"No way!" Molly was incandescent with rage. "Not in a million years am I allowing the two of you to move into that house. What's wrong with just staying here? Don't you want to be with your family anymore?"
Harry winced, he had wondered how long it would take her to resort to emotional blackmail. The three of them stood in the kitchen, Mrs Weasley facing down her son and Harry across the kitchen table. She stood with her hands firmly on her hips and she was so angry that her eyes had been reduced to tiny slits in her face. At one point, when Harry had been trying to avoid eye contact with her, he had spotted Mr Weasley and George loitering near the kitchen door, trying not to look as though they were eavesdropping.
Tired of being talked at by his mother again, Ron attempted to use a much tried and tested approach to convince her. "Mum, we're both eighteen now, we're adults, we can do what we want. Besides you can't tell Harry what to do anyway, you're not his mother." He seemed to wilt slightly under the look she threw at him as Harry was suddenly and forcibly reminded of Ginny when she was angry. "And anyway," Ron continued valiantly, "it's Harry's house, he can do what he wants with it. And it's not like we haven't lived on our own before. We have to move out sometime."
"Not into that hole you don't! How are the two of you going to look after yourselves with only that smelly little house-elf for company?"
He wasn't sure if it was the slight on his reformed house-elf or the thought of what Hermione would have said had she been here, but that finally made Harry speak up. "Mrs Weasley, Kreacher's changed a lot since you last met him. If it hadn't been for him we never would have defeated Voldemort. Now, I really appreciate everything that you've done for me, but I think it's time I maybe branched out on my own. Kreacher's really improved the house, you'd hardly recognise it. I know it's hard for you but you have to let us go sometime, I'll be moving out and Ron is welcome to stay if he wants to."
Mrs Weasley looked at him for a long moment before finally she sighed. "Very well Harry, I can't stop you," she walked around the table and hugged him. "But promise that you'll come back and visit us lots."
Harry grinned at Ron over her shoulder as his friend gave him the thumbs up.
Too soon.
"But if you think for one moment that I'll let you go and live on your own, Ronald Weasley, then you're sadly mistaken."
"But Mum…"
"Don't you But Mum me sir!" she turned on him. "And I will not hear another word about it. Get upstairs now and let me make supper."
Ron's ears and neck had turned an angry pink as he stomped up the stairs ahead of Harry, chuntering under his breath as he went.
As he followed Ron up the stairs, Harry glanced back and heard Mr Weasley enter the kitchen with a placatory, "now Molly dear." George was nowhere to be seen, but a long piece of flesh coloured string trailing around the corner of the kitchen door betrayed his presence. Once safely away from his mother, Ron's mutterings became much more vehement. He threw himself onto his bed with much creaking of springs and launched into a tirade about the unfairness of being a teenager, his mother and life in general. Harry sat making sympathetic noises whilst actually trying to decide whether or not he should write to Hermione and what he would say to her if he did.
By the time Ron had lapsed into a sullen silence, Harry had decided he probably should write, it had after all been a while since his last letter. Fishing amongst the debris that he had collected under his bed, he eventually found a quill and a usable piece of parchment. Laying the parchment across his knees he scratched out her name at the top - at which point he got completely stuck and couldn't think of a single thing to say. Should he tell her about the ceremony? Tell her that they had planned to move out but that Mrs Weasley was vetoing the idea? Should he say he missed her? Would that make his feelings too obvious and scare her off?
What he really wanted to do was ask about Joey, how she had met him and what sort of person he was. But then he might as well write I love you in block capitals and send it to her. In the end he settled for telling her about his meeting with Teddy and how he couldn't wait to see him again. He wasn't sure why, perhaps it was because Remus had left him with the responsibility and he had been the last father figure Harry had, perhaps it was just Teddy's babyish charm, or perhaps it was something to do with the family he had never had, but he felt very close to his little godson.
As Harry was signing off his still very brief letter, there was a loud crack and George materialised in the middle of the room still holding an Extendable Ear.
"Well," he sighed, flopping down onto Ron's bed, "you two certainly know how to cause a fuss."
Ron switched his morose gaze from the ceiling to his brother as he raised his head from his folded arms. "It's not fair, we can more than look after ourselves, and it's not like we're moving to the end of the earth." He looked accusingly at George as a thought struck him. "She never had this much of a pantomime when you moved out and you were younger than us at the time!"
