Mrs. Weasley yelled what seemed like hours, but it was actually only a quarter of an hour or so, judging by Hermione's watch. Hermione and Harry stood there awkwardly, exchanging glances, while Mrs. Weasley hollered at her sons. She kept going – beds empty, no note, car gone, never had trouble like this before – and whenever one of her sons tried to defend himself, Mrs. Weasley would seem to gain steam and start in again, and the objecting son would cower.
By the time it was over, Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse. She turned to Harry and Hermione, both of whom took an instinctive step back.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear," she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."
Harry looked incredibly relieved and scampered after Ron. Mrs. Weasley stood in the yard looking at Hermione, who looked back at her.
"You must be Hermione," she said finally.
There was a note in her tone Hermione didn't like, and Hermione drew herself up, folding her arms.
"I am," she said, holding her chin up.
Mrs. Weasley regarded her for another long moment, before giving a long sigh.
"You might as well come in," she said. "There's enough breakfast for everyone."
She turned and went back into the house. Hermione glanced at the twins, who nodded encouragingly, and, without a better option available, followed Mrs. Weasley into the house.
The house was nothing like what Hermione would have expected a Pureblood house to look. The clock on the opposite wall spun more like a compass, pointing to things like Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens, and You're late. There were assorted spellbooks around the house haphazardly, but they were ones like Charm Your Own Cheese. The ceilings in the house seemed kind of low, and if she wasn't mistaken, there was a broom sweeping the entry way on its own.
It was quaint and charming, and nothing like what Hermione had imagined a magical household to be like. She'd been expecting grand manors, really, but upon reflection, the inside of the Burrow looked exactly like the outside – odd, quirky, obviously magical, but not without its own homey charm. Perhaps her expectations had been overly influenced from the descriptions she'd heard from her Slytherin classmates, bragging about their own grand stately homes all the time.
"Your home is lovely, Mrs. Weasley."
Mrs. Weasley turned from her place at the frying pan and raised an eyebrow, her face tightening.
"Don't you give me that," she said, her voice angry.
"No! I'm being sincere!" Hermione said quickly, holding her hands up to appease her. "Honestly. I've never been in a magical household before, and this is lovely. Everything is so warm and happy here. It's as if the love your family has permeates the entire place."
"Oh." Mrs. Weasley's face softened at that, her cheeks reddening. "Well, thank you, then."
She brought over a veritable feast of eggs, sausages, and bacon, and everyone began to eat. Chatter focused around Harry and his adventure with the House Elf, which Hermione found odd. The House Elf itself sounded odd – and did all elves have names like Dobby? She was disturbed by Harry's account of the elf punishing itself. None of the Hogwarts elves had ever done anything like that that she had seen or heard of. Were privately-owned elves abused?
Conversation turned away from Harry, who looked grateful for the chance to stop talking and eat his food, and settled onto Hermione instead.
"I thought you were in Slytherin, Hermione, dear," Mrs. Weasley said. "How is it you've never been in a magical household?"
Her casual question somehow sounded like a challenge. Hermione swallowed her eggs.
"I am in Slytherin," she told her. "And my parents are muggles."
Mrs. Weasley looked politely confused.
"You're presuming all Slytherins have magical parents," Hermione said, her tone patient. "While most people in Slytherin are purebloods, not all of them are."
Mrs. Weasley's eyebrows raised.
"Well, you must be having a rough go of it," she said, but her tone didn't seem quite as sympathetic as her words. "A Muggle-born in Slytherin..."
"I manage just fine," Hermione said, stabbing her eggs with her fork. "Slytherin is the house of the ambitious, and it was the best fit for me."
"Still," Mrs. Weasley said, giving her a condescending smile. "Slytherin is notorious for its emphasis on blood purity. I can't imagine someone of your... parentage, being well-accepted there."
"I'm well aware of it, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said sharply. "I was captured and tortured last year for my dirty blood by my own house mates. I know exactly how important blood purity is in Slytherin."
Mrs. Weasley froze.
…as did Harry, Ron, Fred, and George.
A table full of large eyes turned to her, staring, and Hermione winced.
"…I'd ask you to please not repeat that to anyone," Hermione said quietly. "Slytherin in-fighting is kept strictly within the house. If others found out I told anyone…"
"If they bully you for just not being pureblood…" Fred said, looking ill.
"…it would probably be very bad," George said, greenish.
Hermione nodded, shuddering as she remembered that night, helpless on the floor, cutting charms slicing through her skin.
"Very bad," she agreed.
There was a heavy silence as Mrs. Weasley bustled around, finally sliding into her own chair.
"Well!" she said. "We Weasleys certainly know how to keep secrets. Right, boys?"
The glare she fixed her sons with was piercing, and all three of them cowered.
"Right," Ron said quickly. "We won't tell a soul."
"We won't even tell things without a soul," Fred added.
"Not a word to anyone or anything," George said, nodding. "Not even the dinner plates."
