"Ron, Y/n." breathed Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. "Ron, Y/n, how did you...? What the...?" Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in midair. Grinning at Harry from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers and behind Ron was Y/n who was waving with a smile.
"All right, Harry?" asked George.
"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you been answering mine and Y/n's letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles."
"It wasn't me, and how did he know?" Harry asked.
"He works for the Ministry," said Ron.
"Harry you know we are not supposed to do spells outside school." Y/n said now.
"You should all talk." said Harry, staring at the floating car.
"Oh, this doesn't count," said Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with..."
"I told you, I didn't...but it'll take too long to explain now, look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the Ministry'Il think that's the second spell I've done in two days, so..."
"Stop gibbering." said Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."
"But you can't magic me out either..." Harry said.
"We don't need to." said Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me."
"Tie that around the bars." said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Harry.
"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," said Harry as he tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.
"Don't worry." said Fred. "and stand back."
Harry moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Harry ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Working together Y/n and Ron hoisted them up into the car. Harry listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom.
"They must be heavy sleepers..." Y/n said gratefully when the bars were safely in the back seat with him and Ron, Fred reversed as close as possible to Harry's window.
"Get in." Ron said.
"But all my Hogwarts stuff, my wand, my broomstick..." Harry began to say.
"Where is it?" Y/n asked.
"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room..."
"No problem, Y/n you're small and quiet unlike Ron so you can give me a hand." said George from the front passenger seat. "Out of the way, Harry."
George climbed catlike through the window into Harry's room, He then helped Y/n who had switched places with Ron in the car into the room before he took an ordinary hairpin from his pocket and started to pick the lock.
"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick." started George. "But Fred and I feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."
There was a small click and the door swung open.
"So...we'll get your trunk, you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron," whispered George.
"Watch out for the bottom stair...it creaks." Harry whispered back as George and Y/n disappeared onto the dark landing.
Y/n and George carefully made their way downstairs both doing their best not to make any sounds as they avoided the bottom stair as told to them. The two then quickly found the padlock up the cupboard under the stairs and George set to work on it while Y/n listened out for movement up the stairs.
A few moments went by until Y/n heard the sounds of a click. George had removed the padlock and now opened the cupboard door for him and Y/n to see in.
"It looks like someone lived in this thing till recently...You do not think it was Harry do you?" Y/n whispered to George angrily.
"Come on, let's take his trunk first. It's the heaviest after all." George whispered back and the two worked as quickly and as quietly as they could to get it out.
Harry meanwhile dashed around his room, collecting his things and passing them out of the window to Ron. Then he went to help Y/n and George heave his trunk up the stairs. Harry heard Uncle Vernon cough.
At last, panting, they reached the landing, then carried the trunk through Harry's room to the open window. Y/n climbed back into the car to pull with Ron, and Harry and George pushed from the bedroom side. Inch by inch, the trunk slid through the window.
Uncle Vernon coughed again.
"Almost there." panted Y/n, who was pulling from inside the car. "Just one more good push..."
Harry and George threw their shoulders against the trunk and it slid out of the window into the back seat of the car.
"Okay, let's go." George whispered.
But as Harry climbed onto the windowsill there came a sudden loud screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of Uncle Vernon's voice. "THAT RUDDY OWL!"
"I've forgotten Hedwig!" Harry whisper shouted to George.
Harry tore back across the room as the landing light clicked on, he snatched up Hedwig's cage, dashed to the window, and passed it out to Ron. He was scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when Uncle Vernon hammered on the unlocked door and it crashed open.
For a split second, Uncle Vernon stood framed in the doorway, then he let out a bellow like an angry bull and dived at Harry, grabbing him by the ankle.
Ron, Y/n, Fred and George seized Harry's arms and pulled as hard as they could.
"Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"
But Y/n and the Weasleys gave a gigantic tug and Harry's leg slid out of Uncle Vernon's grasp. Harry was in the car, he'd slammed the door shut.
"Put your foot down, Fred!" yelled Ron, and the car shot suddenly towards the moon.
