The Potter Twins and the Order of the Phoenix {5}

9. Loony Lovegood

"I'm nuts, baby I'm mad, the craziest friend that you've ever had. You think I'm physio, you think I'm gone, tell the psychiatrist something is wrong" ~ Mad Hatter, Melanie Martinez

I have a troubled sleep. Cedric weaves in and out of my dreams, never speaking; Dad sobs over Harry's dead body, watched by Ron, Hermione, Tay, and Riley who are wearing crowns, and I find myself walking down a corridor which ends in a locked door. I wake abruptly with my scar prickling to find Hermione, Tay, and Ginny already dressed and talking to me. 

"...better hurry up, Mrs Weasley's going ballistic, she says we're going to miss the train."

There is a lot of commotion in the house. From what I can hear as I dress at top speed, I gather that Fred and George have bewitched their trunks  to fly down the stairs to save the bother of carrying them, with the result that they had hurtled straight into Ginny and Asher and knocked them down two flights of stairs into the hall; both Mrs Weasley and Mrs Black are screaming at the top of their lungs. 

" - COULD HAVE DONE THEM A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS - "

- FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS - "

Once I'm ready, we meet up with the boys in their room. "Are you ready?" Hermione asks Harry, as he ties up his shoes. 

"Nearly. Are Ginny and Ash all right?" He says, shoving his glasses on.

"Mrs Weasley and Mrs Saunters are patching them up," Mrs Weasley says. "But now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short."

"Guard?" I ask. "We have to go to Kings Cross with a guard?"

"You have to go to Kings Cross with a guard," Hermione corrects me. 

"Why?" Harry says irritably. "I thought Voldemort was supposed to be laying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin and try to do us in?"

"I don't know, it's just what Mad-Eye says," Hermione says distractedly, looking at her watch, "but if we don't leave soon we're definitely going to miss the train."

"WILL YOU LOT GET DOWN HERE NOW, PLEASE!" Mrs Weasley bellows. I grab my trunk and Hedwig's cage and hurry downstairs. 

Mrs Black's portrait is still howling with rage but nobody bothers to close the curtains over her;  all the noise in the hall is bound to rouse her again, anyway. 

"Harry, Haylee, you're to come with me, James, and Tonks," Mrs Weasley shouts - over the repeated screeches of "MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT!" - "Leave your trunks and your owl, Alastor's going to deal with the luggage...oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"

A bear-like black dog has appeared at our side as we clamber over the various trunks cluttering the hall to reach Dad and Mrs Weasley. 

"Oh, honestly..." Mrs Weasley says disparagingly. "Well, on your own head be it!"

"He's a dog, Molly," Dad says, as we open the front door and step outside into the weak September sunlight. "No one is going to look at him and think he's a mass murderer."

Mrs Weasley made a face. 

"Where's Tonks?" I ask, looking around as number twelve disappears behind us. 

"She's waiting for us just up here," Mrs Weasley says, averting her eyes from the lolloping black dog beside Harry and me. 

An old woman greets us on the corner. She had tightly curled grey hair and is wearing a purple hat shaped like a pork-pie.