AN: Hello again. Yes, I'm still alive, I've just been battling a nasty case of Writer's Block for the last four years – which is strange since I was sure I knew exactly what was supposed to happen in this update when I finished the last one, so it should've been an easy one to write.

Anyway, if you want an explanation for why this took so long – or just want a peek behind the curtain on how my strange mind cobbles a story like this together – then by all means continue. If you're only after a summary of the previous chapters before continuing on with this one though, then feel free to skip down to the next section.

Now, as some of you may recall, I'm what's called a 'Pantser,' not a 'Planner,' when it comes to writing. While I may know what's going on in the story and can have some pretty concrete ideas on how it'll all play out, there's no hard-and-fast plan, no outline I'm adhering to – that's what Planners do. This 'fly by the seat of your pants' method of storytelling I use, however, means that everything I'm doing is still open to change because unexpected things are free to pop up in the story as I'm writing it, and they can push the story in a different direction.

This very thing happened in the first chapter (when Harry offered to buy Dobby) and irrevocably altered the entire story before a word of it was ever posted. Because of this, I tend to describe what I do as putting a camera into the world and filming what goes on around it as the story plays itself out. The downside of this is that it's completely impossible to do anything if you don't know where the camera is supposed to go or what it's supposed to show – but that's not the only reason it can fail.

If I'm missing a scene, it fails and I can't continue. If I show a scene from the wrong perspective, it fails and I can't continue. If I try to force specific events to happen when they don't want to, it fails and I can't continue until it's removed or at least heavily reworked. The writing process can fail for so many reasons that it's sometimes hard to figure out why it failed, and that's what I've been trying to do all this time.

As it turned out, while I was missing a scene in this chapter and was showing another from the wrong perspective (the problem being solved when I merged the two together), that wasn't the main cause of my inability to write.

The main problem was my timelines were wrong.

In my last read through of the story, I noticed that various tiny story beats had been popping up in previous chapters when I hadn't intended them to happen yet. But while they were tiny things on their own, all of these story lines effects all the others, so a change in one changes them all (hence the name Sympathetic Properties. Sympathy: the state or fact of responding in a way similar or corresponding to an action elsewhere. I.e., each of these story lines are sympathetic to each other, therefore everything is important because they all change the whole).

What I hadn't realized is that the story had been speeding things up, and because every small change is important, this was speeding up other events I hadn't foreseen happening for another in-story week or two. And because I didn't know they had they had to be shown, and the story needed me to show them now rather than later, the story refused to let me do anything. The movie in my head wouldn't play, and the only thing that fixed it was discovering how far off I was, and going back through my disorganized notes to move those events forward in time.

Hopefully that won't happen again.

---

Summary: Being overworked and overlooked on his own birthday, Harry was sympathetic to Dobby when the elf came with his warning, leading Harry to offer to buy Dobby in exchange for his friends' letters the elf had stolen from him. Reading the missing letters, Harry learned that Hermione was interested in going beyond 'just friendship.'

After breakfast, an owl from an 'O. Barchoke' at Gringotts led to an impromptu day trip escape from the Dursleys' by way of the Knight Bus, new shoes in Diagon Alley, and the goblin in charge of Harry's account being arrested for his shady dealings. Barchoke and Lichfield – a Gringotts lawyer, former Auror turned bailiff, and longtime friend of Harry's grandfather Charlus – detail many oddities with Harry's account, go over various illegalities that could be behind it, and outline the kind of court case they'd like to bring against a shadowy 'guardian' figure for abandoning him and stealing from him.

It's only with great reluctance that Harry points them towards Dumbledore as the likely culprit.

After discovering where the Weasleys live, Barchoke and Lichfield send Harry there, with his things from the Dursleys' soon to follow, as they begin their investigation. With his arrival at the Burrow, Molly becomes increasingly concerned about how her daughter is acting. Hoping to get rid of the overly-romantic nonsense at its source, she gathers up Ginny's "Harry Books" – a series of adult-oriented romance novels depicting the fictionalized 'Future Adventures of the Boy Who Lived' – to dispose of them.

During this time, Harry is liable to stop what he's doing at the drop of a hat to run off and spend time in his room, which he had gotten from Bill. This raises suspicions in the Weasley boys until Harry's newfound relationship with Hermione is exposed – though it's thankfully overshadowed when Percy's own relationship with fellow Prefect, Penelope Clearwater, is exposed as well.

