Chapter 2: The Burrow

Harry speared another sausage with his fork and happily took a bite off it.

"Hungry are you?" Mrs. Weasley asked him with a smile on her face.

"Yes ma'am. This is really good."

"Oh, it's just ordinary food, dear. Nothing special."

Harry just smiled at her and continued eating; compared to the food at the Dursley's this was heavenly.

"Well, eat up dear you're looking far too thin as it is, there's plenty more where that came from." she said.

Mrs. Weasley started filling him up another plaid with food all the while muttering about muggles and starving the poor boy.

"You've done it now Harry," Ron laughed at him "she'll be fattening you up for the rest of the month."

"Yeah, by the time we go back to Hogwarts we'll have roll you onto the train!" laughed Fred.

"Maybe we should get him a second broom, his Nimbus 2000 might not be enough by then to lift him up in the air," said George.

"Splendid idea, Fred. We could tie them together, you know, one for each…"

"That's enough out of the two of you, Fred and George" Mrs Weasley interrupted "let the poor boy eat in peace or you'll be on degnoming duty faster then you can say Quidditch."

"Yes Mum" "Only joking, mum"

Harry had to fight off a smirk, the twins may be incorrigible pranksters but it seemed their mother knew exactly how to rein them in. Might make good teasing material if he ever needed them to back off a bit. His thoughts were interrupted when another redhead entered the kitchen.

"Mum… mummy, have you seen my jumper?"

The girl, whom Harry assumed was their sister Ginny that Ron had told him about, came to a jarring halt when she saw him sitting at the table. Not wanting to seem rude Harry decided to greet her and introduce himself.

"Hello, nice to…"

That was about as far as he got before the girl's face became as red as her hair, she squeaked, turned around and ran back upstairs as fast as her legs could carry her. Confused Harry turned to Ron and the twins.

"Don't mind her. She's just being shy. Quite a relief really, normally she wont ever shut up."

"Oh come now Ron, you know it's more then that!" said George.

"Yeah, she's been talking about young Harry here ever since we got back from school." Fred added.

"She has?"

"Oh yeah, she seems quite taken with you, Harry." George said with a wide grin.

"And why shouldn't she be, my fair twin? After all he's such a strapping young man!"

"Good at Quidditch too…"

"Fairly handsome if a little skinny…"

"But our dear mother will put some meat on his bones fairly quick…"

"So all in all it seems as if our dear little sister…"

"has a crush on you!" they both finished with identical gleeful grins.

This time it was Harry who was blushing. All three redheads had a good laugh at the mortified look on his face. Fortunately Harry was saved from any further embarrassment by the entrance of yet another redhead, who turned out to be Mr. Weasley.

Of course, Harry's luck didn't last long. Mr Weasley it seemed was fascinated with muggles and apparently he had the strangest ideas about some of the things they used. Harry was currently trying to explain to a somewhat bewildered Arthur Weasley that a rubber ducky was in fact a kind of child's toy and not some kind of mysterious hunting tool the muggles used on a duck hunt. Of course the occasional 'helpful' comment from the twins didn't help much.

Fortunately Mr Weasley went upstairs pretty quickly to rest after his busy night, leaving Harry to eat his breakfast relatively peacefully.

Ginny and Percy finally joined them a few minutes later, Ginny still blushing bright red. Harry tried his best to school his face in a pleasant but neutral look whenever she would knock something over or when she put her elbow in the butter dish, all the while desperately trying to ignore the sniggering from the younger Weasley brothers next to him or the occasional comment from one of the twins.

"Come on, Harry. Hurry up. We're going to set up a Quidditch game in the paddock, us against the twins."

"Oh no you don't, Ronald Weasley! Have you finished your homework yet?" asked Mrs Weasley, making an excited Ron come crashing back down to earth.

"MOM! Harry just got here. I can't do homework now! Harry would be bored without me. Besides I have a whole month to do it, that's plenty of time."

"Harry will enjoy himself just fine without you Ron and you already had a month to finish your homework. It's your own fault that you haven't yet."

"But…"

"NOW, Ronald Billius Weasley!"

Sighing Ron got up.

"Come on mate, the faster we finish this, the faster she'll let us play Quidditch."

"Err, sorry Ron but I've already finished mine. I did it the first week back." Harry said with a slight grimace.

"You have?" exclaimed an incredulous Ron.

"Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do so I did all my homework and even started reading some of our books for next year."

By now Ron's jaw was virtually hanging on the floor.

"Damn mate, I knew it was bad at the muggles but if I had known it was THAT bad…"

"Ron! Language! And there's nothing wrong with wanting to do well in school. You'd do well in studying a bit more as well, like Harry here and that nice Hermione girl you told me about."

Ron meanwhile seemed to have lost all cognitive ability and just stared in horror at his mother. Finally he seemed to shake himself out of his stupor and trudged upstairs, knowing better then to argue with his mother when she was like this.

The twins and Ginny were laughing at Ron's slumped shoulders as he made his way upstairs, wishing him well with all his homework on such a sunny day while they would be playing outside. Harry couldn't keep a smile off his face as he watched his friend walk upstairs as if walking to his doom.

Mrs Weasley though had other plans and now that Ron was gone she turned on her next victims, the twins.

"Don't think the two of you are getting away that easily, Fred and George Weasley! You'll be doing your homework as well before going off playing Quidditch."

"No worries mom, we're nearly finished with ours." Fred quickly replied.

"Yeah, we're just waiting for Lee to send back a book he borrowed to finish our Charms homework." George added.

Mrs Weasley looked suspiciously at the twins for a moment before seeming mollified and returning to cleaning up the breakfast table. Harry sensing an opportunity to deliver some payback for all the teasing during breakfast, quickly adopted an innocent expression.

