I yawned, trudging down the stairs. My grey hair was in knots, tied in a bun on top of my head. I headed towards the kitchen. I stopped when I saw four figures nearing the house. As I didn't want to wake anyone, I headed out to greet them, my hair bleeding back to brown. Fred went to open his mouth. "Don't start with me." I said, rubbing my eye with the heel of my hand. "You're lucky I'm the one who found you and not Mum, but that won't be much of a consolation, I'm telling her the moment she wakes up. I was...so worried for you all. I woke up and none of you were in bed."
"Sorry, Kenzie." George started. "But, see, we had to-"
"I don't care!" I snapped. "And the car? By Merlin, you could have crashed, been seen by Muggles. Just wait until Dad finds out about this. I swear, nothing this crazy happened with Bill, or Charlie, or Percy-"
"Perfect Percy." Fred muttered.
"Don't bring Percy in like that." I said, my hand running down my face. "I love you, I really do, but what you did was stupid." I turned to the new person. "Harry, lovely to see you again, kinda wish you'd reply to my letters. Come on in, it's almost time for breakfast." I turned and walked into the Burrow. I heard my brothers and Harry following after me. Our home wasn't the best, but it was...well...home.
Our kitchen was a bit cramped, it was housing 10 people after all. We had a pair of clocks on the wall, both magical. One had a single hand and listed the activities of the day such as 'Time to make tea', 'Time to feed the chickens', 'You're late'. The other one had pictures of us all on the hands, and around the clock itself read all the locations we could possibly be, school, home, dentist, bed, prison and lost. I watched as Fed and George's, and Ron's faces move from 'Lost' to 'Home'. We had old, worn books piled up into the corners, and an open window for Errol, Hermes and Aquila to enter and exit from. A couple pairs of knitting needles clacked away in the corner, and a radio crackled next to it, as if the knitting needles themselves were listening to the broadcast. Almost everything we owned was hand-me-downs or second-hand, and we didn't mind. It made it more homey.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" A voice demanded. Mum was at the bottom of the stairs, glaring at my brothers with a fire that could melt the iron pots and pans. She spotted the dark-haired boy. "Harry, how wonderful to see you dear." She said, approaching us. Her glare returned. "Beds empty, no note, car gone. You could have died, you could have been seen!" Her gaze softened. "Of course, I don't blame you, Harry dear."
"They were staving him Mum." Ron said. "There were bars on his windows."
"Well you best hope I don't put bars on your window, Ronald Weasley." Mum threatened. She then smiled at Harry one more time. "Come now, time for a spot of breakfast."
"This way." I nodded toward the kitchen. I drew my wand and flicked it toward the cupboards. 9 plates slowly took themselves out of the cupboard and set themselves on the table. We took out seats, chatting idly as Mum cooked, our matriarch muttering angry words under her breath.
"Arthur and I have been worried about you too." Mum told Harry, tipping a handful of sausages onto his plate. "Just last night, we were saying we'd come get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron or Kenzie by Friday." Mum finished distributing the sausages and started to pile eggs onto Harry's plate. "But really, flying an illegal car halfway across the country, anyone could have seen you-"
"It was cloudy Mum." Fred insisted as Mum flicked her wand at the sink, the dishes washing themselves and clinging softly in the background.
"Keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mum started to cut Harry some bread, and even buttered it for him. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Ginny rush into the room, squeal, and then run out.
"Ginny." Ron muttered to Harry. "My other sister. She's been talking about you all summer."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph Harry." Fred said with a grin. He, however, managed to catch Mum's glare and then ducked his head again. No one said anything until all our plates were empty. "Blimey, I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed and-"
"You will not!" Mum snapped. "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."
"But mum! That's Kenzie-"
"And you two will help him!" Mum turned to glare at George and Ron. Once again, Mum's glare dropped and smiled at Harry. "You can go up to bed, Dear. You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car."
"I'll help Ron." Harry offered. "I've never seen a de-gnoming-"
"It's very sweet of you dear. But it's dull work. Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject." I groaned softly, my head falling into my hands.
"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden." George groaned. I saw Harry peering at the front cover of a book that Mum had pulled from a stack. 'Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests'. The front cover was covered by a picture of Lockhart, a face I want to punch, with wavy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Lockhart kept winking at everyone, and Mum smiled down at him.
"Oh, he's marvellous." Mum said. "He knows his household pests alright. It's a wonderful book."
"Mum's got herself a little crush on him." I revealed to Harry.
"Don't be ridiculous, Kenzie." Mum scolded, her cheeks pink. "Alright, if you think you know better than Lockhart boys, 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." The boys stood, grumbling angrily and yawning. "Kenzie, can you fix up Ginny's robes for her please."
"Sure, Mum." I said. I stood, kissed her cheek and then headed upstairs. Ginny was waiting in our room. Her half of the room was dotted with green and gold, the colours of the Holyhead Harpies. She had room around her walls for the colours of her Hogwarts House. Both of us had trinkets from around the that Bill had sent us, and a few little dragon figurines and pictures that Charlie gifted us. Ginny was standing in the middle of our room, adjusting the robes on her figure.
"Are you sure these will fit me, Kenzie?" Ginny asked me softly.
"Of course." I assured. I grabbed my pins from my dresser and knelt next to Ginny. "This just needs to come up a bit, and the arms need to come in, and you'll be ready for school."
"Thank you for doing this."
"It's no problem at all, Ginny, we're the only two girls in the house, we have to stick together." I smiled up at Ginny as I fixed her robes. I managed to get everything pinned and got her out of the robes when I heard the door slam downstairs. I laid the robes down on my bed and headed downstairs, that would be Dad. Ginny told me she'd go through her trunk again to make sure she had the right things for school. I found Dad slumped into a kitchen chair, his glasses resting beside him and eyes closed. I set the still warm teapot on the table next to him.
"What a night." Dad grumbled. He grabbed for the teapot, but I poured him a mug of tea as the boys sat around him. "Nine raids, nine! And olf Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hz on me when I had my back turned. Dad took a long sip of tea, sighing.
"Find anything, Dad?" Fred asked eagerly.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle." Dad managed to get out before yawning. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely old ferrets but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms. Thank goodness..."
"Why would anyone bother making door-keys shrink?" George asked.
"To trick Muggles." I said. "Right Dad?"
"Exactly." Dad said with a nod.
"Sell Muggles a key that continues to shrink until it vanishes completely." I revealed, pouring Dad another cup of tea before moving to fix him a plate of breakfast. "Muggles will refuse to admit to anyone that their keys are shrinking so Wizards are rarely convicted." I piled the plate with sausages and eggs and bread, setting it in front of Dad.
"The things our lot have taken to chanting, wouldn't you believe-" Dad started, reaching for the food, but froze when an angry voice echoed through the house.
"LIKE CARS FOR INSTANCE!" Mum roared. She had appeared at the doorway of the kitchen, brandishing a fire poker like a sword. Dad turned to her, eyes wide in fear.
"C-cars, Molly dear?" He wondered softly.
"Yes Arthur, cars. 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."
"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that...if even, er, he maybe would have done better to, um...tell his wife the truth." Dad said, blinking up at Mum. "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 Weasly, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law! 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? Harry who?" Dad looked around the room, only now noticing Harry sitting at the table, and jumped. "Good lord, is that Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron and Kenzie's told us so much about-"
"Your son's flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" Mum cried. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" Dad beamed, turning to the boys. "Did it go alright?" He caught sight of Mum's eyes. "I-i mean...th-that was very wrong boys...very wrong indeed."
"Let's leave them to it." Ron muttered to Harry. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom." Everyone shuffled out of the room.