Hello! Sorry about the wait, I had some technical difficulties. Anyways there are a few things I need to say before we get to this chapter.

First: I respect Mrs. Weasleys character very much, but there are some things that Mrs. Weasley does- or doesn't do- that make me angry. All that is said is not meant as bashing but just how I feel she would react to Riley and how Riley would see Mrs. Weasley. Riley is not perfect, there for she will not always be right in her way of thinking. I apologize to anyone who may be offended by her outlook on Mrs. Weasley but it's not going to go away anytime soon. In fact it might get a little worse as the books go on before it gets better.

Second: this chapter doesn't have as much humor as many other chapters have in the past. But don't worry I have much planned for this book to make up for it. ;)

My last two little notes will be at the bottom because up here they may cause spoilers. :P

Disclaimer: Oh, I wish I had an Oscar Myer Wiener… Wait that's not right… Oh! I wish I owned J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter but of course I don't. :(

Chapter Two; Does Mother Know Best?

The next hour was torture for Riley and the boy's. Even though Riley was not one of her children, Mrs. Weasley still spent just as much time chewing Riley out as she did on the twins. As Riley was being told once again how irresponsible she was, she couldn't help but notice that Mrs. Weasley seemed to believe that this whole thing was her idea. And while Riley would have loved to be able to say this plan was all hers, it wasn't.

In fact, if her memory served her right, Ron was the first one to mention rescuing Harry and the rest just kind of snowballed from there. Of course Riley wasn't going to say that. For one thing she didn't like tattletales and for another, she didn't think Mrs. Weasley would care. So instead, Riley just sighed and valiantly (in her book at least) took another black spot to be put on her record with Mrs. Weasley.

At least she did until Mrs. Weasley started to dismiss Fred and Georges explanations about how Harry was treated.

Now with most people Riley would have blown up at them and made sure they knew exactly what she thought. But this was not just some random person. Riley had seen how hard Mrs. Weasley was on her kids, she had seen her anger and Riley was scared to push the women any further then she already had. She wasn't sure what Mrs. Weasley was capable of… and she had a feeling she really didn't want to find out and she generally listened to feelings like that.

After living with Andromeda, who was a Black even if she didn't talk about it, Riley was weary of all mothers. She often wondered if her own mother was as crazy as Andy.

How did the saying go? Riley thought as Mrs. Weasley turned on the twins again. Oh. Right, don't poke the bear…

It also didn't help that Mrs. Weasley already didn't like her and was highly likely not to believe anything Riley said. Riley also knew Harry wouldn't say anything either, as he didn't seem to realize how bad he had it. These thoughts and the horrible fact that no one who could help would believe a couple of pranksters left Riley feeling helpless and guilty.

What could she do?

~{}~

After the yelling was over, they were all sent into the back yard to de-gnome the garden.

Gnomes were odd little creatures with heads that looked like potatoes and short tempers. The five kids quickly made a game of the chore and before they knew it, Mr. Weasley was home and they all sat down for breakfast.

"What a night." Mr. Weasley mumbled while groping for the teapot as they all sat down around him. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned…"

Mr. Weasley took a long gulp of tea and sighed.

"Find anything, Dad?" Fred asked eagerly.

"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle." Mr. Weasley yawned. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness…"

"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" George asked.

"Just Muggle-baiting," sighed Mr. Weasley. "Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it... Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking — they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them; they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face… But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe—"

"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"

Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasleys eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.

"C-cars, Molly, dear?"

"Yes, Arthur, cars." said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."

Mr. Weasley blinked.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if — er — he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth… There's a loophole in the law, you'll find… As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't —"

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

"Harry?" said Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry who?"

He looked around, saw Harry, and jumped.

"Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about —"

"Your sons flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"

"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Did it go all right? I — I mean," he faltered as sparks flew from Mrs. Weasleys eyes. "That — that was very wrong, boys — very wrong indeed…"

Riley, Fred and George were having a hard time trying to muffle their laughter. Riley loved Mr. Weasley, he was so easy going and he loved chatting with her about muggle things. It was extremely easy to like the man, but even better was he did his best to help Riley out when Mrs. Weasley would go off on her.

"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Harry as Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom."

They slipped out of the kitchen and up an uneven staircase, which zigzagged up through the house, Riley trailing behind them having heard enough yelling. On the third landing, Ginny's door stood ajar. They just caught sight of a pair of bright brown eyes staring at them before it closed with a snap.

"Ginny," said Ron. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally."

"Oh, be nice Ron." Riley reprimanded. "She just has a little crush."

Ron rolled his eyes. Riley followed them up to the next landing, where she slipped into the twins' room while Harry and Ron continued on.

Riley scanned the room for the notebook she had been using to keep track of everything they needed for the Welcome to Hogwarts prank. They had most everything they needed. Earlier in the summer Riley had mailed a few of the Hogwarts ghosts to see who would be willing to help, and only got two replies. After that she tried to get the Giant Squid to help too, but Nearly-Headless Nick said it was useless.

