I am not JKR. The characters you recognize are Rowlings the rest are from my imagination!

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Chapter Eight

Passages and Twins

Taylor was still grinning as she stepped out of the fireplace at Briggs Cottage. She had gotten used to traveling by floo powder, but she would still prefer to travel by broom if it were only fast enough. She could apparate; not the most enjoyable feeling in the world but you didn't need a fireplace, and it was a sure way to get from one place to another almost instantly. However she wasn't of age and couldn't get her apparition license, not until next summer. So she wasn't allowed to apparate, or the Ministry of Magic might get involved.

Mrs. Briggs was in the kitchen and said, "How was your day dear? Did you have an enjoyable time with your friends? Well, Janet was by today for a visit…" Taylor was still amazed at how much Mrs. B, as she had started to call her during her second summer here, could talk. They had a pleasant supper together. Taylor found that Mrs. B asked very few questions that she ever waited for an answer to. That suited Taylor just fine. Not that she was trying to hide things. Mrs. B seemed to think of her as more of a houseguest that came and went. She seldom inquired into Taylor's personal life. Yeah, they had a strange relationship but it worked well for them. After supper Taylor helped clean up, then asked if there was anything else she could do. When Mrs. B said, "no", Taylor went up to her room saying that she had some reading she had to do.

As Taylor closed her door the smile came back to her face. She was wondering how far Ron would go to protect his sister from a broken heart. She started giggling as images of Ron and Harry dueling it out popped into her head. Maybe Harry would jinx Ron and he'd have grass coming out his ears, a common jinx at school. Taylor sat on her bed and still grinning, pulled a map and several heavy books out of their hiding place in the wall. She'd found the hiding hole her third summer and it had proved to be very useful. If I thought for a second that Ginny thought that I was fooling around with Harry I'd tell her… This stopped Taylor's line of thinking. Just what would she tell Ginny or Hermione? I don't know, but if Ginny suspected Harry of cheating on her with me, Ginny would have jinxed me into next week, of that Taylor was sure! Ginny had the well-deserved reputation for jinxing people who crossed her!

Taylor closed the blinds in her window, and then spread the map out on to the bed. She pulled out her quill then flipped the largest book open to the page she had been reading the night before. The parchment she had been making notes on was there also. Taylor had taken Mrs. B up on her invitation to read any of the books in the room she stayed in, however, she was quite sure that Mrs. B didn't know about the secret bookcase behind one of the walls. These books had a lot in them about dark magic; very much like the restricted section in the library at Hogwarts. She had discovered them her fifth summer and they were proving very useful. They had spells and some very nasty jinxes that could help out a lot when the time came to face Voldemort and his Death Eaters. The map was an unexpected bonus. It was of Great Britain, but most important of all, it had Godric's Hollow on it; the place where Harry said he was going to visit first after the wedding. Taylor knew that she would have to apparate and use her magic when she went with Harry but this really didn't worry her. Once she was away from home and the Weasley's, where the Ministry was watching for underage magic, she'd be fine.

Taylor still remembered when Dumbledore had called her to his office again in March and told her that she could go to the Apparition Lessons, but she wouldn't be allowed to get her license until the following summer when she would actually turn seventeen. Taylor had been angry. Why couldn't the same magic that allowed her to go to Hogwarts a year early also allow her to get an Apparition license, she had wanted to know. Dumbledore had told her that the magic that surrounded a witch when they became of age was old magic and couldn't be tampered with, and that maybe she should just tell people that she didn't really want an Apparition license. A lot of full-grown witches didn't have one Dumbledore had said. This had made Taylor feel like she was being left behind; something she was constantly struggling against. She had surprised even herself, though, when she had been one of the first ones to be able to do it. If she didn't go back to Hogwarts nobody would ask her if she got her license over the summer when she was supposedly turning seventeen. That's some poor reason not to go back she thought, shaking her head.

