Disclaimer: Harry Potter, associated characters and setting belong to JK Rowling and whoever she chooses to share the rights with, which does not include me. This is for entertainment purposes only, with no copyright infringement intended, or profit made.

Chapter 4: Perspiration

It was Monday afternoon again. This time Molly left Harry his toast pre-covered with homemade strawberry jam. Since homemade jam was too good to waste, he handed out his toast to the others to share. The newly independent twins displayed their appreciation of free food by taking two slices each.

Hermione lead the conversation once again. "Where could we hide thirty or more mice without anyone noticing?"

Ron shrugged, and looked at the rest of them. Ginny thought. "The Room of Requirement is too exposed. Anywhere at Hogwarts is, when you think about it. And we won't have constant access to anywhere else..."

Hermione shook her head. "We wouldn't have constant access to Hogwarts, either, since we have vacations. Fred and George's place would be the only thing we really could get to 24 / 7, but it's obvious, and central. If their involvement got out, it'd be checked. "

"Hermione, we – um..." Harry tried to start. Hermione looked over at him, and waited. "When you first asked where we could hide lots of mice without anyone noticing, I thought of Grimauld Place, since no one could tell the native mice from the new vermin. It – ahhh – it took me a while to remember that I own it now."

"Which is great, Harry, but how do we get there? You agreed to let the Order keep using it. They'll notice if we wander through when we're supposed to be at Hogwarts."

Fred nodded then shook his head. "Students these days... George, they're just not as trained in silence and sneaking as we were, back in our glory days."

George smiled, and looked off into the distance, reliving grandiose memories of last year. "Back in the golden days, we snuck about, silent and unseen as house elves."

Harry looked up and said "Dobby!" just as Hermione yelled "Winky!" They looked at each other, and laughed, as the two elves pooped into existence.

"Master Harry Potter called Dobby, sir?" Dobby asked. Winky looked at Hermione with her eyes nearly covered by her ears "Mistress Granger called Hogwarts elf Winky?"

Harry smiled at them both. "Hermione and I were just discussing a job that needs to be done at the house I just inherited. We both came up with the idea of a house elf at the same time. We called your names as ideas of who could help us, not intending to call you. But thanks for coming."

Hermione continued. "If you are both happily employed at Hogwarts, we could find a different elf in need of a job, but if either of you wants a change- "

Hermione was interrupted by Winky "Winky does. Winky really does wants a family, if she can't have her old family..."

Dobby nodded. "Dobby thanks the Masters, but thinks Winky would do better with the family."

Harry smiled at Winky. "It will be a lot of work. The house is old, and the last house elf stopped cleaning long before he finally betrayed the family."

Dobby and Winky both gasped. Their eyes seemed to get even more impossibly big.

Harry nodded. "It's been hard. My godfather got hurt because of him. He's banned from the house, now."

Dobby nodded. "Bad Elf should be."

Winky bobbed her head fast. "Winky will be better. Winky will serve. Winky will clean and cook and serve."

"Winky, I do want you to cook an clean and serve my guests, who meet there, but I also need you to come when I call, and take care of a few projects without telling the rest of them, can you do that?"

"If Winky's Master wants, Winky is happy to do. Winky would do anything for her Master."

"You don''t mind taking care of pet mice, do you?"

"Winky would be happy to feeds, and waters, and cleans the micies."

Harry smiled at her. "Thanks, that will help us a lot. Can I call on you two tomorrow, with a a full list of what I need and what I can offer you? Winky, would you mind Dobby's help?"

Dobby nodded. "We tells Dumbles that we found a family, then?"

Harry laughed. "You can tell Dumbles that Miss Hermy thought Winky would do better with a family sized home and set of responsibilities..."

Dobby nodded, and popped out. Winky waited a few more seconds, then curtsied to Harry, then Hermione, and left.

"Harry, you can have them clean out a portion of the basement for the mice, have it beyond where they live, and none of the wizards in the Order will brave their way through."

Harry looked at her. "Not the attic? It's pretty unused?"

"They're keeping owls up there. Our Death Eaters would be owl pellets before we noticed."

Ginny pulled a face. "Ewww- just think of the indigestion Bellatrix would give some poor bird."

