Disclaimer: Every character/setting/etc. that you recognise does not belong to me, it belongs to the Immortal J.K. Rowling who obviously thought of them before me (and I will eventually curse her, go back in time, steal her idea, and publish before her, but for now this is the best I can do). Every unknown character is mine. This is not so much in this chapter, but happens a bit more in later chapters.

"What's this?" I asked my mum as we got home. We'd just been buying our school supplies. There were four strange, rectangular devices, which apparently had cost a heap.

"I'm not quite sure, dear." My mum said, blowing a lock of hair off of her red face, taking one of the devices in her hand, and turning it. "Dumbledore put it on the list this year, and apparently everyone will find out what they're for their first day." She said, and I looked at the devices.

"What are they called?"

"Laptops. Apparently they're supposed to enhance the learning experience." She said, slapping my hand away as I tried to reach up to take on to look at it. "Now, start de-gnoming or there'll be no dessert." Her face was so serious I ran straight outside and started getting rid of the gnomes.

Coming back inside a few hours later, my arms covered with bites from when I hadn't been fast enough, I found mum making soup for dinner.

"Can I help?" I asked, bouncing up and down as she agreed. My mum had always been overworked, even now that two of her sons had left home, she still had five children to look after and feed. We never starved, and we never went without, but we never got those special things that sometimes we wanted.

"Pass the pepper dear." I found the pepper immediately, used to the way my mum stored the herbs and seasonings in the seemingly messy kitchen. In record time we served the soup into seven steaming bowls, with plates of bread and butter and set the table.

All my six brothers were older than me. Ron, the youngest, was only one year older than me, and it was his first year at Hogwarts this year. Next year it will be my first year. All of my family is in Gryffindor, and everyone knows that Ron and I will be too, however there are always several jokes that Ron's more likely to be sorted into Hufflepuff, or even, the occasionally suggested Slytherin.

Whenever we mentioned the possibility of him being sorted into Slytherin, we always joked about disowning him as our brother. Which of course we all knew would never happen, however, Slythering really wasn't a Weasley house.

Tomorrow would be the first time I'd ever really been alone at home before. Usually there'd be someone else there, but this year all of my brothers would be at Hogwarts, except for the oldest two, Bill and Charlie, who are in Egypt and Romania respectively. Dad works at the Ministry of Magic, and works every week day, and sometimes weekends as well, which we all find unfair, but he's the only source of income in our rather large family.

And mum was going to a job interview. She'd done some occasionally before, but never got anything, but now that almost all her children are at school, she thinks it will be a better opportunity for her to be hired.

Personally I hoped she was hired. I would miss her, during the day, and I'd have a lot more to do at home to keep the house from falling down (not entirely a joke, unfortunately) but the extra money would be very welcome.

I went to bed that night excited. When I woke up in the morning I was excited. While helping drop my brothers off at Kings Cross Station with my mum, there was a really cute boy. He was obviously a muggle born, because he didn't have his parents there, and he had to ask us how to get onto the platform.

But with his messy black hair and bright green eyes, I had to admit I had my first crush. We were soon gone however, mum dropping me off back home, with a warning joke to not bring the house down while she was gone.

Excited to be on my own, I spent this first day of freedom exploring my brothers rooms. I found some muggle magazines in Percy's underwear draw, and flicking through I found they only had pictures of naked women in them, mostly blondes, and I saw that a few of them he'd taped someone else's head onto the pictures.

Shuddering, I went into Fred and George's room. This was my gold mine. The twins had to be my favourite brothers most of the time. There was no one who they couldn't make laugh. And I certainly wasn't disappointed looking through their stuff. Despite their average to low grades in school, I found a heap of complicated spells protecting their stuff.

It took me a while to figure out how to get past them, indeed it took me the entire first term before I managed to get my way into their belongings, and then I found they were filled to the brim with everything from butterbeer, to wizard lollies, including sugar quills and liquorice wands, and of course, some jokes.

It took me another term to figure out how to put up their spells again, which made me thankful they had stayed at school over the Christmas break.

That figured out, I searched Ron's room, but found nothing interesting. Just his stupid Chudley Cannons posters. I drew on them with a permanent ink charm I'd found in Fred's drawer. After my first exploring I began to get bored roaming around the house mostly by myself all day. Everyday, because both mum and dad worked late, I cooked dinner for them for when they came home, and mum was very glad to have me as her helper in the kitchen as the summer holidays came.

With the summer holidays brought my excitement to start school. Mum bought me my own laptop, the same pristine white as my brothers, but none of them taught me how to use it. Percy was doing some assignments on his, while my other brothers more or less ignored theirs. Ron occasionally went on his during the day, he said he was talking to his friends, who he talked to me endlessly about.

By the time I stood on platform nine and three quarters, ready to step onto the Hogwarts Express, I knew all about Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. And that meant everything, from what colour boxers Harry wore, to what product Hermione put in her hair and what exactly it smelt like.

A/N: A rather quick and short chapter to start off with. The next ones should be longer and (hopefully) posted up rather regularly. Then again, probably rather irregularly when it comes down to it. Please review, I love getting reviews, tell me whether you loved it, whether you hated it, or whether you just didn't understand it. The first few chapters will mostly just be setting the scene. In any case, I hope you liked it. :D