Addie's experience at the Burrow was almost the complete opposite from the half life she had been living at The Dursleys'. She had meals (which were admittedly usually bread and jam), a comfortable bed, a new friend and whatever was going on with George. Where previously he had been very comfortable with ignoring her, he now tried to talk to her at whatever opportunity he had. He asked questions about her interest in history, he asked about her relatives, he asked about 'science' and he asked about Harry.

"So what did happen between you and Harry?" he asked.

"No idea," Addie said. "I tried to ask him and he told me that I know what I've done, but I assure you that I don't."

"Percy's like that. He's been writing letters all summer and won't tell us who to. My theory is that he's trying to extort money out of the Department of Mysteries as he has discovered what they're doing down there. He could probably manage it with his eyes closed. He's an odd one, that Percy, but Fred reckons that he has a girlfriend."

"Ok…" said Addie, unsure once again as to why he was talking to her at all.

"And when I wrote to my other brothers, Bill and Charlie, they wrote back and told me to leave him alone and that I will understand when I'm older. I don't think I'll ever understand then."

"Uh, right," Addie said. She was listening to every word that he was saying, but continued to spend most of the time he was talking wondering why exactly he was talking to her of all people.

"I think I'll just leave it," he finished. "Maybe Bill and Charlie are right. Maybe it is none of my business."

Addie unsurprisingly found herself spending quite a lot of time with Ginny, and she was not particularly upset about this. Ginny was very like her brothers in many ways, but in other ways, completely dissimilar. There was also the added benefit of the fact that nobody really wrote to Ginny about anything, so she didn't really have preexisting notions about Addie as a person. Addie appreciated this.

This was how she found herself sitting on the floor of Ginny's (and hers she supposed, temporarily) room, sorting through piles and piles of toys, some broken, some not, but all fairly remarkable.

"What's this one?" Addie asked, picking up a strange box with a picture of a daisy on it.

"Oh," Ginny said, putting down the two dolls she was deciding between keeping and giving away, "That's where I used to keep my treasures. I had all sorts of things in it. Ron thought I was ridiculous, but they were the only things that were really mine."

Addie handed it to her, and Ginny opened it up. Although she had been aware of the existence of magic for quite some time by this point, Addie still found herself to be surprised by the amount of stuff that Ginny had managed to fit into the box. It really was rather remarkable.

"This is sand from when mum and dad went to visit Bill (that's my oldest brother) in Egypt. They couldn't take us all with them, so they brought us each back something that they thought we would like. I have always wanted to travel, but haven't been able to, so they brought back a bit of Egypt for me."

She handed it to Addie, who placed it very gently on Ginny's chest of drawers. She could tell that it was very much just a glass bottle, so didn't want to break it. The next one was a book, which Ginny opened in the middle to reveal a beautiful flower.

"My friend Luna gave this to me when she came back from her long holiday in Wales. Her father was trying to make a discovery about…I can't remember what it was about, but she thought I might like it. We haven't really seen each other since, and I don't really know why, but it reminds me of her."

There was a plethora of other small trinkets including some muggle money, some rocks and a muggle hair band.

"I know that they are all probably mundane to you, having grown up in the muggle world, but they are all mysteries to me. The only thing that my dad has brought back for us from the muggle world that I have ever recognised is a fork. This is stretchy," she pulled the hairband between her hands, "but none of us can figure out what it is that makes it so. There is no magic to it."

"Elastic," Addie told her. "Muggles use it in all sorts of things. Sometimes it is a specific material, like in an elastic band," she pulled one out of the box to show it to her, "and sometimes it is made out of specially designed thread that has been woven together to make clothes."

"So this is the woven type?" Ginny said.

"Strangely, no," Addie said. "It's actually more like this," she demonstrated how the elastic band worked again, "but it is wrapped in thread. Muggles use them to tie back their hair."

"Dad had no idea," Ginny said. "I tried to look in some of his books, but it was talking about space and tinned potatoes, and I couldn't find anything about stretchy things."

