Hermione's fourth year living in the Wizarding World is proving to be an interesting one. She had arrived at the Weasley's only to find Mr. Weasley in the midst of yelling at Fred and George in their tiny living room. While the occurrence of these particular twin brothers getting themselves in trouble was not an unusual sight for her, the fact that Mr. Weasley is the one doing it, startled her.
While at Hogwarts, Hermione had witnessed Fred and George plot and execute so many pranks and acts of pure stupidity she is continuously shocked they both had all four limbs still intact and (mostly) unscathed. Though, now that she thought about it, Fred did have the tiniest part of his eyebrow missing but most people do not notice it unless they know them well. She thought, after four years, she could be included in that party of people. Afterall, she is in the running for at least second place on the amount of time spent yelling and criticizing their actions, next only to their Mum, Mrs. Weasley (though the twins don't know that she often exchanges letters with their Mum, who gives her pointers on how to approach them and get them to do what she needs - that shall stay between them both for as long as she is alive).
None of this is to say that she is not extremely impressed with what they create and think-up. On the contrary, she felt they were both geniuses who deserved the award for Nobel Chaos. The first one, in fact. She would be happy to award it, make a joke product out of it, like making the person who touches it loose their pants or make their head as big as the person's ego. That would make her laugh, and she is sure both of them, laugh immensely.
Mr. Weasley, in all the time she had spent with his family, had never out-right yelled at any of his sons. He was considered the docile one, the one to calm his wife down when her face turned the color of their Weasley red hair. Mr. Weasley was considered, what this wonderful world calls, a "muggle lover". A person mystified with the way muggles, or non-wizards, lived and the tools and trinkets they use to live their lives successfully without the use of magic. He was a handy man that tried integrating as much muggle technology into the family that magic would allow. For example, he took an old muggle car and converted it into a car for his family. Mind you, the conversion was not Ministry (the Ministry for Magic, reporting directly into Her Majesty, The Queen) approved. It flew, you see, and had somewhat of a personality, so much so it was terrified to return home after it was flown into the Whomping Willow a few years ago. That is a story for another time.
She could not surmise what the twins had done that warranted such a loud and angry yelling at by Mr. Weasley. She kept hearing the words "six feet long", "the size of the child's head" and "need to take him to St. Mungos" before she realized they had been up to their tricks again.
Looking around, she saw that the only people in the room besides the twins and Mr. Weasley are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, her two best friends and probably the biggest troublemakers in the room (although she is comfortable stating none of their trouble intentional, except for the troll stone incident, and the flying car, and a few others that really could only be considered a fifty-fifty split on blame). They both look half scared and half amused with what is taking place in front of them. Obviously they understood what could be going on and could explain the situation better to her than trying to decipher whatever language Mr. Weasley had switched into mid-way through the beat down on their behavior.
She sat down next to Harry with the full intention of understanding exactly why Mr. Weasley looked two seconds away from sprouting horns. "Hello, you two! I only just arrived when I heard the commission from outside and figured I better let myself in since no regular person would have the ability to hear over all this noise." she stated toward Ron, since he technically lived here and she did walk in without permission. They were expecting her, but she wanted to make sure to cover all her bases as this family is known to take things to the next level in terms of emotions.
"Not a problem, Hermione! Glad you made it through our wards alright. They have been known to malfunction a little with all the gnomes warding spells we constantly have to put up to keep the little buggers out." Ron said bemusedly, still obviously wrapped up in watching his older brothers turn paler and paler as Mr. Weasley continued to yell at them. Ron continued on after a short second, "Dad has been going at them for ten minutes now, slowly approaching the record and they are only just now starting to look panicked. You always know you have done something really bad when Dad is involved and when he switches over to Gaelic."
She sat there trying to make out the words that Mr. Weasley said. Gaelic, since when does any of the family speak Gaelic and how bad could they have messed up to warrant this?
Harry jumped in on Ron's thoughts quickly, and with the biggest smile she has seen in years. "They really pulled a number on Dudley, my cousin, when they went to pick me up this afternoon from my Aunt and Uncle's house. They "accidently" dropped a whole bunch of sweets on the ground in front of him, expecting for him to pick them up and start eating them since he has no manners and has grown to the size of a small wale, despite my Aunt's best efforts and threats from his school on not having another uniform size up. It is the best thing I think has ever happened to me, besides getting accepted to Hogwarts." Harry signed lovingly at what the twins had done, moving to sit back farther into the couch he sat on.
