The sound of knives and forks scraping across plates was all that could be heard in the giant hall. No one was speaking, they hardly ever did. The mother sat at one end of the table and occasionally would nervously look up at her husband who sat at the top of the table. Their two children sat in the middle opposite each other. They would catch each other's eye but every time would look away.
"How is work going?" Their mother asked quietly.
"It's going okay mother." He placed his cutlery down. "I'm quite enjoying it, to be honest, the other day-"
He was cut off by their father. "Enough. Women do not need to know about business."
It was at times like this that Eliza actually felt sorry for her mother, whenever her father was home her mother would turn into a quiet wife never wanting to upset her husband. It would confuse Eliza how her mother could be so different.
"Why not?" Eliza asked, almost immediately regretting it.
Her father let out a large sigh. "It is a matter for men, women stay at home while men work."
"Said men last century." Eliza answered back while eating a spoonful of food.
"Eliza Dawlish it is not your place to say that!" His anger increased.
She got up from the table. "Why because I am a girl or a Gryffindor?" She placed her napkin down. "Please may I be excused?" Eliza looked from her father to her mother.
"I have matters to discuss with you first!" Her father thew down his own napkin. "We are having our annual dinner soon."
"Yes, the one where lots of obnoxious men and women come wearing uncomfortable clothes to talk about boring things with one and other."
"Don't worry about Eliza, my dear. I have a dress ready for her, it is elegant and will make her look like a true Dawlish."
"The fact is she is a Gryffindor which means she is not a true Dawlish."
"Then I will stay in my room."
"You will stay elsewhere." Her father ordered.
Eliza looked around the room at her brother and mother - both of whom were in shock. "Where?"
"Anywhere but here." Her father began to eat his food again.
She scoffed. "I know why you hate me."
"Why is that?" He replied not caring in the slightest.
"Because I remind you of her. Evelyn. The girl you couldn't save."
Her father exploded but all Eliza did was walk confidently out of the room. "YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HER!"
"Neither did you. A blood-traitor and muggle knew more about her then you ever did." Before he could reply the giant doors closed shut. Eliza stood still and listened to her mother trying to calm her father down before making her way down to the kitchens. It was the warmest place in the entire Dawlish Manor and Eliza's favourite place. It was always busy, house elves constantly running around. When Eliza walked in the head house elf turned to her "Is there something wrong with the dinner?"
Eliza shook her head. "No, no, it was absolutely delicious. Thank you. I just wanted to say goodbye to you all."
Winny stared sadly at her before turning to the rest of the house elves. "Mistress Eliza is leaving!"
They all turned to her. "Why?" "Oh Mistress Eliza, where will you go?" "We will miss you Mistress Eliza."
"Eliza, you must all call me Eliza." After an incident of her trying to give all the elves a piece of clothing so they would be free, her father had made sure to tell the elves that she wasn't their mistress and the only person who could free them was himself.
"Where are you going?"
Eliza sat down among them. "I will be going to the Burrow to stay with the Weasleys."
"Why can you not stay here? The dinner is soon!"
"Because I am not a true Dawlish." Eliza sighed. "I will see you all next summer, I will miss you dearly, I hope you all become free one day." She hugged the ones closest to her before returning to her bedroom. It was dark except from the fire in the corner of the room. She packed her trunk and picked up her owl's cage. After, she started to make her way through the castle and down to the front door.
"You'll need this." Her brother said as he threw her jacket at her. "It's cold outside."
She nodded at him and made her way through the large gardens and down the path to the road outside. It was silent, no one was around. Eliza sighed and sat down on her trunk. Suddenly, a large purple bus drove up in front of her, "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor this evening." A man said to her. He helped put her things onto the bus and she sat down on a bed. "What's your name?"
"Eliza."
"Well Eliza, whereabouts are you headed?" He asked her.
"The Burrow, where the Weasley's live, it's -"
"We know where it is!" He said. "Take her away, Ern."
The bus started to drive quickly down the roads, Eliza sighed as she lay down on the bed.
"Wake up Miss, we're at the Burrow." Stan shook her.
"Thank you." Eliza said as she got off and saw her trunk and owl. With a sigh, Eliza began to make her way down the drive when she saw Arthur Weasley "Mr Weasley!"
