Right Now Could Last Forever

Mr Weasley woke us all up 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,” said Mr Weasley quietly, as we marched off onto the moor. “Sometimes, when a person’s memory’s modified, it makes them a bit disorientated for a while... and that was a big thing they had to make him forget.”

We heard urgent voices 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 the Portkeys, all clamouring to get away from the campsite as quickly as possible. Mr Weasley had a hurried discussion with Basil; 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 our 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, who had evidently been waiting for us in the front yard, came running towards us, still wearing her bedroom slippers, her face pale and strained, 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. Looking down, I saw the headline: ‘SCENE 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 Mr Weasley 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 let out a laugh at their faces; earning me their now too familiar mock-glares.

“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 O.W.Ls? Oh, Fred... George...”

“Come on, now, Molly, we’re all perfectly OK,” said Mr Weasley 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...”

“Aww, little mummy’s boys,” I said teasingly to the twins, as we all filled into the house.

“Shut up,” they grumbled.

When we were all crammed into the tiny kitchen, and Hermione had made Mrs Weasley a cup of very strong tea, into which Mr Weasley insisted on pouring a shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey, Bill handed his father the newspaper. Mr Weasley scanned the front page while Percy looked over his shoulder.

“I knew it,” said Mr Weasley heavily. “’Ministry blunders... culprits not apprehended... lax security... Dark wizards running unchecked... national disgrace...’ Who wrote this? Ah... of course... Rita Skeeter.”

“That woman’s got it in for the Ministry of Magic!” said Percy furiously. “Last week she was saying we’re wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn’t specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the ‘Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Par-Humans –“

“Do us a favour, Perce,” said Bill, yawning, “and shut up.”

“I’m mentioned,” said Mr Weasley, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he reached the bottom of the ‘Daily Prophet’ article.

“Where?” spluttered Mrs Weasley, choking on her tea and whisky. “If I’d seen that, I’d have known you were alive!”

“Not by name,” said Mr Weasley. “Listen to this: ‘If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark, alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to squash the rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.’ Oh, really,” said Mr Weasley in exasperation, handing the paper to Percy. “Nobody was hurt, what was I supposed to say? Rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods... well, there certainly will be rumours now she’s printed that.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Molly, I’m going to have to go into the office, this is going to take some smoothing over.”

“I’ll come with you, Father,” said Percy importantly. “Mr Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person.”

He bustled out of the kitchen.

Mrs Weasley looked most upset. “Arthur, you’re supposed to be on holiday! This hasn’t got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?”

“I’ve got to go, Molly,” said Mr Weasley, “I’ve made things worse. I’ll just change into my robes and I’ll be off...”

“Mrs Weasley,” said Harry suddenly, “Hedwig hasn’t arrived with a letter for me, has she?”
“Hedwig, dear?” said Mrs Weasley distractedly. “No... no, there hasn’t been any post at all.”
I looked curiously at Harry, along with Hermione and Ron.

With a meaningful look at us, he said, “All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ron?”
“Yeah... I think I will, too,” said Ron at once. “Hermione? Corey?”

“Yes,” Hermione said quickly, and the four of us marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
“What’s up, Harry?” I said, the moment we had closed the door of the attic room behind us.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Harry said. “On Sunday morning, I woke up with my scar hurting again.”

Hermione gasped and started making suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from Albus Dumbledore to Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron.

Ron simply looked dumbstruck. “But – he wasn’t there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean – last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn’t he?”

“I’m sure he wasn’t in Privet Drive,” I said. “And I’m sure it hasn’t been hurting all the time, right, Harry?”

“No, but I was dreaming about him... him and Peter – you know, Wormtail. I can’t remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill... someone.”

I could tell that Harry wasn’t telling us something; maybe he knew more about who they were going to kill? How or when they were going to?

“It was only a dream,” said Ron bracingly. “Just a nightmare.”

“Yeah, but was it, though?” said Harry, turning to look out of the window at the brightening sky. “It’s weird, isn’t it... my scar hurts, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort’s sign’s up in the sky again.”

