Hello lovelies!

It's been awhile since I last updated and I apologize for that. I have so missed this story. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter, so let me know what you think. Hopefully, I'm able to update more frequently. Enjoy!


Chapter Three

It was days later that Nessa found herself wandering the Burrow alone. Tori had disappeared hours earlier, having become tired of lounging away in her and Ginny's room, where Nessa seemed very fond of hiding.

Nessa wasn't particularly offended. Tori had always led a much more active lifestyle than her, and she highly suspected that being away from the twins for so long was grating on the other girl's nerves. The three of them, while not nearly as inseparable as the twins themselves, were quite close. And, like the coward she was, Nessa was still avoiding the two boys like the plague. Of course, that was a rather hard thing to do when they insisted on sitting on either side of her at the dinner table and attempting to draw her out of her shell.

She puffed out a bit of air and pushed her hair back off of her forehead as she turned around on the stairs. Really, the amount she was struggling to walk them was a tad embarrassing. She'd made two loops already, which if it were the Hogwarts castle would have been an achievement. But seeing as the Burrow wasn't very tall, and the stairs weren't particularly steep she should have found it much easier to make a couple of trips from the top to bottom. The fact that she couldn't was proof alone that she needed to get out more.

She took a deep breath and glared at the top of the stairwell before forcing herself into motion again. Her legs were burning and her lungs were panting for breath, but the exercise was helping to clear her mind. She could almost convince herself to set aside her anxiety and just go bouncing into the twins' room, pretending to be as bubbly and comfortable with them as Tori. Of course, the exercise wasn't working up her nerve to do such a thing, as she'd hoped it would, but only to provide her a distraction.

Gods, she was pathetic. The twins were very friendly and she had absolutely no reason to be nervous around them. Granted, she was nervous and awkward around everyone and she didn't much understand it, but social situations and large crowds had always given her a great deal of anxiety.

She stopped to take a breather on one of the floors, leaning against one of the walls and trying not to let her legs give out.

"Why did I even decide to do this?" she muttered, leaning her head against the wall to stare up at the several other flights of stairs she still had to climb.

"I hear nutters talk to themselves."

Nessa jumped a mile in the air and jerked around to face whoever had interrupted her. Fred stood directly across the hall, leaning against the bathroom door with a smirk and sparkling eyes, as though he were trying not to laugh. She was betting he wouldn't be laughing if she smacked him.

Before she had the chance to consider the thought, he was walking towards her, his grin growing as she hastily stepped aside. Of either of the twins, Fred made her the most nervous. He was never cruel to her, but he seemed to be the more explosive of the two. George seemed a lot calmer and more docile. If either of the twins could be considered docile.

"All you had to do was knock," he said as he pushed open the door and entered his room.

Nessa's eyes widened when she realized she'd stopped just outside the twins' door. As the door swung open to reveal George sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a steaming cauldron and Tori lounging on one of the beds in an oversized sweater that had a large 'F' in the middle, Nessa wasn't entirely sure what she should be doing.

"Are you going to stand out there all day, darling?" Fred's voice pulled her out of her reverie.

Tori was now sitting up on the bed and looking at her quizzically, and George had looked up from the potions book he'd been flipping through. The attention made her panicky, but she ignored the feeling and reluctantly stepped into the room, closing the door soundly behind her.

The room was a testament to the twins' chaotic personalities. One of the bedspreads was a bright orange, the other a jarring magenta. Quidditch magazines and posters were hung around the room, and various knickknacks and strange objects were thrown haphazardly on the floor. Despite this, she was very surprised to note that the twins' room wasn't at all messy. Not entirely sure what she should be doing, she walked slowly to the unoccupied bed and cautiously sat down on it.

When the only response she got was a gentle smile from George, she leaned forward to see what the twins were doing. The content in the cauldron was bubbling ominously. It was an extremely thick concoction that she wasn't particularly familiar with.

"Is it supposed to be that thick?" Fred mentioned, grabbing the ladle and stirring the goopy mix that was in it.

Nessa didn't know why the texture was much of a concern, considering the color was a sick, putrid green. She scrunched up her nose just looking at it.

"It's supposed to be nougat, isn't it?" George said off-handedly. "I'm more concerned with the color. Don't suppose we can get anyone to put it in their mouth if it looks like that, do you?"