"Yeah, but Ronniekins, we weren't daft enough to ask her for permission we just told her that we were going to do it."
"I didn't ask -"
"No, I think I know why," Harry set aside the parchment. "You're the last one to leave. Think about it, Charlie's in Romania, Bill's living with Fleur, Percy has his flat in London to go back to and George, you've got the shop. Since Ginny's away at school, she probably feels like you're her last child living at home. I suppose it's understandable that she might get a bit upset."
"A bit upset?" George echoed with a smirk, "she's more than that, she was positively apoplectic for a while. You should have heard Dad trying to calm her down."
"Yes well, some people have better things to do with their time than eavesdrop on other people's conversations," Ron shot back.
"What, like moon over Loony Lovegood?"
It was all Harry could do to get his wand out of his pocket in time to cast shield between the two of them before Ron tried to launch himself at his laughing brother. "Stop it you two!"
Stiffly Ron sat back, glaring at the two of them whilst George mouthed "touchy subject" at Harry.
The three of them sat in silence for a moment before George began batting impatiently at the air next to his scar. Catching Harry's eye he gave a lopsided grin, "itchy ear."
Harry smiled in sympathy and was sure he saw the corner of Ron's mouth twitch upwards. Suddenly, George got up off the bed and looked from one to the other slyly. " Well if you two gloomy girls don't want to hear my good news then I'll be off."
Ron rolled his eyes and looked at his brother with an expression of rapt fascination. "Go on then; astonish us."
"No it's fine, you don't care!" George did his best to look tragic, "if you don't want to know that Dad managed to convince Mum to let the two of you move out then I'll be off." And with a sniff he dissapparated, leaving Harry to sit and laugh as Ron jumped up and did a short celebratory dance on his bed.
Harry's first thought when he woke up the next morning was that Mrs Weasley must have changed her mind. It certainly seemed the only reasonable explanation as to why Ron came storming into the room yelling, "I can't believe her, I just can't - how could she do something like this!"
"Whazzup?" Harry sat up bleary eyed and then immediately wished he hadn't as Ron chucked a newspaper at his head by way of answer.
"Read that."
Grabbing his glasses he unfolded the mornings edition of the Prophet and his stomach dropped as he took in the large picture of him standing shamefaced in the grounds of Hogwarts accompanied by the bold title - Love Rat Potter in Public Heartbreak (full story on pages 2&3). Quickly Harry flipped the page and began reading.
For some of my more attentive readers, it will come as no surprise that Harry Potter - hero of the wizarding world - has once more publicly humiliated himself. Yesterday at the memorial ceremony held at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I was fortunate enough to witness the consequences of fame going to a person's head.
Being an exalted hero has no doubt given Potter the impression that he is not bound by the same social conventions as the rest of us, as you will also know he loses no opportunity to be in the limelight. Whatever the reason it is no excuse for the heartbreak and misery he visited upon his on-off girlfriend, Ginerva Weasley, as he publicly humiliated her yesterday.
Shortly after the main unveiling, Potter took the opportunity to loudly announce to Miss Weasley - and anyone listening - that he didn't want to be in a relationship with her anymore as it was, and I quote, "too much bother." To add insult to injury he then went on to inform her that he was already seeing someone else, although he mentioned no names. Miss Weasley, a quiet, pretty girl, naturally fled the scene in tears as Potter basked in the attention he had created.
As the caring and sympathetic soul that I am, this dedicated journalist immediately sought out Miss Weasley to comfort her. However, angry at the insensitive injustice wreaked upon her, she wanted to tell me, and therefore my devoted readers, about the real Harry Potter: "He loves getting all the attention, he used to get so jealous if anyone paid more attention to me than to him. He especially loved when he got attention from all the girls, he thought I didn't know that he was cheating on me but I did. I've known for months," she stormed. "I didn't need to stay with him, but I thought if he could see how much I loved him then he would change. But no, he loves being famous too much. He's told me loads of times that I'm not glamorous enough to be going out with a celebrity, although Hermione Granger obviously is." - Harry gripped the paper so hard he thought that he was going to rip it in half. - At this point Miss Weasley became to emotional to continue, but as most of my readers will know she was referring to the oft speculated romance between Potter and his muggle-born friend. (For more information about this turn to pages 7&8.) Little is known about what Miss Granger's other half Mr Ronald Weasley, incidentally Ginerva's brother, has to say about all of this.
