Chapter 12, everybody, in which we document the rest of Harry's summer vacation…hope you all are doing well, and may all your favorite fanfics update during this trying time! :)

Ephion-coronet, thanks for the review! It did—it surprised me when it happened too, because my intent really was to do the canon rescue like in the books, but I like how this turned out better. :D Very true—and alas, poor Snips….

Thanks for the review, guest! These are good questions….

Thanks for the review, guest! I do too….

Thanks for the review, guest! Yes….

Thanks for the review, guest! No he doesn't….

Thanks for the review, guest! Very true….

FaolenBookWolf, thanks for the review! Thank you, glad you like it—wasn't sure how this fic would be received, but I'm glad others are having fun with it too. :D Oh yes I'm so tired of bashing of characters so none of that in this fic, thank you. ;v;/

Harry Potter © JK Rowling

Molly Weasley, the Weasley family patriarch, was about as no-nonsense as she appeared.

Within five minutes, despite Harry's protesting, she had him sitting on the counter next to the sink, Percy holding an illuminated wand over his head, Snips (whom she had taken in stride) shuffling out various ointments from a basket she had retrieved, her clucking at Harry's face as she applied said balms and telling him why don't you start from the top, Harry dear.

Harry glanced at Ron and the twins—all three of them gave him a thumbs-up, prompting him to explain just how he found himself outside the Weasley's home in the middle of the night, glossing over how he ended up with two shiners by saying he tripped on the way up—or tried to, at least; Snips bit him hard when he did.

"Ow! Fine, Uncle Vernon kind of overreacted at seeing a house elf," Harry amended. Snips glared at him with a low crrr but otherwise didn't continue.

At least half of the eyes on him didn't look like they believed that story, but they all had bigger parts of the story to focus on.

"No wonder you weren't answering us," Ron said. "I was writing you almost every day!"

"Ickle Ronnie thought you were mad at him," George said.

"Can't imagine why," Fred said.

"Would have thought you'd at least answer our letter."

"Went to all the trouble of glitter and everything."

Harry resolved to open any letters from Fred and/or George outside or over the sink from now on.

"Can't imagine anyone sending a house elf to do that though," Percy put in. "It's poor wizarding form, at least."

"Yeah, I'm not entirely certain I understand house elves?" Harry said.

"Really rich, old, and powerful wizarding families have them," Ron said, looking like he was still a little hot at the state Harry had arrived in. "I bet you anything Malfoy did it."

"Ron," his mother scolded, before adjusting Percy's arm and giving Harry's face the once-over. "I think we got the worst of it dear—down you get, the tea's just about ready."

Harry blinked a few times, both to check the damage and in surprise at her lifting him down to his feet. "Thanks—that feels loads better."

"You know Harry, I'm actually a little sore you turned up like you did," Fred said as they sat down at the scrubbed wooden table.

"Me too," George agreed. "Another couple of days and we were going to steal the car and come after you."

Percy gave them a disparaging look.

"Now don't look at us like that Perce, you were going to run interference."

Harry looked at Percy, who noticed and shrugged. "I was actually acting as voice of reason," he corrected. "I figured there was a logical explanation for why you hadn't written back." His expression went flat and distant. "House elves are not a logical explanation."

"Not at all," Mrs. Weasley said, floating mugs of tea and plates of pastries in front of them all before sitting down herself. "I'll ask Arthur when he gets back in the morning about looking into that."

There was a moment of silence, both before and during the initial digging in.

"What about there being danger at Hogwarts?" Ron asked.

"Perhaps we shouldn't step up our game, George," Fred mused.

"Professor Dumbledore should be alerted in any case," Percy said. "Sooner rather than later."

"Not tonight though," Mrs. Weasley said. "It's late, and I'm sure we all had more than the usual excitement—it'll be to bed with you all after you finish here."

Ron nudged Harry. "You can bunk with me."

"Um—I mean I can take the couch, or something, if it's…I know I kind of dropped in," Harry said.

Ron gave him an even look. "Harry, I cleaned my room for this—you're kipping in my room."

"Yes, he was very industrious about it," Fred said.

"Despite the mishaps," George said.

"Fred and George didn't help," Ron grumbled.

"We were expecting you sometime this summer anyway, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said. "And we understand why you didn't owl ahead, so don't worry."

Harry ducked his head at that.

After tea and biscuits, Mrs. Weasley vanished the lock on Hedwig's cage, allowing Harry to let her out into the night—she circled once, hooting gratefully before disappearing into the blackness.

That done, Harry followed Ron upstairs and into his bedroom.