Ginny, however, does not take this news well and alternates between 'pining' for him and being sullen about it, only for things to go further wrong for her when troubles with the Hogwarts Hopefuls leaves her unable to attend school. This opportunity does however let Harry secure the Burrow as a place to stay for the next year, in exchange for paying for Ginny's tuition… and her staying away from him. She's kind of creeping him out.

At Diagon Alley, Harry meets Hermione's cartoonishly strange father, they have a run-in with Gilderoy Lockhart which leaves the man humbled by Lichfield, finalize the sale of Dobby at Gringotts – and inadvertently cause an international incident when they reveal that the Sorcerer's Stone had been stolen from Gringotts a year before. Of somewhat lesser importance to them is the fact Lord Voldemort still somehow clings to life.

Forbidden to talk to Harry, forced to see his 'date' with Hermione, and finding solace in a newfound 'friend' living in a diary, Ginny decides to try other ways of getting Harry's attention. First she tries being 'a brainy girl,' then switches tracks to try and be seen as 'Sporty Girl Ginevra,' a Quidditch-loving tomboy. Neither work particularly well.

After feeling he's gone too far in making Ginny stay away from him, Harry invites Ginny's former friend, Luna Lovegood, to the Burrow when he sees her at a meeting of the Hogwarts Hopefuls. But just as things are looking up for Ginny with the return of her friend, 'the enemy,' Hermione Granger, starts visiting the Burrow as well.

Hearing about the Sorcerer's Stone and Voldemort's continued presence from a spy inside Gringotts, Lucius Malfoy begins conspiring to use it against his political rival: Albus Dumbledore. As Lichfield has Dumbledore's name opened up to mockery by exposing him as a romance novelist, Lucius separately has Cornelius Fudge back him into resigning from the Wizengamot and arrested for stealing the Stone, while the Ministry is left to deal with the financial aftermath of gold potentially being worthless.

The Gringotts goblins and the International Confederation of Wizards raid the island compound of the Stone's creator, Nicholas Flamel, with explosive results, and a search of what remains quickly finds that the Flamels have been dead for some time. Dolores Umbridge then bungles her task of securing the island for the Ministry, flees in panic, and ends up ordering an Auror attack on the bank – though a blast of dragon fire from its lobby is enough to let cooler heads to prevail.

This begins a round of intense politicking between the goblins, the ICW, and the Ministry, which only ends once Dumbledore is questioned, 'the truth' of the Stone is revealed, Hogwarts is searched, and the Minister agrees to settle the issue of island ownership by ICW arbitration. During this time, Barchoke is promoted to lead the goblins, "Mad Eye" Moody transfers to the Department of Mysteries, Mockridge 'resigns' from the Goblin Liaison Office, a half-goblin named Hugh Hobson is put in charge of building an all-goblin city for Gringotts on the island in question, and Umbridge was made the new Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Continued setbacks plague the wizarding side as the Ministry fails to gain control of the island in the arbitration as Umbridge's first act was to publicly demand the Wizengamot pass a horribly regressive anti-'Other Way' (anti-gay) bill that would leave the effected people as non-Beings with an almost slave-like status in society. The entire Quidditch league explodes in opposition.

Back at the Burrow, a conversation with Bill has Molly wondering what sort of messages she's been sending to Ginny about how she should behave. After resolving to do better, she orders the boys to include their sister in their Quidditch playing and – due to the worries about future financial hardships with the end of the Hopefuls program – begins to contemplate joining the workforce for extra income.

Taking Arthur's advice, Molly applies to the Daily Prophet, where she's taken on as an advice columnist – though she inadvertently releases details on Harry's upbringing while there. This results in Vernon getting shot, a public backlash against the Dursleys for Harry's mistreatment, and an Auror, Nymphadora Tonks, being stationed to live with them full time, both for their protection and to maintain Secrecy.

As Harry and the rest board the Hogwarts Express, Molly reports to work – only to quickly find herself out of her depth and thrust into the collision of Sports and Politics as she's sent to interview her daughter's hero, Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies about Umbridge's 'Other Way' legislation. And while she got along well with the notoriously rough-natured Jones, she may have inadvertently revealed too much of her own life's story and fanned the flames of war against Umbridge by suggesting the Quidditch teams all leave the country.

Hoping to avoid another disastrous end for the Gryffindors' Quidditch season, Fred and George schemed their way into getting their brother Charlie to give Ron a new broom so he could try out for the team. They took this a step further by backing Oliver Wood into holding tryouts, with the goal of creating a whole team of reserve players, so actual Quidditch games could be played during practices.

