039


                                                 𓏲 . THE BOY WHO LIVED . .៹♡
                                                   CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
                                ─── WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES

Charlus spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire. Alistair was right behind him.

"Did he eat it?" Fred asked excitedly. "Yeah," Harry replied. They were only meters away from him. They pulled him out and Charlus asked, straightening up, "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," Fred informed him cheerfully. "George and I invented them, and we've been looking for someone to test them on all summer...."

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Charlus looked around and saw that Ron and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people Charlus had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

"Alright, Alistair?" the nearer of the two said, giving the young Black a small nod in greeting. "How're you doing, Charlus, Harry?" he then asked Charlus and Harry, grinning at them and holding out a large hand, which they shook, feeling calluses and blisters under their fingers.

This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather- beaten and so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, greeting Alistair and also shook Charlus' and Harry's hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Charlus knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Charlus had always imagined Bill to be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone around.

However, Bill was — there was no other word for it — cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Charlus recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than Charlus had ever seen him.

"That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?" "I didn't give him anything," Fred said, with another evil grin. "I just dropped it... it was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

"You dropped it on purpose!" Mr. Weasley roared. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet -" "How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!" Mr. Weasley exclaimed. Charlus, Harry, Alistair and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behaviour seriously undermines Wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons -"

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" Fred said indignantly. "No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," George said. "Isn't he,Charlus, Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," Charlus said earnestly. "That's not the point," Mr. Weasley raged. "You wait until tell your mother -"

"Tell me what?" a voice said behind them. Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh hello, Charlus, Harry, dears" she said, spotting them and smiling. She even came over and gave them a hug before her eyes snapped back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley hesitated. Charlus could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously.

Then two girls appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley.  One was small and red- haired, Ginny. The youngest Weasley grinned from ear to ear, making Charlus wonder what she was up to, until he looked at the person beside her.

There stood a absolutely beautiful girl who had very bushy brown hair. It was Hermione Granger.

And before Charlus could say a word, Hermione pulled him into hug, holding onto him as if she never wanted to let him go. He couldn't help but smile as he wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her even closer to him.

"Hey..." she murmured against his shoulder. "Hi, Mione," he responded, his voice a bit muffled.

Charlus and Hermione stood like that for a moment before they pulled away. There had been an awkward tension between the two ever since the near kiss last year.

The two of them had significantly talked less over this summer than they ever had before. They would write to each other, but their letters were very bland and awkward. A way of showing a dividing line between them over the summer...

Charlus had thought about his relationship with Hermione significantly in the span of time the two had been apart. He was so blind sighted by the butterflies in his stomach and the way his heart raced whenever he was around her — up until last year, he thought they were just best friends.

That was until, everything seemed to change — the light brown- haired boy, without a doubt, had feelings for Hermione Granger — that was obvious. The real question was if she felt the same way as he did.

Charlus pointed to his hair and tried to dispel the tension between them. "I let my hair grow a little." he said awkwardly.

He had changed so much since the last time she had seen him. He had grown a few inches, making him about six feet tall, his hair had grown a little longer, making a single curl fall in front of his face, and his muscles were incredibly defined. Hermione thought the boy, overall, looked handsomer than ever before.

"It looks...good on you." she said while she smiled slightly. And without realizing what she was doing, she reached up and caressed the boy's cheek, wiping the messy floo powder off of his face.

Harry and Alistair looked at them, sharing a knowing smirk. "Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice. "It's nothing, Molly," Mr. Weasley mumbled, "Fred and George just — but I've had words with them-"

"What have they done this time?" Mrs. Weasley said. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -" "Why don't you show Charlus and Harry where they're sleeping, Ron?" Hermione said from the doorway.

"They knows where they're sleeping," Ron said. "In my room, they slept there last -" "We can all go," Hermione said pointedly. "Oh," Ron said, cottoning on. "Right." "Yeah, we'll come too," George said. "You stay where you are!" Mrs. Weasley snarled.

Charlus , Harry, Alistair and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories.

"What are Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked with a furrowed brow as they climbed. Alistair, Ron and Ginny laughed, although Hermione and Charlus remained serious, walking side by side in uncomfortable silence.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," Ron said quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that..."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," Ginny said. "We thought they just liked the noise."

"Only, most of the stuff — well, all of it, really — was a bit dangerous," Ron said, "and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students took at the age of fifteen.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny explained further, "because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression. "Hi, Percy," Harry said. Charlus gave a curt nod, " Percy."

"Oh hello, Charlus, Harry," Percy said. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office — and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."