Harry couldn't believe it, he was free. He rolled down the window, the night air whipping his hair, and looked back at the shrinking rooftops of Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were all hanging, dumbstruck, out of Harry's window.
"See you next summer!" Harry yelled.
The Weasleys roared with laughter and even Y/n couldn't help but let out a chuckle now that the ordeal was over. Harry settled back in his seat, grinning from ear to ear.
"Let Hedwig out." Harry told Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages."
George handed the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.
"So, what's the story, Harry?" said Ron impatiently. "What's been happening?"
"Yes, we all would like to know." Y/n added.
Harry told them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Harry and the fiasco of the violet pudding. There was a long, shocked silence when he had finished.
"Very fishy." said Fred finally.
"Definitely dodgy." agreed George.
"You said he would not tell you who is supposed to be plotting all this stuff?" Y/n asked Harry.
"I don't think he could." said Harry. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."
He saw Fred and George look at each other.
"What, you think he was lying to me?" said Harry.
"Well." said Fred. "Put it this way, house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"
"Yes." said Harry and Ron together instantly.
"Draco Malfoy..." Y/n explained.
"He hates me." Harry added.
"Draco Malfoy?" said George, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"
"Must be, it's not a very common name, is it?" said Harry. "Why?"
"I've heard Dad talking about him." said George. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."
"And when You-Know-Who disappeared." said Fred, craning around to look at Harry. "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung...Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle."
Harry had heard these rumors about Malfoy's family before, and they didn't surprise him at all. Draco Malfoy made Dudley Dursley look like a kind, thoughtful, and sensitive boy...
"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house-elf..." said Harry.
"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," said Fred.
"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing." said George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that, you wouldn't catch one in our house..."
"What about you Y/n? Is there a house elf that belongs to your family?" George asked.
"No." Y/n answered. "We used to have one, but Grandmother freed him before Atticus and I were born, during the wizarding war against You Know Who." Y/n told them.
"She freed it?" Ron asked in shock.
"I think she did the right thing. Most house elves are treated awfully and she said she knew he couldn't stand to watch his fellow House elves being used and killed as shields for the dark lords supporters anymore. Grandmother decided to free him so that he could make his own decisions in what he did. He fought bravely but was killed two years after he was freed I was told." Y/n said.
"So It's not Atticus then." Harry said ruling him out.
"No, in fact Atticus was furious when he heard the story. Saying she let a good servant go to waste. I still think she did the right things though." Y/n said.
Harry sat silent in thought.
"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway." said Ron now. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first..."
"Who's Errol?" Harry asked.
"Our owl." Ron explained. "He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes..."
"Who?" Harry asked again.
"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect." said Fred from the front.
"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me." said Ron. "Said he needed him."
"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer." said George, frowning. "And he has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room... I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge..."
Y/n just shuddered at the thought.
"You're driving too far west, Fred." George added, pointing at a compass on the dashboard. Fred twiddled the steering wheel.
"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" said Harry, guessing the answer.
Y/n looked at Ron before turning his gaze to look outside the window rubbing the back of his head.
"Er, no." said Ron finally. "He had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it."
"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?" Harry asked and Y/n turned his head slightly curious as well.
"He works in the most boring department." said Ron. "The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."
"The what?" Y/n asked.
"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare, Dad was working overtime for weeks."
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose." Ron explained. "Dad was going frantic, it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office, and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up."
"But your dad...this car..." Harry said not understanding.
Fred laughed. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he'd have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."
"That's the main road," said George, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes... Just as well, it's getting light..."
A faint pinkish glow was visible along the horizon to the east.
Fred brought the car lower, and Y/n looked out to see a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.
"We're a little way outside the village." said George. "Ottery St. Catchpole."
Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.
"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Harry looked out for the first time at Ron's house.
It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic. Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, THE BURROW. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.
"It's not much." said Ron.
"It's wonderful." said Harry happily, thinking of Privet Drive.
"I think so too." Y/n smiled looking at it.
They then all got out of the car.
"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly." said Fred. "And wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one need ever know we flew the car."
"I do not think that is going to work..." Y/n said suddenly going still as he looked toward the house.
"Oh come on we don't know that yet." said Ron. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the..." Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other three wheeled around.