“Don’t – say – his – name!” Ron hissed through gritted teeth.

“Oh, grow up,” I retorted.

“And remember what Professor Trelawney said?” Harry went on, ignoring us. “At the end of last year?”

Trelawney was our Divination teacher at Hogwarts.

Hermione’s terrified look vanished as she let out a derisive snort. “Oh, Harry, ou aren’t going to pay any attention to anything that old fraud says?”

“You weren’t there,” said Harry. “You didn’t hear her. This time was different. I told you, she went into a trance – a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would rise again... ‘greater and more terrible than ever before’... and he’d manage it because his servant was going to go back to him... and that night Wormtail escaped.”

There was a silence in which Ron fidgeted absent-mindedly with a hole in his Chudley Cannons bedspread.

“Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harry?” I asked. “Are you expecting a letter?”

“I told Sirius about my scar,” said Harry, shrugging. “I’m waiting for his answer.”

“Good thinking!” said Ron, his expression clearing. “I bet Sirius’ll know what to do!”

“I hoped he’s get back to me quickly,” said Harry.

“But we don’t know where Sirius is... he could be in Africa or somewhere, couldn’t he?” said Hermione reasonably. “Hedwig’s not going to manage that journey in a few days.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Harry.

“Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harry,” I said. “Come on – three on three – we can all alternate and one can watch, Bill and Charlie and Fred and George will play... you can try out the Wronski Fient...”

“Corey,” said Hermione, in an I-don’t-think-you’re-being-very-sensitive sort of voice, “Harry doesn’t want to play Quidditch right now... he’s worried, and he’s tired... we all need to go to bed...”

“Yeah, I want to play Quidditch,” said Harry suddenly. “Hang on, I’ll get my Firebolt."

I gave Hermione a told-you-so look, and she left the room, muttering something which sounded very much like “Rude.”

-

Neither Mr Weasley nor Percy was at home much over the following week. Both left the house each morning before the rest of the family got up, and returned well after dinner every night.

“It’s been absolute uproar,” Percy told us importantly, the Sunday evening before we were due to return to Hogwarts. “I’ve been putting out fires all week. People keep sending Howlers and of course, if you don’t open a Howler straight away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to cinders.”

“Why are they all sending Howlers?” asked Ginny, who was mending her copy of ‘One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi’ with Spellotape on the rug in front of the living-room fire.

“Complaining about security at the World Cup,” said Percy. “They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher’s put in a claim for a twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I’ve got his number. I know for a fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks.”

Mrs Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. I liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had ten golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family’s names, and one with my own. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. ‘Home’, ‘school’ and ‘work’ were there, but there was also ‘lost’, ‘hospital’, ‘prison’ and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, ‘mortal peril’.

Nine of the hands were currently pointing at the ‘home’ position, but Mr Weasley’s, which was the longest, was still pointing at ‘work’. Mrs Weasley sighed.

“Your father hasn’t had to go into the office at weekends since the days of You-Know-Who,” she said. “They’re working him far too hard. His dinner’s going to be ruined if he doesn’t come home soon.”

“I’ll eat it,” I volunteered.

“Well, Father feels he’d got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn’t he?” said Percy. “If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with his Head of Department first –“

“Don’t you date blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!” said Mrs Weasley, flaring up at once.

“If Dad hadn’t said anything, old Rita would just have said it was disgraceful that nobody from the Ministry had commented,” said Bill, who was playing chess with Ron. “Rite Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, she interviewed all the Gringotts’ curse breakers once, and called me ‘a long-haired pillock’?”

“Well, it is a bit long, dear,” said Mrs Weasley gently. “If you’d just let me –“

“No, mum.”

Rain lashed against the living-room window. Hermione was immersed in ‘The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4’, copies of which Mrs Weasley had bought her, Harry, Ron and I in Diagon Alley. Charlie was darning a fireproof balaclava. Harry was polishing his Firebolt, the Broomstick Servicing Kit Hermione had given him for his thirteenth birthday open at his feet. I sat on the floor by Fred and George, who were sitting in a far corner, quills out, talking in whispers, their heads bent over a piece of parchment. Every now and then I’d add to their conversation, but couldn’t be bothered to get fully submerged in it.

