Ron Weasley

Well. It's the usual here. Good food, but loads of things Mum needs done before she'll let us eat!

Half-seven this morning, I think, she comes tromping in my room, carrying a pair of wellies she'd got by bartering stuff and says she hopes I enjoyed the lie-in, but the chickens need feeding. And then she says while I'm out there, maybe I could just pop up on the roof of the chicken coop and patch it where the shingles blew off. Says she'd meant to get that done before we came home, but she'd been so busy cooking and baking...

Yeah. And this afternoon we're fixing the fence at the bottom of the garden that's meant to keep the goats out of Mum's vegetable patch.

Anywiz, breakfast and lunch were well fantastic, and she's making roast for supper. And Bill's coming, so there'll be at least two kinds of pie or maybe pie and a cake. But it's going to be good whatever it is, because she's being all secret about it.

Oh, and Nev. I asked Mum about getting new shoes on her barter network--actually, I told her that instead of wellies it would've been better to get me shoes, but she didn't get cross about me being smart 'cause she got grumbling about Professor Carrow, instead. She's really, really cross they've let him stay at the school. And, y'know, she doesn't usually say things about teachers like that because she doesn't want us to think it's all right to talk rubbish about adults and teachers or whatnot, but she was just fuming about him. And she said it was okay, she'd work out how to get new shoes for me before we go back, and I don't have to keep wearing these awful ancient things Madam Pomfrey found for me. Well. They won't be new shoes, but y'know. So that's good. I was worried she'd be cross with me for getting mine melted.

So.

What are you lot up to? (Since none of you wrote back to me the other night. Or rode home with us.)

If you're not too good to be talking to us now.

What about you, Terry? Castle's dead quiet now, I guess. What do you get up to when we're not there?

I might be the only person in history to get detention before the term even properly starts. (Not that I'm proud of that or anything, Mum.)

But there's all this mad stuff going round about what we did and why we did it, so I just wanted to set things straight. Harry Marvolo couldn't come to school on the train because someone hexed the barrier to the platform. Which is pretty ironic since they only put it back up last year when Harry started Hogwarts. I guess it was part of the old secrecy thing back, well, before, y'know. And then they took it down once wizards started to use the whole station and everything, but they put it back up--the barrier--last year to help keep Harry Marvolo safe from all the mad nutters who are always trying to touch him and give him stuff and, of course, from the ones who keep trying to attack him.

So, anywiz. We couldn't get through the barrier 'cause someone must have hexed it. And everyone else had already gone through ahead of us while we were there talking, so when we couldn't get through--and I mean we couldn't get through!!--we thought probably nobody could get back to help us, either. And the spell was a really rough one, too, so we thought that someone was trying to kidnap Harry or kill him or something, and anyway, it was time that the train should already have gone, so we did the only thing we could think of. We'd just been talking about how my dad charmed his car to fly and how wizard it was, and we'd just driven to the station in that car (on the roads, actually, because Mum didn't trust the spells, and anyway she said we absolutely couldn't fly to the station no matter how late we were running). It was just dead obvious: we needed to get out of there fast so nobody could kill Harry ... and there was the car!

So, yeah. We flew to school. We could see the train down there below us. That's how we knew which way to go, but I guess none of you looked out the window and saw us. (Funnily enough, I guess we made the paper because some people in London and other places did look up and see us flying along!)

And, yeah, we did crash the car into the Whomping Willow, and that's why I've got to do detention... to help Professor Sprout set the broken limbs on the tree. So if I don't live until tomorrow, it was nice knowing you all. And if I do live: Seamus or Nev, would you bring me back an extra helping of whatever they're serving for pudding tonight? I bet I'll be starving by the time we're finished!

Gotta run so I'm not late for afternoon lessons...