DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything Harry Potter affiliated. If I did, I would be sending this off to a publisher—not posting it online.

Chapter Three

Fred moved Hermione towards an open seat while George handed her a freshly conjured glass of water. "Someone explain all of this," Fred said.

"Now," George finished.

Harry took a deep breath. He wanted nothing else but to sprint from the room and start searching for Ginny. For all he knew she was huddled outside in the cold somewhere half frozen. There was no time to lose, but at the same time, having Fred and George to help would only make finding Ginny go faster. Sighing, Harry grabbed his wand from his back pocket and turned towards the stairs to the boys dorm. "Accio jacket," he said. Turning back to Fred and George he caught his jacket in his outstretched hand. "I'll explain everything on the way," he said.

"Oh no you don't!" George said, pulling Harry back from the door and refusing to leave the common room until they had the full story of what was going on. Quickly, Hermione told the twins what had happened the night before. "And then she left—"

"She went mental is more like it," Ron snorted, cutting in on Hermione's recounting.

Harry rounded on his friend angrily. "What about this is funny Ron?"

"Calm down, mate," Ron responded, his own anger rising to match Harry's. "She's my sister!"

"Yes," Hermione cut in. "Your sister, who is currently missing, outside, in winter!"

"Enough you three," Fred yelled, stepping between them.

"We don't know that she's outside," George said. "There are a hundred places she could be inside the castle."

"Accio Marauder's Map," Fred exclaimed, giving Harry a small smile. As the map reached his hand, he quickly opened and activated it. Laying it out on the table, the five began to search the many nooks and crannies of the castle. "Thank goodness most of the students are gone so there's fewer people to sort through," he said.

"Yes," Hermione said, exasperated at how hard it was to look over the entire castle and grounds, even with far fewer people in the castle during the start of break. "Someone should have added a search feature to this map."

"You know Freddie," George began.

Fred thought for a moment before shaking his head at his twin. "A conversation for another time."

After a solid five minutes of searching, the group gave a collective sigh. "It's no use," Ron groaned.

"I don't see her name on here anywhere," Hermione added.

Harry shook his head. "That leaves only one place she could be in the castle," he said. "The Room of Requirement is unplottable."

"She wouldn't go into the forest, would she?" Hermione asked, her voice thick with worry as she looked at where the edge of the map faded. "The map only covers the edge of the forest."

Fred and George, stood looking at each other silently for a moment. "Alright you lot," Fred finally said. "You three go check out the Room of Requirement. If it let's you in, and she's not there, come back here."

"If it doesn't let you in," George continued, "come back here anyway. If she worded her need right, and didn't want any of you finding her, it would keep the door sealed."

"What are you two going to be doing?" Ron asked, annoyed at being given orders from his brothers.

"I'm going to go down to the pitch and grab a broom and see if I spot her from the air," Fred said.

"And I'm going to the village to take a look there quickly before taking the floo back to the Burrow for reinforcements. We came early, but the rest of the family was gathering at the Burrow before coming up with the other families on the train this afternoon."

Fred smiled at the thought. "Mum was quite excited—"

"Giddy like a schoolgirl—"

"Over taking the train again after all of these years."

"The train!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed.

"What about it?" Ron asked.

"What if Ginny got on the Hogwarts Express with the other students this morning?" she asked the group.

"Well," George said. "I'll add it to the list to check the Platform as there's no way on or off once it's moving."

"Let me come with you Fred," Harry said. "We'll be able to cover more ground if there's two of us flying instead of one."

George reached out and stopped Harry from running up to his room. "Harry," he said, "We know you want to help, but one step at a time."

"Besides, mum will Avada us both if something more happens!" Fred said grimmly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "So much for the pranksters and rule breakers of Hogwarts," he murmured.

Fred smiled. "Just keep an eye out and hold down the fort while we're gone. Hopefully we'll be back soon with Ginny and all of this will be a big misunderstanding."

"If any of us find her, how will we get word to the others?" Harry asked.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, turning from the group and darting up the stairs. "Leave that to me!" Darting up the stairs, she quickly went up to her room and grabbed a handful of parcels from her chest.

The four boys just looked at each other confused as they waited for her to return. "Don't suppose you know what that's about?" George asked Harry and Ron.

"Don't look at us," Ron said. "Hard enough to keep up with her train of thought when she's not in a hurry."

"Here," she said, tossing the wrapped gifts onto the table. "I suppose it's close enough to Christmas," she said, "and this is an emergency. Open them."

Harry and Ron opened the two packages to find matching leather wand wrist holsters inside.

"Um, thanks?" Ron said, turning his over.

