A door opened in front of us, and the annoying Perry Weasley pokes his head out.
"Hi, Perry," Harry said.
"Oh hello, Harry," Perry said. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know — I've got a report to finish for the office — and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."
"We're not thundering," Ron said, annoyed. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."
"What are you working on?" Harry asked politely.
"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Perry said smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin — leakages have been increasing a t a rate of almost three percent a year —"
"That'll change the world, that report will," Ron nodded seriously, trying not to grin. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."
"You might sneer, Ron," Perry said angrily, face pink, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-bottomed products that seriously endanger—"
"Yeah, yeah, all right," Ron started up the stairs again. Perry slammed his door shut as we followed our friend. Once we were on the third floor, shouts rang up from the kitchen. It seemed that Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.
Ron's room was covered in posters of his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. The fish tank on the window sill, which had once held frog spawn, now had one very large frog. Scabbers wasn't here anymore, thankfully, but in his place was Pig, Ron's new pet owl, which was hooting and whirling around happily in his cage.
"Shut up, Pig," Ron said, edging his way between some of the beds that had been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room," Ron explained. "Perry gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."
"Er — why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Because he's being stupid," Ginny huffed. "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."
"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," Ron rolled his eyes. "Ginny named him. She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."
Pig zoomed happily around his cage, hooting loudly. I smiled. Ron had complained a lot about Scabbers, but when he had thought his rat had been eaten, he was really upset.
"Where's Crookshanks?" I looked at Hermione.
"Out in the garden, I expect," Hermione answered. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen any before."
"Perry's enjoying work, then?" Harry sat on one of the beds, staring at Ron's posters.
"Enjoying it?" Ron said darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch... as I was saying to Mr. Crouch... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion... Mr. Crouch was telling me.... They'll be announcing their engagement any day now."
"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" I turned to my friend. "Did you get our food parcels and everything?" The Dursleys had gone on a diet for Dudley, who was too big for the uniform sizes at his school. Harry had been forced to join in, so we all sent him food.
"Yeah, thanks a lot," Harry grinned. "They saved my life, those cakes."
"And have you heard from —?" I kicked Ron in the shin and he went silent, glaring at me. I knew he had been going to ask about Sirius Black, Harry's godfather and wanted for murder. Discussing the matter in front of Ginny, however, was probably not the smartest of ideas.
"I think they've stopped arguing," Hermione said quickly, breaking the awkward silence. "Shall we go down and help your Mum with dinner?"
"Yeah, all right," Ron said. The five of us left Ron's room and went downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen.
"We're eating out in the garden," she told us as we walked in. "There's just not room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you three," she looked at Harry, Ron, and me, pointing her wand more vigorously at the potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast they bounced off the ceiling and the walls.
"Oh for heaven's sake," she scowled, pointing her wand at a dustpan, which started scooping the potatoes off of the floor. "Those two!" She burst out furiously, pulling pots and pans out of her cupboard, and I knew she meant Fred and George. "I don't know what's going to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can...."
She slammed a saucepan on the table and waved her wand around inside of it. Creamy sauce poured from the tip of her wand as she stirred.
"It's not as though they haven't got brains," she continued irritably, taking the saucepan to the stove, "but they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in big trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest of them put together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office."
Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at one of the drawers, and several knives soared out of it, flying across the room and cutting the potatoes.
"I don't know where we went wrong with them," Mrs. Weasley sat her wand and started pulling out more saucepans. "It's been the same for years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to — OH NOT AGAIN!"
She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had turned into a giant rubber rat. I found it difficult to not laugh.
"One of their fake wands again!" She yelled. "How many times have I told them not to leave them lying around?" She grabbed her real wand and turned to see that the sauce on the oven was smoking.
"C'mon," Ron said quickly, grabbing a handful of cutlery, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie.
We left Mrs. Weasley and headed out into the yard.
In Mythology, we had to make up a god to represent ourselves. It's our last project, sadly. It was definitely my favorite class. But mine was Pajamarama, the goddess of pajamas. You see, I wear pajamas a lot. Like when I'm home, it's pajamas, almost always. And I'm almost always home. My friend did Testosterome, the manly god. His was awesome.