Chapter one: Family Ties

The sun was rising slowly over Diagon Alley, bit by bit splashing glimmers of morning light onto the cobblestones where only a handful of witches and wizards walked. As early morning Prophet owls carried their charges, flying with a sort of puffed-up importance, to readers, a few scraggly birds also carried The Quibbler to and fro, while cats and frogs lazed in the beginning light of day.

In the door to the two story, newly restored Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes shop, an owl dropping off the day's Prophet hooted softly in greeting to the small gray owl that was flying directly inside to leave a letter. Up the stairs the small gray bird flew, carried, seemingly, on the morning breeze that flew through the shop, a benefit of bewitched windows. It searched around for a swatch of red hair—any sort, really—as it considered its direct orders not to leave until the letter was left with someone. Finally, the owl flapped down to a small woman, who, in sleep, had slumped to the large desk sometime the night before.

Not wanting the missive to be lost among the piles of papers around the tiny woman, the owl gently landed on her hunched shoulder and pecked carefully at her arm.

"Bugh arwf, yeuh sumpid ijyt," she moaned, and rolled her head to the other side. The owl, not bothered, kept tapping her arm lightly.

"Fred, George, get your arses out of here," she said, more coherently now that her mouth wasn't smothered by her sweater sleeve. Still, the pecking continued.

"Charlie, go the bloody eff away, pleeeeease," she moaned in her sleep, trailing off as the blasted annoyance continued.

"Bill, I swear, go to hell," she mumbled more vehemently as the ruddy tapping just would not stop.

"Ron, I will" tap "shove your" tap "effing wand" tap "up your bloody effing arse!"

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

"Oh my bloody hell!" she screamed, starting up from her makeshift bed, flinging her arms about and narrowly missing the now very frightened owl. "Oh, damn," she said, hazily processing the fact that it was an owl, and not a stupid sibling, that was the cause of her early morning annoyance. The owl, hooting his frustration, dropped the folded letter onto the desk and flew off through the open window.

Grumbling, she opened the parchment envelope to find her mother—for all intents and purposes—waiting inside.

Ginny, my only daughter, love of my heart,

If you are not at the house today on time, I will volunteer you to sit with
Ex-Minister Fudge in the Permanent Spell Damage ward at St. Mungo's...don't
think I won't, dearie. You be here by noon, no later, or the baby pictures may come
out.

All my love,
Mum

Ginny's head sprang up from the letter and her eyes flicked quickly to the useless clock that hung on the office wall. The hour hand was firmly stopped at Slacking off, but the skinny minute hand was sending it ever closer to Laziness on the twin's Procrastination timepiece. Sooooo...Ginny had to squint at the clock for a moment to get her bearings, let alone see what time it was.

"Slacking off..." Ginny said aloud, to no one in particular, "that's...oh, damn, it's only six o'clock. Why the heck did she send me that owl so early?" With a wince, Ginny turned around slowly and stared at the abysmal pile of files and accounts in which she was inexorably swamped, and feeling, at the same time, an extreme hate toward any and all of her brothers. But especially...

"Good moooooorning, Ginny my Ginny," said Fred (George?) as he bounded up the stairs to the Weasleys' office. One look at her face was apparently not enough for Fred (now it was definitely Fred), for he bounced spryly up to her right side, looking her closely in one eye, and then popped around to the left side, making her go slightly cross-eyed and woozy. "Late night, my darling sister?" His sly grin was meant to insinuate innocence, but Ginny was no idiot.

"Just once, Fred...just once, remember what I told you about quarters and how you need to keep everything organized and whatnot?"

"Oy, I remember that, Gin," George said, following his twin by a few minutes. "That was right before we slipped that Peppy la Peu Pop into your coffee and you talked like a hyperactive Frenchman for a day," he reminded her with a laugh.

"That was a memorable one, old chap," Fred agreed, patting George on the back like some pipe-using, smoking-jacket-wearing English colonel.

"Oh, you're only 30. Do shut up, old chap, and remind me why I took this job, before I leave you and your files forever?" The dangerous, woman-just- awakened glint in Ginny's eyes put the correct fear in the Weasley twins' eyes, for they both took a side of her and gently led her to the comfy sofa under the window.

"Now now, Ginny, I suppose mum's owl woke you up?" George said, conjuring up some steaming black coffee and slipping it into her hand. Ginny nodded, pouting into her coffee before slurping some quickly.

"We need you, Ginny," Fred pleaded, looking over her head to George with a desperate call for encouragement. "After all...you're quite the only reason that we stay sane!"

"And we still have all our recipes..."

"...quite intact, mind you..."

"And our body parts..."

"...not all quite intact, but that was George's fault, not yours, dearest,"

"And you make sure we make money,"

"...and I do love money, Gin, I do..."

"And...and...and..."

"You forgot the part about saving your immortal souls from mom," came Ginny's tired and rather small-sounding voice. Above her, Fred & George enthusiastically nodded.

"And for making you expand the shop to five places," she added, closing her eyes and breathing in the Arabica aroma of the coffee. More unseen nods came from the twins.

"And for making sure that the Ministry didn't notice any misuse of magic, or the times you tried it on 'deserving' muggles, or when you told mom that you were sick and you really skipped dinner because yo—"

"Yes, yes, we get it, Ginny," Fred interjected with a roll of his eyes.

"Quite right. Well, Fred, it looks like she's up to speed."

"Right well with it."

"I say, old chap--"

"Let's away."

And they did, leaving Ginny with a cup of coffee and, still, a seemingly unmanageable pile of paperwork on her desk.

"Well, if the boys can do it," she reminded the empty room, "I can too, damn it," and apparated on the spot.

With the tiny whoosh still ringing ever-so-slightly in her ears, Ginny landed in the middle of her flat's front room, brushing non-existent dust off of her sweater before she gazed lazily at her bedroom, then at the overstuffed couch, and back at the bedroom. Within a minute's time she had stripped down to her jeans and chemise and was snuggled deep into the couch, with every intention to sleep until the very last second possible.

6.19.04 / Regular disclaimers apply / Queen Anne