The final bell rang and Ron, Harry and Hermione dashed out of the Charms classroom, bound for Gryffindor tower. Due to some recent worrying reports about a group of Death Eaters planning to attack the school, all Hogwarts students were being given a two week break while the teachers checked and increased the defence charms around the school. Our favourite trio were headed for The Burrow for the two weeks, and were expecting a lot of fun.

Ron checked for the last time that he had everything he was taking home, then shoved his trunk back into its corner and swung his bag onto his back. Harry put his wand in his pocket, then, carrying most of his possessions, followed Ron back down to the Gryffindor common room.

“Hermione, you look like you’ve packed half the library into that bag!” Ron said as they met up with their friend in the common room.  She was standing with Ginny, who looked nervous for some reason.

Hermione shrugged and shifted her bag, which was crammed full of books, clothes and other assorted items, into a more comfortable position. She was also burdened with Crookshanks’ cage, in which the cat was miaowing pitifully. “Ron, it may have escaped your attention somehow,” she said, looking pointedly at Ron’s bag, which was conspicuously empty, “but we do have to work over this break, it’s not as if we’re getting a holiday with nothing to do. There’s that Potions essay, and I have to practice my Charms, and...”

“Oh, Hermione, shut up,” Ron said. “Let’s just go, all right?  Where’re Fred and George?”

The twins came tearing down the stairs, bags bulging with magic tricks. “Sorry, guys,” George gasped, “Last minute packing.”

“I’ll say,” said Hermione.

“Here, you four go first,” Fred said, handing the Floo powder to Harry. “Me and George’ll go and tell McGonagall we’re leaving.”

“All right, then,” Harry said, taking a pinch of the powder and throwing it into the fire. Stepping into it, he called out, “The Burrow!”, and instantly felt as if he was going to be sick as he started spinning.

Ginny, Ron, and Hermione followed Harry. Hermione caught a glimpse of
a devilish look on Fred’s face just as she stepped into the flames, but thought nothing of it – Fred always had a devilish look on his face.


They came out of the fire in an elaborately panelled boardroom. A short man with a weird moustache was standing there. He looked at them, blinked, then barked something in a different language and four guards came running into the room.

“Holy fruitbats, it’s Adolf Hitler!” Hermione said.

“Quick! Back in the fire!” Ron shouted. The fire was still glowing green, an indication that it was still travel-worthy. They jumped, all four at the same time, just as a gunshot was fired...


They came out of the fire in an ornate stone room. A man was lying on
a couch, wearing a white toga and laurel leaves. He seemed to be dictating something to a second man, who held a piece of parchment.

“...facilis descensus Averni...” Then he noticed them, and cried out. Hermione took a step backwards, pushing the other three back into the
fire with her...


They came out of the fire in the middle of a Muggle department store, where the fake fireplace had suddenly burst into real flames. People were pointing and shouting – Ginny caught a glimpse of a young girl with brown hair who was holding a clipboard and looked oddly distressed – then Harry hustled them back into the fire...


They came out of the fire in the Queen’s formal sitting room, shocking a nation who were watching her birthday address... on a movie set, where the fire was a fake and had a chair in front of it with “Daniel Radcliffe” on the back... in Martha Stewart’s kitchen, making her drop an egg on the floor... back in Gryffindor tower... in the White House... on the set of Red Dwarf, surprising the two main stars, Chris Barrie and Craig Charles... in the Slytherin dungeon, where Draco Malfoy looked stunned by their sudden appearance... and finally, when they had begun to think they were going to be bounced around all day, in the Burrow.

“Fred Weasley!” Ginny choked, spitting out a mouthful of ash and coughing. “I’m going to kill you! And where’s George?”

“What have you two done now?” Molly asked, coming into the kitchen,
where Fred and George were sitting at the table and laughing at the
bedraggled quartet. “Honestly, you boys can’t keep out of trouble for
a minute...”

“Sorry, Mum,” George said, grinning. “It was this thing we invented, see, to add to Floo powder... it takes the user to ten different places before they get to their original destination!”

Hermione folded her arms. “It also makes you time travel! We saw Hitler, and Julius Caesar!”

“Is that who he was?” Harry asked, impressed. “What was he saying?”

“Something about Hell. A descent into Hell. Oh, does it matter?  George, we appeared in the Queen’s house! And she was doing a live television appearance!” Hermione fumed.

“GEORGE AND FRED WEASLEY! IS THIS TRUE?”

“Sorry, Mum,” Fred tried.

“You’re going to have to do a lot better than THAT, my boy! Go on,
outside! You can de-gnome the garden, then clean out the duckpond!”

“But Mum,” George said.

“But nothing! Go!” Molly folded her arms and looked stern. The twins gulped, then hurried out of the door. For want of anything better to do, Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione followed them.

“I didn’t think she’d get so mad,” Fred said, gloomily dragging a gnome out from one of Ginny’s old gumboots and hurling it across the fence. “It was only a joke, you know...”

“Did you,” asked Hermione, “even know how it would work?”

“Not really,” George said, pulling a kicking gnome out from under a rosebush. “We knew what it would do, sort of... but not where you would end up. You were kind of...”

“Guinea pigs?” Ginny asked.

“Ginny the guinea pig...” Fred snickered.

“Aw, leave her alone,” Harry said protectively, getting a round of
applause from the H/G shippers. Ginny blushed, and turned to the
duckpond to hide it.

“Oh, yuck!” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“Look at that...”

The ducks had been squawking loudly for a few minutes, trying to get
the attention of the children, and Ginny had spotted the reason why.
One of the ducks was dead, feathers scattered around it, and its head
half bitten off.

“That’s revolting,” Hermione said, trying not to be sick. Ron turned
her head away from the sight, and the R/H shippers did what the H/G
shippers had done a few minutes earlier.

