Samantha leapt up and walked silently to the window. There was, indeed, a flying car hovering outside. Inside were three boys she recognized at once. Ron, Fred, and George Weasley.
"What're you guys doing here?!" she asked excitedly through the bars.
"We're here to pick you up, of course!" Ron answered. "Harry hasn't been answering any of my letters, and we decided to come check it out."
"Hold on, I'll wake them up," Samantha said.
She stepped to Lauren first and shook her lightly.
"What?" Lauren groaned softly.
"Our friends are here to get us," Samantha whispered.
Lauren sat straight up. "What?" she asked louder, and her eyes widened to giant circles when she saw Ron hovering in midair.
"Ron, this is my sister Lauren. Lauren, this is Ron Weasley, he's in Harry's year, and these are Fred and George Weasley, they're in the year above me," Samantha introduced.
"Nice to meet you, Lauren," Fred said.
"You too," Lauren said uncertainly.
"Harry, wake up!" Samantha said, and Harry tiredly rolled over. "Look who's here!"
"Ron! What- how-?" Harry said, and the three siblings came to the window.
"I've invited you all to stay about twelve times and no response, so we came to get you," Ron answered.
"But how? You can't do magic-," Harry protested.
"Do you not realize who's with me?" Ron asked, and Fred and George waved from the front seat.
"Tie that around the bars," Fred instructed, throwing a rope to Samantha, "then stand back."
Samantha did as told, and once it was securely tied and the siblings were standing far enough back, Fred steered the car away and pulled the bars right out of the window.
Samantha grinned widely. "Our school stuff is downstairs, in the closet underneath the stairs" she told the twins.
"No problem," George said.
"Out of the way," Fred said, and the twins climbed through the window and into the bedroom.
Using bobby pins, they picked at the lock until it clicked open.
Samantha and Harry followed Fred and George down the stairs and helped them get their trunks out of the closet. They carried them back up the stairs and passed them carefully into the car.
Samantha, Harry, and Lauren then rushed around the room for clothes and other things. Samantha got Athena into the car then helped Lauren in. There was a loud screech.
"THAT RUDDY OWL!" Uncle Vernon cried.
"Hedwig!" Harry cried, and dashed back for her. He passed her into the car and was almost all the way in when Uncle Vernon hammered on the unlocked door and it crashed open.
Not stopping to look behind her, Samantha started climbing through the window as well, but she suddenly felt someone grab onto her ankle.
Samantha kicked as hard as she could and the Weasleys pulled on her.
"Petunia! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!" Vernon called.
Petunia and Dudley came rushing into the room, but too late. Samantha had broken free of her uncle's grasp and was now sitting safely in the car with the Weasleys.
"See you next summer!" she yelled as they flew away. Samantha, Harry, and Lauren all sat grinning.
"Can we let the owls out? It's been weeks," Harry suggested. George took the cages and began to work on the locks. The owls were set free and flew along next to the car.
"So what's been going on?" Ron asked.
The siblings began telling the story of Dobby, and then of the Masons.
"Fishy," Fred said once they finished.
"Definitely dodgy," George agreed.
"So he didn't tell you who was doing these terrible things?" Fred asked.
"He kept banging his head on things whenever he got close to it," Lauren said.
"You don't think he was lying, do you?" Harry asked.
"House elves have very powerful magic, but they can't usually use it without permission of their master," George explained.
"So Dobby could've been sent to stop us from returning to Hogwarts?" Samantha asked.
"Possibly," Fred said.
"He seemed genuine, though," Lauren protested.
"Who knows. Can you think of anyone with a grudge against you, that might want you all to not return to Hogwarts?" George asked.
"Draco Malfoy," Ron and Harry said together.
"Not Lucius Malfoy's son?" asked Fred.
"That's the one," Samantha nodded.
"Big supporter of You-Know-Who, that one," Fred told them.
"Once he fell, though, he claimed he'd been under the Imperius Curse the whole time," George said. "Load of dung, though. Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle."
"So I've heard," Samantha said under her breath, recalling her first conversation with Bella.
"Anyways, I'm glad we came to get you. I knew something was wrong when you weren't answering my letters, Harry. At first I thought it was Errol's fault-," Ron said.
"Who's Errol?" Harry asked.
"The family owl. Ancient, he is," Fred answered.
"So then I tried to borrow Hermes-," Ron continued.
"Who?"
"Percy's owl he got for being made Prefect," George explained.
"Oh, Hermes, that's clever," said Samantha.
"What?" questioned Harry.
"Hermes is the Greek God messenger, he's the one that would go between the Gods and the humans," Samantha explained.
"Oh," Harry said.
"Well, Percy said no, told me he needed him," Ron said.
