❝I THOUGHT HE REALLY LIKED HER...❞

.・。.・゜✭・.

The sun rises over the Burrow just after seven and comes right in Ginny's window, and it's this combined with the smell of toast and bacon that wakes Ara and the other girls up with smiles on their faces.

Breakfast is always a happy affair at the Burrow, peppered with cheerful conversations about work, Quidditch, and "Oh, could you please pass the butter?" Mrs. Weasley's cooking is delightful as always, and Ara loves to sit next to Mr. Weasley and Bill, since their conversations almost always concern the inner workings at Gringotts and the Ministry and the goings-on of the Wizarding world, the type of news she never gets at home. Stephen and Calla won't let her get a Daily Prophet subscription for some reason.

After breakfast, Mr. Weasley and Bill are off to work and Ara happily joins in with the chores, glad of something helpful to do while spending time with her favorite people. She and Ginny feed the chickens, she helps Mrs. Weasley with the laundry, and sits in the kitchen feeding Jasper carrot tops while Fred and George peel potatoes for dinner. The whole house always smells of fresh bread and burning candles, and Ara loves it.

Mr. Weasley and Bill get home just after four-thirty, as the Quidditch game in the backyard is getting competitive (it's Charlie, Ara, and Fred against George, Ginny, and Ron; Hermione chose to sit against the house and read), and Mr. Weasley calls the boys inside; it's nearly time to pick up Harry.

Fred leaps off his broom and holds his hand out to Ara, playing the gentleman. "My lady," he says, winking, and Ara grins as she slides off her own broom.

"Why, thank you, kind sir." She spies a brightly colored wrapper poking out of his pocket. "You're not still thinking of using those on Harry's cousin, are you?"

"Of course not! What are we, monsters?" George lands beside them, grinning mischievously. "We won't use them on him, per se."

"No, we'll just drop them near him, entirely accidentally." Fred smirks slyly.

Ara rolls her eyes. "You two are going to be the death of me." But secretly she thinks Harry's cousin does deserve it, from the stories she's heard, and she's rather excited to hear about the results.

When the three of them return to the kitchen, Mr. Weasley and Ron are already waiting for the twins, emerald fire blazing in the fireplace. "All ready?" Mr. Weasley asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly. It's no secret that Mr. Weasley's fascinated by Muggles, and to go to their house! To their sitting room! Ara can only imagine how excited he is.

"Follow my lead, boys," he says, and then steps into the fireplace. "4 Privet Drive!" And then he's gone, vanishing into a green whirlwind.

Fred gives Ara's hand a gentle squeeze, and then steps into the fire himself, shouting Harry's address and spinning into thin air.

Next is George, and then Ron, grinning widely. He, too, is aware of Fred and George's plan against Dudley, and since he's Harry's best friend, he's definitely on board.

Ara drops down into a chair next to Charlie at the kitchen table, and he grins at her. "Hey. Not going along to fetch Harry?"

Ara shakes her head. "You know I don't like Floo travel." From beneath the table, Jasper clambers up her skirt and nestles himself into her lap, chittering softly and curling into a ball. She scratches his ears absentmindedly, looking across at Bill. "So Bill, any special someone in your life? Specifically maybe a woman?"

Bill rolls his eyes across the table at her, but he's smiling all the same. This is an ongoing joke between them, and neither can remember when it started, but it always brings a smile to both of them. "Not yet, unfortunately."

"You have got to take time off work eventually," Ara says, grinning at him. It's always a surprise to her how Bill can be so passé about women, as handsome as he is; the long hair, the earrings, and the boots give him the appearance of an aspiring rock guitarist. It's no secret that girls have thrown themselves at him since his fifth year at Hogwarts.

Bill just shrugs coolly and nudges Charlie across the table. "Ask this git about women, why don't you?"

Charlie scowls, turning bright red beneath his freckles. "Prat."

"Charlie? A girlfriend? And here I thought I'd never see the day." Ara grins and pats him on the shoulder. "What's her name?"

"Not my girlfriend, first of all," Charlie says, shaking her hand off gruffly. "And I'm not telling you shit."

"Language, Charles Weasley." Mrs. Weasley's voice drifts in through the open kitchen window, the top of her frizzy auburn head barely visible as she bends over to weed the flowerbeds.

Charlie rolls his eyes, whispers "Shit" rebelliously, and Ara covers her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. It's no secret where Fred and George get their mischievous streak from.

"Speaking of girlfriends, d'you hear Percy broke up with that Ravenclaw girl?" Bill asks, leaning forward on his elbows and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "What was her name? Persephone?"

"Penelope, I think," Charlie says, frowning thoughtfully, chin resting on his hand. "That's weird. I thought he really liked her."

Ara stares at a peculiar spot on the wall behind Bill's head, deliberately avoiding looking at the two Weasley brothers. She's not a very good liar, so she lets the conversation drift from Percy to Charlie's work in Romania before she pretends to listen again, rubbing Jasper's belly gently as he snores.