"We're not thundering," Ron said irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic." "What are you working on?" Charlus asked.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Percy said smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin — leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three per cent a year —"

"That'll change the world, that report will," Ron said. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink. "You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might as well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow- bottomed products that seriously endanger-"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Ron said, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed his bedroom door shut.

As Charlus, Harry, Alistair, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.

 The room at the top of the house where Ron slept looked much as it had the last time that Charlus had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favourite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog spawn, now contained one extremely large frog.

Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here no more, but instead, there was the tiny grey owl that had delivered both Ron's and Alistair's letters to Charlus and Harry in Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly. Next to him was Blacky, Alistair's owl, who seemed to be sleeping soundly.

"Shut up, Pig," Ron said, edging his way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room," he told Charlus and Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."

"Er — why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron. "Because he's being stupid," Ginny said. "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," Ron said sarcastically. "Ginny named him," he explained to Charlus and Harry. "She reckons it's sweet. I tried to change it, but it was too late, he wouldn't answer anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."

"Well his name's better than yours, Ronald." Alistair said.

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Charlus knew Ron too well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers, but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Charlus asked Hermione at this point. "Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes, he's never seen any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" Harry said, sitting down on one of the beds and watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling. Charlus reached into Pig's cage and began to pet him.

"Enjoying it?" Ron said darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch...as I was saying to Mr. Crouch... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion ... Mr. Crouch was telling me...They'll be announcing their engagement any day now."

"Have you had a good summer, Charlus ? Harry?" Hermione asked the twins. "Did you get our food parcels and everything?" "Yeah, thanks a lot." Charlus said thankfully, "They saved our lives, those cakes."

"Hey, Charlus Harry," Alistair began curiously. "were the brownies my parents made actually good? You know, the ones with white chocolate. I really wanted to try one, but they wouldn't let me. They wanted there to be more for you two."

Harry gave him a grateful smile, "Yeah, they really were great—I think the white chocolate ones were my favourite, actually."

Alistair sent him a grin, his dimples showed.

"Alistair has heard from them but, have you heard from — ?" Ron began, but at the look of Hermione he fell silent. Charlus knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius and Daniel.

Harry, Alistair, Ron and Hermione had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius and Daniel escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about the men as he was. However, discussing them in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius and Daniel had escaped, or believed in their innocence.

"I think they've stopped arguing," Hermione said, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. "Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?"

"Yeah, all right," Ron said. The six of them left Ron's room and went back downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when the four boys and the two girls came in. "There's just not room for  thirteen people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you four," she said to Charlus, Harry, Alistair and Ron, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the side and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Charlus knew she meant Fred and George. "I don't know what's going to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can..."

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as she stirred.

"It's not as though they haven't got brains," she continued irritably, taking the saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office!"

Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Charlus, Harry, Alistair and Ron jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the sink by the dustpan.

"Bloody hell woman, try not to kill us." Charlus muttered.

 "I don't know where we went wrong with them," Mrs. Weasley said, putting down her wand and starting to pull out more saucepans. " It's been the same for years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to — OH NOT AGAIN!"

She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and turned into a giant rubber mouse. "One of their fake wands again!" she shouted. "How many times have I told those two not to leave them lying around?"

She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove was smoking. "C'mon," Ron said hurriedly, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie!"

They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard. They had only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged, ginger cat Crookshanks came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air, chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs.

Charlus recognised it instantly as a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the wellington boots that lay scattered around the door. He could hear the gnome giggling madly as Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it.

Meanwhile, a very loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Bill and Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.

 "Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed. "Sorry, Perce,"  Bill said, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?" "Very badly," Percy said peevishly, and he slammed the window shut.

Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Charlus, Harry, Alistair and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.

To somebody who had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise, and at first, Harry listened rather than talked, as he helped himself to chicken-and-ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.

At one end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on cauldron bottoms. At the other, Charlus was conversing with Ginny, the youngest Weasley clearly having too much fun.

"I heard about your little moment with Hermione," Ginny said quietly. Charlus couldn't help but feel that this could quickly turn into a risky conversation—especially with Hermione sitting right beside him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, moving his head closer to Ginny in hopes of being as silent as possible. "The kiss — or near kiss, I should say," she stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Charlus furrowed his brows, "But — but how do you know about that?" "You know, us girls talk about everything," Ginny said, sending the boy a look. "And I know all about what happened  because Hermione told me."

"Did she tell you anything else about me... about us?"  he asked, pressing for more information  of her. "My lips are sealed," she replied, miming the action of zipping her lips shut and then pretending to toss the imaginary key away.