"Or the walls-"
"Or the chairs-"
"Or the beds-"
Mrs. Weasley shot the twins a sharp look, and they stopped, acting like they had been calmly eating their breakfast the entire time, before Fred struck up a conversation with Ron about Quidditch. It was painfully obvious that it was a topic change, but the entire mood in the room seemed to relax as a result.
Hermione relaxed and returned to her plate, only to find Harry glaring at her, having moved his chair right up next to hers.
"You were tortured?" he hissed. "How come you never told me?"
His green eyes looked betrayed, and Hermione bit her lip.
"There wasn't anything you could do," she told him quietly. "It would have just made you mad, and I was worried you might run off and do something foolish and get yourself in trouble."
Harry frowned.
"Why would you have thought that?" he asked, looking at her sideways. "Why would you think I would want to do something? I might gripe, but it's not like I openly object to other people's punishments."
Hermione winced, and Harry's green eyes seemed to catch fire, growing the color of acid, almost radioactive.
"They weren't punished, were they," Harry breathed.
It was not a question.
"No," Hermione admitted. "They were not."
Harry remained very quiet for a long moment. Hermione sat very still.
"We are not done talking about this, Hermione," he told her finally. "But not here. Not now."
Hermione let out a breath of air she hadn't realized she had been holding. She looked away from Harry, refocusing on the table at large.
"We'll go in a week or two," Mrs. Weasley was saying. "I know Ginny is excited to get her wand."
"Why can't we go now?" Ron whined. "There's a new Nimbus model out I want to see, and surely it's better to beat the back-to-school rush?"
"We're part of that rush, Ronald," Mrs. Weasley said in exasperation. "And you haven't even gotten your school letters yet. How do you expect us to go shopping if you haven't gotten your booklist yet?"
Ron blinked. "Oh."
"Oh," Fred imitated, blinking stupidly.
"Oh," George said in a falsetto, crossing his eyes as he blinked, and Hermione had to stifle a laugh. Ron glared at his brothers, who got up from the table.
"Blimey, I'm tired," yawned Fred. "I think I'll go to bed and–"
"You will not," snapped Mrs. Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again–"
"Oh, Mum–"
"And you two," she said, glaring at Ron and George. "You two can go up to bed," she added to Harry and Hermione. "Hermione, Ginny's room is the one on the third floor with the sign. Harry–"
"I'll help Ron," Harry said quickly. "I've never seen a de-gnoming."
"I'm just going to head home, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said, standing. "My parents are expecting me back at some point this morning, and I still have loads of homework to finish before the school year starts."
Harry choked, and Hermione's eyes darted to him in alarm until she realized he was trying not to laugh. Hermione's cheeks colored at the obviousness of her lie, but Mrs. Weasley didn't seem to notice.
"Very responsible of you," she said, nodding. "Well, the boys can walk you out to the street. You took the Knight Bus, I presume?"
There was a rustle, and a quick game of "Broom, Bludger, Snitch" determined that Fred would walk Hermione to the road while the others went around back to start on the de-gnoming. Fred looked very satisfied by this outcome, while Ron looked sulky. Hermione suspected he really didn't want to de-gnome the garden; it wasn't like Ron actually enjoyed her company.
Hermione grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder, wincing slightly at the weight. She said her good-byes, and she and Fred set off.
The Burrow was set back quite far from the road, Hermione noticed. She supposed when one didn't drive a car normally, such a long drive didn't really matter. Apparition and the Floo Network made such things moot.
"You're a good planner," Fred remarked casually, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. "That plan to rescue Harry was well done. We worked well together."
Hermione looked up at him.
"…I didn't plan anything," she said. "That was you all. Suggesting the magic car, the rope."
"You were the one who cased the place beforehand. You were also the one who suggested a covert mission," Fred pointed out. "You also just happened to have a grappling hook on hand. A grappling hook."
Hermione didn't really have a response for that. She'd brought her entire dungeoneering pack, after all, not knowing what she might need.
"…and?" she said finally, looking at the weeds growing between the road and the Weasley's drive.
"Planning that sort of plan is a skill that most people don't have," Fred told her. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. His face broke into a small grin, and his eyes sparkled.
"That's the sort of planning ingenuity it takes," he said, "to be a brilliant prankster."
Hermione laughed.
"I'm a Slytherin, remember Fred?" she told him, batting away his hand. "As I remember it, you prank Slytherins almost exclusively. And I'm not about to get into a prank war with you."
Fred shrugged, uncaring. "Maybe George and I should move on to new targets, then."
Hermione threw out her wand hand, and with a loud BANG the Knight Bus appeared. She shifted her bag over her shoulder, suddenly feeling the full depth of her fatigue, and Fred steadied her as she climbed onto the bus.
"Just think about it, Granger!" he called after her, waving with a grin. "We could do great things together!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, turning to the conductor, who looked at her quizzically.
"Don't I know you?" he said.
Hermione ignored his query. She gave him her address, then paused.
"No hurry," she said, handing over her sickles. "Actually, I can get there last. I'd like to get one of the beds, please."