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Iris lay awake in her bed, unmoving, staring up at the ceiling of the small bedroom she shared with Harry. It was the middle of the night and everyone in the house was asleep beside her. Something had been nagging the Potter girl in the back of her head all night and she just couldn't fall asleep.

Finally, Iris moved, raising one of her hands above her face and taking in a deep breath.

Then quietly, so as not to wake Harry who was sleeping in his bed on just the other side of the small room, she whispered, "Lumos." And snapped her fingers together.

Iris gasped, sitting up straight, watching her palm light up with a glowing brightness, like what she saw when she used her wand to do the charm.

She had asked the Hogwarts librarian, Madam Pince, for any books on wandless magic before they had gone home for the summer and had been reading them in the dead of night, trying to figure out how to do it.

Iris wasn't quite sure why she decided to attempt to teach herself wandless magic, but she had been trying all Summer to get even a spark of magic to ignite and now it finally happened. Iris huffed a quiet laugh, staring at the light in awe.

A thump then sounded from the other side of the room and Iris immediately closed her hand into a fist, snuffing out the light. Another shuffling noise sounded from the bed next to Iris', and she promptly pulled the chain on the lamp sitting on the nightstand next to her bed, illuminating the room with a dim glow.

The brunette looked over toward where she heard the sound and saw Harry rolling around fitfully in his sleep. Iris stood up, concerned, and made her way over to his bed watching her twin in the dim light of the lamp.

She put the back of her hand to his forehead. He was burning up, and she noticed the area around his scar, identical to her own, was red and looked agitated.

Forehead wrinkling with concern, Iris bent over and poked him a few times.

"Harry," she whispered, "Wake up."

He didn't wake, but his hands shot up to his face to press against his scar, which seemed to be hurting him.

Iris' lips pursed, watching her brother with worry as she shook him, trying to get him to wake up.

"Come on Harry, wake up!"

Suddenly, Harry's eyes snapped wide open and Iris jumped, clutching her chest in shock.

Harry lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. Iris let out a sigh of relief.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other hand reaching out in the dim lamp-light for his glasses, which were on the bedside table.

Iris waited silently as she perched on the edge of his bed, observing him carefully.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It looked like it was putting him in pain. He turned to look at Iris. She was still watching him with her eyes glazed over in curiosity as she looked at the boy in front of her. A skinny boy of fourteen looked back at her, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair.

She brushed her hand over his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He needed a haircut. Iris' own hair had gotten too long for her liking and so for her birthday, she asked Aunt Petunia to cut it off. It now rested just on her shoulders and was much less of a hassle to deal with.

"Harry? What happened?" Iris asked her brother.

He closed his eyes tightly.

"I had a nightmare. A dream and Voldemort was there, with Wormtail. They were talking about us, I think. And now my scar is hurting."

Harry put his face into his hands, blocking out the bedroom.

Iris remained sitting next to him. "Do you want me to get you anything? I can sneak down and get some water."

He shook his head slightly to the side. Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around their bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened, there was an extraordinary number of unusual things in this room. A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of Iris' bed, revealing a cauldron, black robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of the twins shared desk that was not taken up by the two large, empty cages in which Harry's snowy owl, Hedwig, and Iris' ragdoll cat, Buttercup, usually sat.

On the floor beside Harry's bed a book lay open; Iris recognized it as the one Harry had been reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Iris bent over the book, picked it up, and watched one of the wizards score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then she snapped the book shut. She placed Flying with the Cannons on his bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to look in the early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as Iris could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not even a cat. Buttercup usually liked to explore in the middle of the night, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The thing that was bothering Iris was the last time either one of their scars had hurt them, it had been because Voldemort had been close by...But Voldemort couldn't be here, now...The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible...

Iris' hand crept up to her neck, wrapping itself securely around the silver heart-shaped locket she had gotten for Christmas. It reminded her of Sirius, as it was a gift from him, and she missed him very much. Iris wished he could have been there to comfort her at that moment as she was feeling unreasonably alarmed.

For one glorious hour, Iris and Harry had believed that they were leaving the Dursleys at last, because Sirius had offered them a home once his name had been cleared. But the chance had been snatched away from the twins - Wormtail had escaped before they could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life. Iris and Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Iris and Harry might have had if Pettigrew had not escaped had been haunting the siblings all summer. It had been doubly hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that they had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Iris and Harry, even if he couldn't be with them. It was due to Sirius that the twins now had all their school things in their bedroom with them. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Iris and Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of their powers, had led them to lock their school trunks in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Iris had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for the twins had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Remus, too, had been in contact with the twins. Sending them letters and little bits and bobs here and there. He wrote to Harry often, and Iris was glad the two could finally have the relationship they deserved.