"Not a snowball's chance in hell," Nessa responded immediately. Tori snorted from behind the magazine she was reading. "How did you even manage to get it that color in the first place?"

"Not entirely sure…" George hummed, distractedly.

Nessa watched, intrigued, as the twins traded ideas on how to diffuse the color and added more ingredients into the cauldron, the color still remaining a disgusting green. It was only when she realized that Fred was about to drop in aconite leaves that she shot off the bed and grabbed his wrist.

"Are you mad?" she snapped, jerking the bottle from his hands.

"Excuse me?" he said in surprise.

"You're wanting people to eat this." She said as if it were obvious, but everyone was still staring at her as if she'd just lost her mind.

"So?"

"So" she said, rolling her eyes. "Aconite leaves are extremely toxic and everything you've added to this potion is too weak to fight off its effects." When they still stared at her as if she were mad, she sighed. "You can't use aconite in a potion you intend to ingest. It'll poison you."

"Interesting," Fred said thoughtfully, as though poisoning someone to death were only a minor setback. "Don't they use aconite in Wolfsbane potions?"

"Yes, but only on the week leading up to the full moon." She said, climbing back onto the bed and laying on her stomach so she could face the twins. "That's the only time that it's safe enough for a human to ingest because their bodies are preparing to transform, so their genetic makeup isn't the same."

"So you're good at Potions then?" George said, looking up at her with a smile. "The theory of it is always a little complicated for me."

Tori snorted and rearranged herself in the same position as Nessa. "Good at it? She's a natural. You should see the way Snape dotes on her."

Fred and George stared at her in shock.

"I thought that was a rumor," George said at the same time that Fred said, "Snape hates Gryffindors."

Nessa squirmed under their scrutiny. "He's just misunderstood."

Fred snorted. "He's just a greasy git."

Nessa rolled her eyes. "I've heard what you two try to pull in his class. Blowing up Slytherins' cauldrons and setting off fireworks and dungbombs. If you're expecting a hug after that, you're obviously delusional."

Fred smirked at her. "He deserves it."

"So wait a second," George interrupted before his brother could start an argument. "If aconite is poisonous, then why in the bloody hell does mum keep it in her potions cabinet?"

Nessa shrugged. "It's pretty useful for gardens and such. Kills weeds, keeps away pests and insects, things like that. Muggles have the same kind of things for their gardens."

Tori snorted. "Explains why we found that in the very back of her potions cabinet, then. That garden hasn't been weeded since before I moved in."

Fred shrugged. "Means she won't miss it then—"

"Which is good for us because I don't much fancy getting screamed at again." George finished. "Is there anything that could cancel out the effects of it?" he asked Nessa.

"Not entirely. There are ingredients in the Wolfsbane potion that somewhat mute the effects, but it still wouldn't be safe for any one of us to ingest on our own."

George sighed. "We'll have to look into it, Fred. We're trying to make their noses bleed, not outright kill them."

"Why would you want to make someone's nose bleed?" Nessa said, alarmed.

Tori rolled her eyes. "They're trying to get people excused from class. You know, swallow a candy and start gushing blood and be sent to the hospital wing, but you'd actually skip instead."

"Er, wouldn't it just be easier to skip entirely?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah, but we couldn't make a profit off of that." Fred said, as he attempted to scrape the potion they'd been making into the trashcan.

"We want to start a joke shop." George expanded. "You know, like Zonko's—"

"—Except more modern. Dungbombs are great and all, but they lack a certain…imaginative quality." Fred finished. George nodded enthusiastically and Nessa smiled at his passion for the idea. It was quite endearing.

"We want to do something more than that, you know." George said with a grin. "Aid all sorts of mischief makers—"

"Keep them talking about it and you'll find out why they don't have girlfriends." Tori deadpanned from Fred's bed. Both twins looked affronted at the suggestion.

"I'll have you know that there are plenty of birds that find me quite charming." Fred said sniffily. Tori snorted.

"Doesn't count if they're blind, Freddie." She sing-songed.

Fred chucked a pillow at her in response and a spark ignited in her eyes when it caused her to smack herself in the nose. Tori lunged at him in retaliation, beating the pillow he'd just thrown quite viciously at Fred's head. George closed his eyes in exasperation and jumped onto the bed with Nessa to avoid the two lunatics rolling around on the floor. Though Fred was laughing uproariously, Nessa was a tad afraid for his life; Tori's temper had always been quite spectacular, regardless of how ridiculously trivial the catalyst appeared to be.