And while both Ron and Ginny made the reserve team, all is not well. Cormac McLaggen's surly attitude is set to pose problems, complicating the need to train up the new members as fast as they can. George quickly steps up to help the reserves, in an attempt to get closer to his dream of wooing fellow teammate Angelina Johnson, but as the reality starts to set in, the reserve team is poised to fly apart at the seams, with one person quitting already and no one interested in taking their place.

And while all this is happening, Hermione has been feuding with Lockhart on the front page of the Prophet due to his horrible ethics and teaching practices, Sleekeazy's Hair Potion has been using her image without her permission, Witch Weekly has been publishing gushing articles about her relationship with Harry, and she was coerced into taking a Pregnancy Prevention Potion against her will – only for her to add further complications when she accidentally corners herself into taking a boy's health potion meant for Harry. And while some of these issues have been resolved, rumors continue to spread about them and Hermione harbors an intense secret grudge against Professor McGonagall for the potion-taking incident.

Compared to all this, Percy and Penelope starting a Defense Study Group to combat Lockhart's bad teaching, Lockhart drafting Ron to aid in dramatic reenactments in class to combat the bad publicity, and Harry hearing murderous voices in the middle of the night all seem rather tame – but who's to say what'll come as a result? But now let's rejoin the story already in progress…

(And as an additional note: No one knows that Umbridge has stepped down as Chief Warlock yet.)

.o0O0o.

"You don't think the advertisement section was a bit obvious, do you?" she asked nervously as her husband finished the column.

"That was an advertisement?" he asked looking at the newspaper again, sparking fears that he hadn't been reading and would only tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. "Didn't read that way to me," Arthur explained in a way that sounded genuine. "It seemed like one woman giving another advice that'd worked for her in the past."

He put his hand on hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Well – yes, that's the way they want it, but I can't help thinking everyone will know," Molly said worriedly, giving voice to her doubts as her husband stood to leave for the day.

"Nonsense," the man said, taking her by the shoulders and looking her straight in the eye. "You're being too hard on yourself," he smiled supportively. "I'm sure you only notice because you're the one who wrote it. You're doing a great job and I couldn't be prouder of you."

She wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to say they weren't really her words at all – that everything she wrote kept getting rewritten – but she couldn't, not after what he'd just said. Instead she swallowed it all and smiled, letting him think it was all the other worries she's had that were getting to her.

It was, after all, partially true. Worrying over writing and fears of being fired for not learning fast enough were never far away, but Arthur said such concerns were common when starting any new job. Regardless, she couldn't let her worries delay him any longer or they'd both have troubles at work.

"You have a lovely day at the office, dear," Molly said, trying to sound like her usual supportive self as she kissed him on the cheek.

"And you make sure to help loads of people," Arthur added in return with another hug and kiss on the forehead. The cheery smile and wave he gave as he closed the door to pop off to work clearly said that as far as he was concerned, she'd accomplished that job already, so she tried to see things from his point of view.

Their last child was at Hogwarts now, which had greatly lightened her burdens at home, and though money had become a bigger issue for them in the long term, it was something they were overcoming by her taking on a job she could largely do from home. So on the surface, Molly could see why Arthur would be thinking that she was worrying over nothing – but she just couldn't help herself.

They had faced so many unforeseen hardships in the past it often felt like they were swimming against the current during a storm, and all they could do at times was keep their heads above water. And while she might be doggy-paddling alongside him now, instead of following along in his wake, how was she to know she wasn't slowing them up, weighing them down, or paddling in the wrong direction?

Arthur seemed to think her having a job at all was enough to make their worries disappear, but how could she know he wasn't putting on a brave face or being hopelessly optimistic? And it'd be nice to think they had their situation well in hand and she was worrying over not getting an Outstanding when all she needed was an Acceptable, but how could she be when she couldn't even tell what an Acceptable was?

'Maybe I should just resign,' a morose Molly mentally moaned. 'It'd save them from having to fire me and I wouldn't have to go through this anymore,' she reasoned, only for even bigger fears to rise up because of it. 'But if I quit, we'd never be able to send the kids to Hogwarts anymore. And who'd give me another job if I leave this one so soon?'

She was well and truly stuck. She wasn't good enough, wasn't getting any better, couldn't bear to quit, and was sure she'll be fired the next time she goes to the office – and if not then, then certainly the time after that. She couldn't even discuss it with her boss to try and get more help without the risk of losing the job, which left her with no one who understood – no one but Arthur that is, and what did he know about being a mother?

That made her stop for a bit.

