Harry Snape rolled over in bed and buried his head in the pillow. The morning sun was slanting through the window directly into his eyes, but he didn't want to get up quite yet. His bed felt surprisingly comfortable—his pillow smelled clean—he just couldn't to get up and go make Dudley's breakfast and sit in a corner while his Aunt and Uncle tried to pretend he didn't exist and then spend the day trying to keep out of Aunt Petunia's way and wishing he was somewhere, anywhere, else, especially the only place in the world he had ever really felt at home and which he was forbidden to even mention…
The realisation of what the day ahead would hold brought an involuntary groan to the back of his throat. He lifted his head and hit it against his pillow a couple times. He would just stay until Aunt Petunia came to wake him up…he was trying to remember his dream, which he thought was about a little goblin trying to tell him not to go back to Hogwarts, and something about a flying car, and a house with a ghoul in it…
He opened his eyes reluctantly, mainly because he had to use the toilet, and had to blink two or three times in quick succession. The world appeared to have turned violently orange in the night.
Ron Weasley, his orange hair splayed across his orange pillowcase, lay on his stomach under an orange blanket. The wall above him had been decorated with an orange banner and a lot of little orange figurines ran about on the dressing table next to him, which was draped in orange.
Right. Not a dream, then.
He closed his eyes tightly, partly to shield them from the luminescent room and partly to better recall everything that had happened—really happened, apparently.
He really had met a little house elf in a pillowcase called Dobby who had tried to get him expelled from Hogwarts because of…something he wouldn't tell him, some kind of danger.
He really had been kidnapped in the middle of the night by three Weasleys in a flying car, demanding why he hadn't replied to any of their letters.
He really had been taken away from that life he'd been dreading, the life of frying bacon for Dudley and dodging his uncle's belt.
He really had flown all night and landed at a wonderful, magnificent, tumble-down old wizard house full to bursting with redheaded witches and wizards and fascinating things of all kinds.
He really had seen Ron's sister again.
Harry climbed out of bed and made his way to the lavatory, suddenly rather happy. Yesterday had been like some kind of…well…dream.
Mrs Weasley had yelled at her sons for a long time (and at her husband for enchanting the car in the first place) then she smiled at Harry very graciously, invited him in for breakfast, and made him eat thirds and fourths of everything. The sausages, at a flick from Mrs Weasley, fried themselves; the bacon leapt onto the griddle; when the egg yolks broke they mended themselves up; the oranges squeezed themselves willingly into glasses; and everything soared from surface to surface with only the slightest direction from Mrs Weasley. Harry watched her wand movements eagerly, wondering how she did it all while thoroughly scolding her children.
Just as she had set to fiercely buttering most of a loaf of bread, a tiny red-headed figure in a long nightgown appeared in the door.
Harry paused, his mouth full of juice and a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth. There was a short silence.
She seemed really small, smaller even than he remembered. Her hair was darker than her brothers' or her parents', almost really red instead of orange, but she had the family freckles and her mother's bright brown eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then she squeaked and raced out of the room.
Harry swallowed his juice. "She OK?" he asked, gesturing so that the eggs fell off his fork.
"She's only been talking about you all summer, mate," said Ron. "Blimey, you really didn't get my letters, did you? She insisted I mention her in pretty much every single one."
"She'll be wanting your autograph soon, Harry," said Fred, grinning.
Then…what had happened then? The day had gone by, one unexpected, fascinating thing after another. He'd de-gnomed a garden…toured Mr Weasley's workshop, which was full of sparkplugs and things…met an actual ghoul, which seemed like a sort of pet to the family…been terrified to hear an explosion, only to realise that everyone was carrying on as usual and found out that it came from Fred and George's room, and that no one noticed explosions from there anymore (Fred and George had been only too happy to demonstrate what they'd been working on when he asked, and about a dozen other things that Harry was fairly sure Mrs Weasley didn't know about)…he'd played about a million rounds of Quidditch on the sort of field near the Weasleys' house…tried to keep Hedwig, who hadn't seen a decent meal in a month, away from Ron's pet rat Scabbers, which once involved chasing Scabbers from the seventh floor down to the basement and back up again…eaten more than he had ever eaten in his life, just because he didn't want to be rude to Mrs Weasley…
He hadn't seen anything more of Ginny except one bright brown eye peering out from behind her door as they passed up the staircase to Ron's room.
"Just what is it that's so fascinating she can't even say two words to me?" Harry had asked.
Ron shrugged. "Well, you are famous, you know, mate. Heard about you all her life, hasn't she? And from what I could gather there's something really incredible about the whole green eyes thing."
"She said that…?"
"Course not. She's got a big thick diary full of you. Mum only bought it for her a while ago and she almost needs a new one."
"You read her diary?"
