A/N:

This story belongs to JK Rowling.

I know it's posted at the beginning of almost every fic you read on here, but this time, it's actually true. Hermione isn't a slut, Harry isn't gay or evil or a twin, Ron isn't a bully, Draco isn't sweet or romantic. These are JK's characters and story.

My OC, Skylar French, is literally the only thing I own. Even most of the plot is JK's; Skylar is mostly just along for the ride, though usually in a different part of the castle. Because of this, you will recognize a lot of the story, even whole conversations with hardly a single edit. I am not claiming her work as mine. I am saying that she did sofreakingwell that I don't want to change anything.

You've been warned. I ain't posting anymore 'I'm not plagiarizing' promises for this story.

Now, enjoy! And I would love a few reviews-praise or criticism, whatever you want, I'm flexible. :)

"Ron, dear, has Harry written you back yet?" Molly asked over breakfast on morning. Ginny looked up attentively and I had to carefully school my expression so that it wouldn't give away my amusement. Ginny had developed quite a crush on The-Boy-Who-Lived. In fact, I had found a newspaper clipping about his return to the wizarding world hidden under her pillow a couple weeks back. Not that I had been snooping; Molly had asked me to brink both mine and Ginny's sheets down stairs to be washed. However, the following search of her things didn't yield any more juicy bits of evidence, unfortunately, and Ginny never knew I had found her article.

We were about two months into our summer vacation and Ron had been writing Harry at least once a week, usually more. It had been planned that Harry would come stay at the Burrow at some point, but Harry hadn't responded even once. At first, we thought Errol, the family owl, was just being his usual, unreliable, old self. But Harry had an owl too, a good one, so even if he wasn't getting Ron's letters, we all figured Harry would have written by now on his own so Ron's next conclusion was that Harry just didn't want to talk to him. After all, Harry was famous. It was only after Molly, Arthur, Percy, Charlie, Fred, George and I all talked to him that he saw sense.

Fred, George and I might actually not have been very helpful on this point because we had told him, sarcastically, but maybe with faces a mite too straight, that of course Harry would rather stay with his horrid family than with Ron and the rest of us. Neither Ron nor Molly appreciated our input.

"No," Ron said swallowing down a large bite of scrambled egg. "Hermione says she hasn't heard from him either." Molly looked at her husband, Arthur, with worry. "Something is wrong," Ron insisted. "His aunt and uncle are stopping the letters or something." Ron wasn't one of those boys who were overly emotional. For the most part, his world seemed to revolve around Quidditch—either playing it or watching the Chudley Cannons play it. At that moment though, his prows were knit with concern for his friend rather than for his favorite team's abysmal standing. When Ron worried about something other than Quidditch, you knew it was something worth worrying about.

"Perhaps we'll hear something tomorrow then," Molly sighed. I knew she was worried about Harry; I had eavesdropped on more than one conversation between her and Arthur about the whether they should go check on Harry themselves. They had even written to Dumbledore about the matter, but he had advised them that Harry was safest at the Dursley's. However, if Harry's aunt and uncle had cut him off from the wizarding world, well, I could relate. Only the previous summer, my biological family had tried to make me ignore everything magic, in the world and in myself, and when I had been unable to do so, I had been kicked out. The only concession they had made for me was to send me to the UK where I planned to attend Hogwarts, a more prestigious school than the one I had previously attended in America. As soon as I arrived in London however, I was trucked off to an orphanage. Without the extreme kindness of the Weasleys, I would still be in that place. Instead, thanks to Fred and George befriending me and telling their mother of my predicament, Molly had offered me a home with them for as long as I needed one and the entire family had accepted me as a daughter and sister.

Before all that though, when I was with my biological family, when I was unable to control my fate, I felt helpless and angry. I imagined Harry felt similar now. That's why, when Ron approached us the next evening with a proposition, I felt no guilt breaking the rules.

Arthur had come home that day with an announcement. And not the good kind. "I heard some news about Harry," he sighed as we all sat around the dinner table.

"What?" Ron, Ginny, and Molly all said simultaneously.

"Apparently, he performed magic in front of his relatives. He was sent a warning about it. If he does any more magic, he could get expelled." Ron's face turned white.

