"Dobby has them here, sir and my lady," said the elf. Stepping nimbly out of Harry's reach, he pulled two thick wads of envelopes from the inside of the pillowcase he was wearing, one was substantially larger than the other one.
Harry could make out Hermione's neat writing, Ron's untidy scrawl, and even a scribble that looked as though it was from the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid in the smaller wad while Kirra could see the twins and JJ's messy writing and Maxines large writing in the larger wad.
Dobby blinked anxiously up at Harry and Kirra. "Kirra and Harry Potter mustn't be angry. . . . Dobby hoped . . . if the Potter's thought their friends had forgotten them . . . they might not want to go back to school, sir and my lady. . . ." Harry wasn't listening. He made a grab for the letters, but Dobby jumped out of reach.
"Harry Potter will have them, sir, if he and my lady gives Dobby their words that they will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir and my lady, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won't go back, sir, for the safety of your sister, she is in grave danger! He wan-"
"No," said Harry angrily though Kirra was sitting on the bed trying to figure out who had helped dobby, had it been dumbledore? Maybe it was one of her friends? Or maybe her head of house Professor Sprout?. "Give me my friends' letters!" Harry growled
"Then Harry Potter leaves Dobby no choice," said the elf sadly. Before Harry could move, Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs. Mouth dry, stomach-lurching, Harry and Kirra sprang after him, trying not to make a sound.
He jumped the last six steps, landing catlike on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby while Kirra, who didn't skip any stairs, because she knew how clumsy she was and didn't want to risk the chance of falling, came in soon after.
From the dining room they heard Uncle Vernon saying, ". . . tell Petunia that very funny story about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason. She's been dying to hear . . ." Harry and Kirra ran up the hall into the kitchen and both of them felt their stomachs disappear.
Aunt Petunia's masterpiece of a pudding, the mountain of cream and sugared violets, was floating up near the ceiling. On top of a cupboard in the corner crouched Dobby.
"No," croaked the twins. "Please . . . they'll kill us. . . ."
"Dobby, please you must stop" Kirra whispered out to him with a pleading look on her face, "Please I beg you, you don't understand... without my friends I have nothing"
"Harry and Kirra Potter must say they will not be going back to school —"
"Dobby . . . please . . ." the twins pleaded
"Say it, sir and my lady —"
"I can't —"
Dobby gave them a tragic look.
"Then Dobby must do it, for Kirra and Harry Potter's own good." The pudding fell to the floor with a heart-stopping crash. Cream splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. With a crack like a whip, Dobby vanished.
There were screams from the dining room and Uncle Vernon burst into the kitchen to find Harry and Kirra, rigid with shock, covered from head to foot in Aunt Petunia's pudding.
At first, it looked as though Uncle Vernon would manage to gloss the whole thing over. ("Just our niece and nephew — very disturbed — meeting strangers upsets them, so we kept them upstairs. . . .") He shooed the shocked Masons back into the dining room, promised Kirra and Harry he would flay them to within an inch of their lives when the Masons had left, and handed them both a mop.
Aunt Petunia dug some ice cream out of the freezer and Kirra and Harry, still shaking, started scrubbing the kitchen clean, neither of them looking at each other or saying anything.
Uncle Vernon might still have been able to make his deal — if it hadn't been for the owl. Aunt Petunia was just passing around a box of after-dinner mints when a huge barn owl swooped through the dining room window, dropped two letters on Mrs. Mason's head, and swooped out again.
Mrs. Mason screamed like a banshee and ran from the house shouting about lunatics. Mr. Mason stayed just long enough to tell the Dursleys that his wife was mortally afraid of birds of all shapes and sizes, and to ask whether this was their idea of a joke.
Kirra and Harry stood in the kitchen, clutching the mop for support, as Uncle Vernon advanced on them, a demonic glint in his tiny eyes. "Read it!" he hissed evilly, brandishing the letters the owl had delivered. "Go on — read it!" Harry took the one addressed to him while Kirra took the one that had her name on the front and began to read it.
It did not contain birthday greetings.
Dear Miss. Potter, We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine. As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform spells outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C).
We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.
Enjoy your holidays!
Yours sincerely, Mafalda Hopkirk
IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE Ministry of Magic
Harry and Kirra looked up from the letter and gulped as they shared a look, they couldn't believe it. How the hell could this happen, how could everything change this drastically in a matter of minutes.
"You didn't tell us you weren't allowed to use magic outside school," said Uncle Vernon, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. "Forgot to mention it. . . . Slipped your minds, I daresay. . . ." He was bearing down on Harry and Kirra like a great bulldog, all his teeth bared. "Well, I've got news for you two. . . . I'm locking you both up. . . . You're never going back to that school . . . never . . . and if you try and magic yourself out — they'll expel you!"
And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry and Kirra back upstairs. Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on the twin's window. He himself fitted a cat-flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day.
They let the twins out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, they were locked in their room around the clock, though, they had begun talking again though they still weren't on good terms.
Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting, and the twins couldn't see any way out of the situation.
Dobby might have saved them from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, they'd probably starve to death anyway. The cat flap rattled and Aunt Petunia's hand appeared, pushing two bowls of canned soup into the room. The twins, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off their beds and seized it. The soup was stone-cold, but they both drank half of it in one gulp.
