Adelaide had gone to sleep. She woke up, much later in the day, and yawned.
"Adelaide! Come. It is dinner-time," called Petunia.
"Coming!" replied Adelaide and jumped up from her bed, and walked into the dining room.
"What have you been doing?" asked Petunia suspiciously.
"I went to sleep," Adelaide said, rolling her eyes.
"Don't you roll your eyes at your mother!" snarled Vernon, bits of the tomato he had been eating flying out of his mouth.

"It's okay, Vernon," said Petunia and pointed at a plate on the table that was filled with tomato, potato and kumara, (obviously Adelaide's dinner) her eyebrows raised.
Adelaide sat down and started to eat. There was silence for a while. Vernon broke it by clearing his throat and said, "Well, as we all know, tomorrow is a very special day."
Petunia's mouth spread into a thin smile. Adelaide knew that it was her "mother's" birthday tomorrow. "Yes, mother. It's your birthday tomorrow!" she tried to say enthusiastically.
"Yes," said Petunia.

Adelaide forced a mouthful of kumara into her mouth before saying, "May I be excused?"
"You've barely touched anything!" Vernon started to say furiously.
"It's okay, Vernon. Yes, Adelaide, you may be excused," she said in a curt voice.
Adelaide went back into her room quietly. She had a plan.

"I'm missing my baby boy so much!" Adelaide heard Petunia say.
"He's not a toddler anymore," said Vernon gruffly. "Don't be so worried, Petunia."
"You mean you don't miss him?" said Petunia, and the door was a little bit open so Adelaide saw Petunia clap a hand over her mouth. Then she glared at her husband, her mouth slightly open.
"I do! I just think that we don't need to be to worried about Big D anymore. And besides, he wrote and said to me that he had got a good job!" Adelaide could tell that Vernon was proud of his son.
Petunia beamed. "That's very good! My little darling son! Remember when he-"
Adelaide had heard enough. She went over to the door, and shut it, and then she scrambled onto her bed, and lay down. She would sleep till midnight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was half past one when she woke up. She had set her alarm to late. She quickly stopped the alarm, afraid that her parents were going to wake up.
Silently she stole downstairs, and pulled on her coat that had been hanging on her chair. She looked once around the kitchen. She was going to go outside. Petunia was so desperate for her not to go anywhere by herself - at least not anywhere, so she was going to go out. Secretly. At night.
She grabbed a torch and then pulled the door open, and stepped out into the darkness. Well, there were street-lights on, at least. But then they went out. She almost screamed, but just didn't. Instead she clapped a hand over her mouth, (just like Petunia would do) and gaped. She was in utter darkness and she couldn't see anything. Not even the house that she had came out of. She stumbled blindly backwards and tried to take slow steady and calming breaths. Then she heard a voice.

"Ron! Why did you do that?"
"Because I didn't want the muggles to see anything."
Adelaide was alarmed, and panic rose inside her. These people, if they were people, were strange, and she did NOT want to come face to face with them.

"Ron, turn them back on. We need to see, and it is utter darkness right now, Ron," said another voice.
"Blimey, Harry, do you want the muggles to see us?"
"Obviously, there wouldn't be any muggles out here, and this time of night."
"Well, you never know."
"Shut up!"
"Can you stop arguing? Honestly, you are really annoying sometimes. Especially you, Ron."
"Hey! You're my girlfriend!"
"So? That doesn't mean I can't speak to you... sternly."
Adelaide heard a bark of laughter, and then there was silence.
"So, turn the lights on."
"Bloody hell. Fine!" There was a sound like a crackle of electricity, and then the street-lights went on again.
Adelaide froze.

There was a sound like someone choking, and then three people came into view. There were two boys, and a girl. One of the boys had very messy jet black hair with green eyes and round glasses. If you looked closely, you could see a mark like a lighting bolt on his forehead. The other boy had red hair, with freckles and bright blue eyes. The girl had very bushy brown hair with light brown eyes.

"Who - the - bloody - hell - is - that?" said the boy with red hair, gaping.
"A muggle?" suggested the girl.
The boy with the messy black hair was staring at Adelaide. "Guys," he said slowly. "Don't you have sense? That is my sister!" And the boy leaped forward to Adelaide, and hugged her.

Adelaide pushed him away, at once. The boy looked confused. "Adelaide, it's me! Harry! Harry Potter! Don't you remember?"
"Blimey, Harry, don't YOU have sense. Obviously the muggle -"
"She's not a muggle, Ron. She's a witch. A fifteen year old witch!"
"Oh. I forgot. Anyway, the fifteen-year-old-witch," he rolled his eyes then continued, "obviously doesn't know you because she never met you, and she thinks that she is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Dursely."
"Yes, Ron's right - for once," said Hermione, but she grinned.