Taylor groaned as she remembered the disaster that followed her talk with Dumbledore in March. She had left the Headmaster's office in a huff and had gone for a walk to cool down before heading back to the common room, and as she so often did when she was thinking, she wandered about the school without really paying attention to where she was going, until she ran into Harry. He had been obsessed with figuring out where Draco Malfoy was going and was wandering around with the Marauder's Map trying to catch him. They had argued all the way back to the common room, Harry not approving of Taylor out alone roaming through the school, and Taylor trying to make Harry see that his obsession with Malfoy wasn't helping. Luckily the common room had been empty except for Ron and Hermione. Taylor knew that Hermione was becoming suspicious of the tension in her relationship with her brother, so Taylor blurted out the first excuse she could come up with to explain her fight with Harry.

"I'm tired of telling you to get off my back, if I want to tell everyone what Dumbledore told me I will!" Taylor grinned as she remembered the shocked look on Harry's face. She had said just the right thing to get the reaction she had wanted. Harry even obliged by growling at her to keep quiet. But, of course, Taylor plowed on with, "Dumbledore told me that my birth records were lost and that some how my age was mixed up. I can't take my Apparition test until next summer; I'm only 15!"

Harry had stared at her in shock and Hermione had gasped and been the standup friend that she was, and defended Taylor and her abilities. Although Hermione had also been the first to point out the fact that Taylor would still be underage until the following summer. All Ron could come up with was that Taylor was the same age as his sister, Ginny. As if I hadn't already thought of that, Taylor remembered thinking; but the worst part was that Harry had gotten angry with her for telling their friends even that much and didn't speak to her for over a week.

So she knew that if she did go with Harry that she would be taking a much greater risk than she was going to let on to Harry or anyone else. She told herself that it wasn't really that much greater; the Ministry, after all, would be after Death Eaters, not a single underage witch using magic outside of school. If I'm caught, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. She refused to listen to the little voice that said, "Look at what happened to Harry when he used magic in their fifth summer."

Taylor decided that she would finish the books laid out on her bed before going to sleep tonight. She was afraid she was running out of time to study all the books in the hidden bookcase before she left with Harry after the wedding. It looked like it would be another late night.

After Fred and George released Ron and Harry from the jinxes they had put on them, Ron seemed to calm down, especially when Harry got up rubbing his jaw and Ginny was asking what had happened. Hermione looked from one to the other and shook her head. "Boys," she thought.

Mrs. Weasley went back into the house still muttering to herself about how those two would be the death of her yet.

"Hey! What gives anyway? What were you jumping Harry for, Ron?" asked George as he walked over to a badly weathered lawn chair and sat down. The rest of them followed and sat in the other two lawn chairs or on the grass. The sun was now behind the trees and the yard was cast in shadow.

"Yeah, Harry, that was quite the heated conversation you two were having. If we hadn't have come along, who knows which of you would have come out of it on top. Of course, Ron, if you'd have won, I'm sure Ginny would have put enough jinxes on you that even Mum wouldn't recognize you," Fred said chuckling.

Ron shot them a nasty look, but Harry said, "We were just trying to decide on the," and Harry said the first thing that came to mind, "best flowers to give to Bill and Fleur for their wedding."

Ron's head came up and he gave Harry a bewildered look, and stammered, "Yeah, ah, I, ah, wanted roses and Harry wanted ah, lilies." He met Harry's eyes and gave a nod. They would let it go for now.

"Flowers my right hind," George began, but Harry cut him off.

"We want to ask you two a couple of questions about the map," Harry pulled out his wand and said "Muffliato" so they could talk about it.

Fred's eyebrows went up and he said, "You mean the Marauder's Map?"

Hermione had been silent until then. She was wondering what had gotten into Ron and Harry for them to be fighting, or maybe more precisely, what Taylor had said or done. Harry's question about the map brought her mind back to the things they had discussed earlier that day.

"Yeah, we would like to know if you know anything about the collapsed passageways on the Map?" Hermione's voice was businesslike, as if she were asking a question of a teacher.