Then there's a loud whoosh sound and Fred steps out of the fire, dusting his trousers off casually, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Did he eat it?" Ara asks, turning around in her chair to face him.

Fred shrugs. "We'll see. The others are coming soo–well, speak of the devil." For George has just appeared, holding fast to the handle of a trunk Ara assumes is Harry's, also grinning widely.

"D'you see if he ate it?" Fred asks immediately.

George shakes his head. "I didn't see anything." He drops the trunk handle and perches on the table next to Ara, crossing his arms across his chest. "What are we talking about?"

"Charlie's new girlfriend," Ara says before either Charlie or Bill can say a word. Charlie squeaks a little hey of protest, but the damage is already done.

"Charlie, Charlie, hiding things from us, are you?" says George, already grinning. "Come on, tell us about her!"

Another whoosh and Ron's at the table, too, eyebrows raised curiously at George's sly expression and Charlie's very red ears as he sputters excuses. Bill just laughs. "You can't hide forever, Charlie."

Charlie buries his face in his hands. "You prat," he says, his voice muffled through his fingers.

"Come on, we're your family!" George presses, nudging Charlie's shoulder good-naturedly. "You've got to tell us!"

Ara feels a little flush of joy at the fact that no one contests her standing as family.

"Look," Charlie says finally, lifting his head to glare at them all. "It's a woman I work with, all right? And she's not my girlfriend. We just happen to enjoy the same things, that's all."

George opens his mouth to say something further, but at that same moment, the fire flashes emerald green again, Fred says, "Ah, the moment of truth," and an unruly-haired boy with glasses tumbles out onto the hearthrug.

Without even a hello, Fred bends down, extends his hand, and asks, "Did he eat it?"

"Yeah," Harry Potter replies, standing up straight and glancing around the room. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," Fred replies with a grin. He says something else, too, but Ara doesn't hear it, because Bill chooses this moment to blurt out a very dirty joke about Merlin and a particular cauldron, and George, Charlie, and Ron roar with laughter.

Ara rolls her eyes–boys–and instead walks over to wrap her arms around Harry, giving him a tight hug. "Hi, Harry. Did you have a good summer?"

"'S alright," Harry replies, shrugging. Ara knows that this means "less abuse than usual" and takes it as an acceptable answer; she's fortunate that her family never hurt her in any way, they just didn't seem to care about anything she said or did. Either way, she's had a special affection for Harry ever since Fred, George, and Ron stole Mr. Weasley's car to break him out of his own room and bring him back to the Burrow.

Charlie joins them, bumping Ara's shoulder sweetly and extending his hand to Harry. "How're you doing, Harry?" he says, grinning. Bill gets up, too, leaning across the table to shake Harry's hand.

POP. Mr. Weasley Apparates to Ara's left, next to George, and it's evident at once that he's furious. "That wasn't funny, Fred!" he shouts, pointing at Fred. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," Fred replies diplomatically, a sly grin on his face. "I just dropped it... It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

"You dropped it on purpose!" Mr. Weasley's eyes are popping; Ara's never seen him this incensed. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet–"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asks, and Ara jams him hard in the arm with her elbow. "Ow."

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

But even Ara can't hold in a snicker at the thought of Harry's cousin with a four-foot-long tongue, especially with parents so intensely afraid of magic.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouts, clearly desperate to get them to understand the gravity of the situation. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons–"

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" Fred interrupts defensively.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," George adds, and Ara covers her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Isn't he, Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley." Harry nods innocently.

"That's not the point!" Mr. Weasley shakes his head wildly. "You wait until I tell your mother–"

There's a quiet squeak of rusty door hinges, and Ara's eyes snap to the kitchen door: Mrs. Weasley has just entered the kitchen, which does not bode well for either Mr. Weasley or the twins.

And sure enough, Mrs. Weasley has heard enough to be curious. "Tell me what?" she asks, then turns to smile at Harry. "Oh, hello, Harry dear. Tell me what, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley might have been angry, but never is anyone angry enough to want to tell Mrs. Weasley anything antagonizing, and from the stories Ara's heard, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is a particularly touchy subject.

When Mr. Weasley doesn't immediately reply, Mrs. Weasley narrows her eyes, hands on her hips. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

"It's nothing, Molly," Mr. Weasley replies, eyes on the floor. "Fred and George just–But I've had words with them–"

"What have they done this time?" Mrs. Weasley asks. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes–"

"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" says a voice from behind Mrs. Weasley: Ara didn't notice Hermione and Ginny appear through the doorway until Hermione spoke just now.

"He knows where he's sleeping," says Ron obliviously. "In my room, he slept there last–"

"We can all go," Hermione interrupts pointedly, her face clearly saying Let's get out of here.

"Oh." Ron has the look of someone who's just had a lightbulb go off over their head. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," George says hastily, but Mrs. Weasley isn't having it.