Mrs. Weasley was marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a saber toothed tiger.
"Ah." said Fred.
"Oh, dear." said George.
Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket and a piece of paper in one hand.
"So." she said.
"Morning, Mum." said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.
"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.
Y/n just stared at the floor feeling guilty for making Mrs Weasley worry so much.
"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to..."
All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them. "Beds empty! Just a note!"
"Who left the note?" George whispered to the boys.
"I did..." Y/n whispered back.
"A very good thing you did too, how else would I have known what was going on with the car gone...you could have crashed!....Out of my mind with worry...did you care?...never, as long as I've lived....you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy."
"Perfect Percy." muttered Fred.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job!"
It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Y/n and Harry, who both backed away instinctively.
"Y/n I'm glad you left a note." She started. "And I'm certain that this was all Fred and George's idea." She turned to look at the boys. "But please don't ever do anything like that again, I promised your grandmother we would look after you."
"I am sorry Mrs Weasley..." Y/n said as he looked at the ground shuffling his feet.
Mrs Weasley just smiled knowing he felt bad about it. She turned to Harry now. "I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear." she said. "Come in you two and have some breakfast."
She turned and walked back into the house and Harry, after a nervous glance at Ron, who nodded encouragingly, followed her.
The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle, and Y/n sat down in his seat between Fred and George.
"Why did you leave mum a note?" Fred whispered to him.
"I would have felt guilty if I had not. She has been so kind to me." Y/n told him.
Fred and George couldn't help but sigh, they couldn't be angry with Y/n's reason.
"Well luckily she'll forgive us it looks like." George said.
"All's well that ends well." Fred said as he and George both put a hand on Y/n's shoulders.
"So stop looking so glum." They said in unison.
Y/n just smiled a little and looked up to see Harry looking in all directions around the house. He then remembered that Harry had never been in a wizard house before.
Mrs. Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like "don't know what you were thinking of," and "never would have believed it."
"I don't blame you, dears." she assured Y/n and Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto Y/n's plate and then the same amount on to Harry's. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too Harry. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really..." she was now adding three fried eggs to the plates. "Flying an illegal car halfway across the country...anyone could have seen you..."
She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.
"It was cloudy, Mum!" said Fred.
"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.
"They were starving him, Mum!" said George.
"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.
"Harry." Y/n called his name and Harry looked up at him. "I am sorry to ask, but did you live in that tiny cupboard under the stairs?"
"Oh, yeah for 11 years." Harry replied.
"Then you should of really used magic on them..." Y/n said shaking his head and beginning to eat his breakfast.
At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, redheaded figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.
"Ginny," said Ron in an undertone to Harry. "My sister. She's been talking about you and Y/n all summer."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autographs." Fred said with a grin, but he caught his mother's eye and bent his face over his plate without another word. Nothing more was said until all five plates were clean, which took a surprisingly short time.
"Blimey, I'm tired." yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. "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..." Fred groaned.
"And you two." she said, glaring at Ron and Fred.
"You two can go up to bed, dears." Mrs Weasley added to Y/n and Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car..."
"No, I will help them. I also took part and will share this punishment, this way the job will get finished quicker." Y/n said not wanting to have feel the stares of the Weasley brothers if he slept while they worked.
"I'll help too. I've never seen a de-gnoming..." Harry perked up.
"That's very sweet of you, dears but it's dull work." said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject..."
'Lockheart?' Y/n thought to himself remembering he had heard the name recently and it took him a few moments to recall that it was from Hermione's letter.
Mrs Weasley pulled a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece.
George groaned. "Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden..."
Y/n looked at the cover of Mrs. Weasley's book. Written across it in fancy gold letters were the words Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests. There was a big photograph on the front of a very good looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. As always in the wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, who Y/n supposed was Gilderoy Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all. Mrs. Weasley beamed down at him.
"Oh, he is marvelous." she said. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book..."
"Mum fancies him." said Fred, in a very audible whisper.
"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred." said Mrs. Weasley, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."
Yawning and grumbling, the Weasleys slouched outside with Y/n and Harry behind them.