"Mum transfigured that one," Ron said, pointing to a bed against the wall, opposite a bed in a corner heavily decorated with posters for a team called the Chudley Cannons. "And she did a perch for Hedwig and a little bed for Snips."

"She didn't have to do all that," Harry protested.

"Lay off it, Harry—once Mum gets on a tear you can't stop her." Crawl into his own bed, gesture at the other. "Go on then, Harry—we can get started on everything tomorrow."

Harry nodded, crawled into the other bed, noting its plushy feel—Snips had already dived for his own basket, fluffing up the tiny pillows inside before burrowing under a blanket.

Harry was asleep soon after putting his glasses on the table.

Harry hadn't been entirely certain what to expect from Mr. Weasley, was a tad nervous about meeting him the next morning.

He needn't have worried.

After Mr. Weasley had gotten over the initial shock of having an extra kid (Fred and George lamented that they hadn't thought ahead and dyed Harry's hair red), he was very quick to quiz Harry on various "Muggle artefacts."

"Dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts division of the Ministry of Magic," Ron told Harry. "He loves Muggles, thinks they're fascinating."

Harry had to agree that some things were fascinating, but wasn't sure about being confronted with the fact that, thanks to the Dursleys, he really didn't know as much about some things as he should.

He had the feeling he wouldn't have known the exact function of a rubber duck even without the Dursleys, though.

Mr. Weasley seemed concerned about Dobby too.

"Very unusual, definitely poor form," he said, nodding pensively, eyes distant in the way Percy or Hermione got when sorting through their mental copy of the Hogwarts rulebook. "Not entirely certain about any legal action you could take, since it's hard to trace house elves to their families…I'll talk to Rupert about it."

"I don't want to cause any trouble," Harry said.

"It's no trouble, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said. "If someone sent their house elf to warn you off of going to Hogwarts, that could be taken as a threat."

"It's serious and would have to be addressed legally, period," Percy said. "Reporting it is the responsible thing to do."

"It certainly is," Mr. Weasley said. "Don't worry about it, Harry, we'll get it squared away. Now, about what you were telling me about a VCR…."

With that squared away, Harry decided that his first order of business was to address the bundle of letters Snips had retrieved. As he pointed out to Ron, if he and his brothers were willing to come barging after him, he was certain that everyone else might have been worried.

Honestly, he was more than a little touched that they were.

So, after breakfast, he and Ron set up on the living room floor, sorting through the stack of letters. Harry was pretty sure that the only time he had seen more was that Sunday all his acceptance letters had shot out the fireplace.

"So you don't actually have to respond to any from me," Ron said, sorting several into a pile. "And I can pretty much tell you what they all say."

"Hey Harry, you can come over," George said from the table, working on something with Fred.

"Hey Harry, haven't heard from you," Fred rejoined.

"Hey Harry, we're getting kind of worried."

"Hey Harry, if we don't hear from you soon we're storming the castle and getting you."

"Will you stop?" Ron asked.

Sorting through the rest took the better part of half an hour, and the rest of the morning was spent reading the letters and then writing up replies to everyone, sorted by order of most likely to pull a Weasley. Percy, sitting in a nearby armchair and reading some of his summer assignments, looked up and pointed out that a letter to Dumbledore should be on that list, and offered the use of his owl.

"From the looks of things, that's a lot of flying for Hedwig to do," he pointed out.

Hedwig fluffed up a little at that, like she didn't appreciate the implication, but subsided a little when Harry pointed out that Percy was just worried.

To be fair, there were a lot of letters.

In addition to the letter to Dumbledore, Harry had letters from Professor Slughorn, Hagrid, Hermione, Neville, one from Dean Thomas, one from Seamus Finnegan, and a smattering of others from students he was friendly with to reply to. There was even two that looked official—one from Hogwarts and one from Gringotts.

"The Hogwarts one is your marks—we got ours last week," Ron pointed out as Harry turned it over. "You should be fine—you have to be with Hermione and Snips on us. Betcha ten galleons her letter is her harping on starting the summer homework early."

"If you get it out of the way early it's fresh and you have a guilt-free summer," Percy said, not looking up from his book.

"That's what she said."

It was, when Harry opened the first of her letters—by letter three he bumped Hermione up to top priority-response, considering she was about as fretful as Ron had been. Ron was also right about the marks—the only poor one was History of Magic, once he got the grading system explained to him.

"What it is," Percy said in his best prefect tone, looking up from his book to gesture a little. "Is O is for Outstanding, and that's the highest mark you can get. E is for Exceeds Expectations—"

"Which George and I should have really gotten, seeing as how we showed up," Fred said.

