ii. goodbye, privet drive

BY TWELVE O'CLOCK the next day, Evie had everything packed. And she meant everything. From her school materials and her clothes to every single drawing she had done throughout her childhood. All her most prized possessions were inside her trunk, even those that weren't as prized too. Something about seeing the bedroom she had spent her whole life in completely bare, left a strange feeling in her chest, but she shook it off. It'd been decided for a year, and she couldn't back down now.

      As soon as she was done staring at the empty room, she popped by Harry's, lingering on his doorway for a couple of seconds. She silently watched him as he took down the calendar on his wall and put it in his trunk.

      "Oh, " he said, once he turned around and saw her, startled. "Morning. You've already packed?"

      She nodded in response, letting her eyes fly across every inch of the boy's room. She could see schoolbooks from earlier years lying on top of his wardrobe, which had a drawing of his owl taped to it. Posters of the Gryffindor emblem were also hanging by the bedroom walls, along with quidditch pamphlets of past seasons.

      "You should put everything in your trunk," she finally said.

      Harry blinked at her.

      "What do you mean? I already did. That, " he pointed at the calendar he had just put away, "was the only thing left."

      Evie shook her head and pointed at Hedwig's drawing.

      "No, I mean everything, " she explained, emphasising the last word. "Even the pictures you have on your bedside and that box of letters you keep under the floor, everything."

      Her cousin stared at her for a couple of seconds, looking dumbfounded, no doubt startled at the fact that she knew about his letter stash — just because she had a similar one.

      "How do you know about—" he started, confirming Evie's thoughts, and bringing a smirk to her face. "Doesn't matter. But why? It's not as if we won't be here next summer."

      Not if she got her way, but Harry didn't need to know that just yet.

      "Just trust me," she answered simply, a smile making its way to her face. "If something doesn't fit, you can put it in mine, I have an expandable charm in my trunk."

      "You've finally gone mad, " he said in return, but doing what she'd told him and starting to take the posters off his wall.

      "Love you too, Haz!"

      She left her cousin's room.

      Outside their little bubble, the atmosphere inside the house was extremely tense. Lunch had been more of a nightmare than usual, her parents gripping their forks with such strength that one would think they were trying to run away from their hands. Evie couldn't blame the inanimate objects if they did. Her father had even gone to the extent of complaining about what clothes the Weasleys would be wearing — and Evie expected nothing muggle from Mr. Weasley, so they were in for a ride.

      In light of the guests, her parents had made the house look even more pristine than usual, and her father had put on his best suit. Obviously, he'd done that to appear richer and intimidating (which he wasn't). Her brother, on the other hand, was completely nervous, and not hiding it well. Evie almost felt bad for him, given that his last encounter with magic had ended up with him and a new body part.

      When the clock on the wall ticked and five o'clock came, Vernon Dursley stood up and opened the front door.

      "They're late!" he snarled.

      "I know," said Harry. "Maybe — er — the traffic's bad, or something."

      Evie shared a look with her cousin. They both knew that it wasn't traffic, because the Weasley family car had gone on a journey of self-discovery through the woods two years earlier.

      The clock kept ticking, and at half-past, her parents could be heard complaining in mutters in the living room.

      "Maybe they think they'll get invited to dinner if they're late," her mother considered, and Evie huffed. As if.

      "Well, they most certainly won't be," answered her father, and Evie heard him stand up and start pacing the living room. "They'll take our daughter and the boy and go, there'll be no hanging around. That's if they're coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I daresay their kind don't set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive some tin-pot car that's broken d — AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!"

      Evie jumped and looked at Harry with wide eyes, a "what the hell" on the tip of her tongue.

      Both hurried into the living room, where a loud hanging and scraping sound came from behind their fireplace, which was electric.

       "What is it?" gasped her mum, who had backed into the wall and was staring, terrified, toward the fire. "What is it, Vernon?"

      Voices could be heard from inside the blocked fireplace, and a smile crept upon Evie's face.

      "Ouch! Fred, no– go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake– tell George not to– OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron–"

      "Maybe Evie can hear us, Dad– maybe she'll be able to let us out–"

      The voice that was unmistakably George's carried through the wall, followed by a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

      "Evie? Evie, Harry, can you hear us?"

      The family rounded on Harry and her like a pair of angry wolverines.

      "What is this?" growled her father. "What's going on?"

      Evie dropped the smile the second he turned towards her.

      "They— " she stopped herself, trying not to laugh. "They've tried to get here by Floo powder. It's a form of travel by fire, but our fireplace is electric, so it's been blocked."

