(Eng) Weasleys, Pranks and other Curses

14

The group had spread out across the house after my explanation. Everyone still had hundreds of questions, but Mrs. Weasley had quickly put a stop to curiosity. "You'll have to share a room with Ginny and Hermione for now, dear," she explained to me after most of them had disappeared. "With Bill's return, things are a bit tighter than I'd like."

"Oh please! Don't go to any trouble on my account. I'd gratefully sleep on the sofa. Or in the garden. I really have no pretensions."

" Who would believe it, Renard." Fred rolled his eyes and dragged in a suitcase from outside. My suitcase. "You lug around more than Hermione, and she stole half the library."

"I did not!" came reproachfully from the living room.

" No stopping now," George interrupted them both. He carried in two more suitcases that had clearly seen better days, but didn't acknowledge me with a glance. I hadn't had a chance to thank him yet. If I were in his place, I wouldn't be too pleased with myself either. After all, he had saved my life.

"Camille, can you come here a minute?" Bill was standing outside, slamming the trunk of the strange car we had all fit into together.

I apologized to Misses Weasley and Ginny and staggered out. I hadn't said anything about the pain, lest I be knocked out again by more sleeping syrup. There was still enough of the stuff wobbling in my system.

Bill nodded toward the sprawling garden and I followed him unsteadily.

Only when a few feet separated us from the house did he begin to speak.

"Dumbledore only told me the most important things, but I'd like to avoid this Chinese-whispers-effect." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Do you mind explaining to me more than the others? For all our safety."

Unsurely, I glanced back at the house, only to meet the eyes of a few curious Weasleys. Except for Fred and George, the others all ducked away immediately.

"Let's walk some more, okay?"

"If it's not too tiring for you?"

I nodded in agreement, though the first drops of sweat were already on my forehead. "Maybe as far as the shed," I relented, and we continued on our way.

"It was shortly after we left Greece," I recounted, now leaning back against the shed wall. "I had made the decision to follow in my parents' footsteps. I mean, basically everyone was just waiting for me to come out and say it." I rolled my eyes and Bill crossed his arms.

"Not only do you have talent, you've been around your parents' work from a very young age. So it was never out of the question."

Sighing, I expelled the air. Everyone who knew my parents said that, and it was true. I always had top marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. But that was also only because I had tried so desperately to impress my parents. And that's exactly how this whole mess had come about in the first place.

" Anyway." I took a breath. "There were also the Guidos in Scandinavia with their daughter Ellen. I don't know if you know them, but Ellen has about as much magical skill as a tomato. Which she always made up for with her spirit of adventure when I met her as a kid. We played robbers and pirates and -" I shook my head. "It had been storming for days, which delayed the dig considerably, and everyone got restless. Otherwise, they would never have let us play alone in the woods." I remembered well how the other witches and witchers in camp had run grooves in the ground because it had been too dangerous to return to the tomb. I had been so glad when we were finally alone.

"Ellen had found a hill that we had used as our camp before the storm had uprooted the trees all around."

Bill leaned his shoulder beside me so he could keep looking at me. "I'm not getting any good vibes. I think I heard rumors about what happened, but it never occurred to me that it was you."

I pulled up one corner of my mouth. "Nobody who meets me today believes me, either. Good, boring Camille Renard found a secret entrance to a cursed burial chamber and instead of telling anyone, she climbed in herself. How does that sound?" I shook my head. "Stupid sounding."

"A little," Bill grinned, "knowing you should have known better. But also infinitely brave."

I hung my head and several strands of my hair fell like a curtain around my face. "I found the entrance to the resting place. And the coffin. And well," I stammered. "I picked up the wand and all at once all hell broke loose." Again and again I shook my head. "Ellen had more sense than I did, thankfully, and they'd been right on my heels when the curse got me. Since then, that monster has been following me around, constantly forcing my family to move. If only I hadn't wanted to be admired so badly."

Bill brushed a strand of hair out of my face.

And at that very moment, someone came around the corner. "You're supposed to put your things away," George croaked at his brother, freezing for a split second when he saw us like that. "Seems like you're doing amazingly well," he remarked rather dryly before disappearing back into the house.

Bill suddenly grinned broadly. "And what's this open secret?" He nodded after his brother and I wished a hole would open up in the floor to swallow me. Or George. For all I cared, it could swallow George, too.

"I'm still stupid?", I tried to escape an explanation.

"You've never been stupid. Maybe that's what he likes about you."

I would have loved to shove Bill into the hedge, but that would probably have to wait a while. "It's not like that! It was just a potion!"

He raised one of his red eyebrows. "Potion? Did the twins get you into something?"

Again, all I could do was sigh. I guess it was the day for confessions. "No. I didn't believe their love potion would work and dared him to drink it."

"And he went for that?"

"Only on the condition that I drink it, too." Where was that damn hole in the ground? I was ready to jump in!

"You mean to tell me that the twins were able to brew a working love potion and then you both drank it too?"

I snorted in frustration, which prompted a hearty laugh from Bill.

"So you two are still -?"

Hastily, I shook my head. "We were supposed to take an antidote, but then this thing came up. I guess he must have given me the cure at some point in between. Or the near-death experience made short work of it. I don't know."

Bill looked back at the house. "Interesting."