"He's been acting strange all summer," George commented. "Sending a lot of letters and spending all day shut up in his room, there's only so many times you can polish a Prefect badge... you're driving too far west, Fred."
The conversation then turned to the Weasleys' father and his job at the Ministry.
Soon enough, they were almost at the Weasley's house.
"We're just outside the village, Ottery St. Catchpole," George said.
Samantha was fairly certain she'd heard that before, but was not sure where.
"Do other wizarding families live near here?" Samantha asked.
"Oh, yeah. A few do. Let's see... the Lovegoods, the Diggorys, the Fawcetts, and..." Fred said, trailing off.
"The Langberts," George finished for him.
Samantha almost choked. "Max and Margot live around here?" she asked.
"Yeah, just five minutes away," Fred answered.
"Could I visit them, then?" asked Samantha.
"Probably," George shrugged.
They were then pulling up to the house, and the sun was starting to rise.
"Touchdown," Fred said, and the car landed on the ground with a slight bump.
Samantha looked up a t the house. It was large, many stories tall. Rooms looked like they had been randomly added on at times, to accommodate for the nine inhabitants.
"It's not much," Ron said, "but it's home."
"It's wonderful," Harry said.
He was right. It looked very homey, and Samantha could only imagine how glorious it must be inside.
"Come on, I sleep on the top-," Ron started, then turned a pale green color.
Marching up from the house was a red headed, plump, motherly lady who looked remarkably like a saber toothed tiger.
"Oh dear," George said.
"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" Mrs. Weasley asked.
Sorry, Mum, but we had t-"
"Beds empty! No note! Car gone- could have crashed- out of m mind with worry- did you care? Never, as long as I've lived- you wait until your father gets home, we've never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy-" Mrs. Weasley cried.
"Perfect Percy," George muttered.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley. "You could've died, you could've been seen, you could've lost your father his job-"
She yelled at the boys for hours until she finally turned to Harry, Lauren, and Samantha. "Very nice to see you, come inside," she said.
"Oh, Mrs. Weasley, this is our sister Lauren," Samantha said as she followed Mrs. Weasley inside the house.
"Oh, Lauren, nice to meet you," Mrs. Weasley said. "I'm their mum."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Weasley," Lauren said softly.
The three of them sat at the table in the kitchen while Mrs. Weasley prepared breakfast. Samantha stared around at all of the magical items in the house. There were many unfamiliar cookbooks and magazines.
The six of them sat silently at the table, listening to Mrs. Weasley mutter about how irresponsible the boys were.
A few moments later, a small girl with fiery red hair in a nightgown ran into the room, saw Harry, squealed, and ran back out.
"Ginny," Ron said. "My sister. Been talking about you all summer."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph," Fred added.
"Ginny's starting Hogwarts this year, right?" Samantha asked.
"Yeah," George nodded.
"She'll be in the same year as Lauren."
"Oh, that'll be nice," Mrs. Weasley said. "You can get to know her beforehand, then you'll be familiar with someone your own age already."
Lauren just nodded.
After breakfast, Mrs. Weasley made her sons degnome the garden. Samantha, Lauren, and Harry followed, curious on what de-gnoming was.
Gnomes turned out not to be the cute things Muggles put in their yards, but instead mean, nasty things that swore at you and tried to bite you. You had to fling them over the fence by spinning them around.
They went back inside, and a few minutes later, a man walked in. He was tall, thin, and balding, but his hair was just as bright red as his children's.
He and Mrs. Weasley began talking about his shift, and it wasn't until he was getting coffee that he spoke to Harry, Samantha, or Lauren.
As he filled up his cup, he glanced out of the side of his eye, and said a half-hearted "Good morning, Ginny."
Lauren froze for a second. "I'm not Ginny," she said.
Mr. Weasley looked up and did a double take. "Oh, blimey, sorry," he apologized, and then his eyes landed on Harry. "My goodness, you must be Harry Potter!" he said "How did you-?"
"Your sons flew the car to retrieve them from their aunt and uncle's house last night," Mrs. Weasley said angrily.
"Did it work?" he asked eagerly, but caught his wife's eye and coughed before saying, "I mean, that was very irresponsible of you, boys," he added sternly.
They argued with the twins for a little while on this while the kids sat awkwardly listening, before Mrs. Weasley told them of their room arrangements.
"Alright girls, you can either share our oldest son Bill's old room, or one of you can have that room and the other have our other son Charlie's room. Harry, you can stay in Ron's room", Mrs. Weasley said.
"Let's stay together," Samantha told Lauren, who nodded.
"Take Bill's room then, it's bigger. There's already two beds in there. It's just up the stairs, first door to the left," Mrs. Weasley said.
