Chapter 151 — Before the House Was Awake

At a quarter past four, I stood beside the Extra Sunday’s fireplace checking a list I had already read twice. Luna waited next to me with her bag, following my finger down the page until it reached the same final instruction.

‘Has anything changed?’ she asked. When I admitted it had not, she glanced towards the duty manager waiting on the other side of the hearth. ‘Perhaps you could let him have it, then.’

I folded the paper and handed it over. The manager put it with his other copies, where people would be able to read it without first removing it from my hand.

Luna had stayed with Emma and me after our last preparations in London. We had arranged to use the restaurant’s Floo connection before the day’s work began, a short drive from home. Emma had sent us out already fed, reminding me that being responsible for the venture did not require carrying every part of it myself.

Apparently she and Luna had reached the same conclusion independently. I thanked the manager, put my own papers away and checked that Luna was ready to go.

‘The Burrow,’ she said clearly, stepping into the green flames. I followed a moment later and emerged into a kitchen where empty space appeared to have been sacrificed to the needs of a large family.

Molly came towards us between a chair and a stack of plates. Luna brushed ash from her sleeve while I moved my bag clear of the hearth so nobody would have to climb over it.

‘There you are,’ Molly said. ‘Come in, both of you. Have you eaten?’

‘Yes, thank you. Emma made sure.’ I accepted the glass of water she offered instead, though she still pointed us towards the toast in case we had underestimated ourselves.

Ginny reached Luna before the greetings had finished. They moved aside, already discussing something in a letter which Ginny said she had read twice before believing, and Ron looked up from the table.

‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’ He pulled his bag away from a chair, giving me somewhere to put mine.

‘We agreed a quarter past.’ I showed him the watch on my wrist. ‘Would you have preferred earlier?’

Harry laughed into his cup. Ron considered the hour and returned to his breakfast without answering, which I took as permission to keep the arrangement we had actually made.

Arthur was studying a slip near the end of the table. When I came over, he asked whether everything was settled at my end and showed me our departure time for the Portkey.

‘We leave here at half past,’ he said. ‘Amos Diggory is meeting us on the way. There’s plenty of time if we keep moving.’

The slip had directions as well as a time. Ron leaned over to see it, apparently reassured that the questions from our train journey had acquired answers which someone had brought with him.

Harry told me he and Hermione had arrived the previous day. He had spent part of the evening talking to Charlie, who now listened patiently while Harry used his hand to demonstrate something the Firebolt could do.

‘You must be Oswald,’ Charlie said when Harry introduced us. He shook my hand across the corner of the table. ‘Ron’s written about you.’

‘I hope he explained which parts were his idea.’ I glanced towards Ron, who was close enough to hear and immediately began protesting.

‘Not always,’ Charlie said. He smiled as I stepped aside to let Molly past, giving Ron a moment to improve the family correspondence aloud.

There were marks on Charlie’s hands which made my own recently healed injuries seem a poor opening for conversation. I asked about Norbert instead, and he told me the dragon was doing well.

‘The people who brought him over were pleased when the journey finished,’ he added. I said we had been too, keeping my voice low enough that Molly would not feel obliged to request a fresh account of the school roof.

Bill moved a chair on the other side of the table so I could get through. His long hair was tied back, and an earring caught the light when he turned towards me.

‘I’ve heard quite a bit about you as well,’ he said. He offered his hand, smiling at whatever expression I had failed to conceal.

‘This is beginning to worry me.’ I set my water down where it was less likely to be knocked over by another introduction.

‘It should,’ Fred said from further along the table. George nodded gravely beside him, doing nothing to make me feel better about their contributions.

Bill ignored them with the ease of long practice. He asked which part of the holiday I had spent working and listened without turning the rest of the table into an audience. By the time he shifted his cup to make space for mine, I found myself liking him.

This page reproduces a chapter without the author's permission. Their official page is the proper place to read the author's published work.

Percy was reading a document beside his toast. Hermione asked about a line on it, and he pointed to the relevant part while explaining, answering her properly instead of making her sorry she had interrupted.

George slid the butter dish over one corner of the paper. Percy removed it without looking up, then reached across and moved the whole dish out of his brother’s reach.

‘Try the other corner,’ Fred advised. He made no attempt to help when George discovered how far he would have to stretch.

‘Try finishing your breakfast,’ Percy said. He returned to Hermione’s question, holding the document slightly further from the twins.

All seven Weasley children were home: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny. With Arthur checking bags and Molly moving among the chairs, a different conversation caught my attention whenever I turned my head.

Molly asked Bill whether he intended to keep his hair like that for the whole visit. Charlie asked Harry to repeat the turn more slowly, and Ron became so interested that Ginny had to move his plate before his elbow reached it.

‘Thanks,’ he said absently. He kept watching Harry’s hand, and Ginny put the toast where he would eventually have to notice it.

Luna smiled at me from beside her. I went over with the water jug and asked whether she wanted more before we left.