"That's because most muggles just know these things. There are all sorts of things like that in the magical world for me. If you have any questions about anything, you can ask me and I will try my best to answer."

"Just as long as you don't ask me about my book collection," Ginny said quietly.

"Deal," Addie agreed. She didn't want to get into the fictional and very dramatic events of her brother's life.

Addie remembered what it was like for her when she had been left alone for the first time in the magical world, after she had been sorted into Hufflepuff and she had started to feel more alone than she had anticipated. Everything had been different, and not just the things that were on the list for school like quills and parchments and wearing robes. The toilets were different in minor ways. There was no toilet paper, and the soap wasn't in bars, or a liquid form similar to the variety she recognised in the muggle world. It was more alike a potion, and it started out smelling absolutely awful before having some sort of reaction (which potions generally did) and after which point it would then smell nice. There was also the fact that in the absence of muggle technology, wizards had come up with different everyday conveniences. There were no lightbulbs, there were just candles, and sometimes strange floating lights close to the ceiling that would automatically turn on when you walked in. Showers were never too hot or too cold, they were always just right, and on at just the time you got into the shower, which was confusing to her, and there always seemed to be as much hot water as she wanted. Everyone seemed to be confused by her rucksack with nylon straps. They all had bags made from natural fibres, and she had had to explain plastic to a confused Hufflepuff. This had all been strange and confusing to her, but she honestly felt quite proud of the extent to which she had adjusted. It had taken a while to adjust, but she had done it.

"Now," Addie asked, "why are we sorting through all your things in the first place?"

"Mum says that I have to get rid of half of my things before all my Hogwarts stuff comes in."

"How are you supposed to do that?" Addie asked. Ginny seemed to have more stuff than she had ever seen in her life.

"Oh, well, to start with we are going to deal with the fact that most of this isn't even mine. The others all had to do this as well, and they just dumped their stuff in my room. So, we are going to deliver it all back without comment and see how they deal with it. It's not my mess."

"That seems fair."

Addie had done quite a lot of tidying in her life. When she and Harry had first moved into Dudley's second bedroom, they had had piles of his old broken toys surrounding them for ages, and it had fallen to her to get everything in order. She had developed a system of 'would keep' and 'would chuck' and had organised it all accordingly. Broken toys were put in as good an order as could be achieved, and toys that were not broken, but that had been entirely unwanted by the ever grateful Dudley were put on the shelves in the room. Addie and Harry didn't have enough possessions of their own to fill said shelves, so they were honestly just happy to not have empty shelves.

"I was thinking that we could do a pile for each of my brothers. There is some overlap as some of them gave their things to each other, but by the time it came to Percy, he just put all his stuff in my room, presumably thinking that it would end up with me eventually as Fred, George or Ron would give it to me."

"Alright, give me instructions."

What followed was the worlds biggest and most successful clear-out ever. Addie and Ginny removed about three quarters of the items from her room, and what remained was more space than Addie had expected.

"I don't know why they left it all with me anyway," Ginny said after they had flopped down on their respective beds following the big clear out. I was not interested in most of it. I liked the Lego and some of the bits and pieces, but they really gave me the things they didn't like and kept the things they did, so it wasn't really much of a hardship getting rid of it."

Addie could relate to that. "My cousin has lots of rubbish that's in mine and Harry's room. I wish I could convince my aunt and uncle to let me get rid of some of it, but they don't really care about what I think. They are unwilling guardians."

"But you're alright there, right? They don't hurt you or anything."

Looking at Ginny's optimistic face, she knew that she was of course going to have to lie again. It was something that she was having to do more strongly and with greater frequency.

"Course," she responded. "No need to worry about me. I think lots of people feel that way about their parents or guardians."

"Not me though," Ginny says. "Ron always says that mum and dad are awful parents and that they don't have enough for us all, but I honestly like it this way."

