Chapter Two: Finally Free
Ginny Weasley sat in her room. She couldn't wait until school started! She had just finished her chores and was pulling one of her brothers' old copy of Hogwarts: a History off of the shelf to read. The girl sat down on her bed and began reading about the magical castle. After a few moments of reading there came a loud BANG! Ginny poked her head out of her door to see smoke coming out from under the door to the twins' room and floating down the stairs towards her own room. The red-head girl shook her head and closed her door again. The twins exploded things in their room all the time. Everyone in the family simply assumed that they liked the noise.
TALL-AND-FUN-AND-PRETTY—GINNY
Harish wiped black soot off of his eyes and sneezed, spewing more soot all over the floor. The twins shook their heads, resembling dogs that were trying to shake water out of their ears. They were sitting in front of a cauldron that now had a puke-green, tar-like substance in the bottom of it. The pale boy banished all of the soot from the room and the twins muttered a thanks.
"Well," George said. "At least we know now not to add —"
"Pepper-imps to a potion full of bat spleens?" Harish asked.
"Yeah," they all three said together.
"I'm bored," Harish said after a moment.
"You're bored and we just blew up a potion?" Fred asked incredulously.
"Yeah. It is not funny anymore."
"You're impossible," George muttered.
"How about we go fly the car?" Harish suggested.
The twins seemed to consider this a moment. "Dad is at work," Fred said.
"And Mum is visiting Longbottom's grandmother," George continued.
"Let's go, then!" Harish exclaimed, jumping up and nearly flying down the stairs.
So they flew the car around until Harish crashed it into the side of the house. Then they hastily drove it back to the garage and repaired the house as quickly as possible. When they did that, they had several games of Quidditch. Unfortunately, Mrs. Weasley chose to arrive home the exact moment that Harish demonstrated a Wronski Feint to the twins. Apparently she and the twins had gotten over what happened shortly after his arrival, so she started shrieking about how they were all going to break their necks. Then, to punish them, Mrs. Weasley had the twins de-gnome the garden.
Harish, who had two house elves to wait on him and no gnomes to de-gnome, had lots of fun. The trick was to spin the gnome until it was dizzy, and then throw it over the garden wall. The twins made a game out of it, and soon the three boys were competing to get more gnomes over the tree stump several feet away. George won, but Harish didn't mind all that much. He had superior spell-casting skills after all. Then, as Harish was spinning one of the gnomes really fast, it kicked him rather hard and went sailing to the window…which got them grounded to the twins room. And then they started all over again, blowing things up once again.
IT'S-A-REGULAR-OCCUANCE—BREAKING-THE-RULES
Molly and Arthur Weasley sat in their sitting room, the sound of explosions sounding from above them. The house shook and dust fell from the ceiling. Mr. Weasley looked at his wife, who was looking at the ceiling as if she could straight through it and into the twins' bedroom.
"Molly," Mr. Weasley said. "Can't they leave their room?"
"And destroy the house?" she countered.
Another explosion shook the house and the tall, balding man thought for a minute. "Why not take them to Diagon Alley tomorrow? Maybe an outing will get rid of some of their pent up energy."
Mrs. Weasley considered this and then nodded. They needed to buy supplies for school anyway. Their letters with their school supplies had arrived the day before and the Hogwarts Express was due to leave in a week.
So, the next morning the occupants of the Burrow scrambled to get dressed, and then they all met in front of the fireplace where they could floo to Diagon Alley. When she took the flowerpot that held the floo powder off of the mantle, she peered into it.
"We are running a bit low," she said to Mr. Weasley. "We'll have to buy more while we're out today…Ah, well. Guests first! After you, Harish."
Harish took a pinch-full of floo powder and dropped it into the flames. They flared up green and he stepped in.
"Diagon Alley," he said clearly, and he started spinning up the chimney. Finally he came to a halt and walked out of a grate in the Leaky Cauldron. The teen waited for the twins and minutes later, Fred spun out, followed shortly by George. They stayed there until all of the Weasleys had come through, waiting for the all clear from Mrs. Weasley to leave.
"Let's meet in Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy our books," she said to the twins. "And not a single step in Knockturn Alley!"
The three of them then eagerly made their way to Gringotts. Harish got the money he needed before they went to the Apothecary to get Potions supplies. Then, they went to the shop next door to buy quills and parchment. The twins dragged Harish to the Quidditch shop for a quick look at the new Nimbus 2001's and then they spent the rest of their hour at Gambol and Jape's, Diagon Alley's joke shop.
Then all of the Weasleys plus Harish met at Flourish and Blotts. Occasionally Harish wondered what others thought when they saw him with the Weasleys. They were all gangly, freckled, and red-haired. Harish, on the other hand, had pale white skin and dark brown hair. His pale green eyes were unusual and a stark contrast from their brown ones. One thing was certain though. Whoever saw them together, definitely knew that he wasn't related to them.
