"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," said Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, Mum, look who turned up in the night!'and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one need ever know we flew the car."
"Right," said Ron. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the - at the top--"
Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other four wheeled around.
Mrs. Weasley was marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a saber-toothed tiger.
"Ah , "said Fred.
"Oh, dear," said George.
"We're doomed" said Allium.
Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.
"So ," she said.
"Morning, Mum," said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.
"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.
"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to--"
All three of Mrs. Weasley's children were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.
"Beds empty! No note! Car gone - could have crashed - out of my mind with worry - did you care? - never, as long as I've lived - you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy -"
"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died , you could have been seen , you could have lost your father his job--"
It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Harry, who backed away.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear," she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."
She turned and walked back into the house and Harry, after a nervous glance at Ron and Allium, who nodded encouragingly, followed her.
The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle. Allium was chuckling at Harry's face, he seemed completely bewildered.
The clock on the wall opposite him had only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens , and You're late . Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts. The old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was "Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck."
Mrs. Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons and even dirtier ones at her daughter as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like "don't know what you were thinking of," and " never would have believed it."
"I don't blame you , dear," she assured Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back by Friday. But really," (she was now adding three fried eggs to his plate) "flying an illegal car halfway across the country - anyone could have seen you--"
Allium was fully holding back laughs at Harry's face, he seemed like a lost puppy. She knew their mother could be much, she hoped that mum would terrify him too much. They definitely should of warned Harry.
She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.
"It was cloudy , Mum!" said Fred.
"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.
"They were starving him, Mum!" said George.
"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.
At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, redheaded figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.
"Ginny," said Ron in an undertone to Harry. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry," Allium said with a grin, but she caught her mother's eye and bent her face over her plate without another word. Nothing more was said until all five plates were clean, which took a surprisingly short time.
"Blimey , I'm tired," yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. "I think I'll go to bed and--"
"You will not," snapped Mrs. Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again--"
"Oh, Mum--"
"And you three," she said, glaring at Ron, Fred and Allium. "You can go up to bed, dear," she added to Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car--"
But Harry, who was wide awake, said quickly, "I'll help. I've never seen a de-gnoming--"
"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject--"
And she pulled a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece. George and Allium groaned.
"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden--"
The book had gold letters written across it in fancy letters. Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests . There was a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. Mrs. Weasley beamed down at him.
"Oh, he is marvelous," she said. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book..."
"Mum fancies him," said Fred, in a very audible whisper.
"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," said Mrs. Weasley, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."
Yawning and grumbling, the Weasleys slouched outside with Harry behind them. The garden was large, there were plenty of weeds, and the grass needed cutting - but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs. Allium was surprised at how happy Harry was at the sight of the garden.
"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry said as they crossed the lawn.
"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," said Allium, bent double with her head in a peony bush, "like fat little Santa Clauses with fishing rods..."
There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered, and Allium straightened up. " This is a gnome," he said grimly.
"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" squealed the gnome.
It was certainly nothing like Santa Claus. It was small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. Allium held it at arm's length as it kicked out at her with its horny little feet; she grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside down.
"This is what you have to do," she said. She raised the gnome above his head ("Gerroff me!") and started to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Harry's face, Ron added, "It doesn't hurt them -you've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnome holes."
Allium let go of the gnome's ankles: It flew twenty feet into the air and landed with a thud in the field over the hedge.
Allium almost fell over laughing as a gnome sank its razor-sharp teeth into Harry's finger, laughing even harder when he started to panic and shake.
"Wow, Harry - that must've been fifty feet..."
The air was soon thick with flying gnomes.
"See, they're not too bright," said George, seizing five or six gnomes at once. "The moment they know the de-gnoming's going on they storm up to have a look. You'd think they'd have learned by now just to stay put."
Soon, the crowd of gnomes in the field started walking away in a straggling line, their little shoulders hunched.
"They'll be back," said Ron as they watched the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field. "They love it here... Dad's too soft with them; he thinks they're funny..."
Just then, the front door slammed.
"He's back!" said George. "Dad's home!"
They hurried through the garden and back into the house. Allium followed slower, she wasn't as excited to see her dad anymore.
Mr. Weasley was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He was a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he had was as red as any of his children's. He was wearing long green robes, which were dusty and travel-worn.
"What a night," he mumbled, groping for the teapot as they all sat down around him. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned..."
Mr. Weasley took a long gulp of tea and sighed.
"Find anything, Dad?" said Fred eagerly.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," yawned Mr. Weasley. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness..."
"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" said George.
"Just Muggle-baiting," sighed Mr. Weasley. "Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it... Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking - they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face... But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe--"
"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"
Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.
"C-cars, Molly, dear?"
"Yes, Arthur, cars," said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly ."
Mr. Weasley blinked.
"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if - er - he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth... There's a loophole in the law, you'll find... As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't--"
"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"
"Harry?" said Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry who?"
He looked around, saw Harry, and jumped.
"Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about--"
"Your kids flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Did it go all right? I - I mean," he faltered as sparks flew from Mrs. Weasley's eyes, "that - that was very wrong, boys - very wrong indeed..."
"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Harry as Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you our bedroom." Allium followed certainly not wanting to see the rest.
They slipped out of the kitchen and down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, a door stood ajar. Allium smiled when she caught sight of a pair of bright brown eyes staring at Harry through a door before it closed with a snap.
"Ginny," said Ron. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally--"
They climbed two more flights until they reached a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying RONALD'S AND ALLIUM'S ROOM .
Harry stepped in, his head almost touching the sloping ceiling, and blinked. It was like walking into a furnace: Nearly everything in Ron's room seemed to be a violent shade of orange: the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Most of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks, and waving energetically.
"Your Quidditch team?" said Harry.
"The Chudley Cannons," said Ron, pointing at the orange bedspread, which was emblazoned with two giant black C's and a speeding cannonball. "Ninth in the league."
School spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. Two magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frog spawn on the windowsill, next to the gray rat, Scabbers, who was snoozing in a patch of sun.
Harry stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards on the floor and looked out of the tiny window. In the field far below he could see a gang of gnomes sneaking one by one back through the Weasleys hedge. Then he turned to look at Ron and Allium, who was watching him almost nervously, as though waiting for his opinion.
"It's a bit small," said Allium quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And we're right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on the pipes and groaning..."
But Harry, grinning widely, said, "This is the best house I've ever been in."
Both of the Weasleys ears went pink.