chapter three : Weasley's Wizard Wheezes
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"What's that?" Bill asked Charlie as the two of them sat down at the scrubbed wood table.
"Some plays I used for Quidditch when I was a captain," Charlie replied, as he showed them to Bill. "I'm going to give them to June."
"She's the new captain?"
Charlie nodded.
"They certainly have made a good decision, then," Bill continued, leaning back. "I remember her as quite a Quidditch addict."
"I wished I was still at Hogwarts this year," Charlie admitted. "Certainly with the Triwizard Tournamemt going on."
"I'm secretly happy that Fred, George, Ron and Ginny are all under seventeen," Bill said, frowning. "I've heard it can be quite dangerous."
"I may or may not know about the first task," Charlie admitted, a smile appearing on his lips.
However, before Bill could ask what he meant, Fred appeared from the fireplace, laughing. A moment later, George appeared, too, with Harry's trunk beside him. After a glance at Fred, he, too, laughed.
"What happened?" Bill asked curiously as the twins made their way towards them.
Fred and George grinned. "A moment of patience, good sir, we have yet to know if something happened."
Ron appeared, too, and Fred leaped towards him.
"Did he eat it?"
Ron frowned warily. "Eat what?"
"Maybe he didn't do it yet," George said to Fred.
"Do what?" Ron asked, confused.
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The moment Harry and Juniper appeared in the Burrow, Fred leaped towards them.
"Did he eat it?" he said excitedly.
"Yeah," Harry said. "What was it?"
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," Fred said brightly. "George and I invented them, we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer . . ."
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; June looked around and saw that Ron and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with Bill and Charlie.
"How're you doing, Harry? It's good to see you again, June. Charlie just told me you're the new Quidditch captain. Congratulations!"
"Thank you," June said, making her way towards them.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise and Arthur appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than June had ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," Fred said, with another evil grin. "I just dropped it . . . it was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."
"You dropped it on purpose!" Arthur roared. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.
"It was four foot long before his parents would let me shrink it!"
Harry, the Weasleys and June roared with laughter.
"It isn't funny!" Arthur shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons —"
"We didn't give it to him because he was a Muggle!" Fred said indignantly.
"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," George said. "Isn't he, Harry?"
"Yeah, he is, Mr Weasley," Harry said earnestly.
"That's not the point!" Arthur raged. "You wait until I tell your mother —"
"Tell me what?" a voice said behind him.
Molly had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.
"Oh, hello, Harry dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Arthur hesitated. June could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and George, he hadn't really intended to tell Molly what had happened. There was a silence, while Arthur eyed his wife nervously. Then Hermione and Ginny appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Molly.
"Tell me what, Arthur?" Molly repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.
"It's nothing, Molly," Arthur mumbled, "Fred and George just — but I've had words with them —"
"What have they done this time?" Molly said. "If it's got anything to do with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes —"
"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" Hermione said from the doorway.
"He knows where he's sleeping," Ron said. "In my room, he slept there last —"
"We can all go," she said, pointedly.
"Oh," Ron said, cottoning on. "Right."
"Yeah, we'll come, too," George said —
"You stay where you are!" Molly snarled.
"June, why don't we go over the plays outside?" Charlie asked, his blue eyes darting from June to Molly and back.
"Sure," June replied, giving Fred and George a pity glance before following their older brother outside.
Charlie and June sat down at the old battered table and the former placed the plays in front of the latter.
However, before Charlie could properly start to explain them all, a tawny owl landed on the table beside June.
"Baldoin!" Juniper exclaimed, recognizing the owl of her aunt Aubrey. "What are you doing here?" She didn't expect a letter so soon.
The owl stuck out his leg, showing the letter that hung onto it.
Chère June,
I've heard from Maman that you are going to the Quidditch World Cup. Well, we are going, too! It'll be great to see each other again (it's been a while after all). Camille is overexcited. As you might know, you're a hero to her.
I'm looking forward to our next meeting!
A bientôt,
Timothée
Juniper grinned. She hadn't seen Aubrey's kids in what seemed forever.
"Letter from your boyfriend?" Charlie asked amused, making June look at him.
"I don't have a boyfriend." She showed him the letter, blushing slightly at the fact that he thought she had a boyfriend. "It's from the son of my godmother. He goes to Beauxbatons."
"So you've got family in France? That's pretty cool."
"I think working with dragons is as cool as it can get," June said, grinning.
Charlie leaned back in the chair. "I guess it is. Nothing better than to wake up and see dragons out of the bedroom window."
"I have to disagree with you on that," June said, smiling. "There's nothing better than to wake up on Christmas morning at Hogwarts."
Charlie laughed. "So you're a sucker for Christmas?"
"I believe I am," Juniper said, grinning.
"Are you guys almost ready?" Bill asked, coming out from the kitchen back door. "Mum wants us to set the tables."
"We haven't even started yet," Charlie said, scratching his neck.
Bill raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Let's just set the table," Charlie quickly said, standing up. Juniper could swear she saw his cheeks turning an unusual red color. "Here, June, I'll explain it to you some other time." He handed her the plays.
"Why don't we have a little game now? It's going to take Mum a while before dinner's ready," Bill suggested. He, too, had noticed the color on Charlie's cheeks.
"Sure."
The two of them raised their wands and made two battered old tables fly high above the lawn. They started to smash into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out of the air. Soon enough, Fred and George joined June in cheering. Ginny and Hermione joined, too. The former was laughing while the latter was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.
Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.
"Will you keep it down?" he bellowed.
"Sorry, Perce," Bill said, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"
"Very badly," Percy said peevishly and he slammed the window shut again. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg, and conjured tablecloth from nowhere.
By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Molly's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, Hermione and June were settling theirselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.
June sat down next to Charlie and in front of the twins. She tried to act cool as Charlie gave her a glance. The four of them filled their plates while talking about the Quidditch World Cup.
"It's got to be Ireland," Charlie said thickly, though a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semi-finals."
"Bulgaria have got Viktor Krum, though," Fred said.
"Krum's one decent player, Ireland have got seven," Charlie said shortly. "I wish England had got through, though. That was embarrassing, that was."
"What happened?" Harry asked eagerly from June's other side.
"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," Charlie said gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland were slaughtered by Luxemburg."
Arthur conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their pudding (home-made strawberry ice-cream), and by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle. June was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with the world as she watched several gnomes sprinting through the rose bushes, laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
"Look at the time," Molly said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you, you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup."
June groaned at the thought of having to wake up so early, earning a grin from Charlie.
"Shut it," she muttered.
"Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow — hope it does this time!" Harry said enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," Percy said sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might skip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" Fred said.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" Percy said, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry and June, as they got up from the table. "We sent it."
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Published 26.10.2020
I hope you enjoyed it & tell me what you think of it!
It took a while, I know, but I have lots and lots of work to do and I'm writing two other fanfics!
Anyways: next up: Quidditch World Cup!!