Moving House

[alt_ernie]

Hello. I hope everyone's alright and having a good summer.

We had an owl from the Ministry last week. It said that because there'll be five of us kids in the family once the babies are born, we qualify for a new, bigger house under this Ministry programme. I think it's because we need more space, and there's loads of empty houses everywhere now, since the muggles don't need them anymore.

The owl had a list in it of houses that are available. They're all over the country, so Mum and Dad talked a bit about moving somewhere else, like up to the north or out to the west, but we all agreed that we'd rather stay here in Kent because that's where we've always been for years and years.

We don't get to move in until the babies are born, of course, in case anything goes wrong. Dad says it'll all be fine, because the healers have magic and know exactly what they're doing, but I know how it is really with that sort of thing. Sometimes the healers do their best and things still go wrong. So the Ministry can't sign the house over to us until they know for sure that the babies are okay and healthy. But we're starting to get things ready - Mum's writing lists of what stuff needs to be moved and when it can be put into boxes, and Dad keeps asking us what kind of garden we want and how big we want our bedrooms to be.

We're going to have a look at some of the houses this week, and then we have to send an owl back to the Ministry to let them know which ones we like. Then they'll decide which one we can have, and they'll reserve it for us until we can have it. The babies are due in early September, so if they're on time I'll already be back at school and won't get to help with the move! And neither will Pip! But they might come early, because there's two of them, so if we move in August we can help.

So that's good.

Wayne, Bobby - I'll see you on Wednesday, yeah?

Comments

[alt_ron]

Huh. I can't imagine moving house. I mean, I can't imagine us living anyplace different than here. It's not like it's a really grand house or like we couldn't use some room--though it's not so tight as it was when we were all here together, but

I don't know. I can't imagine Mum in a different place. This one just suits her. All of us, really.

So you might go to school in September and come home to a whole new house? That'd be dead strange, I think.

I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

It just occurred to me, your mum has five children. Five pureblood children.

You lot could have a big house in London, you know. You could have had it years ago. Did your parents refuse because they didn't like getting special privileges for being purebloods? Or what?

The Strettons have a London house on account of their five only they never use it. They have all those estates they need to keep an eye on and Mrs Stretton says it would be far too much trouble to floo back and forth constantly (and she won't let Jeremy go live there by himself as she wants to keep an eye on him).

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

She has seven children, actually, but I guess by the time they were giving out houses to big families, Bill and Charlie were off to school. Percy, too, maybe. I don't really know when they started giving houses to people.

Anywiz, I asked Mum about it last night at dinner. I kind of thought we had been offered one, but I wasn't sure about that, so I just asked, y'know. And Mum went over all queer about it. The first thing she did was look at Percy and then she gave Dad a look, and then after all that she started talking like she wasn't going to say what she really thought so she had to make something up. You know how you do when you get caught and have to think fast and you know you're saying something quite daft but you can't go back and start over? Well it was just like that. She said it was silly to think about moving from a perfectly good house that we've always lived in and that we've made ours in every way and have all our family memories in for some big house other people lived in before us.

I dunno. It wasn't so much what she said as the way she looked, I guess, but it seemed like she thinks it would be really, really wrong to live someplace Muggles used to live.

She didn't want to talk about it after that and got really cross when I said other people didn't seem fussed about living in places Muggles built as long as the Ministry said it's okay. She went off on whether I'd just do anything so long as other people think it's all right. Would I charm my head bald if other people said it was fun to do? Would I cheat on my NEWTs if other people said it was okay? 'I suppose you'd just jump right off a cliff if other people said you should. Is that what sort of wizard we raised you to be?'

I mean, sheesh! It's not like I'd said we should've moved or anything.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

I can't believe I forgot Bill and Charlie! Yeah, your family is HUGE.

I think your mum would feel like she were stealing, to take a house that belonged to muggles. But she can't say that in front of Percy.

There was an abandoned muggle village where I grew up. We scavenged things from the houses, you know, because we sort of had to. It was really tiny, and unfortunately there was a storm that damaged the roofs of lots of them when I was little and after that it was hard to find useful things that hadn't been ruined.

I expect your mum would move into a muggle house if she HAD to but as long as she's got the Burrow, well, it's true it's been in your family forever, right? And you all grew up there, even if you don't properly fit into it.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

Yeah, well. I think there are times when Mum wishes she could forget one or two of us!

Actually, there are times when she does forget: I mean, when one of us gets into trouble, she usually has to call all of our names before she gets the right one. It's especially funny when it's Ginny that's in trouble. And George is always saying she's called him Fred again!

But, yeah. I think you're right about Mum and the reason they didn't take the house the Ministry wanted to give them. That and I think they like that we live out here with no really close neighbours, so y'know no one can just look over the hedge and see what we're getting up to. Not that we do stuff that'd get us in trouble, but I think Mum would be a wreck if she thought there were neighbours who'd see what the twins do to the gnomes sometimes or see what Dad keeps in his shed or hear what Mum says sometimes when she gets really hacked off at one of us.

[alt_neville]

I can't imagine you moving house, either. I've never seen a house that feels more like it belongs to the family that lives there, you know?

I really like your house.

[alt_ernie]

It would be dead strange, yeah, but at least I'll get to visit some of the possible places before, and I'll know which one it is that we're getting. I don't know if it'll properly feel like home though.

[alt_sally_anne]

Congratulations on the new house, Macmillan. Are they going to keep your old house too? The Strettons got a nice house in London after they had five children but they don't live in it because they need to keep an eye on their factories and farms and the muggles and so on.

[alt_ernie]

Thanks Perks. I don't think we're keeping the old house. It's too small really, and the new house won't be all that far away, so we won't need another one just down the road. Dad already has a flat in London for if he needs to stay up there for work stuff, but he hardly ever uses it.

[alt_padma]

That's brilliant, about the new house. Mum and Dad used to talk about that, but I don't think we'd have qualified, really, because Haruman's too old to count as a kid. And now of course there's no way. But it's okay, our house is fairly big to begin with, considering.

I can't wait for the YPL week, though, can you? It'll be wiz. I mean, visiting St Mungo's won't be all that amazing or anything, because Haruman works there so it's not like we don't know what it's like (I guess you feel the same, with your dad working there too). But the Ministry and the rest - that ought to be really interesting, don't you think? And I heard that there's to be a concert, did you hear? And we're going to the Kew Gardens and Hyde Park and it ought to be brill.