AN: Since this is a fic for people who are interested in odd theories, tiny details, realistic back stories, complex characters and odd theories about tiny details in the realistic back stories of complicated characters, the first half is dedicated to the three people who've brought the subject up: coolcat12345, Ziactrice, and Krysania.

.o0O0o.

With a knock-knock! her father opened the door and gingerly stuck his head inside.

"Hey look! I got a new hat," he said with a smile, Imogen nesting in his frizzly coiffed hair.

Normally she would've shaken her head and called him a birdbrain or something but Hermione had other things on her mind.

"You wanna know why I put it on?" he asked after moment.

She just sat at the rickety desk that came with the room he'd rented for her.

"Are you alright?" he asked, coming in with a small cloth bundle in his hand. "You've been very quiet. Your shopping not go so well or was it the Spanish Inquisition who botched things up?" he asked, shooing the owl away to fly out the window as he sat on the bed.

"Would you ever eat a cat?" she asked, looking at him seriously.

"Why, do you plan to get one?" her bulging-eyed father asked in return. "I promise I won't eat any cat you happen to get," he said with his hand solemnly raised, "as long as it's hypoallergenic. Your mother's allergic to pet dander."

Hermione couldn't help but make a face, she had forgotten that. She chose a more serious topic instead.

"What about slavery?" she asked. "Do you think it's an inherently evil act?"

His eyebrows jumped to his hairline; that had done it. There was no way he could make a joke about that.

"Slavery as we know it was an absolutely abhorrent affair based on the systematic exploitation of other people as personal property," her father said seriously. "That's why we're well rid of it and there are those that work hard to make sure it isn't practiced, even in secret. But you've known all this for years, so why ask today of all days?" he ended curiously.

"Do you think it's possible that anyone would ever actually want to be a slave?" she asked instead of answering.

"Now you're stepping into a minefield," he said holding his hands up in front of him to ward off responsibility for the question. "I know you're only asking a hypothetical, but taken out of context some things that question implies could cause some really big problems."

"I'm not stupid, Dad," she said with a crinkled brow, fully aware of the sensitivity of the issue. "I just want to know how someone could be happier being a slave than being free."

"Well now," he said, looking rather relieved, "Happiness is a slightly safer shade of gray." His hair became a bit flyaway as he scratched his head to come up with one of his patented historical examples.

"You remember Martha, the secretary from work, don't you?" he asked.

"Yes," Hermione replied, curious at him picking something so recent for his example.

"Well, she has three kids and a mountain of debt, thanks to the deadbeat ex-husband of hers," her father said, gesturing with his hands at the enormity of the problem. "What I pay her keeps her bills paid, kids fed, and the creditors at bay – but it costs more than I want it to. That's why I'm going to slash her pay, fiddle with her schedule so she never gets close to overtime, take away all her benefits, and if she complains, I'll tell her she and her kids can starve for all I care; I want my money," he finished earnestly.

"You'd never do that," she rebutted.

"No, I wouldn't," he agreed with a smile. "But I could – if she had any of that that is – and people have, making the people who depend on them for their livelihoods miserable. For people near the bottom, they don't really have much choice, they have to do what they need to in order to survive, even if it's unpleasant, so many of them take jobs like that if they can find them. In the past it was worse, and in many places around the world it still is."

"So even though they're technically free to do as they please, they don't really have the option to since the misery their employer puts them through is less than what's waiting for them if they leave," Hermione said, summing up.

"Now," he said with a gleam in his eye, "imagine that we're a poor rural family living hundreds of years ago with no money to our name and only a small patch of ground to scratch a living from. But there's a drought," he said with a dramatic gasp, "and everyone around us has lost their crops. Our family is starving and odds are you'll be dead before the year is out, but then a rich traveling merchant offers–"

"–Offers to buy me and give me a wonderful life," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "You're trying to say it's the quality of life and the conditions of freedom or servitude that's important."

