Julie Stone was a regular girl; she lived in an orphanage, had some friends, and every now and then would bang her head against the wall due to stress. . . . Normal!
Anyway, all her life Julie never seemed to quite fit in. She loved it, but her life...
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𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔
────── *•. ⚡︎ .•*──────
The kitchen was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the meeting and a long wooden table stood in the middle of the room, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags. Mr. Weasley and Bill were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.
Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat. Her husband, a thin, balding, red-haired man, who wore horn-rimmed glasses, looked around and jumped to his feet as Hermione sat down next to Ginny on the table.
"Harry!" Mr. Weasley said, hurrying forward to greet him and shaking his hand vigorously. "Good to see you!"
"Journey all right, Harry?" Bill called, trying to gather up twelve scrolls at once. "Mad-Eye didn't make you come via Greenland, then?"
"He tried," said Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately sending a candle toppling onto the last piece of parchment. "Oh no—sorry—"
"Here, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, sounding exasperated, and she repaired the parchment with a wave of her wand.
Mrs. Weasley had seen Harry looking into the parchment on the table. She snatched the plan off the table and stuffed it into Bill's heavily laden arms.
"This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings," she snapped before sweeping off toward an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.
Bill took out his wand, muttered "Evanesco!" and the scrolls vanished.
"Sit down, Harry," said Sirius. "You've met Mundungus, haven't you?"
"Some'n say m' name?" Mundungus mumbled sleepily. "I 'gree with Sirius. . . ."
He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled and Hermione snorted shaking her head.
"The meeting's over, Dung," said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. "Harry's arrived."
"Eh?" said Mundungus, peering balefully at Harry through his matted ginger hair. "Blimey, so 'e 'as. Yeah . . . you all right, 'arry?"