Fred and George looked at one another. Then George asked, his voice guarded, "Well, if you mean the one on the fourth floor behind the mirror, it caved in our fourth year."

Ginny knew there was something going on between Fred and George. They were wary of something. So when Ginny spoke she tried to keep her voice carefree as if it didn't matter at all what the answer was, "Oh well, with every thing that's going on we didn't want anyone getting into the school who shouldn't be there."

Hermione glanced over at Ginny, but tried to follow her lead, so that when she asked her voice was lighter, but her words were still calculated. "We were just wondering about the passages that the teachers know about. Are any of them caved in?" Hermione could tell by the expressions on Ginny and Harry's faces that she hadn't pulled it off.

George's eyes narrowed and he looked again at his twin before looking at Harry and asking, "Why do you want to know, Harry?"

Harry's interest was definitely piqued. What were these two so wary about? It wasn't like them to be so cautious. Something was definitely up, Harry thought. Maybe there was something to investigate after all. "Well, I've just never been in those passages and ah, we were wondering where they went is all."

Ginny, Hermione and Ron were leaning forward to hear the twin's answer. But when Fred spoke, it was to George not Harry and them. "George ol' boy it looks to me as if we have ourselves a couple of trouble makers here, wanting to know how to get into Hogwarts undetected. That would not be a good idea. We should tell on these young'uns before they end up in real trouble!"

Ron exploded, "What do you mean! We are not trying to sneak into Hogwarts! You two aren't in the Order either, so why don't you just tell us what we asked you…" The Order of the Phoenix was a group of witches and wizards who Dumbledore had organized to fight against Voldemort and his followers. Ron's face had turned red and he was getting to his feet when Harry caught hold of his arm and pulled him back down.

Harry decided to tell the twins a little bit about their idea, in hopes of getting them to tell them what they wanted to know. Harry told them about needing to find something he could use against Voldemort and that they were wondering if there might be something hidden at the school, possibly in one of those passages. It wasn't the whole truth but it seemed to satisfy the twins.

"Well, why didn't you just say so, Harry. We were starting to think you were up to no good." Fred said and George nodded. They told them that two of the known passageways had been caved in when they discovered them and of the other two, one went into Hogsmeade to an old abandoned house; the other ended in the Forbidden Forest. Dumbledore had sealed them up magically at the start of last year so no one could get into the castle by way of those passages.

"Sorry about not telling you right off, but we were worried that you'd tell Mum and she would give us a hard time about looking for, ah, something to use against Voldemort," Ron said looking a bit sheepish. He had almost used the word Horcrux.

"No problem, lil' bro. Next time just come right out and say what you want instead of beating around the bush," George replied. He didn't quite believe them. They weren't telling him and Fred something, but there was time to work on them about that he reasoned.

The rest of the evening went well except that Fleur wasn't happy with the flowers that Hermione and Ginny had enlarged. Harry thought that Ginny was going to curse Fleur before Mr. Weasley wisely said that they could work on them tomorrow, with Fleur's suggestions of course. After that, Harry asked Ginny to go for a walk to the living room where it was slightly less crowded. No one went outside after dark. Wizarding houses usually put sealing charms on their homes when it became dark so no one could enter unless invited. It was a very dangerous time with Death Eaters making attacks on homes and Dementors roaming about. They used to be the guards at Azkaban prison; now they worked for Voldemort.

Harry wished he could have taken Ginny somewhere so they could be alone and talk. He wanted to explain to her what had happened between Ron and him. Of course, this brought his thoughts back to Taylor. He was going to have to have a talk with her tomorrow because she was not going with him to Godric's Hollow or looking for the Horcruxes. It was too dangerous. Tomorrow. Thoughts of Taylor left him as Ginny took his hand in hers and began tracing circles on his palm.

A/N Well there you have it another chapter and things are starting to happen :-) ... though I must admit this is one of my least favorite chapters... not sure why but it is.

Please if you have read this far, leave me a review! I would very much like to know what you think!

As always thank you for reading! Thanks to my bata barbc! Until next time, cytpotter