"Only that in certain situations, there may be elements like that which have to be considered," her father said, seemingly unruffled that his period of make-believe was short-changed. "If the man fed you, clothed you, educated you, gave you a nice indoor job, and freed you with a handful of money after he died – as a parent, I'd have to say the deal was a good one. It'd accomplish everything I could've possibly hoped for: my child was taken care of and the future for you and your children would be brighter than it ever could've been if I'd kept you."

"And if he had lied, worked my fingers to the bone, starved me, beat me, took advantage of me, and sold me off for however much he could get later on then it was obviously a bad deal to make," Hermione said, illustrating the other side of the scenario. It sounded remarkably like what Dobby's life had been implied to have been like so far.

"Well, yes," her father agreed with a wibbly-wobble wiggle of his hands. "But you'd be alive, which is something which wouldn't have happened if you had stayed. There's a point where living in abject misery and abuse becomes worse than death, but how you judge it is rather nebulous. Regardless, it's the abusive form of slavery – the form it overwhelmingly takes – which led it to be condemned; that and the fundamental wrongness of treating human beings like property with no rights at all."

"What if they weren't human beings though and being free would kill them?" Hermione pressed.

"You mean like a robot?" her Dad asked curiously before giving her a look. "I've said it before, she may act like it sometimes, but your mother's not a robot and isn't staying with me because I charge her batteries every night."

"No, not robots," she said testily. "I'm talking about thinking, feeling, living beings."

"Hm, explain," he prompted in the one word way he had when he became really curious.

Hermione told him everything she had heard and seen that day when it came to house-elves, the treatment of Dobby, how other elves are supposedly treated in the magical world, and what Harry's lawyer had said about the centaurs and how it's best to treat everybody differently. It was a very long spur-of-the-moment lecture her father seemed content to absorb. Thankfully he kept his questions until the end.

"If one of them is mistreated, then why don't they just leave? And sure, everyone likes to feel welcome but how is that supposed to keep them alive? Do they die from not being liked? And why the compulsion to work; how do they gain energy by expending it?" her father asked in a rapid-fire way. "Is it work they feed on, the food Lawyerman hinted at, or the magic of the person they work for? And where do they sleep, some unused part of the attic? Oh! Are they like Brownies?"

"I don't know if they can; I don't know; it sounded like they waste away and die; I don't know; I can't explain it; it seems completely contradictory; I would certainly hope not; and I'm sure they'd like brownies if they tried them," Hermione returned back shot for shot, her hair becoming an even more maddeningly frizzy as her already frazzled nerves became more frayed. She didn't like not knowing things.

"No, not like yummy brownies, Brownies brownies," her father said with a wave. "Little spritely things that live in people's houses, are never seen, and expect gifts of food for doing odd jobs around the house," he explained. "Though some say they live in streams and waterfalls, though I don't see how that could be without them tracking mud all over the place," he muttered to himself.

"Dad!" she cried, getting his attention. "What are you talking about?"

"Folklore," he said with a grin. "Brownies are a lot like what you described house-elves to be, though the only sure way to run them off is to refer to those gifts as 'payment,' and they can leave if you mistreat them. Hm, I wonder how much of our folklore is really half-remembered bits of the magical world that's managed to bleed through. You know, with a name like Hermione, I would've expected you to glance a bit at some folklore and mythology before now."

"Well, sorry for disappointing you for being more inclined towards practical matters," Hermione said stiffly. "I had no control over what you named me."

"Nonsense, you've never been a disappointment a day in your life," her father countered. "Though it looks like knowing about Brownies and the Philosophers' Stone would certainly be practical now."

Hermione felt her stomach plummet and the rest of her go numb. How much did he know?

"Oh, I suppose I should mention that the Ron kid started blabbing everything about what you'd never told me about, huh?" her father said with an eyebrow raised.

They were moving to Australia, she just knew it. Her mother had a standing offer there and had almost taken it several times before now, but whatever cost-benefit analysis went on in her robotic brain it had always come back with a baffling 'not yet.'

With her being able to put them off discussing "the options" once before, she knew she wouldn't be so lucky this time. Having control of her magical education didn't amount to much if her family relocated. Both Hogwarts and the Ministry would surely back her parents' decision if she protested; she had no means to travel on her own, had no money, and couldn't pay for school even if she could bring herself to run away.