I believe that it is my duty as a reporter and as a woman to inform my fellow witches about the real Harry Potter, to show them the scum behind the scar, and to ensure that no one else has their heart broken by the Boy-Who-Lived. (See tomorrow's issue for more on Potter's romances.)
"I can't believe that Ginny would do this!" Ron swore and kicked Harry's bed.
"She has always been pretty good at getting revenge on people who've upset her." Harry pointed out as he stared blankly at the paper. What if Hermione read this? Did they even get the Daily Prophet in Australia?
"How can you be so calm about this?" Ron sat down rubbing his foot in pain. "Ginny's obviously gone to Rita Skeeter and fed her a whole load of lies about you. Or did you believe all that rubbish about seeking her out to comfort her? You should at least be angry about that, even if you ignore the rest of the trash that she wrote."
"What's the point? It won't change anything, half the country's probably seen this already. And we don't even know if Ginny did tell her all that stuff, you know what Rita's like."
Ron still wasn't convinced. "Well I'm going to write and tell her what I think of her anyway. Just wait till Mum sees this, she'll have a fit!"
Sighing Harry got up and headed to the bathroom. He was grateful to Ron for standing up for him, and he knew he should be angry. But honestly the papers had written so much rubbish about him over the years that he was past caring. Sure he was mildly annoyed at Ginny, deep down he knew she had said those things, or some of them anyway, but really the only thing that he was concerned about was whether or not Hermione saw it. If she did then… Well, he didn't know what would happen. Maybe he should just stay away from girls altogether.
It didn't take Harry very long to pack, he didn't have that many belongings to start with, but it was another week before Mrs Weasley felt ready to let them leave the house. Rather surprisingly she had taken Harry's side over the Rita Skeeter article, muttering darkly about what she would do when she got her hands on her daughter. It didn't stop her reading the Prophet though, which continued to print far fetched stories about his love life all week, and it wasn't long before he started getting people writing to him about it. Occasionally one would be from someone offering sympathy for the bad press he was getting, but on the whole they were usually pretty derogatory. He was just tossing one such batch into the fire unopened when he recognised the neat handwriting on one of the envelopes. Quickly he tore it open and began to read Hermione's reply.
It was very short and to the point. She was well, her parents were well, Australia was wonderful, she couldn't wait to meet Teddy and she missed them all. No reference to the mysterious Joey at all and other than his name at the top of the page no mention of Harry either. He wasn't sure what he felt about this, this possibly meant that she hadn't heard about the articles, which was good, but it was disappointing not even to warrant a how are you? Although, curiously, it looked as though she had neatly copied out the entire letter; he had no idea what that meant.
"There you are Harry dear, that should be enough food to last you a while. I won't give it to Ron because he'll have it all eaten by the end of the day… Now are you sure you've got everything that you need, you haven't forgotten something?"
Stuffing the letter into his coat pocket, Harry turned. "Yes Mrs Weasley, I'm positive."
Looking sceptical, she tapped the enormous hamper on the kitchen table with her wand and shrunk it so that it would fit into his rucksack.
Five minutes later George, Percy and their parents were all gathered around the fireplace to say goodbye to the two boys.
"We're only going to be a floo away," Ron complained as his mother hugged the life out of him, "it's not like you can't see us anytime."
"Yes, but it's her ickle Ronnie that's moving out, it's traditional for her to blub all over you." George winked at Harry as he dodged his mother's swipe. After several more emotional minutes for Mrs Weasley, during which they were both hugged a number of times, she finally allowed them to go.
Harry stepped into the fireplace and had one last glimpse of the Burrow before he was sent violently spinning through the Floo Network, eventually falling awkwardly onto his bag as it spat him out at the other end. He got up and moved quickly out of the way as Ron followed suit. As he pulled him to his feet, Harry glanced around the newly cleaned living room, such a change from the Grimmauld Place that he knew. "Well this is it, we're home."
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