When I'd tried to tell my mother the truth about Sirius Black, all hell had broken loose. She didn't want to hear it, was livid that I'd found out, and refused to speak on the subject. In fact, she didn't speak to me at all for nearly a week. My dad – Leo that is – was confused at first but although I could tell he didn't believe me, tried to be understanding and sympathetic. He really was the best. He managed to persuade me to agree to just not discuss my real dad in front of my mother, but that didn't stop me from mentioning Remus Lupin either, which only made mum bristle all the more. She took a more traditional view on the subjects of werewolves, and the only time she actually spoke about my real dad was to say that she had never agreed to a werewolf being named my godfather.

I left it after that, knowing that she was as stubborn as I was. The only reason we sort of made up was because I was going to be spending the last month of summer with the Weasleys, and because when my O.W.L results came through, I'd received Outstanding across the board. All previous anger completely fled and she promptly congratulated me on my hard work. It smoothed things over, though I could still feel that there was a slight tension in the air between us. I was relieved when the time came for me to go to the Weasleys, my parents apparating me over there with all my stuff as well as Orion.

Apparating was never pleasant, but I choked down the disorientation and nausea in order to run towards the Burrow where Mrs Weasley was waiting. "Hello dear! Good to see you again, look at you, you must have grown again." Molly Weasley was as motherly and radiant as ever, her warm smile lighting her face brilliantly and I dared anyone to say that she wasn't beautiful. I'd curse them with blindness otherwise.

"Good to be back, where is everyone?"

"Go on inside, love, I know you're eager to settle in. Same as always, Ginny's room. Hermione will be joining you tomorrow, I hope you don't mind sharing." Happy to share, I hurried inside as my parents followed in order to say hello to Mrs Weasley as I bellowed up the stairs.

"GUESS WHO'S HOME!" There was a loud bang, a moment of scuffling before a dozen feet came racing down the stairs.

"Mia!" The boys sprung at me, tackling me together as I squealed with laughter, feeling one of them pick me up and spin me with so much enthusiasm my flying feet knocked over a chair and Mrs Weasley yelled at the twins to be gentle with me as Ginny and Ron soon followed. "Glad you made it. Took your time though, get lost along the way?"

"Thought you'd know your way here blindfolded by now."

"Alright you devils, put me down before I throw up on someone. I just apparated here." Swatting them away, I grinned at them both before hugging Ginny and Ron in turn. Just as I was teasing Ron for being all flushed at my coddling, pinching at his cheeks and all, two more Weasley boys came downstairs.

"That can't be our little Mia." Charlie said first, beaming at me as he folded his arms, all scratched and burned from his many encounters with dragons. "Nah, she's too tall. Too pretty. I remember our Mia was a curly haired little thing with skinny arms and legs. What do you think Bill?"

"I agree. Can't be Mia at all." He agreed, leaning against the stairs with a broad grin, his long hair tied back and the dragon tooth earring dangling from the left lobe.

"Oh shut up you arseholes, just get over here and hug me." I ordered them both as I held up my arms expectantly.

"Definitely our Mia." They agreed together before Charlie jumped off the last step in order to sweep me up first. I giggled, going a little pink as he squeezed me securely before Bill then hugged me too, asking me how I was and if anything was new. Soon enough we were all chatting away, everyone piping up with a bit of news until our parents all came into the kitchen where we had moved in order to say goodbye.

"Be good now darling, make sure you remember to write." Mum said to me, sniffling tearfully. "Sixth year…where did my baby girl go?"

"Pretty sure she grew up, mum. Come on, I'll be fine. Won't I Mrs Weasley? I'm practically part of the family."

"Of course you are dear." She agreed effortlessly, patting me on the shoulder affectionately. "We'll take good care of her Diana, you can be sure of that."

"Oh I know, it's just so hard seeing them all grown up like this." Mum continued to cry, holding my face to pepper me with kisses. Behind me I heard the twins sniggering so I stuck my middle finger up at them behind my back so that none of the parents noticed. Eventually dad managed to persuade mum to let go of me so that he could give me a firm, strong hug, kiss my head then let go.

"We'll miss you, write if there's ever a problem, we'll see you off at the train station before you go off to school." He told me and I smiled up at him, glad that he wasn't the type to draw out a goodbye. With a final sob, mum tackled me with a final hug, kissed my cheek then with a tearful farewell, disappeared with a resounding CRACK from the kitchen.

"Aw, is ickle Mia going to be okay? Does she need a tissue?" Fred and George immediately launched into a tirade of ripping the arse out of it, so I smartly clouted them both around the head as Mrs Weasley reprimanded them, forcing them to take my stuff up to Ginny's room.

"Ooh Mia! Can I have a go on your Firebolt? Did you bring it with you?" Ginny asked which made Charlie immediately look up from the morning paper.

"You got a Firebolt?"

"Sure did, want to see?" So I spent the morning showing off my broom and letting people take turns riding it. Even Bill had a go, then we played a few quidditch games against one another, though one side always had an extra player. To make things fairer, I rode one of the family brooms and we had a right laugh, though a few times Percy stuck his head out the window to tell us off for being too loud, ordering us to keep it down so that he could work in peace and quiet. "What's got his tail in a twist?"