And on top of all that, the one person who might be able to help was Harry and she certainly wasn't going to abuse their friendship like that, especially not when things were just starting to go in the right direction between them. Hermione didn't know how she was going to get herself out of this; she'd never had to beg for anything in her life but fear was a great motivator to learn if she had to.

"You look like you're going to faint," her dad said cautiously. "You want to switch positions so you can lie down?"

"Dad, I–I'm–," she stammered, at a loss of what to say. She was going to kill Ron for this.

"–Disappearing into a world full of unknown dangers – and now obviously questionable ethics and morals too – but are more terrified at the thought of leaving it than you are of continuing to face those enormous dangers, so you've taken it upon yourself to hide all of this from us thinking that if you somehow make it through unharmed that we don't have to know and won't be worried about you? Oh! Plus, there's a boy involved. Is that about the size of it?"

Hermione sat there with her mouth helplessly open, unable to come up with anything to add to the conversation. How could he have gotten everything so right so quickly?

"I'm not stupid," her father said with a 'who do you think you're talking to?' expression on his face. "Keeping something like this from your mother I can kind of understand, but you told me about Harry, for goodness sake. Plus, I'm a parent; I'm going to worry no matter what. I know I'm not going to be that big of an influence on your life anymore but how am I supposed to help you deal all this magical world madness if you don't tell me about it?"

Finally something clicked in her head and her mind sprang into gear.

"You're not going to tell Mum?" Hermione asked, astonished at her luck.

"I don't want to move to Australia any more than you do," he said with a look that said she was mad. "Their toilets go backwards and the seasons are weird. Who wants to have Christmas in the summer? Besides, why should we be the ones to leave? These wizardy folks are the ones who can't get their act together. First a money-laundering Merlin then a self-defense instructor that tries to kill their students. That's one hell of a pop-quiz."

Springing up, she darted to her dad and hugged him around the neck. With a falsely exasperated cry of alarm he moved her hair so it wasn't in his face and hugged her in return.

"Thanks," she said, like she'd said so many times before, feeling a bit of a return to their old closer relationship. Why had she convinced herself he would've taken this so badly? He was always on her side about everything.

"Yeah, well," he said somberly, "I figure if this stuff happens in stodgy old England, the rest of the world must be completely unlivable. You just promise me something," he said as he held her at arm's length to look her in the eye.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Don't you buy into everything these people tell you about the way the world works just being 'the way the world works,'" Serious Dad said with the same sad eyes he had when his parents were mentioned. "You question things and figure it out for yourself. And while you're at it," he added with a pointed finger to make sure she didn't forget this next part. "Never forget that just because you have to go there to learn, doesn't mean you can't walk away if what you find there isn't worth the price you pay to be there. We still have that college fund for you."

This had her right back to feeling bad again. She wanted to say that of course she'd be objective and make up her own mind about things based on what she learned, but the last bit kept her from it. With Harry learning more about his family, cutting ties with the Dursleys, and trying to make a life for himself somewhere he's actually wanted, when it came to being in the wizarding world Hermione had more care to stay than will to go.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said somewhat sadly.

"So! The Brownies that aren't Brownies," her father said in the falsely chipper way he got. "The whole thing seems like it was made to be an exercise in dubious morality," he said with a look. "I suppose the whole thing revolves around whether they actually require a foreign family unit to live and why that is."

"If they really do need a family to survive then the right thing to do would be to keep them and make them feel welcome," Hermione said, taking up the issue from him. "But if they don't then the right thing to do would be to – What, convince them they don't need us and help them move out on their own? But if we did that it puts them in a very weak position. If they do require work to sustain their health on top of their basic needs, then how can they argue for a decent wage in a society used to getting the work for free?"

