Chapter Four
He found her by the boy's side the next morning. She was curled up inside a thick wool blanket, with the rug for a mattress. He glanced around the room, seeing in the early morning light the extremely short candles and empty potion bottles scattered around the room in an unusually messy manner.
But most of all he noticed the look on her face.
A smile, but such a smile! He doubted very much that anyone had seen one like it before, so full of peace and hope it was. He moved toward the couch, looking down at the boy that had caused the mess and, he suspected with a twinge of jealousy, the smile.
He wished, rather childishly, that he had been the one to put it there.
It was then that he remembered the house.
All trace of sleepiness gone, Harry abandoned the living room, pounding up the stairs with little regard for the fact that the entire house was still asleep. He threw himself into Ron's room, madly undressing and dressing again, haphazardly pulling on a sweater (Ron's sweater, judging by the length, but he didn't care).
"I hope no one's taken it yet." he muttered fervently, as he dashed out the door and flung himself down the stairs. There was an explosion of noise as he crashed into Bill at the foot of the stairs, who had promptly dropped the box of wine glasses he was holding.
"Good Merlin, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw!" Bill panted, looking winded as Harry scrambled to his feet. "What's gotten into you, man?"
"Nothing-sorry-see-you-later-Bill!"
"Sorry? I didn't catch that! You don't seem to care, though!" Bill bellowed through the wildly swinging, open door, after Harry's rapidly vanishing figure. "Right, you go. I'll just fix these wine glasses and--"
"For Godric's sake, SHUT UP!" growled a disheveled -looking Ginny, who stormed down the stairs and promptly dealt Bill a punch to the arm. "Wake up the whole world, why don't you?"
"In a bad mood, sister dear?" Bill inquired while he cringed and nursed his arm.
"If you keep this up, I WILL BE!" she thundered, making Bill recoil. "No, scratch that, it's too late!"
She smacked his arm and stalked away.
Bill stared after his sister ruefully, and then commented to the rest of his very irritated family, "You know, I never saw the resemblance between her and Mum before now."
"Didn't you?" Ron said sarcastically, glaring murderously at him, "You're about to see the resemblance between you and a bucket of pounded Gurdyroots!"
"Great to see you, too, Ron-- George-- Percy--" Bill chuckled nervously, backing away from his furious brothers.
"Is something wrong?"
"Hermione!" Bill said with relief, sending her an imploring glance, "Finally, someone sane!"
Hermione glanced from Bill to the Weasleys, looking extremely sympathetic, at least Bill hoped she was feeling sympathetic. If not, he was going to end up at St. Mungo's until next Christmas.
She opened her mouth and said, quite helpfully:
"So where's Harry?"
The next thing Hermione knew, the whole of the Weasley clan was streaking down the lane, howling with rage (or, in Bill's case, with fear) in their mismatched night gear.
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