Author notes:

Nobody reviewed after my lost chapter! Nobody! You bad, bad readers, you! hmph.

This chapter is a bit better than the last, which was rather boring. And we get to see a lot of Weasleys.

10.Mothers...

With a quick look at eachother they jumped up and ran outside where they collided with a furious looking Mrs Weasley. She paid them no attention but stormed at the twins room, when she found the door locked she got even more angered.

"FRED! GEORGE!" She screeched, banging on the door, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!"

There fell a short silence as someone managed to shut Mrs Black up, while Mrs Weasley impatiently tapped her foot, glaring at the closed door.

Finally the door opened up a creak and a head was pushed through, followed by such an awful smell Harry quickly stepped back and covered his nose with his hand, fighting the urge to start puking. Hermione wasn't doing much better but Ron and Ginny were apparently used to it as their only reaction was a slight grimace.

Fred, or George, Harry couldn't tell as his face was covered with some sort of purplish root, said jovially to his mother, "hi mum!"

"DON'T YOU HI MUM ME!" Mrs Weasley screamed, "ARE YOU TRYING TO BLOW UP THE ENTIRE HOUSE! WHAT IF THE MUGGLES HEARD THAT BANG!"

"Bang?" Fred repeated, trying to look innocent and failing miserably, "what bang?"

Mrs Weasley looked ready to commit murder but at that moment an even louder "BANG!" echoed through the house shaking the walls and nearly rocking Harry off his feet. From the corner of his eye he saw Hermione falling into Ron, who promptly turned a violent shade of red.

"It worked!" Georges voice came from the room, just barely coming over Mrs Black renewed screeching.

"We did it!" His head appeared next to Fred and he blinked when he noticed his mother, "oh, hi mum."

The twins hastily stepped back when they saw their mothers expression. "Now mum," Fred gulped, "don't do anything rash."

Mrs Black fell silent again as Mrs Weasley closed her eyes and seemed to silently count to 10.

"You two are unbelievable," her voice was shaking slightly but she was no longer screaming and this, more than anything, seemed to frighten the twins.

"Your father and brothers are out there fighting You-Know-Who, risking their lives and their health and all you can think of are those stupid jokes! When are you two ever going to grow up? Those noises might have attracted the attention of the muggles, even the wards aren't fully capable to keep such loud sounds in. Did you ever stop to think about that?"

"We did put up a silencing charm on our room," George said defensively, and than a bit sheepishly, "I guess it didn't work."

"This isn't for some joke, mum," Fred said seriously, which was so out of character everybody stared at him.

"Yeah," George said, "we're actually trying to help the Order, or at least our family."

Fred dived back inside their room, giving Harry a glimpse of black rooted walls and purple tendrils of smoke floating at the ceiling before Fred returned and the door closed again.

Fred held up a length of what seemed to be brownleather.

"this is our new invention," Fred said, "we call it..." he paused dramatically and than he and George said simultaneous, "the Weasley protection super armor, the jumper that will save your live."

"This piece of cloth," Fred said.

"Can be fabricated into a fashionable jumper or jacket," George continued.

"It is designed to absorb and reflect nearly any offensive spell or hex."

"With this fancy little thing you no longer need to brush up your blocking skills."

"Get it now! Only 10 galleons for this lifesaving jacket."

"Unless you're a Weasley."

"Or a Granger, as she's practically married to Ron anyway."

"They're free of charges for the whole family."

"Except for Percy, 'cause he's a git."

"Absorb nearly any spell?" Hermione asked, "you mean like dragon-skin?"

The twins pulled indignant faces, "it's nothing like dragon-skin! That only absorbs part of a hex, so you still get hit only with less strength. With the Weasley protection super armor, or WPSA, the full force of the hex is absorbed and won't do any damage."

"The full force?" Hermione repeated, "I don't think that's is possible, especially not for that many hexes, every spell needs a different block to stop it. Did you test it?"

"Of course we tested it," Fred said insulted, "what did you think we were doing just now!"

"I mean, did you test it with real working offensive charms, those that death-eaters might use," Hermione said with more sharpness than she normally used when interrogating someone.

"Yes, Hermione, we did," George said just as sharply, "we're not some incompetent fools you know."

"Your silencing charm failed," she pointed out.

"Only because we were drunk at the time!"

"What do you mean you were drunk!" Mrs Weasley hotly demanded glaring at the twins.

"Drunk?" George squeaked, "did I say drunk? I meant... prank! We were playing pranks! The spell must have come out wrong because I was laughing so much."

"We can give a demonstration," Fred said, eager to change the subject, he wrapped the leather around George's torso and raised his wand.

"Petrificus totalus!"

But instead of George's chest the hex hit his head, causing him to stiffen and than slump sidewards.

"Oops," Fred grinned nervously at his glowering mother, "that was just to show you that I can indeed throw a decent spell."

He quickly used finitum on George, and ignoring his brothers complains tried again, this time hitting the leather.

Nothing happened.

"That's amazing," Hermione breathed, forgetting all about her earlier doubts, "what did you make it off?"

"Can't tell you that, Hermione, it's a secret formula."

"You said 'nearly' all spells," Ginny said, "I guess it doesn't work against the unforgivables?"

"We've tested every single hex we could think of," Fred said.

"Except the unforgivables," George added, "and some other dark spells we couldn't try out."

"Good thing you didn't," Mrs Weasley said briskly, "those are no spells you should ever use. One of the Order members can test it further I'm sure." Her gaze softened a bit, "I'm sorry for yelling at you two, even if it doesn't work against the unforgivables it's still an amazing feet you made this. It will certainly help all of us."