"People could just wait until an elf's almost at the point of death and then swoop in and get them back as slaves," her father said with a wave. "It means you'd have to change the culture, not only of house-elves but society as a whole or the entire thing would collapse. But there's also something we haven't considered," he said seriously. "If house-elves are brownies, then we'd have to take that into account."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there are stories of a type of brownie in Scotland who lives out in the wild near streams and waterfalls and doesn't give domestic help. Then there're stories of brownies who live near water but do come indoors and give that help. Then there are the stories of brownies who actually live in your house and takes gifts in exchange for the work," he explained.

"So if you take those stories as fact," Hermione said, "it means they've adapted over time to live with human beings."

"Precisely," he said with a pointed finger. "This will sound crass because we're dealing with an intelligent species, but human civilization rests upon the domestication of plants and animals, a process requiring generations of sustained contact to slowly mold the original wild creature into a serviceable domestic form."

"You don't domesticate people!" Hermione said shocked.

"What do you think slavery is?" he asked her. "And as long as there've been human beings there's been human slavery; it's only in the last two hundred years we've kicked the habit, and now we have predatory employers who treat their workers as virtual slaves. You could argue our entire economic system is a domesticated form of–"

"So what does this mean for house-elves?" she interrupted.

"I don't know," he said with a shrug, "this is all supposition. But there is a chance their need for a family, their need to work, is entirely cultural."

"Meaning wizards have brainwashed them into–"

"Not necessarily," her father cut in. "The house-elves may have convinced themselves they need the human family to survive. Think about it, if they were brownies, and if they did move from the wild into the home hundreds of years ago, then it's the only life these house-elves know now – meaning they've lost the knowledge of whatever skills they had as brownies that let them survive in the wild."

"So they'd be like tigers born in captivity?"

"They could be," he said with a shrug. "And we don't know what they were like before, so we can't say why they made the change at all or if they got anything out of it."

Hermione's eyes popped. "Like their magic."

Her father looked impressed. "Now that's a thought. Anyway," he continued, "If you freed every house-elf in the country right now, and told them to go and live on their own they might not have a clue what to do. And worse, they might lose anything they gained, so how to get food, how to protect themselves, and all the other things you need to be able to survive would be completely foreign to them – which is one reason I've never liked camping, I'd be lost in the wild – literally."

"So any house-elf who left the home they were born into would either have to find another human to work for or risk not being able to support itself, and they couldn't live outside the home on their own because the culture is so accustomed to get their work for free."

"Right, and if they failed to live on their own it would convince the other house-elves that leaving the home means death, which in time may morph into the belief they can't leave. But that's forgetting another obvious fact," he pointed out.

"What's that?"

"Magic," he said, spreading his arms wide. "We're thinking about them like they're normal creatures who evolved this way, but maybe there's something about the house-elves themselves which prohibits them leaving. Maybe it's some spell-thingy passed down from generation to generation, or maybe it really is 'just the way the world works,'" he shrugged. "Without having one to ask and tinker around with to see what works, what doesn't, and why, all this is a bunch of navel-gazing."

Hermione couldn't help but to make another face. As much as she hated not knowing something she hated not being able to know it even more. She supposed she could ask Harry about asking Dobby about all this but didn't want to look like she was taking advantage.

"Speaking of navels, your mother sent this," he said, handing her the cloth bundle.

"How do you go from navels to mother?" she asked.

"Well, where do you think you got your navel from?" he asked, poking her belly button. "Umbilicus," he said smiling. "Besides, it's not as cumbersome as my next segue is."

"What's your next segue?" she asked, turning back to the desk to unwrap the bundle and find that it was a shirt and sundry items to last her until they got home tomorrow.

"Wouldn't you rather ask why I was wearing an owl on my head?"

She paused a moment to sigh and roll her eyes before looking back at the madman she called a father. "Why were you wearing an owl on your head?"

"Because the mirror in my room insulted me," he said with a mad grin. "It called it a bird's nest. But speaking of mirror images," he said, making the awkward transition. "I don't like the thought of having some doppelganger wandering around this place. What if I run into some mad creditor who tries to rob me?"

"That'd be much more likely from the goblins," Hermione said. "You know they almost killed you today for what you said?"