      "Hang on— Mr. Weasley?" Harry approached the fireplace and put his face near the boards. "Can you hear me?"

      The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney piece said, "Shh!"

      "Mr. Weasley, it's Harry... the fireplace has been blocked up. You won't be able to get through there."

      "Damn!" said Mr. Weasley's voice, and she had to refrain herself from laughing. "What on earth did they want to block up the fireplace for?"

      "They've got an electric fire," Harry explained.

      "Really?" said Mr. Weasley's voice excitedly. "Eclectic, you say? With a plug? Gracious, I must see that... Let's think... Ouch, Ron!"

      Ron's voice joined the others. "What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

      "Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up."

      "Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George, whose voice sounded muffled, as though he was squashed against the wall.

      Evie had to make sure that this comedic masterpiece was remembered until the end of times. She wasn't about to let her Weasley boys forget how they had ended up trapped in a fireplace of all places.

      "Boys, boys..." said Mr. Weasley vaguely. "I'm trying to think what to do... Yes... only way... Stand back, Harry. You too, Evie."

      Her cousin retreated to the sofa, and Evie took a dramatically long step back, not once looking at her parents but at the fireplace. Her father, however, moved forward.

      "Wait a moment!" he bellowed at the fire. "What exactly are you going to—"

       BANG.

      The electric fire shot across the room. As Evie expected, Mr. Weasley burst the fireplace, creating a cloud of rubble and loose chippings that covered them and her parents. Her mum shrieked at the sight, almost falling backwards and her dad breaking the fall.

      "That's better," panted Mr Weasley, brushing dust from his long green robes and straightening his glasses. "Ah— you must be Evie's parents!"

      The ginger man took a step towards the aforementioned, hand outstretched, but her father backed away, dragging his wife with him.

      Evie tried not to laugh at her parents' appearance, both covered in dust from the fireplace, and diverted her gaze from them. In doing so, her eyes found George's, who was having the same exact problem as her.

      "Er— yes— sorry about that," said Mr. Weasley, lowering his hand and looking over his shoulder at the blasted fireplace. "It's all my fault. It just didn't occur to me that we wouldn't be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace connected to the Floo network, you see — just for an afternoon, you know, so we could get the kids. Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected, strictly speaking– but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel, and he fixed it for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don't worry. I'll light a fire to send the boys back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate."

      Her parents were still gaping at Mr Weasley, thunderstruck. They hadn't understood a thing he'd said.

      "Hello, Harry, Evie!" said Mr Weasley brightly, turning to them with a bigger smile on his face. "Got your trunks ready?"

      Evie returned the smile at the same time Harry answered that they were upstairs, grinning as well.

      "We'll get them," said Fred at once. Winking at Harry, he rapidly left the room.

      She looked at the remaining twin, who made a subtle movement with his head towards the door, before leaving the room himself.

      "I'll go help," she settled on saying, following after both ginger boys. Her parents paid her no mind as she disappeared through the door. The moment they left the living room, she engulfed George in a bone-crushing hug. "Long time no see, huh?"

      The ginger smiled at her after they broke away from each other and made a show out of letting her show him the way by making a curtsy. She laughed, leading him towards the stairs.

      "It's unbelievable that those are your parents down there," George said from behind her. "I think the pixies dropped you at the wrong house."

      "They sure dropped you somewhere, you lack neurons," she casually said, knowing that wizarding folk also lacked scientific knowledge in medicine, and he wouldn't know what she was talking about.

      "I'm not sure what neurons are, but I don't appreciate you insulting me."

      "But you do," she teased, opening the door to her room.

      George stood in the doorway for a moment, frowning. "I can't believe this is the first time I've been to your room, and it's empty."

      Evie gave one last glance at her childhood bedroom, as bare as the day they'd moved in, and grabbed her trunk without giving it much thought. She'd done enough thinking the night before, she didn't need to mull it over anymore.

     "And last time, if I get my way."

      She closed the wooden door behind her, and George snatched the handle of the trunk off her hand, deciding to carry it himself.

      "You're going through with it, then?" he asked, following her down the stairs at a slower pace.

      "Yep. In fact, I wanted to talk to your dad about it. Oh, careful with that one, it creaks," she warned, and George skipped the step altogether. "I figured your father would know the legality of it better than me."

      They joined everyone else downstairs, quickly followed by Fred carrying the other trunk. Evie narrowed her eyes when the second the twins spotted her brother Dudley, their faces cracked into identical evil grins.

      "Ah, right," said Mr Weasley. "Better get cracking then. " He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand, causing her family to draw back against the wall. "Incendio!" said Mr Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind him.

      Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been burning for hours. Mr Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket, untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.

