Chapter 486: Life in the Humble Dwelling

Harry spun faster and faster, his arms tight to his body, the hazy furnace flickering past him, until he felt sick and closed his eyes. Then he felt himself slowing down, so he held out his hand to keep from falling face first, and walked out of the Weasley fireplace.

"Has he eaten?" Fred said excitedly, reaching out his hand to pull Harry to his side.

"Yes," Harry said, straightening, "What exactly is that?"

"Long-tongue toffee," Fred said happily, "George and I invented it. There were some technical problems at first, but that boy Fan Lin ran away somewhere and our owl couldn't find him."

"But we still developed it. We have been looking for people to test it all summer..." George said, he looked very excited, at least the long tongue toffee they made was successful.

The little kitchen was filled with laughter.

Harry looked around and saw Ron and George sitting at a clean wooden table, and two red-haired people whom Harry had never seen before. But he immediately realized who they were: Bill and Charlie, the two older Weasley brothers.

"Harry, hello!" the one who was closer to Harry said. He smiled at Harry and stretched out his big hand. Harry shook his hand and felt that there were calluses and blisters under his fingers. He must be Charlie, who lives with dragons in Romania. Charlie looks like the twins, but is shorter and shorter than Percy and Ron, while they are slender. His face was large, natural, sunburned and spotty, looking completely sunburnt, and his arms were muscular and had a scar on one arm.

Bill stood up with a smile and shook Harry's hand as well. His arrival somewhat surprised Harry. He works for a demonic bank, and he was once the kid king of Hogwarts. Bill was really like Percy, but older. They were both very sensitive about breaking the rules, making a fuss out of molehills, and liked to boss others around. But there was no other word to describe his indifference to Bill. He is tall and has long hair, styled in a ponytail. He wore an earring that looked like a fang. His clothes looked more suitable for a rock concert, and Harry recognized that his boots were not leather but dragonhide.

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a soft "bang" and Mr. Weasley came back, standing next to George's shoulder. He looked angry, Harry had never seen him so angry.

"That's no joke, Fred," he yelled. "What on earth did you feed him?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, smiling slyly again, "I just dropped it... it was his own fault, he went over and ate it, and I never screamed He eats.”

"You dropped it on purpose," Weasley yelled, "You knew he would eat it, you knew he was greedy..."

"How big has his tongue gotten?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents asked me to shrink it."

Harry and the Weasley family burst into laughter again.

"It's not funny at all!" Mr. Weasley said, "That kind of behavior seriously damaged the relationship between wizards and Muggles! I spent half my life trying to clear up Muggles' misunderstandings about us, but my son..."

Fred said angrily, "We didn't give him the candy just because he was a Maggot."

"No, we gave it to him because he likes to bully weaklings," said George. "Right, Harry?"

"Yes, he is, Mr. Weasley," Harry said seriously.

"That's not it!" Weasley said angrily, "You are waiting for me to tell your mother..."

"Tell me what?" said the voice behind him.

Mrs. Weasley had just entered the room. She is a short and plump woman with a kind face, but her eyes are squinted in confusion at this time.

"Hello, Harry, darling," she greeted Harry with a smile before quickly turning her eyes to her husband, "Arthur, tell me what?"

Mr. Weasley hesitated. Harry knew that no matter how angry he was with Fred and George, he didn't really want to tell Mrs. Weasley. Mr. Weasley's eyes stared nervously at Mrs. Weasley, and there was another moment of silence.

Then, another little girl with red hair came out of the kitchen. That was Ginny, the youngest sister of the Weasley family.

Ginny was a little excited to see Harry's arrival, but Mrs. Weasley was here, and Ginny didn't dare to make a mistake, at least when Mrs. Weasley was so serious.

"Arthur, tell me what?" Mrs. Weasley asked again, her tone strong.

"Nothing," said Mr. Weasley, "It's Fred and George. I had a row with them just now."

"What did they do this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If this has anything to do with the Weasley Wizard Bomb..."

"Why don't you show Harry where he sleeps, Ron?" Ginny said, standing in the doorway.

"He knows where he sleeps," Ron said. "In my room, he sleeps there... on..."

"We can all go," Ginny said, then pointed at Fred and George.

"Oh," Ron said, understanding, "Okay."

"Okay, let's come too." George said.

"Here you are!" said Mrs. Weasley.

Harry and Ron slowly walked out of the kitchen, and walked with Ginny down the long corridor and up the rickety stairs.

"What does Weasley's wizard bomb mean?" Harry asked as he climbed the stairs.

Ron and Ginny laughed.

"Mum was tidying up Fred and George's room when she found a pile of order sheets," Ron said calmly. "A long price list of things they invented themselves. Funny stuff, you know. Fake wands, magic candies... It's funny, I never knew they were inventing..."

"We heard explosions coming from their room a long time ago, but we never thought they were actually 'building' anything," Ginny said. "We thought they just liked the sound."

