star shopping ✰ d.m.

CHAPTER THREE

The next four weeks before school started were peaceful. She had written Seamus and Dean about what had happened in the bookshop with the Malfoys and gotten herself angry again. To let off the steam, she went ahead and baked some cookies for herself and her family, something she did whenever she was feeling sad, angry, or bored, or when someone needed some cheering-up.

When September the first finally came, Arabella quickly found that her father had enchanted the car even more to make the interior larger. Good thing, because there were now nine people, three animals, and seven trunks that needed transporting. And what comes with nine people all rushing to leave at the same time is forgetfulness. They wound up having to come back to the house three times because someone would call out that they forgot something. All of this caused them to be late getting to King's Cross, so they had to rush to get through the barrier to get to Platform 9 3/4. To speed things up, they went in pairs and even thirds. Percy, Fred, and George all went together, then Ginny and Arabella, then their parents, leaving Harry and Ron to go together.

They were all too busy trying to get their trunks onto the train to pay attention to anything else, otherwise, they may have noticed that Harry and Ron never came through. However, when the train was pulling away from the platform, all they could think about was waving to their parents, who they had not been able to say a proper goodbye to.

None of them noticed that the boys weren't there until Ginny and Arabella found Hermione, Seamus, Dean, Neville, and a blonde first-year girl named Luna and they all went into a compartment together. However, they managed to convince themselves that they were off doing something else, probably getting into trouble and that they would find them soon. But soon never came, and they were still left wondering where Harry and Ron were when Ginny was getting Sorted into Gryffindor hours later.

They didn't find out what exactly happened, however, until the next morning, when the boys were finally able to get them alone to tell them, although they had already heard most of the story. For some reason, after Arthur and Molly had gone through the barrier, it had closed even though there was still a minute left to get on the Hogwarts Express. They had decided to take the car to Hogwarts and had flown the whole way. Just as they got to the school, however, the engine died and they crashed into a tree that began to hit them with its branches. There, Ron had broken his wand. After escaping the tree, they were ejected from the car and it drove off on its own. Then Mr. Filch, the school caretaker, found them and they were nearly expelled, but instead, they were given detentions and Professor McGonagall, the Transfiguration teacher and Head of Gryffindor House, would be writing to their families.

[word count: 520]
[written: 4/18/20]
[published: 5/18/20]