Addie was sleeping semi peacefully in her bed one night about a week into their punishment. While it was better than the bed that she had spent the last part of the previous summer sleeping on, that did not mean it was a bed that could really be referred to as comfortable. Her bed in her dormitory at Hogwarts was almost surreal in its comfort, but she supposed that it probably had the help of magic on its side. Despite her bed at Privet Drive not being the best bed to ever have existed, it was sufficient for Addie's main occupation: lying down while trying to read, lying down while trying to sleep and of course, her most frequent pastime, actually sleeping. This was a definite change in routine for both Addie and Harry, as for most of their childhood, they had basically been live in staff, but apparently this summer, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were quite willing to forego forcing them to act in this capacity in exchange for having to see them as little as possible and leaving them in their makeshift cell. Addie supposed that she had seen them less than usual, as their meals were a tin of soup pushed through the cat flap twice a day, and they were allowed to go the toilet twice a day after this at 8 am and 8 pm to both brush their teeth and go to the toilet. Other than this, they spent their entire time in their 'generous' prison.
Addie occupied her time during this stage redoing some of her maths problems and rereading all of Dudley's nonfiction books. She of course objected to some of the aforementioned books on principle, so skipped them gladly. Harry on the other hand elected to take on some of the fictional offerings from what Addie could hear from her side of the screen, he was not convinced. Every once in a while, she would hear his seldom used voice saying 'Why would they do that? What is going on here?' which didn't tell her much.
That specific night followed a day during which Addie had done little, read lots and tried to keep her anger down. What right did they have to treat them this way? She had tossed and turned for hours after her self-imposed bedtime of 9 pm (there wasn't much else to do) and was rudely awoken at 3 am by the sound of voices. The voices were speaking very quietly so as to avoid waking anyone up, and Addie drew aside her curtain on her side of the window (which opened on both sides) and peered out. There against all presumed laws of physics, were Ron, Fred and George Weasley in a car. A flying car. She stared for a moment at the unlikely phenomenon that was at that moment taking place directly outside her window.
She stared for several moments, before one of the Weasley twins in the car noticed her for the first time.
"Oi Harry," he said slightly louder than Addie assumed he had intended, "you didn't mention that your sister was here."
"Oh, I'm sure she'll be fine," Ron said. "Harry always says that she's a nightmare and if she's anything like Ginny, she's probably about to kick up a fuss."
"She may be a nightmare," the twin admitted, "but have you ever exchanged more than three words with her or heard about her from anyone else than Harry? I'm sure that she would say that Harry's a nightmare as well, but that they love each other really."
"But Fred…" Ron whined.
"But Fred nothing," the twin said firmly. "We are not leaving a twelve-year-old girl in a situation that is clearly not ideal to deal with the fallout of us taking Harry in the middle of the night. We need to ask her at the very least whether she wants to come with us. If she's as much of a nightmare as Harry says, then maybe she and Ginny will get on. You know she gets lonely, right George?"
"I agree," said George. "It would be unethical to just leave her here."
"What?" Ron said, looking between the two of them as though he had never seen them before. "Since when have you cared about ethics? You prank people all the time."
"Maybe," Fred said, "but we don't do that with the intention of harming people, we do it with the intention of making people laugh."
"We try to mitigate the risk of someone getting seriously injured or otherwise harmed," continued George, "and most of our transformations wear off within 24 to 36 hours."
"Even on Slytherins?" Ron asked, confusedly.
"Especially on Slytherins," Fred and George said in unison.
"Now," said George, "we should see what Harry's only remaining family member has to say about this. You can keep the car steady and we'll talk to the other Potter before we go and get Harry's trunk."
There was a crunch, and the bars disappeared from Addie's side of the window. A few moments later, the twins disappeared, presumably through the window to Harry's side of the screen, before appearing before Addie on the other side of the glass.
"Alright Potter," George said. "Fancy a lift?"
"We can't promise particularly good driving-" continued Fred,
"-but we can promise prompt delivery from Point A to Point B in record time."
"What say you?"
Addie took a moment to give it some thought. If she went with them, she would probably be in a better situation. The twins had been right. The Dursleys would be unlikely to treat her well after realising that she probably aided and abetted in Harry's escape. She also doubted that she would be given a lift to King's Cross, and felt almost certain that she would end up in the cupboard again. They would not treat her mercifully, and she would never see her friends again. Conversely, if she were to stay at the Dursleys…oh who was she kidding, there were no positives to staying at Privet Drive. She had known that from the moment that she had been asked. Her main concern was that she would have to go and stay with Ron Weasley and his family for the summer, uninvited. She knew that people went and stayed with their friends all the time, but she wasn't friends with any of them. It was very likely that Ron had committed a full character assassination over letter to his mum, and if that was the case, she would probably be thrown out. However, there was surely nothing worse than having to stay at the Dursleys alone. While she and Harry had been trapped at the Dursley's all summer, they hadn't been alone, at least not physically. That made up her mind.
