The summer back from Harry's first year at Hogwarts had been awful in every way; well, expect the fact that Harry now sleeps in his cousin's second bedroom.

Although magic was still a big 'no no' and anything of the sort was locked up; kept hidden away from Harry and from prying eyes in the cupboard.

Not even Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl, was allowed out of her cage for the Dursley's fear and anger, of having Harry send secret messages to his friends even though Harry had not a single message sent to him throughout the summer.

That was quickly found out to be the work of Dobby the house elf who, not only got Harry in trouble with the Dursleys, but as well as with the Ministry of Magic.

So here he was in a flying car carrying Ron Weasley and his older twin brothers, Fred and George, heading off to freedom.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" A short ginger haired women shouted at the boys that was none other then Mrs. Weasley.

"Harry, how wonderful it is to see you again dear," Mrs. Weasley said embracing Harry in a hug before looking at Ron and the twins, "BED EMPTY! NO NOTE! CAR GONE! YOU COULD HAVE DIED! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN!"

"They were starving him mum. There were bars on his window..." Ron tried to reason but was put into an immediate stop by his mother.

"WELL YOU BEST HOPE I DON'T PUT BARS ON YOUR WINDOW RONALD WEASLEY!"

"But Mum," Fred began, "Professor Black always says that if something does seem right-"

"Check it yourself to see what's wrong," George finished in a scholarly voice as both the twins nodded there head as if that was not the first time placing those words to heart.

"CHECKING DOES NOT MEAN GIVING YOU THE RIGHT TO BREAKING THE RULES!" Mrs. Weasley shouted, although if Harry WERE to guess, he would think Professor Black would probably do something of a similar dramatic fashion and more then likely play it off in a way that no one would catch him if his Professor didn't want to be caught.

"Of course, I don't blame you Harry dear, now why don't you come here and eat breakfast," Mrs. Weasley said as she hurried into the small and rather cramped kitchen as she threw in sausages in the frying pan while giving her son's dirty looks.

"Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really," Mrs. Weasley said as she added three fried eggs to Harry's plate before continuing, "flying an illegal car halfway across the country."

"It was clouder then Ron's future, Mum!" Fred said with his mouth full.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"We flew in the cover of night and darkness!" George retorted.

"And you." She said as started cutting bread and buttering it for Harry.

It was around then that a small squeal came from near the stairs, from a small red-headed figure in a long nightdress before heading up the the stairs once more.

"That's Ginny," Ron explained to Harry, "She's been talking about you all summer. It gets really annoying. Asked about you a lot."

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry." Fred said looking at George with a cheeky grin.

"Oh yeah, maybe a picture to place on her wall too." George said as they both giggled before they caught there mother's eye, wiping the smiles off their faces as nothing more was said until all four plates were clean.

"Blimey, I'm tired," yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork, "I think I'll go to bed and —"

"You will not!" Snapped Mrs. Weasley, "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me, they're getting completely out of hand again."

"Oh, mum—"

"And you two," she said, glaring at George and Ron, "You can go up to bed, dear," she added to Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car."

But Harry, who felt wide awake, said quickly, "I'll help Ron, I've never seen a de-gnoming."

"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," Mrs. Weasley said as she picked up and opening, a heavy looking book from a stack on the mantlepiece, its cover written across it in fancy golden letters 'Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests' with a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. Like all pictures in the wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, who Harry supposed was Gilderory Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all.

"Oh, he is marvelous," She said, "He knows his household pests all right, it's a wonderful book..."

"Mum fancies him," Fred whispered.

"Don't be ridiculous, Fred," Mrs. Weasley said, her cheeks pink, "All right, if you think you know better then Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it! Ron, go help Harry put away his stuff in your room before helping your brothers."

"Come on, my rooms this way," Ron said as they got Harry's trunk up the uneven staircase that zigzagged its way through the house.

On the third landing, a door was ajar showing bright brown eyes staring at Harry before snapping shut.

"Ginny," Ron said. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy, she never shuts up normally."

The boys climbed two more flights until they reached a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying 'Ronald's Room.'

Harry stepped in, his head almost hitting the sloping ceiling, and blinked. It was like walking into a furnace: nearly everything in Ron's room seemed to be a violent shade of orange: the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Then Harry realized that Ron had covered nearly every inch of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks and waving energetically.

"Your Quidditch team?" Harry asked.

"The Chudley Cannons; Ninth in the league." Ron said as the dumped down the luggage which popped right open on impact, spilling his clothes, books, and one particular bulky packet.

"Have you already looked through them yet," Ron said looking at the packet as both boys picked up the dropped items.

"No, not really, I didn't have the time, the Dursley's took everything away from me the moment I got home. I looked through some of the pictures, and a recipe on fried eggs but that's about it. Having looked through the letter yet." Harry explain as Scabbers, Ron's pet rat, made a loud squeaking shout. Just waking up from sleeping near the window in a ray of sunlight.

