NOT MINE. READ THE STORY. NO PROFIT INTENDED. BUT READ. PLEASE.

There is no place like home. For Harry and Hermione, Hogwarts became their new home, but for me it was always going to be The Burrow. To go into my orange colored room and listen to the moaning of the ghoul was home, to go home and listen to the birds chirping, to take a swim in the waterhole that was close by, to play quidditch in the open field behind my house with my brothers, the garden gnomes, that ruddy clock that told mom how all the kids were, that was home.

It felt good to be home. It felt good to be away from it all for a while, to not have to worry, and yet I couldn't help but worry. My second year was the year Ginny got possessed, the year Hermione got petrified, it was one of the worst years in my school. It was borderline unpleasant, and yet I knew that the chamber of secrets needed to be opened, I knew that we needed the basilisk fangs to safely destroy the horcruxes. There was a horcrux right there, with my sister, that I couldn't wait to get rid of.

If only I knew how. In the game of chess, you made plans, tried to out think your opponent, but with my opponent being fate, time and one of the darkest wizards to have ever existed, it was not going to be easy to get the checkmate, and yet I was going to have to do it.

Harry and Hermione had been training alongside me, and getting better. It was not as good as the experience that Harry had in general, but this was fair enough for me. Maybe it was insurance, but I couldn't let my sister get voluntarily hurt again just so I could prepare Harry to take down Voldemort. For once I felt really bad that I was going to have to manipulate people, but it was something I was just going to have to do.

I stared at the wand in my hand, it was Charlie's wand, and while I was decent with it, I craved for my Willow wand, the wand that spoke to me, the wand that felt warm in my hand when I used it, I knew that I was going to have to get the wand soon, and this was the first thing I was going to have to take care of. My wand.

Fred and George's room was locked, they were probably trying to come up with some pranks that they would later go on to sell if things went the way they were supposed to go, Percy was probably doing something important like studying. I decided to go downstairs and check what my parents were doing.

An unfamiliar sight greeted me as I went downstairs, it was Sirius and my mom, arguing.

"I'm saying we break him out" Sirius told my mom.

"Sirius, I'm sure that no matter how much Harry does not like them, it is not a prison for you to break him out" my mom said, she sounded offended at the plan Sirius was suggesting.

'You have no idea mom' I thought to myself, remembering what it had come down to the last time.

"Good morning" I said to both of them, deciding to make my presence felt.

"Oh hey Ron" Sirius said to me as I came over to him, and he affectionately ruffled my hair. "Enjoying the holidays?"

"It's the first day after we came home from school Sirius" I told him. "Haven't even finished all my homework yet" I told him.

"You don't seem like a guy who'd try to get his homework finished before time Ron" he told me, he almost sounded offended. I just laughed at his reaction.

"I hate it, but Hermione won't let it rest if I don't finish the homework you know" I told him.

"She is a very nice girl Ron" my mom piped in as she waved her wand and a pot began stirring itself. "From what little I could tell, she sounded really intelligent, her friendship has done wonders for your marks too" she told me.

"You hurt me mom" I said putting my hand on my heart and taking on a tone of mock hurt, which made Sirius smile. "Maybe I'm just naturally intelligent"

"Of course you are" she said to me, not looking away from the pot. "All my children are extremely intelligent" she said, more to Sirius, with pride in her voice.

"Even Gred and Forge?" I asked her.

"Just because they're not interested in their studies as much as I'd like them to be doesn't mean that they are not intelligent Ron, what would you like to eat?"

I told her that scrambled eggs were going to be fine. As good as the Hogwarts feast was, it couldn't quite compare to my mom's cooking, and I was looking forward to eating it.

"Where's dad?" I asked her, and she told me that he had to go to work early.

I then got to talking to Sirius about Azkaban in general and how it was like when he was trapped there.

"It was an awful place Ron" he told me, and he sounded, for the lack of a better word, serious. "The dementors especially, you know what they are right?" he asked me.

"Yeah, they suck happy memories and kiss your soul away" I told them. "I read about them in a book"

"Of course you did" said Sirius in a teasing tone."But getting back to the matter at hand, I managed to stay sane because I knew I was innocent. It wasn't a happy memory they could take away from me, and that meant that I was sane, driven by the knowledge that I was innocent, it kept me alive" he told me.

