(A/N: I don't know what to say about my lack of updating except life sucks. My restaurant I was working at closed down with no notice, leaving me to scramble for a new job that has turned out to be only a more polished version of the shit show the other one was. All of this aggravated my Anxiety and Depression, which led to me having less than zero inspiration. I'm working through it as best as I can, and hope y'all will continue to bear with me. I own nothing.)

Chapter 28: Acting and Reacting

"Hey mum, can I go to the village to call Hermione?" I asked at the somewhat lazy Sunday breakfast we were all enjoying (except Dad as he had already left for work.).

"As long as you take a couple of your brothers, I'm fine with it." She agreed, already knowing that it was best not to argue the small stuff with me.

Looking over my options, I did some thinking. Percy looked like he desperately wanted to go back to secluding himself in his room. Bill, Charlie, and Ron looked like they were mostly asleep still. The twins looked like they were plotting something, but also seemed like the safest bet for what I had planned.

"Gred, Forge, feel up to an adventure?" I casually asked, only smirking slightly.

They looked over toward me from their conversation, took in my subtle 'up to no good' expression and replied, "Sure thing, Ickle Kaylakins."

My mum looked on suspiciously, but looked as if she would let whatever we were up to play out and possibly yell at us later.

"Right, just let me go grab my bag." I stated, rushing upstairs to grab my purse that had my stash of both muggle and wizarding money.

~oOo~

"So, cute little sister-" Fred started.

"What are-" George continued.

"You really up to?" They completed in unison.

I smirked, "I really do need to call Hermione, there just might be a bit more to it depending on what she says."

"Such as?" asked Fred, both he and George sporting concerned expressions at my tone.

I have to admit that I probably am not doing the best at hiding my own worries. About Harry.

I took a deep breath and forced a small smile onto my face. "I'll let you two know if it comes down to it."

~oOo~

When we reached the payphone, I hastily pushed the correct change in and pummeled in Hermione's number. The twins watched in both fascination and mild worry.

After a few rings, Hermione's mum answered, "Hello, Granger residence."

I put on the charm, "Hello Mrs. Granger, it's Kayla Weasley. May I please speak with Hermione?"

The woman's voice warmed, "Of course dear. It's so nice of you to call her instead of tiring out your family's poor bird she told us about."

I stifled a chuckle and replied, "No problem, Ma'am. I very much miss your daughter."

After a brief pause and a slight amount of rustling, Mrs. Granger spoke again. "Here she is, dear."

And then my bookish friend spoke, "Hello?"

"Hey, 'Mione! How are you this morning?" I greeted enthusiastically, just because this was an important call didn't mean I shouldn't talk about other things with my friend.

"Fairly bored, actually. I've already done all of the summer coursework and proof-read it twice." Hermione replied in a nonchalant voice she usually used when she was about to ask about others' progress.

"I've finished mine as well, just this past Friday." I pre-emptively replied, with a wry grin on my face. The elder twins were still watching all of this with steadily decreasing interest.

"Oh well done, Kayla! Has Ron done his?" Hermione followed up.

"Probably not, and I'm not going to make him either. That's mum's job." I replied firmly, refusing to willfully get onto my twin about his poor studying habits.

"I suppose there's that, then." Hermione responded in a slightly amused tone.

"Have you heard from Harry?" I asked, finally having to ask my main question I had been sitting on for the past couple of days. My brothers refocused at that question, quite curious as well seeing as how Harry hadn't responded to any of our owls yet.

"…this is why you called, isn't it? No, I haven't heard from him, I'm sorry." Hermione replied in a dry tone.

"I'm sorry, 'Mione. I'm just really worried about him. He hasn't responded to any owls we've sent and I know his relatives aren't nice to him. I just wanted to see if maybe he could sneak some communication to you in the Muggle way. I have a really bad feeling, is all." I responded in an earnest tone, that seemed to make my usually humorous older brothers turn serious.

"I know, Kayla. I am too." Hermione replied in a worried tone.

"We missed his birthday, 'Mione!" I exclaimed, barely holding back tears. My brothers both put an arm apiece around my shoulders.