From the window, Harry could see Fred and George outside in the garden, throwing what looked like giant potatoes in full swing.

"We should join them before Mum comes and gets us," Ron said as they scurried down.

The garden was, in Harry's eyes, exactly what a garden should be. The Dursleys wouldn't have liked it, dirt and weed littered in patches, grass growing far to long, and gnarled trees all around the walls; plants Harry had never seen spilling from every flowerbed and a big green pond full of frogs.

"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron as they crossed the lawn.

"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," Ron said as he bent down with his head in a peony bush, "Like fat little Father Christmases with fishing rods..."

There was a violent scuffing noise, the peony bush shuddered and Ron straightened up, "This is a gnome."

"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" Squealed the gnome.

It was certainly nothing like Father Christmas. From close, it was small and leathery-looking with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. Ron held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside-down.

"This is what you have to do," he said. He raised the gnome above his head and started to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Harry's face, Ron added, "It doesn't hurt them really, just makes them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnome holes.

He let go of the gnome's ankles; flying twenty feet into the air and landed with a thud in the field over the hedge.

"Pitiful," said Fred, "I bet I can get mine beyond that stump."

He learned quickly not to feel too sorry for the gnomes. He decided just to drop the first one he caught over the hedge, but the gnome, sensing weakness, sank its razor sharp teeth into Harry's finger and he had a hard job shaking it off until—

"Wow, Harry— that must've been fifty feet."

The air was soon thick with flying gnomes till dusk.

"They'll be back," Ron said dusting his hands, as they watched the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field, "They love it here... Dad's too soft with them, he thinks they're funny..."

Just then, the front door slammed.

"He's back!," George said, "Dad's home!"

They hurried though the the garden and back into the house.

Mr. Weasley was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He was a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he had was as red as any of his children's. He was wearing long green robes which were dusty and travel worn.

"Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned..." Mr. Weasley mumbled, taking a long gulp of tea.

"Raids?" Harry asked looking at Ron.

"Dad works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts."

"Find anything dad?" Fred and George asked eagerly in unison.

"All I got were a few shrinking door-keys and a biting kettle," Mr. Weasley said, "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness..."

"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" George asked.

"Just muggle-baiting," Mr. Weasley sighed, "Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it... of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their keys keep shrinking—they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any length to ignore magic, even if it's starting them in the face... but the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe—"

"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?" Mrs. Weasley said holding a long poker like a sword.

Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open.

"C-cars, Molly, dear?"

"Yes, Arthur, cars," Mrs. Weasley stated, her eyes flashing, "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it is take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."

Mr. Weasley blinked.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if, er, he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth... there's a loophole in the law, you'll find... as long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't—"

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law! Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

"Harry? Harry who?" Mr. Weasley said as he looked around, saw Harry and jumped.

"Good Lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about—"

"YOU SONS FLEW THAT ENCHANTED CAR OF YOURS TO HARRY'S HOUSE AND BACK LAST NIGHT!" Mrs. Weasley shouted, "What have you got to say about that, eh?"

"Did you really?," Mr. Weasley said eagerly, "How'd it go!" He asked which got him a smack by the newspaper from Mrs. Weasley, "I-I mean, that was very wrong boys, very wrong indeed..."

"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Harry as the both slipped out to Ron's room, seeing Mrs. Weasley swell like a bullfrog.

Everything was looking up for Harry, with not a trouble at sight. Until the opened the door.

"SCABBERS NO!" Ron said making a grab for the rat, but it was to late. Scabbers some how ended up opening Harry's packet of letters, pictures, and others; leaving bitten out pieces of old letters like food. Some of them couldn't be even read anymore.

Harry picked up the items, making a pile on Ron's bed. Chewed through holes were make in several letters.

Dear Sirius,
I found old texts on (ripped out) We would finally be able to go with Moony during his furry little problems. Mum says we've going to be here at the house for the rest of the summer so we can practice with (ripped out) leaves. Who knows what kind of (ripped out) turn into. Peter would probably be something like (ripped out) You know?

From James.

A letter of his fathers writing; several years back if he guessed, to Sirius Black.

As far as Harry could tell; his father and Professor Black's brother must have been close friends in the past. Although that didn't explain why Sirius Black is in jail? Harry just seemed to not understand how a person his father was friends with could be a convict.

"I'm so sorry Harry. Scabbers must have gotten hungry and thought it was food." Ron said as he put Scabbers in his cage who squirmed around the cage.

"It's okay, isn't not your fault, he just bit through some of them. It's the pictures I'm more interested in." Harry said as he put away the collections of paper, "Besides, this is still the best house I've ever been in."

Meanwhile, in the home of Regulus Black, Regulus couldn't help but feel like he has been challenged.

Bonus
•Hell ya, Book 2!

•going more by the book in detail that way the story feels more like canon!

•Mama Weasley being a darling.

•Forge and Gred are Savage

•I'm certain it's obvious as to why 'Scabbers' went though Harry's items...