Chapter Text
Harry’s uncle had never been especially kind during the summer, or ever really, but this Summer had been a little different. Uncle Vernon was not being nice, oh no. Still far from it but at least this year Harry had Sirius’ name to hold over them. They were undoubtedly terrified of his “Deranged Freak of a Godfather”, though Harry had no idea why they believed him in the first place.
Harry idly reminded himself to thank Sirius for his help as he listened to Mr Weasley and his sons attempt to climb out of the boarded-up fireplace. He almost laughed as his uncle rallied himself quite courageously from his spot, hiding behind the sofa.
Mr Weasley seemed pleased with himself for finally breaking free of the debris that was once a rather bland fireplace, perhaps he thought he had made an improvement to their decor. Harry quite agreed.
After giving Harry a smile in greeting he strode over to the Dursleys and held out a hand for Uncle Vernon to shake. Uncle Vernon who had been only a moment from bursting a second before was stunned into silence, though sadly only for a moment, before his purple-tinged face once again contorted and he began his usual tirade about all this “Freakishness in his home,” and how dare they “Not only intrude but also destroy his living room.”
Harry, who was used to such outbursts, turned to Ron and the twins who seemed mesmerised by the colourful shades that Uncle Vernon was capable of replicating, even without magic. He beamed at Ron as his attention was finally diverted and threw his arms around his best friend, he’d missed having company, apparently Ron felt the same as he returned his enthusiasm.
“Hiya Harry.” The twins spoke at the same time, giving him matching grins.
“Does he-”
“Do this-”
“Often?” They questioned disjointedly, one of them gesturing towards his uncle.
Harry sighed, “You have no idea.” The twins shared an odd look between one another at that as they looked back towards the cowering family.
Uncle Vernon seemed to have finally paused to take a much needed breath as his face turned more red this time due to lack of air.
“I had just wished to thank you for taking care of Harry all these years,” Harry almost snorted. “However now I feel I must apologise for the intrusion.” Mr Weasley stuttered out, looking slightly lost at Uncle Vernon’s very clear dislike of him. He’d most likely been looking forward to having a conversation with the muggles, Harry admired his optimism.
“I think we should go Mr Weasley,” Harry interjected carefully, hoping to avoid another showcase of just how much a man could make your ears ring.
“Uh, right Harry.” The man turned to him looking a little dazed, “Where are your things then?”
“Just upstairs, I’ll go grab them-” He paused as the twins raced up the stairway behind him and disappeared into his room. “Well, nevermind.”
The twins seemed to take a suspiciously long time to find his belongings, especially since they were packed neatly and waiting on his bed, and he swore that at some point he heard them snickering to one another. But he was a bit too afraid to ask when they finally did return, trunk dragging behind them and Hedwig’s cage held carefully aloft by one. Hedwig herself had been released earlier that night so that she could make her own way over and stretch her wings for a bit.
Harry envied her for that, although he thought she might have wanted to witness this scene, she hated his relatives almost as much as Harry did himself.
The twins winked at him as they made their way past and he resolved that he did not want to know after all.
As Mr Weasley drew out his wand Dudley shrieked and bolted out of the room, sprinting up the stairs and locking himself in his bedroom. Harry thought he could blame Hagrid for that reaction. Mr Weasley simply looked confused before shrinking the trunk and cage with a quick “Reducio,” clearly not paying enough attention to have seen the looks of absolute horror on Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s faces. Rather like the look Aunt Petunia sported the day that the nice young couple had moved in down the street, they had coloured hair, it was a traumatic day for his aunt.
Quickly grabbing both the shrunken items off the floor Harry made his way towards the still broken fireplace as fast as possible before Uncle Vernon began shouting again, he knew his uncle would somehow make his next rant even more painful to hear. Ron and the twins got the hint and dashed towards the hearth as well.
Just as they were distributing the floo powder and his uncle was readying his next speech they were all halted by the sound of a scream from upstairs. Not a second later Dudley darted into the room almost tripping over his tongue, which was reaching out of his mouth and down so far that it was making a good attempt at licking his shins, and it was only growing longer.
“MUY TUNN!” He shouted desperately, Harry was impressed he could manage to say even that with his mouth so full, although it wasn’t much different from his regular level of vocabulary he supposed.
He heard the twins’ matching cheers of success at the same time that he threw down his powder and shouted desperately “THE BURROW!”
As he tumbled out the other side into the waiting arms of Mrs Weasley, who crushed him into another hug, “Harry dear, we’ve been so excited for your visit!” he heard Ron stumbling out behind him, and then the tell-tale sound of the twins’ victorious laughter.