"You're out now, and you can make more happy memories for yourself" I told him, trying to shake him off his mood.

"That is such a wonderful thing to say Ronald" my mother told me appreciatively. "And I agree with him completely, you might not like it but Dumbledore seems to think that staying with those muggles is the best course of action for him, and he didn't say that he has to stay there all summer, so you can obviously take him after he stays there for a while" she told him, trying to console him.

"Maybe you're right" Sirius said, sounding glum. "Thanks for saying that Ron, I look forward to having happy memories with all of you, and this time I won't end up in Azkaban" he told me.

"So what are you doing here anyway?" I asked him.

"Well, I wanted to have a chat with Arthur, and then when he left for work, I decided to just stick around and have breakfast with the Weasleys" he told me. "You're lucky that you have a great family Ron" he told me with a smile on his face.

"What about your family?" I asked him, even though I knew the answer. I wondered if Sirius was going to get clever when he described his pureblood fanatic mother.

"My family was a bunch of right bitches Ron" Sirius told me, which elicited a scandalized 'Sirius' from my mother, who chided him for swearing in front of a child. She didn't know that I was running around Hogwarts calling my professors cunts.

"It's true though" he told my mom. "I mean my mother was awfully into all that pureblood supremacy claptrap. My dad was more passive but he went along with whatever my mom used to say. My brother Regulus was the apple that didn't fall from the tree, last I heard, he joined the Death Eaters and I don't even know how but I know he's dead, I just know it" he told me.

That reminded me of Regulus, he had joined the death eaters but had had a change of heart, and in his last moments had tried to help bring down Voldemort. It hadn't worked, and I knew just where the locket was hidden, but I didn't know if Sirius was even using the house where it was kept.

"So where did you guys live?" I asked him casually, hoping to glean what I could from his answer.

"Grimmauld Place, Number Twelve" he told me. "What an awful house, if I don't see it again, I'll die a happy man"

"But since you're the last Black alive, doesn't that mean that you're the master of the house?" I asked him, and he nodded.

"Yeah, I have the keys, but I don't have the heart to go to that place Ron, believe me, I don't"

I was going to have to do something about that. Tell Dumbledore to convince Sirius to let him in, tell him exactly where we had found the locket. I remembered it from the time we had cleaned the house in our fifth year, it was a locket none of us could get to open no matter how hard we tried. I wondered what was going to happen this time, and whether it would continue to have the bad effect it had on me the last time I got too close to the locket, I sincerely hoped not.

"Ron" Sirius said to me with gratitude in his voice. "I know I sound like I'm repeating myself, but I can't thank you enough for being Harry's friend, and for helping prove my innocence. You too Molly" he said looking at my mother. "Thank you all so much, is there anything I can do?" he asked me.

"You've already given me Pig" I told him. "I don't need much else"

"You call that owl Pig?" he asked me incredulously.

"Pigwedgion" I told him. "Or Pig for short, I named him because it was something I thought Ginny would like"

"Oh, nice" he told me. "But still, that is not enough, you have to let me repay you in some other way" he told me. "I know, I'l buy you a nice broomstick"

"Sirius" my mother said sounding scandalized again. "You are not going to do any such thing"

"Molly, please just let me repay you guys"

"Just be a good Godfather to Harry" I told him. "Really, that's more than enough for me, but if you do feel like you want to give me something material, well, there is a problem with my wand, and I could use a new one"

"RON" my mother shouted at me. "I'm sorry about that Sirius, you don't have to get us anything" she told me.

"Oh no" he said to me. "Let's go and get you your wand Ron, how about you take a trip with me to Diagon Alley after you're done with breakfast eh?" he asked me.

My mom sighed, she knew she was defeated and had to reluctantly allow me to go with Sirius, which was something I was looking forward to a lot.

We made our way to Diagon Alley soon after we had finished our breakfasts and Sirius told me that he would bring me back home by the evening. We strolled around and I stared at the shops, there was a shop where Fred And George's joke shop used to be. I smiled when I looked at the shop.

"So what wand do you think you'll get?" he asked me.

"I don't know, Unicorn sounds pretty good" I told him, and he grunted in appreciation.