'What does the sad state of my writing have to do with being a mother?' Molly wondered. 'My worries have gotten so bad I can't even keep them straight anymore.'

Her disconcerting thoughts were further distracted by the dirty dishes of Arthur's breakfast drifting over for Dobby to wash in the sink. Had she really gotten so used to him being there that she didn't even notice when there was housework to be done?

While it was certainly nice that Harry still allowed the delightful creature to continue working around the house, she couldn't help but feel this too was another mark against her. Who was she to tell the wives of the world how to run their homes when she has a house-elf doing all the work?

Molly opened her mouth to say something to him – but the words died on her lips before her mind could puzzle out what she could have possibly said. As worried as she might be about everything, she didn't want Dobby to go. He was the last bit of life left in the Burrow when Arthur and Bill were gone.

'Well that's certainly a sad thought,' she sighed as she looked around her all but silent home. 'I never thought how quiet it'd be once they were all at Hogwarts. Well, I thought it'd be peaceful,' Molly amended, 'but this doesn't give any peace at all. It almost feels like I don't belong here anymore.'

She would've liked to believe it was a positive thing: that she'd grown as a person in ways that made her kitchen seem small, but that wasn't it. It felt more like a worn out mattress, that she shifted something inside she shouldn't have and now it was all uncomfortable and lumpy. No one else seemed to notice it though, which meant the lump was inside her.

Molly tried to resist the urge to give in and let a case of the Sullens wash over her like it so often did as a child. It hadn't helped her then, hadn't helped Ginny this summer, and wouldn't help her now. There had to be something to fix her lumpy life, but for the life of her she didn't know what it could possibly be.

A great belch of green flame from the fireplace made her jump in shock as her heart skipped several beats. A hand to her chest did nothing to quiet the hammering there, but it did feel reassuring.

'What could be going on at this hour?' Molly wondered as she made her way to the floo.

"Oh, Cynthia!" she said, happily greeting the blonde haired daughter/secretary of her boss at the Daily Prophet, though in truth her head sticking out of the floo made her more of a dirty blonde due to the ash.

'Maybe we should invite her over for dinner one night and introduce her to Bill,' Molly thought merrily, only for it to immediately run into problems. 'He's working so much right now it's impossible to know when he'll be home, and asking him to make the time would only let him know I'm planning something. Plus, he's being so secretive about work; if he looks at her as a Prophet employee instead of an available girl his age there'd be no way he'd speak to her, no matter how lovely she is.'

She huffed and furrowed her brow. Men really did mess everything up with their focus on work, didn't they? Thoughts of work though only made her nervous once again.

"There's nothing wrong at the office, is there?" Molly asked, fearing the worst.

"I wouldn't say there's anything wrong, exactly," the kind young woman said, "but there is something you should probably sit down for."

"Oh, I'd be far too nervous for that," she replied as her tummy tumbled more than it ever had before. "It's about the column, isn't it? Nobody likes it."

"Oh! No, it's not that at all," a shocked Cynthia said. "If anything, it's the opposite. Reception to the column has been pretty positive."

"Wh – Really?" Molly asked as a light-headed swooping sensation passed through her, weakening her knees.

"There seems to be a bit of a buzz around it," the young Ms. Cuffe smiled, like she didn't have anything to do with its success before her face turned wary. "So much so that dad's decided to capitalize on it," she added in a somewhat embarrassed way.

"Capitalize?"

"He wants to do something to draw more attention to it," the girl in the floo explained.

"Oh," Molly said uncertainly, feeling the tumbling tummy return worse than before as all the extra eyes on what she did was sure to raise the chance she'd fail. "Well, I'm sure he must know what he's doing," she added by rote, very not-sure about any of this.

"Normally I'd agree, but–," Cynthia started before cutting to the point. "You remember the interview you had with Gwenog Jones?" she asked tentatively. "Well my father found it."

Her worry settled in her stomach like a burnt casserole.

"He's not printing it, is he?" Molly asked, imagining all her secrets on the front page of the Prophet.

"While he thought it was a very humanizing story," the girl explained, "he really didn't think it was news…"

'Oh, that's good,' Molly thought, starting to feel a tiny bit better.

"–So he sold it–"

Her stomach dropped to her hips.

"–To Witch Weekly–"

It dropped to her knees.

"–Unedited–"

It was on the floor.

"–And it's running tomorrow."

Her bowels were lost in the bowels of the earth.

"Tomorrow's far too quick for that, isn't it?" Molly asked, hoping to latch onto any reason it couldn't be true.

