Mr. Weasley woke them after only a few hours sleep. He used magic to pack up the tents, and they left the campsite as quickly as possible, passing Mr. Roberts at the door of his cottage.
Mr. Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he waved them off with a vague "Merry Christmas."
"He'll be all right," said Mr. Weasley quietly as they marched off onto the moor. "Sometimes, when a person's memory's modified, it makes him a bit disorientated for a while . . . and that was a big thing they had to make him forget."
They heard urgent voices as they approached the spot where the Portkeys lay, and when they reached it, they found a great number of witches and wizards gathered around Basil, the keeper of the Portkeys, all clamoring to get away from the campsite as quickly as possible.
Mr. Weasley had a hurried discussion with Basil; they joined the queue, and were able to take an old rubber tire back to Stoatshead Hill before the sun had really risen.
They walked back through Ottery St. Catchpole and up the damp lane toward the Burrow in the dawn light, talking very little because they were so exhausted, and thinking longingly of their breakfast.
As they rounded the corner and the Burrow came into view, a cry echoed along the lane.
"Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!"
Mrs. Weasley, who had evidently been waiting for them in the front yard, came running toward them, aside by Remus, still wearing her bedroom slippers, her face pale and strained, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in her hand.
"Arthur, I've been so worried, so worried."
She flung her arms around Mr. Weasley's neck, and the Daily Prophet fell out of her limp hand onto the ground.
Looking down, Harry saw the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUID- DITCH WORLD CUP, complete with a twinkling black-and- white photograph of the Dark Mark over the treetops.
"You're all right," Mrs. Weasley muttered distractedly, releasing Mr. Weasley and staring around at them all with red eyes, "you're alive. . . . Oh boys . . ."
And to everybody's surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.
"Ouch! Mum-you're strangling us-"
"I shouted at you before you left!" Mrs. Weasley said, starting to sob. "It's all I've been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn't get enough O.W.L.s? Oh Fred . . . George . . . I'm sorry Ethan," And she hugged Ethan before letting Remus speak to his children.
Emily and Ethan could tell he had been crying but he also had a very stern look on his face, that neither of them of dawn before.
"You two could've died. Me and-" He lowered his voice so only they could hear "your father and brother have been worried sick! Ethan, it was very stupid of you too follow her but also very smart that you got to your sister. And Emily, you need to learn about your powers. I can't loose you two, and the only way I can guarantee that is if you control your powers and you put yourself before others!" He shouted, everyone turned to look at him.
"But then what if that person is you? Or what if it's you know, dad and Eric, or what if that person is Emily? You want me to sit back and watch her get killed?" Ethan retaliated, pulling his arm out of his fathers grip.
"It depends on the situation! Ethan, I get it, all your life you've had to take care of her because I wasn't in the right mind set but now I am. So it is my job to take care of you both!" Remus pleaded, trying to reach for his sons arm.
"Well guess what dad, you went there last night when she almost died! So guess who had to save her sorry ass, me!"
"Jeez, thanks." Emily said under her breath, but took no offence because she knew it was all in anger.
"And that is my mistake, but I didn't expect death eaters to be in a bloody quidditch match!" Remus said, now letting go off Emily's grip.
Ethan went to shout again but Emily stopped them "Stop! I get it, you don't want Ethan to get hurt! And you don't want me or dads and Eri- I mean dad to get hurt! So why don't you both say sorry to each other for shouting, suck it up and give each other a hug and be there for each other!"
Now everyone was looking at Emily, Remus sighed and took both there arms again "I just can't loose either of you, Im sorry for shouting at you Ethan."
"It's alright."
Remus nodded his head and brought both his children into a hug, Emily being squished in between the two.
When they were all crammed into the tiny kitchen, and Hermione had made Mrs. Weasley and Emily a cup of very strong tea, into which Mr. Weasley insisted on pouring a shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey, Bill handed his father the newspaper.
Mr. Weasley scanned the front page while Percy looked over his shoulder.
"I knew it," said Mr. Weasley heavily. "Ministry blunders . . . culprits not apprehended . . . lax security . . . Dark wizards running unchecked . . . national disgrace . . . Who wrote this? Ah . . . of course . . . Rita Skeeter."
"That woman's got it in for the Ministry of Magic!" said Percy furiously. "Last week she was saying we're wasting our time quib- bling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn't specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans-"
"Do us a favor, Perce," said Bill, yawning, "and shut up."
"I'm mentioned," said Mr. Weasley, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he reached the bottom of the Daily Prophet article.
"Where?" spluttered Mrs. Weasley, choking on her tea and whiskey. "If I'd seen that, I'd have known you were alive!"
"Not by name," said Mr. Weasley. "Listen to this: 'If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.'
"Oh really," said Mr. Weasley in exasperation, handing the paper to Percy. "Nobody was hurt. What was I supposed to say? Rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods . . . well, there certainly will be rumors now she's printed that."
He heaved a deep sigh. "Molly, I'm going to have to go into the office; this is going to take some smoothing over."
"I'll come with you, Father," said Percy importantly. "Mr. Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my caul- dron report in person."
