Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except for Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.


Now that I think back on it, my world truly changed at the start of my fourth year at Hogwarts. The times were changing, and life was beginning to get darker everyday. I should have expected that the year would be filled with danger and that blood would be spilt. For where there is fire… danger is always close at hand.

Chapter 1- Summer of Explosions

BOOOOOOOM! An explosion rocks the Burrow from the top down. Smoke billows out from underneath a door that has a sign hanging on it 'CAUTION: EXPLOSIONS MAY OCCUR'. Through a coughing fit, I push up the door allowing more smoke to plume out, and tumble out onto the floor of the landing.

Two more hacking and wheezing voices come from behind me as a pair of redheaded twins fall to the ground practically on top of me. "Okay… so maybe next time we reconfigure the amount of powder before we light the fuse." George coughs. Fred swats at the smoke in front of his face.

"Good idea." Fred responds.

"Or maybe we can forgo the addition of the stink powder until the device has actually been tested." I sputter rubbing my hands over my running eyes. The twins squint through the haze at each other then at me.

"Even better." They wheeze together. Before we can say anything else though, the sound of a door slamming sounds throughout the house.

"FRED, GEORGE, JAMIE!" The bellow of Mrs. Weasley makes our hearts run cold. We are so in for it now.

"Heh, heh, run!" Fred cries, pulling George and me up by our shirts, as we plow back into the smokey room, and to their window. George pounds on a hidden button, and an escape ladder springs into action unfurling out the window and to the ground safely below.

"Ladies first!" They cry hoisting me up and over the windowsill. I grab hold of the rungs and start my quick descent down. Once I'm a few rungs down Fred joins me, shortly followed by George.

"This is a thing of beauty Jamie! We designed this after the last time one of our harmless experiments went off by accident, and Mum was attempting to murder us!" George cries. I hit the ground, and glance around nervously expecting to see an angry saber toothed version of Mrs. Weasley at any moment.

The twins hit the ground beside me, and we're off. We make it to the trees and take cover. "That was a close one." I say wiping the sweat off my brow, and hacking up the last of the smoke still caught in my lungs.

"I'll say, Mum is getting a better responding time to our mishaps." Fred comments looking down at his soot stained watch, and rubbing it clean.

"Indeed, methinks that we have a little traitorous spy in our midst." George agrees stroking his sooty chin, streaking it so that it looks like he has a beard.

"I just think that she has rather good hearing." I say shaking my head attempting to get the ringing out of my ears.

"A spy it is." Fred says assuredly.

"Well it's not me!" A small voice declares from above. We ship out heads upwards and see a redheaded girl up a tree.

"Ginny!" I exclaim with a grin on my face. The girl beams at me, and drops down next to me. "I thought that commotion was the three of you." She says but then her nose scrunches up in distaste. "Jamie you're not coming back into our room until you take a shower. I'm not contaminating the air with you smelling like Fred and George's sock drawer!" Ginny exclaims holding her hand to her nose.

"That's what this is?" I say screwing my nose up at the stink.

"Oi! I'll have you two ladies know that our sock drawer is nothing to turn your nose up at!" George exclaims indignantly.

"Yeah what you're experiencing is our test batch for our next generation Stink bombs!" Fred adds. I make a face.

"The name is still under construction." George adds hastily taking our disgusted looks as a bad sign.

"Mum is going to kill you three." Ginny says definitively shaking her head at us.

"A little degnoming never hurt anyone." I say shrugging my shoulders.

"Besides Mum will never punish us that badly. Ever since Luka and Jamie have come to live with us, if either of them get into trouble, she just sputters a little and gives us all lighter punishments!" Fred grins satisfied.

Ginny rolls her eyes at the twins, and gives me a 'can you believe those two' look. Suddenly the bushes in front of us start shaking, and a twig snaps. The four of us freeze, and look at the bushes warily like there's a dementor that's going to jump out at us.

I finger the wand in the side pocket of my shorts. My heart starts beating faster. The bushes part, and we draw a collective breath. Ron's confused and annoyed face pokes out from it.

"What's going here? I thought that you guys were going to include me from now on!" Ron cries upset. He comes out of the bushes, and my brother appears a second later.

"The house smells like a mixture of troll boogers and dragon dung." Luka groans, curling his lip up at the smell coming off of the twins and me.

"Aptly put my good Pendragon." George grins at my twin.

"Mrs. Weasley is off her rocker. She's furious that the whole house smells like that. The three of you are in for it to be sure." Luka continues as if George hadn't just interrupted him in the first place.

"What are we going to do now? Dinner is going to be soon and I'm not missing the Shepard's Pie that Mum promised tonight!" Ron cries with an air of despair about him.

"You and you're stomach! That's the only thing that you ever care about isn't it!" Ginny says glaring at her brother.