"Yeah—thanks Hermione," Harry said. "But I'm not sure how this helps—"

"Well obviously there's more to them than just being wand holsters!" she said, rolling her eyes. "I wanted to see what other uses the Protean charm might have, for communicating. Our galleons worked well last year, but we could only relay dates and times. I figured something bigger could pass more information, especially if we aren't concerned about writing in code. Plus," she said, taking a deep breath to continue her explanation, "we really should stop storing our wands in our back pockets!"

"Brilliant, Hermione!" Fred exclaimed, grabbing Ron's holster from his hands.

George sntached it quickly from Fred, moving it farther from Ron as he tried to reach for it. "But how did you make it so that you can openly write messages? Instead of just receiving messages from a master?"

"Simple," she said as she pulled up her sleeve to reveal her own wand holster. "I made them all masters. Watch!"

Pulling her wand out of the holster that was attached to her non-dominant wrist, Hermione tapped her wand on the large smooth surface. Suddenly, text began to flow across the surface of the leather, almost appearing to brightly burn the message before fading to black. Next to her, Harry and Ron's holsters suddenly lit up as her message appeared.

"It's warm!" George said, tossing the holster back to Ron, who was growing more impatient.

"Just like the coins," Harry said, amazed. "How—"

Hermione smiled. "Same as before. All you have to do is think the message and tap a blank spot. The new message will appear under the old one, staying until you tap them to clear the messages from your holster." Tapping her own holster, Hermione cleared the message she just wrote and then set it on the table. "Geminio," she said, swishing her wand in a complex pattern before double-tapping the holster.

The holster vibrated and shook on the table, before jumping slightly in the air. Where there was one, suddenly two more appeared.

Harry looked at his friend in awe. "You never cease to amaze me, Hermione," he said.

"I wanted to do more, make them spring loaded and trigger activated so we could wear them on our dominant arms without having to draw them like swords, but that only caused the problem of how to write messages without being able to tap the holster, and well-" she paused for a breath realizing that their attentions were wandering towards the task at hand, "and then I ran out of time. Here," she said, quickly handing the two new holsters to Fred and George. "These five are all now linked and will be able to communicate with each other. But," she exclaimed, pointing between the twins, "before you two get any ideas, duplicating your own holsters won't recreate the Protean. It has to be duplicated from mine—otherwise it's just a plain holster."

"Alright," Harry said. "We have a plan—let's find Ginny!"

"Mate," Ron said, pulling off his holster. "You keep that up, these things are going to burst into flames!"

Hermione rolled her eyes, but rubbed her own wrist all the same. "While an exaggeration," she said, "He's right. You need to calm down Harry. Fred and George have been gone for barely more than half an hour, and you asking for an update every two minutes is a bit much. You'll knock Fred off his broom at this rate!"

The three of them had gone to the Room of Requirement, as planned, but Ginny wasn't there. They tried many different requests of the room—even though they knew that if the room was in use they wouldn't get in at all—but Harry wouldn't give up without trying a number of times.

"Here, a reply!" Hermione said, calling Ron's attention to his holster on the table.

Picking it up, Ron red aloud, "No sign from above. Going to talk to Hagrid, and then come back to the castle. Harry...ask us once more if I've found her and I'll have Hermione take away your wand!"

"Agreed!" George's response said a moment later. "If he does it again Hermione, take it away. Reinforcements are on their way to the village via floo. Bill, Fleur and I are going to meet at the platform and search the train."

Ron and Hermione both snickered at the comments from the twins, but Harry hastily cleared the messages on his holster and slumped down in the chair across from Ron and Hermione.

Fred returned to the common room shortly after sending his message. He stopped and talked to Hagrid, asking if he'd seen Ginny at all that morning or the night before, and then headed up to the castle to let the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall know that Ginny was missing and to expect the rest of the Weasleys to arrive ahead of schedule.

Harry, however, continued to pace. He wanted to do more, but—frustrated at the sparks he kept producing while tapping his wand against the table and nearly setting her book on fire—Hermione took Fred's earlier suggestion and disarmed him for the safety of the common room furniture. So, unless he wanted to mount a search and rescue wandless, he was going to have to stay put for now.

It wasn't exactly a happy reunion when the rest of the family arrived.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were extremely upset that Ron would just let Ginny leave the castle at night by herself. Professor McGonagall, while understanding about giving the girl some space to cool down, was livid that they didn't report it to her, as their head of house, the moment they realized that she hadn't come back. When George, Bill and Fleur returned from King's Cross, empty handed, it started all over again.

"We caught Luna and Neville as they were getting off the train," George said, "and they hadn't seen Ginny since the four of you left the party last night."

Charlie just shook his head and started in on the trio again. "I just can't believe you all let her walk out the door alone at that time of night!"

"You weren't there," Ron started. "She was bloody pissed!"

"Of course she was Ron," Bill said, throwing his hands up. "She felt betrayed!"

