meant to be (2)

6

Life at The Burrow was as different as possible from life at home. Mason and I lived in a pretty ordinary house; the Weasleys' house burst with the strange and unexpected.

I got a shock the first time I looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted: "Tuck your shirt in, 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.

Mrs Weasley always tried to force me to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Mr Weasley liked Harry, Mason and I to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard us with questions about life with Muggles, asking us to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.

"Fascinating" he would say, as we talked him through using a telephone. "Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic!"

We heard from Hogwarts one sunny morning a few days after we had arrived at The Burrow. Ron, Harry and I went down to breakfast to find Mr and Mrs Weasley and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table.

The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the foor 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. Pretending we hadn't noticed this, we sat down and took the toast Mrs Weasley offered us.

"Letters from school." said Mr Weasley, passing Harry, Ron and I identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink.

"Dumbledore already knows you two are here - doesn't miss a trick, that man. You three've got them, too" she added, as Fred, George and Mason ambled in, still in their pyjamas.

For a few minutes there was silence as we all read our letters. Mine told me to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September the first. There was also a list of the new books I'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 LockhartTravels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
Year with the Tetiby Gilderoy Lockhart

Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at my letter.

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defence 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.

"That lot won't come cheap." said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive..."

"Well, we'll manage." said Mrs Weasley, but she looked worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginnys things second-hand."

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny. She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish, while I was trying to contain my sniggering. Fortunately no one saw this except Harry and I, because just then Ron's elder brother Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his knitted tank top.

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

"He's being weirder than usually" I whispered to Harry who quickly nodded.

He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a moulting, grey feather duster - at least, that was what I thought it was, until I saw that it was breathing, 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!"

"You wrote Mione?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. They were constantly bickering.

"Well-" he started turning pink "yeah. I thought she should know."

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" he said and then ripped open Hermione's letter and read it out loud:

'Dear Ron, Julie and Harry if you're there,
I hope everything went all right and that Harry is OK and that you didnt do anything illegal to get him out, Ron, Julie, 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.
Im very busy with school work, of course - ("How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on holiday!") - and were going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why dont we meet in Diagon Alley?
Let me know whats 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 Mrs Weasley, starting to clear the table. "What're you all up to today?"

Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Mason and I were planning to go up the hill to a small paddock the Weasleys owned. It was surrounded by trees that blocked it from view of the village below, meaning that we could practise Quidditch there, as long as we didn't fly too high. We couldn't use real Quiditch balls, which would have been hard to explain if they had escaped and flown away over the village; instead we threw apples for each other to catch.

The boys took it in turns to ride Harry ans I's Nimbus Two Thousands, which was easily the best broom; Ron's old Shooting Star was often outstripped by passing butterflies.

Five minutes later we were marching up the hill, broomsticks over our shoulders. We had asked Percy if he wanted to join us, but he had said he was busy. I had only seen Percy at meal-times so far; he stayed shut in his room the rest of the time.

"Wish I knew what he was up to!" said Fred, frowning. "Hes not himself. His exam results came the day before you did; twelve O.W.L.s and he hardly gloated at all!"

"Ordinary Wizarding Levels" George explained, seeing Harry's puzzled look. "Bill got twelve, too. If we're not careful, well have another Head Boy in the family. I don't think ! could stand the shame!"

Bill was the oldest Weasley brother. He and the next brother, Charlie, had already left Hogwarts. I had already met both of them multiple of times, but haven't seen both of them in years as Charlie was in Romania, studying dragons, and Bill in Egypt, working for the wizards bank, Gringotts.

"Dunno how Mum and Dad are going to afford all our school stuff this year." said George after a while. "Five sets of Lockhart books! And Ginny needs robes and a wand and everything..."

Harry, Mason and I said nothing. I felt a bit awkward. My family obviously wasn't extremely rich, but my dad, John Clarke, was a pretty successful auror and we definitely had a good amount of money and could afford things other's couldn't.

"Jules" Harry said after we divided the teams.

"What?" I asked.

"My team's gonna win" he smirked, while mounting his broom and offering me his fist for our usual fist bump before every quidditch game.

"No way!" I answered, accepting the fist bump.

"We'll see" he said, as he smiled at me one last time and we were off.