Mr Weasley came through a few moments later after no doubt attempting to fix Dudley’s tongue, Harry really hoped he hadn’t been able to. Apparently Harry’s amusem*nt wasn’t shared as both the older Weasley’s began to berate the twins whose smiles dropped quickly in the face of their parents’ wrath.
“What have we told you about experimenting with those sweets of yours!” Mrs Weasley began to shriek, luckily letting go of Harry in the process so that he could distance himself. He quickly made his way over to where Ron was standing with Hermione so that he could say hello to his other best friend, although they’d been writing to each other all summer it wasn’t quite the same as seeing her in person.
“That poor boy could have been killed!” Mr Weasley added on, gesturing crazily, “You know that you aren’t supposed to be testing your experiments on people, much less a poor defenceless muggle boy.” Harry resented that description.
When they had finally given up on chastising their sons, Mr and Mrs Weasley ushered Harry towards the large dining table that already housed four of the Weasley siblings. As he sat down, choosing to sit next to Fred (or George, he still couldn’t tell) and Ron, he was introduced to the two older Weasley brothers Bill and Charlie. Harry instantly liked them even before knowing about their awesome jobs. Curse-breaking? Dragon-wrangling? Harry hadn’t even known jobs like that existed!
They were friendly enough to Harry and it made dinner a less awkward affair after the twins’ stunt from earlier, although Harry made sure to make his appreciation known to them.
As always, Mrs Weasley insisted that Harry eat the servings of four people, or one Ron, and even though his stomach protested that much food after a whole summer of barely enough, he ate as much as he could. He was sure he’d be painfully sick later, but maybe the twins had something to help with that. Who knows with those two.
Harry had no idea how Mrs Weasley didn’t realise the state of his home-life, there was no way she could miss how thin he was and that the only reason he was shorter than almost everyone, to his immense dismay, was because of his stunted childhood growth (he convinced himself that was the only reason). She had always talked about his terrible eating habits but perhaps she had simply never considered the other possibility, it was quite dark after all.
Harry supposed that was why he liked The Burrow and Hogwarts so much, among other reasons obviously. He knew she was trying to help him out, so he tried to show his appreciation of the delicious meal and ate everything that was put on his plate.
Later that night after Mrs Weasley was distracted with Bill, “It’s far too long, you must cut it soon, it looks dreadful dear!” Harry was rather insulted on Bill’s behalf, he thought the hair suited the oldest Weasley, Harry, Hermione and Ron snuck upstairs to join Ginny in Fred and George’s room. Which had a suspicious amount of colourful stains and a slight smell of potion fumes.
After they were all seated around the room, with most of them scattered around the floor and the twins sitting on one of their beds, he spoke up. “So Fred, George, what are these sweets about?” Harry asked curiously, they must be amazing if they could be used to enact revenge on his cousin.
They both grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. Harry slightly regretted asking.
“We’ve been developing-”
“Our own joke-”
“Products.” They pieced together proudly.
“To start our-”
“Own business!” Fred finished, maybe… Harry still didn’t know.
“That sounds brilliant! What’ve you got so far?” He questioned enthusiastically, those would be great to use at the castle, preferably on some of the Slytherins, one greasy blonde in particular.
“Uh uh uh-” One twin said while playfully wiggling a finger in his face. Harry thought that might have been George. Possibly.
“We can’t-”
“Reveal our-”
“Secrets just-”
“Yet.”
“Can we, Fred?” So that was George. Or was it? They could be doing it on purpose.
The twins leant back with smug looks on their faces, it was obviously something they were incredibly proud of and Harry understood why. Creating new magical objects was incredibly difficult and dangerous, let alone edible ones. He suspected all kinds of potions were involved, which automatically guaranteed that he would never understand it.
“They’ve been fighting Mum about it all summer.” Ginny said with an exasperated huff from the opposite corner of the floor.
“It’s only a-”
“Matter of-”
“Time before we-”
“Convince her.”
“As Gred said.” Well that doesn’t help one bit. He gives up, letting out a sigh of frustration in his head.
Externally, Harry was being enthusiastically supportive “I think it’s a great idea!” and he wasn’t just saying that to try and get out of their pranks, he wasn’t.
The twins grinned smugly as if they’d just won some bet, and judging by Hermione’s sigh of annoyance in the middle of the floor, they had.
Shortly after, Mrs Weasley appeared to chase them all to bed, reminding them that they had to be up early the next morning. With that Harry remembered his excitement about the Quidditch World Cup, he couldn’t possibly sleep now!
Due to the enormous dinner that he’d had, Harry was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