He bustled out of the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley looked most upset.
"Arthur, you're supposed to be on holiday! This hasn't got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?"
"I've got to go, Molly," said Mr. Weasley. "I've made things worse. I'll just change into my robes and I'll be off. . . ."
"Mrs. Weasley," said Harry suddenly, unable to contain himself, "Hedwig hasn't arrived with a letter for me, has she?"
"Hedwig, dear?" said Mrs. Weasley distractedly. "No . . . no, there hasn't been any post at all."
Emily, Ron and Hermione looked curiously at Harry. With a meaningful look at both of them he said, "All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ron?"
"Yeah . . . think I will too," said Ron at once. "Hermione, Emily?"
"Yes," they said quickly, and the four of them marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
"What's up, Harry?" said Emily, the moment they had closed the door of the attic room behind them.
"There's something I haven't told you," Harry said. "On Saturday morning, I woke up with my scar hurting again."
Emily's, Ron's and Hermione's reactions were almost exactly as Harry had imagined them back in his bedroom on Privet Drive.
Hermione gasped and started making suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from Albus Dumbledore to Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse.
Ron simply looked dumbstruck.
Emily's face settled in a panicked expression and she instantly began to pick and bite at the skin around her thumbs.
"But, he wasn't there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean, last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn't he?"
"I'm sure he wasn't on Privet Drive," said Harry reaching out and stopping her from making her thumbs bleed. "But I was dreaming about him . . . him and Peter, you know, Wormtail. I can't remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill . . . someone, and then they said something about taking someone.
He had teetered for a moment on the verge of saying "me and Emily," but couldn't bring himself to make Emily look any more anxious than she already did.
"It was only a dream," said Ron bracingly. "Just a nightmare."
"Yeah, but was it, though?" said Harry, turning to look out of the window at the brightening sky. "It's weird, isn't it? . . . My scar hurts, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort's sign's up in the sky again."
"Don't - say - his - name!" Ron hissed through gritted teeth.
"And remember what Professor Trelawney said to you?" Harry went on, ignoring Ron. "At the end of last year?"
Professor Trelawney was their Divination teacher at Hogwarts.
Hermione's terrified look vanished as she let out a derisive snort.
"Oh Harry, you aren't going to pay attention to anything that old fraud says?"
"You weren't there," said Emily, realising what Harry was talking about. "You didn't hear her. This time was different. I told you, she went into a trance, a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would rise again . . . greater and more terrible than ever before . . . and he'd manage it because his servant was going to go back to him . . . and that night Wormtail escaped."
There was a silence in which Ron fidgeted absentmindedly with a hole in his Chudley Cannons bedspread.
"Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Are you expecting a letter?"
"I told Sirius and Eric about my scar," said Harry, shrugging. "I'm waiting for there answer."
"Good thinking!" said Ron, his expression clearing. "I bet Eric and Sirius'll know what to do!"
"I hoped they'd get back to me quickly," said Harry.
"But we don't know where Sirius or Eric are. . . they could be in Africa or somewhere, couldn't they?" said Hermione reasonably. "Hedwig's not going to manage that journey in a few days."
"Yeah, I know," said Harry, but there was a leaden feeling in his stomach as he looked out of the window at the Hedwig-free sky.
"Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harry," said Ron. "Come on, three on three, Fred, Ethan, Emily and George will play. . . . You can try out the Wronski Feint. . . ."
"Ron," said Hermione, in an I-don't-think-you're-being-very- sensitive sort of voice, "Harry doesn't want to play Quidditch right now. . . . He's worried, and he's tired. . . . We all need to go to bed. . . ."
"Yeah, I want to play Quidditch," said Harry suddenly. "Hang on, I'll get my Firebolt."
"Get mine!" Emily shouted.
Hermione left the room, muttering something that sounded very much like "Boys." Emily pulled an offended face "I don't think I look like a boy."
Neither Mr. Weasley nor Percy was at home much over the following week.
Both left the house each morning before the rest of the family got up, and returned well after dinner every night leaving Remus inside the house helping Mrs Weasley.
"It's been an absolute uproar," Percy told them importantly the Sunday evening before they were due to return to Hogwarts. "I've been putting out fires all week. People keep sending Howlers, and of course, if you don't open a Howler straight away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to cinders."
"Why are they all sending Howlers?" asked Ginny, who was mending her copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi with Spellotape on the rug in front of the living room fire.
"Complaining about security at the World Cup," said Percy. "They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher's put in a claim for a twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I've got his number. I know for a fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks."
Mrs. Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner.
Emily liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family's names.
There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. "Home," "school," and "work" were there, but there was also "traveling," "lost," "hospital," "prison," and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, "mortal peril."
Eight of the hands were currently pointing to the "home" position, but Mr. Weasley's, which was the longest, was still pointing to "work." Mrs. Weasley sighed.
"Your father hasn't had to go into the office on weekends since the days of You-Know-Who," she said. "They're working him far too hard. His dinner's going to be ruined if he doesn't come home soon."
"Well, Father feels he's got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn't he?" said Percy. "If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with his Head of Department first."