"I know, but what can we do?" Hermione asked, just as upset as me.

"If I can find a way to your house, can the older twins and I come over to talk in person?" I asked, as this really needed to be spoken about in a more private setting. Villagers had been passing by with greater frequency as the morning wore on.

"I'm sure mum would be delighted for me to have company while she and dad go off to work." Hermione replied in a tone that sounded like she would make her parents be okay with it.

"I'll talk to the twins about it and be there as soon as possible." I replied.

"See you soon, Kayla!" Hermione said, in a distracted tone.

"Bye!" I said before ending the call and glancing at the twins.

"So… How would three underage magical youths make their way to Crawley without alerting their parents?" I drawled with a smirk.

After they had a silent twin conversation with their eyes, they responded, "How about the Knight Bus?"

~oOo~

"Never…..again!" I wheezed as we clambered out of the purple deathtrap on wheels, observing the nice house it had dropped us in front of.

Marching up the neatly paved path to the front porch, I rang the doorbell. Fred and George stood behind me, looking at the muggle residence with fascination.

Hermione was the one to open the door, which she appeared to have been waiting by if the hastily bookmarked tome next to it was any indication. "My parents just left, they said for you all to help yourselves to a snack if you wish."

She led us to the cozy living room, lined with several bookshelves and a modest tv in front of their couch that fascinated my brothers.

I hugged her and replied, "We probably can't stay all that long seeing as mum thinks I'm still at the payphone in our village."

Hermione rubbed her temples and sighed, "There's no point in me telling you three off for this, is there?"

"None whatsoever." My brothers and I responded with grins.

"Right. Well, what should we do about Harry?" Hermione asked, deciding to get down to business.

"Kidnap him with dad's flying car?" The twins put out there with mischievous smirks.

"Do you want mum to kill us?! I say we call Harry and see what's going on. The only problem would be getting his foul relatives to hand him the phone." I responded thoughtfully.

"I doubt they would let us talk to him if we just said we were his friends from school." Hermione frowned.

"What if I was an angry old lady that claimed that that hooligan ruined my lovely parsnip garden?" I morphed my voice into an angry old British lady's.

The twins snickered and Hermione started to smile slightly. "That might actually work, but you'd have to keep calm and make sure Harry responds properly."

"Sounds like a plan, 'Mione! Can I use your phone?" I asked, already formulating some nonsense to spew at the bastards that have Harry.

I dialed the number Harry had reluctantly given me and psyched myself up as the phone rang.

"Yes, Dursley residence!" Barked the gruff voice of Harry's uncle.

"Yes, hello kind sir! I'd like to have quite the word that black haired hooligan that you kind folks are forced to put up with! The brat completely savaged my lovely parsnip garden and I would quite like the chance to give him what fore for shaming such upstanding people as you and your dear wife!" I simpered in a slightly peeved way in the voice I had created. The twins were amused but peeved at my rant and Hermione was shushing them reflexively, very wound up.

The idiot clearly bought it, as his voice took on an oily tone. "I would be happy to oblige, Ma'am. The boy is such a nuisance."

There was some rustling, a muffled shout of "Boy! I'm giving you the phone, hand it back the second you're finished so I can burn it!", some more rustling with a weird sliding-clunk noise, and then I heard the voice I had been missing.

"Hello?" Harry asked nervously, obviously not trusting whomever his uncle might willingly let him speak to.

"Harry! It's Kayla, Hermione and the Elder Twins are with me! You need to pretend you are being yelled at by an angry lady about you ruining her parsnips on occasion so your uncle doesn't figure out it's friends speaking to you. Oh, and I'm putting you on speaker." I speedily replied and pushed the button.

"I didn't mean to ruin them, ma'am!" Harry replied loudly before whispering, "Hello you lot! I'm sorry I haven't replied to your letters, a house elf was blocking my post!"

Hermione and I were both confused, but the twins were suspicious, "Any idea who he belonged to? This sounds like a prank."