"What, exactly, were in these sweets? Did they know he is allergic to peanuts or something and he ate one?" Hermione asked and then continued on, reflecting further on what she had heard and trying to put some clues together on the situation, "I did hear something about having to take him to St. Mungos."
"No!" Ron answered immediately, finally turning to face Hermione for the first time, "it was so much better than that! We could fix an allergic reaction with a simple spell, maybe even take away the allergy completely. No, Fred and George have ventured out beyond their simple spell pranks and have started making legit prank products that resemble candy. I have been their prime target all summer, and, frankly, I was about to turn them into Mum if they did not stop it. This one, the one that Dudley got his big hands on, was to make a tongue grow and grow and grow until the antidote is administered. The only problem is, they don't seem to have made one yet because that particular product was not supposed to be in this prank. It was supposed to be the sweet that made his face break out into acne. I think I prefer what he got, especially because of his parent's reactions!"
Ron is beaming, turning more toward Harry to look for a sign of agreement in his assessment of the situation.
"Yeah! You should have seen my Aunt. She Flew out of her chair and started trying to put his tongue back into his mouth, but by the time she got over to him it had already quadrupled in length. Ron's Dad ended up having to take the entire family to St. Mungos. Apparently, they took one look at Dudley and said his parents should be ashamed of how they are treating their child, letting him take more food and not exercising enough. Even commented that maybe they should look into putting him into a special, wizard-run, program for cases like his. I wish I had been there just to see their faces."
"They gave a muggle, a muggle who already hates wizards, a sweet?" She is slightly flabbergasted for their lack of reading the room one what not to do to already terrible people. Although she had to admit the thought of having them put in their place by the doctors was amusing for a second. "Well, I for one, agree with what Mr. Weasley is saying, even if I can't understand ninety-nine percent of it. That was dangerous and completely unfair to Dudley, despite how awful of a person he is and how he has treated Harry. No offense, Harry, I just wish they could have done it in a way that did not involve people outside your family and the Weasleys.
Ron looked to Hermione again and stated, " you have been here all of five minutes and already you are agreeing with my parent's parenting methods. How am I not surprised by this revelation?" Ron was trying to seem as much disapproval for Hermione's opinion in those quick few sentences that he could without being outright rude and dismissive to them. It was an honest improvement from a few years ago where neither of them could get a word in edgewise. They both had strong opinions and strong personalities, especially when upset, and it was stressful for Harry. He had told them on multiple occasions that if they could not work out their differences, he was going to walk away. Neither of them were willing to take the risk of missing out on being in Harry's life, nor truly in one anothers. They did like each other as people, it was just a friendship that both parties had to work on daily. Hermione had fully expected to walk back into this house and be back to square one on this particular topic, and was pleasantly surprised by the response.
"Sorry that I do not believe muggles should be impacted by wizarding products and pranks. They are at an absolute disadvantage when it comes to these things." She was a strong advocate for muggle born rights, which transcends into muggles and muggle politics in the Ministry of Magic. She was a muggle born, lucky enough to have the Weasley family around to show her the way and take her in, but without them she feels as if she would be much farther away from understanding the nuances of Wizarding U.K. culture and society expectations.
Ron did not reply, instead he did a quick assessment of the Gaelic his father was speaking and stated, "we should get out of here, he is threatening Mum and I do not want to be in the same room when that blows up. She was already on their hides about getting their grades up, especially since their O.W.L.s were not good in the slightest, lowest in the family thus far."
All three of them quickly got off the couch and went into the kitchen, a safer distance away but still close enough they could hear what Mr. Weasley may do next now that he is lowering his voice.
"What do you have to say for yourself, to that boy you could have, and were close to, killing?" Killing, what and why would Mr. Weasley think any of their products had the ability to kill someone with the exception of themselves when designing them?
"We are sorry with how the prank went down, but, Dad, they were keeping him locked up again! Did you see the bars on his window back up, and it looks like Hedwig had not been outside in ages." one of the twins said back immediately. Apparently the yelling had not completely got the point across in terms of the safety aspect of the situation that took place.
