"What about Percy?" asked Harry.
"He's off doing Ministry stuff." Ron shrugged unconcerned.
"This is great, Harry." Fred said.
"You'll make someone a lovely wife." George agreed.
Harry whacked George with the back of a wooden spoon.
"Ow!" George exclaimed, rubbing his upper arm where Harry had landed the blow with an exaggerated pout.
"He's got the Mum thing down too!" Fred pointed out and dodged when Harry threatened him with the spoon next.
Hermione couldn't help giggling at the good-natured teasing and Harry's pleasure at the underlying praise.
"You guys took a look around outside?" Harry asked as he put breakfast sandwiches together for Arthur, Bill and Charlie.
"Yeah, it's mad out there!" Fred exclaimed. "You'll never guess who we ran into? Bagman!"
"He was taking bets." George confided.
Hermione frowned at their twin expressions of glee. "Oh, you didn't?"
"Didn't what?" asked Ron, scooping up more mushrooms since Harry had finished with the serving spoon.
"Bet." Hermione said succinctly. She turned to look at the twins. "What would your Mum say?"
"I reckon she'd be talking with the wooden spoon." Fred admitted.
George nodded. "But…she's not here…"
"And we need money…"
"For the joke shop."
It was Harry's turn to frown at them. "I thought Remus said we'd invest if you got your NEWTs."
Fred and George looked to each other before they turned back to Harry.
"We just want…"
"To put in our own share and…"
"Do our bit."
Harry sighed but nodded in the face of their unwavering conviction. He raised the plate he held. "I'd better take this out before it gets cold."
"It's a good thing you wanting to contribute," Hermione began lecturing them as Harry disappeared into the front room, "but really betting?"
"You have to risk something…"
"If you want something." Fred concluded.
"Mum is going to freak." Ron pointed out, stabbing another sausage.
"Which is why nobody…"
"Is going to tell her."
The twins looked hard at their younger brother.
Ron swallowed and gestured at his brothers. "I'm not going to tell her but she'll still know. She's Mum."
Hermione's response was forgotten as Ginny and Lydia Inglebee entered. Their faces were painted in motifs symbolising Ireland; Ginny had gone for a fairly sedate green four leaf clover on her left cheek while Lydia had a sparkling rainbow arching into a small heap of glittering gold galleons. Hermione's eyebrows rose.
"Ooh, breakfast!" Lydia said, hurrying over to the table.
"Oy, get your own!" Ron complained. "Harry made this for us!"
"Harry made this?" Lydia giggled and nudged Ginny. "Isn't he awesome? He can cook!"
"Awesome!" Fred and George parroted, batting their eyelashes in unison as they mocked the girls.
"Behave!" Ginny threatened as she sat down and helped herself to food. "Lydia's our guest."
Hermione rubbed her head. Was she getting a headache?
Harry entered the kitchen and froze at the sight of Lydia and Ginny. Hermione felt a twinge of sympathy. It was probably his worst nightmare – well, beyond the whole thing with Voldemort and even then she wasn't too sure that he wouldn't prefer to have another confrontation with the evil wizard rather than face the two girls with the most obvious crushes on him ganging up together.
"Hi, Harry!" Lydia smiled at him widely.
"Hi, how are you doing, Lydia?" Harry asked politely as he quickly took up a position by Hermione.
She suspected he was intending to use her as a human shield.
Lydia shot Hermione a disgruntled look. "I'm good. This food looks amazing."
"I didn't know you could cook, Harry." Ginny followed up, evidently taking courage from Lydia's blatant flirting to actually talk with Harry.
"Hmmm, yeah," Harry pulled on Hermione's arm and sent a desperate look to Ron, "we should…"
"Check out the stalls while this lot finish breakfast and do clean-up." Hermione declared briskly. "You're very right, Harry. Let's go get Sirius and my parents. Ron?"
Ron picked up a final slice of bread, swiped it across his plate and pushed the whole thing in his mouth. He made a muffled sound which might have meant 'let's go.'
Hermione shot Harry a look of exasperated fondness at Ron's behaviour and he sent one back warm with affection and gratitude at her getting him away from the awkwardness of Lydia and Ginny. She felt a thrill of delight and happiness, and ignored the heated looks of jealousy emanating from the girls left behind in the kitchen.
o-O-o
Remus laughed at Bogdan's latest joke about Cornelius and turned to translate something funny but not related to the British Minister to the man in question.
In part he didn't mind the change of plans. Madame Derry – 'call me Kate' – was a lovely astute woman with forthright opinions and the Bulgarian Minister was a very intelligent and witty man. Both had expressed a deep appreciation of Cornelius's political acumen, but disappointment overall in the British foreign policy (which was effectively to ignore the rest of the world and progress elsewhere for fear it might contaminate Britain – Remus was going to have to discuss it with Sirius because politically they too had ignored the international arena for cleaning house at home first and it might be a mistake to ignore it for long). Both had also expressed amusement over Cornelius's attempts to engage Bogdan in conversation through mime and simply talking louder (as though volume would assist in understanding). Bogdan actually spoke reasonable English but a translator helped to avoid the embarrassing errors that neither Minister wanted to make on an international stage.
.
.
.
.
🎉The novel is available in PDF with more than 400 chapters, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉
🎉ko-fi.com/gokublack444🎉