"It's just that most things - oh, everything - is a little bit dangerous,"

Ron said, "They were going to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went crazy with rage. She told them not to make anything again, and to burn all the orders... She was really furious with them. They didn't live up to her Expected O.W.L.”

"Well there must be a big row now," said Ginny, "because Mum wants them to join the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they say they want to open a funny shop."

At that moment, a door on the second platform opened, and a face popped out, wearing antler-rimmed glasses and an angry expression.

"Hi, Percy," Harry said.

"Oh, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making the noise. I was working, I had a report to finish, and there were people thundering up and down the stairs, and it was hard for me to concentrate."

"We're not walking like thunder," said Ron angrily, "We're walking, and we're sorry if we're disturbing the Ministry's super secret work."

"What are you busy with?" said Harry.

"Writing a report for the National Department of Magical Cooperation," Percy said pretentiously, "We're going to standardize the thickness of the cauldron. Some imports are a little too thin, and leakage is increasing at three percent a year."

Percy blushed a little.

"Ron, you can laugh," he said enthusiastically, "but without some kind of international law, we will find that the market will be filled with low-quality, shallow-bottomed items that seriously endanger..."

"Yes, yes." Ron interrupted and started to go upstairs, and Percy slammed the door. Harry and Ginny followed Ron up three more flights of stairs. A loud roar came from the kitchen, as if Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the "taffy".

Ron's room was on the top floor of the house and looked the same as it had the last time Harry visited. There are the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team; the Kudley cannon is hung on the wall, rotating on the slightly sloping ceiling; in the fish tank that used to contain frog eggs on the windowsill, there is now a particularly large one. frog. Ron's rat Scabbers, or rather Peter Pedro, is no longer here, but there is a tiny gray owl that helped Ron deliver the letter to Harry on Privette Street, up and down in a small cage. Jumping around, chirping with great pride.

"Okay, Pig," said Ron. There were four beds squeezed into the room. He walked into the middle of the two beds and continued, "Fred and George are with us, and Bill and Charlie are in their room." "Here," he told Harry, "Percy is alone in the house because he has to work."

"Well, why did you call that owl 'Pig'?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's a bit stupid," said Ginny, "and his name is Pee Weejun."

"Yeah, that's not a stupid name like 'Pig'," Ron said sarcastically. "Ginny named it," he explained to Harry. "She thought it was a sweet name, and I I tried to change it but it was too late and it just wouldn't respond when called anything else. So, it became a 'pig' and I had to keep it here because it pissed off Percy, which was nice but it also didn't. Annoy me, come on."

"Percy likes to work?" Harry sat down on the bed and watched the Kudley cannons drive in and out of the poster on the ceiling.

"Like?" Ron said secretly, "If dad hadn't asked him to come back, he wouldn't have come back. He's obsessed. Don't bring up the topic of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch...

As I told Mr. Crouch...it was Mr. Crouch's opinion...Mr. Crouch told me that they would announce their employment contract at any time. "

"Employment contract..."

Harry was speechless. It was a good thing for Percy to work in the Ministry of Magic, but announcing it anytime and anywhere... what the hell...

"That's it, it's terrible." Ron said, "Except for mother, almost no one will take the initiative to talk to Percy now. I don't want to be lectured, Mr. Crouch said... Mr. Crouch said, just As if he believed in Mr. Crouch."

"Maybe...Mr. Crouch is really good, so Percy..." Harry looked at Ron awkwardly, he didn't know what to say at all.

Awkward chat?

It's quite embarrassing now, and few of us have anything to say at the moment.

Ron's face was a little red. He shouldn't talk to Harry about such embarrassing things, but he really hated Percy.

"I think... I think they are no longer arguing..." Ginny said, trying hard to ease the awkward atmosphere, "Let's go down and help mom with the cooking."

"Okay," Ron said, and the four of them left Ron's room, went downstairs, and saw Mrs. Weasley sitting alone in the kitchen, looking particularly bad-tempered.

"We'll eat outside in the garden!" she said. "There's no room for ten people here.

Kids, can you take your plates outside? Bill and Charlie are setting the table, and you two are in charge of the cutlery. "He said to Ron and Harry. She pointed her wand at the potatoes in the cellar, and a large pile of peeled potatoes jumped from the ceiling and walls.

"Oh, for God's sake," she said, pointing to the dustpan, which sprang up and slid across the floor of the room, scooping up the potatoes and placing them in it. She said brusquely, "Those two guys," she was pulling pots and kettles out of the kitchen cabinets, and Harry knew who those two guys were, Fred and George of course, "I didn't know they were going to What's going on, I really don't know. No ambition, unless you don't want to get into so much trouble with them..."

She placed a large copper saucepan on the dining room table and began stirring it with her wand, a creamy sauce dripping from the tip.