It sounded like the same voice continued, "and, how exactly are we supposed to test our products before returning to Hogwarts? We know they work on our family, but we all have the same gene pool so I would assume they work, but how do they work on others? We could not wait until we saw Lee again, or even test them on Harry, because it would have taken too long into the summer for them to get here and there would have been too many questions and lack of production on our part to sustain the entire semester. This was the most logical decision we could make, especially with the added information of how they treat Harry on a regular basis." It was a powerful statement, and Hermione was quickly believing the speaker was Fred since George was less likely to respond in this type of situation. Fred is considered the hot head of the two twins, and is noticeably smarter politically since he did all the negotiations with her when needed - it was needed often.
"I understand that, Fred," so she had been correct in her assumptions, "but you have to remember the political factors regarding your decision. He is a muggle, they already hate Harry so you could be jeopardizing his ability to stay there during his summer holidays. This is the last of his true, blood-related, family. Yes, before you begin what I know you are going to say, he is of course always welcome with our family. That is not the point. You did not take into consideration his needs or the consequences of your actions beyond testing the products. That is why I have an issue with what happened. You both know I love you both and support your hobbies, but you are almost adults. This situation could have ended much worse than it did."
"Now, I won't be telling your mother -" he was cut off by the woman in question coming into the room from outside, or at least that is what it sounded like to her from the kitchen.
"What are you talking about, Arthur? Not telling me what? What did they do, you all were gone much longer than I anticipated." Mrs. Weasley questioned her husband, and when none of them answered right away she continued, voice rising. "What, exactly, did they do? Arthur, so help me if they did another prank and you aren't telling me it will not just be them in trouble with me."
Hermione could not make out the rest of the conversation, but she saw the twins rush through the kitchen and upstairs as fast as she had seen them not on a broom.
"Well, I for one am ready to settle in. From what I understand from your letter, Ron, we are leaving quite early in the morning, correct?" She started gathering her things, lifting them to start walking up the stairs to Ginny's room where she was staying the night. Or, at least, that is where she assumed she was staying the night since The Burrow, the Weasley's home, did not have any extra bedrooms from what she understood.
"Yeah, Ginny is up in her room. It is the third door on the right, past the twin's bedroom, about three stories up." Ron responded, gathering Harry's things as well and helping him up to the fifth floor, from what she heard.
Magical places, especially homes that were added onto like this one as their family expanded, often had unique designs and configurations that were not executable in the muggle homes. Ron had told her a few times about the different types of houses he had seen growing up. Apparently, Cedric Diggory lived a few miles away and they used to see one another as kids. His house was hidden away, under a patch of greenery that looked like a wildflower garden. Mr. Diggory and his wife had dug holes into the ground magically and created their own, literal, burrow. They had gone down so far, as a kid they created a slide from the entrance at the top (which was walking into a specific tree next to the wildflowers) that would take visitors from the top to their living room. It was very innovative, and she wondered why the Weasley's had not attempted the same thing since it seemed like a much more durable and adaptable plan than what she was seeing.
The Burrow was still very different, and charming, in its own right however. She looked around and out the windows on the stairs as she walked up to Ginny's room. There was a quidditch field and pond right by the house, and a field with its own wildflowers growing. It was beautiful, and there were enough windows that the stairs were lit up as she walked. She would not be shocked if, at night, the stars illuminated them just as well. She was going to ask Ron later if there was an area to view the stars from the top of the home. She lived in the heart of London's suburbs, so there were no stars to see due to light pollution.
When she reached Ginny's room, she made sure to knock. In the last year, Ginny and her had gotten closer. Hermione had no siblings, and Ginny had plenty that were not able to understand what she was going through or how to deal with the typical drama that was given to early teenage girls. Luckily, Hermione was close enough in age that she felt she could talk with Ginny about things and she knew Ginny felt the same. Both of them did not have it easy at school so they helped each other through it as best as they could.