Completely immersed in his thoughts, Harish didn't see the crowd standing outside the book shop until he had walked up and come to a halt next to the twins. Honestly, he had expected to go in, buy his books, and leave in a process that certainly wouldn't take long at all. Aggravated, he let out a growl and peered around for some explanation to why the shop was suddenly so famous. At seeing a poster on the window, the teen discovered that it wasn't the shop that was famous, but rather the wizard that was doing book signings.
The sign read:
GILDEROY LOCKHART
Will be signing copies of his autobiography
MAGICAL ME
Today 12:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M
Harish groaned. He didn't like crowds, book signings, or famous people. On the sign was a picture of a wizard with wavy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a wide smile. Harish tilted his head and observed the picture as Lockhart winked. How could someone fit so many teeth into one smile?
"We can actually meet him!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.
"Mum fancies him," George said in an exaggerated whisper.
Mrs. Weasley turned and sniffed indignantly and went on inside. Harish did notice that most of the crowd was made of witches Mrs. Weasley's age. A harassed looking wizard stood at the door, saying, "Calmly ladies… Please, no shoving…Mind the books…"
Fred, George, and Harish squeezed their way into the shop. A long line wound to the back of the shop where a table and many books were set up. Bent over the table with a large peacock-feather quill in his hand, was Lockhart. The three boys each grabbed a copy of Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4 and snuck up the line to where the rest of the Weasleys were standing. They stood there in line for a while, slowly moving forward.
"Harish!" came a voice from right behind him. A voice that was way too happy to belong to anyone other than Draco Malfoy.
Harish turned around to see Draco creep up to stand by him.
"So are you here with your parents?" Harish asked.
"Yes," Draco replied. "Mother is looking at robes for me, but Father insisted on coming in here with me. Honestly, I think your father sent him to spy on you."
As if to demonstrate this, Draco gestured to where his father was at the front of the shop. The man was craning his neck over the crowd, trying to keep an eye on them.
The older boy snorted. "I don't doubt that he would."
Lockhart grew closer as the line slowly moved forward. The wizard flashed smiles and had dozens of pictures taken by a short, irritable-looking man.
"That Lockhart really thinks he's something, doesn't he?" Draco asked, his nose was pointed to the air ever so slightly. It was a trick he and Harish had learned from his mother.
Harish nodded with some sort of grimace plastered to his face. The only thing he hated more than famous people were self-centred famous people, and Lockhart certainly seemed self-centred.
"Out of the way there," the camera man snarled at Ron. "This is for the Daily Prophet—"
The four boys standing behind him grinned to each other.
"Big deal," Ron muttered, rubbing his foot where the photographer had stepped on it.
Gilderoy Lockhart heard him. He looked up and saw Ron. Then, he saw Neville, who was standing with Ron. After a year, several rumours were going around about the boy. People had even started calling him The Chosen One. So, naturally, he stared. Then, he leapt to his feet and shouted, "It can't be Neville Longbottom?"
The crowd parted and looked at the boy curiously. Lockhart dove forward and grabbed Neville by the arm and pulled him to the front. The crowd burst into applause and Neville's face turned red. Lockhart shook his hand and the photographer started clicking away madly, engulfing the Slytherin trio in purple smoke.
"Nice big smile, Neville," Lockhart said through his own wide smile. "Together, you and I are worth the front page."
"That would be more likely if he wasn't in it," Harish muttered to the twins.
When Lockhart finally let go of Neville's arm, the boy tried to sidle sideways, but Lockhart clamped the poor second year to his side.
"Ladies and gentleman," he said loudly waiting for silence. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time! When young Neville here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography—which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge—" the audience started clapping again. "He had noidea that he would, in fact, be receiving the real, magical me as teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts this year!"
The crowd cheered and clapped. Lockhart's completed works were soon shoved into Neville's hands and he staggered away to dump them into Ginny's cauldron, intending to buy his own. Finally, Harish stepped forward to buy his books. When Draco, Fred, and George had gotten their books as well, they went to the front of the shop to stand with Ginny and Neville. Ron soon joined them.
"What're you doing here?" he asked Draco rudely.
"What am I doing here?" Draco asked indignantly. "What are you doing here? I didn't realise that Flourish and Blotts let trolls shop here."
"If I'm a troll, what does that make you? A jar of spleen juice?"
Draco smirked. "Not the most inventive insult," he said nonchalantly.
"Boys," Mr. Weasley said walking up. "There's not a problem, is there?"
"No sir," Draco said innocently. "My father and I were just leaving." Lucius clapped a hand on Harish shoulder and walked out the door and Draco said a muttered goodbye. After Mrs. Weasley joined them, they made their way out of the shop. The had barely gone forward when a wizard bumped into Ginny, sending her cauldron flying with a loud clang.
"I am so sorry," the man said, stooping to pick up Ginny's books.
Harish watched as the man placed the books in her cauldron, but the teen couldn't help but notice that the man kept his face angled away from the group. That was odd. Soon he forgot about it as they left Diagon Alley and he and the twins packed up their trunks, laughing about Draco teasing Ron.