      She loved floo powder.

      "Off you go then, Fred," said Mr Weasley. "Take one of the trunks with you, son."

      "Coming," said Fred. "Oh no— hang on —"

      A bag of sweets spilt out of the ginger's pocket and the contents were now rolling in every direction — big, fat toffees in brightly coloured wrappers. Evie sighed as Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket before he gave a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying "the Burrow!"

      There was a whooshing sound and Fred vanished along with the trunk. She frowned at where he'd been, knowing he would never displace one of their creations as carelessly as he had, unless it was for a reason. A mischievous reason.

      "Right then, George," said Mr Weasley, "you and Evie's trunk."

      Evie helped George carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had yelled "the Burrow!" and vanished too.

      "Ron, you next," said Mr Weasley.

      "See you," said Ron brightly to her parents. He grinned broadly at Harry, blushed as soon as he looked at Evie, then stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.

      Now Harry and Mr Weasley alone remained with Evie and her family.

      "I'll send you sweets," she told her brother. "Mum, Dad, bye. I'll see you sometime, I guess."

      "Behave, young lady, or you will not be going back," her father tried to threaten, pointing a stern finger at her.

      She raised an eyebrow with a slight scoff.

      "I always do," she rolled her eyes, stepping backwards into the fire. "The Burrow!"

...

      SHE STUMBLED OUT of the Weasley's fireplace, nearly clashing her face with the wooden floor.

      "Will there be a time when you don't fall on your nose after flooing somewhere?" George cackled, not even making an attempt at helping her.

      "It's my trademark, at this point," she muttered, resting her hands on her knees as she gathered herself.

      "Glad to see some things don't change," said an amused voice, causing her to actually look at her surroundings.

      Evie almost blushed at the sight of the older man in front of her, as her eleven-year-old self squealed inside of her. Shorter than the twins, broader shoulders, and heavily freckled face, he was almost as she remembered him. His slightly curly hair was a bit longer than it used to be, reaching his ears, and he had a fond smile on his face.

      "Evie, it's nice to see you," greeted Charlie, hand stretched in front of him for her to grab.

      Grateful, she took it, rising from the floor.

      Before she could get around to say anything, Mrs Weasley appeared in her line of sight, holding open her arms for a hug. Evie melted into the woman's embrace, a smile on her face, until Mrs Weasley took a step back, grabbing her by the shoulders to get a good look at her.

      "Oh, dear, I love the new haircut," she gushed, a stark contrast to what her mother had thought at the beginning of the summer. "You get prettier every year. Don't you think, George?"

      Evie grinned at her best friend, tilting her head. "Yeah, don't you, Georgie?" she teased, causing Charlie to chuckle.

      Molly had been trying earnestly to set her up with any of her children, especially George. In her words, they'd make the most adorable couple, as "you're already best friends, sweetie!". This had been her latest attempt, and Evie thought Mrs Weasley ought to set her up with Charlie.

      "As pretty as an ogre," George agreed, receiving a slap on the neck from Mrs Weasley.

      "Be nice, George," she frowned, and then turned to Evie with a wide smile. "I'll go get the girls, alright?"

      She nodded, watching as the woman left the room to get Ginny, the Weasley's only daughter, and Hermione Granger, Harry's other best friend. Evie then noticed Fred and Ron sitting at the table with another ginger, but one she didn't recognise. Instantly, she knew he was Bill, the eldest, and she'd been left in awe.

      He got up to his feet, smiling, and shook her hand. "You probably already know, but I'm Bill."

      "It's nice to meet you," she smiled.

      He was so not what she was expecting, if she had to be honest. She'd always heard of all his achievements, and had subconsciously decided he'd look like an older version of Percy... But he was not. He was tall, like the twins, and had long hair, tied back into a ponytail. He had a fang earring dangling from his left ear, and was dressed in muggle clothes that looked very punk. He looked like someone she would find at a Queen concert. Bill was simply cool.

      Then, in a similar fashion as her, Harry appeared in the fireplace, hands in front of him to break his fall, a lot more successfully than she'd been.

      Fred hurried to get to him, holding out a hand to pull her cousin to his feet, excitement on his face. "Did he eat it?"

      Evie pouted, they twins hadn't helped her off the floor, just laughed at her. Then she let out a sigh. She could already guess what the older twin meant, and what had happened.

      "Yeah," replied Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

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

      Evie couldn't help but laugh, the tiny kitchen exploding with laughter. It seemed all of them knew just what those toffees did to someone. Even if the target of the joke had been her little brother, she couldn't say she was mad — he'd earned it.