"I need your help," he told us after dinner. We had been heading out while there was still light to practice flying—I was awful and needed all the practice I could get—but at Ron's serious tone, the twins instead led us up to their room.

"So, brother dear," Fred began as he settled onto his bed. George and I both took a seat on George's bed opposite Fred's while Ron took the chair next to the desk. "How may we be of service?"

"I know there's something going on with Harry," Ron said. "He should have written me at least once by now. And he used magic! What if they're hurting him and he tried to defend himself? And next time that happens, he could be expelled and then he'd be stuck there with them forever! We've got to go rescue him, but mum and dad won't do anything." I snorted at Ron's word choice. Only Gryffindors used words like rescue. How noble of them.

"Calm down, Ron," I told him. "Harry's not an idiot. He knows won't do it again. And besides, if they've never hurt him enough for him to use it in the past, maybe it won't happen again. Plus, it could have been for something completely different."

"They made him sleep in a cupboard for ten years," Ron said anxiously. Fred and George looked just as surprised as me. This was new information. "They're not suddenly being nice. And what if you're wrong? What if they try to hurt him again? Do you want him to be stuck with those muggles forever?"

"We're in," I said even before Ron had finished talking. Fred and George nodded vehemently in agreement.

"So," Fred said, getting the planning going. He tossed me my journal and pen from his desk. The words written inside were visible only to me, but since most of what was written within were pranking plans—for operations and products—we kept it in here with the twins. If they had ideas when I wasn't around, they would write it on a slip of parchment, slip it inside the little book, and I would transcribe it later. Molly didn't realize what all was in the thing so she left it alone and our plans were safe. As usual, this plot would be recorded with the rest. "Where does Harry live?"

"4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England," Ron rattled off quickly. I suppose that's what happens when you write a couple dozen letters to the same person. I wrote it on the top of a blank page:

RESCUE MISSION TO 4 PRIVET DRIVE, LITTLE WHINGING, SURREY

"Surrey, huh?" George muttered. He rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before emerging victoriously with a map I hadn't known they had. He unfolded it and spread it across the bed. "Let's see, let's see," he murmured to himself. "There's Surrey. There's Little Whinging. That's quite a distance. Round trip would take all night." I wrote:

All night or something REALLY fast

"Well, what all could we do to get there?" I asked.

"Harry's got a broomstick," Fred reminded me. "We could all just fly."
"No!" I protested. I was fine flying around the yard or towards town, but an all-night trip? I would plummet to my death!

"You could always stay here and run interference with mum," George suggested. I wanted to argue that I wanted to go, but I reminded myself that the important part of this trip was to get Harry here, so I grudgingly wrote:

Possible transportation

broomsticks

"What about the floo network?" Ron suggested. It was disconcerting to twirl from fireplace to fireplace, but it was also fast. I wrote:

floo netw

Before I could finish though, Fred cut in. "Muggle fireplaces aren't hooked up to the network." I hadn't realized that fireplaces had to be connected to the network like muggle telephones. I scratched that off the list.

"Do any of you know how to drive?" I asked. "We could maybe take the car. It would be slower than flying, but—"

"That's it!" Fred and George exclaimed as one, a habit of theirs that I had grown used to over the last year.

"We'll fly the car there and back!"

"That's great," I rolled my eyes. "Except that none of us know how to make the car fly and even if we did, we can't use magic over the vacation."

"Dad already did though," Ron said with a grin, liking this plan. "A few years back, right?" he asked the twins who nodded.

"Your dad did WHAT?" I exclaimed. They all shushed me urgently and we all sat there silently to see if I had alerted anyone else in the house. When no one came to check on my noise, I tried again. "Your dad enchanted a car to fly? Isn't that illegal?" There was some law somewhere about enchanting unauthorized vehicles to fly.

"He wrote that law," George grinned, "so he stuck in a little loophole."

"As long as he wasn't planning on flying it, it wasn't illegal to enchant it," Fred explained. I grinned. So that's where the twins got their rebellious streak.

"Cool. So, car then?" I wrote and circled:

CAR

"Alright, what else do we need to plan?" Over the next hour and a half, we created a timeline, a list of excuses for Molly for why we needed to go to bed just a little early, who would sneak the keys from Arthur's nightstand, where we would stop for gas before hitting the road (sky, whatever) and a bribe for Ginny to not wake her parents in the middle of the night when I went missing.