"Don't you dare blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!" said Mrs. Weasley, flaring up at once.
"If Dad hadn't said anything, old Rita would just have said it was disgraceful that nobody from the Ministry had commented," said Bill, who was playing chess with Ron. "Rita Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, she interviewed all the Gringotts' Charm Breakers once, and called me 'a long-haired pillock'?"
"Well, it is a bit long, dear," said Mrs. Weasley gently. "If you'd just let me-"
"No, Mum."
Rain lashed against the living room window. Emily was immersed in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, copies of which Mrs. Weasley had bought for her, Harry, and Ron in Diagon Alley.
Hermione was leaning on Emily's shoulder, reading along with her.
Charlie was darning a fireproof balaclava. Harry was polishing his and Emily's firebolts, the broomstick servicing kit Hermione had given him for his thirteenth birthday open at his feet.
Ethan, Fred and George were sitting in a far corner, quills out, talking in whispers, their heads bent over a piece of parchment.
"What are you three up to?" said Remus sharply, his eyes on the twins and his son.
"Homework," said Fred vaguely.
"Don't be ridiculous, you're still on holiday," said Mrs. Weasley.
"Yeah, we've left it a bit late," said Ethan.
"You're not by any chance writing out a new order form, are you?" said Mrs. Weasley shrewdly. "You wouldn't be thinking of restarting Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, by any chance?"
"Now, Mum," said Fred, looking up at her, a pained look on his face. "If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and Ethan, George and I died, how would you feel to know that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?"
Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Weasley.
"Oh your father's coming!" she said suddenly, looking up at the clock again.
Mr. Weasley's hand had suddenly spun from "work" to "traveling"; a second later it had shuddered to a halt on "home" with the others, and they heard him calling from the kitchen.
"Coming, Arthur!" called Mrs. Weasley, hurrying out of the room.
A few moments later, Mr. Weasley came into the warm living room carrying his dinner on a tray.
He looked completely exhausted.
"Well, the fat's really in the fire now," he told Mrs. Weasley as he sat down in an armchair near the hearth and toyed unenthusiastically with his somewhat shriveled cauliflower. "Rita Skeeter's been ferreting around all week, looking for more Ministry mess ups to report. And now she's found out about poor old Bertha going missing, so that'll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman he should have sent someone to look for her ages ago."
"Mr. Crouch has been saying it for weeks and weeks," said Percy swiftly.
"Crouch is very lucky Rita hasn't found out about Winky," said Mr. Weasley irritably. "There'd be a week's worth of headlines in his house-elf being caught holding the wand that conjured the Dark Mark."
"I thought we were all agreed that that elf, while irresponsible, did not conjure the Mark?" said Percy hotly.
"If you ask me, Mr. Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how mean he is to elves!" said Hermione angrily.
"Now look here, Hermione!" said Percy. "A high-ranking Ministry official like Mr. Crouch deserves unswerving obedience from his servants-"
"His slave, you mean!" said Hermione, her voice rising passionately, "because he didn't pay Winky, did he?"
"I think you'd all better go upstairs and check that you've packed properly!" said Mrs. Weasley, breaking up the argument. "Come on now, all of you. . . ."
Harry repacked his broomstick servicing kit, put his and Emily's Firebolts over his shoulder, and went back upstairs with Ron.
Hermione and Emily sat down on there bed. Emily looked around the room, it was a very homely room but something felt off, she missed the cottage more then she had expected.
"What's that book about?" Hermione asked, seeing that Emily was getting lost in her own thoughts, "I've saw you reading it for about a year now."
"Oh, it's ' A Christmas carol'. I love it, it's about this very old grumpy man who hates Christmas but he gets visits from three ghosts, and they all make him like Christmas again. I've read it since I was a kid." Emily explained, Hermione noticed the gloomy look on her face suddenly lifted "It's not an advanced book, but it's like a comfort book. Dad told me my dad ,Sirius, used to read it to me when we were young."
"It sounds lovely." Hermione smiled and continued to pack her trunk making sure everything was in there.
"Hermione, you don't reckon my dad and brother have been caught, do you?"
"Im sure there fine, it would've been in the Daily Prophet," said Hermione. "The Ministry would want to show they'd caught someone, wouldn't they?"
"Yeah, I suppose. . . ."
There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Weasley entered, carrying an armful of freshly laundered Hogwarts robes.
"Here you are," she said, sorting them into two piles. "Now, mind you pack them properly so they don't crease."
"Thank you Mrs Weasley!" Hermione and Emily sung in sync, packing there fresh clothes carefully.
She left the room, Hermione turned round to Emily.
"Are you and Harry okay now? Everyone saw you kissing him the other day in Rons room before dinner."
Emily froze and dropped all her clothes at her feet.
"What do you mean everyone saw?" She shouted, slamming her hand to her mouth.
"Well, Mrs Weasley asked Ginny to come and get you both and then she saw you kissing so she came and got us all. Fred and George had to restrain Ethan, it was quite funny actually." Hermione snorted.
Emily let out a loud scream and banged her head off the cupboard door repeatedly wishing that the floor would swallow her whole.