"And your grades should have been higher," Mrs. Weasley put in.

Percy waved them all off. "So the last passing grade is A for Average. After that it's P for Poor, D for Dreadful—"

"And T," George said.

"For?" Harry asked.

"Troll," Fred said.

Harry looked at Percy for clarification.

"Yes, well, if Fred and George have avoided Ts all this time with their proficiency for pranks, you're likely not in any danger of the grade yourself," Percy assured him.

"There's actually a grade called Troll," Harry said.

"Yes," Percy said, going back to his book. "But you sound like you did all right—just apply yourself a bit more in your weaker subjects this year."

"Or do what we do," Fred said, embracing his twin.

"Learn to stop worrying," George rejoined.

"And embrace your inner genius."

"And drag him to the exams next time," Mrs. Weasley scolded.

They broke for lunch, Harry sending off Hedwig afterwards with the first round of letters, promising to send her with more when she came back if Hermes couldn't take all of them. Most of those letters had varying accounts of why he wasn't able to respond—the less urgent letters would probably just be prefaced with sorry I was busy or sorry I got caught up in something, but the initial group at least had some idea of what happened with Dobby.

After lunch, Harry tackled the less urgent letters—and, when he got to Fred and George's, decided to open that one in particular outside.

That turned out to be the smart option—he came back to the door, ears ringing, unsure if he should cross the threshold and risk bringing the mess inside.

Ron honestly looked like he was choking himself trying not to laugh at his friend.

"All right there, Harry?" George asked, having taken up position by the door along with Fred to see the damage.

"We're trying to come up with a better name for it besides the glitter howler," Fred said.

"Don't try brushing it off—we tested it on Perce, it multiplies if you do that."

"You have to blow it off with a wind spell," Percy sighed, looking aggrieved.

Fred and George nodded. "We figured we'd make it the one thing no one would want to do."

"It starts dazzling if you try to rinse it off," Fred added.

"And changes colors if you try to vanish it."

"We're wanting to figure out how to make it sing show tunes—"

"But we haven't nailed that one down out yet."

"I'd like to be not glittery now," Harry said.

"Here, Harry," Mrs. Weasley sighed.

"Remember you got to blow it off, Mum," Fred reminded her.

All the glitter blew straight back into the yard with a flick of Mrs. Weasley's wand. "And you couldn't get above an A in Charms because?"

"Professor Flitwick didn't test our glitter skills," George said simply.

"Shame, that," Fred agreed.

Once the letters were finally finished and sent off and the glitter was banished ("Banished! That's what we'll get the show tunes in on!"), Harry and the Weasley boys were sent out for fresh air and to de-gnome the garden.

Harry was only vaguely aware of what wizarding gnomes were thanks to that little maze last year, but it was interesting to see just why Ron was so good at dealing with them.

"What you do is just catch them, spin them around a lot so they're too dizzy to find their way back, and then fling them over the wall," Ron explained. "They come back every time, but it keeps Mum happy. Pretty sure Dad puts food out for them though, he thinks they're funny."

Harry decided to reserve opinion for when the sound of a gnome spotting him didn't startle him badly—the ones at Hogwarts had left an impression.

Ron took him on a tour of the grounds once the gnomes were all teetering around dizzily on the other side of the garden (Fred and George had won the gnome-tossing competition, although they said honorable mention went to Harry for flinging the one that had bit his thumb fifty feet). Points of interest were the homemade Quidditch pitch ("We have to stay under the treeline just in case") and Mr. Weasley's shed, overflowing with junk ("He brings it all home from work"). It was all overgrown and messy, a far cry from the Dursley yard, and Harry loved the looks of it all.

Despite quietly filing away the little jobs that he was sure he could do to make up for his inconveniencing them.

They went in to wash up after that, Harry offering to help Mrs. Weasley with dinner.

"Aren't you a dear," she said, patting him on the head. "But I have this, don't worry."

"Are you sure I can't help?" Harry insisted.

"Well, if you're in need of something to do—put some capers in the salad, dear."

"That's that thing in Muggle mysteries, right?" Ron asked.

"It's also a tiny pickle you can put in salads," Harry said, adding a few to the salad.

Ron sampled one. "Okay, my salad is going to need extra capers—can I have the jar when you're done?"

Harry finished and handed it over, looking expectantly at Mrs. Weasley.

"Have you finished your summer homework yet?" she asked.

Now Ron was very eager to help with dinner.

The rest of Harry's summer was easily the best he ever had.

