Hey there, before any of you get confused, Victoria's nickname is pronounce tick-ee, like Vicky, but with a T. Happy reading!

"And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken." —Ecclesiastes 4:12, ESV.

"The fun has arrived!" Victoria practically sang as she threw open the door to The Burrow. The twenty-year-old had a suitcase in one hand and a backpack slung across her shoulder, rain-cloud-colored eyes bright as she stepped inside.

"TIKKI!" she heard Fred and George thunder with excitement as they pounded down the stairs, banging on doors as they passed them. "Tikki's here!"

Ginny popped her head out of the kitchen. "Tikki?"

Molly appeared behind her. "Hello dear!"

"Did you say Tikki was here?" asked Ron from upstairs, his voice faint from the distance.

The brunette laughed, dropping her bags so she could open her arms and prepare for the onslaught of hugs approaching.

Fred reached her first, barreling into the girl and making her stumble backwards. George wasn't far behind, wrapping his arms around his brother and her. They squeezed her so hard she couldn't breathe, but she had been ready and had taken a deep breath beforehand. She put her arms around their necks, giggling like crazy.

"Took you long enough to get here," complained Fred, his red hair mingling with her brown head as he bent over her in the hug.

"Yeah, we've been waiting on you for hours," George reprimanded, equally as bent over. They were both tall, while Tikki was only slightly above average for a girl, so the hugging was enacted by the two of them leaning down while she stood on her toes.

Tikki rolled her eyes, pulling away so she could look the two of them in their eyes. "I said I was coming between one and two o'clock."

"Yeah, but we never know when you're going to show up early," said Fred.

"Or late," added George.

She laughed again, giving her favorite pair of twins another hug. "I've missed you guys so much! I can't believe I'm finally here! We're going to have a great summer, right?"

"Right!" they said with matching grins.

"All right there, give her some space," said Molly, pushing the boys away so she could embrace her niece. "How are you, dear?"

"Hi, Aunt Molly, I'm doing great, how are you?"

"Never better, sweetheart."

Ginny also gave Tikki a hug when her mother made room. "Did you bring that card game? Last year you said you would teach me."

Tikki pointed at her bag. "Yep! And I will teach you. We'll see if you can keep up with me and the boys." She grinned at her younger cousin. "I also brought a nail polish that you are going to love." Ginny beamed back as the girl picked up her things again. "I'm going to take my stuff to my room." By "my room" she meant the twins' bedroom that she shared with them every summer.

"You know you can have Bill's room, Tikki. He's not coming home this summer," Aunt Molly said over her shoulder, retreating to the kitchen.

"Oh, come on, Aunt Molly, you know I love sharing with Fred and George," Tikki replied with another laugh. "I'll move there if I discover the boys have taken up too much space." She hoisted her suitcase into the air and began quickly up the stairs with the twins in pursuit. "Ron, are you up here?" she called. "Percy?"

"Coming, Tikki!" shouted Ron from what sounded like his bedroom.

"Percy's out and about for the day," Fred informed her.

"He's bringing home pizza though!" George said.

Ron popped out of his room to give his older cousin a hug. "Hi, Tikki." As much as he complained about her antics and was slow to greet the girl, she knew he was always excited to see her.

"Hey there, Ron Ronlie Ronalson," she said, hugging him back as best she could with her luggage. A dark-haired boy with glasses stepped out of Ron's room as well, looking curiously at her.

"This is Harry," said Ron when he pulled away. "He's staying for the summer."

Tikki raised her eyebrows. "Really? Me too! I'm Tikki, Ronnie's cousin."

"Just Ron's?" chorused the twins.

She rolled her eyes at them. "Well, I could go through the list of the lot of you if you like but it seemed a bit long winded." A piece of brown hair caught in her mouth, and she tried to dislodge it without her hands, but failed. "Fred, I've got a hair in my mouth, a little help?" She turned her face towards him. He deftly swiped the saliva-coated hair away from her lips. "Thanks. See you around, Harry." She trotted upstairs to the twins' room, leaving a very confused-looking Harry behind. The bedroom was small, but it had always fit the three of them somehow. The twin beds had been pushed together with some pillows stuffed in the crack between them to create one larger bed and a small section of the closet looked as if it had been cleared out for her.

"So," Tikki said, setting her suitcase and backpack on the bed. "Have you guys committed any crimes since you last wrote?" She began to unpack as the boys spilled their stories out to her. She laughed through every single one of them, which is why they loved her. She laughed at everything. "How come you guys always have more excitement than me?"

"We make our own excitement," they said with identical grins.

She put her hands on her hips, her rain-cloud eyes dancing. "Well, so do I! Everything gets blown out of proportion with you two. We could pull the exact same prank and yet yours will become a huge spectacle while mine remains a prank."

"You don't go to the lengths we do," said Fred, poking her shoulder.

"Yeah—we work hard on our pranks," George added.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, it's so much work enchanting Ron's pillow to swallow his head, or to replace Percy's real money with Monopoly money so he can't pay for anything. You know, there is a reason everyone in your house has a safe for their belongings."

"We know," they laughed.

"Well, now that I'm unpacked, what do you guys want to do?" asked Tikki, sitting on the bed.

The boys looked at each other. "Go for a jaunt in the marsh."

She looked at them with narrowed eyes for a moment. "Fine. But if I get muddy, the two of you will be twice as dirty as I get."

"No promises!"

She chuckled at them. "Can I borrow some of your old pants and shirts that Ron hasn't grown into yet? I'm not getting any of my clothes dirty." Tikki slipped her suitcase under the beds. It would probably stay there all summer, collecting dust while she collected memories.