"Well they were being particularly shifty," her father tried to defend himself. "The ancestry thing had 'let's take advantage of gullible tourists' written all over it. Though I suppose I shouldn't have implied that right in front of them, huh?"

She gave him a look.

"Yeah, well," he waved dismissively, "That's yet another reason it'd be best for me to stay right here tomorrow until we're ready to leave. And since you've got the hang of dealing with them, I guess I can let you handle your own banking from now on," he said as he passed the pouch of wizarding money he had to her.

"And what am I supposed to do if someone tries to rob me?"

"Use your stick thingy on them," he said, referring to her wand. "If you survived a troll, a mugger should be no problem," he held his hands up in front of him silently saying he wouldn't like to deal with either one, before getting up and walking to the door.

"Oh," he said, turning back to her. "I know he's only twelve, and we're all insensitive arseholes around then, but any guy who sends you crying into a bathroom isn't exactly the kind of friend you should be looking for."

"Ron's not that bad all the time," Hermione said, though truth be told he was more Harry's friend than he was hers; more of a friend by association. If only he had the brains that usually went with an interest in chess he might not be bad at all, just a little lazy.

"Just take it as said," he said, holding his hands up again in his 'I'm only saying this to fulfill my obligations under the Parental Code of Conduct' way of doing things.

When he opened the door quite a bit of noise wafted in from downstairs. Her father stuck his head out to see what was going on.

"It looks like this place just got a lot more popular," he said. "You might want to grab the bathroom while you can, but I'm going first!" he grinned and darted out.

Shaking her head, Hermione closed the door and went about organizing everything from the bundle her mother had sent. It didn't take long, it was very spartan. Lamenting her mother's choice in clothing, she picked up the white long-sleeved top she had been given that Christmas and never worn. While the sleeves no doubt served to make the bundling process easier, it wasn't what you'd want to wear on a summer day when you might get nervous around your... interest?

Hermione paused for a moment to try and classify precisely what category she and Harry fit into now before having to give it up as a bad job. 'It's probably more of a spectrum than rigidly defined categories anyway,' she thought.

"I wish she had sent the light-weight blue top of mine," she murmured to herself.

There was a bounce of bed springs behind her, making Hermione spin around, expecting to see that her father poised and ready to spring and surprise her. Thankfully, he wasn't there. What was laid out on the bedspread, however, was the light-weight light blue top she had wanted.

Hermione knew she was probably imagining things and items you wanted randomly appearing might be par for the course for magical inns, but she couldn't shake the feeling there was someone else in the room. Had Harry sent Dobby to make sure she had everything she needed?

"I'd like my blue handled hairbrush?" she tentatively asked the room.

On the desk to her right, her favorite blue handled hairbrush slightly rocked back and forth as if someone had just set it down.

"And my bathrobe?" she asked, peering around hoping to see Dobby this time.

On the far side of the room, a house-elf appeared. But it wasn't Dobby. With a gesture her pink bathrobe appeared on a peg by the door.

"Hello," Hermione said before the creature could disappear again. She walked over and couched down so she wouldn't tower over it. Dark of hair and eye, this house-elf looked decidedly female. "Do you work here?" she asked.

The little creature gave a cute little curtsy before shaking her head.

"Oh, no, Miss Knee," she said eagerly. "Mister Lichy sent me."

Hermione knew there was only one person 'Mister Lichy' could be.

"So you must be Mipsy?"

"Oh, yes, Miss," Mipsy nodded. "Mister Lichy said he's your littergator, and that means yous like family," she beamed.

.o0O0o.

The odd little thing was still trotting back and forth to the table when the floo flared. Her brothers descended on Harry almost as soon as he arrived.

"So how'd it go?" George asked.

"Was it really as mad as Ron said?" Fred wanted to know.

"Boys! Leave him alone," their mother said from her spot at the table next to Ginny. "Good to have you back, Harry, you're just in time," she said with a smile.

"Thanks," he said, running a hand through the ugly moppy hair of his before turning to the elf who was floating dishes piled high with food to the table. "How are you feeling, Dobby?"

"Dobby is feeling much better, Harry Potter, sir," the strange little creature said.