      Harry greeted the Weasley's oldest sons, and Evie couldn't help but notice how Harry and her sometimes were too similar, because her cousin had too been admiring the eldest, Bill. It was clear that the both of them had the same standards on what a cool person was.

      Before any of them could say anything else, there was the faint popping noise of Apparition, and Mr. Weasley appeared behind George and her, an angry scowl on his face. He was looking angrier than Evie had ever seen him, and his children gave him plenty of reasons to be angry.

      "That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"

      "I didn't give him anything," said Fred, 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!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet —"

      "How big did his tongue get?" interrupted George eagerly, almost standing on the tip of his toes.

      "It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!" They 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!" said Fred indignantly.

      "No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George, an offended tone in his voice. "Isn't he, Harry, Evie?"

      "Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.

      "He is a terrible person for being so young," she agreed, with a small voice.

      "That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother —"

      "Tell me what?" said a voice behind them, and Evie grimaced.

      Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen again, this time Hermione and Ginny following closely behind her. "Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped back to her husband, inquisitive. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

      Mr. Weasley hesitated. He hadn't really intended to tell Mrs.Weasley what had happened, Evie could gather. The Weasley matriarch's wrath was one that it seemed all of them feared. There was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously.

      "Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated slowly, in a dangerous sort of voice.

      "It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just — but I've had words with them —"

      "What have they done this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes —"

      "Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione quickly from the doorway, and Evie had to give it to her, she was a clever girl.

      "He knows where he's sleeping," said Ron, not catching the drift, "in my room, he slept there last —"

      "We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.

      "Oh," realised Ron, cottoning on. "Right."

      "Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

      "You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

      Harry 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. She gaped at the youngest in the room taking their leave.

      Evie's eyes widened as she was left with no option to run, she always went everywhere with George when they were in the Burrow. Bill and Charlie swiftly left the kitchen, the latter grabbing her elbow and taking her with them.

      "They're still working on Wizard Wheezes?" she asked the oldest Weasley siblings as she followed them outside. "George stopped mentioning it in his letters, I thought something had finally exploded in their faces."

      "Of course you knew," chuckled Charlie, possibly believing her to be an active participant as well. "Help us with bringing out the tables, would you? We're eating out here tonight."

      "Mum found a price list for the things they invented when she was cleaning their room," explained Bill. "She was furious at them, burned down all the order forms. Combined with their O.W.L.s, I reckon they're not her favourite sons right now."

      Evie nodded slowly. "Well, at least their genius is going somewhere, right? Would be worse if they didn't study just because they didn't feel like it."

      Bill and Charlie shared knowing glances as they entered the shed in their garden.

      "You're totally on board with their idea, aren't you?"

      "If I had the money I'd fund them! I think their ideas would get more business than Zonko's," she confessed, helping Bill bring out one of the tables while Charlie took the other. "Lately those lazy asses can't come up with anything good, they're always getting one-upped by the twins in the common room."

      "Mum should hear your point, really," agreed Bill, pulling out his wand. "She's convinced they're gonna end up jobless."

      The three of them grimaced once the shouting inside the house became even louder. Evie was sure that if they had neighbours, they would have gotten a noise complaint a long, long time ago.

      She frowned. "Now that I think about it, where is Percy? He should have popped up by now with all the noise we've made."

      "Locked up on his room," said Bill, levitating his table with a mischievous grin on his lips. "Ever since he got that ministry job he doesn't come out unless absolutely necessary."

      "Wouldn't even be home if dad didn't force him to," quipped Charlie, also making his table take flight. "Oh, there they are!"

      The twins were getting out of the house, pointedly avoiding the path of a small ginger-haired demon — Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, who was clearly on a mission— running after a gnome, a creature barely twenty five centimetres high, through the garden.

      Evie quickly decided she would avoid the topic altogether as soon as she saw their faces, they didn't want to talk about it. Instead, she turned to the other brothers, who seemed like they'd just turned on a lighting bulb inside their heads.

      "It's been a while since we'd done this," said Charlie, a nostalgic look on his face as the both of them raised their wands.

      Fred and George, clearly in the know on what they were doing, grinned at the air.

      "Yeah, what was it, three years ago?" asked Bill, the table he was levitating following the path of his wand.

      Ginny and Hermione appeared through the door, carrying plates, the moment both battered wooden tables clashed against one another in the air, making a very loud crashing noise. Charlie's smashed forcefully into Bill's, almost making the table hit the side of the house. Ginny and Evie let out loud laughs, joining the twins in their cheering to see who could win. Bill's table caught the other with a huge bang, and knocked one of its legs off, it falling onto the lawn.

