Author's Note: I am SO incredibly sorry that it has taken me so long to update. Seriously, it's been 15 months! If you guys don't want to kill me, please accept my apology. I really did mean to write this sooner, but I sort of lost the muse and I got caught up in the real world, you know, off the internet! (I know; it's shocking!) But I'm back and I intend to wrap this story up over the summer, but I'm not going to make any promises as I really have no idea what will happen.

"This just isn't going to work," Audrey said surveying the outside of the cottage.

"I'm sure we could make it work somehow!" Joey said.

"Joey, we're lucky that the whole house hasn't completely collapsed on us yet! Just think about what would happen if we tried to work on it!" she walked a few feet away from him and viewed another part of the wall before walking back over to him. "I'd say that you'd need three or four witches and wizards to fix this; two mimimum."

"Then let's just wait until Percy gets home," Joey shrugged. "Then the two of you could fix it."

"Percy has enough to do as it is without having to work on repairing the cottage. He's under a lot of stress right now with all that's going on at the Ministry."

Audrey could have sworn that she heard Joey grumble, "The house collapsing would probably be more stressful than fixing it," but when she turned around to glare at him, he seemed busy criticizing the house in his head. "Why can't you just fix it with magic by yourself?"

"I'm not exactly an expert at fixing houses, am I?" Audrey raised her eyebrows. "But based on what I'm seeing here, I doubt one person could handle it."

Joey gasped. "Did you just admit that you aren't an expert at something?"

"Oh, shut up!"

"I didn't say anything," a voice from behind them said.

"Percy!" Audrey turned around. "You're early!"

"They let me go home early," Percy shrugged. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're trying to fix the house. It could cave in at any moment," Joey answered.

"Need any help?" Percy asked and before Audrey could even open her mouth to say, "No, that's fine," Joey said, "That'd be great!"

Audrey sighed and continued, "The house is falling in on itself. I'm amazed that it's still intact even now. I'm afraid we're going to have to tear down this wall before we can get to the root of the problem and it'll probably take a week or so even with magic…."

"But it's not exactly warm enough outside to be sleeping without a wall?" Percy finished for her.

"Yeah," she surveyed the wall again for a moment. I guess everyone could just sleep on the east side of the house and keep fires running though the entire house." In all honesty, Audrey didn't know which side of the house was the east side and which was the west until that very moment. You see, the sun was setting behind Percy's head, making his already fiery red hair glow strangely (but not unattractively). Therefore, this was the west side of the house.

"But the east side isn't much more stable than this side," Joey said dryly.

"I wish we have done this a few weeks ago when it was still warm outside. It just would have been like camping out in the backyard like when we were little," Audrey grinned.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Camping out in the backyard…"

"You never camped out in the backyard as a kid?" Audrey asked, not defensively, but rather worriedly.

"Ah, no. Is that a Muggle thing?"

Audrey patted his shoulder, "You must have had a very boring childhood."

"Something like that," he replied dismissively. He viewed the wall for a moment and grinned. "I think I have a plan…"

And so the five of them set out on repairing the house. With the combined efforts of manual labor, Percy's hidden architectural genius, and Percy and Audrey's magic, they managed to completely fix the house within a week. Granted, they had to tear down almost every wall, but it was fixed nonetheless. Well, at least three of them thought it was fixed; Audrey said that it was one of the ugliest houses she'd ever seen and that it needed some serious updating while Joey complained that it was in desperately needed new paint before it was fit for human habitation. Their parents refused to comment while Percy pointed out that was just more work for them to do.

But at least, they could safely sit in the house without fearing it collapse on top of them.

XXX

"Isn't it a bit cold for this?" Percy asked Audrey. Despite the fact that it was late October, she was laying on a blanket that she'd spread out in the backyard.

"So you've seriously never camped out in the backyard?" she asked him, disbelieving.

"Camping? That Muggle thing where you go into the middle of nowhere, sleep in a tent, don't use indoor plumbing, and avoid civilization for however long. Doesn't a backyard defeat the purpose of that?….whatever that is," Percy shook his head, genuinely confused.

"Don't tell me you've never been camping!" Audrey accused.

"Sort of. We stayed in a tent when we saw the Quidditch Cup three years ago."

"I guess you could count that…" Audrey's face lit up. "Hey, Percy, we should camp out in the backyard tonight!"

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said.

"Why not?"

"That's why," he pointed to the sky.

Audrey looked up only to have a small white speck land on her nose. "SNOW!"

With that, she dashed into the house and proceeded to shout, "IT'S SNOWING! IT'S SNOWING!"

A very sleepy and very annoyed Joey stumbled out of his room saying, "It's one in the morning, Audrey! What is so important!"

"It's snowing!" she shouted, her face maybe four inches away from his.

But rather than snapping at her to shut up and go to bed or to get a grip like Percy had expected, Joey's face lit up as brightly as hers and he dashed to find his a coat and his shoes.

The two of them sprinted towards the door and proceeded to have a snowball fight with what little snow had fallen in the past five minutes.

Percy raised an eyebrow at Mr. and Mrs. Simmons who'd just stepped out of their bedroom.

"It's a tradition," Mrs. Simmons smiled. "When they see the first snow of winter, they have to go play in it, no matter what time it is."

Percy nodded confused.

"Aren't you going out there with them?" Mr. Simmons asked.

"Um…." Was all Percy managed to say before Audrey and Joey burst back into the living room to drag Percy out there with them. And, if only for that night, Percy was back at the Burrow with his brothers and sister.