"We ride at dusk!" George said dramatically as I closed my journal. I rolled my eyes at him. Gryffindors!

"Alright, you two," Fred added, "you'd best head to bed now so that we don't all fall asleep in the car." Ron and I headed out, but it was hours until I fell asleep, too jittery with excitement.

We met the next evening as the sun slipped under the western horizon. It was still pretty light, but we needed to push the car down the driveway so that Molly and wouldn't hear the engine and catch us before we got anywhere. Arthur had been called into work, so we were safe from him. "You dealt with Ginny?" George asked me as he unlocked the driver's side door for me to steer while they pushed. It felt awkward having the steering wheel on the right of the car, but I had accepted ages ago that Brits were just weird.

"Of course," I nodded. I promised her half the candy we bought today if Molly doesn't find out we're gone." The twins and I had flown towards town this morning, stowing our broomsticks in some bushes before any muggles saw us, to buy snacks for the ride; toffees and chips (crisps, whatever) and soda (I had introduced the twins to the fizzy drink a month or two back and they loved the stuff). I dropped my backpack full of the food on the passenger's seat and took the car of park steering as they pushed the car down the dirt driveway. As long as Molly didn't look out the window, we would be fine. When we were a good distance out, I crawled into the backseat with Ron while the twins took the front. After a quick stop for gas, we drove out of sight of all muggles and Fred grinned at us all from the behind the steering wheel.

"Hold on," he warned us. He flipped a switch on the dash and we rose into the air, soaring like birds. Had I been afraid of heights, I would have vomited, but as it was, laughter bubbled from my throat. I would have thought that flying would have felt different from driving, but it didn't. If I closed my eyes, it felt like we were back on the ground, though slightly tilted as Fred gained altitude. It was exhilarating.

George manned the map while Fred drove leaving Ron and me to enjoy the view. We didn't talk much, as if the sound would alert the muggles to our presence up here in the clouds. Around two in the morning, George realized that we had gone way too far north and we had to backtrack for a bit. Finally, George called out, "We're almost there!" and Ron and I stopped our dozing to look out the widows. "Can you tell which one is his house?"

"That one," Ron pointed, catching sight of the brass '4' by the door.

"But which window is his?" I asked, realizing there was something we hadn't thought of. Fred circled the house, sucking in a breath as we rounded one side.

"I'm guessing it's that one," he said. We all looked with disgust at the basr covered window. Who puts bars on a twelve year old's second story window?

"Pull up," George told his brother. He looked through the windows and announced, "He's still asleep." I leaned around Ron to see Harry laying in his bed, apparently dreaming about something unpleasant as he muttered with his brows furrowed. He looked weird without his glasses. Ron rolled down his window and leaned out of the car to put a hand on the bars and began rattling them. Harry woke slowly before noticing his friend hanging towards the window and startling towards us. He shoved the window out of the way, looking like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Ron!" He looked at his friend in shock, not even noticing the rest of us for a minute. "Ron, how did you—what the—?" Finally, he noticed the rest of us and the car. I watched, entertained, as his eyebrows kept growing higher and higher, disappearing with his ever-present scar beneath his bangs.

"All right, Harry?" George asked seriously. The bars on the window were rather concerning.

"What's been going on?" Ron demanded his friend. "Why haven't you been answering my 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?"

"He works for the Ministry. You know we're not supposed to do spells outside of school—" Ron told his friend. I had never imagined him as the mother sort, but he suddenly sounded like Molly.

"You should talk," Harry said in a half laugh, half incredulous sigh as he looked at the car. He should have known better than to underestimate the Weasleys.

"Oh, this doesn't count," Ron waved the concern away. "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 sighed at Ron. Harry already said he didn't do it. Did Ron have beeswax in his ears?

"I told you I didn't—" Harry sounded as exasperated as me. "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'll think that the second spell I've done in three days, so—" I sighed at Harry's stupidity.

"Stop gibbering," Ron said, as impatient as me. "We've come to take you home with us."

"Honestly, Harry," I said, leaning forward so he could see me clearly. "Did you think we'd come all this way just to leave you here?"

