Dear Luna. July 10.

Dear Luna,

I imagine Ginny has already written you telling the following story; nevertheless, I must write. It was absurd. You would have loved it.


I apparated over to the Burrow on the morning of Lupin and Tonks' wedding to find the place in a horrible uproar. Mrs. Weasley was having a fit; the garden gnomes had launched an attack on the kitchen, stolen all of the silverware, and taken bites out of all the food! Mrs. Weasley was in hysterics, blaming it all on Ron and the twins who had been up in the attic toying with the ghoul when they were supposed to be working in the kitchen. Doing what, I don't know; each of them is perfectly useless in that room. Anyway, Ginny was steadying Mrs. Weasley and trying to keep her from seeing Tonks chase the gnomes through the garden in her wedding dress. Poor Tonks...she tripped....and you know how the Weasleys' garden gets when it rains....



When I arrived, the first thing I saw were a gaggle of gnomes standing over a collapsed, claggy Tonks, laughing; Mrs. Weasley, screaming; Ginny clutching her mother, looking very bewildered; and the stupid boys looking down on the kerfluffle from the attic window, trying to see but not be seen.



I rushed to Tonks and to help her stand, but was promptly attacked by the gnomes! Have you ever been attacked by gnomes? They have sharp fingernails! They claw and scratch! I wished I had brought Crookshants; he'd have shown them. Ginny forced Mrs. Weasley to sit down inside, then rushed to help me. She pulled Tonks out of the way while I used locomotor mortis on each of the gnomes in turn. Tonks' hair flashed rainbow, like a nighttime neon ad in Picadilly....never mind, don't ask what that is.



Needless to say--although you'll hate me for this--we did not stuff the gnomes in bags and swing them around in circles and then over the fence. Oh no. We tied them in burlap sacks and threw them into the fen. I'm sorry to offend your sensibilities, Luna, but if gnomes had plotted to destroy your wedding day, how would you have acted?



Anyway, we were all quite covered in mud. And Tonks' dress, for all we could see, was not going to be easily salvaged. Remarkably, it was the twins who came to our rescue. They'd come up with some gadget that could duplicate clothing instantaneously--and perfectly unsullied (which geminio, unfortunately, can't do). In a minute, they'd made Tonks a pristine new dress. We thanked them and then shoved them out the door to go hang with the gents. They'd spent too much time with that ruddy ghoul. I couldn't believe they were up there when their friend Lupin was getting married!



So we kicked them out, all prepared to do some food transfiguration to replace the stuff the gnomes had eaten. Ginny and Tonks were laughing about defeating the gnomes--it's amazing, their senses of humour--and I was about to start brewing a potion (learned from our dreaded former potions master. I hate that man.) to calm Mrs. Weasley when another unthinkable happened.



There was a three-inch cocroach on the kitchen floor.



I said, "Bug!"



Mrs. Weasley screamed. Tonks got out her wand. "Epoximise," she said, and....the cocroach was not stuck to the floor as it should have been. The spell hit it in a jet of yellow light, but the bug just scuttled away underneath the counter! At that point, I think we all were screaming. Ginny ran for a shoe and Mrs. Weasley climbed on top of a chair. Tonks and I took turns pointing our wands and shouting at the brogdignagian insectoid fiend: "Confundo!" "Fera Verto!" "Ducklifors!" "Immobulus!" "Deprimo!" "Incarcerous!" "Confrigo!" "Lacarnum Inflamare!" "Petrificus Totalus!" Desperate for anything that might stun the cocroach with its stupid exostelaten's inherent impervious charm.......we had no brilliant ideas, but kept screaming and scampering away from the bug. Mrs. Weasley dumped the potion I was brewing on it; Tonks, holding her white dress' hem above the floor, tried trap it under a bowl, but it shoved the bowl off its back! Ginny reappeared with a sneaker wrapped in toilet paper and began whacking the bug enthusiastically...until it ran towards her. Then she screamed with the rest of us.

Three wands and one TPed sneaker were pointed at the bug. Four females in their best dresses stood on the kitchen counter, holding each other and gasping. Finally I remembered a spell we hadn't used yet. I don't know where it came from....I hadn't heard anyone try to use it for years.... "Peskipiksi Pesteroni!"

And it actually worked! The cocroach vanished!

Apparently Professor Lockhart did know one spell that worked. He just tried to use it on pixies when it was meant for cocroaches! Not that there's much of a difference between the two.

Besides this adventure, everything went off splendidly. I'll let Ginny tell you all the sappy stuff about the wedding. If she hasn't already.

Wish you'd been there,
Hermione