Hermione, unlike many of her peers, had a healthy respect for most grown-ups. If nothing else, grown-ups were more powerful than her, and they could get things done much easier than she could, especially in legal matters. So Hermione always considered the "ask an adult" option when a problem presented itself. She knew better than to get in over her head without knowing exactly what she was diving into, and having an adult deal with complicated, tangled matters was far more efficient than attempting to do it herself.

And with Harry locked up like he was, the situation so much worse than she had ever expected, "ask an adult for help" seemed to be the fastest way to get Harry out.

So when Hermione knocked on the door of the Burrow, she was prepared to meet the Weasley parents. She knew from Ron that his father worked at the Ministry, and she hoped that Ron (or one of the twins) would be willing to introduce her. From there, she could tell Mr. Weasley what the Muggles had done to Harry, and they could figure out a plan of action of how to get him removed from the household immediately - she didn't think the Ministry would be okay with the Boy-Who-Lived being locked up like a caged zoo exhibit for sadistic muggles.

What happened instead was one of the twins throwing open the door, staring at Hermione, and then grabbing her and abruptly yanking her inside.

"Wha-?!"

Her yelp was abruptly cut off by the twin's hand covering her mouth. She glared at him, but he hurried up the stairs, half-dragging her, where the other twin was waiting and staring at her.

"Who is it, Fred?" a woman called.

"No one, Mum!" the other twin called. "Must have been a prank or a gnome!"

The woman muttered something, but Hermione couldn't make out what she said as the twins had grabbed her and dragged her up the stairs. Before she knew it, she'd been pushed into a room and onto a bed, and one of the twins had vanished, only to return a moment later with Ron, whose eyes grew wide.

"Hermione-?"

"Ron," Hermione said, raising an eyebrow and looking up at him. "Lovely to see you again."

The sarcasm was heavy in her tone, and Ron scowled.

"What're you doing here?" he demanded. "I didn't invite you."

"Lovely decorations," Hermione commented, deliberately ignoring Ron as she looked around, nonplussed. "I presume this is the twins' room...?"

"Yes, yes, it's all lovely, we're pleased to have you," Fred said. "Now: pleasantries aside – you're here because of Harry, aren't you?"

Hermione was surprised to see anxious and concerned looks on all their faces, and she nodded slowly.

"I- I hadn't gotten letters from Harry for a while, so I went over to go and check on him, posing as a Muggle," she told them.

The twins nodded, looking impressed.

"Smart. Collect the information-"

"-without them knowing you're after it."

"Very Slytherin," they chorused, their eyes pinned to her. Hermione felt uncomfortable.

"And?" Ron asked, his voice worried. "Did you find Harry?"

"I did." Hermione bit her lip. "It- it's awful. They've got him locked up in his room with a giant lock and bolt on the outside. They've been passing him food through a cat flap in the door. There are even bars in his window, so he can't escape. I don't even know what he does to go to the bathroom. But they've made his room into a prison, and they don't plan on ever letting him out!"

The boys all gasped.

"We need to do something," Fred said decisively. "We'll do it tonight."

"We'll break him out," George said. He looked at Hermione. "We were afraid we'd have to do something like this."

"He hasn't responded to any of my letters," Ron complained. "At first, I was just peeved, but then he kept not responding. It's not very Harry-like, is it? I must have invited him to come stay half a dozen times…"

Hermione blinked.

"Harry never got your letters," she told him. "He said no one except me was writing to him. He was rather peeved about it, actually."

Ron looked surprised.

"How come he got your letters, and not mine?" he wanted to know.

Hermione considered.

"I sent mine through the Muggle post," she told him. "If someone was stopping Harry's mail, they might have only thought to stop the owls coming through."

Fred and George exchanged a dark look.

"We have to save him," Fred said decisively.

"We'll rescue him," George added. "However necessary."

"Rescue him?" Hermione objected. "I'd thought- we could tell your father, and he could have Harry removed-"

"Dad's not likely to have that kind of clout at the Ministry," George said, cutting her off. "Sure, he could file an appeal, but it'd take ages to get up to someone who really mattered."

"And in that time, Harry could starve to death," Fred said pleasantly. "It's practically our moral obligation to rescue him, you know."

Hermione bit her lip. She'd planned on going through the Ministry channels, but… if they could just rescue him, it's not like the Muggles would really object, was it?

"We'll have to do it tonight," Hermione told them. "It's awful, what they're doing to him, and I told him I'd go back for him."

"Then," Fred intoned gravely, "we will need to plot."

Plotting was apparently A Thing™ with the Weasley twins, and there was a bit of a ritual involved.