"Well that's a bit of a problem," Fred admitted, "there's something we need for the WPSA that is rather hard to get. We were lucky to get a whole load for a good price but if everybody in the family needs a complete suit there won't be anything left for the rest of the Order. We've already tried to find more but it seems nobody's got anything left of it."

"Everything alright there, mum? The twins making trouble again?" Bill grinned when his mother whirled around and gasped upon seeing him.

"Bill! You're finally back!" She rushed over to him but before she could embrace him she noticed the tired and crumpled looking man standing behind Bill.

"Arthur!" Mrs Weasley appeared breathless for a moment, but then she jumped forward and in one giant leap fell in her husbands arms, breaking down in big sobs that seemed to shake her entire body.

"You're back! You're back!" She cried in his chest, "I thought you were dead! oh thank Merlin! I thought you were dead!"

Harry glanced at Ron, Ginny and the twins who appeared just as stunned as he was by Mrs Weasley breakdown.

"What is she talking about?" Ron demanded Bill, "why would she think dad was dead, I though he was on some sort of mission for the Order?"

"I'll explain in the kitchen," Bill said, grinning at his father and mother who had now slided to the ground, Mr Weasley whispering nonsense in his wifes ear, "I think we better leave them alone for now."

For once the kitchen was filled with people, Harry recognized some of them from last year but most of them seemed to be new members. Tonks was trying to make tea while Charlie was trying to convince her not to. At the table sat a very shocked and pale looking professor McGonagall, but besides her everybody was looking rather happy and chattering madly about something, until they came in that is.

There fell a hushed silence as everybody stared at them.

"Can someone finally tell us what is going on!" Ron shouted, fed up with everything.

"Alright, people," Bill called, "time to leave."

One by one they all left, professor McGonagall gave Harry an intense unreadable look while walking past him, her normally tight bun was loose and her hair hang in greasy streaks in her face.

They all sat down at the table and stared expectantly at Bill.

"Dad really was on a mission, but something went terribly wrong. We could no longer contact dad and our own clock and Dumbeldore's instruments all stated he was dead." He told it all like he was simply talking about the weather and not the possible dead of his father. The other Weasleys all looked pale and shaken though.

"But he's not..." Ginny feeble protested.

Bill continued as if she didn't say anything, "that was a week ago, since then we've been trying to find out what went wrong and maybe locate dad's body."

Ron looked like he was going to sick up, "but he's not dead," he insisted, voice a little higher than normal.

"No, he's not dead, eventually we found him, alive and well, somehow our instruments were fooled."

"Why did nobody tell us this sooner?" George demanded, sounding actually a bit dangerous, "our father could be dead and nobody says anything!"

"Mum insisted you should not be told until we had proof that dad was really dead, she refused to believe it as long as she hadn't seen his body, she didn't want to worry you guys for nothing." Bill tried to explain, looking faintly apologizing, like he didn't really agree with her himself.

"Worry us for nothing?" Ron exclaimed, standing up with such a force his chair clattered on the floor, "it wasn't nothing! Mum thought dad was dead for a week and she just went on and pretended everything was fine! She treats us like we're little kids, we're not!"

"And George and I are of age, we would have joined the Order already if it wasn't for mum's constant fussing," Fred said, "we could have helped too!"

Bill sighed and rubbed his slightly dirty and unshaved chin, Harry only now noticed he looked really tired.

"Look, I know you would have liked to know, I would have too if the roles were reserved, but look at it this way: now you didn't have to go through an entire week thinking he was dead, you were all perfectly happy not knowing, it's no fun thinking someone you love is gone forever, trust me, I know."

This seemed to calm them down a bit, except Ron, who still looked furious and angrily kicked his fallen chair.

"Where did dad go to anyway?" Ginny asked, "what was he supposed to do?"

Bill hesitated slightly, "I'm not really supposed to tell."

At their glares he raised his hands in defense, "however, if you promise not to tell mum I think it is safe to give you some information. Dad was supposed to find a... some sort of weapon that might help in the fight against You-Know-Who. He... well, he didn't manage it obviously, he got into trouble and was locked up for a week, he wasn't hurt though so all in all he got rather lucky."

"What, the death-eaters didn't hurt him at all?" Ginny asked disbelieving.

"He wasn't captured by the death-eaters," Bill denied, "it was the...uhm... security system."

"The security system," George flatly repeated, "I'm getting the feeling you're deliberately being a bit vague about the whole thing, brother. Why can't you just tell us the whole story?"

Bill shifted uncomfortable on his chair and avoided their eyes.

"Yeah, why the big secrecy? It's not like we're going to run to You-, pardon me, Voldemort and play for tattle-tale." Fred added.

"Now, but some of you might run off and play for hero."

There fell a short silence after Bills words and Harry felt his stomach twist when he realized what he was talking about.

"I can't believe you just said that!" Hermione snapped, jumping up from her chair, "we never tried to 'play the hero', we were trying to save someone's life!"

"I know that, but you can't deny you guys end up in dangerous situations far too many times, and most of the time this is because of-"

Me, Harry thought miserably.

"you snooping around and finding out things you were never supposed to know, and always you try to solve it yourself instead of going to an adult for help. I don't want you to decide you can do better than dad and try and get that weapon yourself."

"We were just trying help!" Hermione said shrilly, "we never..."

Harry abruptly stood up and she fell silent, looking at him with big, worried eyes.

"I... I need to go. I need to go to the bathroom," Harry mumbled, hurrying out of the kitchen without looking at any of them.