Dawn Rivera

The Woes of Mrs Weasley

I yell with delight and launch myself into Harry's arms.

"I knew it!" yells Ron, punching the air. "You always get away with stuff!"

"They were bound to clear you," says Hermione, who looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry entered the kitchen and is now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, "there was no case against you, none at all."

"Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew he'd get off," says Danny smiling.

Mrs Weasley is wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George, Ginny and Misty are doing a kind of war dance to a chant that goes: "He got off, he got off, he got off..." Ginny isn't joining in with the chant, though, and is looking at Harry and I with a sad look in her eye. She just dances around the kitchen silently. Sorry about it, Ginny, but Harry Potter will never be your boyfriend. He's never even looked twice at you.

"That's enough! Settle down!" shouts Mr Weasley, though he too is smiling. "Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry -"

"What?" says Sirius sharply.

"He got off, he got off, he got off..." Ginny has pushed her hurt aside and is now joining in with everybody else, but Misty, noticing how serious the conversation has become, stops abruptly, and dances with the others, trying to hear what is being said.

"Be quiet, you five! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, and they went up to Fudge's office together. Dumbledore ought to know."

"Absolutely," says Uncle Sirius. "We'll tell him, don't worry."

"Well, I'd better get going, there's a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner -"

"He got off, he got off, he got off..." Ginny has stopped now, too, sensing important conversation as well. But Misty, obviously hearing nothing of interest to her, shrugs at her sister and joins in again with Fred and George.

"That's enough - Fred - George - Ginny - Misty!" says Mrs Weasley, as Mr Weasley leaves the kitchen. "Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast."

Ron, Hermione and I sit opposite him, and Danny sits beside him, all of us feeling happier than we did when Harry first arrived at Grimmauld Place, and my feeling of giddy relief swells again. The gloomy house seems warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden. Kreacher pokes his snoutlike nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.

"Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you," says Ron happily, now dishing great amounts of mashed potato on to everyone's plates.

"Yeah, he swung it for me," says Harry. But I can tell there's something he's hiding from us, something about Dumbledore. I frown questioningly at him, but he just shakes his head and looks away.

Harry claps a hand to his forehead.

"What's up?" I say, alarmed.

"Scar," Danny mumbles for Harry, when he doesn't say anything. "But it's nothing, right, Harry?...you say it happens all the time now..."

None of the others have noticed a thing; all of them are now helping themselves to food while gloating over Harry's narrow escape; Fred, George, Ginny and Misty are still singing. Hermione and I are rather anxious, but before we can say anything, Ron has said happily, "I bet Dumbledore turns up this evening, to celebrate with us, you know."

"I don't think he'll be able to, Ron," says Mrs Weasley, setting a huge plate of roast chicken down in front of Harry and Danny. "He's really very busy at the moment..."