“What happened?” Fred asked. “Eurgh, that’s disgusting.”

“Let’s clean it up, and set a trap. It might be a fox or something, and we might be able to catch it,” George said.

“Good idea,” said Ron.


But nothing came around that night. The trap hadn’t worked. The only
thing that happened all night was that Ron woke the entire household
up with a piercing yell when he had the same bizarre dream he’d been
having on and off for the past few months. (A/N: see the first
chapter of this fic for details.)

Molly was upset over the loss of one of her ducks, as they were a fairly new addition to her collection of animals (which consisted mainly of the family owls and her chickens).

“There must be SOMETHING we can do for her,” Hermione said as she and Ginny sat in the back garden watching the ducks huddle around their
pond. They weren’t IN the pond because whatever the twins had cleaned it with had turned the water purple.

“It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “I know she’s
not YOUR Mum, but she wouldn’t mind if you helped me pick a present.
I never know what to get her.”

“Oh, yes,” Hermione said. “I wrote my Mum a poem this year, and I sent it yesterday before we left school. I charmed the parchment so it sings.”

“That’s nice,” Ginny said. “Help me think of one for my Mum, will you? I bet she’d like it.”


Elsewhere in the house, other Mother’s Day plans were being made.  Fred and George had closeted themselves in their room and had been very quiet for a long time, and Harry and Ron were in the kitchen, trying to decide what Molly might like for breakfast the next morning.

“I don’t see why I can’t give her that spare Chudley Cannons poster,”
Ron complained. “It’s only torn a little bit...”

“Firstly,” Harry said, “it’s a poster. You don’t give posters for Mother’s Day. Secondly, you are going to make something yourself if I have to kill you in the process. And thirdly, she doesn’t even LIKE the Chudley Cannons, you know she’s a Montrose Magpies fan!”

Ron sighed. “Bacon and eggs it is, then...”


They hadn’t set a trap for the duck-killer that night, but at two o’clock in the morning there was a sudden awful squawking and hissing from outside that woke everyone up. Arthur ran downstairs in his pyjamas, and the children weren’t far behind. Molly winced and buried her face back in her pillow – she didn’t want to see another of her pets be killed.

A terrific battle was going on beside the duckpond. Three of the ducks were beating at something with their wings, and the something was hissing and spitting like a frying pan. Fred ran over and pulled one of the ducks away, and Ginny helped him.

Under the mass of feathers was a white cat. It scratched at Fred’s hand when he tried to pick it up, and hissed again. Its eyes were glowing red, and Ginny backed away.

“Ow!” Fred yelled. The cat had just bitten him. He stumbled backwards, nearly knocking Ginny over. The cat looked dazed, then jumped over the duckpond. It was going to run away, but the sight of the ducks was too much for it: it tried to attack one of them again.  This gave Ginny just enough time to bend down and grab the nearest missile she could find and fling it at the cat. It landed accurately, and the cat was knocked out.

“Wow, Ginny,” Harry said. “What did you hit it with?”

Ginny stepped around the pond and knelt beside the cat. “A potato,” she said, holding it up.

The others started laughing. “A potato,” George chuckled, “that’s a classic, really.”

“Well, it worked, don’t knock it,” Ron said. “Ginny, let it alone.  It’ll wake up and stay away.”

“No,” Ginny said. “I’m bringing it inside. Hermione, can I borrow Crookshanks’ cage? I want Dad to take this beast to the pet shop in Diagon Alley and see if they can do something about it. It’s evil.”

“All right, sweetheart,” Arthur, who was shivering, said. “But let’s hurry inside, all right? I’m cold.”


In the morning, everyone but Molly got up at seven o’clock. Harry and Ron went to the kitchen to start making her Mother’s Day breakfast.  Ginny and Hermione cast a final charm on the poem. And Fred and George... well, whatever they were up to, it was being kept very secretive.

Arthur helped Ron and Harry put Molly’s breakfast on a tray when it was ready, and then he and the children trooped upstairs to where Molly was pretending to still be asleep, with a tiny smile on her face.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” they all chorused.

“Oh! Thank you, dears, you’re too kind,” Molly said, rolling over and smiling as Harry and Ron set the tray down on her beside table.  “Bacon and eggs and toast... looks delicious!”

“This is from me and Hermione, Mum,” Ginny said, handing Molly a card. Molly opened it, and the card sang:

“Mother’s Day is a time to be grateful
That your mother is nobody’s fool
Mothers are every child’s best friend
They’ll stick by you until the end
But no matter the Mums other people have got
Molly Weasley is the best of the lot!”

Molly laughed and applauded. Hermione and Ginny both went pink as she
hugged and kissed them.

“Here you are, Mum,” Fred said, handing Molly a gift-wrapped parcel.

“We brought you this as well,” George added, heaving Crookshanks’ cage onto the bed. “Look, it’s the horrible thing that killed your duck.”

“Arthur, you’ll take that into Diagon Alley when you go, won’t you?”
Molly asked, struggling with the ribbon around the parcel. “Boys,
what did you wrap this in, glue? Ah...”

Fred and George exchanged a look as Molly pulled a small book out of
the paper.

“A diary!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank you...” She opened it, and a clown’s head on a spring jumped out at her. Molly jumped, and the others laughed.

“Just so you think of us every time you use it,” George said modestly.

Molly laughed and gathered all her family plus Harry and Hermione into a hug. “Thank you all,” she said. “This has been a great Mother’s Day... so far.”

“And if you want it to STAY that way, maybe you’d better not eat Ron’s cooking...” Fred warned.

“Hey!”

“Calm down, Ron!”

The bedroom dissolved into the usual Weasley havoc centre, and Molly lay back in the middle of it all, Crookshanks curled up on her stomach, and laughed until she cried.