Fred and George had helped her look up and memorize the charms they needed. They planned to practice them on the train so they would be ready. For the most part everything was all ready to go, but they still needed to work out the kinks, like who was going to get caught. Because unfortunately, the only way the plan could work is if one of them got caught and so tonight they were drawing straws.

That evening Riley pouted as she pulled the shortest straw from the bunch.

~{}~

A few days later, the boys found out Riley had never actually been on a broom before, seeing as her first lesson went badly and she didn't go to the later lessons. So one morning they dragged her out onto a field where they played Quidditch and handed her a broom.

"Nice broom. Here you go." Riley said, purposely being oblivious.

"Get on." Fred ordered.

"No, that's okay. I'm good. I like having two feet on the ground. But you four have fun!" Riley smiled, handed the broom to Harry and started to walk away as quickly as she dared.

"It wasn't a request." George commented, watching in amusement as Fred grabbed her 'round her waist and steered her back over to the other three.

"I don't like flying. Flying is bad. Very, very bad."

"Just try it. You never know, you might be really good." Harry tried.

Riley just shook her head furiously and tried to escape Fred and now George's grasp. A short scuffle later and Riley was straddling a broom with a terrified look on her face.

"Just push off the ground, nice and easy." Harry said calmly.

"Right," Riley nodded slowly. "Well here goes… To infinity and beyond!"

Pushing off the ground, Riley realized too late that she was leaning forward way too much. The end result had Riley facedown on the ground with a bloody nose and everyone else agreeing to keep her far, far away from flying brooms.

~{}~

Besides Riley's growing dislike of Mrs. Weasley, her stay at the Burrow was really quite fun. She would act as referee in the boys' games of Quidditch, goof off with Ron and Harry, have long conversations with Mr. Weasley about the muggle world and start minor prank wars with Fred and George.

Riley had also become pretty good friends with Ginny, the poor girl was overjoyed at having another girl to talk to in the house. And Ginny really liked to talk. Riley didn't mind though, she found the girl to be fun and found they had a lot in common. Riley also thought Ginny's crush on Harry was adorable, and teased them both about it relentlessly.

On one memorable afternoon, Riley found out Ginny was really quite as scary as her mother, when Riley teased the smaller girl one too many times. After that, Ginny gained something that was not easy to get; Riley's respect.

~{}~

Despite all the fun Riley was having at the Burrow, it was with relief that she got her Hogwarts letter, because it meant she wouldn't be there much longer.

While she loved almost everything about the place, she just couldn't get over her guilt and anger at herself for not doing anything to help stop Harry from ever going back to the Dursleys. And even worse was the anger and injustice of knowing that even if she told someone about Harry's home life, her reputation as a joker and prankster would make sure no one believed her.

Riley growled quietly to herself as she sat in the garden, watching the gnomes swat at butterflies. People always underestimated her because of her pranks. No one seemed to realize just how much work goes into even the simplest of pranks. You had to be sneaky, clever, imaginative, inventive, smart and quick on your feet. If you're missing even one of those things, you could end up getting someone hurt.

No one seemed to understand just how smart pranksters like her had to be. And watching the Weasley family's interaction made Riley realize just how badly Fred and George were underestimated.

Mrs. Weasley was the worst out of them all though. She was constantly nagging them about their grades, and yelling at them about their pranks. But if she- or any of them- even tried to look closer, they would see that Fred and George were as good as geniuses in their own right. The things she had seen them inventing and planning, could make anyone seriously respect them. But none of the family seemed to see that… All they saw were Fred and George goofing off and never planning to make anything of themselves.

It was after seeing this that Riley realized that she had it lucky, having a godfather like Remus, who was a mastermind prankster himself.

That's it! Remus! Riley thought suddenly. He'll believe me. He knows I'd never joke about something like this… But as quickly as the thought came, another came to dash her hope away again. Because even if Remus believed her, who would believe him? Werewolves had very little credit in the world and she highly doubted anyone would believe him that the relatives of the Great Harry Potter would be neglectful prats.

Riley sighed again, suddenly feeling drained. She hated feeling this helpless.

~{}~

My last little note: while I agree that something should have been done about Harry's home life and as much as I would love to change it, it's just not in my characters power to do so. At least not yet. Don't lose hope, Riley's only twelve at the moment and so she may not have the courage to do anything or even know what to do. But this will not be like this forever, so please don't hate me for not doing what I'm sure many of us believe should be done.

I'd also like to reply to one of my reviewers.

CaribbeanTrinidadian: I absolutely agree with you on everything. But unfortunately Riley is only twelve, she's a prankster, and she has a fear of all mothers like Mrs. Weasley, so she can't do much about it right now. But trust me, none of this will be ignored, Riley will reach breaking point at some time and she will be giving a lot of people what for about a lot of things. As for the interhouse relations, I actually had it planned for a long time that Riley was going to get over her prejudice and start making changes in this book. The changes won't happen immediately, but it will happen. Riley's not one to stand back and let such horrible ignorance be. Her plans wont be perfect and will probably cause more trouble then needed, but her efforts won't be for not.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I love to hear from you, so please leave me your thoughts on this chapter. Being a prankster tends to have its down sides and now we're seeing one of them.

Ttfn!