"But you can't magic me out either—" Did he not realize why the twins and I were here?

"We don't need to," said Ron, nodding towards the rest of us. I waved sarcastically. "You forget who I've got with me."

Fred pulled out a rope, one of the supplies we had thought to bring, and tossed one end to Harry. "Tie that around the bars," he ordered.

"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," Harry said worriedly. Fred pumped the gas a few times. Honestly, I was wondering how the muggles had slept through the noise for this long. I mean, I was a heavy sleeper, but even I would have woken up if a car was circling the second story of my house.

"Don't worry and stand back," Fred said reassuringly before stomping on the gas. Harry hurried back a few steps until we couldn't see him in the shadows. The car kept getting louder and louder until we finally shot forward, the window bars coming with us, an almighty crunch as the bars broke free of the bricks. Ron pushed open his door to pull the bars in. When we pulled back up to the window, Harry was there, alert as he appeared to be listening to the rest of the house. Honestly, I wasn't sure how they had missed that crash, but I was certainly glad they had. We pulled up close, Ron's door still open for Harry to get in.

"Get in," Ron told Harry, who was gaping at us.

"But all my Hogwarts stuff—my wand—my broomstick—"

"Where is it?" I asked hoping it was just in his bedroom. 'Grab it and let's go!' I wanted to say.

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room—" Why couldn't the muggles just make this easy?

"No problem," George said pleasantly. "Out of the way, Harry." George pushed open his door and both Fred and George climbed out of it and in through Harry's window. "You coming, Skylar?" he called back to me.

"Heck, yes," I muttered to myself. There was no way I was staying in the car and letting them have all the fun. Aloud, though, I said, "If I fall, I'm blaming you!" Fred offered me a hand and I carefully climbed into the house.

"You got a hairpin?" George asked me as we approached Harry's locked door.

"Yup," I pulled the bobby pin out of my pocket. Lately, Ginny and Molly had both been trying to 'help' me with my outrageously curly, blond hair. Ginny's hair was wavy, but didn't have the volume mine did so she liked playing hairdresser with me as her hairdress-ee. She was actually pretty good, but the pins got uncomfortable so I rarely left them in my hair which meant that there was usually one in my pockets. George took it and leaned down to push it into the keyhole

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," Fred told Harry, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

"Yes," I rolled my eyes. "Aren't you so glad I taught you? I doubt this is the kind of think they teach in Muggle Studies."

"You taught them?" Why did Harry sound so surprised?

"I was locked up last summer too and got bored. Found a padlock, found a bobby pin and taught myself," I shrugged. Before Harry could respond, the lock clicked and the door swung open. George pumped his fist victoriously.

"So—we'll get your trunk," George whispered to Harry. "You grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron." Fred was already out in the hall and heading down the stairs.

"Watch for the bottom stair—it creaks," I heard Harry whisper, having to quickly pass the message to Fred with only seconds to spare.

"Thanks," he whispered, carefully jumping over it.

"You two," I rolled my eyes, "Always rushing into everything." I took my pin back from George and undid the lock on the little door myself. As it swung open, I looked inside in shock. "He slept in here?" I asked, suddenly filled with new sympathy for the kid upstairs. I heard both twins grinding their teeth next to me. "C'mon," I said before they went up to pummel the muggles upstairs. I had seen them throw fists for less.

We unloaded everything, just a trunk and a broomstick. Since the boys insisted they didn't need help carrying anything, while they tugged everything out, I went into the kitchen. I had seen those muggles at the train station and both father and son were humongous fat. That meant they had sweets. Unsurprisingly, I found an entire chocolate cake in the fridge and decided to liberate it. "Ready?" I asked the twins when I returned to the hallway where they had finally gotten the trunk through the door. They looked at me then at the cake in my hands. Fred grinned while George gave me a look that clearly said 'Are you seriously stealing their cake? That's a pretty low thing to do.'

I raised my chin and gave him a responding look to say 'Yes I am and I'll enjoy every bite. And if you're not nice, you don't get any.' George shrugged before nodding. "Ready," he whispered. Harry came into the hall just then, offering to help with the trunk and they accepted the help. Harry only gave me one strange look as I carried the cake. I heard the uncle cough a couple times and held my breath, passing Ron the cake through the window.

