Managing The Mischief ~ Sequel to A Master of Mischief

~ Chapter 24

**Maddie’s POV**

It’s summer holidays and we’re on a family picnic in the country side. Fred, George and I are lying on a hill, side by side, watching the kids playing in the stream.

“DADDY!” Ari calls up the hill, “COME AND SEE WHAT I’VE FOUND!”

“Fred, you go,” George murmurs, his eyes closed. I give him a kick and he sighs.

“Fine,” he grumbles, walking down the hill. I relax back into the grass, the warmth of the sun firing up my skin, making it tingle. I know I’m not burning yet because I’m surrounded by red heads and if they’re not burnt, there’s no way I am. I watch as a soft, white cloud floats across the blue sky. As it draws nearer it lowers in the sky. Or maybe it’s just because I’m on a hill, but soon it’s right above us, close enough it feels as if I could reach out and touch it. Watching I feel light and floaty, like a cloud.

“Hey, Fred, can you see that cloud?” I ask lazily.

“Yeah, I feel lighter just looking at it,” he says, “it’s so quite now… Do you think the kids are sunbaking?”

I sit up and look down the hill.

“Fred, look,” I say. He sits up next to me and we look down the hill together. It’s fading away. We’re sitting on the cloud, high above the ground.

“This is really weird,” I say, standing up, “Fred, what’s going on?”

“Is that us?” he asks, pointing to the top of the hill. I look down on myself and feel a cold shiver.  Fred turns around and gasps.

“Maddie!”

I turn around and we’re in the joke shop, but it’s empty and completely white. When I look behind me there’s no more hill, just the door of the shop. I look up the stairs and see them winding upwards.

“Fred?”

“Maddie?”

“We’re dead, aren’t me?”

“I would say so, yes.”

“So we go through the door if we want to be ghosts or up the stairs if we want to go on?”

“It seems logical.”

We look at each other and back at the door, then grin and begin running up the stairs. Eventually we reach the top and spill out onto a huge cloud, sunlight beating down on us.

“Wow,” I look down at myself and I’m seventeen again. I look at Fred. He looks about twenty. He grins at me and then we look around. Some figures are moving towards us. I squint, trying to see who they are, and then realise.

“Daddy! Remus! Tonks!” I yell, running towards them.

“Mum! Dad!” Fred runs after me. Everyone is there, the Order, Dumbledore, James and Lily, McGonagall and the other teachers, Neville’s parents, returned to how they were before they were tortured, even Snape, looking strangely un-greasy. It’s wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family, to be able to tell them everything that’s happened while they haven’t been there. Remus and Tonks are thrilled that Teddy is engaged and happy.

“Maddie, dear,” Molly says after the excitement has settled, “we have someone we’d like you to meet.”

She steps to the side and I immediately recognise who it is. She has soft brown curls and hazel eyes like her father. She’s only about five or six by the looks of her and she looks very shy.

“I’ve taken care of her,” Lily, Mother, I guess, tells me, “but she’s missed you.”

“My baby,” I cry, falling to my knees and holding my arms out. She runs into them and I hold her close. Dad walks over and runs a hand through my hair.

“As soon as I saw her I knew she was the baby you lost,” he says, “but I suppose you didn’t lose her after all.”

I sit back, staring at her. She’s got green streaks in her eyes that I guess come from Lily.

“What’s your name?” I ask her softly. She looks up at me with her huge eyes.

“Maḷī,” she replies, her voice like music, “it means found.”