"I only found out about it today, so I can't say how quick it was or whether they just had space to fill," Cynthia reasoned. "There was also talk of a picture made of the two of you as well, so there was no holding them up on that," she said, reminding her of the one she'd sent Ginny.

"But with all the Quidditch teams, and what Gwenog said about this Umbridge–," she said quickly. "Surely Mr. Cuffe doesn't want the Prophet blamed for that."

"Normally, no," the young woman agreed, "but Dad seems to think this'll work for us."

Molly looked at her like she'd gone mad.

"Since the interview is coming out after the teams threatened to leave the country, he says people will think the interview happened afterwards, and you're endorsing the move, not inspiring it," Cynthia explained. "He says it puts you 'at the heart of the young generation's concerns.' And as for Umbridge," she added, "he says she has bigger things to worry about."

"There must be some way to stop this," Molly breathed to herself, for once wishing she'd been more for adventures and escapades at Hogwarts so she could fathom how they were done.

"I don't see how," Cynthia said, drawing her back to the present. "Maybe if you had Jones join you in condemning the article you'd have a better chance, but I doubt it even then. It wouldn't make sense, and they go to press in a matter of hours."

The girl was right, she decided. If she was going to do something, it'd have to be quick.

"Thank you so much for bringing this to me, dear," Molly said to the woman in the floo with a panicked smile she hoped looked welcoming.

"Oh, you're welcome," Cynthia replied with a relieved smile in return. "I knew how you'd feel and the last thing I wanted was for you to be surprised by it."

"It's very much appreciated," she said, going through her courtesies to bring the conversation to a close. "You'll be on hand tomorrow to look over the next column, right?"

"Absolutely!" the other woman said. "It's fun working with you, and Dad says he thinks he might speed up the transition from the old Glenda Goodwitch articles by running two of yours instead of one."

"That's wonderful," she said, her stomach feeling like groups of gallivanting garden gnomes were bouncing off its walls. "I'll see you then."

And as the floo died down Molly was left with a jittery feeling in her hands and feet that said she had to act. She looked around her home without knowing what she was looking for before scurrying out the door to the garden. With a destination firmly in mind, she spun hard on her heel. She was deliberate, she was determined–

She felt squeezed through a tube before finding herself on the same windswept hill from a week ago.

Molly rubbed her arms against the cold as she trudged up the hill towards the far-too-big-for-its-own-good stadium. But though she'd run off without a cloak, she found herself well warmed by the time she arrived. Excited knocking and calls for help helped too, no doubt.

She wasn't quite sure how she managed to talk her way inside, but the matronly woman remembering her from before had to have made it easier. Either way it was a long few minutes Molly spent frantically pacing in their large entryway, and a very confused-looking Gwenog Jones that joined her.

"I need your help," Molly stopped to tell the girl immediately. "I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"Were you attacked?" the olive-skinned Jones asked quickly, ready to fight that instant. "Do you remember who you are and how you got here? What were you supposed to be doing today?"

"I'm Molly Weasley, and I'm supposed to be in my safe, comfortable kitchen, not jumping around having adventures," the words came pouring out of her mouth. "I don't know how to be Polly Prewett, and don't know how I got here. But we needed money for the kids' school, and how do you get that without a job? I must have been mad to consider it, but now I'm stuck!"

Gwenog's face went from confused to aggressive, to bewildered, and back to confused again as Molly seriously considered pacing again, no matter how inconsiderate and uncourteous it'd be in a conversation.

"Wait – this is about your job?" the sporty young woman asked before her shoulders slumped in relief. "Merlin, I thought something horrible had happened."

"It has," Molly blurted as politely as she could. "The interview is being published tomorrow. We have to stop it."

"The interview we did? Yeah, tends to be what they do with those," Gwenog said with a cocky grin. "Anyway, you did great, a real 'enchant your broom while flying it' thing. Why would you want to stop it?"

"Do you remember what I said in it?" she asked, almost feeling that she was reliving it now in a nightmarish manner.

"–I do," the other woman interjected.

"Then how could I have any respect from my children if they learn even half of it?" Molly asked before barreling on. "How can I save them from the hard life their father and I have had if they elope, like we did, or don't finish school, like we did? I'd be a complete failure as a parent!"

"Or you could be the best one ever and they respect you even more," Gwenog countered, throwing her for a loop. "Really think about what you said: you defied your parents, married for love, and left school to build a life of your own – and they're the result. You say you're not one for adventure," she smiled, "but that's the biggest one you could have right there, so what's not to respect in that?"