"You stay where you are!"

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all make their way toward the stairs, and Ara hesitates, unsure whether or not she might be helpful in defending Fred and George (they are guilty, but she feels the duty as their friend to at least try), but Fred shakes his head. "Go," he mouths. "We'll be fine."

So Ara squeezes George's hand, scoops Jasper into her pocket, and follows the others up the narrow staircase to the top, where Ron's bedroom is.

"What's Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asks curiously.

Ron, Ginny, and Ara all snicker, but Hermione just rolls her eyes. She clearly doesn't find Fred and George's ingenuity amusing.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," Ron replies, sobering up at Hermione's glare. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," Ginny adds softly. "We thought they just liked the noise."

"To be fair, Gin, they do also really like the noise," Ara says with a grin, and Ginny giggles.

"And most of the stuff–well, all of it really–was a bit dangerous," Ron continues. "And you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

Ara remembers that day just weeks ago: a barn owl crashing through her bedroom window, dragging a Hogwarts envelope across her bed. Fred and George congratulated Ara by letter for her nine O.W.L.s (eight Outstandings, an Exceeds Expectations in Arithmancy, and a Poor in History of Magic, which Ara failed on purpose just so she didn't have to sit through two more years of boring Professor Binns), and Fred wouldn't admit it explicitly, but he was exceedingly proud of his three O.W.L.s, particularly the Outstanding he received in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny says, bringing Ara out of her memories quite rapidly. "Because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop."

A door opens to Ara's left, and she gasps, startled, and when a familiar curly head pokes out, horn-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of a long nose, her heart drops into her stomach.

"Hi, Percy," Harry says cheerfully, waving.

"Oh, hello, Harry," Percy replies absentmindedly, his eyes boring holes into Ara's mind. She looks away, down at her feet, at the wall, anywhere but at him. Percy says something about trying to work and reports, and Ron retorts, and Percy says something else, maybe about cauldrons, and the whole time Ara can feel his eyes on her.

She wishes he wouldn't stare, but then again, she has been avoiding him for months.

So it's a relief when Percy, finally fed up with Ron's mouth, slams his bedroom door, and they continue up the stairs to Ron's bedroom, which is cozy and small, despite the three extra beds crammed inside it to accommodate Harry and the twins.

Ara drops onto the cot nearest the window, and Ginny sits next to her, wrapping her arms around Ara's waist and curling up against her side like a ginger koala. Pigwidgeon, Ron's tiny owl, twitters happily at the two of them.

"Shut up, Pig," Ron says, rolling his eyes. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room," he adds for Harry's benefit. "Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."

"Er, why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asks, clearly confused.

"Because he's being stupid," Ginny replies, lifting her head from Ara's shoulder. "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all." Ron shakes his head exasperatedly. "Ginny named him," he says, turning back to Harry. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."

After a few minutes of quiet conversation, Hermione notices that the noise from downstairs has considerably lessened and suggests that they go and help Mrs. Weasley with dinner. Ara heartily agrees; she'd much rather be with Bill, Charlie, and the twins than up here with the thought of Percy still fresh in her mind.

Mrs. Weasley's still clearly mad at Fred and George, so Ginny, Hermione, and Ara grab plates and napkins from the kitchen and make their way outside as quickly as they can. But they join an incredibly chaotic scene: Bill and Charlie are dueling via table, using their wands to levitate the tables and make them smash into each other in midair.

It's loud and violent, which explains why Fred and George are laughing and cheering from the side. Fred's eyes light up when he sees Ara walking toward him. "Hello, love," he says brightly, smiling.

"Was she really angry?" Ara asks quietly, as Bill's table crashes into Charlie's loudly, knocking one of its legs off.

"Nah." Fred shrugs nonchalantly. "Nothing worse than usual."

George pulls Ara back against his chest, wrapping his arms loosely around her shoulders, just as a window on the second floor slams open and Percy sticks his head out, positively fuming. "Will you keep it down?" he shouts, his ears bright red with anger.

"Sorry, Perce," says Bill apologetically, but he's smiling nonetheless. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly." And Percy slams the window shut without even a glance in Ara's direction. Fred and George snicker, and Ara wishes she could laugh, but the memories of last June are too fresh, especially knowing that they're going to have to talk about it eventually.

But she can avoid him for one more night, at least. She sits next to Fred at dinner, listening to Mrs. Weasley beg Bill to let her give him a haircut, to Fred, George, and Charlie debate over who might win the World Cup tomorrow, and ignoring Percy's eyes on her, even while he talks to Mr. Weasley about his new job and his annoyance with Ludo Bagman.

And while Hermione and Ginny talk in excited whispers about the Cup and about boys who might be there and school starting so soon while getting ready for bed, Ara is quiet. She's got a funny feeling deep down that this year, something big is going to change.

.・。.・゜✭・.

do i smell backstory? hehe