"Ron!" breathed Harry from across the room. He then made his way to the window next to Delilah.
"How did you get here?" she asked.
"We flew, dad has this enchanted car, we didn't enchant it, of course," George said from the front seat; Fred was sitting beside him.
"All right, Delilah, Harry?" asked Fred.
"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you been answering my letters Harry? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, you were invited too, Delilah."
"Wait til I tell you, our lives have been hectic, first they locked our trunks downstairs — we broke them out later — then Dobby showed up and caused us to get locked in our room. 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 then the Ministry will expel us, so —" Harry rambled.
"Harry, do yourself a favor and shut up. Why would they take the risk of getting caught by their parents or Ministry even, just to make sure we were alive?"
Fred and George grinned at her.
"Correct! We're here to bring you home with us," Fred answered.
Why everyone got Fred and George mixed up was a mystery to Delilah, from a distance they looked the same and they did have the same structure, but Fred had way more freckles than George, and while their personalities were similar, they were still different.
"So how are we going to get the bars down?" Delilah inquired.
"Tie that around the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Harry.
"If the Dursleys wake up, we're all dead," Delilah warned as Harry tied the rope around a bar and Fred revved up the car.
"Don't worry," said George, "and stand back."
They both moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who luckily kept silent. 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.
Delilah walked back to the window and saw the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ronald hoisted them up into the car. Despite all the noise they'd make, somehow the Dursleys' still were asleep, or at least silent.
When the bars were safely out of the way, Fred reversed as close as possible to their window.
They grabbed all of their Hogwarts stuff and piled them into the trunk. Delilah got in the car. Harry was about to get in when, of course, something had to go wrong.
Hedwig let out a loud screech.
"That bloody owl!" Uncle Vernon shouted. Harry snatched up Hedwig's cage, dashed to the window, and passed it out to Ron.
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 his ankle.
Ron, Fred, George, and Delilah all seized Harry's arms and pulled as hard as they could.
"Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "They're getting away! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!"
They all gave a gigantic tug and Harry's leg slid out of Uncle Vernon's grasp and Harry was in the car. He slammed the door shut and Fred put his foot on it and they were out of there!
Delilah rolled down her window, she'd made Harry sit in the middle, and felt the cold night wind blow her hair around.
"See you next summer!" Harry and Delilah yelled to the Dursleys, who were all hanging, dumbstruck, out of their window.
The Weasleys roared with laughter and Delilah grinned. She wouldn't have to see the Dursleys until next summer.
Harry told Ron to let Hedwig out and George handed a hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window and glided next to them like a ghost.
"So, what's been happening?" Ron asked impatiently.
Delilah let Harry tell them about Dobby and his warning and how he'd gotten them into trouble. There was a long, shocked silence when he had finished.
"Very fishy," said Fred finally.
"Definitely dodgy," agreed George. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"
"I don't think he could," Harry replied. "We told you, everytime he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."
Fred and George looked at each other.
"What, you think he was lying to us?" Harry asked.
"Well," said Fred, "put it this way — house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"
"Yes," said Harry and Ron together, instantly.
"Draco Malfoy," Harry explained. "He hates me."
"Draco Malfoy?" said George, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"
"Yes, that's his father, but he wouldn't do that. He may be a prat and does dislike Harry, but he wouldn't do that, not with me being his sister. Plus, he's been busy," Delilah interrupted.
Draco had been busy. His family had gone to Bulgaria to visit one of his father's friends, the headmaster of Durmstrang, which was the wizarding school there.
They had watched quidditch matches and even seen some veela, who Draco said weren't as attractive as he had thought they would be, as well as a few dragons.
"How do you know that?" Harry asked, surprised. Yep, it wasn't like he'd seen her writing letters to him all summer long.
"We wrote to each other," Delilah explained. "And he does have a house elf, but he didn't tell me its name."
Fred's mind still seemed to be on the fact that she was friends and even wrote to Draco. "You mean to tell me, that you guys are actually friends?"
"Yes, and once you get to know him and he drops his whole annoying 'I'm better than you' vibe and is actually quite nice, he just acts the way he does because that's what he was taught, just like you were taught to ignore all that blood nonsense. Anyway, I think it could be that Hufflepuff, Zacharias Smith's elf. He sent you quite a few glares last year and didn't seem to like you all that much."
"Who?" Harry asked. Even Ron, Fred, and George didn't know. But of course that was expected, Harry and Ron didn't pay attention to any house except their own and occasionally some Slytherin's that got in their way, and Fred and George were two years ahead of them.
"The tall, skinny, blonde hair brown eyed Hufflepuff in our year." Harry stared at Delilah blankly. "Nevermind."
"Whoever it is has to be an old Wizarding family, and they'll be rich," said Fred.
"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," said George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house...."
"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," said Ronald. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first —"
"Who's Errol?" Harry asked, even though it was obviously their family owl.
"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes —"
"Who?"
"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," said Fred from the front.
"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me." Ronald continued. "Said he needed him."
"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," said George, frowning. "And he has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room.... I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge.... You're driving too far west, Fred," he added, pointing to the compass on the dashboard. Fred twiddled the steering wheel.
"What's the plan? Your parents obviously will be mad you flew the car, so what's the story?" Delilah inquired.
"We fly the car into the garage without Mum noticing we flew it. Dad's working tonight as well, so he won't see. Then we'll go upstairs really quietly 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 you two and no one ever needs to know we flew the car," George answered.
"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic?" Harry inquired, finally asking a worthwhile question.