"Maybe you don't need so much validation," Addie said. "From what I've seen, Ron hates being wrong, and always wants approval."

"I don't really care what my parents think about me," Ginny mused. "Mum wants me to be like her, a housewife. Most women in my family have been housewives, but that's not what I want."

"What do you want to do then?"

"I know that I might change my mind when I'm a grown up and decide to be more like mum after all – I'm only eleven after all – but anything and everything!" Ginny said. "I've been thinking about it recently as subject choices have come up here. Mum wants Fred and George to do something useful for a career, but they don't seem to have chosen yet either. Bill and Charlie were sure almost as soon as they started Hogwarts, Percy wants to work for the ministry and the others don't know for sure either. All I want is a job that will take me all sorts of places. I want to go and see the pyramids, not just experience them through a picture and a bottle of sand. I want to learn another language, eat food that I have never even thought about before. If I settle down in the UK, I want to still move sometimes I don't really want to be still. I have no idea of what job would let me do all of those things, but I'm sure there's something."

"That's a lot of things that you want to do with your life," Addie said. "If anyone can do it, I think it's you."

And she was telling the absolute truth, which was a relief to her after having lied to her new friend. Ginny had a fascination in all things. She enjoyed the magical and the mundane, she climbed trees like she was on an adventure, she tried to get Addie to play Quidditch with her and when Addie had declined, she had been able to watch Ginny perform hair raising stunts on her broom. She only hoped that Ginny would continue to be adventurous, and that she would always be able to act according to her own wishes.

"Do you think your parents will accept that?"

"Oh, it might be a bit difficult for them to accept if I don't end up becoming a stay at home mum, but I know that they generally want me to do what's best for me. They are here for me when I need them most, and I am able to tell them anything. It would take a lot for me to keep secrets from them, except…"

There came a knock at the door, "Hello girls," came Mrs Weasley's voice. "You're needed downstairs."

"We'll be a minute mum!" Ginny yelled.

"Of course Mrs Weasley," Addie said.

They quickly hauled the bags that they had filled out of Ginny's room so that she would have more space and dumped them in the space outside her door so that they could be removed by a disgruntled adult later. Then they went down the stairs together, chattering as they went.

"It always feels rather like Christmas, doesn't it, when Hogwarts letters arrive," Percy said with more enthusiasm than Addie had thought he was capable of mustering.

"Oh they're here," Ginny exclaimed excitedly upon seeing the pile of letters.

Apparently, Hogwarts had known to send Addie and Harry's letters to The Burrow, and Addie tried not to think about how that was achieved. She supposed that it was similar to how letters had been able to follow them around Britain the previous summer.

"I really must write to Dumbledore about the two of you," Mrs Weasley said. "We must make sure that we are allowed to keep you the rest of the summer. I don't think there's any need to send you back to those relatives of yours."

"Good call," Fred said. "Bars in their window I tell you."

"It is rather strange," Mrs Weasley said, gnawing her fingernail. "Well I suppose I should do it before we go to Diagon Alley so we will have a response by the time we get back."

Addie was looking over her letter, delighted to know more about what the upcoming year would bring. "It is exciting," she said, "but I don't know what you mean about it being more exciting than Christmas. I have no reference there."

"Oh of course you do," Mrs Weasley said admonishingly. "Christmas – especially Christmas at Hogwarts – is always a magical experience. You get to spend time with any family and friends who have stayed and you get presents and as much food as you want to eat."

"Oh, I suppose that's where I went wrong then," Addie said, "I spent it alone, and I was only able to eat the roast potatoes, which I had admittedly never had before, so that was good. I would prefer a letter to roast potatoes though."

The chatter of the Weasleys plus Harry opening their letters came to a halt at these words.

"You spent Christmas alone?" Mrs Weasley asked, confused. "Well surely you got presents?"

"One, and it was a good one too. I still use it all the time. It's very handy. Now," she said, reading the book list closely, "who is Gilderoy Lockhart, and what has he done to the book list?"