It was almost 15 years ago. We were in hiding. Or we were supposed to be. Mom had gone out to get the groceries from the Ministry worker. She had to go out in the middle of the night so that she wouldn't be seen, but there was always that chance. Bill and Charlie were home for the summer holidays. They were supposed to be in charge of me, the twins, and Ron. We didn't have Ginny then, I just wondered why mum's tummy was getting larger.

Bill and George and Charlie and Fred were teamed up wrestling. It's the funniest thing to watch people wrestle without trying to make a noise. Of course, mum would kill them if she found out. I wouldn't even bother to try to join them. I'd rather read anyway. I had just started Charlette's Web. I had always been ahead of my age group. Bill said it would help me at Hogwarts. He also said I would have to learn how to follow the rules. I laugh at that now. I have *no* problem with that now. I did then.

Like I said, mum had gone to get the groceries. Bill, Charlie, and the twins were wrestling, and Ron had been put down atleast an hour ago. I had read over 3/4 of the book, and it had gotten boring for me. When I had started it, Charlie had told me what was to happen. Big brothers were so sweet when you were younger, huh? Anyway, I had been reading it all day just to get on his nerves (it didn't, but I had to do something!) and it was getting a bit dull, so I decided to sneek out to visit Mrs. Longbottom and Neville, her baby.

I know what you're thinking, "Wouldn't she be in hiding too? I mean, her husband was an Auror. How would you know where she lived?" Well, when they put families in safe houses, they usually put the families in pairs, because since their husbands weren't home, the wives could help each other when need be. No, we weren't put in the same house, but a few blocks from each other. I wouldn't have known where she lived, but mum had been her midwife when she had Neville, and since Bill and Charlie had been at Hogwarts, and since I was too young to babysit, mum had to bring us along. We stayed there for about 2 weeks, to help Mrs. Longbottom, and I had gained a second mother during that time. She had gained a second son, she told me.

I went up to the second floor of our safe house, to the only window that wasn't boarded up, because it was so small they thought no one could fit through. They were wrong.

I wriggled through, and jumped on the first floor roof. *Crap* is what went through my mind. Charlie and Bill probably heard it, but I decided to go ahead anyway, since I would already be in trouble for going out. I had only gone to see Mrs. Longbottom once before, and she had threatened to call my mother in the fire, but I had persuaded her not to with my boyish charms. *Yes, I knew how to persuade people then.*

I kept to the shadows in people's backyards. I felt like a spy, or a detective. It felt so freeing. I would never feel that way again.

It took me almost half an hour to get to her house. I peeked through her living room window and I saw something that confused me. There were two cups of tea on the coffee table, that I could tell were still steaming, but the teapot was smashed into a million pieces on the floor, with the chairs, quilts, and thier wands laying all over the room. It didn't register what this meant, stupid as it is, I thought that Mrs. Longbottom just hadn't cleaned up in a while. Yes, me, smart Percy, had been so stupid as to think that. Then I crawled in the window.

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