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┄┄ .•* 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐 *•. ┄┄

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒚𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒚

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Hermione woke up on Saturday with a jolt. Somebody had just poured a glass of water on her face and they would soon realize that is not how you want to wake her up.

"Who the fuck did that?" Hermione growled as she looked around the room to find a sheepish Ginny on the floor. Hermione glared hard at her.

"Now don't do anything rash, Mione. I tried to wake you—Harry's already here—it's past noon and—" Ginny cut herself off as Hermione leaped out of bed. The redhead screeched and made a mad dash down the stairs.

Hermione rolled her eyes. Did she really think she'd run, first thing in the morning? Pfft.

Hermione stood up, putting her hair up in a ponytail. She checked if her pajama wasn't inappropriate and decided to throw a cardigan on top of her shorts and t-shirt. Then she made her way downstairs.

As she got to the kitchen doorway, Ginny was already there and Mrs. Wesley looked pissed. She subtly smiled at the occupants of the kitchen.

"What have they done this time?" Hermione heard Mrs. Wesley say. "If it's got anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes —"

"Good morning, Weasleys!" said Hermione from the doorway grinning and trying to ease the tension around them.

"More like afternoon, Mione," Charlie snorted and Hermione stuck her tongue out at him.

"Ah Harold, good you're here! Ron has this huge book in his room he needs to show you!" Hermione said noticing that Mrs. Wesley though smiling at her still had a lot to say.

"What book—," said Ron and Hermione narrowed her eyes at him.

"That book with the cover. The one upstairs. In your room," she said with a pointed look, "We can all go see it. It's fascinating really."

"Oh," said Ron, catching on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

Hermione turned on her heels after smiling at the other Weasleys and she, Ginny, Harry, and Ron set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed.

The three of them laughed.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," said Ron quietly. "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," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise."

"Only, most of the stuff—well, all of it, really—was a bit dangerous," said Ron, "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."

"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "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."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know—I've got a report to finish for the office—and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."

"We're not thundering," said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" said Harry.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin—leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year—"

"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-bottomed products that seriously endanger—"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started upstairs again. Percy slammed his bedroom door shut.

As Harry, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees. Hermione couldn't help but flinch. She'd have to help them get the things to the World Cup without the risk of them losing all their stuff. She really thought they were brilliant and starting a beyond successful business at eighteen or seventeen proves just that.

The room at the top of the house where Ron slept had posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill contained one extremely large frog. There was the tiny gray owl. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly.

"Shut up, Pig," said Ron, edging his way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room," he told Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to work."

"Ooh, maybe we could come here tonight and have a sleepover!" Hermione whispered to Ginny who giggled at her.

"Er—why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny. "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically.

"Ginny named him," he explained 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."

"Vader gets along with him," Hermione shrugged.

"Vader?" Harry asked amused and Hermione nodded.

"Yup. My new owl. He's out in about," Hermione explained to Harry. "When you see him you'll understand the name."

"I still didn't," said Ron and Ginny at the same time.

"That's 'cause you're uncultured and never watched the masterpiece that is Star Wars," Hermione scoffed as Harry chuckled.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Back home," she said. "Pron—I mean. Uh. He didn't want to come," she answered and Harry nodded.

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry, sitting down on one of the beds—Hermione had already plopped herself down on one as soon as they got to the room.

"Enjoying it?" said Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch . . . as I was saying to Mr. Crouch . . . Mr. Crouch is of the opinion . . . Mr. Crouch was telling me . . . They'll be announcing their engagement any day now."

"Bloody annoying he is. No offense," said Hermione causing the two siblings to snort. "Did you get the shit ton of food I sent you Harold? I even got you McDonald's so you better have enjoyed it."

"Yeah, thanks a lot," said Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes, and that cheeseburger. . . . That was delicious."

"And have you heard from—?" Ron began, but at a look from Hermione, he fell silent.

Discussing Sirius in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped or believed in his innocence.

"I reckon Fred and George are dead already, lets go down and help or some shit," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry.

"Yeah, all right," said Ron.

The four of them left Ron's room and went back downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when they came in. "There's just not room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she said to Ron and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes.

"Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Hermione knew she meant Fred and George. "I don't know what's going to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can. . . ."

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as she stirred.

"It's not as though they haven't got brains," she continued irritably, taking the saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office."

"Mrs. Weasley?" Hermione called the older woman who looked up at her, "I know you think Fred and George are wasting their time but you should see this from a bigger picture. Look at everything they invented—and the lists! They have everything organized. I have a feeling they'll have a lot of success in the future. You don't need to worry so much, grades and Ministry jobs aren't everything," Hermione said calmly to the woman who looked at Hermione for a good ten seconds.

"Thank you, Hermione," Molly said crushing the girl in a hug.

"For wh—what?" Hermione managed to get out.

"For helping ease my nerves. I might not agree with everything you said or they do, but you are right in one thing. I shouldn't worry too much about them. They're good kids. They're our kids," She said smiling and Hermione could understand Mrs. Wesley was talking more to herself than to Hermione. Yet she smiled and nodded at the older woman.

"No problem, Mrs. W."

"Let's go and help Bill and Charlie," said Ron to the group and they left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard.

A very loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden and saw that Bill and Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the others out of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny and Hermione immediately joined them while laughing. Harry and Ron, were just looking amused and grinning.

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head poking out of a window on the second floor.

"Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed.

"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut.

Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.

"Aww, that was starting to get violent." Hermione pouted and they all chuckled at her.

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky.

Hermione was mainly butting in on the conversations around her, though she totally ignored Percy's yapping. At the moment she was talking to Fred, George, and Charlie spiritedly about the World Cup.

"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They flattened Peru in the semifinals."

"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

"What happened?" said Harry eagerly.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg."

"You know, I think Ireland will win," Hermione said.

"But, Krum!" Ron exclaimed.

"I never said he wouldn't get the snitch." Hermione shrugged and they all looked at her weirdly, "Now, to more important matters. You still haven't explained anything to me about what you do Charlie. And if I'm really going to work with dragons I need to know from someone with experience," she told Charlie, who grinned widely and started talking and explaining everything he did as a Dragon Tamer.

Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle.

"So—have you heard from Sirius lately?" Hermione heard Ron ask and she subtly left the conversation about whatever it was she was having with Ginny, the twins, Bill and Charlie.

"Yeah," said Harry softly, and Hermione opted not to tell them Sirius had written to her too, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He might write back while I'm here."

"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you—you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."

"Wow—hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.

"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."

"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.

"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!"

"It was," Fred whispered to them as they got up from the table. "We sent it."

"You're wicked!" Hermione grinned at Fred who winked at her. She started making her way inside when something came to her head.

"Wait a minute! We have to wake up at the crack of dawn?!"

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