A/N: Thanks to Hope-W, The Chaos Legionnaire, and Pan626 for the reviews!
The Chaos Legionnaire: I agree with you on breaking the Statute of Secrecy, although I think that along with Potter and Muggleborns, enterprising purebloods might do it if they thought it was in their favor.
Disclaimer: I do not in any shape, form, or fashion own Harry Potter.
Chapter 1: Another Day in the Life
BOOM!
The floor shook with the force of the explosion and Roxanne had to move quickly to keep her books from falling off the table.
"ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!" Aunt Ginny's magnified voice pierced even the sound dulling charm Roxanne had used on the room. "JAMES SIRIUS POTTER! TEDDY LUPIN! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!"
Roxanne sighed. It was the end of winter holiday and it seemed that her cousins were still going strong.
Another explosion shook the floor.
"Ron, HARRY?" Her Gran sounded incredulous.
The door opened and shut quickly and one of her older cousins vaulted over the bed and huddled next to the table and wall where Roxanne was sitting.
"Don't rat me out." Rose hissed as she hunkered lower so her bushy red hair wouldn't be seen over the bed.
Roxanne crossed her legs and tapped her quill against the table. "What's in it for me?"
Rose's blue eyes narrowed. "I won't tell Fred what happened to his new broom."
"I already took care of it. Next?" The accident with Fred's broom had been Alcy's fault, not hers. Normally she would have kept quiet about it but Rose had witnessed it so she had quickly told her twin to keep Rose from trying to do this exact thing.
"You told him?" Rose whispered, incredulously. "And he did nothing?"
"Clearly." Roxanne ended the sound dulling spell and they both could hear their Gran and aunt's calls for Rose getting closer. "So what do I get out of this?"
"You are impossible." Rose glared at her.
Roxanne smiled brightly. "I'm a Weasley."
Their eyes clashed, blue versus hazel.
Footsteps stomped towards them.
Rose gritted her teeth. "Fine. You can have my new quill."
"The ebony eagle feather one."
"Yes." Rose snapped.
The door opened and Aunt Ginny poked her head in. "Roxie? Have you seen Rose?"
Roxanne looked over at her. "No. Why? She have something to do with that bang?"
Her aunt snorted and rubbed her head. "Yep. We caught the boys and they all implicated her."
"They talked?" So much for family loyalty. Roxanne resisted smirking over at the now scowling Rose.
"Two of the kitchen walls are gone and there's a hole in the ceiling. Percy almost fell through." Ginny shook her head.
"What did Uncle Ron and Harry ha-"
Ginny cut her off with a raised hand and closed her eyes. "Do not mention them to me right now." She took a deep breath.
"Sorry aunt Ginny."
"It's not your fault that the men in this family still think they're children."
"But dad wasn't involved?" That was surprising. Explosions that destroyed parts of the house? That was right up her father's alley and why her mother had banned him from doing any experimentation on the property, even 'easy ones'.
"No. And thank Merlin for small miracles. Let me know if you see her." Ginny left.
A few seconds later, she could hear her aunt heading up on the staircase.
Rose let out a breath and stood up. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." Roxanne turned back to her project. "I expect that quill by tonight."
"You'll get it." The older redhead witch stretched then took out her wand and muttered a standard see me not spell. "Mercenary Slytherin."
"Don't be jealous."
Rose made a face at her, and then slipped out of the room.
Roxanne went back to her studies.
Another typical day at the Burrow.
O O O
"How are you understanding this?" Fred asked Roxanne an hour later.
They were finishing up their homework in the sitting room. Winter vacation would be over in three days and Roxanne didn't want to play catch up on the last day.
Her brother dropped his Potions book in disgust and ran both his hands through his curly auburn hair. "There's no logic to it at all."
"There's plenty of logic to it." Roxanne leaned over his shoulder and peered at his work. "You just keep on mixing up the stirring directions. If you keep them straight, it-"
"It still makes no sense. In all other sensory potions, you add moonflower first, diced. In this it wants it to be mixed in chopped, last." Lorcan Scamander complained. "And Professor Bulstrode's notes are a joke even for her."
