Life at the Burrow was as different as possible from life on Privet Drive or on Grimmauld Place. The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered, the Blacks had an elf who kept everything clean and tidy, not to mention that it was solved with a wave of the wand; he Weasleys' house burst with the strange and unexpected.
Harry got a shock the first time he 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.
What Harry found most unusual about life at Ron's, however, wasn't the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul:It was the fact that everybody there seemed to like him.
Mrs. Weasley fussed over the state of his socks and tried to force him to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Mr. Weasley liked Harry to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard him with questions about life with Muggles, asking him to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.
"Fascinating!" he would say as Harry talked him through using a telephone. "Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic."
Harry heard from Hogwarts one sunny morning about a week after he had arrived at the Burrow. He and Ron 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 floor with aloud 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 he hadn't noticed this (more for his mental health than for her tranquillity), Harry sat down and took the toast Mrs. Weasley offered him.
"Letters from school," said Mr. Weasley, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're here, Harry — doesn't miss a trick, that man."
"None." He wanted to say, but wisely kept silent.
"You two've got them, too," he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas.
For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. Harry's told him to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September first. There was also a list of the new books he'd need for the coming year.
SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:
-The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2by Miranda Goshawk
-Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
-Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart
Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harry's.
"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan — bet it's a witch."
Ron and Harry looked at each other and were tempted to bet with the twins that he was a wizard, but stopped at the last minute.
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 Ginny's things secondhand."
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Fixing the past (Sirry)
FanfictionThe war ended. But the victory was so bitter that nobody celebrated. The victory tasted like defeat due to so many factors, that since the health of the Boy-Who-Lived and Overcome was announced, the Wizarding World went into mass hysteria as several...
