Disclaimer, Author Notes, etc.: I do not own any of the characters in this story, J.K. Rowling, supreme fiction goddess, does. All hail Rowling! Archimedes is from the Disney movie the Sword in the Stone.
Molly Weasley, exhausted mother of seven (and sometimes, with Arthur's muggle-fascination, she felt like the mother of eight), sat down in her favorite rocking chair at the Burrow and fretted. Molly Weasley is famous for fretting and worrying. Nobody does it better than Molly. But with all that had happened in her years, whom could possibly think to blame blameless Molly Weasley?
The reason Mrs. Weasley was worrying today, in the Burrow, in her favorite rocking chair, was that while her own children that had not yet moved on with their lives and found separate, extra-Burrow existences were playing happily throughout the house and grounds, the one child that she had almost always regarded as her own was, by order of Supreme Mugchump Albus Dumbledore, spending yet another unbearable and torturous summer residing at Privet Drive. My, my. Isn't that a long way of putting it? Indeed, Harry Potter was spending the summer before his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the one place he despised most in the world. Other than, of course, the lair of Tom Riddle's sick and twisted alter-ego, Lord Voldemort.
So with a glance at her Quidditch-happy younglings, she sighed. Life goes on, she found it necessary to remind herself. But for some people life goes on in an unfair way. Oh, how she wished that she could apparate to the Dursley's and snatch Harry Potter into her arms. But that would be playing on Harry's deepest desire: to find a home other than Privet Drive where he could be safe.
Molly alternately cursed and praised the late Sirius Black in her head. What a brave man, she thought. And what a pompous idiot. Why couldn't he just stay home? Oh but who could stay home when the most important person to the war against Voldemort was in dire trouble? It was the same when she thought of what to do regarding Voldemort; half of her wanted to scream, "Get the bastard, take him down, go on the offensive." And the other half of her was moaning in a corner, those visions of her loved ones dead constantly running through her head, not wanting to put any of her babies- whether she had given birth to them or not- into danger.
But in the end, Molly Weasley did as she always did: she waited, until the end of the summer when Harry would join them, along with Hermione, at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, and they would once again dance around the painful reminders that Sirius was gone. That month might be the hardest. And it was coming faster than she knew- within the next couple of weeks, in fact. The children would try their hardest to find out what was going on, and when Harry eventually was informed, to her chagrin, everybody else would also find out.
With a loud popping noise, she was shaken from her worrisome reveries.
" 'Allo, mum!" It was the voices of her tall and meddlesome middle children, Fred and George. Having apparated inside from, she was sure, a distant makeshift Quidditch pitch, the two infamous Hogwarts pranksters and 'dropouts' were slightly muddy, and completely covered in sweat. Not that it mattered that they had taken off from school. If she and Arthur had had to deal with that obnoxious, venomous Umbridge woman…well, Arthur might have left as well. Besides, once Dumbledore was reinstated that summer, he had declared Fred and George as having fully completed the curriculum. They happily had taken their NEWTS at the request of Albus. Anything for you, Headmaster. Despite their silliness and refusal to settle down, they had an immense amount of respect for the elderly headmaster.
"Fred, George, you're positively filthy!" If anything covered up for (or revealed) her worries more, it was the length to which she went to nag her sons and daughter. The twins' response to this comment was to look each other up and down and pull the wands out of their dragon-hide coats, which were hanging upon the coat rack. With a simple swish-and-flick, the dirt had disappeared. They had left the sweat upon their bodies as a mark of a Quidditch match well-played.
"All right, then, Missus W?" the twins smiled at their mother, who sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Take a bath, both of you. And where are your younger siblings?" Molly was in full-swing that day. Nothing could distract her, not even her twins' smooth-talking antics.
"Oh, you know they can't apparate yet, Mum," George offered, rolling his eyes. Or was it Fred? No, it was George. Mrs. Weasley always got it right, despite the twins' best efforts to confuse her. Nobody ever knew why, but they all supposed that it had something to do with the fact that George and Fred had been in her womb for nine months that made her such an expert. "They're probably going to be here in…five, four…three…two…"
And just as George was about to get to the count of one, Ron and Ginny burst through the split door to the Weasley abode, Ginny looking positively flush and about to wither onto the floor. Ron, looking equally as put-out, bent over to catch his breath, pointing an accusing finger at both the twins as he did so.
"You…no fair…apparating…and…you…cheated…I saw…your wands…" Ron clearly cared less about the fact that his brothers had allegedly cheated than the fact that he could not breath. He and Ginny collapsed, back-to-back, onto the floor of the living room. "Chocolate. Need choco-"
"Water…water!" Ginny finally managed, cutting her brother off. At this point, neither the twins nor Molly could figure out if the youngest of the Weasley kin were being honest or simply taking the piss out of their dear mother and brothers. Ginny raised a hand, which grasped her wand feebly, and said with her remaining strength, "Accio water!"
A delirious chuckle from Ron was emitted, reminding Ginny suddenly of his ordeal within the Department of Mysteries with a strange looking brain. As the water glass flew into her outstretched hand, she dropped her wand and held the glass as if it were some sort of holy relic. She then drank, savoring it as if it were the last butterbeer in Hogsmeade.
