CHAPTER TWO: MATCHMAKING MISCHIEF

He knew he should move—really he did—but it was as if he was a deer caught in the headlights, and he became frozen in place, unable to move a muscle let alone jump out of the way of the bus speeding toward him. But, just as he feared the impact was inevitable the Knight Bus screeched as the brakes were applied, lurching something terrible, with the sound of luggage and passengers flying towards the front and onto the floor clearly audible, and skidded to a stop not two feet in front of one Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived and would apparently keep doing so.

At first, Harry just stood there, blinking dazedly and uncomprehendingly at the triple-decked, purple monstrosity parked before him. Eventually, though, his shock wore off enough for him to realize that he was still here, the bus hadn’t run him over, and he was very much alive.

He patted himself on the chest and arms, making sure he really was there, not a ghost or an illusion or something of the sort. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, so he then pinched himself for good measure. Needless to say, it hurt.

As he was busy making this amazing discovery, the doors to the bus suddenly opened with a clink and a tall, red-head walked off levitating a rather large trunk. He was, of course, a Weasley (the red hair kind of gave him away); Bill Weasley to be precise.

Finally recovering from the shock of almost being run over, Harry proceeded to walk over to greet Bill, giving him quite a scare in the process.

“Hey, Bill,” Harry spoke congenially, waving his hand in greeting, though doing so in a somewhat awkward manner. Bill jumped with a start, turning towards his youngest brother’s best friend before letting a smile slide across his handsome features.

“Well, hello, Harry. You gave me quite shock there; I didn’t expect anyone to be out here waiting for me to arrive. I told mum that I most likely wasn’t going to be here for another day or two,” Bill replied warmly.

“Oh, well, I wasn’t waiting out here for you to arrive, actually. I was out here for a walk and I was just heading inside when the Knight Bus suddenly showed up and almost flattened me,” Harry answered seriously, still frightened by the prospect of what could have happened to him.

Suddenly another voice broke into their conversation—that of Stan, the pimple-faced attendant of the Knight Bus. “Here you are, sir, the rest of your luggage,” he spoke as he hauled another large trunk out to the grass near where Bill was standing, before noticing Harry. “Well, I’ll be! Ern, look! It’s Harry Potter, it is. How are you then, Harry?” he said with pleasant surprise at this unexpected, though not unwanted, encounter.

“Umm...I’m just fine,” Harry replied uncomfortably, giving a strained smile to Stan.

“Well, I’d best be off. Wouldn’t want to keep the customers waiting for their ’ot chocolate, now would I?” Stan declared, turning around and heading back into the bus, which took off in a flash, rumbling down the grassy path as trees and rocks seemingly jumped out of its way.

“So...why did you decide to come home early?” Harry asked, unsure of what else to say and wanting to break the silence that had descended upon them at Stan’s departure.

“Oh, the goblins let me off a couple days earlier than I thought they would, so I decided to come as soon as possible and surprise everyone,” Bill entailed, smiling brightly, “So...are you surprised?”

Harry smiled back at him, nodding his head in the affirmative. “Yes! I swear the Knight Bus almost gave me a heart attack; I thought I was a goner there for a minute!” Harry announced, before chuckling sheepishly at his dramatics. Bill let out a slight chuckle as well, smiling down at the at least five inch shorter 17-year-old before him.

“Well, I guess we’d better head inside now. I’m sure if you stay out here much longer, with it getting dark and all, mum will be nearly beside herself with worry,” Bill stated before picking both of his trunks up with the flick of a wand and levitating them towards the front door as he and Harry followed.

“Yeah, she’ll probably send a search party out to look for me before long,” Harry replied, fondly thinking of Mrs. Weasley, who had become his surrogate mother of sorts.

They soon made it to the door, which Bill opened, not bothering to knock first. “I’m home!” he declared, shouting loudly enough for the whole household to hear as he stepped onto the threshold, set his trunks down with a loud clump each and held the door open so that Harry could pass through before shutting it with a resounding thunk.

Ginny was the first to arrive, pounding down the rickety old stairs as she rushed down to greet her eldest brother. When she finally reached him, she launched herself at him, hugging him fiercely around his neck. She held on for a moment as Bill roughly hugged her back before dropping back down onto the hardwood floor with a delighted smile lighting up her face. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today!” she scolded him, though her smile never faded.

Next in line for a hug was Mrs. Weasley, who had darted out of the kitchen, where she had been making dessert, in order to greet her oldest son. “Oh, William, I’m so glad you’re home, dear!” she cried out happily as she nearly strangled him with the ferocity of her hug.

Hermione and Ron arrived at the same time, though from opposite directions, as they were still mad at each other. Hermione came calmly out from the kitchen, where she had apparently been helping Mrs. Weasley with the dessert, probably learning as much as she could about wizard style cooking. Ron, however, came from upstairs just as Ginny had, most likely having been holed up in his room. They both walked towards Bill, Hermione merely giving a friendly “Hello” to the older wizard as Ron gave his brother a hug as both his sister and mother had done before him.

“Hi, everyone! Long time no see!” Bill responded enthusiastically, beaming excitedly, before looking around him and noticing that something was off. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked, raising his eyebrow at his mother as if asking her if she could answer this perplexing question for him.