"You just don't pay attention." His brother, Lysander, sniffed. "I get it."
"That's because you're a know-it-all like Roxie." Fred said. "Regular folk have to work twice as hard."
"Oh, I'm a know-it-all, Mr. 'Completely destroyed the curve in Charms'?" Lysander asked. "Everybody else gets a T, but not Mr. 'My father invents these for a living', no, he gets an O."
"I never said that I was regular folk, I just said that I wasn't a know-it-all." Her twin grinned.
Lysander responded by throwing a chocolate frog wrapper at him.
Fred ducked and threw a book at him.
Lysander fell out of his chair trying to avoid it. His chair quivered, then fell on top of him.
Roxanne, Fred, and Lorcan burst out laughing.
"What's going on in here?"
The boy standing in the doorway had bright hair the same color as his sister, normally solemn brown eyes, and slightly large front teeth. Hugo, another of her cousins from the Weasley brood.
"Potions' discussion." Roxanne answered.
"The Bull must have changed her curriculum because I don't remember any potions this fun from third year." Hugo straightened Lysander's chair and sat on it. "All the fun potions are next year for you guys."
"Fun and potions don't belong in the same sentence." The petite girl who walked in shared the same hair color as Hugo, but her eyes were a hazel slightly darker than Roxanne's. "The Bull has it out for me, I swear!" She dramatically threw herself onto the couch next to the table they were all sitting at.
"The Bull hates everyone equally, Lil." Roxanne joined in the communal rolling of the eyes.
Lily Potter was a drama queen of the highest order. Everything was about her or because of her or linked to her somehow in the youngest Potter's mind. Her cousins and brothers enjoyed proving her wrong.
"But she made me do an extra five inches on my last essay. Five! Do you guys know that I almost missed Quidditch practice for the big game. Imagine!" Lily shuddered in horror. "Our second string is Singh and he's nothing compared to me."
"So Gryffindor would have lost by 300 points instead of 200?" Lysander stood up and high-fived a chuckling Lorcan.
"Didn't we agree that talk about the Gryffindor Ravenclaw match was off limits this vacation?" Fred frowned at them and crossed his arms.
"I distinctly remember agreeing to that on the train." Hugo added with a glare at the smirking twins.
Roxie suppressed a grin of her own. The House Quidditch teams were neck and neck for the Cup, and the Gryffindor Ravenclaw game had been one of the first of the champion deciding games. Gryffindor had won the Cup last year and this year the rest of the school was rooting against them.
"So now that the shoes on the other foot, it pinches doesn't it?" Lysander and Lorcan asked, their blonde heads cocked to the side, mouths moving in unison.
"Shut it." Fred's dark eyes narrowed. There were a few ways to get her normally fun loving brother riled and angry and mentioning any of his Quidditch losses was one of them.
"Get used to it," Roxanne poked him in the shoulder. "Hufflepuff is gonna get destroyed by us."
"Hell yeah." Lorcan held his hand out to her and she gave him five. "Slytherin is going all the way."
"Agh!"
They all looked to the door to see her eldest Potter cousin, James, holding his ears as if he were in pain. "No! The Burrow has been infiltrated with snakes!" He leaned back out the door. "Help! Serpents have invaded our home!"
"I know!" Her uncle Ron yelled back.
"Deal with it!" Her aunt Ginny screamed.
James put his hands on his hips and pouted. He filled the doorway, tall and muscular from years of quidditch and physical activity (namely running from those he'd pranked). His messy red hair, bright brown eyes, and full lips were the reason that he had been on Witch Weekly's most eligible bachelor's list since he'd graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago.
"Why am I the only one concerned with the outbreak of snakes? Al was bad enough. And Rose seems determined to be infested." His face hardened for a second and Roxanne knew he was thinking about their cousin's on-off boyfriend Scorpius Malfoy who was as Slytherin as they came. "And you Roxie! You!"
