Hope - George Potter

8 - Secret magic in the basement

When they rang the doorbell, Aunt Petunia let them in. She didn't say a single word to them and looked at them like she was scared. They went to their room and put the trunk on the floor. It only just fit, so they would have to climb over the trunk whenever they wanted to get into their room. The dictionary was placed on the floor where all of their clothes usually lay, as they didn't have a shelf.

They hadn't been there for long when Aunt Petunia called them to dinner. All throughout dinner, the family talked like normal, they just ignored the boys. George was relieved. The Dursleys had decided to just ignore them. They could have done much worse things. He supposed they were a bit scared of Harry and him.

It was still a month until George was to board the Hogwarts Express, the train that would bring him to Hogwarts. Two days after their shopping tour with Remus, the Dursleys still ignored them so George took that as a sign that he could do whatever he wanted. So he told Uncle Vernon that Harry and him were going shopping today and that they wouldn't come back for lunch. The answer was a deep grumble which George took as a yes. So he took all of the muggle money he had exchanged and went to the shopping center with Harry. Harry's muggle money he would need for the next year, to buy additional food to the scraps he got from the Dursleys.

When they walked out of the shopping center four hours later, they were both proud owners of each two fitting trousers, one pair of shoes that were not too big, two normal sized jumpers and six shirts that didn't have to be held by a belt in order to not go down to their knees.

They got changed on a public toilet and started laughing when they saw one another. They really did look completely different in normal clothes.

Once they had eaten lunch at a café, they made their way back to the Dursleys. When Dudley saw them, his mouth fell open. They could hear him complaining to his parents about it later that day.

The next few weeks were not quite as boring as at the beginning of the holidays as they tried out all of the different magic toys and read lots of books.

The toy broomstick actually worked, even though you could only get one meter off the ground. They had read that the 'Golden Snitch', which was what Harry's golden ball was actually called, was a part of Quidditch, so you had to catch it while on a broom. Harry always completely annoyed George by flying around chasing after the snitch, while George was reading. A few times he nearly crashed into George.

Aunt Petunia had come downstairs a few times because of the noise but thankfully they had managed to hide the broom from her. One time though, the snitch was still flying around and was directly above Petunia's head. Thankfully, she didn't notice. With Lixi, George's owl, and Fleamont, Harry's bat ('That bat is just as weird as your second name' was what Harry had said about his choice of name), also flying about in the room from time to time, the small room was very full.

Fleamont had even caught the snitch once. It was probably a reflex. Harry had to chase him for half an hour to get it back. It was a bit scratched but it still worked all the same.

George had already tested one of the joke products on Dudley and had read all of his school books at least once, so he could definetly say he had been productive.

They had also tested Fleamont's delivering abilities and even though it had taken a whole hour for him to get the motivation to fly over to the washing room to deliver George a letter, it still worked.

George tried to read as many books as possible before he was to start at Hogwarts so he wouldn't stand out as the one who didn't even know anything about the wizarding world.

At the end of the month, he had read about half of the books and even tried out some spells with his new wand. He had found a spell in his charms book that could repair glasses. That was the first spell he tried but he had only managed it after three whole hours of trying (it was one of the last spells in the book, after all). Harry had looked at his glasses, scared that George would only destroy them more. But in the end, George proudly showed his brother that they looked like new.

The two brothers often talked about Hogwarts and what it would be like. They had both read the book 'Hogwarts: A History' in the first week.

"What house do you think you'll be in?" Harry asked his brother.

"I don't know. Maybe Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor. They both don't sound too bad," he answered, "But I think you will be a Hufflepuff. You are always so friendly, for example with Mrs Figg, though I don't think you fit the 'hardworking'-criteria," George said and the both of them laughed, "So, if not Hufflepuff then Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, or Slytherin." The two boys giggled.

"We'll know which house I'll be in tomorrow- well, you will probably know in about a week with how fast Fleamont is at delivering letters," George said.

It was the last day before George's departure. He wanted to say goodbye to Mrs Figg and Remus before he left, so he got up from the bed and climbed over his trunk to the door.

"I have no idea how we are going to store two trunks in here next year," he said.

When he arrived at Mrs Figg's, Remus was there, too. He offered to take the two boys to Kings Cross tomorrow, so George didn't even have to ask Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon to drive him.