"Alright," she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "I'll show you where our trunks are."
Addie had never been in an aeroplane. The three times that the Dursleys had been to Spain, she and Harry had been left with Mrs Figg, which she supposed had been worse for him than it had been for her. She continued to be a fan of cats, as demonstrated by Tabby who was asleep at the foot of her bed.
After watching George pick the lock on the bedroom door (which she found very impressive) she led them down the stairs, pointing out the creaky step as they went down.
"It's always been tricky," she whispered. "Dudley, our cousin gets away with stepping on it, as Aunt Petunia sees him sneaking downstairs for food as a sign that she isn't feeding him enough, but we have never been given the same courtesy."
They finished descending the stairs and suddenly Addie heard a sound coming from upstairs, and not the side of the house that her and Harry's room was on. She shushed Fred and George who were standing behind her, whispering about something. They all froze for a second, as a loud wheezing sound came from upstairs. Fred and George looked frightened as they hadn't heard the sound before, but Addie, who had grown up in this very house, was fully aware that it was when he was snoring that Uncle Vernon was most likely to suddenly wake up. Finally, the sound ceased almost as abruptly as it had begun, and they carried on.
"Alright," Addie whispered. "Our trunks are in this cupboard, and I assume that they've locked it."
She took a moment to look around at her surroundings. She hadn't been outside in more than a week and felt almost disconcerted by the vastness of the ground floor of the Dursleys' house. It was one of the larger houses on Privet Drive, and she hadn't been aware of the size of it when she had been a small child – even when she and Harry had been sleeping in the same cupboard – but now, after having spent quite some time sharing a room with Harry while they were very much not communicating, it seemed bigger than ever.
George got out the hairpin once again, and with a bit of wiggling had the door open in no time. Addie hadn't been the cupboard since the earlier part of the previous summer, so didn't know in what state it had been left in, and for all she knew, it could be in a mess.
Fred and George took out the first trunk – which just so happened to be Addie's and moved it up the stairs in almost complete silence. They almost seemed to be able to communicate nonverbally, and with all that Addie knew about magic, they probably could.
A moment later, one of the twins – George, she thought – came back down the stairs without his twin and together they manoeuvred Harry's trunk out of the cupboard. After they had succeeded in managing to silently get it out of the triangular door, they put it on the carpeted floor for a moment and Addie considered how they were going to manage to get it up the stairs. Perhaps if they pivoted…
"Wait," came George's voice behind her, "did someone sleep in here?"
Addie turned around to see George standing in the door of the cupboard holding a blanket that she recognised very well. She and Harry had had one each while they had been sleeping in the cupboard, and the one that he had clearly unearthed had been hers.
"I've not seen that in a while," Addie said. "I would have assumed that they would have got rid of that. What if they needed somewhere to put people's coats?"
She grabbed one side of the trunk and gestured with her head for him to take hold of the other end.
"You mean…" George said, aghast.
"That the Dursleys used to consider this as a five-bedroom house? Yes. I don't know if both of us would fit in there now."
"Right," said George. Addie could tell that she had confused him, but she had assumed that Harry had told the Weasleys about their rather unusual childhood. She hoped that there would be nothing to smooth over later, but she supposed that she could give it a go.
"1…2…3," Addie said, and they lifted up the trunk between them.
They made it to the top of the stairs without any mishaps, and Fred came out to help them get it through the room and out of the window. Addie scooped up Tabby and put her in her carrier.
"Don't worry kitty," she whispered reassuringly, "we'll be out of here in no time at all. I just need you to be quiet."
Tabby was oddly obedient for a kitten. Addie had only ever known Mrs Figg's cats and a few of the cats that she would come across at school, but even she was perfectly aware of the fact that cats were generally not known for being followers of instructions. She gave Tabby a last-minute pet, before handing her to Fred who was loading their items into the car.
"Please be gentle with her," she told him. "She hasn't been in a flying car before."
"Course," he said, before placing her very gently into the boot.
Uncle Vernon started to make the same noises as before, like a distressed walrus, and eventually these sounds turned into coughing. Addie knew these sounds just as well as the others.
"Quick, quick," she whispered. "He'll be here any moment."
Everyone hurried to get into the car, and they were about to leave Privet Drive behind, when Hedwig kicked up a fuss, and Harry realised he had forgotten her. What followed was quite unlike anything that Addie had seen before. Harry, who she supposed was famed for his Quidditch reflexes dashed back across the room to retrieve his terrified owl, and by this time, Uncle Vernon was well and truly up for the day. The struggle that ensued resulted in three near defenestrated Dursleys and two free Potters, which Addie considered to be a net gain. She put Tabby's cat carrier on her lap, and her Surrey County Libraries book bag beside her, and settled down for a long journey. She doubted somehow that the Weasleys were from Surrey.