Adelaide, during this silly conversation, had stood stock still, staring at the boy in front of her, and as she knew now, Harry.
"Well, I'll explain to her that her mother and father are actually..."
"Dot dot dot," said Ron dramatically.
Adelaide giggled, then realised that she had, and clapped a hand over her mouth.
"It's okay. You can laugh," said Ron, grinning.
Adelaide laughed. She liked these people.

Finally Adelaide spoke. "So... you're my brother?" she said cautiously to Harry.
Harry smiled. "Yes, I am!"
Then suddenly Adelaide remembered something. On a bright hot Sunday, the daily prophet had come, Adelaide had never seen a newspaper like that before, and Petunia had glanced at it, and then chucked it into the bin with disgust. Adelaide had seen this secretly, and later, when Petunia and Vernon had been in the lounge, she had retrieved it from the kitchen bin. She had read the top article, which had said, 'HARRY POTTER DATES GINNY WEASLEY! THE BOY WHO LIVED DATES GINNY WEASLEY!'

"So... you're the boy who lived, that boy? I saw on this newspaper, 'The Daily Prophet' that it said that you're dating this girl called Ginny Weasley." Adelaide giggled, Hermione smiled, Harry looked away purposely, whistling, and Ron rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, of course THAT'S on the the front page - Ginny's delighted."

"Who's Ginny?" asked Adelaide curiously. "And where are you from, and what do you mean, I'm a witch? And -"
"Heyyy, slow down," said Ron. "First things first. Ginny Weasley is my sister. And I'm Ron, that's Hermione - she is my girlfriend, and that's Harry Potter. Harry, you tell her about Hogwarts and everything, since you're her cousin."

"Okay, fine!" said Harry, sighing, and then he began. He told Adelaide all about Hogwarts, what you do there, about the Professors, and when you go there, and about the witches and wizards, even about Squibs.

"Wow. That IS a lot of information!" said Adelaide.
"Yeah," said Harry breathlessly.
"But... you said that you go to Hogwarts when you're eleven. And I'm fifteen..."
Harry and Hermione exchanged glances. Adelaide looked up at them nervously.
"It's okay," said Hermione, and she put a comforting arm around Adelaide. "I'll owl Headmistress McGonagall, and see what she says."

"Okay," said Adelaide.
"So, what are we doing here in the first place again?" Ron asked, scratching his head.
"To pick up Adelaide, of course!" said Harry.
"Oh... yeah," said Ron.

Adelaide moved away. "But I live here! My parents are here!"
"But don't you understand? Those aren't you're parents! Your parents are Mr and Mrs Potter!"
"What? I'm the daughter of Mr and Mrs Potter?"
"Yes! But no one else knows - not even the ministry. But the Weasley family know. You ran away... when you were only eight. You had to, because the death eaters were coming to get you -"
"Harry!" said Hermione sharply. Harry fell silent at once.

"What? I want to know!" said Adelaide. "It's not like I won't understand or anything - I'm not a toddler - I'm fifteen!"
"Later," said Hermione.
Adelaide opened her mouth to object, but Hermione said gently, "please?" And Adelaide agreed.

"Well, are we going to go back to my house? Mum is going to be freaking out - she probably thinks that we got splinched when we apparated," said Ron, rolling his eyes.
"Apparated? You apparated?" Adelaide said. "What does that mean?"
"Another thing for Harry to explain," said Ron, smirking.

Harry set his jaw and said, "When you apparate you go to another spot. For instance, if I was here -" he moved ten steps away from Adelaide, "and then if I wanted to apparate to you, I'd apparate and then suddenly appear right next to you."
"Ohh, right." said Adelaide, tilting her head to one side. "I get what you mean."
"But you can apparate from very big distances, though. Like very big distances.
Apparating can be dangerous, for as Ron said, you could get splinched. Splinching is when you leave a part of your body or clothing behind."
Adelaide shuddered.
"Don't put her off," said Ron.
"So that means," said Harry, ignoring Ron, "that you can only learn to apparate when you're seventeen."
"But I'm not seventeen," said Adelaide. "So you can't teach me how to apparate!"
"But you can also do side-apparting. Side apparating is when you hold onto my arm, very tightly, and then I apparate. So you're not technically apparating."
"Oh, okay. I'll side-apparate with you, then."

"Okay," said Harry cheerfully. "Let's side-apparate then. Take my arm."
Adelaide clutched Harry's arm, very tightly.
"Ready, Ron, Hermione?" asked Harry.
"Ready," said Ron and Hermione at the same time.
"Okay, let's apparate," said Harry dramatically, and they apparated.