Finally, thought Harry, I'm home. It had taken several weeks of enduring the torture that was the Dursley's, but he'd finally made it to the one other place that felt like home to him: the Burrow. No more listening to Dudley's rude comments about his being unwanted, no more watching as Aunt Petunia cringed whenever he walked into a room, and no more having to be treated like he was a ghost by his Uncle Vernon because he didn't want to acknowledge his existence.

It had taken hours of convincing for Harry to get Uncle Vernon to agree to drop him off at the Burrow, where he'd be spending the rest of his summer holidays. Well, he didn't exactly drop him off "at the Burrow", it was more like a mile down the road. Uncle Vernon had refused to go any closer to the "house of freaks" as he deemed it. Harry had agreed to this arrangement, because it got him that much closer to freedom.

Harry grabbed his trunk off the ground where he had put it and picked up Hedwig's cage in the other. Hedwig hooted happily at the prospect of being allowed to freely roam for the rest of the summer, since she wasn't allowed out of her cage at the Dursley's. As he walked up to the front door, Harry heard the best sound in the world: the Weasley's. He swung open the door and started laughing at the scene in front of him:

Mrs. Weasley was going from corner to corner of the living room picking up various items while simultaneously yelling at the twins, "...got to pick all this up...isn't even my mess...Fred! George! Stop doing that right this instant!"

The twins were enchanting random pieces of food to fly into the heads of the house's occupants, "Nice one George, got Ron right in the ear!"

Ron had been lazily attempting to pick up whatever his mother told him to when a glob of mashed potatoes had smacked into the side of his head. His head snapped up and he started to go very red while reaching for his wand. "Ronald Weasley", shouted Mrs. Weasley, "don't you even think about it! You know you aren't of age to use magic outside of school! Now start cleaning this room up, Harry's coming today and I won't be having him walk into a mess on his first day here! Fred, George, stop that!"

While their mother had been lecturing Ron, the twins had turned their attention to their newest target. Ginny had just walked into the room only to be met by a flying bread roll straight to the face. She froze where she stood, narrowed her eyes, slowly took her wand out of her pocket and steadily raised it up until it was directed at Fred and George.

The objects of her anger had quickly stopped laughing and swallowed hard, fear very clearly visible in their eyes. They glanced at each other hastily and started running. Ginny, despite being a good six inches shorter than the twins, bolted after them, "Get back here you great prats! This is the last time I get food thrown in my face!"

Harry laughed even harder and it was like someone had flicked a switch in the room: Mrs. Weasley stopped cleaning and gasped, Ron's face broke into a wide grin, Ginny continued to hold her wand up to the twins while her face lit up with a smile at the sight of Harry, while Fred and George were flicking their gazes between Harry and Ginny's wand, their eyes going between uncertainty and delight at having Harry finally get there.

"Hey guys! How's it going?" Harry asked while trying to contain his laughter.