"I'm sorry, alright! It was an accident! Don't call my mum that!" Harry yelled before whispering again, "No clue, he kept telling me not to go to Hogwarts though. Said something bad was going to happen."

"Like last year could be topped in that department." I scoffed, but then asked, "Are you okay, Harry? I didn't much care for how your Uncle spoke to you."

"Uncalled for!" Harry exclaimed in a hurt voice before quietly continuing our conversation, "He's been a little worse than usual, seeing as how Dobby the elf hovered a pudding onto his important guests and ruined his business deal."

"How much worse?" Hermione and I pressed at the same time, the twins leaning in with us.

"I said I was sorry, you old bag!" Harry yelped and then replied again, "I…. may be locked in my room and have bars on the window."

The twins were radiating rage and evil intentions, Hermione was on the verge of tears, but I was so furious that I was almost serene in my response, "We are going to get you out of there and if something unfortunate happens to your relatives' house well…. All the better."

"Yeah, well… same to you!" Harry yelled angrily then responded in a quietly hopeful voice, "Yeah, that'd be great… make sure to bring food! Gotta go, I hear the fat lump pacing outside the door!"

We sat in silence for a moment before I turned to the twins with a beatific grin on my face, "How do you feel about bringing in the rest of the family in on your kidnap idea? This would be much easier with Mum and Dad's approval."

For once, Hermione joined in on our evil smirks.

~oOo~

When my brothers and I had gotten back, Mum was pacing and looking slightly irritated.

"Hullo, mum!" I greeted as nonchalantly as one could when facing down an angry mum.

The twins were already executing one of their numerous escape plans in preperation. Ron, who had been semi-casually waiting with mum cringed behind his comic book.

"You've been gone for three hours, and all you have to say for yourselves is 'Hullo, mum?!'" Mum shrieked angrily before turning abruptly to Fred and George, both of whom had just made it to the stairs. "Get back here, you two! I want an explanation from all three of you!"

I straightened my posture and worded my explanation very carefully, so as not to ruin our chances, "I did actually want to speak to Hermione, I didn't lie about that. I wanted to talk to her about Harry. We've both been worried about him because he hasn't responded to any of our letters. It's been a month. His relatives are not overly fond of him, so this worried me even more. So the three of us went to Hermione's house to see if we could get in contact with Harry in the muggle way. I actually had to pretend to be an angry elderly woman intent on telling him off for his….. charming Uncle to hand over the phone. Apparently, a house elf of unknown origins has been blocking his mail. Things have also gotten worse for him because this elf levitated a pudding onto his uncle's potential business colleague and ruined an important deal. They have apparently locked Harry in his room, placed bars on the window, and stopped feeding him."

Fred and George nodded and added, "It's been three days since those wankers have fed him, Mum. We need to do something."

Whatever Mum had been expecting, it hadn't been this; that much was clear by the way she visibly deflated and switched into her 'worried mother hen' mode. "Oh, that poor dear! Of course your father and I have been worried as well; we were going to get him at the end of the week if he hadn't responded. Obviously, that's too long if those abominable relatives of his aren't feeding him! When your father gets home, we're going to drive that muggle contraption of his to Surrey and bring poor Harry here!"

"We're going with you!" All three of my brothers in the room and I responded in the same bull-headed way that I'm starting to think is genetic.

Glancing at all four of our stubborn faces, Mum sighed and replied, "Fine! But Fred, George, and Kayla, the three of you will be de-gnoming the garden for your little cross-country trip this morning!"

The twins groaned and Ron sniggered at our misfortune, but all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief.

We're coming, Harry!

~oOo~

(A/N: I'm so so so so SO SORRY! I originally started typing this chapter in May of last year, but then my subscription to the freaking irritating Microsoft word timed out and I didn't have a word processor until this past week because I couldn't afford to replace it what with needing to eat and pay rent. One of my tech savvy friends installed a free word processor for me. I would have used google docs, but the internet is crazy unreliable where I live. I might have actually murdered a person if my thought process was interrupted. All of that is to say, I now have a permanent and reliable way of updating and hope to update more than once every several months.)