First, the twins hung a sign on their door and firmly locked it, with no fewer than five different locks and bolts. Next, they draped a gauzy cloth across the doorway that Hermione suspected was enchanted with anti-eavesdropping spells. Lastly, they all sat on the bed in a circle, legs folded under them. Ron sat in the circle too, and to her surprise, Hermione was dragged in as well, made to fold her legs and sit on the far edge of the bed nearest Fred. It was clear she'd somehow become part of the scheme without meaning to. Ron appeared to have forgiven her for her part in him getting detention at the end of the previous year in the light of them joining together to save Harry. Hermione wondered if it was easier for him to forget she was in Slytherin when she wasn't wearing a green tie.

They all sat on the bed, brainstorming, trying to think of ways to save Harry.

The brainstorming was ridiculous. The insight into the Gryffindor mindset was as amusing as it was alarming - their plans all seemed to be very direct, aggressive, and fearless. The boys seemed convinced the best way to save Harry would be to charge into the house, duel the Muggles, and break him out. The twins were determined that Harry's aunt and uncle needed to pay for what they had done to Harry, and their eyes were fierce as they ominously described all the horrors they would inflict upon the hapless Muggles. Ron was flourishing his own wand, declaring how he'd dodge Harry's cousin's dangerous metal Muggle wand while hitting him with a Leg-Locker Curse before disarming him, and it took Hermione a solid moment to mentally translate that and catch up.

"I don't think Dudley Dursley will have a gun," Hermione said finally. "Guns aren't common amongst Muggles in England. Especially not among twelve year-olds."

"Even easier, then!" Ron declared. "I'll be able to take him down, no problem!"

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose.

"We can't just go in, wands blazing," she said loudly. "It's a Muggle neighborhood – the Ministry would be alerted of any magic use, and they'd catch us for being underage and out of school. We need to rescue him without the Muggles realizing."

The twins froze and straightened.

"You mean, like a covert ops mission," George said, his voice a whisper.

"Like we're spies," Fred added, his eyes flashing.

Hermione stared at them.

"…yes," she said finally. "Like we're spies. In and out, without anyone knowing."

Declaring that they had to rescue Harry as a spy mission seemed to do the trick, setting the twins' imaginations alight, and they started brainstorming ways to rescue Harry without anyone knowing. The idea generation went on for a while as they considered idea after idea, each dismissed as either too dangerous or too risky. At one point, Hermione suggested they go on broomstick with an acetylene torch to cut through the bars on Harry's window and then escape with Harry on broomstick, but Ron shot that one down.

"We'll have to carry all Harry's stuff with us, and you can't carry a trunk on a broomstick without shrinking it down," Ron pointed out. "Plus, we might be seen – broomsticks aren't invisible to Muggles."

"What's an acetylene torch?" Fred wanted to know. "It cuts through metal?"

"Flying's a good idea, though," Ron mused. He looked thoughtful. He turned to his brothers. "We could take the car, if one of us could drive it. We could use rope and just pull the bars out."

"A car?" Hermione said. "It'd take us all night to get there. The Knight Bus would be faster."

"The car flies," Fred explained brightly. "Dad enchanted it."

Hermione stared at him. "…I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

George shrugged.

"Then we don't get caught," he said, eyes dancing. "Isn't that the unofficial Slytherin motto or something?"

It was, actually - it was Unofficial House Rule #2, and one of the first things she had learned in Slytherin.

Hermione flushed, and the twins laughed.

"That could work, but we'd need to leave soon," Fred said. "If we left as soon as Mum and Dad went to bed, we could rescue Harry and be back by morning. And then it would just be, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'd be so pleased to see Harry she wouldn't ask questions about how he'd arrived."

Hermione stared.

"Your mother," she said, incredulous, "would be that laid-back about a child abruptly appearing at her house?"

"Well, it'd be Harry." Ron shrugged. "Mum likes Harry. I wrote to him ages ago to invite him over, but never got an answer."

"So it's at least plausible that the Muggles would have let him come over," Fred pointed out. "Maybe they sent him in the dead of night."

"Less traffic that way," George said, nodding wisely. "Less risk of Harry getting run over by vehicles and velocipedes."

That was definitely not how traffic worked... but now really wasn't the time to address that mess of Muggle misunderstanding. Hermione but her lip, mentally reviewing the plan.

Flying to Harry's in the dead of night in an illegal, invisible car seemed ill-advised, but it could work - and they could escape with Harry, tucked away in the back seat. If they didn't get caught by the authorities, there wouldn't be a problem, and Harry would be free, and if the car really could turn invisible, that risk seemed minimal. They were much more likely to be caught by the Weasley parents upon their return, but Hermione wasn't about to point that out - she wouldn't have to suffer their displeasure, really, and Harry would be free by then.

Hermione sat up and squared her shoulders, decision made.

"When do we leave?" she asked. Her eyes were determined.

The twins' faces split into identical grins, and George crept silently out of the room, returning a few moments later, excitement dancing in his eyes.

"Now," he told them. "Let's go."