Ginny was the youngest of six brothers, all of whom had made a name for themselves by the time they had finished their first years. They were all well liked, maybe except for Percy, and held good values and futures that seemed promising and set. In Ginny's first year, she was not able to make the same name for herself, instead she was thrust into a situation that was so horrifying, she still has nightmares about them now. She had been writing Hermione all summer about them, trying to figure out how to have a conversation with her parents for counseling or help to work through the possession of Tom Riddle for an entire year. She was so far behind in her second year she had to seek Hermione out for help to get back onto the same playing field academically as her peers. Not to mention, because of the possession, she had to figure out how to make friends with people who already had established friend groups. Hermione could relate to how her friend was feeling, afterall she had just a few close friends and getting them to be friends was not the easiest feat.
"Ginny, I'm here! Can I come in?" Hermione asked through the door, hoping that Ginny was not asleep or playing music in there. She had found that most rooms in the Wizarding World had silencing charms placed on them so people could not hear what was going on in them, but you could hear what was going on outside.
She saw the door handle move and then suddenly yank open widely. "Hi there, Hermione! I missed you! Please, come in. I hope Ron informed you of the sleeping arrangements before you got here. We have a pretty small home on the bedroom side of things, but we did manage to get you a cot to sleep on while you are here. Oh, I am so excited! I have never had a sleepover before, and definitely have not had a girl my age here! We've had plenty of males, but it is just not the same when you aren't allowed to join in on their fun most of the time." Ginny reached out and hugged her tightly, and then the most unexpected thing happened. The house shook.
"Ginny, what was that? Did we just have an earthquake? We aren't near a faultline from what I remember, but I am also not entirely sure where we are either. Wizard Maps do not seem to be a thing." Hermione asked, trying to help Ginny pick up some of the photos that fell due to the shaking.
"Don't be alarmed, it will probably happen a few more times while you are here. Usually it is due to one of two things: the gnomes are attacking the wards (this happens very regularly, and sometimes they do make it in to steal from our garden) or it's Fred and George." she commented, almost like this was a normal conversation and this occurrence happened everywhere. This was not normal.
She turned and blinked at Ginny, asking slowly and with as much patience as she could, "Your brothers just ran up the stairs not three minutes ago, how could they cause the house to shake? Are they setting off bombs in their room or creating fireworks?"
"Well, you have us there, Granger. We discovered muggle fireworks this summer and have been recreating them for wizard usage. Want to try some out?" She turned back around to face the door quickly, finding both twins looking at her amused.
"What, never heard fireworks go off in a house before? What do muggles do for fun? Use them twice a year and then store them in the back of a closet? How boring." She was sure it was George talking now. He was the one to make the slightly sarcastic comments about muggles not using their great products to their full advantage.
"Well, they are considered a fire hazard and can kill people. So, no, they do not use them inside ever. Is that what the shaking was? It nearly took poor Ginny's room out." She said to them. Yes, it was a bit of an exaggeration, but she had to exaggerate with these two.
"Why yes, that is what we were doing. These are flameless fireworks, so the only real risk you have is a little smoke stain on a wall that can be quickly cleaned by any household spell. No real risk." Fred jumped in, "we are still working on the house shaking part. What is a fault line? Is that what is causing the shaking when they go off?"
Hermione always forgot that none of her peers who were raised in magical homes went to traditional schools before going to Hogwarts, so there was much of life that they were not taught. Mind you, most of what she was taught in school was not applicable here as they have come up with alternatives to get rid of the day-to-day nuances and had a better understanding of science than muggles so it was not useful.
"Fault lines are places around the globe where Earth's plates have had rock displaced, often due to the different shifting plates. Usually this will result in an earthquake, which feels an awful lot like what we just experienced." she stated quickly, and as simply as she could. "It is not likely, or probable, the fault lines would be the cause of the shaking from your product. I would hazard a guess that it is due to the mass amount of energy produced and expelled by your product to create the "boom" effect that all fireworks have. If you can find a way to harness the energy to create the boom, but not have it dispel so harshly, it could fix your problem. Have you tried a stabilization charm, silencing charm, and some type of freezing charm on the product's housing? If you put it on, it may help in reducing the effects of the actual potion. Mind you, this is just a theory so if something goes wrong you did not hear it from me."
She looked back over at the boys, who were staring at her like she had a third head who was talking from the dead.
"What?" She asked them. It was unnerving not seeing them talk. It was a beautiful thing to hear them talking multiple sentences at a time now, without them switching back and forth on talking. That had been many years of annoyance for her, and made it very hard for her to concentrate on what they were saying. She, at first, had thought they only did it with her to confuse her, but she realized quickly it was just their way.