‘A little,’ she said, holding out her glass. ‘I like your travelling party.’

‘So do I. I’m beginning to understand why it needs a departure time.’ I set the jug down, narrowly avoiding a bag Arthur had just brought to the table.

Hermione caught me near the stairs with the notebook I had lent her. It was still wrapped in its cloth, and she held it flat while I made room in my bag.

‘All the loose pages are where they were,’ she said. ‘I copied what I needed. Your mother’s corrections gave me several things to ask you about.’

I uncovered one corner and checked the stitching. ‘We should go through them when we have a quieter afternoon,’ I said, covering it again before laying it between my own papers. For a moment I wished there were someone else we could ask about the small writing in the margins.

By half past, the bags had been checked, dishes moved and a search for a missing strap ended with Fred admitting he was already wearing it. Storage bags took much of the luggage; the rest had been divided so nobody would have to drag a trunk along a country path.

I kept my papers accessible and left experimental work for another day. The pendant rested beneath my shirt on its ordinary chain. A hillside full of people waiting for transport seemed a particularly poor place to discover what happened if I forgot that a lion had a different neck.

Molly was staying home and had agreed to look after Pig and Hedwig. Crookshanks was with Hermione’s parents, while Leo remained with Emma, spared Pig’s increasingly confident demonstrations of what an owl ought to do.

Ron went to say goodbye through the cage bars. He promised Pig a proper letter to carry afterwards, receiving a piercing call which did not sound especially grateful.

‘He’ll manage until you’re back,’ Molly said. She drew Ron towards the door before he could begin negotiating with him.

Arthur gathered us outside. I counted him and his seven children, then Harry, Hermione, Luna and me: twelve before we met the Diggorys. The number on his booking slip no longer looked like a clerical error.

Molly kissed her children goodbye with varying degrees of resistance. She gave Luna a warm farewell, reminded Harry to keep his belongings together and caught my sleeve as I followed them.

‘Enjoy some of the occasion you’ve helped arrange, Oswald.’ She waited until I looked at her before releasing me.

‘I intend to,’ I said. Her expression suggested that she would want evidence when we returned, and I promised myself I would have something besides the accounts to describe.

The sky was beginning to pale above the hedges. Luna took my hand while Arthur led us down the path; Molly stayed at the door until the hedge hid the house from view.

Ron pulled his bag higher on his shoulder and asked which way we were going. Arthur pointed towards the lane, explaining where Amos would meet us before the climb to the Portkey.

‘You know the way?’ Ron asked. Arthur held up his directions with an expression which made me look elsewhere before I laughed.

‘I asked,’ he said. He folded the slip and set off while Ron gave me a suspicious glance.

‘That wasn’t aimed at you,’ I told him. Ron said it had sounded as though it might be, then hurried to catch Harry beyond the gate.

The lane narrowed after the last houses, taking us between fields silvered with dew. Arthur checked a turning before choosing the path through a small stand of trees. I took a long breath of the cool air and remarked that it was a pleasant way to start the morning.

‘Ask me again when it goes uphill,’ Ron said. He stepped over a root without looking down, apparently familiar with the path.

‘You get this every morning.’ I moved a branch aside for Luna, who ducked under it before letting go of my hand.

‘Exactly. I know about the next bit.’ Ron followed Harry, leaving me to decide whether the warning applied to the hill or to taking Arthur’s estimates on trust.

Harry caught up with us a few steps later. He asked why we needed a Portkey when we might have used the Floo Network or flown part of the way.

Hermione explained that the arrivals were being arranged in groups. She had read the notice, and when Harry asked whether that meant nobody could travel another way, Arthur slowed to join us.

‘There are authorised arrival points for other arrangements,’ he said. ‘You can’t just put yourself down wherever you fancy. Ours is booked, with a time and a place to arrive.’

He gestured towards the open fields beyond the trees. A group of broomsticks crossing a road would attract attention, he explained; by the time someone had dealt with the witnesses, another group might be coming behind it.

‘Not an ideal queue,’ I said. Arthur agreed with enough feeling to suggest he had already heard discussions about exactly that problem.

‘We keep the magic discreet on the way as well,’ Hermione added. ‘People live and work near the site.’

Arthur nodded towards her. ‘Follow the signs and use the entrances we’ve been given,’ he said. ‘And don’t assume a field is empty because you can’t see anyone in it.’

Harry considered that for a while, then asked what the Portkey looked like. Arthur told him it was usually an object nobody would look at twice, prepared to take the people touching it to a particular place.

‘So it isn’t a door?’ Harry asked. Bill turned from further up the path, stepping aside to let Charlie pass a muddy patch.

‘Only if someone chose a door,’ he said. ‘Which would be inconvenient to put in a bag.’

Harry laughed and admitted he had imagined the wrong thing. Arthur checked the time before telling him he would have a much better idea shortly, then led us towards the light beyond the trees.