Nessa tensed when she felt George lay on his stomach next to her, and attempted to move aside for him to fit better next to her. George laughed when she nearly rolled right onto the floor and quickly shot his arm out to pull her back. She blushed when she realized that they were so close that the side of her body lined up with his. She wasn't used to being this close to people. At least not anyone but Tori or Harry.

"I don't bite, you know." George said through a chuckle. "Besides this is my bed you're lying on and I can't enjoy the show from all the way over there." He finished, nodding towards the head of his bed.

Nessa looked down at her fingers as she toyed with the bright orange bedspread. George immediately stilled her hands with his own. She looked up at him in surprise, but he simply grinned at her before turning his gaze back to watch his twin attempt to fight off his temperamental best friend.

"Are they always like this?" Nessa asked in an attempt to distract herself from her own awkwardness.

George snorted. "Since I can remember. When we were younger, Fred convinced her that an entire spoonful of mud was chocolate pudding," Nessa wrinkled her nose in distaste and George laughed. "She chased him up the tree in the backyard and it took Mum two hours to convince him to come back down."

Nessa laughed at the thought of a little Fred Weasley cowering in a tree in an attempt to hide from a curly-haired little girl.

"I can't see Fred being chased up a tree by Tori." She admitted.

"Fred was always running from Tori. He used to whine about how she was a bully and tried to convince mum to stop letting her come to visit." George said, smiling fondly at the still scuffling pair on the floor. Fred had somehow managed to wrestle the pillow from her and was now attempting to pin her flailing arms and legs beneath him before she could do damage to his face. Nessa was amused to note that he was no longer laughing and instead looked extremely annoyed with her theatrics. "I think he was just jealous that me and Tori got along so well, honestly."

The last part didn't particularly surprise Nessa. Though she'd been privy to quite a number of rants about Fred, Tori had never spoken ill of George. The two of them seemed to have a much easier relationship than she shared with Fred. Nessa suspected it was because Fred and Tori both had similar volatile personalities that made it hard to avoid arguing.

"How'd the two of them become friends if he hated her so much?" Nessa inquired.

George shrugged, though he seemed to be a little less amused by the question. It was silent between the two for a long moment. Nessa was about to apologize for prying when he finally answered.

"The night that Tori moved in with us," he said quietly. "Mum tried to send her to Ginny's nursery to sleep for the night, but she refused. Ran right up to our room and crawled into bed with Fred and refused to budge when mum insisted she sleep elsewhere. Actually," he grinned. "She started wailing and Fred threw a huge temper tantrum until mum agreed to let her stay with him. He was very protective of her after that."

Nessa smiled sadly at the story. Though it was probably the sweetest thing she'd ever heard, the reminder of why Tori lived with the Weasleys was always a sore one. Tori refused to talk about it and no one else tried to bring it up. It had taken Nessa an entire year to learn what had happened and she suspected that it wasn't the complete truth; Tori insisted that she remembered very little of that night.

As far as Tori would say, her mother had been the only family she'd had left when the war ended. For reasons unbeknownst to her or the Weasleys, her father had abandoned them sometime after Voldemort's downfall and any other family she may have had had perished during the war. So when Voldemort's Death Eaters came knocking on their doorstep 3 years after the war had "ended", her mother had done her level best to hide Tori within the house. Arthur said it had taken them a couple of hours to find her in the nook that her mother had created in the closet wall, but he and Molly had instantly agreed to take her in. She'd been with the Weasleys ever since.

"Gotcha," Fred said triumphantly from his position on the floor, drawing Nessa's attention back to something far less melancholy.

Nessa snorted. Fred had finally managed to subdue Tori beneath him, though she was still kicking out her legs and sending him a death glare. Fred only grinned down at her from his position straddling her legs.

"George Weasley, tell your buffoon of a brother to get off of me this instant!" she snarled, attempting to pull her arms free of the death grip he had on them.

Fred tutted. "Always running to Georgie when you're in trouble. You leave him out of it."

George snorted. "Seconded. You did this to yourself."

Tori thrashed beneath Fred in response, but Fred only grinned wider and switched her wrists to one of his hands so that he could poke her in the side with his other. She squeaed and thrashed harder, as Fred laughed above her and continued to squeeze her sides.

"Freeeeed, stop!" she laughed, thrashing wildly beneath him in an attempt to dislodge him. "I'm sorry, I take it back!"