"Come on guys this shouldn't be tearing us apart. We need to think before we're caught." I tell them trying to get everyone to work together.

"At this rate she's going to take away the opportunity for us to go and see the Quidditch World Cup at this rate!" Luka cries having a mini breakdown even though he's the one who hadn't even done anything wrong. The thought sobered everyone up quickly though.

"She— she wouldn't do that would she?" Ron asks worriedly. I bite my lip unsure of exactly what Mrs. Weasley would do. Its common knowledge to everyone that Mrs. Weasley is in charge of the discipline of the household not Mr. Weasley. He's the one who will talk with you for hours on end about all the fun stuff going on, and what you're interested in.

I'm speaking for both my brother and I that this transition has been hard. We've been living with the Weasley for a little over a month now, and it's hard to find a balance between guest and family member. Even though the Weasleys are our guardians, that doesn't make them anything more to us.

Sure we live in their house, eat their food, do their chores, and blow up stink bombs with their children but that doesn't make us their kids. I can tell that its not only awkward for Luka and I but for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley as well. If there's one thing that I hate by now it's being a burden to anyone.

The bushes shake again, but before we can do anything a red faced Mrs. Weasley bursts forth. Oh boy, we're in for it this time. "THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK! I CAN LIVE WITH THE EXPLOSIONS, BUT THE SMELL! YOU LOT ARE REALLY PUSHING YOUR LUCK!" She bellows. The six of us cringe back and away from her.

Wow, I don't know how Fred and George haven't wound up dead long before now. "Oh come on Mum, you and Dad can do magic and take the smell right out of the house! Besides it was harmless! Nothing caught on fire this time!" Fred says. I wince. That is totally not the right thing to say.

"You listen here mister! You and your brother are lucky that your father has already paid for those tickets, for if not you would be sitting here at home with me going through the laundry and scrubbing the dishes!" Mrs. Weasley snaps. Fred and George pale and shrink back from their mother.

The height difference between the two gangly boys and their mother would be hilariously entertaining if it weren't for the fear that I still feel. Mrs. Weasley rounds on me as well. "I expect you to be the one with common sense out of the two of them Jamie. Now come on everyone! Fred, George, Jamie, its straight to the showers with you! No need to stench the place up again. As for the rest of you its time to start cleaning!" She declares marching back into the bushes, with us following along behind her.

"Oh Mum but why?" Ron whines upset at the fact that he's going to have to clean. I know for a fact that cleaning is not one of Ron's strong suits.

"Because Ronald we are picking up Harry tomorrow, and Hermione will be arriving here tomorrow night. I am not going to leave a bad impression on our guests by how messy we leave our home!" She declares. We filter into the house, and we three offenders climb the stairs towards the bathrooms. Luckily, the boys share two bathrooms, and Ginny and I share another.

As we pass Percy's landing the angered man sticks his head out of his door. "You three! I can still smell that foul odor in here! I'm warning you, I have important business to attend to in the Department of International Magical Cooperation! I cannot be showing up for work smelling like the inside of a dungeon!" Percy snaps, his glasses glinting madly. I hold my hands up as we pass him, but I can't help but giggle at his misfortune after that.

I grab a change of clothes, and make my way to the bathroom. Once in the shower I allow myself to luxuriate in the hot water. This is my life now. This time last year Luka, and I were stuck in our small house in a different countryside with only each other for company, and every so often the illustrious Ariana Dumbledore.

Now we live in a large crowded home surrounded by redheaded Weasleys. My brother shares a room with my best friend Ron, and I room with Ron's younger sister Ginny who also happens to be a friend. Luka and I now have two adults who are consistently present in our lives unlike Kingsley who was always between assignments that would take him far away from us for long periods of time.

To say that this summer has been different is an understatement. So far though, I like it. My days are mostly filled with prank designing and pulling, Quidditch playing, and boy upstaging with my favorite cohort Ginny. Luka has even come out of his stick in the mud shell a fair bit joining us in our games. Most nights are lively for we play Wizard's Chess, Exploding Snap, and Gobstones.

When it is supposedly time for everyone to go to bed, Ginny and I stay up late at night talking about anything and everything. We're not as close and Hermione and I are yet, but I have a feeling that if things keep going the way that they are then she will practically feel like a sister, like what Hermione is.

I heave a sigh, and take in the vanilla smelling air once more, before shutting the water off, and stepping out of the shower. I towel off, and get dressed quickly, so I can run the brush through my hair, and put it up into the ponytail. I know that Mrs. Weasley will want the three of us cleaning as well. I hop the last three stairs to the ground floor to see Luka and Ginny cleaning the living room, small dust clouds pluming in their wake.

Ginny looks up to see me. "Ron's cleaning his side of his room. Mum said that Harry is going to have to have somewhere to sleep in there and the pile of clothes on the floor was not going to be that comfortable of a place." Ginny giggles. I chuckle and shake my head at that mental image. My brother grits his teeth and shakes his head as well.