“You’re father is still at the ministry working and the rest of your brothers don’t arrive until tomorrow,” Mrs. Weasley informed him, beaming happily at her son. “Dessert’s almost ready; why don’t you all sit down now?” she asked, though she really needn’t bother as all of them had rushed to the table at the mention of dessert.

Harry sat down between Ron and Hermione, as he didn’t particularly want to have to deal with them arguing the whole time, while Ginny sat across from Ron, and Bill plopped himself down in a chair directly across from Harry himself. Mrs. Weasley came back in a minute later levitating a pan of apple strudel along with some plates and forks. She set it down on a pot holder in the center of the table before returning to the kitchen to retrieve several jars of milk, glasses, and a tub of ice cream with a scoop and spoons.

Setting the rest of the items down carefully upon the table, she took up her own seat across from Hermione and next to her oldest son. The kids (as she still considered Bill one despite his being nearly 26 years old now) looked upon the dessert eagerly, anxious to fill their stomachs with some more of Mrs. Weasley’s excellent cuisine. “Well, go ahead and dig in,” Mrs. Weasley told them merrily, letting out an amused laugh at her son’s expense when Ron promptly grabbed the dish and began to dig a large portion of the apple strudel out of it and plop it onto a plate for himself before reaching for the ice cream.

“It’s good to be home,” Bill declared happily, piling his own plate full of the tasty dessert. Mrs. Weasley smiled at her son, although she was somewhat displeased at both of her sons’ inappropriate table manners.

“Now where are your manners, boys? You know it’s rude to serve yourself before your guests,” she scolded mildly, as if used to making such statements. Bill looked somewhat sheepish, though Ron merely shook his head at his mother’s words.

“Harry and Hermione aren’t guests, mum. They’re practically family,” Ron declared adamantly. Hermione turned to look at him, a small smile gracing her features at Ron’s statement. It appeared that with those words Ron had earned himself her forgiveness, of which Harry was thankful. He was really getting tired of their arguing, after all.

Ginny seemed to notice Ron and Hermione’s reconciliation as well, giving Harry a pointed look and discreetly nodding her head in Ron and Hermione’s directions. But, despite her discretion, Bill seemed to notice, giving first her, then Harry a confused and questioning look before filing the information away to ask about later.

Soon everyone was finished with their dessert, though they sat at the table talking for quite some time afterwards, with Bill regaling them with tales of his many adventures in Egypt. Mrs. Weasley was moving back and forth between the dining room and kitchen, listening with half an ear as she cleared away dishes, put food away, and made some tea for them all to sip on as they talked.

Bill was a good story teller and Harry found himself enraptured by the tales he told; it seemed that the Weasley twins had picked up some of their prank pulling behavior from their oldest brother. Harry had always liked Bill; he had always seemed very cool, with his shark tooth earring and ponytail and all. But he had never really had a chance to talk to him, to get to know him.

Harry soon found himself telling about some of his own adventures, mostly ones he’d had at school, but also some that had to do with Dudley (like the ton-tongue toffee story.) Most of them were told after Mrs. Weasley had already gone to bed, as many of them concerned bending and even breaking some rule or another (like with the polyjuice potion incidence.)

They all stayed up quite late talking and laughing together; however, it was soon time for them to go to bed (mostly noted by the fact that they could hardly keep their eyes open any longer.) As they made their way upstairs to their respective bedrooms (of which Hermione was sharing with Ginny, Harry with Ron, and Bill had his old room which he and Charlie would share as they had before he had moved out) Bill accosted Harry to question him about the look Ginny had sent to him earlier.

“So, what’s going on between Ron and Hermione? I saw Ginny giving you that look,” Bill told Harry, pressuring him to divulge whatever it was that was going on.

“Oh, that. Well, Ron and Hermione have been fighting a lot lately, even worse than usual. They had a huge fight earlier and when Ron made that comment about Hermione and me being practically family they kind of forgave each other—thank goodness. Ginny and I have been getting really tired of their constant bickering,” Harry informed him. Bill merely raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“So, are these some sort of lover’s spats that they have been having?” Bill asked, for some reason finding his youngest brother’s love life (or lack there of) somewhat humorous.

“Well...I don’t know. I mean, I’ve always thought that they kind of liked each other and all, but I don’t see why they don’t just tell each other that instead of fighting all the time,” Harry replied truthfully with a small sigh.

Bill seemed to contemplate Harry’s words for a moment before coming to a decision. “Well, if there arguments are bothering you and Ginny so much, maybe we should just hurry along their little ‘mating ritual’,” Bill commented, laughing as Harry screwed up his face in disgust at the word mating.

“Eww...these are my best friends you are talking about,” Harry told him mock seriously, before letting out a slight laugh, “But I do think it is a good idea to set them up, especially if it’ll give Ginny and me some peace and quiet for once.”

“Alright, so it’s settled then. Ginny, you and I will play the matchmakers for those two. How about we get together to talk about it tomorrow?” Bill asked hopefully, for some reason eager to spend more time with Harry.

Harry nodded in agreement, smiling as he said that that sounded great, anticipating spending more time with Bill. They then said goodnight to each other and trudged up to their separate bedrooms, smiling at one another before heading to bed.