As I entered the shop, I realized that it looked just as I had remembered it from the past. Or was it the future now? That confuses me really, but what I'm clear on was the fact that I needed a new wand and I was going to get it today.

"Ah another Weasley" Ollivander, the wandmaker and owner of the shop said to me with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "It seems like every other year, there is a Weasley born, and many of them have come to this wand shop"

I knew for a fact that my mother was going to take Ginny and buy her a new wand. I didn't really feel like talking and began looking at the dangerous looking shelves that seemed like they would topple over any second. They were all filled with black, unimaginative boxes and inside those boxes, was a wand. And one of those wands was my wand.

"Why it seems like only yesterday your mother had brought in those naughty twins, they were a real havoc in the shop I tell you" the old man continued as he began looking around the shelves. I stared into nothingness, as a tape measure began floating toward me.

"What is your wand arm?" he asked me, without turning to look at him, I told him I was right handed.

In the past, it had bothered me that my mother never had the money nor the resources to give me anything I wanted. I'd always gotten the short end of the stick, I still remembered the Yule Ball dress robe debacle, where inexplicably everyone in my family apart from me had managed to get fantastic looking robes while I was left with those rags. It was always kind of weird, and hard not to stay bitter about something like that. I guess I was going to learn along the way.

The process then moved on from measuring my hand size to trying out the wands. It took me around fifteen minutes before I finally found my trusty old wand, the same one I had in the future (or was it the past?)

"14 inches long, Willow, Unicorn Hair" the old man announced with triumph as Sirius smiled, I had predicted that I was going to get a Unicorn Hair core and that was exactly what had happened. Ollivander then told me about the potential of the Willow wands and how it allowed for complex, non verbal magic.

Sirius paid Ollivander the money and we both left the shop, I was still thinking about what Ollivander had told me about the wands. Willow Wands allow for complex, non-verbal magic. I wondered if I would be able to do something like that. I was snapped out of my thoughts by Sirius.

"Ron? Are you all here?" he asked me. I nodded, blushing. This wasn't the first time someone had caught me zoning out.

"I don't know about you" he continued. "But I sure could use some ice cream right about now" he told me, nudging me to look at the ice cream parlor that was so famous in Diagon Alley.

"Wait" I told him. "Before we eat, here you go" I said, running my hands through my pockets and taking out five galleons, which was the cost of the wand. Sirius looked amazed that I had five galleons on me, and I smirked at his gobsmacked expression.

"How did you get this money?" he asked me.

"Gambling" I told him, and his reaction was just as I had expected.

"Nice" he said to me, holding his palm out for a high five. I obliged.

"How much did you win?" he asked me.

He let out a low whistle when I told him I had won seventy five galleons betting on Quidditch. I asked him to deposit the money in his account, or have one opened in my name as an insurance policy for the future. He agreed and told me he'd have the new account opened. We then decided to skip the ice cream and apparate home.

The next three weeks passed by in a blur, for everyone else. For me it was more of a worried state of preparedness for things that could, or could not happen in the next few days. I knew that Harry wasn't allowed to send letters and that our letters weren't exactly reaching him because of Dobby, the house elf, and I knew that there was going to be an 'incident' in the Dursley home later that was going to get Harry in a lot of trouble. Trouble enough that we were going to have to fly a car and get him out of a prison like structure.

I wish this was just a byproduct of an overactive imagination, but I never really was that lucky. I spent the summer reading up on books, and getting made fun of by Fred and George for imitating Percy. Their behavior was one of the several reasons for Percy feeling alienated from the family in the future, but there was really nothing I could do about Fred and George.

It was a hot summer's night in July and I was reading a book, wondering about when to break Harry out of the prison that was his aunt's house. I had a book about corporeal patronus conjuration that I was reading up on when I saw a black dog in the far distant horizon, it seemed to be gazing right at my window, and I realized that it was Sirius and not just another stray. I sighed as I wrapped a cloak around myself and began sneaking out, taking care and narrowly missing the squeaky stair that would have woken up mum.

"What is it Sirius?" I asked as I got outside and walked slowly towards where the dog was standing. The dog morphed right back into Sirius Black, who had a grin on his face.