"I'm the most dashing bloke you've ever met, admit it." He said, grinning down at her and continuing to squeeze her sides while she thrashed beneath him. She glared at him in response, which was largely muted by the fact that she couldn't stop laughing. He smirked and doubled his efforts. "Admit it!"

"Alright, alright," she gasped. "You're the most dashing bloke I've ever met!"

Fred grinned triumphantly and rolled to lay next to her as she glared up at the ceiling. Fred was looking particularly smug when she smirked and shot up from the floor.

"Second only to George."

George laughed uproariously from his position next to Nessa, as Fred shot up to chase Tori down the stairs and out of the room.

"Come on," George said, still chuckling. "We should make sure they don't kill each other."

He rose from the bed and offered her his hand expectantly. She hesitated for only a second before taking it and allowing him to pull her after him.


It was only days later when their Hogwarts owls finally arrived at breakfast. It was both with excitement and disappointment that Nessa slid a finger beneath the seal and cracked it open. She had become quite accustomed to staying at the Burrow and had to admit that she was reluctant to return to her studies. The explosions from the twins' room had become less worrisome as the days went by and Mrs. Weasley's food was certainly just as delicious as the feast at Hogwarts. Not to mention Mr. Weasley's insistence that either her or Harry explain the intricacies of Muggle life every night at dinner, which she found to be extremely endearing.

She sighed as she looked down to read over her letter.

THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 by Miranda Goshawk

Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

Spellman's Syllabery by Rosana Amorim

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander

Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart

Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart

Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart

Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart

Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" Fred said from next to her, as he leaned over to look at Harry's list. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan—bet it's a witch."

Nessa snorted when he caught his mother's eye and began to busy himself with the marmalade in front of him. He winked at her when his mum had returned to looking over Ginny's shoulder to see her list.

"That lot won't come cheap," said George with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive…"

Nessa met Harry's and Tori's eye uncomfortably, as she busied herself with another piece of toast.

"Well, we'll manage," Mrs. Weasley said, though she looked a little worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny, in order to distract himself and Nessa from the awkwardness of the conversation.

Ginny nodded, her face flaming as red as her hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Nessa nearly choked on her toast in her attempt not to laugh, and was grateful no one else seemed to have noticed the younger girl, because Percy had walked into the kitchen and nearly sat on the family owl.

"Errol!" Ron said, taking the limp owl from his brother and tearing the letter from his leg. "Finally—he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."

He ripped open the letter and read it aloud to Harry, rolling his eyes when she mentioned being busy with schoolwork.

"—and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet up in Diagon Alley?"

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all of your things then, too," Mrs. Weasley said, clearing the table. The children at the table nodded and tried to swipe the remaining food from the plates before she could begin to wash them.

"Who's up for a game of Quidditch?" Fred said, stretching his arms over his head before shoving one last piece of toast into his mouth.

Nessa eyed him with distaste, both due to the fact that she didn't particularly enjoy flying and his abysmal table manners. He grinned at her through his food and she hastily looked away. Ron, George, Harry, and Tori seemed ecstatic about the idea and raced up the stairs to change and grab their brooms before heading outside for the day.

"Would you like any help, Mrs. Weasley?" she offered quietly from her position at the table.

"Oh, no, dear," she said, patting her cheek fondly. "I'll be done with this in a jiff."

Nessa nodded and made her way back upstairs to Ginny and Tori's room and grabbed the Muggle novel she'd been reading. She figured that if she couldn't play Quidditch, she may as well bask in the beautiful day and enjoy her alone time. She found being alone was few and far between at the Burrow.

After several minutes of walking around the yard, she decided on a tree that was surrounding the paddock that the others were using as a Quidditch pitch, when she noticed Ginny hiding in the branches of one and tried not to laugh. She walked over to the tree and looked up at the younger girl.

"Ginny, right?" she questioned, lightly.

The younger girl nearly fell from the branches in surprise. Her face flamed bright red when she recognized who she was talking to.

"Er, hello, Nessa," she said, pulling at the bark on the tree as she pretended like she hadn't been caught spying on the boys and their Quidditch game. Though Nessa highly suspected that it wasn't the Quidditch game that had captured her interest, but rather the hero worship the youngest Weasley seemed to have of her younger brother.

Nessa eyed the younger girl, amusedly. She had come outside with the intent to read her book and get some alone time, but something about Ginny had her changing her mind.

