My sister. Shes been talking about you all summer!"

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry." grinned Fred, but he caught his mothers eye and bent his face over his plate without another word.

"Don't know what's gotten into her." George whispered to us. "She never acts like that."

Boys are so clueless.

Nothing more was said until all six plates were clean, which took a surprisingly short time.

"Blimey I'm tired." yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. " I think I'll go to bed and-"

"You will not!" snapped Mrs Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me, they're getting completely out of hand again!"

"Oh, Mum-" Fred argued.

"And you two" she said, glaring at Ron and George. "You three can go up to bed, Ginny's waiting for you, Julie." she added to Harry, Mason and I. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car!"

I grimaced at the three redheads before going up the stairs to Ginny's room. De-gnoming a garden was the very last thing I wanted to do right now.