Ron looked at Hermione's poised quill. "You should tell Dobby and Winky that they ate not allowed to clean anything visible from the foyer. It will be better for everyone's sanity if they are never seen by the portrait."

Hermione nodded. "We can have them build up supplies, slowly. Have each of them buy a week worth of preserved food each week. It shouldn't raise any eyebrows that way. After all, wizards who own house elves don't pick out their own vegetables, do they?"

Harry snorted, and let out a sound that was close to a giggle. When Ron raised his eyebrow at him, he simply said "Malfoy... in curlers... picking out onions..."

Fred and George laughed along with the rest of the table, and then looked at each other. "Have them pick up the bulk rodent food from us." "No one is going to stop to ask us why we want it." "And if they do, we can think of a reason to tell them..."

ooo

Hermione received an owl from Flitwick the next day, with a list of enchanting books, from 'My First Enchantment' all the way to the Mastery level texts. Professor Flitwick suggested that Hermione and Harry start with the middle level books, but had included the others for their unnamed adult companions. He had even taken to the trouble to point out which were easily available from which owl order sources, as he understood Harry's summer safety limited mobility. Hermione appreciated the Ravenclaw's thoughtful nature.

When Hermione told the table excitedly about her newest acquisitions-to-be, Molly insisted they couldn't be delivered to the Burrow, as it could give someone a way into the house.

Hermione thought for a moment, and then turned to Mr. Weasley, and asked if she could have them delivered to him at work, sending the packages through the Ministry's wards to check them.

He gleefully agreed to bring them home. Molly looked like she wanted to object, but as Hermione's plan didn't seem likely to explode the Burrow, or let strange owls into the wards, she kept the peace.

ooo

After dinner, the twins came to tell Hermione that they had found a book she had asked for. She looked at them with a raised eyebrow. Their shoulders were slumped, their heads down, and they lacked their usual vibrating energy.

"Why so glum when reporting a successful mission, boys?"

"It's the book about the Anti portkey jinx."

"We're very sorry, but we don't think it's going to work for anything other then temporary containment of future mice."

"Permanent casting is iffy. They tried to cast it on cuffs for prisoners, but if you cast it on metal and wear it on the skin, it's active. Any fabric barrier means it's not active. The Aurors kept loosing people when they got their sleeve cuffs inside their handcuffs."

Hermione looked up, and smiled. "Thanks, boys. That's a very nice on and off switch. Everyone needs pendants."

Harry, looking over from the chess board, suggested "We could turn our DA coins into them?"

Ron "It's a good cover story, wearing those for sentimental reasons, but we might need those as meeting locators too."

Hermione smiled at the boys. "I think it's better if we don't match. We don't want to give people a reason to suspect the necklaces of anything. Or us, either."

.o.o.o.

Dodging practice donned bright and early on Wednesday morning. It was Ron's ideas, and he was running it under the false premise of a summer Quidditch boot camp. Supposedly, he was practicing for what he intended to do to the Gryffindors later in the year.

Ron put Harry and Ginny on a line in the apple orchard, and placed Hermione flanked by twins ten meters away. He'd gathered baskets of crab-apples for them to fling.

Ron positioned himself where Harry and Ginny could see him, and Hermione couldn't, then counted down from five fingers to none. Harry flung a crab-apple straight at Hermione, and she dodged. Unfortunately, she dodged straight into Fred.

George raised an eyebrow and looked at Fred trying to untangle himself from Hermione, and said "Needs work."

Ginny nodded, and ran off towards the main house. She returned a moment later, with three muggle hula hoops she had liberated from her dad's shed.

After making Hermione demonstrate what they're supposed to be for, and the entire group commenting on how red Hermione's face got, which only made it get more red, Ginny gave each of the dodgers a hoop.

"There, now you each have area of your own, you have the width of the hoop to dodge. If you dodge out of hoop, it'll lead to interference with others."

The group took turns as dodgers, throwers, and countdown man. They found that dodging via leaning, turning, and general conservation of movement was harder then big leaps, but learn-able.

Somehow, about the time that Ron's stomach started growling, Fred managed to tackle George from two hoops away.