Summer homework was finished early off, with Harry and Ron sitting at the kitchen table with Fred, George, and Percy, at varying stages of completion, Mrs. Weasley bustling around the house and Ginny, the youngest, occasionally peeking into the room and slowly getting over her nervousness around Harry. Snips busied himself with grading everyone's papers, to the twins' consternation and Percy's amusement.

After homework was squared away, the rest of the summer was a blur of playing Quidditch, exploring the surrounding area, and tackling assorted chores. Evenings after dinner were spent playing chess, listening to the Wizarding Wireless, and—once Harry stumbled upon them—reading through Mrs. Weasley's potions books.

"You know you don't have to study during summer, right?" Ron asked him one night.

"If no one makes you do it, it counts as fun," Harry told him.

"Ah…."

This started a new action during the day—specifically rainy days where they couldn't go out—working through some of the simpler and useful potions under one of the elder Weasley's supervision. Percy would work on a more advanced one, citing the importance to his upcoming year, and Snips as always monitored all of them to make sure they were doing it right.

Harry was also learning knitting while at the Burrow, which he thought to be useful for a number of reasons. Currently his main goal was figuring out how to knit a nice pair of wool socks for Dumbledore for Christmas, although his first several attempts ended up looking like weird shapeless lumps. Fred and George salvaged these, stuffed them and sewed buttons onto them; the rest of Harry's stay was treated to these creations sitting on random steps or shelves, to Snip's consternation.

Harry added yarn, needles, and a knitting book to his shopping list though. And maybe some new clothes; even with learning how to adjust his clothes to his size (with much tutting from Mrs. Weasley and dark mutterings about the Dursleys), he was starting to see that he needed proper clothes and not hand-me-downs that didn't even remotely fit, even with him putting on a few pounds with Mrs. Weasley's cooking. They'd have to be hidden from the Dursleys, but he could manage.

Snips had also put on some weight under Mrs. Weasley's care, but he didn't have to worry about clothes so much. He was about double the size he had been when Harry and Ron had first found him though, which led to a deep discussion retreading the old ground of what is Snips, really (the Lovegoods down the way had several suggestions, and Mr. Lovegood offered to look into his contacts to find something).

Soon enough though, their new supply list came in, and it was off to Diagon Alley with them. Harry had seen the car, had been taken for a ride down to the Lovegoods in it (although they walked just as often, firstly to see the dirigible plums and after that to hang out with Ginny and her friend Luna, also starting this year), and he had been puzzling how the Weasley family plus one would fit.

As it turned out, that wasn't a problem for this day.

"We'll travel by floo, it'll be easier than taking the car," Mrs. Weasley said, grabbing a flower pot by the mantle. "Hmm, have to pick up more while we're out. Here you go, Harry, you go first."

Harry blinked at the pot, which seemed filled with ash. "Um, what?"

"Oh sorry Harry—I forgot you've never travelled by floo before," Ron said, looking sheepish.

"Oh that's right—well it's very simple, dear," Mrs. Weasley explained. "You take a healthy pinch, throw it in the fire, say where you want to go, and then step in. Here, Ron, you show him."

Ron nodded, took a pinch, walked up to the fire, tossed the pinch in while saying "Diagon Alley!"—

Vanished in a flare of green fire.

Harry was going to be brutally honest right now, nothing about what he saw motivated him to follow through with the action, was probably the reason he stuttered on Diagon Alley when throwing in his pinch of floo powder.

Getting a mouthful of ash on the way in didn't help.

Also, Harry was of the opinion that floo travel was not even remotely pleasant, he spent most of the spinning sickening trip wishing he was anywhere else, didn't stick the landing, instead laying where he tumbled and hoping the room stopped spinning soon.

Snips nipping him on the chin motivated him to move a little faster, sit up—

Take stock of his situation.

"Snips," Harry whispered—because suddenly finding himself in a room with shrunken heads and skulls and other nasty things kind of required that reaction. "Where are we?"

Snips chittered, tugged on his shirt collar before pointing for the exit. Harry staggered upright, started for the door—

Snips chittered more frantically, flailing around before darting for a cabinet and tugging the door open—Harry ducked in, made to pull the cabinet all the way shut—stopped at Snips snapping his tail on his wrist. Harry hissed—

Froze when Malfoy came in, along with a man that could only be his much-touted father.

Harry exchanged nervous glances with Snips, had a hard time breathing through what sounded like the elder Malfoy moving illicit goods (although he retained enough sense to file that away to mention to Mr. Weasley later), heart nearly stopped when Malfoy approached the cabinet, almost fainted when they did finally leave.

Snips waited, tense…finally tapped Harry on the face and pointed for the door.

Harry was more than willing to oblige.