Playing with Fire

Chapter six ~ The Barn Owl

Chapter six

The Barn Owl

They were the first ones I told the reason for moving to England to, though I was pretty sure they weren't the last.

"I've lived in Sweden my entire life," I said after Harry asked why I'd moved here. "Jumped from one foster family to another. This would be my eleventh family in about eight years. There aren't, unfortunately, a lot of foster families out there who are witches or wizards and accepts a party of two to join their household."

"Party of two?" asked Hermione. "You mean your little brother?" I had mentioned I had a younger brother earlier when Ron mentioned his family members, sounding rather grumpy as he had admitted to have six siblings.

"Yes, since we're two and the age difference is pretty big, foster families has a tendency to deny wanting to take us in," I explained. "My supervisor, Miss Hamilton, managed to find this family out in Wiltshire who were open to take us in, which is why we had to move here and change schools considering the Scandinavian Institute for Witches and Wizards isn't a boarding school."

"How's the family your living with now? Are they nice?" Hermione said as she stuffed all of her purchases down her tiny bag. I was surprised it all fit, though the thought of it being enchanted hit me pretty quickly as the solution.

"They're all right, my brother really likes them," I shrugged.

"Well, Hogwarts is great!" said Harry as he tried to flatten his untidy hair with his hand to cover up the scar on his forehead. "You'll love it there and the best part is that you can stay there over all the Holidays and only have to go home for Summer break!"

I had totally forgotten that Harry was really not that different from myself, being an orphan and all. I had, of course, read about him in both books and articles, especially lately with all the press writing about him because of what, supposedly, had happened last spring. It had been horrifying to read about the Death Eaters and the statements of which Dumbledore had made about You-Know-Who being back.

"That's – eh – that's good," I said shyly looking at my feet. I had small feet. And I needed new shoes, my current ones had a small hole on its left toe.

"Which house do you recall you'll be placed in?" asked Ron, whose mouth was covered in chocolate from his second ice cream.

"Oh, Ron, clean yourself up," commented Hermione and handed him a napkin which he immediately used to dry his mouth. "Boys." she added as a mumble.

"Well, Dra-" I stopped right in the middle of the sentence, remembering what awful things they had said about Draco and the even more bad things I had witnessed. "... don't know, I'm trying not to over think it."

"The three of us are in Gryffindor," said Harry, his green eyes darting between the three of us. "It would be great to get some new faces in the common room."

"As long as you don't get placed in Slytherin," said Ron with a sour face as if he had just taken a bite from a lemon. "Not one person who has gone bad hasn't been in that house." He paused to lean back in his seat to get more comfortable after all the ice cream. "I mean come on – even You-Know-Who went there."

Harry's head snatched to the side to stare at the ginger, freckled boy while Hermione exclaimed his name as if he had just told the worst curse on earth. Ron's ears turned red as he realised his mistake, he straightened up and avoided meeting my eyes. I don't know who felt more like the intruder there, me or him.

"Oh, right," he mumbled.

Harry turned to me, his whole body suddenly hanging as if he weighted a ton. "I'm guessing you've read the newspapers wherever you've been."