Harry smiled. "I think he would have preferred the crab-apple, mate. Also, I think four hours of dodging is one hour too many."

A sweating Hermione looked up at him from her hoop, where she was down on one knee. "You're just saying that because your arm is tired."

"That too."

Ron blew his Quidditch referee whistle. "That is enough for today, though. Lets all take a break for showers. Consider yourselves to have dodged well enough that you get to live to dodge again tomorrow morning."

Ginny got up slowly from her cool patch of grass. "At least Mum will believe you're working us into the ground up here."

ooo

With the arrival of the enchanting books, Harry and Mr. Weasley spent quality bonding time in the shed, sometimes joined by the twins.

They were working on reverse engineering a muggle radio, wanting it to act like a Wizarding Wireless.

Harry was in charge of reading off all the bits of the muggle radio, and telling Mr. Weasley what they did (thanks in large part to a 'how things work' book of Hermione's). Mr. Weasley then looked through all the enchanting books, finding magical equivalents. They got mired for a few days, knowing that they were close, and that they had all the needed bits, but not getting anything to tune in.

Thankfully, with Hermione's note taking and some fidgeting, they actually manged to transfigure, charm and enchant a block of wood and a handful of screws into something that could listen to WWN.

Admittedly, it was a very ugly something to pick up WWN. They found the frequency only after trying one hundred and thirty six other combinations. WW didn't have a simple scanner like Harry and Hermione were used to.

Hermione copied the notes, saying both she and Harry could turn something in for charms based on it, for extra credit.

Mrs. Weasley smiled, and told them to keep up the good work.

Harry smiled, and once away with Hermione, started talking bout ways to find a different frequency for their own walkie-talkies.

ooo

Soon enough, it was the day of the big school supply shopping trip. Mrs. Weasley was worrying. Mr. Weasley was excited to look at more books on enchanting. The kids all had their list of Hogwarts supplies, and Hermione and the Twins had lists of other things that they needed.

Fred and George had provided the Weasley kids with 'spending' money, which was only to be used for 'mouseketeer' needs. While Fred and George threatened Ron away from using it on Quidditch supplies, Harry and Hermione tried to figure out how the twins knew about 1960's Disney. They gave up when Harry sighed and said 'it's the twins."

They did manage to convince the adults to let them split up, so long as all the kids were together, and they took Tonks. They stopped off at a booth that had silver and copper pendants, and started suggesting ones that would be 'just perfect' for each other and their friends. Harry noticed one, and had to comment. "Hermione, dear, they have your otter here, that would look lovely, don't you think?"

Ron chimed in "It's all ripply and silver, just like your otter."

The group got everyone one to match their Patronus. They also got a few gifts, for the DA and for others. Harry got Remus a copper wolf. Fred and George kept paying. When Ron asked why they were ok with paying, not only for the necklaces, but for other things, they said their 'silent' partner was paying.

Harry nodded.

Hermione looked at Harry, then figured it out, and nodded.

Ron looked quietly confused.

Ginny's eyes grew as she figured it out.

Ron got louder as he was still confused. Fred dragged him away from Tonks, just as Ron asked "How could your silent partner agree to pay for something no one knows about. It's just us that know about the project."

Fred started hitting his head into wall.

George sent a pleading look at Harry from behind Tonks back.

Harry smiled at Ron, and told him quietly "My Triwizard tournament winnings were invested in the twins' shop. That was their start up money. It's useful, since the twins make money, and are willing to give out a third of it, since no one will give me my vault key."

When Ginny had kidnapped Tonks into the ladies underthings section, George smiled, and hugged Harry, calling him 'partner'.

Fred took the time to go through the list while Tonks was off helping Ginny with her unmentionables. "Cages, jars, pouches for jars. Check. All to be charmed. Cloaks, to be charmed. Check. Necklaces to be charmed. Check." He stopped to smile. "You lot will be busy first thing back in the land of magic users, won't you."

Harry managed to get enough leverage to rescue himself from George just before Tonks came back, and nodded at Fred.

Hermione smiled. "Don't worry. I have a plan."

ooo

AN House elves are harder to write than I'd thought. Also, hockey is distracting.