"He's working for the ministry now." Ginny answered simply, rolling her eyes. "He takes it very seriously. He'll yell at you even if you tiptoe past his room."

"Huh, and I thought Head Boy Percy was bad enough." After lunch I went up into the twins' room so that they could show me all of the new products they designed, though I was smart enough not to try anything they gave to me. Especially a suspicious looking toffee.

"We think it's finally ready, only thing is, we don't have anyone else to test it on." George said to me as I inspected it closely. "Ton-Tongue Toffee. Everyone knows not to take stuff from us anymore, even Ron caught on though it took him a lot longer than the others." He said with a disappointed sigh.

"Well, he couldn't remain that idiotic, otherwise I'd have just been embarrassed for him." Fred answered, working on something else and when I asked him about it, he showed me the assortment of sweets they'd already prepared. "Skiving Snack-Boxes. They're not perfect yet, they still need some tweaking, though we've been saving them for you Mia."

"There's no way I'm touching them, Fred."

"No, no, I mean to look at. Some of them work pretty well, but others…we've had some trouble with. Side effects and such, really nasty business…mum hasn't been too happy about it all. She found our order forms to make more stuff but she flipped her lid. Burned it all." Looking at Fred in surprise, he nodded his head and sighed heavily. His hair had grown rather long, it seems both of them were growing it out, just like Ron too. I wonder if this was their way of emulating Bill and his long hair? They seemed a bit despondent, George tinkering sullenly with a fake wand. "She wants us to go into the ministry like dad and Percy. Thinks we won't be able to make a living running a joke shop."

"She said that?"

"Said it? Practically screamed it." George muttered from his own desk. I glanced between them, wondering what to say before plonking myself down on Fred's lap, swinging his chair around in order to start inspecting each of the sweets as he looked at me quickly.

"Well, I think you two are too clever for such a boring place as the ministry. I love your mother, but I can't wait to see the look on her face when you both prove her wrong. You can absolutely make a living by running a joke shop. Not just any joke shop, but the best one in the entire country. Better than Zonko's even." Blinking at me, Fred then grinned and wrapped his arms around my waist, relaxing after my little bolstering speech.

"If you say so Mia, then it must be so."

"Of course it is, I'm even cleverer than both of you put together so I'm always right." Boasting playfully, I lifted up a roll of parchment they must have managed to save which listed off the ingredients and spells used to make some of the sweets. "Have you been using the notebooks I bought you last Christmas?"

"They're brilliant Mia, completely genius. Mum still thinks they're our diaries. Caught Ron a couple of times trying to open them. You'll have to teach us how you made them, we'll put them on the merchandise list and sell more. Of course, you'd get a cut of all the profits." George instantly brightened further, dashing across the room to open a drawer and pulled out two thick journals I'd got for them both last year. One was dark brown with a gold 'F' stamped in the corner whilst George's was deep green with a 'G'.

"It was simply enough really, I'm glad they're useful. When you mentioned your mum had been snooping around I thought you could do with something to write all your bright ideas and recipes in." I shrugged, taking George's as he handed it out to me and made to take Fred's too but he plucked it neatly out of my reach, and when I sent him a questioning look, he merely smiled.

"Don't you know it's rude to read someone's diary?" Passing it off as one of his jokes, I opened George's and read. It was much more detailed than the scraps of parchment, with full price lists and everything. George was very good at keeping accounts, I could tell that with a single glance. "They work really well. We left mine open by accident and mum had a nosy, but she couldn't read anything at all. So, how'd you do it?"

"Just a disillusionment charm. The books will either appear blank, look like a different book or have random diary-like pages inked in. No one but you can actually read them if you don't want. I can read them because you gave them to me. The magic is very responsive, I'm actually quite impressed with myself." I mused, thumbing through a few pages. "I see you're having some trouble with the canary creams. We'll have to try and fix that, I think those will be a real top seller…also I got an idea from a muggle cartoon I saw by chance. Oh, it's like a moving photograph but longer and it tells a story. Anyway, how about portable clouds? You can make them rain on people you don't like."

Immediately George snatched back his journal, found a blank page and started scribbling down the idea as Fred did the same, eager with this new idea for their joke shop and from there, we snowballed with more and more ideas as well as theorising on how to make it work. "How do you think we'd manage that? It'll be challenging, but it's a brilliant idea." Fred quickly scribbled away, making note of an atmospheric charm and the like as George did the same and soon enough, they were fully engrossed in their work, leaving me to simply sit there watching them, though in the end I moved off of Fred's lap so that I wasn't taking up so much of his space so that he could more effectively hunch over his notebook at the desk. Once they had the foundational idea noted, I joined in the debate on how to most effectively and economically create something like a portable clouds, helping them find the right magic spell they'd need and how to best attach it to something. We spent the rest of the day in this manner, combing through their ideas, making up new ones and testing a few out, which usually resulted in something blowing up as we cooked up things in the cauldron which looked like it was on its last legs. Maybe I'd buy them new ones for Christmas this year. In any case, we were completely in our element of prank planning until we were called down for dinner by Mrs Weasley, so we quickly cleaned ourselves up from any debris and soot before hurrying down, grinning from ear to ear.