"You, you of all people, just gave us advice on how to fix a prank product." George asked, still looking shocked. "Brother of mine, please punch me. I think I am stuck in an alternative universe and sleeping."
Fred was still staring, shocked and slightly contemplative of her idea. Hermione did not think this was a big deal, she liked charms and she liked potions. Why not have someone put the two together and create something useful?
"Brother, you did not hear wrong and I will not punch you, for I think it would be an insult to the lady in question." Fred had broken his silence and started nodding his head. "I think her solution may work. We were getting a lot of energy dispelled quickly due to the casing we are using. With the stabilization charm, it should help keep the casing from moving during initiation. The silencing charm would help in the initial effects of the lighting, and freezing charm should help with the actual shaking of the house or place you are shooting from since the energy won't dispel past the enclosure, leaving the potion to do the work after that. You are a genius! We still have to figure out a way to make the actual potion quiet, but the rest should stop the problems we have been trying to fix! Thanks, Hermione!" He broke into a grin and went to hug her.
She had not been hugged by a male, not even by Ron and Harry, since starting at Hogwarts. It was not something the younger years did. She did see that people would hug in the older years, but it was almost taboo in years one through three. Girls were even private about their bodies, still going into the bathroom and locking the door when changing because it was considered not socially acceptable to do it infront of one another, especially as their bodies changed. Not that she minded, of course, her body had changed a bit over the summer. She had breasts that looked less like insect bites and more the size of needing to wear bras regularly. She had brought a few of her smaller bras with her in case Ginny needed them this coming year since she already grew out of the training sized ones. It was really hard to get close at Hogwarts, and the village called Hogsmead where the school was located did not offer many options.
Before Fred could make it over to Hermione for a hug, their Mum had called everyone down for dinner. She had gotten to The Burrow as late in the day as possible, to make sure not to inconvenience anyone as she knew her arrival was scheduled for the same time they were picking up Harry from his Aunt and Uncle's house. Mrs. Weasley, from what she had heard, could rival the Hogwarts house elves on food quality and taste. She could not wait. Maybe, if she sucked up a little to the woman, she could learn a few things. Her own mother was not really the maternal type (nor was her father), so basic life skills like these she had to learn on her own. She was very lucky to have been born with magic, it helped her so much. Growing up things just magically cooked themselves, which she thought was odd, but never had the right opening to ask her parents if that was normal due to them not being present.
"Well, anyways, thanks Hermione!" Both twins were sure to say again as they made their way back downstairs to have dinner.
When they got there, Ron and Harry had already started dishing out food to their plates. How it was possible for them to make it down the stairs before then, she was not sure, but she was curious to know what secrets this house held.
After dinner, which she was not surprised was the best meal she had all summer, she was stuffed and ready to head to bed. Mr. Weasley had informed all that were taking a portkey to get to the Quidditch World Cup that they had to be up and ready by no later than 4:15 so they could make it to their pick-site a couple miles away.
Ginny and her had a chance to quickly catch up before getting ready for bed, which was proving to be difficult since there were five other men sharing the bathroom with them. The cot, while not the traditional bed, turned out to be quite comfortable for her to sleep on. She almost wished she could take it home with her so it could be her bed permanently. Her one at her parents was not in the best of shape because her Mom used it while she was away at school for guests, and there were always guests at the Granger House. She had asked for a new one, but her parents always insisted that it was not necessary since she did not stay there very much now and it should do for what she needs. Again, not the type of parents that held sympathy or much understanding for emotions. They were more cool and logical, which is why she had such a hard time making friends when she first got to Hogwarts. Social skills were hard to develop when all she had been taught were to use cool logic for any and all situations that would arise in her life. At least she had good role models in place, like her professors and friends, to help her understand and grow as a person.
Hermione drifted off to sleep thinking about the Weasley family and how wonderful they seemed to be together, and the Quidditch World Cup and what to expect from the day tomorrow. It was not going to be one of her typical summer time activities of reading a book to avoid her parents and their ongoing social sagas, instead it would be fun and such a good look into all the different cultures of wizards that were coming to celebrate. She could not wait!