Ecco qui il terzo capitolo "vita alla tana" tradotto in inglese, spero sia utile
Lord Voldemort
Chapter Three
LIFE AT THE BORROW
During the next days, at The Borrow, everyone tried to restart an everyday life, but it was the same as asking at a man without a leg to not limp. Mrs. Weasley involved everyone in her vicinity in the vortex of the home cleaning. Every activity that served to banish the thoughts was the welcome.
George, grudgingly, returned to work at the joke shop. He knew that Fred wouldn’t have wanted it to be closed for too long. Now that was starting the new school year, they were invaded by owls. Everyone needed to order some Weasley’s Jokes to bring to Hogwarts.
The cleaning of the garden was assigned to Harry and Ron. The garden was big and full of weeds and it continuously needed to be adjusted.
Also the gnome’s pest control had became a sort of daily custom. They removed tens of that creatures every day, but they continued to 8. When the pest control had started, instead of hiding, they ran away in the garden, colliding to each other, so they weren’t difficult to catch.
Harry seized one of them from the ears. It was quite fat, with a completely bald and extremely lumpy head. He learned some years before that you mustn’t trust gnomes when one of them bit him at one hand. The gnome kicked and wriggled like a fury but Harry with a tried movement put it upside-down and grabbed it by its ankles. He started to do rotate it turning on himself. Suddenly he let go and the gnome flew over the hedge that delimitated the garden, landing with a thud.
‹‹I can’t understand how they don’t get hurt!›› said Harry leaning on the fence: turn the gnomes could become hard.
‹‹They’re as though as stupid›› answered Ron, letting go a his one.
The gnome launched by Ron shot up but in the middle of his fight crashed unpredictably against something in the sky, dropping just before the hedge.
Harry and Ron ran to see what happened. The gnome raised and ran away, but on the ground remained a little ball of feathers.
‹‹Congratulations, Ron! You’ve just downed Leothord›› said Harry, who recognized the friend’s owl.
Ron bended worried. He took Leothord between his arms smoothing its feathers all ruffled.
‹‹Leo, Leothord… Pease answer me!›› said with a whisper.
Leothord slowly opened his eyes and belled as a sign of weak response, then he raised a paw showing a parchment. Ron sighed relieved.
‹‹It’s for me.›› said. He took the parchment from the owl’s paw and passed the animal to Harry.
Leothord and Harry looked to each other, perplexed.
After a few seconds Ron gave the parchment to Harry. ‹‹It’s from Hermione…›› began, disappointed ‹‹…but it’s for both us.›› said, flushed. The colour of his face was the same as the one of the hair.
They exchanged Leothord again and Harry started to read:
Dear Ron and Harry,
I hope you are all well. I and my parents are finally returned from Australia. My dad almost ran over a herd of kangaroos and, when his memory came back, he returned almost unwillingly to our old life.
Contrary, my mom was enthusiastic: more than once she risked to get devoured by crocodiles!
Now I think that you received post from Hogwarts too… Isn’t amazing? They didn’t leave us lot of time to review, but I designed a daily study plan thick enough to study all what we did in all our six years, you never know…
I also sand it to you. I highly recommend you to follow to the letter it or you wouldn’t be able to do a very complete review
However I predicted a stop on Harry’s birthday.
See you on the 31st of July.
With love,
Your Hermione
‹‹Typical of Hermione… I’ve never thought to review anything!›› said Harry amused, while he was looking incredulous at the one that had to be the program: a second parchment wrote in a incredibly dense way.
‹‹Yeah, typical…›› answered Ron melancholy, kicking the nearest gnome.
‹‹Following this program, we should be studying “History of the magic” and if we end it soon, we should study “Spells”. I can’t believe it! Hermione added another program to one that’s impossible itself! She surely risk to finish to review before what she wrote… We too, isn’t it, Ron?›› asked Harry amused.
‹‹Yeah…›› answered Ron that didn’t seem to grasp the irony ‹‹…She had so much things to do with this program that she couldn’t write me anything…››
He stopped suddenly blushing like a muggle semaphore.
Harry stared at him amused waiting for the completion of the phrase, but Ron started to run after the gnomes with greater heat.
Harry captured one of the smallest gnomes that he has ever seen. It seemed an old potato with legs, not more tall than fifteen centimetres. He started to rotate it mechanically, thinking at how he would have been sad in these days without the constant presence of Ginny.
Mrs. Weasley kept her busy with the cleaning and Ginny had got to review too, but the simple fact of knowing that she was in the next room made him feel good. Even if at that moment he was turning like a crazy spinning top, with a gnome in his hands, he could leave it at any moment and run towards her even for salute or touch her. Any time they met around the house, they found an excuse to touch, a little caress, a look, a wink, a stolen kiss in the garden…
He understood his friend: he was far from his Hermione and he waited a romantic letter never arrived. Ron wrote her a letter, sent by Leothord, but the little owl came back with a completely different answer.
“Probably they will quarrel a lot. They were difficult to manage before and now more than ever.” thought Harry a little bit worried. The experience taught him that when his friend quarrel, he ever pay the consequences.
About seven o’clock all the gnomes had flew away. Harry and Ron went to prepare for the dinner, aware of the fact that the next day they would find many.
Ginny called them for the dinner shortly after. The table was full of the generous and succulent cooking of Mrs. Weasley: chicken pie, stuffed ham and big portions of baked potatoes with bacon.
Ron sat at his seat and took a piece of stuffed ham.
‹‹Ron, can’t you wait until your father arrive? You ever have to be the first that guzzle?›› said a little bit angry Mrs. Weasley, while she was controlling a pumpkin pie in the oven.
Before Ron could be justified, there were two pops and Mr. Weasley appeared with Percy. Harry had never seen them so frowning before.