Roxanne shrugged. The sorting hat had been on her head for all of five seconds, barely settling on her braids, before it had declared Slytherin before the entire school. It wasn't as shocking as it had been when Al had been sorted four years before her, but she'd still gotten looks for being the first Weasley to join the house of serpents in over a hundred years. Her father and uncles had tried to say it was the first Weasley ever, but she and Alcy had looked it up and discovered that Tiberius Weasley, her great great great grandfather had worn green and silver.
"I'm still getting over it." Fred said with a mock glare at her, his anger at the thought of anything besides a Gryffindor victory diverted. "Weasleys are red and gold."
"Ahem." Rose pushed James out of the entrance. "Weasleys are whatever they want to be, youngling." Rose, who took after her mother in dedication to studying if not temperament, was in Ravenclaw.
Roxanne leaned back in her chair. "Agreed. You have something for me?"
"Merc." Rose tossed the quill at her head with her Chaser's arm.
She caught it between two fingers before it pierced her forehead.
"Show off." The older girl shook her head, her bushy auburn hair gaining gravity as she did so despite the hair tie valiantly trying to keep it back.
"See, that's why you'd been a shoe in on the house team," Lorcan said. "I mean, Higgs is good, but your reflexes are on another level. Malfoy all but said you'd be first string Seeker if you tried out."
"She couldn't bear to compete against me." Fred bragged. "My skill is legend."
"For failure, as exhibited by the Ra-" Roxie was cut off by her brother's hand.
"I told you. We do not speak of it." Her twin's tone was earnest.
She pulled his hand off her mouth. "Just because you had a bad night…"
"Bad?" Rose snorted. "Up in Ravenclaw we were trying to figure out if you were awake."
"I still think that Thomas hexed the snitch." Hugo said, voicing one of many complaints that Roxanne had heard about the game. "There is no way that that was natural."
"And Finch-Fletchley always cheats. Remember that Hufflepuff game?" Lily held her hands up. "And the blatant wand use! Blatant. He hexed Corner so badly that he flew into the stands."
"Such sore losers." Lysander said in mock sympathy. "Drew doesn't do anything that the rest of you jocks aren't doing."
"Remember your third year, Lily? Gryffindor Slytherin match, that ring any bells?" Rose sat on the arm of the couch and looked down on her fellow flower named witch. "Davies mysteriously getting hit by a Bat Bogey Hex and missing a save?"
Lily bit her lip and tried to look innocent. "What game?"
"You robbed us." Roxie remembered that game; it was during her first year and first experience juggling House loyalty against family loyalty. That game House loyalty had definitely won. "We would have won."
"And instead, you handed the Cup to Hufflepuff." Lorcan said in disgust.
"How was I supposed to know that Ravenclaw would lose?" Lily abandoned her play at ignorance. "There was a one in a million chance of that happening! Bradley's next to useless all season and then in the one game that matters, he's suddenly pulling off Wronksi Feints like nobody's business! I still think that he used a potion."
"Again you go, accusing somebody else of cheating." Rose poked the younger witch in the arm. "Though we also believe that Bradley used a potion. Course, no one would fess up to it."
"Hufflepuffs," they all chorused with much shaking of the head.
It wasn't that they didn't like Hufflepuffs, it was that they didn't understand them most of the time and that included the sole Hufflepuff of the family, their cousin Lucy.
"I will say though," Roxie conceded as she thought about it. "Their code of silence is admirable." Hufflepuffs stood by their own, no matter what. Slytherins did so too, but within reason.
"Yeah." Lorcan nodded. "And the way they do it so instinctively too."
There was another mass shaking of heads, this time directed at Roxie and her fellow Slytherin.
"So were you guys actually trying to get work done before we came in?" Rose motioned to the books and parchment on the table.
"Potions." Fred brandished his text at her. "You willing to lend a hand?"
