Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries

13) Voldemort Ate My Chocolate Frog Cheesecake

I stood up, ready to head upstairs, but there was an instant uproar from the others.

"We're of age!" Fred and George shrieked.

"If Harry's allowed, why can't I?" Ron yelled.

"Mum, I want to!" Ginny bellowed.

"NO!" Mrs. Weasley shouted, standing up. "I absolutely forbid —"

"Molly, you can't stop Fred and George," Mr. Weasley said tiredly. "They are of age —"

"They're still at school —"

"But they're legally adults now," Mr. Weasley's tone didn't change.

Mrs. Weasley's face was scarlet, "I — oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Ron —"

"Harry'll tell me, Perseus, and Hermione everything anyway!" Ron said heatedly. "Won't — won't you?" He turned uncertainly to Harry.

"I won't be staying," I said. "I've got to go read that letter from Dumbledore, and there might be some things I don't want to hear."

Harry looked hesitant for a second, almost vengeful, but he said, "'Course I'll tell you." Hermione and Ron beamed.

"Fine!" Mrs. Weasley shouted. "Fine! Ginny — Percy — BED!" I bit back a laugh. She was so angry she forgot to not use my name and that I had been on her side in this.

Ginny was not pleased. She raged up the stairs in front of Mrs. Weasley and me, and the horrendous Walburga Black started screeching again. Sirius and Remus went to go shut her up and I stepped into my room. I could hear Ginny and Mrs. Weasley arguing up a storm down the hall, and flopped on my bed.

I stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then reached into my pocket and pulled the letter out. There was nothing on it except for in all caps, 'READ IMMEDIATELY'.

I was tempted to never read it out of spite, but I figured I'd waited long enough time already. I opened it, and saw that there were multiple letters in it.

I read the one on top first.

Percy-pie,

I nearly tore up the paper there, but I continued on.

We've been a little compromised. Just a bit. They're spying on us. They've got Ministry wizards stationed in front of the house, and there's always someone sitting on the bench outside of the station. They think that headquarters is here. I wonder if they think Bianca and Zoë are the masterminds behind it all. To be fair, now that they're scooting all over the place, I think they're masterminds at breaking vases and stealing my fudge bars. Little twerps. Adorable little twerps. See that wet spot in the top left corner? Yeah, that was Zoë drooling all over the page. She misses you. We all do.

Hope you're having fun with the Weasley's and the others. Sorry I couldn't be there.

Hugs and kisses,
Luke

I snorted. I knew the Ministry wouldn't do anything to my family, and my family didn't have anything to hide, so it was a bit nice that we'd have the attention drawn elsewhere. And even if they did do anything, I know that Luke had set up landmines, even though I told him they were against regulation.

I opened the second letter.

Percy,

Voldemort ate the chocolate frog cheesecake you made me for my birthday.

Love,
Draco

I blinked. I'd known about Voldemort staying at the Malfoy manor, and had told Dumbledore. There was nothing we could do about it, though, the security being much too powerful for us to handle. Draco was less than pleased with the whole situation, constantly having to keep nasty mind barriers I knew little about up, and mostly keeping to his room. Draco had a serious sweet tooth, so I figured he was probably pissed about the cake.

There was one letter left, and I still didn't know why I needed to READ IMMEDIATELY. I opened it.

Mr. Jackson,

Your next location is at Gringotts. It's been arranged so that no one will be around at Midnight. Bring the paints.

Albus Dumbledore

I grinned. That would explain it.

I sat up, noticing for the first time that Ron and Harry had come into the room, and were silently sitting on their beds, frowning.

"I've got to do something," I said, digging in my bag and pulling out a black hoodie, slipping it on. I checked to make sure everything I needed was in the bag.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Don't worry about it," I said, making my way towards the door. "You'll probably see it in the paper." I paused and looked back at them. "Sorry if I wake you up later."

I stepped out of the room and made my way down the stairs, making my way to the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley and Sirius were having a glaring match.

"He's sending you out again?" Lupin asked, spotting me. He looked tired.

"Yeah," I said, grabbing an apple from the fruit basket Mrs. Weasley had set out a few days before. "He probably wants to drag the Ministry's attention off of Harry so he can figure out more about his hearing."

"I hate that you have to do all of this," Mrs. Weasley frowned. "You already go through so much as is, becoming this — this icon for the war, it's got to take a toll."

"Eh, it's fine," I shrugged. "He's got his reasons for having me do this."

"What are his reasons? He's making you into the face of the war," Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Dumbledore thinks I'm going to die."

Ben Shapiro still has not responded. Sad times. I got a 103 on my history test and a 102 on my chemistry exam. It was great. I've still got to take tests for English and math though. I'm more worried about math, because tests are worth 50% of our grade, and we haven't taken many of them. It'll be all right though, I can usually do pretty okay on those things. I started watching WandaVision. It's good. I'll probably watch again soon. I've also been reading the Chaos Walking books. A friend recommended them a while ago and I just never got around to reading them, but I saw and bought them from Books-A-Million. I'm going to start the third book on Monday. Also, I just found out being a TA counted as community service. If we get 75 hours of community service, we get another credit. I've already got a few hours under my belt (cleaned the tennis courts. It was horrific), and I think there's enough days of school left to cover the rest. It's awesome. It'll also look great on a resume (I feel like I spelled that wrong but we're going to pretend I didn't).

Anyway, I hope you guys have had a funnnnnnnnnnnn Friday, and I'll see you on Sunday CT. Love ya!