"Stop questioning the cake and take it!" I whispered at him, annoyed. He shrugged and took it depositing it on the seat next to him. I followed the cake back into the car and helped Ron as the twins and Harry pushed the trunk towards us into the back seat. "A bit more," I told the others through clenched teeth as we pulled. Why did we put so much stuff in these things again? They were no good if we couldn't lift them. "One more good push!" And push they did. The momentum pushed Ron into me and I almost fell onto the cake. "Careful!" The wonderful enchantments Arthur had put in this car came in handy once again as the back seat still had enough room to comfortably seat Harry, even with the trunk.

"Okay, let's go! George whispered as both he and Fred crawled back into the car and pulled their door closed. Harry mounted the window too, but was stopped by a loud screech from his still caged owl, still in the room. Before anyone could say anything, a man's voice was shouting from down the hall.

"THAT RUDDY OWL!" he screamed. Really, I thought, the owl is the only thing that woke you up tonight? They would lose everything if their house was ever burglarized.

"I've forgotten Hedwig!" Harry said, dashing for the bird's cage and passing it to Ron. There was a banging on the door and Harry had mounted the window seal again to follow the bird, but the fat man from the station suddenly barged into the room, the door opening with a crash and his robe hanging open. Harry and his uncle stared at each other, terror in Harry's eyes as the man sized up everything that was happening. The big man moved first, charging Harry and grabbing his leg as the rest of us grabbed Harry's arms, pulling so hard it was a wonder they weren't pulled from their sockets.

"Petunia!" Harry's uncle yelled towards the hanging door. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

"Doesn't really look like you want him, anyways," I muttered, mostly to myself. We all tugged hard before his wife could come assist him or the muggle neighbors could wake up and see the car hanging in midair and suddenly, Harry was in the car with us, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Put your foot down, Fred!" Ron yelled and we quickly accelerated up into the air, high above the house, leaving the uncle half hanging out the window, his wife and son joining him only a moment later. Harry was grinning ear to ear as we zoomed away.

With a hint of mischief in his eyes, he leaned his head out of the car to yell, "See you next summer!" and we all broke into laughter. We had done it! I suddenly understood why Gryffindors were all about quests and whatnot—the adrenaline was great. "Let Hedwig out. She can fly behind us," Harry told Ron as he slumped back into his seat. "She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages. Ron pulled at the lock for only a moment before I took it from him and picked the lock myself. Hedwig practically threw herself out of the cage as soon as the lock clicked. She flapped out the window and I swear her hoot was as victorious as Harry's last taunt at the Dursleys had been.

"So—what's the story, Harry?" Ron sounded impatient. "What's been happening?" Harry spun one of the oddest tales I had ever heard, about a house elf named Dobby showing up in his room and warning him not to return to Hogwarts. I felt a shiver go up my back when Harry told us about the warning little Dobby had given him: 'There is a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year!', though I did enjoy the mental image of the little elf dropping the pudding on Vernon's boss's wife. We sat silently when he finished. Had it been anyone else, I would have thought they were trying to pull one over on me, but Harry never lied. Fred was the first to speak.

"Very fishy," he said.

"Definitely dodgy," George added.

"Weird," was my only word.

"So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?" George asked.

"I don't think he could," Harry said shaking his head. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall." Poor little guy. I had seen elves do similar things when my fellow Slytherins berated their elves, but this guy had it worse than most. His owners must be truly sadistic to allow it.

I noticed Fred and George doing their nonverbal communication twin thing the same moment Harry did. "What?" he demanded. "You think he was lying to me?"

"Well, put it this way," Fred said. "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?"

The whole of Slytherin house? I thought to myself. Even I was still a bit sore about losing out the House Cup to Gryffindor the previous year, despite the heroic things Harry, Ron and Hermione had done. Ron and Harry narrowed down the field for me though.

"Yes," they said as one. "Draco Malfoy," Harry added by way of explanation. "He hates me." He did. I had heard the blond kid complain about Potter and Dumbledore and everyone else he didn't like for hours in the common room, but most of his complaints were about Harry.

"Draco Malfoy?" George turned around to look at Harry. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Must be," Harry shrugged. "It's not a very common name, is it?"

