Chosen & Hated (HP) {Book 2 of the Wild & Free Series}

3. Back at the Burrow

I spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to my sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past me, until I started to feel sick and closed my eyes. Then, when at last I felt myself slowing down, I threw out my hands and came to a halt in time to prevent myself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire. Harry fell next to mw.

"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry and me to our feet. I realised he was talking about the toffee he had left on the ground for Dudley.

"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred 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; I looked around and saw that Ron, Lucy and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people I had never seen before, though I knew immediately who they must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

"How're you doing, Harry and Liana?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at us and holding out a large hand, which Harry and I both shook, feeling calluses and blisters under his 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 our hands. Bill came as something of a surprise. I knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; I 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 I recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of us 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 I 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," said Fred, 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!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly and I snickered.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

Harry, Lucy, the Weasleys and I roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behaviour seriously undermines wizard–Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons —"

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he, Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.

"That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother —"

"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.

Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.