"Where'd you get a house-elf?" George asked as the guys made their way to the table.

"Yeah, usually they come with huge old mansions and places like that," Ron said as he took his place on Harry's right. Harry didn't as much as look at her.

"Mum's always wanted one, of course," Fred put in as the guys bunched together on the far side of the table by her dad.

"And who wouldn't? They're wonderful creatures," her mother gushed before patting the little thing on its head as it passed by. "We would have gotten one years ago, but we could never find anyone who'd even consider parting with theirs."

Harry looked kind of uncomfortable, like he didn't want to discuss the elf. Where had he gotten one though? They were supposed to be really hard to come by. Before they could press him any further her mother came to the rescue.

"And just where do you think you're going, little mister?" she asked the elf as it was walking off, the table having been set.

It didn't look like it knew how to respond.

"D–Dobby just be going to start the laundry, ma'am," he said pointing to the area her mother always used to wash and sort laundry.

"Oh, ma'am, listen to him," her mother smiled, "He's so nice. You can start on it later, if Harry wants you too, but there's a rule in this house: whenever possible, the family eats together," she said firmly before turning to Harry. "I hope you don't mind, dear."

"Not at all," Harry smiled.

"Come on, Ginny, budge up," her mother said, giving her a shooing motion as she moved to make room between them.

With a twirl of her wand, their old wooden high chair appeared and before Ginny knew what was happening, the elf was sitting right next to her with a stunned expression on its face.

"Good news," Fred said, leaning over to her and absolutely failing to hide how funny he found the situation. "Looks like you're not the baby anymore, Gin-gin."

That seemed to be the last thing anyone had to say to her. With the boys talking amongst themselves and her mum preoccupied with keeping the 'it's-not-a-baby' house-elf from wandering off, for the rest of the meal it seemed like she didn't exist.

They didn't even acknowledge her presence when they brought up the Hogwarts Hopefuls meeting the next day. Ginny thought the least they could've done was invite her to go, she had almost been a Hopeful after all. She might have wanted to be not treated like a baby anymore, but she didn't want to be forgotten.

"With it not being until noon," her mother was saying to Harry, "it gives you plenty of time to have a bit of a lie-in."

Ginny made a quick mental plan. If she was down in the kitchen when Harry and Percy left, they might invite her along.

"Actually, I've still got all my shopping to do," Harry said with a bit of a blush. "I didn't manage to get anything today, so I'll be doing that with Hermione tomorrow."

"Seeing her again so soon?" George asked with a teasing smile.

"You can see a girl more than once a summer, George," their mother scolded. "Percy's seeing Penelope again tomorrow too," she revealed, causing the boy in question to bury himself in his plate. "What was it you were saying about Lockhart, dear?" she asked the particularly pinkish Percy.

Apparently, Gilderoy Lockhart had a very bad day too, even after her father had been thrown out of the shop for fighting. From what Percy said several of the women gathered for the book signing started questioning how he could have vanquished a werewolf or wrestled a yeti into submission if he had such a poor performance in fending off some decrepit old man. Why anyone would want to attack him though was beyond her.

As the story went on and on one thing became painfully clear: she was going to look stupid using the peacock-like quill now. With old clothes, battered books, and now a new quill people would make fun of her for, Ginny just couldn't catch a break. At least her wand was new, though that probably had more to do with no one selling hand-me-down wands than anything else.

As her mother carried Dobby off to get his sleeping arrangements figured out Ginny dawdled just out of sight of the kitchen, hoping to hear how Harry's not-a-date thing went. What she heard though was something else entirely.

"Do you guys have anything to start a fire with?" Harry asked Fred and George.

Looking down into the backyard from her room some time later, Ginny saw the tiny flames slowly devouring some old pillowcase. Horribly dirty, the soiled cloth sack didn't burn well and she could smell it from her window, but none of the boys seemed to mind. The elf seemed to scarcely believe it was happening, and that was before Fred and George produced some Filibuster Fireworks and had small stars whizzing about all over the place.