‹‹They only are some insolent, this is what they are!›› said angry Percy, straightening his glasses made with horn.
‹‹You’re right Percy, you’re right…›› answered wearily Mr. Weasley, embracing his wife ‹‹It’s all the day that you repeat it…››.
They sat to eat with a lot of appetite. Only Percy seemed more interested in continuing the conversation started in his father’s office.
‹‹Their half-cowboy President John Waynegan, who is believed to be? The Minister Shacklebot is too permissive.›› said in a pompous tone.
‹‹I don’t like Waynegan too, but Kingsley is rather naïve as a politician: he has ever been an Auror. Waynegan persuaded him that it’s the time to give a refresher, to make a clean sweep of the old methods. However, technically, his words are ever laudable.›› said Mr. Weasley in a tired tone. ‹‹He’s everywhere with that history of the MaCCoCe and now Kingsley asks him an advice about everything…››.
‹‹But he nominated Q-COff that Donald Troom!›› replied Percy, more venomously than ever.
‹‹Mostly if you wanted that position, isn’t it?›› said Mr. Weasley smiling with the mouth full of potatoes.
‹‹What’s a Q-COff, my dear?›› asked Mrs. Weasley, pouring Percy some butterbeer.
‹‹Q-COff: Quality Control Officer, an office that they have in America. That “controller” sets some directives to maintain high the quality standard. I’ll give you an example: from now on, the ministerial parchments for internal use, must be written with only “
ibiscus porpora” ink and the ones sent outside with “
dragon’s blood green” that is anti-counterfeiting. The practices should be grouped only with speaking clips, so whenever the practice would be opened after some time, the clips would remember who did it and at who it belongs to…››.
‹‹They seems well-done things, you’ve always complained about the disorder that reigned at the Ministry about the management of the practices…›› answered Mrs. Weasley.
‹‹The problem’s that Mr. Troom, entirely in good faith, convinced the Ministry to use that two inks, “
ibiscus porpora” and “
dragon’s blood green”, that are produced only in two factories in the United States. The same for the enchanted clips, they do them only in a little factory in California. And that are only two examples. The real problem is that now, with the excuse of rearrange, catalogue and conform, they have the access to all our documents, also the top-secret ones. In a few words they are spying us, but they are spies designed by us ourselves! Kingsley doesn’t realize it, and even wanting it, it would be difficult to estrange them without creating an international accident. When I taught about it to him he minimized it, he said that we’re collaborating and that their presence is only temporary››.
‹‹What do you think about it, Harry? About this American invasion…›› asked Percy to Harry unpredictably, who was recounting to Ginny the arrival of Leothord and the Ron’s reaction.
‹‹Oh, I haven’t an opinion about that, I want to keep myself away from Ministry’s businesses this year…››.
‹‹What?›› said Ron, who for the first time raised his head from the plate, looking at his father.
‹‹Yes…›› answered tired Mr. Weasley ‹‹The diplomatists, the assistants and the bodyguards that are here with their families are a lot, so their sons and daughters will come to study with you. During Hogwarts’ reconstruction, they enlarged a wing of the castle and it came out a little dormitory. They helped so much in the reconstruction of the school that neither Kingsley nor McGonagall could have opposed…››.
Ron raised his eyes to the sky and mumbled something like “You can never stay quiet”, but before that someone could ask him what he said, he woke up and went upstairs in his bedroom.
Harry remained a little bit more in the kitchen, tenting to explain to Mr. Weasley how could big ships like cruise ships or tankers float on the water without the use of the magic.
After he gave the goodnight’s salute to everyone, giving Ginny a hasty kiss, Harry reached Ron in his room.
Ron was already wearing his pyjama. Lying in his bed, he was launching towards the ceiling a piece reproduction of a golden snitch.
Harry sat in his bed and waited.
Ron didn’t deign him a look. He continued to launch and recapture the snitch. Harry counted seventy-five launches and many grips before speaking to him.
‹‹So, Ron? What do you think about that Americans?›› Ron failed the grip and the snitch fell on the ground.
‹‹Nothing›› answered annoyed picking up the little piece ball.
Harry lied down on his bed too. Ron started to launch the snitch again, evidently he didn’t want to talk.
‹‹It’s a rupture, this is it!›› re-started unexpectedly, astonishing Harry.
‹‹And why could it bother us? I don’t think that the your one is solidarity with Percy!›› said Harry.
‹‹Have you ever seen American wizards?›› asked Ron serious.
‹‹No. Are they different from us?››.
‹‹They’re ever brawny beasts that think only at the sport. All blonde and tan with their magical surfboards. They play an amazing Quidditch that is much more spectacular than the ours one… They are good in everything!›› said now almost angry throwing the piece snitch in one of the room’s corner.
‹‹Good for them! So? What does it matters us?›› answered Harry, brink of despair.
‹‹So, so… Nothing! Goodnight.›› answered Ron turning across and thrusting under the sheet.
It wasn’t the right day to talk with his friend so Harry decided to leave him alone.
He turned off the lights and he went to bed too. He arranged the Elder Wand under the pillow and the his one on the near bedside table, next to the glasses.
After a few instants, Ron started to snore. The arrival of that American wizards didn’t took him off his sleep.
Harry felt the Elder Wand press trough the pillow. He arranged it better, starting to think about how and when he would hide it. Even the school itself would have been rather crowded, re-putting it in Dumbledore’s tomb, with the presence of that foreign wizards, could have been a nuisance.
He remained outstretched looking at the darkness for a long time looking for a solution.
He fell asleep, lulled by the incessant snoring of Ron, daydreaming over eventuality of creating a diversion using some “Weasley Wizard Wheezes”.
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