She listened closely to the silence around her. Iris wasn't sure if she was half expecting to hear the creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak. And then the brunette jumped slightly as she heard her cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Iris shook herself mentally; she was being stupid. There was no one in the house with her except Harry, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

"I don't think we should worry about it right now..." Iris said, slowly pulling the curtain back to being closed. She turned to Harry, leaning against the wall, "It was probably just a nightmare, nothing to worry about."

Harry gave her a sceptical look, falling back onto his bed. She sighed, pushing off the wall and walking back to her own bed, sliding under the sheets.

"Look, Harry, we leave for the Weasley's in the morning... why can't we just have one normal Summer?" She reached up to grab the chain of the lamp saying, "If it happens again then we'll worry, but until then, let's just enjoy the last few weeks of vacation."

Harry pulled his blanket up with a sigh, "Okay, fine. Normal Summer. Nothing's wrong."

Then with a contented nod from each of them, Iris pulled the chain, the light going out with a soft click.

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By nine o'clock the next morning, just a few hours after Harry's nightmare, both Iris and Harry's school trunks were packed with their school things and all their most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak they had inherited from their father, the broomstick Harry had gotten from Sirius, the enchanted map of Hogwarts he had been given by Fred and George Weasley last year. They had double-checked every nook and cranny of their bedroom for forgotten spellbooks or quills, and taken down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on which the twins liked to cross off the days remaining until their return to Hogwarts. Iris had put Buttercup into her carrier, and the cat seemed most displeased about it.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the Dursleys uptight and irritable.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled at once. "I've seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on normal clothes, that's all."

Iris felt a slight sense of foreboding. She had rarely seen Mr or Mrs Weasley wearing anything that the Dursleys would call 'normal'. Their children might don Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr and Mrs Weasley usually wore long robes in varying states of shabbiness. Iris wasn't bothered about what the neighbours would think, but she was anxious about how rude the Dursleys might be to the Weasleys if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Uncle Vernon had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked like a gesture of welcome, but Iris knew it was because Uncle Vernon wanted to look impressive and intimidating. Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the same target to the enemy.

Breakfast was an almost silent meal. Dudley didn't even protest at the food (cottage cheese and grated celery). Aunt Petunia wasn't, eating anything at all. Her arms were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Iris and Harry.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Vernon barked across the table.

"Er," said Harry, glancing at Iris to which she responded with a wide-eyed shoulder shrug.

They hadn't thought of that. How were the Weasleys going to pick them up? They didn't have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. But Mr Weasley had borrowed a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly he would do the same today?

"I think so," said Iris, though she didn't have a clue.

Uncle Vernon snorted into his moustache. Normally, Uncle Vernon would have asked what car Mr Weasley drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and expensive their cars were. But Iris doubted whether Uncle Vernon would have taken to Mr Weasley even if he drove a Ferrari.

A quarter to ten, they all moved out into the living room to wait for the arrival of the Weasleys.

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Vernon was pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and Iris was sure he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car. Dudley was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped firmly around his bottom. The twins couldn't take the tension; they left the room and went and sat on the stairs in the hall, their eyes on Harry's watch and their hearts pumping fast from excitement and nerves.

Just a minute after ten o'clock, when the Dursleys started talking loudly about the punctuality of the Weasleys a loud scream rang out from the living room along with a bang. The twins jumped up. From the other side of the living room door came the sounds of the three Dursleys scrambling, panic-stricken, across the room. Next moment Dudley came flying into the hall, looking terrified.

"What happened?" Iris asked her cousin. "What's the matter?"

But Dudley didn't seem able to speak. Hands still clamped over his buttocks, he waddled as fast as he could into the kitchen. Both Iris and Harry hurried into the living room.

Loud bangings and scrapings were coming from behind the Dursleys' boarded-up fireplace, which had a fake coal fire plugged in front of it.

"What is it?" gasped Aunt Petunia, who had backed into the wall and was staring, terrified, toward the fire. "What is it, Vernon?"

Iris had a feeling she knew what it was, and she was left in doubt barely a second longer. Voices could be heard from inside the blocked fireplace.

"Ouch! Fred, no - go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake - tell George not to - OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron -"

"Maybe Harry or Iris can hear us, Dad - maybe they'll be able to let us out -"

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

"Harry? Iris, can you hear us?"

The Dursleys rounded on Iris and Harry like a pair of angry wolverines. Iris cringed, preparing for their anger.

"What is this?" growled Uncle Vernon. "What's going on?"

"They - they've tried to get here by Floo powder," said Harry, fighting a mad desire to laugh causing Iris to elbow him in the ribs. "They can travel by fire --"

"Only you've blocked the fireplace," Iris finished, "Hang on..."

She approached the fireplace and called through the boards.

"Mr Weasley? Can you hear me?"

The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney-piece said, "Shh!"

"Mr Weasley, it's Iris...the fireplace has been blocked up. You won't be able to get through there."

"Damn!" said Mr Weasley's voice. "What on earth did they want to block up the fireplace for?"

