Escape ↣ Harmione

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter 52 - Revelations

When Fred and George had found out they were coming back and they were going to be staying at Minerva's they became almost giddy with excitement. They insisted that they be allowed to show Helen and John their shop, and in the face of such excitement, refusal seemed churlish so they agreed and the date was set.

It was their second day in the UK, they were adapting to the change in time zone by taking it easy. They had consequently spent the day lazing in Minerva's library, interrupted only by a brief trip into the bracing Scottish February air to explore Inverness a little bit. They had told Folly that they didn't expect to be in for dinner and were waiting only on Fred and George to arrive.

The twins came through the floo dead on five o'clock, all pretences of sophistication stripped away by their infectious excitement. Harry and Hermione were swept up into bone crushing hugs while Helen and John were greeted with barely less enthusiasm.

After a moment to sort out how they were to travel to the shop, they settled on the floo, and they trooped back into Minerva's study calling out goodbyes to Folly as they left.

Fred went first followed by Hermione who held on to Helen. As they came through the floo, even as Hermione vanished the ash and soot from their travel, Helen staggered over to the sofa and dropped on to it, one hand clutched her stomach the other her head. She was quite sure that the churning in her head was diametrically opposed to the churning happening in her middle.

Hermione dropped to a crouch, concern etched on her face. "Mum? Are you alright?"

Helen unclenched one hand from her head and groped blindly for Hermione. Hermione caught the flapping hand and secured it between her own. "Fred?" Helen heard her say. "Could you get me a glass of water please?"

Helen ignored the sounds of the glass and tap, and when the cool glass was pressed into her hand, she summoned up a wan smile. The roar of the floo igniting again, spewing forth John and Harry, caused her stomach to clench again in reflex.

"Come on Mum, just take a sip," Hermione encouraged.

"Helen?" she heard John ask, then she felt the sofa tip as someone sat down beside her, an arm enveloped her shoulders. John. "Not a fan of floo travel then? It wasn't any worse than that time we hit turbulence over Germany was it?" he said.

Helen cracked an eye open and used it to glare at her husband. The glare was ineffective, but Hermione turned to him, her face openly questioning.

John, in a pretence of a hushed tone, loud enough for all the occupants in the room to hear, which now included George who had come last through the floo, began to explain. "When your Mum was pregnant with you, we thought a romantic break was just the thing before your Mum couldn't fly anymore, and we knew that it would be our last holiday for a while once you were born. So we decided on Vienna, it was a lovely holiday, we had a great time. On the way back though the plane hit turbulence. It was only a small plane, it had about a hundred seats, so we were all in the same area, I'm not even sure it had a business class it was that small. But anyway, your Mum was still suffering from a bit of pregnancy-related sickness and well, she started feeling a bit queasy. There was this one other passenger who didn't seem to do well in turbulence and started getting really upset. Worried that the plane might fall out of the sky, that sort of thing. It was quite a small plane, and I suppose on a bigger plane it might not have felt so bad, but whatever. So this woman starts shouting nonsense, and your Mum starts feeling worse, and then she started retching. Not the quiet, ladylike retching either," John said with a delighted smile. "The sort that sounded like she was trying to regurgitate her entire intestinal tract. The turbulence was getting worse, the plane was dropping and rolling, then it went through some heavy rain. It made the cabin instantly darker, it was lashing down, then of course just to add to it all the lights started flickering on and off. It was incredible, it was like out of a film. Your Mum was heaving and retching, this woman was screaming her head off about how we're all going to die, and the plane was going to crash and burn. The poor flight attendants were really frazzled, they could barely stand up straight with the movement of the plane, and the passengers were gradually losing their heads left right and centre. I really think a couple of them started to cry. It's still one of the best flights I've ever taken, it was just amazing."