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Aurora Areli
MR WEASLEY WOKE US after only a few hours' sleep. He used magic to pack up the tents, and we left the campsite as quickly as possible, passing Mr Roberts at the door of his cottage. Mr Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he waved us off with a vague "Merry Christmas".
"He'll be all right," Mr Weasley said quietly, as we marched off onto the moor. "Sometimes, when a person's memory's modified, it makes them a bit disoriented for a while . . . and that was a big thing they had to make him forget."
Urgent voices could be heard as we approached the spot where the Portkeys lay and, when we reached it, we found a great number of witches and wizards gathered around Basil, the keeper of Portkeys, all clamouring to get away from the campsite as quickly as possible. He and Mr Weasley had a hurried discussion before we joined the queue, and were able to take an old rubber tyre back to Stoatshead Hill before the sun had really risen.
We walked back through Ottery St Catchpole towards The Burrow in the dawn light, talking very little because we were so exhausted, and thinking longingly of breakfast. As we rounded the corner in the lane, and The Burrow came into view, a cry echoed along the damp lane.
"Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness!"
Mrs Weasley came running towards us from where she had evidently been waiting in the front yard. She was still wearing her bedroom slippers, her face was pale and strained, and there was a screwed-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in her hand.
"Arthur — I've been so worried — so worried —"
She flung her arms around Mr Weasley's neck, and the Daily Prophet fell out of her limp hand onto the ground. When I glanced at it, I saw the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP, complete with a twinkling, black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the tree-tops.
"You're all right," Mrs Weasley muttered distractedly, releasing her husband and staring around at us all with red eyes, "you're alive . . . oh, boys . . ."
And to everybody's surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.
"Ouch! Mum — you're strangling us —"
"I shouted at you before you left!" Mrs Weasley said, starting to sob. "It's all I've been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn't get enough OWLs? Oh, Fred . . . George . . ."
"Come on, now, Molly, we're all perfectly okay," Mr Weasley said soothingly, prising her off the twins and leading her back towards the house. "Bill," he added in an undertone, "pick up that paper, I want to see what it says . . ."