"Some of it's poetry, and rotten stuff, too. Oi, Scabbers…"
And now it was the next morning, and he'd spent the night in that really incredibly orange room after one of the best days of his life. Harry finished washing his hands and headed out of the bathroom door; he thought he could remember his way down to the kitchen. He wondered vaguely what time it was, and whether there would be breakfast soon…
He was greeted upon entering the kitchen with a shriek. Little Ginny, still in her long white nightdress, jumped and spilled about a litre of orange juice down her front.
"Oh…oh…oh…bollocks!" she said, stamping her foot. Her face screwed up as if she were about to cry and she threw her arm across her eyes to shield them from him.
"Good morning to you too," said Harry. "What are you doing up so early?"
She shook her head and raced away.
"Oh, no…hey…" he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I just…"
He started to follow her, but by the time he'd gotten out of the kitchen she had already vanished. The house had so many little twists and turns and nooks and crannies he thought he could search all morning and not find her, so he shrugged and went back.
She appeared to have been trying to make breakfast. There were eggshells and some kind of black mass in the bin; there was bacon on the counter, as well as a loaf of bread with a knife stuck in it; and several depleted oranges sat next to the overturned squeezer, which was now dripping onto the counter. There was also a fistful of mixed weeds and summer flowers, which Harry recognised from the Weasleys' garden; they still had dirt clinging to the roots, and droplets of dew sparkled on the leaves.
Idly curious, Harry picked up the homemade card attached to these. It was a little dog-eared, but in large, relatively neat characters the words HARRY SNAPE were still visible.
Harry felt his ears turning red. He crumpled the card up before Ron or Fred and George could come down and see it, and on further reflection he picked up the flowers and pitched them too. Then he set about finishing what Ginny had started. When Mrs Weasley appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, wearing a threadbare old dressing gown, he had seated himself at the table and was chewing on a piece of toast.
"Good morning, Harry," she said, sounding surprised.
"Morning, Mrs Weasley," he said. "I put the kettle on and there's some bacon on the griddle that should be ready soon, but Gi…someone had used up all the eggs in that carton thing and I couldn't find anymore. And the orange juice got spilled but I cleaned it up, and I thought I'd wait to make toast…well, except this…until everyone was up, since it only takes a minute and it's better when it's hot so you can make the butter melt into it…or I think so, anyway. And I got out the marmalade because I know Ron eats it a lot."
"Why, Harry, you didn't have to do any of that!" said Mrs Weasley.
"I always make breakfast at the Dursleys'," he said.
Mrs Weasley crossed the kitchen and gave him a hug. "Well, you needn't now," she said. "While you're here I'll be taking care of you, thank you very much."
Harry couldn't ever remember being hugged by a grown-up woman before. In Mrs Weasley's case it was a bit like being smothered by a friendly marshmallow.
He squirmed a little and she finally released him. "It was very sweet of you," she said, brushing his long hair out of his eyes. "You just sit there and eat your toast now and I'll fix you up something." And she bustled off toward the stove and pantry.
She paused, however, when she passed the bin. "Why, Harry," she said, stooping down, "did you pick these?"
"Er…pick what?" asked Harry.
"These flowers…they fell in the bin," she said, lifting them out with her wand and giving them a bit of a shake so that an orange peel fell off them.
"Oh, er, did they?" said Harry.
"Oh, no, I suppose it's one of those bouquets Ginny picks. She's probably off practi…playing outside, again. Well, no harm done, I'll just dust them off and get a vase for them…"
Harry was relieved. He had been a little worried that if Ginny saw that her flowers were gone her feelings would be hurt. Now the Weasley brothers were bound to think that they were for Mrs Weasley, not Harry, and Ginny'd probably be too embarrassed to say anything.
In point of fact, no one even noticed the flowers when they did come down. Fred and George, still in their pyjamas and smelling faintly of explosives, tumbled right past the vase on the way to the sausages; Ron, when he arrived, seemed mostly asleep, and navigated the complex labyrinth of toys and magical debris on the floor with his eyes more or less closed; Percy appeared in the door, kissed his mother, collected a plate of breakfast, and went back to his room immediately; and Mr Weasley entered the kitchen with the Daily Prophet in his hands and didn't look up at all until he had finished the last page. Ginny herself showed up around the time her brothers and Harry were starting on their seconds; she crashed through the door that led to the garden, wearing trousers and a red knitted jumper like the one Harry had gotten for Christmas.
"Sorry I'm late, Mummy," she said, a little breathlessly. "I just—" Then her eyes fell on Harry. Her lips snapped shut and her face turned the same colour as her jumper.
"Morning," Harry said.
She muttered something and tried to smooth her hair.
"Ginny, say good morning to our guest," said Mrs Weasley.
"G'morning," she said, barely audible.
They studied each other for a long moment and finally Ginny scuttled to a chair and sat.
Except when directly ordered to do so, Ginny didn't say another word to Harry for most of the next week. When he appeared she tended to turn bright red and knock things over, and sometimes she would actually leave the room when he entered it. He tried not to notice, but it did disconcert him a bit. All the previous year he had kept himself sane through rough patches by remembering this little girl's smile, and he hadn't seen it once since he arrived.