"Mind if I join you?" she said, setting her book on the ground and beginning to climb the tree nimbly before the girl could respond. She'd settled comfortably on the branch below Ginny's when the younger girl finally stopped pulling the bark from the tree. They sat in silence for quite some time as Nessa watched the boys and Tori fly low to the ground and throw apples for each other to catch.

"He's very good," Ginny said, quietly. Nessa looked up with raised eyebrows and watched as her face flamed red once again as she continued to watch the game in front of them. "Harry, I mean. Ron said he was good, but I've never seen him play."

Nessa grinned at her before returning her attention to the game as well. She suspected that Ginny didn't imagine that Harry was bad at anything, but she refrained from saying so. She'd seen the twins and Tori take enough mickey out of the poor girl and figured she'd heard it all enough.

"He is," Nessa said, smiling fondly as Harry allowed one of the twins to try out his broom. She could hear the excited whooping as he raced around on it from her position across the pitch. "It's a bit unfair, really, considering how atrocious I am on a broom."

Ginny laughed. "You can't be that bad."

"I was shaking so bad my first flying lesson that I could hardly get my broom off the ground. Actually, it flew out from under me and I fell onto my arse before I got the chance." Ginny roared with laughter as Nessa avoided looking at her. "Tori will never let me live it down."

"I wish I had seen it." Ginny admitted, chuckling from her position above her. Nessa rolled her eyes, though the effect was diminished by the fact that she was grinning. She'd long ago accepted that she would never be able to fly on a broom, and she couldn't say that she minded all that much.

"Do you play?" Nessa asked, nodding over to game as she looked back up at the younger girl.

Ginny shrugged, though she was smirking in a way that reminded Nessa distinctly of the girl's twin brothers.

"I don't have my own broom yet, but I sneak out at night to play while my brothers sleep." She admitted. "They won't let me fly with them otherwise."

Nessa chuckled at the slight bit of resentment in her voice. "They mean well," she said, gently. "You're their baby sister. I'm sure they worry."

Ginny glared out at her brothers, and Nessa was surprised they didn't catch fire. "They don't worry about Tori and she's practically their sister."

Nessa snorted. "If they tried, she'd probably kill them. She doesn't exactly give them room to be protective."

"Sooo…. I should be angrier?" Ginny said, confused. Nessa laughed loudly and then tried to smother it with her hand.

"That's not exactly what I meant, though it seems to work for Tori." She said, giggling. "I mean that you shouldn't let them walk all over you. You aren't that much younger than Ron and Harry and wanting to fly isn't exactly asking for that much. Besides, I've seen the Weasley temper in action before and I highly doubt it skipped over you."

"OI! What are you two doing?" Ron yelled over at them, as the other children dismounted and began to walk over. Nessa rolled her eyes at his tone.

"Sorry, Ron, we must have forgot to ask your permission to sit in a tree." She snapped. The twins sniggered as Ron's face turned red. "I was simply talking to your sister while you lot excluded her from your fun."

"She's too young to play Quidditch." Ron said, dismissively. She heard Ginny huff from behind her. Nessa looked up at the younger girl pointedly with her eyebrows raised.

"Right," she said loudly, straightening in her position and glaring at her older brother. "You started flying much younger than me, Ronald Weasley, so don't try and use that excuse. Mum and Dad have said it's fine if I start flying, but none of you lot will let me borrow your brooms."

Ron sputtered beneath them. "Well that's beside the point."

Ginny huffed and jumped down from the tree as she glared at him.

"It's exactly the ruddy point, Ron." She snapped "I'll fly if I want to fly and I'll use your broom while I do it since you're such a prat. I'm much better at it than you, anyway."

Tori laughed uproariously as Ginny stomped her way back to the house, leaving Ron staring dumb-founded after her.

"Well how the bloody hell would she know? She's never flown before." He said angrily to Harry.

Nessa laughed lightly as she swung upside down on her branch before flipping herself onto the ground. She nearly ran right into Fred and blushed profusely when he grabbed onto her shoulders to steady her. He winked at her and she hastily turned away from him and followed after Ginny's footsteps.

She stopped when she felt a hand on her wrist. She turned to face a smirking George.

"Should I be worried about your influence on my sister?" he said, eyeing her pointedly and chuckling when she began to blush.

"I've no idea what you're talking about, George Weasley."