"I can't believe what a slob he is! Its bad enough listening to that blasted ghoul every night." Luka grumbles. Luka and Ron have been fighting over the state of their shared bright orange room from the moment that we had arrived. It seemed to be a sticking point from each boy; neither would give any leeway on how clean the room should be.

Luckily Ginny and I have similar cleanliness. "Fred and George are cleaning up outside, and Mum said that you should help in here." Ginny finishes. I nod my head, and catch the rag that my brother throws at my head. George passes by the open window that I'm cleaning.

"Leave it to Percy the Perfect to get out of cleaning. He still lives here, but since he's doing important work for his oh so serious job, he get's off scot-free! The woman is bonkers I tell you." He grouches. I snicker at his unhappiness.

"At least his room still smells." I say sympathetically. George brightens up considerably after that.

An hour and a half later dinner is ready and the cleaning is as good as it will get for the night. Granted it's not nearly up to Mrs. Weasley's standard of perfection. Everyone squeezes in around the extended family table waiting for Mr. Weasley to join us. He was called away on an emergency earlier today even though we was supposed to have off.

The kitchen door swings open and Mr. Weasley steps in mopping his brow from the late summer humidity that we're experiencing. At almost the exact same moment Percy descends the stairs. "Sorry Molly you won't believe what happened…" Mr. Weasley starts the same time as Percy.

"Sorry Mother but I was terribly busy writing a letter to a colleague of mine in France."

Whatever their excuses are it doesn't matter to the rest of us, for it finally means that we can eat, which I'm delighted by. Dinner is a jovial affair with Mrs. Weasley telling Mr. Weasley about what we had been up to 'meaning the stink bomb explosion'.

"Well I don't say! Did it work guys?" Mr. Weasley exclaims, much to the horror of his wife.

"Rewarding them for this sort of behavior Arthur?" She asks him dangerously. That is our cue to stuff as many rolls in our faces and pockets as we can, for we do not need to see poor Mr. Weasley be chewed out tonight.

Later on that night, Ginny and I are hanging out in our room. We're expected to be asleep by now, but that never happens. Since our room is smaller then most of the others our beds are bunked one on top of the other. Ginny resides in the bottom bunk and I have the top one.

Our window is open letting in the cool summer's night breeze into the room. I feel a thud on my back, and I know that Ginny has thrown one of her stuffed animals that she still has against my mattress. It has become a game to her. She tries to get the animal as high as she can without actually hitting my bed. Another thud comes. Tonight must be one of her off nights.

"Jamie?" Ginny asks me suddenly. I turn and lean over my bed sticking my head over the side so that I can see her even if she's upside down.

"Ginny?" I question right back at her. She keeps her gaze focused on the stuffed unicorn toy.

"Do you find it strange that You-Know-Who didn't do anything last year?" Ginny asks finally. I startle sliding off my bed, and falling to the ground. I groan, and clamber into a sitting position next to her bed. I'm used to falling out of that thing by now on my feet, but I truly wasn't expecting that sort of question.

"What makes you ask that Gin?" I ask her questioningly. Ginny bites her lip, and I smile softly realizing that she's getting that habit from me.

"Well… its just that, he went after the stone your first year, then he— he came after you and Harry in my first year through me, but last year… he did nothing." Ginny explains worrying her lower lip some more. I bite mine as well. I had noticed that fact as well, but Ginny doesn't know anything about Sirius, Pettigrew, and Lupin from last year either.

"I don't know Ginny. Maybe he's decided to pack up shop and take his nastiness elsewhere." I tell her knowing that I'm lying even while saying it. Voldemort will never stop coming. He won't rest until he's back, and Harry is dead in the ground, which will mean that I am as well, for there will be no way that he gets to my friend before going through me first.

"I don't think that's the case Jamie." Ginny tells me softly. I smile at her sadly, and squeeze her arm.

"Let's not worry about it tonight. Tomorrow Harry and Hermione will be here as well, and then the real fun can start, for we'll all be going to the Championship, and that's just wicked." I grin. Ginny grins back at me and nods her head.

"All right then. We better get some more sleep for if I know Mum she'll have us up early cleaning again, for she's afraid that Harry will not like the house." She says.

I shake my head at that. "Mrs. Weasley should know by now. Harry Potter loves the Burrow and everyone inside it." I declare, getting up and climbing my ladder back up to my bed.

"Ha! That's right. Good night Jamie, thanks for that." Ginny tells me. I hear her roll over below me.

"No problem happy to help. Sleep tight." I reply absently, staring out the window at the stars in the sky.

If only my nights were as good as my days, then my life would be great. I close my eyes and swallow hard. Please let it not happen again tonight.