"I knew you had the penchant for sneaking out at night and trouble-making Spidey" he told me. I grimaced at the nickname, Sirius had made a habit of visiting the Burrow over the last few weeks, as he hadn't been allowed to go and see Harry at Pivet Drive. I still remembered the really awkward dinner where mum was cross with him because he had accidentally called Dumbledore a fuckhead in front of 'all the kids' On one of these visits, Fred and George had told him the story of how I was scared of spiders and since then he had endearingly started calling me Spidey.

"I know you hate that nickname" he said with a smirk. "But that's why I call you that" he told me.

We spoke for a while, Sirius seemed really upset with the fact that Harry hadn't even written to him once, and that Dumbledore had forbidden him from contacting Harry in any way shape or form till after his birthday.

"It's not fair Ron" he told me. "He's already had really bad birthdays for the first eleven years of his life, but I wanted to make this his best yet and now I can't do that"

"That's not true" I told him quietly. "Harry always considers his favorite birthday to be his eleventh" I told him. Harry had never told me this, but I had figured it out. Maybe in the future it would change, but I knew that the birthday where Hagrid came to rescue him from the island, and the gloom and doom that was his life, where he had found out that he was a wizard was always going to hold a special place in his heart. It would in mine if I were him.

"Is that true?" he asked me. I nodded.

"Is it because it was the birthday when he realized he was a wizard?" Sirius asked me, and I nodded. Sirius smiled and told me that he was only eleven years old and that he was going to make sure that there were going to be greater birthdays that would blow his eleventh out of the water.

"I still can't believe he hasn't written though" Sirius said, almost sounding like a whining child, which made me smile. "Has he written to you yet?" he asked me. I shook my head.

I had long suspected that the reason for Sirius' childish behavior was the fact that he didn't have his godson, and he was substituting me for him because I was his best friend. Talking to him now just confirmed it. I kind of felt bad for him, and I decided that I was bored enough and that it was time to make another change in the timeline.

"Listen, Sirius" I told him. "I was reading up on Patronuses-"

"Patronuses?" he asked me incredulously. "Pretty sure that it's patroni"

"No" I said aghast at Sirius trying to correct my English. "Pretty sure it's patronuses"

"No" Sirius was adamant. "It's patroni Ron, I'm telling you-"

I suddenly realized that I was getting too distracted with things that didn't matter and that I needed to bring the conversation back to what I was originally going to do.

"We need to break him out of there" I told him, with a serious look on my face. Sirius looked gobsmacked at the suggestion, his mouth was wide open for a bit, and then it slowly closed before his face broke out into a grin.

"When?" he asked me, still grinning.

"I was thinking today" I told him, the gobsmacked expression was back on his face again. "The address is 4, Pivet Drive. Do you think you can apparate us there?" I asked him.

"I have a better solution mini-padfoot" he told me, another affectionate nickname that gave me much more pleasure than I would care to admit. "Follow me" he said transforming back into a dog and running. I was young, but my physical training was helping and I began chasing after him.

After what was almost a five minute run, he brought me to a very familiar looking bike.

"Is that what I think it is?" I said in a very low voice, but Sirius heard me.

"What do you think it is?" he asked me, after transforming back into a human being.

"A flying bike" I said to him, I remembered this. We had used this to sneak Harry out of the Dursley's home the last time we had been there. As hard as it was to imagine, this was Sirius' bike. I wondered if dad had made the adjustments he had made to it in the future.

"You know what Ron?" Sirius said with pride etched on his face. "Harry couldn't have chosen a better friend even if he had tried" he told me, it almost sounded like he had tears in his eyes. I just waved him off and told him to get on with it.

"Do you know where it is?" he asked me.

"Surrey I think" I told him. "I'm not quite sure"

"We'll find out and get him to the Burrow before dawn tomorrow" Sirius told me.

"The burrow?" I asked him. "I thought you wanted him to live with you"

Sirius had an embarrassed look on his face. "Yeah but I don't have the housing situation sorted out yet" he said, rather sheepishly, before turning around and getting on the bike. It made a rumbling sound as he started it, I eyed the whole bike apprehensively, if what Harry had told me the last time was any true, I wasn't exactly looking forward to getting on it.

Sirius noticed me not looking sure of myself.

"Oh come on Ron" he said to me. "Don't tell me you're afraid of the bike too" it sounded like he was mocking my fear of spiders.

