Lumos

Chapter 4 Going to Grimmauld Place

They guide us inside until we all fit. Mrs. Weasley comes put of a door at the far end of the hall. She comes towards us and pulls Harry onto a hug. "Oh Harry, it's lovely to see you!" She whispers. She pulls him back and looks him over. "You're looking peaky. You need feeding up, but you'll have to wait a bit for dinner, I'm afraid."

She looks to everyone else. "He's just arrived, the meeting's started..."

They all go past us through the door Mrs. Weasley came through. Harry goes to follow, but she stops him. "No, Harry, the meeting's only for members of the order. Ron and Hermione are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meeting's over and then we'll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall."

"Why?" I ask.

"Oh Sage dear, I didn't see you there." Of course, she didn't. She comes over and looks me over. "Do those muggles feed you?" she mutters, but I don't say anything. "Anyway, I don't want to wake anything up."

"What d'you-?"

"I'll explain later, I've got to hurry, I'm supposed to me at the meeting- I'll just show you where you're sleeping." She presses her finger to her lips and leads us upstairs.

"Mrs. Weasley, why-?"

She cuts Harry off. "Ron and Hermione will explain everything dear. I've really got to dash. There-" she says as we make it up to the second floor. "You're the door on the right. I'll call you down when it's over." She hurries downstairs before we can get another word out. We go into the room that she told us to.

Harry opens the door to be met with a loud shriek, and being knocked back a few steps, also causing me to be knocked backwards. "HARRY! Ron, he's here, Harry's here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you alright? Have you been furious with us? I net you have, I know our letters were useless-"

I stop listening. She talks too much anyway. Just because she's top of our class she thinks she's great, but she needs to cool it a bit. "Let him breathe Hermione." Ron grins cutting her off. She let's go of Harry as Hedwig flies on to Harry's shoulder.

"Hedwig!"

"She's been in a right state," Ron says. "Pecked us half to death when she brought your last letters, look at this-"

I can see what she did to his finger. "Oh yeah, sorry about that, but I wanted answers, you know..." Harry trails off.

"We wanted to give them to you, mate, Hermione was going spare, she kept saying you'd do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us-"

"-Swear not to tell me. Yeah, Hermione's already said." Harry says cutting Ron off. I can see his face change, and her looks upset a bit. They fall into silence and it's not a comfortable one.

"He seemed to think it was best." She says quietly. "Dumbledore I mean."

"Right," Harry says.

"I think he thought you were safest with the muggles-"

"Yeah?" Harry asks, cutting Ron off again. "Have either of you been attacked by dementors this summer?"

"Well, no- but that's why he's had people from the Order of the Phoenix tailing you all the time-"

"He was being followed," I ask.

"You both were," Hermione says.

"Didn't work that well, though, did it? Had to look after myself after all, didn't I?"