The garden was large, there were plenty of weeds, and the grass needed cutting but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, plants spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs.
"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know." Harry told Y/n and Ron as they crossed the lawn.
"Do they?" Y/n asked puzzled.
"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes." said Ron, bent double with his head in a peony bush. "Like fat little Santa Clauses with fishing rods..."
"How odd..." Y/n commented.
There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered, and Ron straightened up. "This is a gnome," he said grimly.
"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" squealed the gnome.
It was certainly nothing like Santa Claus. It was small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. Ron held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside down.
"This is what you have to do." he said. He raised the gnome above his head. "Gerroff me!" It cried and Ron started to swing it in great circles like a lasso.
Seeing the shocked look on Harry's face, Y/n chuckled and tapped his shoulder. "Do not worry Harry, It does not hurt them at all, otherwise I would not let Ron and the twins do this." He explained and Harry looked more relieved.
"Y/n's right, you've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnomeholes." Ron said and he let go of the gnome's ankles: It flew twenty feet into the air and landed with a thud in the field over the hedge.
"Pitiful." said Fred. "I bet I can get mine beyond that stump."
Harry learned quickly not to feel too sorry for the gnomes. He decided just to drop the first one he caught over the hedge, but the gnome, sensing weakness, sank its razor sharp teeth into Harry's finger and he had a hard job shaking it off until..."
"Wow, Harry that must have been fifty feet..." Y/n said impressed.
The air was soon thick with flying gnomes.
"See, they're not too bright." said George, seizing five or six gnomes at once. "The moment they know the de-gnoming's going on they storm up to have a look. You'd think they'd have learned by now just to stay put."
Soon, the crowd of gnomes in the field started walking away in a straggling line, their little shoulders hunched.
"They'll be back." said Ron as they watched the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field. "They love it here... Dad's too soft with them, he thinks they're funny..."
Just then, the front door slammed.
"He's back!" said George. "Dad's home!"
They hurried through the garden and back into the house.
Mr. Weasley was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. "What a night." he mumbled, groping for the teapot as they all sat down around him. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned..."
Mr. Weasley took a long gulp of tea and sighed.
"Find anything, Dad?" said Fred eagerly.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," yawned Mr. Weasley. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness..."
"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" said George.
"Just Muggle-baiting." sighed Mr. Weasley. "Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it... Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking, they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face... But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe..."
"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?" Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.
"C...cars, Molly, dear?"
"Yes, Arthur, cars." said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."
Mr. Weasley blinked. "Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if...er...he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth... There's a loophole in the law, you'll find... As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't..."
"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"
"Harry?" said Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry who?"
He looked around, saw Harry, and jumped. "Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about..."
"Your sons and their friend flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Did it go all right? I...I mean." he faltered as sparks flew from Mrs. Weasley's eyes. "That...that was very wrong, boys...very wrong indeed..."
"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Y/n and Harry as Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom."
The three slipped out of the kitchen and down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, a door stood ajar. Harry just caught sight of a pair of bright brown eyes staring at him before it closed with a snap.
"Ginny," said Ron. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally..."
"Do not take it personally. She ran from me yesterday." Y/n told Harry.
They climbed two more flights until they reached a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying RONALD'S ROOM.
Harry stepped in with Y/n following behind him, It was like walking into a furnace. Nearly everything in Ron's room seemed to be a violent shade of orange, the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Then Harry realized that Ron had covered nearly every inch of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks, and waving energetically.
"Your Quidditch team?" said Harry.
"The Chudley Cannons," said Ron, pointing at the orange bedspread, which was emblazoned with two giant black C's and a speeding cannonball.
"Ninth in the league." Y/n reminded Ro who looked back at him grumpy.
Ron's school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. Ron's magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frog spawn on the windowsill, next to his fat gray rat, Scabbers, who was snoozing in a patch of sun.
"Sorry Harry, but I got the spare bed since I got here first." Y/n told him.
"That's alright I'm sure I'll manage." Harry said as he looked down at a camper bed and stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards on the floor and looked out of the tiny window. In the field far below he could see a gang of gnomes sneaking one by one back through the Weasleys' hedge. Then he turned to look at Ron, who was watching him almost nervously, as though waiting for his opinion.