Rose snorted. "Merlin, no. If not for mum, I would have dropped that class sixth year."
"It's not that hard." Roxanne protested. "And we're not even doing the complicated stuff!" It amazed her at how slow her family and friends could be sometimes.
"We're not even doing the complicated stuff!" Fred mimicked in a high falsetto. "Are you human?"
"If I'm not, you aren't either." She snapped back.
"We're not identical. So different, you know, eggs. So we don't have to be the same."
"But the eggs are still from the same source as was the seed. Therefore if-"
"Stop!" Lily covered her eyes. "You two always find the most disgusting things to argue about."
"Disgusting?" James shared a look with Rose. "I hate to break this to you Lil, but when a man and a woman love-"
"That's it." Lily jumped to her feet and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I can't deal with you guys teasing me. Quidditch outside. Now." She stalked out.
Fred was up in a second and after her. "Yes, yes. I call seeker."
"Chaser!" Rose called.
"Me too." James put an arm over Rose's shoulder and they walked out together.
Hugo shrugged and followed them. The twins left next.
Roxanne resisted the urge to pout. If she went outside, she knew that she wouldn't get any work done for the rest of the day. Her family had a way of sucking people in and not letting them escape. But at the same time… it was vacation, and she didn't get to spend a lot of time with them at school, and she practically never saw James anymore…
She let the pout escape, but she put away her notes and books. It wouldn't hurt to play one game (which she knew would morph into two, then three, then best out of five) and she could ask aunt Hermione about her project when they were finished, then her day wouldn't be wasted.
Lorcan was leaning against the wall next to the living room when she walked into the hall, waiting for her she assumed until she heard the voices. People were arguing in the living room, she recognized the voices of her aunts, uncles, and parents. Lorcan raised a finger to his lips as she stopped next to him and she heard his mother's spacey voice too.
"This is not going to die out this time." Aunt Luna's voice was abnormally firm. "Nargles have been collecting everywhere and Rolf has noticed that the Digtmrings are mating out of season."
"Stay on topic Luna! This has nothing to do with your nonsensical beasts." Her aunt Hermione snapped in her no nonsense manner. Roxie's eyebrows raised, still it was uncharacteristic of her favorite aunt to be so sharp.
Her blonde friend frowned. Roxie knew that he found his mother's steadfast belief in the impossible slightly tolerable at best, but he knew each and every one of her offbeat theories.
"At least she has some sort of reasoning." Her aunt Ginny said. "Not some 'feeling'."
"Feeling?" Aunt Hermione sounded affronted. "You mean my raw data a-"
"Face it Moine, you can make those charts say anything you want and you know it." Her uncle Ron sounded tired.
Aunt Hermione was spluttering.
"What about my feeling then?" Uncle Harry asked. "Something needs to be done. We can't let them pass this."
"I agree with you," her father said. "But we need to have some sort of plan."
"George!" Her Gran gasped. "Not you too."
"Molly, when are we going to face facts?" Her Grandad asked. "Things have gotten worse."
"They know where we are." Aunt Hermione snapped. "They can do that now. And we do not have the e-"
"Maybe if we think this out before getting carried away with worse case scenarios, then we can get something done." Her Uncle Percy's pompous voice suggested.
"I thought Harry was the one with the hero complex He-"
"Can it Gin." Uncle Harry cut her off. "I didn't tell you this if anyone asks but they were waiting for us last time. The whole operation was a set up. They know how we operate now. We need to stop that law and alert the public."
"I won't have it!" From Gran's voice, Roxanne could picture the stance the witch was in, legs braced apart, hands on her hips, all to maximize the yelling potential. "We need to live in the present. Not in make believe what ifs."
"You are the one living in make believe!" Aunt Hermione was up in arms now. "You don't even have a simple grasp of what would happen if this passed. It would be Voldemo-"
"Don't say that name!"
"-rt level terror again. Only worse because there is no prophecy or Chosen one the wizarding world can put all their problems on. They'll have to deal with it themselves."