"Our trunks are still in the car," Samantha said.
After getting their trunks inside to the room where they'd be staying and thanking the Weasleys for letting them stay there Samantha and Lauren sat down on their beds, looking around the room.
Bill's room was tidy, but whether that was because he kept it that way or because he no longer lived there was a mystery. There was a desk in the corner and a dresser next to it. The whole room felt unmistakably cool, the only word Samantha could think of to describe it. The bedsheets were plain blue, and there were a few advanced-looking spell books on the dresser, complete with one Quidditch poster hanging on the wall.
Life at the Burrow was as different as could be from life at Privet Drive. For one, they were surrounded by magic. The ghoul in the attic liked to drop things whenever it pleased, and the mirror in the kitchen spoke, telling Lauren to smooth her hair one morning. For another, no one treated them as outsiders. They were part of the family, despite having no blood relation to them.
Lauren became close to Ginny, and the girls visited the Fawcett family a few times, who also had a daughter named Sarah that was starting Hogwarts that year. Sarah had very dark red hair that almost looked brown which was very curly and frizzy, dark brown eyes, lots of freckles, and very square teeth.
Samantha went by Max's a few times. The first visit had been extra fun. George had told her which house belonged to them, and she had gone on her own. Max had gotten a real shock when he opened the door, and they'd talked all about their summers so far.
"He put bars on the windows?! Samantha, you were literally living in a jail cell! You're coming to my house right away next summer, no questions asked," Max told her.
"I can't possibly do that!" Samantha told him. "I need to stay with my siblings."
"They can stay here too!" Max insisted.
"That'd be far too much to ask. No, we'll suffer through the Dursleys again, we'll live. We'll get out of there sooner, though. And no one is locking us in our rooms next year, I'll make sure of it," Samantha replied.
Max came over to the Weasley's house for dinner a few times too, as did Sarah. Margot joined them a few times (Samantha noticed George was especially interested in her), and so did Emilie, Sarah's little sister.
A few mornings later, Mrs. Weasley announced they would be going to Diagon Alley next Wednesday.
"Have you got all of Lockhart's books on your lists, too?" Fred asked Samantha at breakfast.
"Oh, yeah, I have," Samantha answered.
"New Defense teacher must be a fan," George commented. "That lot won't come cheap though..." he added, with a quick glance at his mother.
"We'll manage," she said, but she looked worried.
After breakfast, Samantha wrote everyone explaining their plans to go to Diagon Alley, and Ron and Harry wrote Hermione. Lauren and Ginny got Sarah's parents to allow it, and Max's parents let him and Margot go along as well.
A few days later, Samantha got responses from everyone. Damon said he'd already gone, while Connor said he was on vacation and unable to make it. Hudson's dad had to work and Ellie had made plans to go with her friends Sapphire and Kirsty, but Leslie, Bella, and Elias were able to go, and so was Hermione.
The ten of them (Fred, George, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Samantha, Lauren, Max, Margot, and Sarah) played Quidditch together that weekend. Although Lauren didn't have a broom, she was able to borrow one from Max and Margot.
That Wednesday, Mrs. Weasley woke them up early. They ate a quick breakfast before all gathering around the fireplace. Max, Margot, and Sarah and her mum were going to meet them there.
"Well, guests first," Mrs. Weasley said, holding out a pot of powder to Harry.
"Er- what?" Harry asked.
"Oh, they've never traveled by Floo Powder before!" Ron burst out suddenly.
"What? How did you get there last year?" Mrs. Weasley asked.
"The Underground, then the Muggle Entrance," Samantha explained.
"Really?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Well, if you've never used it before, maybe not..." Mrs. Weasley said hesitantly.
"We'll be fine, Mrs. Weasley," Samantha assured her.
"Alright..." she agreed. "Just watch Fred and George."
Fred took a pinch of the powder and threw it into the fire. He stepped in, said "Diagon Alley," and disappeared.
George went next, doing the exact same thing.
"Alright, Samantha, dear, how about you go next?" Mrs. Weasley suggested. "Speak very clearly."
Samantha took a pinch of the powder. Carefully, she dropped it in the fire. She stepped forward, careful not to get ash in her nose or mouth, and said "Diagon Alley."
She was spinning, spinning, spinning, and then she wasn't, and she was falling out of a fireplace. She caught herself with her hands just before she plummeted face-first into the ground. She was very thankful her glasses didn't break. She straightened up and saw Fred and George.
"Glad ya made it," Fred said, brushing some ash off of her.
"Glad to be here," Samantha replied.
They waited a few minutes, and then Lauren came spinning out. She coughed a little before looking at them. "Where's Harry?" she asked.
Samantha froze. "What?"