“What are you three up to?” said Mrs Weasley sharply, her eyes on the twins and I, for I had just got up and sat next to George, pointing out a fault.

“Homework,” said Fred vaguely.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re still on holiday,” said Mrs Weasley.

“Yeah, we’ve left it a bit late,” said George.

“You’re not by any chance writing out a new order from, are you?” said Mrs Weasley shrewdly. “You wouldn’t be thinking of restarting ‘Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’, by any chance?”

“Now, Mum,” I said, looking up at her, a pained look on my face. “If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and Fred, George and I died, how would you feel knowing that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?”

Everyone laughed, even Mrs Weasley.

“Oh, your father’s coming!” she said suddenly, looking up at the clock again.

Mr Weasley’s had had suddenly spun from ‘work’ to ‘travelling’; a second later it had shuddered to a halt on ‘home’ with the others, and we heard him calling from the kitchen.

“Coming, Arthur!” called Mrs Weasley, hurrying out of the room.

A few moments later, Mr Weasley had come into the warm living room, carrying his dinner on a tray. He looked completely exhausted.

“Well, the fat’s really in the fire now,” he told Mrs Weasley as he sat down in an armchair near the fire and toyed unenthusiastically with his somewhat shrivelled cauliflower. “Rita Skeeter’s been ferreting around all week, looking for more Ministry mess-ups to report. And now she’s found out about poor old Bertha going missing, so that’ll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman he should have sent someone to look for her ages ago.”

“Mr Crouch has been saying it for weeks and weeks,” said Percy swiftly.

“Crouch is very lucky Rita hasn’t found out about Winky,” said Mr Weasley irritably. “There’d be a week’s worth of headlines in his house-elf being caught holding the wand that conjured the Dark Mark.”

“I thought we were all agreed that that, that elf, while irresponsible, did not conjure the Mark?” said Percy hotly.

“If you ask me, Mr Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how mean he is to elves!” said Hermione angrily.

“Now, look here, Hermione!” said Percy. “A high-ranking Ministry official like Mr Crouch deserves unswerving obedience from his servants –“

“His slave, you mean!” said Hermione, her voice rising shrilly. “Because he didn’t pay Winky, did he?”

“I think you’d all better go upstairs and check that you’ve packed properly!” said Mrs Weasley, breaking up the argument. “Come on, now, all of you...”

I stood up and walked upstairs with the twins, who were back in their room. I made my way into my room alone, and spotted a pile of parcels on my bed; the stuff Mrs Weasley had got for me at Diagon Alley, along with a small leather bag with money from my vault. I sat down and started unwrapping the shopping. Apart from ‘The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4,’ by Miranda Goshawk, I had a handful of new quills, a dozen rolls of parchment and refills for my potion-making kit – I had been running low on spine of lionfish and essence of belladonna.
There was one last parcel and I opened it curiously; what else could there be? I had everything for my school year... My hands reached inside and felt a soft material; I pulled it out...

There was a knock on the door and Mrs Weasley entered, carrying an armful of freshly laundered Hogwarts robes.

“Here you are,” she said, placing them on my bed. “Now, mind you pack them properly so they don’t crease.”

“Mum...” I said speechlessly, still staring at what I had in my hands. “What ... why?”

“You’re dress, dear,” she said, looking a bit worried. “You do like it, don’t you?”

“Of – of course!” I said, looking up at her so she could see that I meant it. “It’s beautiful! But why did you get it?”

“It says on your school list that you’re supposed to have a dress this year... dress robes for the boys... robes for formal occasions. Well, I’d better give everyone else their uniform.”

The door clicked shut behind her. Slowly, and carefully, I placed everything into my trunk. I sat awake that night, with Calandra sitting on my arm. His big, black eyes only just visible in the light of the moon.

“Something always happens at Hogwarts, doesn’t it?” I whispered to Calandra. “I wonder what’ll happen this year.”