"He works in the most boring department," said Ronald. "The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."
"The what?"
"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare — Dad was working overtime for weeks."
"What happened?" asked Delilah, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place. One man ended up in the hospital with sugar tongs clamped to his nose. Dad was going frantic — it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office — and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up —"
"But your dad — this car —" Harry looked confused, which surprisingly made sense.
For someone who worked to stop muggle items from being bewitched, their Dad seemed to do a lot of it himself.
Fred laughed. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he'd have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."
"That's the main road," said George, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes.... Just as well, it's getting light...."
A pretty faint pinkish glow was visible along the horizon to the east.
Fred brought the car lower, and Delilah noticed a patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.
"We're a little way outside the village," said George. "Ottery St. Catchpole."
Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.
"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Delilah saw the Weasley house for the first time.
It looked as though it had once a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it had to be held up by magic. Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red room. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, THE BURROW. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.
"It's not much," said Ronald.
"It's wonderful," said Harry happily, and Delilah had to agree. The Burrow looked very... welcoming.
Fred related the plan that George had said in the car when Ronald turned a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other four wheeled around.
Mrs. Weasley, at least Delilah assumed it was 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.
Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. Delilah for one actually didn't look guilty but was slightly red in the face. Mrs. Weasley 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 sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rag 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 and Delilah, who backed away, even though they were used to being yelled at. It still wasn't pleasant.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear. And you must be Delilah, pleasure to meet you," she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."
She turned and walked back into the house and Delilah, after a glance at Fred, who nodded encouragingly, followed her.
The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle, and Delilah sat down on the edge of a seat, looking around. She'd never been in a wizard house before and was curious to see what was different.
The clock on the wall opposite her 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 — It's Magic! And unless Delilah's ears were deceiving her, 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 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, dears," she assured Delilah and Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto her and Harry's 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 to Ron by Friday, But really" (she was now adding three fried eggs to her plate), "flying an illegal car halfway across the country — anyone could have seen you —"
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!" protested Fred.
"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.
"They were starving them, Mum!" said George.
"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting their bread and buttering it for them.
At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, red-headed figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.
"Ginny," Ronald said in an undertone to them. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry," Fred teased with a grin, but caught his mother's eye and bent his face over his 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 degnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again —"
"Oh, Mum —"
"And you two," she said, glaring at Ronald and George. "You both can go up to bed, dears," she added to Harry and Delilah. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car —"
"I'll help, I've never seen a degnoming —" Harry offered.
"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," said Mrs. Weasley.
"Honestly, we don't mind, we're happy to help," insisted Delilah. She too was curious about degnoming.
"Oh well, if you're sure, 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 groaned.
"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden —"
Written across the cover of Mrs. Weasley's book in fancy gold letters were the words 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. As always in the Wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, probably Gilderoy Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all. He had a look about him that seemed suspicious. He was too good looking to care about Household Pests. 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. But Delilah noticed that her cheeks were 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 and Delilah behind them. The garden was large, and in Delilah's eyes, exactly what a garden should be. It was the opposite of the Dursleys, full of weeds, the grass needed cutting — but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, plants Delilah had never seen spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs.
Delilah walked up to Fred.
"So how do we degnome the garden?" she asked.
"First, you grab the gnome," Fred bent double over a bush. There was a violent scuffling noise, the bush shuddered, and he straightened up holding a gnome. It was small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. "Then you swing it around and let go. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt them." Fred demonstrated it.
Delilah nodded and did as she was instructed. Soon the air was thick with flying gnomes.
"See, they're not too bright," said George, seizing five or six gnomes at once. "The moment they know the degnoming 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," Ronald promised 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!" George exclaimed. "Dad's home!"
They hurried through the garden and back into the house.
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 roves, 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 in my department, though. Mortgage was taken away for questioning about some extremely old ferrets, but that's the Committee of 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 will 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?"
This was going to be interesting.
"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 to 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 and Delilah arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"
"Harry and Delilah who?" said Mr. Weasley blankly.
He looked around and saw Harry and Delilah, and jumped
"Good lord, is it Harry and Delilah Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about —"
"Your sons flew that car to their house and back last night!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly and Delilah couldn't help but smile at his excited tone and how he and his wife had had totally opposite reactions. "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...."
Harry and Ronald left the room and Delilah turned to Fred.
"Where will I be staying?"
"Ginny's room, we've already got an extra bedroom setup in there whenever we have guests, rare as it is. Come on, I'll show you to her room," Fred led Delilah to a door on the third landing. "Warning, she may have been quiet this morning, but normally she won't stop chattering."
Fred left her to drop her stuff off and slightly, just slightly, nervous, Delilah walked into the room.
It was small, but bright. There was a large poster of the Wizarding band the Weird Sisters on one wall, and a large picture of Gwenog Jones, Captain of the all-witch Quidditch team the Holyhead Harpies, on the other. A desk stood facing the open window, which looked out of the orchard. Pushed against each side of the room were two identical beds.
"Mum was just up here while you were de-gnoming the garden. She put sheets on your bed, so if you want to sleep you want" Ginny informed her.
"Thanks, but I couldn't sleep even if I tried. So, um, how about we tell each other more about ourselves? I mean, we will be sharing a room for the rest of the summer."
Ginny nodded and they both listed the pointless facts such as their favorite colors, quidditch teams, etc. and Delilah found out that Ginny, while blushing furiously, had a crush on Harry, which was pretty obvious. Delilah suggested that she should be herself around him, and less nervous and shy.
Ginny's face went as red as Delilah's hair.