      There was a clatter from above them, and she looked up. Ah, there he is. Percy's head poked out of a window on the second room, which Evie knew to be his room. He had a frown on his face, and it deepened as soon as he saw the cause of the commotion. She waved at him, a grin on her lips.

      "Will you keep it down?" he bellowed.

      "Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning, a hand in front of his eyes. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

      "Very badly," he quickly answered, slamming the window shut.

      Evie laughed, watching as Bill and Charlie put the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the missing leg to the wood. Godric, she couldn't wait for her seventeenth birthday, she longed for the moment she could practise magic outside of school. With a smile, she watched as they conjured tablecloths out of thin air, and set them on the table.

...

      ONE HOUR LATER, everyone was seated, the old tables groaning under the weight of all the plates and dishes that Mrs Weasley had admirably cooked. The garden was filled with laughter and conversations, as the nine Weasleys, Evie, Harry, and Hermione ate under the clear blue sky. To Evie, it almost felt like being back at the Great Hall in Hogwarts, the only place in the world where she enjoyed these types of gatherings — a far cry from the ones they had at Privet Drive, that were instead filled with hatred, awfully-cooked food, and the worst part: her relatives.

      She was sitting by George, as she usually was, and on her right was her second favourite Weasley, Ginny, who was shamelessly, like Evie, eavesdropping in a conversation with her mother about Bill's looks.

      "... with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?" was asking Mrs Weasley, distressed at the seemingly recent acquisition.

      Evie watched, amused, as Bill gathered himself. "Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," he patiently said.

      "It looks very cool," she quipped, serving herself some potatoes.

      Bill gave her a grateful smile, as Ginny nodded, agreeing with her statement. At her other side, George startled her when he started gesturing wildly with his hands, very deep in a conversation about Quidditch with Fred and Charlie.

      "There is no way Ireland will win," he was saying, and he looked at Evie. "You think the same, right?"

      After her friends at school had gotten her to fall in love with it, she had started paying for a bi-weekly subscription of a Quidditch magazine, so she was always fairly informed about what was going on in the magic sport world. Even if she didn't play, she loved it, knew every single rule, play and player of the sport.

      "Eh— Not really," she denied, George deflating in his seat. "Bulgaria doesn't stand a chance against Ireland, in my opinion. They focus too little on having a well-rounded team."

      "It's got to be Ireland," agreed Charlie, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals."

      "But Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum," said Fred.

      "One player doesn't make the team, though," argued Evie, pointing at him with her fork.

      "Evie's right. Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

      All of them grimaced, except Harry. She had read the summary of the match, and even the words had made her cringe in embarrassment.

      "What happened?" said Harry eagerly, and that's when she remembered that her cousin was only subscribed to the Daily Prophet, which was strange for a Quidditch fanatic such as him. He was a natural on a broom, and Evie honestly thought he was the best in the school, even if he was only fourteen.

      "Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."

      "It's been a while since England has got to the final, right?" Evie asked, and the Weasley boys nodded. Those types of statistics sadly weren't included in her magazines. "Well, it's no problem, because our Harry will get the team there for the next World Cup, eh?"

      Harry turned slightly pink at her teasing, and all of them laughed.

      Even if it had seemed as if she were only making fun, Evie wholeheartedly believed he could make it. She was very proud of her cousin, the youngest seeker of Hogwarts in a century. She was certain that if he put his mind to it, he could make it to the big leagues before he even graduated from school.

      Night had already fallen when Mr Weasley conjured up candles to light the garden before they had dessert. As full as she was, her mouth watered as the homemade strawberry ice cream levitated towards the tables. Ginny had laughed at her when she almost lunged for it, but Evie soon discovered she had no business laughing at her, as the younger girl devoured the ice cream, too, as if she were famished.

      "Look at the time," Mrs Weasley said suddenly, voice tinged with surprise as she checked her wrist watch. "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. Harry, Evie, if you leave your school list 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."

      Evie had already known that — Angelina Johnson, one of her best friends, had attended, and when the time came for school, she had gushed every single detail out, making the rest of them wish they had gone as well.

      "Wow — hope it does this time!" said Harry with wide eyes, enthusiastic about the idea.

      Ginny and her nodded at the same time, and they laughed when they made eye-contact. Not only would it be amazing to see five days worth of Quidditch, but it would also mean a giant sleepover, with Hermione too, a thing they've never done given that the three girls were in different years at school.

      When she followed the youngest Weasley into her room, her cheeks were sore from all the laughing and smiling she'd done in what was the best part of their three-month-long summer.

ren speaks!
this is the second chapter, hope you liked it! it's way
longer than the first one, and I think they will remain this way.
thank you for reading! <3