"I'm a reasonable man" I said to him sighing. "Get off my case"

It took me all of two minutes in the air before I realized that I was having more fun on this than I'd thought I was going to have.

"Having fun?" Sirius screamed at me, it was a particularly windy night and high up in the air, it was hitting us right in the face, which made saying or hearing anything more difficult than usual.

"Never felt better"I yelled back with enthusiasm as we flew towards London.

"We're going invisible baby" Sirius said to me before hitting a button. I felt that familiar feeling of something trickling down my skin, which told me that a disillusionment charm had been activated.

It took us around half an hour of flying before we finally made it to London, we were flying faster than usual. I was pretty sure it was even faster than a firebolt. this was a more comfortable way of flying.

"Couldn't we have apparated?" I asked Sirius as London came into view.

"This is more fun Ron" Sirius shouted with more enthusiasm than he had shown all summer. Thankfully, I remembered how we'd made it to Harry's place the last time when we went to smuggle him out of the house before his birthday and we got there without any trouble at all, however things this time were more smilar to when we had flown Dad's car to that place. There were still metal bars outside of Harry's house and it was obvious that Dobby had already done his damage. I remembered it like it had happened yesterday, before slapping myself mentally, I had after all traveled back in time.

"What is this?" Sirius asked as he landed the motorcycle and we both got off. I was too young last time to understand that Harry was basically a prisoner in his home, and I felt ashamed at not being more outraged at this, but seeing the metal bars outside his room angered me more than I'd like.

"His relatives, I'm sure they've locked his room that way" I told Sirius, who seemed to be shaking now and it was not from the cold.

"I'm going to-"

"Calm down" I told him. "You're not stupid, just calm down. Let's get him out now"

"Don't tell me to calm down" Sirius barked at me, his eyes were full of rage. He quickly moved away and started stalking towards the door, I knew I was going to have to stop him before he got himself arrested for muggle baiting.

"Sirius" I told him, pleading. "Are you sure you want to go back to prison for assaulting a muggle?" I asked him. Sirius stopped and turned around, looking at me. His eyes were full of anger still, it almost looked like he was close to tears.

"She always seemed off to me" Sirius told me. I had no idea who he was talking about. So I asked him.

"His aunt, Petunia. She was bitter, Lily was a witch but she had never been accepted, she didn't have the magic in her" he told me, his anger slowly subsiding and being replaced with something more monotonous. Someone as full of life as Sirius had no business speaking like that, and then it hit me how sad it was that Lily Potter had died.

"She was my best friend" he said to me. "Lily and James, they were like my family, and I still remember holding Harry in my arms" he continued. "He was this little" he said, bringing his hands together, he chuckled a bit. "I had promised James that if anything happened I would-"

"Shut up" I told him. He looked at me in shock.

"Yeah" I continued. "What's the point of bringing up issues of the past? I'd rather focus on the future" I told him.

"I'm a horrible Godfather" Sirius said with genuine sadness in his eyes.

"You've barely begun" I told him, smiling. I looked at him and a small smile broke out on his face.

"Good, you're back, now, instead of punishing them physically, how about you punish them in another way?" I asked Sirius.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked me.

"The Dursleys hate anything that is abnormal, so here's what I propose we do" I began with what was surely an evil smile on my face.

-x-

"I still can't believe you destroyed the entire wall of the house" Harry said to me and Sirius, who still couldn't stop laughing about it.

"They don't know that though, they thought it was an unfortunate plumbing accident" Sirius said. Some clever charm work and enchantments meant that we could fool the Dursley's into thinking that it was really a plumbing accident.

"Aren't they going to be mad?" Harry asked us with fear in his voice.

"Oh don't worry, they won't be mad" Sirius told us. "I made sure of it, Petunia was more than just surprised to see me, as was Vernon" he had a devilish grin on his face soon after he finished talking. I stared at him before we both started laughing.

We were at the tree near the burrow, debating about how to successfully sneak Harry into the house, after making a credible excuse.

"Encore indeed" a new voice said and we suddenly whipped around to see the mirth filled face of Albus Dumbledore.

"Fuck" Sirius and I simultaneously yelled out, which caused Harry to sharply look at us, while Dumbledore just chuckled.