"You keep on talking about this law, about how prejudiced it is and how we need to do something," Aunt Ginny began acidly, "but aren't you the one who dropped the quaffle? Wasn't getting rid of prejudiced laws part of your job a few years back? Didn't you and Kingsley promise that you'd made the Ministry more equal opportunity for all? And yet here we are with some bill that's being pushed through despite our political pull and Deacon and Finch-Fletchley, the only muggleborns on the council, are our only hope. Where were you?"
"I'm the only reason Erica and Justin are able to be on the Wizengamott to begin with! I abolished the law that made it illegal for anyone who couldn't prove their wizarding genealogy back three generations to be on it so now anyone qualified can get a seat there now! I'm the reason that Harry, Justin, and any other non –pureblood can sit on the council at all! Don't point at me like that! While you were off flying around on your broom, I was getting things done. You have no idea how many old laws were still on record, laws that Voldemort would have been proud of. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson was a wizard, muggleborns used to only be worth ¾ of a person here too!"
"Who the hell is Thomas Jefferson?" Ginny screamed.
"I rest my case!" Hermione screamed back. "And you think we don't have a problem?"
Roxanne looked at Lorcan and his teal eyes were just as wide as she suspected hers were. She had never heard aunt Hermione lose it and yell like this. Never. This was something big.
"Calm down." Her mom's voice was even. "Yelling at each other isn't going to solve anything."
"But you do agree that there's a problem to solve?" Her father asked.
"I'm not blind." Her mom said. "My mum has been talking about it for years. Its one of the reasons that she made me go to muggle university. Our kids know who Jefferson is."
Roxanne did know; they had gone to muggle school before Hogwarts and they had learned about him in the same unit where they'd learned about the Magna Carta.
"What's that supposed to mean Johnson?" Aunt Ginny was apparently in a confrontational mood. "I don't teach my kids the right things?"
"No. You're just not as… complete as you coul-"
"Complete? They-"
"Ladies." Uncle Harry interjected. "Let's not go off topic."
"This isn't off topic Harry." Aunt Hermione had that tone in her voice which meant that she was not going to stop until they'd all heard and appreciated her lecture. It was a tone memorized and dreaded by the extended Weasley-Potter clan. "This has everything to do with how they could draft a law like that in the first place and think that it will work. Anyone with a lick of sense or understanding about muggle culture knows that the law will fail. But most wizards do-"
"So now we're prejudiced?"
"Sit down Ginny!" Uncle Harry barked.
"You're taking her side?" Her aunt's voice was as soft as she'd heard it, and wounded. Roxanne sensed weakness. "Again, now, you're taking her side?" Her voice picked up anger and momentum until she was yelling at the end.
"See, nargle infestation." Aunt Luna's light voice cut through the tension. "They make emotions unusually high and unstable."
Lorcan gave a slight smile. "She's making that up." He whispered.
Roxanne nodded absently, her mind caught up in everything that was being said and wasn't.
"Yes, nargles, Luna, right." Her dad said. "Hermione, get to the point."
Aunt Hermione huffed. "My point is that wizards are still too unknowledgeable about muggles. The vast majority of us still don't know about electricity, or cars, or the tube, or even who the muggle Prime Minister is. Yet we live among them."
"As we have for thousands of years." Gran pointed out. "With no issue."
"There are plenty of issues. There have been plenty of issues. This bill is evidence of those issues." Aunt Hermione was about to start shouting again.
"Issues that only you are seeing."
"Issues that any one with half a brain are seeing! Do you know what the internet is?" Roxanne could hear the exasperation in her aunt's voice.
"Another muggle substitute for something we have? Like electricity?" Ginny mocked.
Roxanne heard the side door open but ignored it as she moved closer to the living room entrance.
"No, its-"
"Are you two playing or what?" Lysander asked.
She and Lorcan jumped. "Shh!" She hissed at him. "We're trying to-"
Her mother came into the hallway and she frowned slightly when she saw the three of them. "What are you three up to?"