"It's a bit small." said Ron quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic, he's always banging on the pipes and groaning..."
But Harry, grinning widely, said. "This is the best house I've ever been in."
Life at the Burrow was eventful to say the least. The Weasley's house burst with the strange and unexpected. Harry himself got a shock the first time he looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, "Tuck your shirt in, scruffy!" The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he felt things were getting too quiet, and small explosions from Fred and George's bedroom were considered perfectly normal. Y/n was quicker to adapt to the change of surroundings than Harry.
Mrs. Weasley fussed over the pair as she tried to force them to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Mr. Weasley liked Harry to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard him with questions about life with Muggles, asking him to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.
"Fascinating!" he would say as Harry talked him through using a telephone. "Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic."
Y/n himself had taken to helping Mrs Weasley out with some of the meals even when she protested saying it was unfair of him to sit around while she did all the cooking.
One sunny morning about a week after Y/n had arrived at the Burrow. He, Harry and Ron went down to breakfast to find Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table. The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter. Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harry entered a room. She dived under the table to retrieve the bowl and emerged with her face glowing like the setting sun. Pretending he hadn't noticed this, Harry sat down and took the toast Mrs. Weasley offered him.
"Letters from school." said Mr. Weasley, passing Harry, Y/n and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're both here, doesn't miss a trick, that man. You two've got them, too." he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas.
For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. The letter all told them to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September first. There was also a list of the new books they'd need for the coming year.
Y/n looked over the list.
'SECOND YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart'
Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Y/n's.
"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan, bet it's a witch."
At this point, Fred caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.
"That lot won't come cheap." said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive..."
"Well, we'll manage." said Mrs. Weasley, but she looked worried, something Y/n noticed. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."
"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny.
She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Fortunately no one saw this except Harry, because just then Ron's elder brother Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest.
"Morning, all." said Percy briskly. "Lovely day."
He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a moulting, gray feather duster, at least, that was what he thought it was, until he saw that it was breathing.
"Errol!" said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. "Finally, he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."
He carried Errol to a perch just inside the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so Ron lay him on the draining board instead, muttering, "Pathetic." Then he ripped open Hermione's letter and read it out loud:
"Dear Ron, Y/n and Harry if you're there, I hope everything went all right and that Harry is okay and that you two didn't do anything illegal to get him out, because that would get Harry into trouble, too. I've been really worried and if Harry is all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl because I think another delivery might finish your one off Ron. I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course,
"How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on vacation!"
Y/n opened his mouth but then decided not to mention that he had also been doing extra work in his spare time in the evenings.
"and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley?
Let me know what's happening as soon as you can.
from Hermione." Ron finished reading out.
"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too." said Mrs. Weasley, starting to clear the table. "What're you all up to today?"
Harry, Y/n, Ron, Fred, and George were planning to go up the hill to a small paddock the Weasleys owned. It was surrounded by trees that blocked it from view of the village below, meaning that they could practice Quidditch there, as long as they didn't fly too high.
They couldn't use real Quidditch balls, which would have been hard to explain if they had escaped and flown away over the village, instead they threw apples for one another to catch. They took turns riding Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand, which was easily the best broom, Ron's old Shooting Star was often outstripped by passing butterflies.
Five minutes later they were marching up the hill, broomsticks over their shoulders. They had asked Percy if he wanted to join them, but he had said he was busy. Y/n had only seen Percy at mealtimes so far, he stayed shut in his room the rest of the time.
"Wish I knew what he was up to." said Fred, frowning. "He's not himself. His exam results came the day before you did Y/n, twelve O.W.L.s and he hardly gloated at all."
"Ordinary Wizarding Levels." George explained, seeing Harry's puzzled look. "Bill got twelve, too. If we're not careful, we'll have another Head Boy in the family. I don't think I could stand the shame."
Bill was the oldest Weasley brother. He and the next brother, Charlie, had already left Hogwarts. Y/n and Harry had never met either of them, but knew that Charlie was in Romania studying dragons and Bill in Egypt working for the wizard's bank, Gringotts.