"Yeah," I spoke up. "The little brat is his son. He came to visit Draco in the dungeons one time." I shivered lightly. The guy had been creepy.

"I've heard Dad talking about him," George said. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"Doesn't surprise me," I said. "Everyone was very careful when he came. Terence shoved me down towards my dormitory so that Lucius wouldn't see me."

"Did he see you?" George asked with worry.

"No, but he knew I was there. I heard him talking, asking if the 'filthy girl' was there." All four of the boys scowled.

"You're not filthy," Fred growled from the driver's seat.

"I know," I reached forward to pat him on the shoulder. "Now what else do we know about the Malfoys?" I asked to turn the subject. I picked up the cake, grumbling to myself when I realized I didn't have a fork. There was no way to eat it without making a huge mess so reluctantly, I rolled down the window and, checking to make sure there was no civilization beneath us, dumped the cake, plate and all, out the window. Ron gave me a weird look as I rolled my window back up, but I ignored him and he turned forward when Fred started talking.

"When You-Know-Who disappeared," Fred was halfway turned around to look Harry while he spoke. I worried for a moment before deciding that as long as we didn't take a sudden nosedive, we were okay. "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." Again, this didn't surprise me one bit.

"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house elf…" Harry said, trailing off.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," Fred said.

"Yeah," George agreed. "Mum's always wishing we had a house elf to do the ironing, 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…."

"You do realize that ancient, rich, families with huge homes describes half the Slytherin house?" I told the boys. And most of the purebloods, even some of the halfbloods, were rumored to have family ties to Death Eaters. We all sat quietly for several minutes. Harry and Ron appeared to be thinking very hard so I let them.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," Ron said finally. "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 interrupted.

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he's collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes—"

"Who?"

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," Fred answered before Ron could.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me. Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," George frowned. "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….You're driving too far to the west, Fred."

"Charlie knew what was up with him," I said. "But he wouldn't tell me what. Ron? What happened to the snacks?"

"We finished off all the crisps and soda so I put the toffee in the glove box to make room for everything else." I sighed, but figured I would get the toffees later.

"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" Harry asked suspiciously. He sounded like he already knew the answer.

"Er, no," Ron said awkwardly. "He had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it." And if we didn't escape her watch, we were dead.

"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?" Harry asked.

"He works in the most boring department. The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office." Ron seemed thoroughly unsatisfied with his father's profession despite the fact that Arthur loved it.

"The what?"

"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. The 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?"

"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." I remembered this story. The man had been her daughter's boyfriend—how awkward. I grinned with that mental image in my head. "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—" was in direct violation of the law? Almost, but Arthur was too smart for that. Fred laughed.

"Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles," he explained.

"You should have heard him the first week I moved in," I told Harry and all the Weasley boys laughed. Arthur had practically followed me around the house that whole week asking me about whatever happened to pop into his head.

"See, our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again," Fred went on. "If he raided our house, he'd probably have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."

"That's the main road," George pointed ahead of us. "We'll be there in ten minutes….Just as well, it's getting light…." It was. The sun was starting to rise and the car would be very visible if any muggles happened to look our way. If only we hadn't gotten lost on the way there. Fred lowered the car slowly. "We're a little way outside the village, Ottery St. Catchpole." We had flown around the village so that no morning-bird muggle saw our silhouette against the lightening sky. Lower and lower until we bumped down onto the ground.

"Touchdown!" Fred cheered.

"Have you ever landed this thing?" I asked him, just a little rattled.

"Nope. Pretty good for a first time," he said, adding a wink so that I couldn't tell if he was teasing or not. We were next to the garage in the yard.

"It's not much," Ron said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

"It's wonderful," Harry whispered. I grinned. Of course he liked the place. It was the best place in the world. We all got out, unloading Harry's things and started toward the house. Fred whispered his plan to us; we hadn't planned this part because we weren't actually sure if we could get this far.

"Now we'll all go upstairs really quietly and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast." Mmmm, breakfast, my stomach sighed happily. "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 could see a flaw in this plan and I didn't think that was how Molly would react, but before I could voice the opinion, Ron was saying, "Right, come on Harry. I sleep at the—at the top—" We all turned to follow his gaze which was pointed at the house.

Oh. Well I hadn't seen that flaw.