"All in a day's training, I suppose," Fred piped up, shoving a chocolate frog into Ron's mouth, which squirmed and croaked before Ron, with his eyes wide and happy, bit down relentlessly into his brother's offer. All was forgiven.
"Yeah, we have to make sure that these two are decent players. And who better to whip them into shape, than the best beaters that Hogwarts ever saw?" George folded his arms while he said this, but there was no time for a response. At that very moment, a feathery snitch zoomed into the room, accosting George with its left…wing? It unrolled itself in George's hands, which were now occupied with trying not to drop it, and shook its leg happily, indicating a large number of scrolls attached to its foot. When George had wrested the scrolls from the owl's foot, it flapped down to the youngest Weasley and perched itself upon the arm which held her water glass.
"Oh, Pig, there you are…aughhh…Pig! That was disgusting!" Ginny squealed as Pigwidgeon coughed a pellet into her water glass. He hooted merrily, unaware of his folly, and nestled into her armpit, trilling all of his owl-love for the young girl. "Oh I guess it's all right. I was almost done with it anyway."
"I wondered when I was going to see him again," Fred mused. "He's the honorary mascot for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes."
"He acts like it too! Did you see the way he shot in here?" George added, handing his mother the scrolls that had been attached to Pig's leg. "I left him in the shop yesterday. He must have been given mail…"
"Oh…oh…hmmm…my my…well that's a first…" Mrs. Weasley was muttering under her breath at the first letter. She looked at Ginny and Ron with authority, as if she had known the news all the while. "Children it seems that Diagon Alley will be closed for awhile prior to the beginning of the term to install security alarms. So that means that we have to get your school supplies early this year. Within the next couple of weeks, in fact. Which means we'll have to get Harry and go to Headquarters early as well. My, my, will they be busy this year…"
George and Fred muttered something about being glad that they didn't have to buy more textbooks and robes and what have you.
"But," Mrs. Weasley went on, pointing at the next two letters, which were obviously Ron and Ginny's letters from Hogwarts. "I know I've already bought these editions for Fred and George, so providing they haven't ruined or burned their books in a post-Hogwarts celebration, I assume that we could save some money by not having to purchase more copies? Eh?"
George and Fred nodded, and Ginny and Ron sighed. For once in their lives, Ron and Ginny wished to get something brand-spanking-new. Right off the shelves, the gilded edges still gilded, and the bindings ready to be cracked. Of course, knowing Fred and George, the bindings might still be ready to be cracked on those textbooks.
"Of course we saved our books, mum. We couldn't possibly get rid of them when we knew, you know, that they'd be needed wherever they could be gotten," Fred offered. She surveyed the letters once again as George looked over her shoulder. They looked at each other, nodded once strongly, and looked back at Ron. Molly was, for some reason, beaming at her youngest son despite the obvious news she had to deliver.
"Of course, there is one book we'll still have to get you, Ron, since you've decided on what NEWT level class you're taking and one of them wasn't in either Fred or George's schedule at all," Molly Weasley said, making Ron feel enormously guilty for being the one that they had to spend money on. "And then we'll go buy more ink and parchment. Oh and Ron, you're prefect again, darling. I'm so proud of you."
The twins made a coughing sound, which sounded terribly, like "Raise some hell," before continuing to take the piss out of their littlest brother.
"Another owl?" Ginny mused, as the family members turned their attention to a large, brown barn owl, gracefully gliding down from the sky and through the doorway onto George's shoulder. It was behaved, with every bit of decorum that should be inherent in a classy owl. Two guesses as to who might have sent it.
"Oh, eh? Were you looking for me? Two letters, you say?" George pretended to be speaking with the owl. "Well I'd be much obliged, oh no. I insist, I insist, you first, my good sir. You don't say. Curious!"
The owl became somewhat put off, looking at George as if he'd been experimenting with too many Wheezes again. The owl, who wore a necklace signifying that its name was Archimedes and it was a male owl, dropped two letters, one into George's hand, and the other into Mrs. Weasley's. Molly gave the bird a very impressed expression, and opened the letter in her hand. And smiled broadly.
"Well it looks as though Hermione has heard from the Daily Prophet about the situation in Diagon Alley…she says she is not surprised at all, considering the return of You-Know-Who…oh and she says to owl her back with Archimedes to tell her when we'll be going to Diagon Alley so that she might meet us there. And she also wants to know if Ron is still a Gryffindor prefect, well of course you are darling, why shouldn't you be?" Mrs. Weasley rapidly read the letter and then handed it to Ron and Ginny to muse over, as it had post-scripts addressed strictly to them.
In the meantime, George had placed Archimedes upon Fred's shoulder and snuck away. Miraculously, without being noticed. He closed the door to his bedroom, and leaned against the frame of the door. He opened the letter and pulled out a small card. Reading it, his heart was set a flutter, something that he had rarely ever felt before, and he felt his entire body blush. His toes even curled.
George,
I would be happy to help you and Fred in bookkeeping for 3W. Please write back with Archimedes, or Pigwidgeon, to let me know of a time when we can meet to discuss the particulars. Perhaps when we are all in Diagon Alley to purchase school things? I do hope you'll grace us with your presence.
Much Love,
Hermione
Much love. That, whether she meant it or not, was the part that made his toes curl.
(a.n.- all right, that's the first chapter! Please r/r.)