Fleur came to his side and put a calming hand on his shoulder, and whispered soothingly to him in French.

The Headmaster, in his way, calmed them all down with a wave of his hand and a twinkle in his eye. "It does us no good to get upset over what's done," he said. "What we need to focus on now is finding Ms. Weasley and getting her home safe and sound to celebrate Christmas with her family."

And with that they split up. The Headmaster, with the help of the professors and Mrs. Weasley, searched the castle—even though the twins told the group that the trio had already thoroughly searched the castle—while the others paired up and searched the grounds and edge of the forest: Mr. Weasley with Ron, Charlie with Hermione, Bill with Fleur and Hagrid with Harry.

It was some hours later, just before dusk when Harry heard a sound, like the distant crack of a whip, deeper into the forest. "Did you hear that?" he asked, turning in the direction of the sound.

"Prob'ly just some animal steppin' on a branch, that was," Hagrid replied. Harry went to follow the noise, but Hagrid reached out a hand and pulled him back. "Woah, there! Bes' not be going any deeper tonight until we regroup. Dumbledore said to make sure we all return before dark. The centaurs 'aven't forgotten the incident with Umbrige. Lucky they let us out here during the day!"

"But what if that was Ginny?"

Hagrid shook his head. "If that 'er Ginny she would have called out or made more noise than that, now come on lad."

Harry started following Hagrid back, but the further they got away from where Harry heard the noise, the more uneasy Harry felt. He had to go back. As they continued to walk, Harry asked Hagrid to tell him about how Gwarp was doing since his encounters with the centaurs the previous year. As Hagrid started telling Harry all about their summer and adventures since the beginning of the school year, Harry fell behind until he could run back towards the noise he heard. Sorry Hagrid, Harry thought, feeling guilty for tricking his friend into distracting himself.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked, as she saw Hagrid walking out of the forest talking to himself.

"He's right…" Hagrid stopped short and he turned around and realized that Harry wasn't right beside him as he thought. Thinking about it, he wasn't sure when, or rather where Harry disappeared into the forest. "That little! He must have gone back. He thought he heard somethin' in the forest. I told him it was nothing, but he must've gone back!"

At Hagrid's explanation, Hermione had no doubt that Harry had done just that. There's no way he'd wait for reinforcements before going deep into the forest at nightfall. He'd do the Harry thing, and run head first into danger without thinking it through. Sighing, she turned to Ron, who was on the same page and simply nodded at her in return.

"Woah you two," Charlie said, casting a silent immobulus on them before they could sneak into the forest together after Harry. "I know you want to help, but running after him, doing the exact same stupid thing that he just did, is not the way to do it."

"Bloody dragon tamer reflexes," Ron mumbled as Charlie released them from his spell and marched them back up to the castle to regroup with the others at dinner and create a new plan on finding Ginny, and now Harry too.

"Oh Harry," Hermione sighed, looking back at the forest before entering the castle. "I hope you know what you're doing!"

Arriving back at the castle, everyone regrouped in the Great Hall for dinner.

"How could you let Harry out of your sight!" Molly shrieked at them all after learning that they had let the youngest member of their group wander off in the forest. Sighing, she ushered both groups into the great hall for dinner and then straight up to bed before anyone else went missing under her watch.

Ron slumped into a chair next to the fire. "How come Harry gets to go off on his own in the forest and we have to stay here?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry doesn't get to go off on his own, he went off on his own."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is he took advantage of the situation," she replied. "He didn't ask or wait for permission."

"Why didn't we think of that?" Ron grumbled.

Charlie smacked Ron in the head from behind as he sat down next to him. "Because I was watching to make sure you didn't do anything stupid, like run off on your own."

"Hey, we've faced dementors, basilisks, trolls, werewolves, and death eaters, and You-know-who!"

"Correction," Fred said. "Harry faced all of those things."

"You weren't there for the actual basilisk, and while you lot faced some Death Eaters," George interrupted, "only Harry went head to head with snake-face."

Ron slumped further in his seat, deflated by his brother's comment. "Close enough," he murmured quietly.

"What was he thinking? Going off on his own in the forest?" Hermione asked. "What do we do now?"

Charlie sighed as he shook his head at the group in front of him. "We wait until morning and we start our search again, this time starting from where Harry heard something and took off on his own."

"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve," Ron said.

Fred and George both threw pillows at him from where they sat. "Do you ever think about anyone besides yourself?" Charlie asked.

"That's not what I meant!" he said, throwing a pillow Charlie's way. "There hasn't been a Christmas, since I started Hogwarts that is, that I haven't spent with Harry." There was an awed silence from his brothers.

Hermione sniffled quietly, but before anyone could comfort her she excused herself to her dorm to get an early night's sleep.

"Nice going, Romeo," Charlie snorted.

A/N: Please review!