"You're impossible, you know that?" Charlus said in mock outrage. "Oh I know." Ginny said with a mischievous smile at his reaction. "I also know you like her."

"Of course I do," he replied, a little louder than intended. But then he lowered his voice again, so only the girl next to him could hear what he said. " She's my best friend, after all." "I mean you like like her," she laughed, teasing the boy playfully.

Charlus hesitated for a moment, turning his head to the side and glancing at Hermione. The bushy haired girl was laughing at something Harry and Alistair had said, totally unaware of the conversation going on beside her.

Charlus nodded hesitantly , turning back to Ginny, "Yeah, I think I do." "You think?" she repeated, sending the the boy a knowing look. "Oh, come on, Charlus. I've seen the way you look at her. It's like she's the only girl in the world to you."

" If I may ask," Charlus began to say, raising an eyebrow, "aren't you a bit too young to know all this? " "I'm literally a year younger than you, not stupid. " Ginny replied, sarcasm dripped from her tone.

Charlus held his hands up in  surrender, a grin spreading across his face. "Okay, Ginevra," he said, using her full name with a teasing tone. "Watch it, Potter," Ginny warned, narrowing her eyes as she pointed her knife at the boy next to her in a theatrical gesture.

"Alright, alright," he chuckled before he turned his attention back to his plate of food, clearly not willing to engage further on the topic. But just as he began to dig into his meal, something in Percy's conversation with Mr. Weasley caught his ear.

"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy said pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, it's extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman —"

"I like Ludo," Mr. Weasley said mildly. "He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble — a lawnmower with unnatural powers — I smoothed the whole thing over."

"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," Percy said dismissively, "but how he ever got to be Head of Department...when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"

"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," Mr. Weasley said, frowning. "He says Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now — though I must say, if it was someone in my department, I'd be worried...."

"Oh, Bertha's hopeless, all right," Percy said. "I hear she's been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth... but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr Crouch has been taking a personal interest - she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mr Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania."

"However," Percy heaved an impressive sigh, and took a deep swig of elderflower wine, "we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we've got another big event to organise right after the World Cup!"

Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table where Charlus, Harry, Alistair, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking about, Father." He raised his voice lightly. "The top-secret one."

Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to his four friends, "He's been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons."

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring, which seemed to be a recent acquisition. "... with a horrible great fang on it, really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," Bill said patiently. "And your hair's getting silly, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, fingering her wand lovingly. "I wish you'd let me give it a trim...."

"I like it," Ginny piped up. "You're so old-fashioned, Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's..."

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about the World Cup and which team they thought would become world champions. This really got Alistair interested in a conversation for once.

"It's got to be Ireland," Charlie said thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals." "Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," Fred challenged with an amused brow raised.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," Alistair said shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was." "What happened?" Harry said eagerly, regretting more than ever the isolation from the wizarding world when he and his brother were stuck in Privet Drive.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," Charlie said gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg." Alistair grumbled.  Ron laughed at a shocked Harry, "It was brutal."

Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle.

Charlus was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with the world as he and his brother watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes, laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.

Ron looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy talking, then he said very quietly to the Potter twins, "So — have you two heard from Sirius and Daniel lately?"

Hermione looked around, listening closely. "Yeah," Harry said softly, "a couple of times. He sounds okay. We wrote to them yesterday. They might write back while we're here."

"And how's Buckbeak?" Hermione whispered. Charlus laughed lightly, "He seems to be doing good, seems like him, Sirius and Daniel have become good friends."

He suddenly remembered the reason they had written to Sirius and Daniel, and for a moment was on the verge of telling Alistair, Ron and Hermione about their scars hurting again, and about the dream that had awoken them....but he really didn't want to worry them just now, not when he and his brother were feeling so happy and peaceful. But he knew that they needed to tell Alistair. He had the right to know. After all, his name had been mentioned in the dream as well.

"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you —you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Charlus, Harry, if you leave your school lists out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."

"Wow — hope it does this time!" Charlus said enthusiastically and looked at his brother. Harry smiled at him. He loved Quidditch, almost as much as Charlus did. "Well, I certainly don't," Percy said sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."

"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" Fred said. "That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" Percy said, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"

"It was," Fred whispered to Charlus, Harry and Alistair as they got up from the table. Then he motioned to George and himself. "We sent it."

━━ AUTHORS NOTE

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the Charmione reunion.

Please, don't forget to vote and share If you did, and if you want, comment too ! I'd really appreciate it <3

Thank you for reading this far.

Until next time, much love to you all!

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