"Heading out to play quidditch." Roxanne said casually before Lysander could say anything.
"Oh really?" Angelina Weasley nee Johnson put a hand on her hip. She knew her daughter. "And you were going to do this while standing next to the door?"
"We're going outside now Aunt Lina." Lorcan smiled at her and all but batted his baby blues. Roxanne couldn't help but be impressed when her mother visibly relaxed and nodded at them.
"Then get a move on." Her mother watched as they went outside and cast a spell before she went back into the room.
"Merlin, Sander, way to ruin a prime information gathering session." Lorcan griped as they walked to where Rose and James were arguing about something while everybody else watched.
"You guys were eavesdropping." Lysander accused.
Roxanne met Lorcan's eyes and shared a commiserating glance. Everyone always talked about how her father and late uncle were so close and exactly alike and could finish each other's sentences, but neither she nor Lorcan had that with their twin. In some things maybe, but not to the point where they were referred to as a unit the way the original Weasley twins had apparently been.
In some ways, she was thankful for it. In other ways, when she had to explain something that was simple and obvious to her, she wished that Fred could look at her and just know.
Lorcan felt the same way.
"No, I heard your mom say something about Nargles and Lorcan was explaining more about it to me because it contradicted something else I'd also heard her say." Roxanne had found that the best way to get someone off your back was to tell them the truth. At least part of it anyway. She had heard Luna mention Nargles after all and Lorcan had explained it further to her.
Lysander read that truth in her eyes and the censure left his voice. "Mom does have a tendency to make things up half the time I think. Next time hurry. James and Rose are arguing about who gets you as a Seeker or a Chaser."
"What team is Fred on?"
"Rose's." A slim girl tossed Roxanne a broom. Her red hair was wavy and cropped short under her ears in a pixie cut. Blue glasses accentuated her dark blue eyes and matched her slightly frilly blue robes.
"Hey Lucy." Roxanne caught the broom. It was the latest model, a Lightening 4000, one of the brooms that Uncle Ron had gifted them this Christmas. "When did you get here?"
"Thirty minutes ago." Lucy twirled her broom. "We're eating dinner here. Molly's coming later with her latest boy-toy."
That got James and Rose's attention.
"Is she really seeing Flint?" James demanded. "Because if she is-"
"Then she is one lucky witch," Rose finished. "A hot famous quidditch player? Sign me up."
"You through with Malfoy then?" James sneered.
"I'll take him." Lily stage-whispered.
"My relationship with Scorpius is none of your business." Rose turned her back on them all. "And I get Roxie."
"You don't get both twins!"
"Guys," Lucy stuck her broomstick between them. "I actually play Seeker for my House team."
Rose whirled around. "And who is ranked lowest right now?"
"Hufflepuff," everyone sans Lucy answered.
"By only a few points!" Lucy protested.
"And she always gets the snitch before you when we play pick up." James teased.
"Are we gonna play or what?" The Hufflepuff witch growled. "Hurry up or you'll be less one player."
"I'll make this easier for you." Roxanne could see that it was one step away from turning into a brawl, another common occurrence at the Burrow. "I'll join James this time as Seeker. Sorry Luce."
"Traitor!" Fred yelled comically. "Never trust a Slytherin."
"Never ally yourself with a Gr-damn." Roxie looked at the rest of her team and her former Gryffindor captain.
"Can't choose your family." Lorcan teased, throwing an arm around her shoulders.
"But I can not choose you for my team." James pulled Roxanne away. "Get on the other side. I got Lysander. The not evil twin."
"Says the former king of pranks. I know people who still have nightmares about you and your cronies." The Slytherin Scamander shuffled over to Rose's side. "And it doesn't matter cause you? You're going down."
"Bring it." James smirked.
Roxanne rolled her eyes and prepared herself. Thinking about her parent's conversation could come later.
A/N: All is well... for now. Let me know what you think!