She didn't know whether Harry knew what to do with a house-elf or not, having sent him off to "go play" by chasing the stars around rather than having him clean or do laundry. Her brothers seemed to think it funny though, watching the elf run around the fire like that. Ron had even gone inside to get the Quaffle and added a game of catch with him into the mix.

It wasn't until her father had doused the smoldering ashes, Ron had gone inside to ready the chessboard, and Dobby had disappeared to find some work to do that Fred and George had managed to corner Harry about the most important bit of the day.

"So how'd it go?" the dark blob of Fred asked in the deepening darkness.

"How'd what go?" Harry asked.

"Your date with Hermione, of course," he prompted.

"We never said it was a date," Harry hedged.

"Ah, but did you ever say it wasn't?" the bit of darkness George occupied asked.

There was a very pregnant pause after that.

'Why did he have to ask that?' Ginny thought to herself.

"Well, no," Harry answered. "Was I supposed to?"

"Normally, yeah, people would."

"But keeping things uncertain like that, that's brilliant," Fred said. Ginny was sure he'd be grinning, but it was too dark outside and the angle from the window too steep for her to even begin to tell if that were true.

"What? How?" a confused Harry asked.

"Because if she thought it was a date, and it went well – then you can go back later on and say it was a date," Fred quickly explained. "But if it didn't go well, or if she didn't think it was a date – then it didn't matter because you can always claim it wasn't a date. As a dating strategy–"

"Don't mind him, Harry," George said, cutting off his twin. "He's just looking for a way to get things started with a certain Quidditch witch."

"Oh, like you're not," Fred beat the Bludger of an allegation back at his brother.

"Whether I am or not has absolutely no bearing on this conversation," George said smoothly. "I can keep those issues completely separate."

"–And all I'm saying is if Harry can turn the biggest walking, talking library Hogwarts has ever seen into an actual girl, he just might be someone to pick up pointers from," Fred pointed out.

There was another pause before anyone spoke. "Good point," George agreed.

"I don't know what pointers you can get from me," Harry said, trying to deflect attention away in that humble way of his. "I've never had a girl like me before."

"Well, I guess we can put it down as natural talent, next to youngest Seeker in a century–"

"Yes, and at the rate he's going, before you know it our little Harry will have his first kiss," Fred joked.

The silence that came from below was deafening and Ginny felt her stomach plummet. 'Why wasn't anyone laughing?'

"Did you snog her?" Fred's jesting voice asked.

"What? No–" Harry tried to protest.

"–Ah, so she snogged you," George needled. Why did Ginny ever think he was a good guy?

"She kissed me on the cheek to say goodbye; that was all," Harry said, probably embarrassed. "No one snogged anyone."

Up in her room, Ginny closed the window, shutting out the sound from below. She didn't want to know any more.

'A kiss on the cheek? How could he say 'that was all' to something like that?' she thought. 'It was only the purest, most chaste way to show true love that ever existed.'

Hermione had played it smart; Ginny couldn't even say that she was a strumpet for kissing him so soon by doing it like that. It was awful, but only she'd be the one to see it. Her mother certainly wouldn't. Luckily she had someone to turn to.

Taking out the diary she wrote, 'Oh, Tom, this is awful. The most horrible thing's happened.'

.o0O0o.

AN: The reaction most people have Mrs. Weasley take when it comes to house-elves is a kind of prideful stubbornness which causes animosity for everyone involved. But why would this be the case if she's always wanted one – and it's said in the books she did. With so many people in the house she could use the extra help. And while having that help be available – much less so eager to work – would be something she's not used to, she's also not used to the delicate social dance that comes with it.

Harry's a guest, which means he should be given a warm welcome and hospitality. Dobby is Harry's elf and also a guest, and therefore should be treated the same – but how are you hospitable to a house-elf? Is it the same as with a human and you say they don't need to help out? Or is hospitality to them letting them do as much work as they want? The two social niceties are contradictory, which has her accepting his help with dinner and then putting him in a high chair to eat it. Add that to the realization her nest is going to be empty soon then has her treat him as a baby, which I find hilarious.

As always, thanks for reading.