𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐆𝐎𝐅 𝟐

Emily and Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to their sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past them, until they started to feel sick and closed their eyes.

Then, when at last they felt themselves slowing down, Harry threw out his hands and came to a halt in time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.

Emily on the other hand, felt too sick to keep herself from falling and fell face first on the carpet.

"Did he eat it?" said Ethan, helping his sister of the floor,

"Yeah," said Emily, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Ethan brightly. "Me, George and Fred invented them, and we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Emily looked around and saw that Ron, Fred and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people Emily had never seen before, though she knew immediately who they must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

She hadn't been to the burrow in ages as the Weasleys had also only just picked her and Ethan up from there cottage.

"How're you doing, Harry 'n' Emily?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and holding out a large hand, which Harry and Emily shook, feeling calluses and blisters under their fingers.

This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky.

He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's and Emily's hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Emily knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Emily had always imagined Bill to be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule breaking and fond of bossing everyone around. However, Bill was, there was no other word for it, cool.

He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Emily recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than Emily had ever seen him.

"That wasn't funny Ethan!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Ethan, with another evil grin. I just dropped it.... It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet -"

"How big did his tongue get?" George and Fred asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!" Emily, Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons and his friends-"

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said Fred.