"They've got an electric fire," Iris explained.

"Really?" said Mr Weasley's voice excitedly. "Eclectic, you say? With a plug? Gracious, I must see that... Let's think... Ouch, Ron!"

Ron's voice now joined the others'.

"What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

"Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up."

"Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George, whose voice sounded muffled, as though he was squashed against the wall.

"Boys, boys..." said Mr Weasley vaguely. "I'm trying to think what to do... Yes... only way... Stand back, Iris."

Iris and Harry retreated to the sofa. Uncle Vernon, however, moved forward.

"Wait a moment!" he bellowed at the fire. "What exactly are you going to -"

BANG.

The electric fire shot across the room as the boarded-up fireplace burst outward, expelling Mr Weasley, Fred, George, and Ron in a cloud of rubble and loose chippings. Aunt Petunia shrieked and fell backwards over the coffee table; Uncle Vernon caught her before she hit the floor, and gaped, speechless, at the Weasleys, all of whom had bright red hair, including Fred and George, who were identical to the last freckle.

"That's better," panted Mr Weasley, brushing dust from his long green robes and straightening his glasses. "Ah - you must be Harry and Iris' aunt and uncle!"

Tall, thin, and balding, he moved toward Uncle Vernon, his hand outstretched, but Uncle Vernon backed away several paces, dragging Aunt Petunia. Words utterly failed Uncle Vernon. His best suit was covered in white dust, which had settled in his hair and moustache and made him look as though he had just aged thirty years.

"Er - yes - sorry about that," said Mr Weasley, lowering his hand and looking over his shoulder at the blasted fireplace. "It's all my fault. It just didn't occur to me that we wouldn't be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace connected to the Floo Network, you see - just for an afternoon, you know, so we could get Iris and Harry. Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected, strictly speaking - but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and he fixed it for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don't worry. I'll light a fire to send the boys and Iris back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate."

Iris was ready to bet that the Dursleys hadn't understood a single word of this. They were still gaping at Mr Weasley, thunderstruck. Aunt Petunia staggered upright again and hid behind Uncle Vernon.

"Hello, Harry, Iris!" said Mr Weasley brightly. "Got your trunks ready?"

"They're upstairs," said Harry, grinning back.

"We'll get them," said Fred at once. Winking at Iris, he and George left the room. They knew where Iris and Harry's bedroom was, having once rescued them from it in the dead of night. Iris suspected that Fred and George were hoping for a glimpse of Dudley; they had heard a lot about him from Iris and Harry.

Iris shuffled her feet around, "I'm gonna go help them with the stuff..."

She lightly punched Ron on the shoulder in greeting as she passed him, jogging up the stairs after the Weasley twins.

"Howdy Iris," George spoke as she walked through the doorway into her bedroom.

"Boys." She waved.

Iris walked over to her bed and squatted, looking into Buttercup's carrier at the angry cat. Buttercup hissed softly at her, turning her head away from Iris.

The girl rolled her eyes at her dramatic cat, "Oh shush, you haven't even been in here that long."

Each of the twins grabbed a trunk and Iris picked up Hedwig's cage from off of their desk. The boys wheeled the suitcases out the door and began rolling them down the stairs behind them, making a thump on each step.

Iris took one last look at her bedroom, knowing she wouldn't be seeing it until the following Summer. With a satisfied nod, Iris walked out, firmly closing the door behind her.

"Ah, right," said Mr Weasley. "Better get cracking then."

He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand. Iris saw the Dursleys draw back against the wall as one.

"Incendio!" said Mr Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind him.

Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been burning for hours. Mr Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket, untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which turned the familiar emerald green and roared higher than ever.

"Off you go then, Fred," said Mr. Weasley.

"Coming," said Fred. "Oh no - hang on -"

A bag of sweets had spilled out of Fred's pocket and the contents were now rolling in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly coloured wrappers.

Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket, then he picked up Iris' trunk, gave the Dursleys a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying "the Burrow!" Aunt Petunia gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing sound, and Fred vanished.

"Right then, George," said Mr Weasley, "you and the trunk."

Harry helped George carry his trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had cried "the Burrow!" and vanished too.

"Ron, you next," said Mr Weasley.

"See you," said Ron brightly to the Dursleys. He grinned broadly at Iris and Harry, then stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.

Iris, who was already next to the fire, stepped up to the edge of the hearth, Buttercup's carrier in hand and turned around saying a quick; "Until next Summer."

She saluted a wave to the Dursleys and put one foot forward into the green flames, which felt pleasantly like warm breath.

She stepped into the fire, looking over her shoulder as she said "the Burrow!" She waved back at the Dursleys in goodbye, and the next moment Iris began to spin very fast, and the Dursleys' living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.

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and here we go into fourth-year!

this chapter was quite a bit longer than usual, I hope you guys enjoyed it!