Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries [Book 5]

15) If I'm Afraid of Walburga, Can I Eat A Walburger to Make Walburga go Away?

When I got back to headquarters, I was still pumped up on too much adrenaline to fall asleep, so I sat in the kitchen and read some books, one of which was about these kids who got kidnapped 'cause they had powers and had to deal with rectal thermometers.

My kind of book.

"Oh!" I jumped and looked at Mrs. Weasley's startled face. "Perseus, I wasn't expecting to see you there!" She clutched a hand to her chest, narrowing her eyes at me. "You're all dirty and scratched up! When did you get here?"

"Uhhhh, about three, I think," I shrugged, closing my book.

"Three? It's nearly six!" Mrs. Weasley shook her head. "Go take a shower, and have Ron look at those scratches, he knows more about dealing with those than I do."

I did as told, thankful she hadn't asked me what had happened. I'd already mailed Dumbledore explaining, and he was trying to get in contact with the lead Auror. Still, I didn't want to tell her that I'd been attacked by a Death Eater. I didn't think it would go over well.

I took a shower, most of the cuts healing quickly, but shower water was never much of a friend, and the worse cuts and bruises remained, along with a burn on my arm from McNully's decision to play with matches.

Ron wasn't pleased when I woke him up and dragged him to the bathroom, but he had patched up a few of Draco's nastier scrapes when we'd come to visit him for the quest, so I knew he wouldn't mess me up too bad.

"What'd you do?" Ron asked.

"Oh, it'll definitely be in the paper," I grinned. "But I may have had a run in with some Aurors, and one of them may have been a Death Eater."

Ron's eyes widened, "You fought a Death Eater?!"

"Yeah," I said. "Nearly got unalived by the killing curse. Thankfully, one of the Aurors was a good guy and hit McBully over the head with a rock."

"What'd you do to get the attention of the Aurors?" Ron asked.

"That's the part that will be in the papers," I grinned. "This is too big not to be in the paper, everyone's going to talk about it, and Dumbledore enchanted my stuff and it's great."

Ron narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously, "I still don't understand why he's got you doing so much but doesn't let you in on most Order meetings. You're practically a member already."

"I am a member," I said. "I have a job. I do it. It's just that, with what we're hoping my job succeeds in doing, me knowing a lot isn't the best idea."

"That doesn't make any sense," Ron said, shaking his head. "Come on, I think I smell bacon."

***

While we were eating breakfast, Mrs. Weasley told us that we'd be cleaning the drawing room of doxies.

"But Mum, Percy-us is tired, we shouldn't have to work after the night he's had," Ron pleaded.

"If Perseus was tired, then he would have gone to sleep when he got back instead of sitting in the kitchen and scaring me half to death this morning," Mrs. Weasley said. "Now, there are a lot more doxies than I thought there were, and I found a nest of dead puffskeins under the sofa."

I gaped in terror, "Not the puffskeins! Nugget loves them, they're his best friends!"

"I'm his best friend," Ron said.

I promptly punched Ron in the stomach, knowing fully well he deserved worse. He was not, and would never be, Nugget's best friend.

***

The drawing room was this long, high-ceilinged olive green room covered in dirty tapestries. Every time we stepped on the carpet, it exhaled little puffs of dust, and the mossy velvet curtains buzzed as if there were bugs inside. I grabbed the same bandana I'd used last night and tied it around my face, Ron looking bored and saying he was going to go get Harry as the rest of us prepared to fight off the doxies. I took a long black bottle of doxycide from Mrs. Weasley and grimaced at the sound of the doxies.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley told Ron and Harry once they'd walked in. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad — what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years —"

Hermione sent an annoyed look at Mrs. Weasley for her words, "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage —"

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Sirius walked in carrying a bag of dead rats. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," Sirius added, seeing the concerned look on Harry's face (I never questioned it when people carried in dead rats. I've carried worse). "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway... this writing desk..." he dropped the rats onto a chair and bent over, examining the locked cabinet. I shuddered, staring at the shuddering drawer. I wasn't a fan of boggarts (who was?) and being so close to one wasn't doing me any favors. "Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart, but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out — knowing my mother it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," Mrs. Weasley said, and I tried not to laugh. They were speaking in equally polite tones, clearly showing that neither of them had forgotten about the argument the previous night.

"What do boggarts taste like?" I asked.

Everyone turned to look at me in disgust, so I figured I'd explain myself, "We know they look like your worst fear, smell like it, sound like it, and honestly kinda feel like it, but do they taste like your worst fear? Like, if I suddenly develop a phobia of, like, bagels, could I just eat the boggart to make it go away...? Could I do that to a regular boggart? Just eat it, I mean."

They were saved from their disgust by the doorbell (a horrendous bell that clanged loudly and made me want to throat punch the nearest Ron), and Walburger started screeching.

"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Sirius rushed out of the room. We listened to him bound down the stairs, trying to ignore the terrible things the portrait was saying.

Portraits really needed to learn to shut their mouths.

Last day of school. Yippee. We had this sort of brunch thing in celebration for our testing scores cause we were in the top ten percentile for testing scores or something, so we got a lot of the really good breakfast foods, and there were also door prizes. It was nice. Then we had a party in Journalism and had pizza. That was also nice. I'm about halfway through with my book, which means I might read it over break. I don't know. I'm not very good about reading physical books in my down time at home. At school, yeah, all the time, but home has my phone. It's got YouTube and tv and Wattpad and all that nice stuff. It's also got my digital books. It's a bit of a problem, but I'm hoping I'll finish it before we go back to school.

Anyway, I hope you guys have had a not trashy Tuesday, and I'll see you Thursday CT. Love ya!