Fred dug through his dresser drawers, then tossed a pair of pants and a gray t-shirt at her. "These were Percy's, then mine. I think they've just about finished their lives."

She nodded in agreement, looking at the stains and small rips. "They'll probably be glad to go." She changed in the bathroom, then threw her previous clothes on the bed and pounded down the stairs with the twins in pursuit.

"Where are you guys going?" asked Ginny before they got out the front door.

"To the marsh!" shouted Tikki as she dashed through the door and into the sunshine. She wasn't trying to exclude Ginny, but they both knew the marsh would get them all dirty and Ginny would hate that. She didn't like roughhousing with the boys like her cousin did.

Molly watched the trio chase each other toward the small swamp. "Ginny, fetch some towels and put them outside the door for when they come back. Make sure they're not my good towels either."

Tikki shouted in surprise when her feet slapped cold water under the grass. Summer had just started, and the water hadn't received a chance to warm up yet. Fred and George were practically making waves in front of her as they ran farther into the wetlands, their red hair gleaming slightly gold in the sunlight.

They chased each other around for hours, never mind the fact that they were all twenty-years-old and considered to be adults. They rotated between throwing mud at each other, splashing each other, and taking breaks to tell stories. True to her promise, when the trio was called back inside for supper, the twins had significantly more mud than Tikki, who had mud splattered over every bit of her. They cleaned up a bit so they could go inside and eat, each of their stomachs growling when the smell of warm pizza reached them.

"Hi, Percy," said Tikki, smiling at the older boy as she grabbed a plate.

"Hello, Tikki, how are you?" he asked cordially, already sitting at the table with his slice of cheese-covered heaven. She and Percy had been close for a while, but when he got to be fourteen, he stopped running around and having unbridled fun, so she switched to hanging out with the twins, who were the same age as her anyway.

"Really good," she replied. "Thanks for bringing pizza." She took two slices of pepperoni pizza, slapping George's hand when he tried to nick one of them. "Get your own!" She sat at the table, leaving space for Fred and George to sit on either side of her like they always did. "So, Harry," she said, glancing at the boy across from her. "You and Ronald go to school together, right?" Ron made an ugly face at her. She never called him "Ron" when he was around, preferring to poke fun at him. She took a bite of warm pizza, nearly melted at the delicious taste. Everything tasted better after hours of running around.

Harry nodded. "Hogwarts. I haven't seen you there, are you...?"

She shook her head. "I'm a Squib." He looked confused, so she explained. "A non-magical wizard. My father is Uncle Arthur's brother, but my mother is a Muggle. I got more of her genes than his, so I don't have red hair or magic."

"Can you imagine that?" said Fred with a grin.

"A Weasley without red hair." George nudged her with his shoulder.

"What would Malfoy say?" the twins chorused.

Everyone laughed, even Harry and Tikki. She had long ago resigned to the fact that she was the odd one out in looks and blood. But she still had plenty of the mischievous Weasley genes in her, and no one in her family made her feel like less because of her lack of magic.

"I would love to meet this Draco Malfoy and give his blond hair a splash of bright pink," she said with a smirk. She had heard of the boy who tormented Ron and his friends from both Ron and the twins. He sounded like a jerk that she wouldn't mind giving a taste of his own medicine and then some.

"Yeah, and you wouldn't get detention for doing it," said Ron, frowning down at his pizza.

The front door opened and closed. "I'm home," a voice called, a weariness thick.

Tikki jumped out of her seat and ran to the man to hug him. "Uncle Arthur!"

"Hey, there's Tikki!" He ruffled her hair with a wan smile. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. And you?"

"Tired." He sniffed the air. "And hungry. Is that pizza?"

Molly handed him a plate with two slices of pepperoni pizza. "Percy brought it back from town."

He looked at her gratefully, then turned to Percy. "Thank you, m'boy."

When the meal was finished, Ginny and Tikki did the dishes while the twins went out to dispose of the trash. Percy went up to his room to do some reading before an early bedtime. Ron and Harry decided to play card games in the living room while Molly and Arthur watched and chatted.

"Do you have any pranks up your sleeve that I should watch out for this summer?" asked Ginny as she rinsed off a few glasses.

Tikki jogged her head side-to-side. "I kind of wanted to see if we could get a spell or potion to make the pond water invisible. Then when Uncle Arthur or Percy goes down to investigate why it's all dried up, they'll get wet. But I definitely want to switch around the keys on Percy's laptop, so he keeps pressing the wrong ones. Oh! And I've got to come up with something good for the twins, but I haven't thought of anything yet. Don't worry, I won't prank you, and I'll make sure the boys don't either."

Her younger cousin grinned. "That's why I like having you around. A whole summer of little to no pranks on me. It'll practically be paradise."

Tikki and the twins stayed up late into the night with Ron and Harry. They all played games and made fun of each other until two in the morning. Tikki finally declared it was bedtime for herself and the boys all agreed, splitting up. Tikki got the right side of the bed, with Fred beside her and George on the far end. They all wore matching, soft pajamas Tikki had purchased at the beginning of last summer when she announced that she was tired of sleeping beside their scratchy pants and shirts.

She tucked her feet against Fred's legs, warming her chilled toes. "Night, guys."

"Night, Tikki," they said sleepily.

She heaved a relaxed sigh and allowed her body to rest for the first time that day. Minutes later, she was asleep.

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Vote for Tikki, then head on over to chapter two!