Mrs. Weasley sighed again.
"The books can stay here for tonight," Mrs. Weasley said. "- Only for tonight, so you can say goodbye to them. They will be gone in the morning, even if I have to turn the entire house inside out to find them."
"You won't have to," Ginny said morosely.
"I'm truly sorry, dear," the girl's mother said, sounding like she genuinely meant it. "It's always hard saying goodbye, but you'll see it's for the best. It's time to say goodbye to Make Believe."
Harry heard Mrs. Weasley gave her daughter a kiss and go back upstairs, leaving her daughter alone. Harry quickly looked around, trying to come up with some way to make it seem like he hadn't been listening the entire time so he could make it up to his room without absolutely mortifying the poor girl.
'Maybe if I opened and closed the door to make it seem like I just came inside?' he thought.
'And what would we say we'd been doing?' another part of Harry asked himself in turn. 'Looking up at the stars? That's not the kind of image we want the girl to have at the moment .'
Just as he had decided to go with 'helping Mr. Weasley with the washing machine' as his excuse it was taken away from him when he heard the girl say, "It's just a stupid book for a stupid little girl," before seeing the offending object sail through the kitchen, land, bounce, and slide across the floor to the door.
Harry sighed and reached out to see for himself what all this commotion was about. What he saw was rather unnerving.
'Oh,' Harry thought gazing at the title. 'So this was what Bill was talking about. '
'The Future Adventures of Harry Potter: ' the title read. 'The Boy-Who-Lived and the Chamber of Doom .'
Harry stared dumbfounded at the book in his hands. He'd put together the books in question had been about him but this made him sound like Indiana Jones. 'Might as well wear a fedora and carry a bull whip. ' He shook his head to clear the image from his mind. 'Certainly not the image anyone needs at the moment.'
If anything, the cover art was worse. He looked much too old to be himself. In fact, he didn't look anything like himself, apart from the black hair and lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. For some reason they seemed to think he'd wander around dark chambers full of vicious clawed beasts while his shirt was undone, cradling some red-headed girl in his arms, and lifting a sword triumphantly.
'I could only hope to look this muscular when I grow up, ' Harry thought to himself. 'Whoever this author, Ida Beeman, is they need to get their head examined. '
Harry stood to go upstairs, the quick squeak from the couch telling him he'd forgotten about the girl in the next room. His eyes darted towards her just in time to see her dive to hide her face in the couch again. This time though she didn't stop, in a flash the couch had swallowed her up as if she had never been there.
"Er- Hello?" Harry asked. "Are you still there?"
He went to look behind the couch for the missing girl only to find she was nowhere to be seen.
With a stifled grunt the couch shuddered.
"Hello?" he asked again, poking the couch.
The couch shuddered again and there was more sounds of a struggle.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked.
Finally the couch gave a diminutive sigh.
"Could you get my Mum?" the girl's muffled voice asked. "I think I'm stuck."
"How'd you get in there?" he asked as amusement warred with mild concern.
"I don't know. It's never happened before," the girl said quietly.
"Do you think the couch was just incredibly hungry?" Harry asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
"I don't know." The poor girl sounded like she wanted to cry.
'Okay, that isn't helping, ' Harry thought to himself.
"If I help you get out, are you going to faint again?" he asked.
"No," the girl said mournfully.
"Are you going to run off to your room?"
There was a pause.
"Maybe," Ginny answered.
'Well, at least she's honest,' Harry thought.
"Okay, hang on," he said as he tried to think of something to do. If he went and got her mother the girl would be mortified, and if her brothers found out there'd be no living it down. He couldn't even use magic to do it without the risk of everyone finding out about it afterwards.
Harry set the book down and checked the cushions to find that they came off quite easily. Directly beneath them was the youngest Weasley, lying in a small unnatural dent and pinned in place by one of the couch supports.
"I think we can get you out," Harry said after a moment. "Give me your hands, I'll pull you towards this end and we can see if you can wiggle your way out."
Either the girl was held at an odd angle which made things slow going or the couch was putting up more of a struggle for its meal than he had been expecting. It took some doing but after a couple of minutes the girl was free from the couch. As soon as her feet left the dent the couch popped back out into place with a groan of springs.
"Thanks," Ginny said.
"Thanks," Ginny said.
"Don't mention it," he replied. Harry looked down at the books still on the coffee table and picked up a couple. "Do you mind if I borrow these?" he asked.
Ginny tensed for a moment. "No," she said. "You can have them."
"Thanks," Harry said as he turned to go.
"Just-," the girl started. "Can we not mention the couch to anyone?" she asked.
"As long as you don't tell the guys I have these," Harry smiled, hefting the peculiar books.
Ginny nodded.
Harry made his way back up to his room. This had definitely been the strangest day of his life.
.....
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