"They are not stupid," she continued, getting angrier as she spoke. She put the copper pot on the stove and flicked her wand to light the stove. "But they are giving up on themselves. If they don't help themselves, they will There's real trouble. There are more owls flying about them from Hogwarts than the rest put together, and they'll end up in the Abuse of Magic Office if they continue on the path they're on."

Mrs. Weasley poked her wand into a drawer and it opened. Harry and Ron both stepped out of the way as several knives flew out of the drawer, flew across the kitchen, and began chopping potatoes, the dustpan catching them and sending them into the sink.

"I don't know what makes us different from them," said Mrs. Weasley, lowering her wand and pulling out more copper pots. “It was like this for years, one thing after another.

They just don't listen, oh, no brains! "

She picked up her wand, let out a loud squeak, and the wand transformed into a giant rubber mouse.

"Another of their fake wands," she growled, "how many times have I told them not to keep them around."

She grabbed her real staff and turned around to find the sauce smoking on the stove.

"Come on," Ron said hurriedly to Harry, grabbing a knife from the open drawer, "let's go help Bill and Charlie!"

They left Mrs. Weasley and went out the back door into the courtyard.

At seven o'clock, the two tables were laden with Mrs. Weasley's superbly cooked meals, and the nine Weasleys plus Harry ate dinner under a dark blue, cloudless sky.

It was paradise for a child who had been eating stale cakes all summer. At first Harry just listened to the conversation without joining in, busy eating egg and ham pie, boiled potatoes and salad.

Across the table, Percy was telling his father about the report on the bottom of the pot.

Across the table, Percy was telling his father about the report on the bottom of the pot.

"I told Mr. Crouch I'd have it done by Tuesday," Percy said triumphantly. "It was a little faster than he expected. I always have to be in front. I finished it in time and he will be grateful to me. Our department is very busy at the moment. Because of the various arrangements for the World Cup, we have not started from Magic Sports. Get the help we need from Ruth Bagmon——"

"I like Ruth," said Mr. Weasley softly. "He gets us great tickets like this. I also gave him a little favor: His brother, Ott, got into a little trouble with a mower with an unusual power, and I fixed the whole thing for him. "

"Well, Bagmon is a likable guy," said Percy obediently, "but how did he become the head of the department? When I compared him to Mr. Crouch, I thought, Crouch Sir, we won't lose a single vote in our department. Did you notice that Percy Zoggins has been missing for over a month? She went on vacation to Albania and never came back."

"Yes, I just asked Ruth," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He said Percy has disappeared several times before, but if it was someone in my department, I would be worried. ”

"Well, there's no hope for Percy, isn't it," said Percy. "I hear she's been in a lot of trouble, being demoted from one department to another, for years. Bagmon should try to find him. She. Mr. Crouch took a personal interest in her, and she was also in our department for a time. I think Mr. Crouch liked her. However, Bagmon just laughed that she might have read the wrong map and went to Australia. Not Albania." Bo Xi sighed, "You are still looking for members of other departments? There are enough things in your own department.

You know, after the World Cup, we have another big thing to organize. "

He cleared his throat and looked across the table, where Harry and Ron were sitting. "You know what I'm talking about, Father," he raised his voice slightly, "the top secret thing."

Ron blinked his eyes and said to Harry, "He's been wanting us to ask him about that big thing since he started working. Maybe the Cauldron Exhibition."

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about earrings, which she seemed to have only recently worn.

"...It really looks like it has a big scary fang. What do they say in the bank?"

"Mom, as long as I bring great wealth to the family, no one in the bank will make any comments about what I wear." Bill said patiently.

"Your hair is a bit silly, darling," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand lovingly. "I was hoping you would let me trim it for you..."

"I like it," said Ginny, sitting next to Bill, "that your ideas are out of fashion, Mum, and in other words, neither is Professor Dumbledore."

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Freire, George and Charlie were all talking animatedly about the World Cup.

"It must be Ireland," said Charlie, mouth full of potatoes. "They squared off in the semi-finals - Peru."

"Bulgaria has Viktor Krum." Fred said.

"Krum is a decent player, but Ireland have seven," Charlie said. "I'd love for England to kill, but that would be embarrassing, that would be..."

"What?" Harry said concernedly, feeling very sorry that he was cut off from the wizarding world and returned to Privette Street. Harry was very loyal and patriotic.

"Lost to Tresylvania, 90 to 10." Charlie said unhappily. "Shockingly, Wales lost to Uganda and Scotland got ripped off by Luxembourg."

This can be described as a blow to England.

Others also joined in the discussion enthusiastically.

"Do you have any news about Hermione?" Ron whispered, "By the way, there is also Fanlin, I have invited them."

"It should arrive tomorrow morning, with Hermione, Fanlin, and Sirius." Harry said, "I think there is nothing to worry about. I received Hedwig's reply in the afternoon."

"With Fan Lin..." Ron muttered something. Harry didn't hear what he was saying clearly, but it felt great to be in the Burrow. He liked it here. (To be continued)