Then, even though the girl was starving, she gave the rest to whiskers who purred gratefully as she began to drink it, she would have sent her cat out to steal food for them in the kitchen, but they had discovered that the cat flap was unfortunately only able to open from the outside.
She put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than she had been before the soup, whiskers came up and snuggled into the side of Kirra as the young girl began to run her hand softly along the cat's fur.
Supposing she was still alive in another four weeks, what would happen if she didn't turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why she hadn't come back? Would they be able to make the Dursleys let her go? The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, mind spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Kirra fell into an uneasy sleep but was awoken a few hours later to the sound of the bars on the window-rattling loudly.
The twins sat up abruptly and looked at the window and there was Ron and the twins outside their window. "Ron!" breathed Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. "Ron, how did you — What the — ?" Kirra and Harry's mouths fell open as the full impact of what they were seeing hit them.
Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in midair. Grinning at Kirra from the front seats were Fred and George. "All right there, little Hufflepuff?" asked George.
"What's been going on?" said Fred to the girl. "Why haven't you been answering our letters? Georgie and I have asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles —"
"It wasn't me, it's a long story honestly — and how did he know?" She asks them, not being able to stop smiling at the fact that they had asked her to stay, seeing her friends again had erased any thoughts of her being hungry, the only thing she felt was happy.
"He works for the Ministry," said Ron. "You know we're not supposed to do spells outside school —"
"You should talk," said Harry and Kirra, staring at the floating car.
"Oh, this doesn't count," said Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with —"
"Kirra told you, we didn't — but it'll take too long to explain now — look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked us up and won't let us come back, and obviously we can't magic ourselves out, because the Ministry'll think that's the second spell we have done in three days, so —"
"Stop gibbering," said Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."
"But you can't magic us out either —" Harry countered
"We don't need to," said Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me."
"Tie that around the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Kirra, sending her a playful wink, excited to see his best friend again, he and George had gotten really worried over the holidays when they hadn't heard back from her.
"If the Dursleys wake up, we are dead," said Kirra as she tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.
"Don't worry," said Fred as he winked at her, " Georgie and I would never let anything happen to our favourite witch, your part of our group remember? Now stand back." Kirra and Harry moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent as did whiskers who sat on Kirra's bed watching.
The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Harry and Kirra ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoisted the bars up into the car.
Kirra and Harry listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom. When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred reversed as close as possible to the window.
"Get in," Ron said.
"But all our Hogwarts stuff — our wands — our broomsticks —"
"Where is it?" Ron asked
"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and we can't get out of this room —" Harry explained
"No problem," said George from the front passenger seat. "Out of the way, Harry." Fred and George climbed catlike through the window into the room and pulled the Hufflepuff in for a quick hug. Kirra pulled a hairpin out of her hair and passed it to George who grinned and then made his way over to the door with Fred in tow.
You had to hand it to them, thought Kirra, as George took the hairpin and started to pick the lock. "A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," said Fred, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow." There was a small click and the door swung open.
"So — we'll get your trunks — you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron," whispered George before giving the girl one last smile.
"Watch out for the bottom stair — it creaks," Kirra whispered back as the twins disappeared onto the dark landing. Kirra dashed around the room, collecting her things and passing them out of the window to Ron.
Then she went to help Fred and George heave the trunks up the stairs. Kirra heard Uncle Vernon cough. At last, panting, they reached the landing, then carried the trunk through the room to the open window. Fred climbed back into the car to pull with Ron, and Harry, Kirra and George pushed from the bedroom side.
Inch by inch, the trunks slid through the window. Uncle Vernon coughed again. "A bit more," panted Fred, who was pulling from inside the car. "One good push —" Kirra, Harry and George threw their shoulders against the last trunk and it slid out of the window into the back seat of the car.
"Okay, let's go," George whispered and whiskers jumped up on the girl's shoulders while Fred stuck his hand out for her and George grabbed her waist and the twins helped her in the car safely.
As Harry climbed onto the window sill there came a sudden loud screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of Uncle Vernon's voice. "THAT RUDDY OWL!"
"I've forgotten Hedwig!" Harry tore back across the room as the landing light clicked on — he snatched up Hedwig's cage, dashed to the window, and passed it out to Ron. He was scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when Uncle Vernon hammered on the unlocked door — and it crashed open.
For a split second, Uncle Vernon stood framed in the doorway; then he let out a bellow like an angry bull and dived at Harry, grabbing him by the ankle. Kirra, Ron, Fred, and George seized Harry's arms and pulled as hard as they could. "Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "They're getting away! THEY ARE GETTING AWAY!"
But they gave a gigantic tug and Harry's leg slid out of Uncle Vernon's grasp — Harry was in the car — he'd slammed the door shut — "Put your foot down, Fred!" yelled Ron, and the car shot suddenly toward the moon. They were free. Fred was driving and Kirra was on George's lap in the passenger seat while Ron, Harry and the luggage were in the backseat.
"See you next summer!" Harry and Kirra yelled out to the Dursleys as they flew away. The Weasleys roared with laughter "Let Hedwig out," Harry told Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages."
George handed the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost. "So — what's the story?" said Ron impatiently. "What's been happening?"