"But last night in the car you said…" Harry trailed off, shooting a guilty look at Mrs Weasley.

Mrs Weasley whirled around.

"WHAT! Upstairs RIGHT NOW, both of you! And don't even think about coming downstairs until your finished! GO! Of all the… The two of you will be degnoming the garden for the rest of the summer if you don't get up there right now and start doing your homework!"

"What? But mom…"

"Mom, he's…"

"NOW!"

The twins were up in a flash and half running towards the stairs. When they looked back for a moment, Harry innocently waved at them, mouthing 'Have fun' to them. Behind him Ginny was giggling furiously and even Percy had a slight smirk on his face.

'No wonder the twins like pranks so much. This is fun,' Harry thought to himself. ' I'm definitely going to pull a few pranks this year and I can already think of the perfect victims.'

Mrs Weasley went back to cleaning the kitchen and Percy went back upstairs muttering something about having to write an important letter. This left just Harry and Ginny.

"So, would you mind showing me around a bit?" Harry asked cautiously, hoping to bring her out of her shell a bit.

Ginny who had still been laughing at the twins, went still and looked at him with wide eyes. The by now familiar blush creeping up her face.

"Oh go on you two. Go outside and have some fun. No point in sitting inside on such a beautiful day. I'll call you when lunch is ready"

Ginny shot a betrayed look at her mother before timidly leading Harry outside. Harry sighed and followed her out. Hopefully she would get over her embarrassment pretty soon otherwise it was going to be a long couple of hours. From what Ron had told him she was actually pretty fun to be around, he just had to find a way to get her to actually talk to him instead of just squeaking and blushing.

Fortunately after a few hours she had loosened up a bit and was keeping Harry rolling on the ground with laughter by telling all sorts of embarrassing stories about her brothers. Ron had been right, Harry decided that night when he was laying on the spare bed in Ron's room, Ginny was a lot of fun once she relaxed a bit around him.

August 12 they finally received their Hogwarts letters. Their new defence teacher really seemed to like this Lockhart chap by the look of their booklists. All thoughts about school were quickly pushed aside though by the prospect of Quidditch. Today Ron and the twins had finally completed their homework to the satisfaction of Mrs Weasley and were therefore allowed to play Quidditch. Harry and Ginny shot each other sly winks, they had been practising some plays together that they couldn't wait to try out on the others. Over the past week they had become friends and Ginny seemed more relaxed around Harry now although she still blushed quite a bit whenever he stood close to her.

The following week they went to Diagon Alley for the day to buy their supplies. Ron and Harry had received a letter from Hermione stating that she too was coming to buy her supplies that day and both boys were anxious to see there friend again.
After some initial trouble, Harry landing in Knockturn Alley, they met up with the Granger family at the entrance of Gringotts. Hermione had been ecstatic to see them again and soon they were happily chatting away about everything they did this summer. When Ron mentioned Harry's new work ethic Hermione had positively beamed at him.

In Flourish & Blotts they finally learned why they were forced to buy all the books from Gilderoy Lockhart. The boys had all rolled their eyes at each other after hearing the prat proudly announce that he was to be their new DADA professor. They had left the shop as soon as possible, running into Lucius Malfoy on the way out. It was a very tired yet relieved Weasley family plus two that stumbled out of the fireplace that evening.

On the evening of August 31st the whole family was sitting in the living room enjoying their last night of the holidays after a veritable feast from the hands of Mrs Weasley and an amazing fireworks display from the twins. Harry sighed contently from the couch upon which he sat and looked over at his friends. Ron and Hermione were once again arguing over something while playing chess, Harry silently laughed and looked over at Ginny. She looked up as she felt his eyes on her and he gave nod towards the arguing couple with a slight smile. Ginny however didn't return his smile, instead she blushed and went back to writing in her diary. Harry gave another sigh at that. Ever since their trip to Diagon Alley she seemed to have reverted back to blushing and stammering whenever he spoke to her.

He glanced at the twins who were hunched over a scroll of parchment next to the fire, whispering furiously at each other. Mrs Weasley was dividing her attention between her knitting and shooting suspicious glances at the twins. A movement by the door drew his attention and he barely kept from groaning out loud. Every evening Mr Weasley would approach him with one his muggle device for Harry to explain. It wasn't as if he really minded but Mr Weasley it seemed had a rather eclectic collection of muggle technology and absolutely no idea what any of them did.

"Ah Harry my boy, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?"

"Arthur, leave the poor boy alone. It's his last night here. Don't go bothering him with your toys now."

Seeing Mr Weasley's hopeful face though Harry couldn't turn the kind man away.

"It's alright, Mrs Weasley, I don't mind."

Mr Weasley beamed at him and proudly showed him his latest muggle collectable.

"I got it from one our raids last week. A chap named Vulvos had it. I think it's some kind of muggle massage machine. See, you have to put batteries in here and…Harry? Are you alright?"

Harry had nearly fainted from shock when he had seen Mr Weasley's new device. When he had started explaining what he had discovered about it so far, Harry had started edging away from him as quietly as possible.

"Euhm…Mr Weasley, I…I think that…erhh that is… Hermione might be better at explaining this. Yeah, that's it, hermione!"

Confused Mr Weasley turned to question Hermione about the little buzzing device. When she saw what it was however she blushed bright red and began stammering. By now everyone in the room was watching them, interested in why such a harmless looking thing seemed to have such a forceful reaction from the two teens. Completely bewildered now, Mr Weasley turned to Harry again.

"Well, do you at least now what it's called, Harry? I have to add it to Vulvos' file on Monday."

Mortified Harry continued to edge towards the stairs.

"It's..erhh…a vibrator, sir."

Then he rushed upstairs as if Voldemort himself was chasing after him, Hermione following directly behind him leaving a very confused wizarding family behind.