"Dunno how Mum and Dad are going to afford all our school stuff this year." said George after a while. "Five sets of Lockhart books! And Ginny needs robes and a wand and everything..."
"I do not suppose your parents would allow me to offer to help? Your family has been very kind to me after all." Y/n asked.
"They'd never hear of it Y/n." Fred told him but gave him a grateful smile for the suggestion.
"You should buy a good broom instead and try out for the Quidditch team as a chaser, you're quite good at it." George said changing the topic.
"Hey what about me?" Ron asked offended.
"Sorry Ronald but we've already got a keeper in Wood." George joked.
"Well I used to play as kid, I am not so sure I would be good enough for Gryffindor though." Y/n said unsure now.
"Rubbish, We're both on the team and we think your good enough." Fred brushed off his doubts.
"You both also thought it was a good idea to try send Ginny a Hogwarts toilet seat..." Y/n reminded them.
"Alright then Mr sensitive...we'll ask what Harry thinks." George said and Harry was soon at attention with his name being pulled into the conversation.
"Me?" Harry asked.
"Don't you think Y/n could be a chaser on the team with us?" Fred asked.
Y/n looked at Harry for a moment slightly curious of what he would say. "I don't think he would be bad on the team if that's what you mean." Harry admitted. "But I'm a seeker so I don't really know what makes a good chaser."
A few more days passed and Mrs. Weasley woke them all early the following Wednesday. After a quick half a dozen bacon sandwiches each, they pulled on their coats and Mrs. Weasley took a flowerpot off the kitchen mantelpiece and peered inside.
"We're running low, Arthur." she sighed. "We'll have to buy some more today... ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!" She offered him the flowerpot.
Harry stared at them all watching him. "W...what am I supposed to do?" he stammered.
"I do not think Harry has ever traveled by Floo powder Mrs Weasley." Y/n was quick to understand.
"Sorry, Harry, I forgot." said Ron suddenly.
"Never?" said Mr. Weasley. "But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?"
"I went on the Underground..." Harry began.
"Really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Were there escapators? How exactly..."
"Not now, Arthur." said Mrs. Weasley. "Floo powder's a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you've never used it before"
"He'll be all right, Mum," said Fred. "Harry, watch us first."
He took a pinch of glittering powder out of the flowerpot, stepped up to the fire, and threw the powder into the flames.
With a roar, the fire turned emerald green and rose higher than Fred, who stepped right into it and shouted. "Diagon Alley!" before he vanished.
"You must speak clearly, dear." Mrs. Weasley told Harry as George dipped his hand into the flowerpot. "And be sure to get out at the right grate..."
"The right what?" said Harry nervously as the fire roared and whipped George out of sight, too.
"Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you've spoken clearly..."
"He'll be fine, Molly, don't fuss." said Mr. Weasley, helping himself to Floo powder, too.
"But, dear, if he got lost, how would we ever explain to his aunt and uncle?"
"They wouldn't mind." Harry reassured her. "Dudley would think it was a brilliant joke if I got lost up a chimney, don't worry about that."
"Well... all right... you go after Arthur, Then Y/n you go after Harry." said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, Harry, when you get into the fire, say where you're going..."
"And keep your elbows tucked in." Y/n advised.
"And your eyes shut," said Mrs. Weasley. "The soot..."
"Don't fidget." said Ron. "Or you might well fall out of the wrong fireplace..."
"But don't panic and get out too early; wait until you see Fred and George."
Trying hard to bear all this in mind, Harry took a pinch of Floo powder and walked to the edge of the fire. He took a deep breath, scattered the powder into the flames, and stepped forward. The fire felt like a warm breeze, he opened his mouth and immediately swallowed a lot of hot ash.
"D-Dia-gonalley," he coughed then disappeared.
"What did he say? Mrs Weasley asked.
"Diagonally." Percy said.
The corner of Y/n's mouth raised for a moment as an idea formed in his head. He took a handful of the Floo powder and scattered it onto the fire and jumped in closing his eyes.
"Diagonally..." He said clearly and began to disappear.