"It appears that you've had a negative effect on young Ronald already" Dumbledore said to Sirius. "Negative enough that you considered it prudent enough to almost destroy a muggle house" he told us.

"We didn't do anything, it was-"

"A plumbing accident Sirius?" Dumbledore asked Sirius, interrupting him mid conversation. "I'm quite old you see, these sorts of tricks are not something I'm not immune to" he told us.

"You should have seen how they held him Albus" Sirius began. "You have to understand-"

Dumbledore looked at me, his eyes boring into mine. I knew what was happening, he was trying to read my mind, I knew he was capable of doing that, so I let him read a memory, the memory of when we had rescued Harry the last time. Almost as immediately I felt him leave my mind. I looked at him, and nodded. He tilted his head slightly to acknowledge that he understood.

"I understand" Dumbledore said abruptly. "I had to do a lot of convincing Sirius, but they won't do something like that again, and have generously agreed to take Harry back next summer"

"Couldn't the disagree?" I asked, exasperatedly ,which made Sirius laugh and even Harry smiled. Dumbledore just chuckled.

"I'll write Molly a letter, Ron, go sneak back inside your house" Dumbledore told me.

"You're actually going forward with our prank?" Sirius asked Dumbledore in near shock.

"Yes" Dumbledore said smiling. "I want to know what this feels like too" he continued. "Don't begrudge an old man some jolly good pranking"

'World's gone barmy' I muttered, but Dumbledore seemed to have heard that.

"I'm always barmy Ron, have been since I was a child" Dumbledore told me. "Now sneak back inside and this will be sorted soon enough"

-x-

Five minutes after I had made it to my bedroom, taking special care to avoid the squeaky step that woke up my parents, I began to pretend like I was under covers, and had been asleep the whole time. Then there was the expected knock on my door.

"What?" I said, trying to sound as annoyed as I could.

"It's mum" my mother's slightly muffled voice called out. "Harry has come to the Burrow, come on down" she told me.

"At this time?" I asked her, but I could hear the footsteps on the way down, she was already gone.

I made my way downstairs only to see my entire family awake, most of them looked annoyed but Fred and George seemed happy beyond belief. Harry, Dumbledore and Sirius were sitting down with everyone at the table. My dad seemed to be talking animatedly with Dumbledore as I came down, but stopped as soon as I cleared my throat, letting everyone know I was awake.

"Harry" I said in fake enthusiasm, he smiled back. "When did you get here mate?" I asked him.

"Just now"

I nodded at his answer and sat down.

"We could have waited till morning to greet Harry mother" Percy said sounding annoyed. "Was there a need for you to wake us all up so early in the day?"

"Mother?" Fred said scoffing. "Is there a reason you're a pompous prick or were you just born that way?" he asked Percy. It seemed like it would descend into a verbal argument but I was in no mood for that.

"Will everyone shut up? We have other guests too" I almost shouted out. Everyone looked at me, stunned, but it seemed like mum was beaming, which was great enough.

"Ron is correct, now everyone, let's listen to what Professor Dumbledore has to say about Harry being here"

"The Dursleys had a-" Dumbledore paused and looked directly at me, before turning around and looking at Sirius, who was still grinning like he had just shagged a woman.

"The Dursleys had a what?" Dad asked Dumbledore, perhaps too enthusiastic for someone his age. "Was it an exciting new muggle contraption?"

"Unfortunately Arthur, it was a plumbing accident" Dumbledore continued. "Their entire wall ended up getting destroyed, so they contacted me, it's going to be hard enough managing one child while they rebuild their house, so I suppose they let him go"

"Oh my word" Mum said in shock. "Well at least he'll be well taken care of here"

"Molly, I'm still fixing my house situation so is it okay if-"

"Of course Sirius, you don't even have to ask. He always has a place here"

Sirius thanked my mum, before Dumbledore decided that it was time to leave. Like old times, it was decided that I was going to share a room with Harry, and that was that, we decided to retire.

"Did you enjoy the holidays with your cousin Harry?" my mother asked him.

"Don't ask him that" Sirius replied. "His aunt is a real fuc-"

"SIRIUS"

Second Year is here. Sorry for the delay, personal life getting in the way.

Please read and review this story. Thank you in advance.