He turned and smiled brightly at her. "Eliza! It's good to see you again! You're here quite early!"
"I was kicked out and I got the Knight's Bus here."
"Oh Eliza, I am very sorry."
She smiled at him. "It is quite alright. I'm here now!"
"Dad's home!" Eliza heard someone shout. Mr Weasley and Eliza both sat down at the table as he poured them both a cup of tea.
"What a night. Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned." He let out a large sigh.
"Find anything, Dad?" Fred asked eagerly.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle." Mr Weasley let out a large yawn. "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."
George asked. "Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?"
"Just Muggle-baiting. 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 appeared in the room holding a long poker.
Mr Weasley stared at his wife. "C-cars, Molly, dear?"
"Yes, Arthur, cars." Eliza could tell he wasn't in the good books. "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, 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?" asked Mr Weasley, having no idea who she was talking about."Harry who?" He looked round the room and then jumped when he saw Harry. "Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about -"
"Your sons flew that car to Harry's house and back last night. What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" Mr Weasley asked eagerly. "Did it go all right? I - I mean." He saw the look on his wife's face. "that - that was very wrong, boys - very wrong indeed."
Eliza chuckled to herself. "Eliza! Dear, it is good to see you!" Mrs Weasley smiled at her.
"She travelled all the way here on the Knight's bus." Mr Weasley said.
"I was hoping I could stay here -"
Mrs Weasley cut her off. "For the rest of summer, of course you can, you're always welcome here!"
"Thank you!" Eliza smiled graciously.
The twins grinned at her. "Come on Eliza, we'll take your things up for you!"
"She'll stay in Ginny's room." Mrs Weasley told them.
"We know mum, she always does!" Fred said as he nudged Eliza's arm.
They made their way up the stairs and dropped her trunk and owl's cage in Ginny's bedroom. "We'll see you in a bit Eliza." George said as the twins carried up the stairs.
A small ginger girl suddenly hugged Eliza. "I've missed you so much Eliza!" Ginny said to her.
Eliza chuckled as she bent down to Ginny's height. "You've grown! You look beautiful Gin."
"Thank you Eliza. Have you seen that Harry's here!" Ginny told her excitedly.
"Does Ginny Weasley have a crush on Harry Potter!"
Ginny went bright red. "Shhh, you won't tell anyone will you?"
"Of course not!" Eliza hugged Ginny again. "I'll see you in a bit, I have to go and talk to the twins!" She walked up the stairs and then entered the twins bedroom, the two were huddled over their desks. "What are you two doing?"
They quickly turned to her. "You scared us El!" The two exclaimed.
"We've come up with new ideas!" George said to her.
"We need your help though!" Fred continued.
"You always need my help." Eliza joked.
"Shut up Za!" Fred told her.
"Don't be mean to Elz." George said to his brother.
The three then sat down and got to work, the twins would show Eliza their plans and then she would work on them to get them better and then together they would get them to work. It was what they always did.
"What happened then?" Fred asked her while she was in the middle of looking over the design of exploding sweets.
"What happened when?"
"Why did you have to take the Knight's bus all the way from the Dawlish Manor to here?" George said to her.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Because I felt like it."
"Eliza!" The moaned. "We're your best friends."
She glanced over at them. "My father threw me out."
"Why?"
"Because he didn't want the Gryffindor Dawlish present at their annual dinner."
The twins nodded their heads. "We're sorry that you're family are all horrible."
"It's fine. I would much rather be here than there, so it's all worked out for the better."
"How was the ride here?" George asked her.
"It was okay, I fell asleep as soon as I lay down on one of the beds, so it wasn't that bad." Eliza said. "Anyway what did you do with the flying car?"
The two grinned. "Harry hadn't replied to any of Ron's letters so we drove to his aunt and uncle's house to save him."
"They had put bars on his windows and wasn't letting him receive or send letters!"
"How terrible! At least he's here now."
"This place isn't that good though." Fred pointed out to her.
"No, it's better than good. It's great and it's your home!" Eliza told them. "I would love to be able to call a place like this home!"
"Why?"
"Because you all love each other and even if it isn't the cleanest it is still way better than a stupid manor with lots of servants. And do you want to know why? Because it actually looks as though someone lives here and it's very comfy!" Eliza said to them. "It is your home."