Elizabeth's Secret: A Harry Potter Fanfiction

        "Elizabeth, run!" The woman screamed at me. "Run!" She turned around, looking at the figure chasing us. "I'll hold him off."
        "I'm not leaving you!" I cry.
        "You have to." The woman kisses my cheek, then pushes me away, so hard I almost stumble. I almost run back, but I can tell by her pose she'll only push me again, further. And so I run. And so I save my life.

        "Lizzie?" I wake to feel Hermione, reaching down from the top bunk and shaking my shoulder. "Lizzie, are you okay? You were screaming."
        "Yeah, Miney," I say drowsily, rubbing my eyes. Hermione and I have been best friends practically since the womb, and those were our names we assigned each other as toddlers, before we could speak. "Just a bad dream."
        "Okay, just making sure." She turns over, and, in seconds, her heavy breathing signals that she is back asleep. For me, however, it is a different story. That dream . . . although it may sound insane, I'm convinced it wasn't a dream at all. I'm convinced it really happened. I've never felt such intense feelings in a dream before. I watch as the sky slowly turns bright, knowing that in a few hours Hermione and I will be on our way to the Burrow (the Weasley's house), where we'll then go to the Quidditch World Cup.
        Hermione was bouncing off the walls, going on and on about the Weasleys, and Quidditch, and everything in between, and I tried to be excited. With a little bit of persuading, I could even convince myself I was looking forward to it. But if I was being completely and totally honest with myself, I was dreading it. The Burrow, although cute in it's own right, was so crowded and uncomfortable. And whatever accommodations we have for the World Cup, it won't be too roomy. It's not that I don't like people, it's just . . . I don't like people.
        When Hermione went to Hogwarts, she made two good friends (who she later introduced me to) - Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Harry is like Hermione and I, an only child. But Ron, on the other hand, has enough siblings to make up for all of us. His oldest two, Bill and Charlie, have graduated from Hogwarts. If I'm not mistaken, one's in Egypt and one's in Romania. Then Percy, the prefect. Fred and George are his twin brothers. They're two years older than us. And finally, there's Ginny, a year younger than us. Although they may not look much alike, they do have one thing in common: they all have fiery red hair.
        The Weasleys are a good group, though. If I could choose any large family to spend a week with, it would have to be them.

*                        *                        *         Hermione and I took the train to the town nearest the Burrow. It seemed so strange, to be taking a train instead of something more magical, but that was all her parents could do. They were both dentists, which, as you can imagine, didn't pay a fortune. They had Hermione to take care of, then, after my parent's deaths, me.
        Mr. Weasley came to pick us up in his old Ford Anglia. Ron had told Hermione and I that he had bewitched it so that it now flew, but I wasn't quite sure I believed it. Mr. Weasley was, after all, the head of the department that prevents Muggles (nonmagic people) from using magic.
        Hermione stuffed her trunk in the back and nabbed the front seat, leaving me in the back with one of the twins, who didn't look all too happy to be there. "Why so gloomy, George?" She turned around and asked.
        "Molly was getting tired of their antics, so she had to separate Fred and George," Mr. Weasley said, getting in the car and pulling out onto the road.
        "What did you do?" Hermione asked, amused.
        George smirked. "Well, we kind of colored Percy's arm hairs blue."
        I laughed in spite of myself. "Who would think of that?"
        George bowed, or as close as he could in a car. "Yours truly." He smiled at me, and before I knew what I was doing, I smiled back. "How-" I started to ask, hesitantly, but Hermione's chatter broke the moment. I clammed up and looked out the window, glancing once at George to find him looking at me in confusion. I shrugged at him.
        "What were you going to ask?" He asked me as I got my trunk out of the car. "And why did you stop?"
        "Well, I was going to ask how you got just his arm hairs blue. But I stopped because it was a stupid question and not important." I shrugged again and started to wheel my trunk into his house.
        "No, you stopped because Hermione started talking," he said.
        I glanced at him in alarm. "Don't be an idiot."
        He looked like he was about to say something else, but then changed topics. "It was actually very ingenious, Fred and I. . . " And he went on, telling me about the precise soap-and-food-coloring ratio they used. I wrinkled my nose, not his words, but at the thought of meeting the rest of Ron's family after all summer away. A few of them I'd never met before, such as Bill and Charlie, but Ron's talked about them enough. I should be fine. "Should" the key word there.
        I looked down to see my hands trembling so badly my whole arm shook. George, who had just finished his story, followed my gaze. "Let me take that," he said, and grabbed my trunk before I could argue. "What's wrong?"
        "I - " I swallow, trying to moisten my suddenly dry throat. "I just get nervous around people sometimes, especially people I haven't seen in a while." I glance sideways at him. "Weird, I know."
        "No, it's not weird at all," he said, and looked as if he was about to say more, but the front door opened. "Elizabeth!" A fiery-haired woman came running out, followed by a miniature version. Both of them swooped me into an embrace, and I laughed. "Hello, Molly, hello, Ginny," I said.
        We exchanged pleasantries, then they ran off to talk to Hermione. I bored them, I thought anxiously, clenching my fists.
        "Hey, Elizabeth, " a familiar voice said. I looked up to see double. George was finally reunited with his twin. "I put your trunk in yours, Hermione's and Ginny's room."
        "Okay, thanks," I said and smiled. They, also, left me for the circle around Hermione. I saw the twin I thought was George look back at me, but he kept moving forwards.
        But finally, I was saved by a certain Harry Potter. We talked like the old friends we were, about his summer, about my summer. But still, a nagging worry made its way into my mind, one that I didn't address until I was laying in bed that night: If I can't even survive the Weasleys, how am I ever going to survive the World Cup?