"But they'd be in for a very hard life if they did the same," Molly replied.

"So a life isn't respectable just because it's hard?" the other woman asked. "Everyone's life is hard, but either way it's not your job to protect them from having a hard life, your job is to prepare them for how hard life can be. My mother didn't do that – or if she did, she did it by accident.

"She was fine with my brothers running around, playing games, and getting in fights," Gwenog went on to say, "but she wouldn't let me do that. I had to fight her to go outside, fight her to not be treated differently, and fight my brothers until they let me stay – and that fighting hasn't stopped. Even now, I get attacked in the press because how hard I fight when I've had to fight for everything I've done. So my mother made things harder on me by trying to protect me, when she should've been supporting me."

That hit Molly harder than she'd imagined.

"I wish – I wish," the girl added with an aggressive point, "that she was as honest with me as you have been, because that woman is a stranger to me – which is why I haven't spoken to her in years. So if your kids learn about what you've done and what you've been through, I say that's a good thing, because at least it's honest. And if they want to go off and do the same as you, you can be right there for them – not to tell them no, but to show them what the hardships are and help them find a way through them."

Bill had told her the honest truth this summer and it had been an ill-tasting potion, which had gotten no more palatable over time. Was everything she was doing as a mother back-to-front? Molly wanted to set a better example for Ginny, but was she still not doing enough for her and her other children?

'No, I don't suppose I am,' she said to herself.

"Well, speaking as a mother who's made the same mistakes," Molly said with more than a bit of guilt behind it. "I have to say I'd be proud to have you as a daughter. You're exceptionally strong for what you've done – far stronger than I am – and I can see why girls look up to you."

And like a magic spell, the protective wall around the sporty woman crumbled before her eyes.

"This is not how this was supposed to go," Gwenog said as she wiped her tear-filled eyes and tried desperately to rebuild the wall that had been keeping her standing strong for so long.

But while she might try to be seen as the hard-hitting beaty-thinger to the rest of the world, Molly saw her for what she was: a little girl in need of a hug.

"Oh – come here, dear," she said, spreading her arms wide to bring her in.

Even with the sniffles and long hair, it was an oddly masculine hug with all the muscles, and she had to conclude it was just what came with sports.

"If you print anything about this, I might have to hit you," the girl said to her shoulder a few minutes later as she drew away.

"Nonsense, dear, your secret's safe with me," Molly smiled. "Besides, who on earth would ever believe me?"

"Nobody smart," Gwenog said with a final sniff before clearing her throat to go back to being the strong girl once again.

"You may hide your softer side but you'd make a good mother," she told the sporty girl, thinking 'If anyone can keep Bill grounded long enough to make me a grandmother, it'd be her.'

Perhaps not surprisingly, Gwenog laughed.

"There might be a bit of a problem with that," the tough girl said with her cocky grin back in place.

"Well, I know some girls want to have a career and all first," Molly said with a wave, remembering what that Hermione girl of Harry's was like. "So just tuck it behind your ear for now."

"Y–yeah, that too," Gwenog said ruefully. "I'm surprised I have to say it after the interview," she added. "Thinking about it, I almost said it straight out a time or two then."

"Said what, dear?" Molly asked confused.

The young woman seemed to weigh her options as she cracked her knuckles – even her thumbs! – in a rather unladylike way.

'Doesn't she know that'll make them all bulky and mannish?' she asked herself.

Eventually Gwenog spread her open palms wide like she was letting things fall where they may.

"I'm Other Way," the girl said simply.

It took Molly a moment to remember what that meant.

"Oh, that's unfortunate," she said more to herself as her little hopes disappeared.

"Excuse me?" Gwenog asked with a look saying Molly had said something horribly inappropriate.

"Oh – I meant for myself, dear," she was quick to say as an apology, only to think more might be needed to properly smooth things over. "My son, Bill, has just moved back to the country, you see, and Ginny would be over the moon to have you as a big sister–"

Whatever the offense was seemed to pass them by as once again the sporty girl laughed.

"I talk to you twice and you're already planning my wedding? I'm going to have to tell my girlfriend about that one," Gwenog quipped, causing all sorts of questions to pop into Molly's head.

'If two women go on a date, who pays for it?' she asked herself, only to find no acceptable answers in what her mind conjured up in response. 'It wouldn't be fair to the manlier woman if they had to be the man and pay, but it'd be completely uncourteous to expect the more womanly woman to agree to pay half before the date – and even worse to surprise her with it at the end. There's just so many social pitfalls the normal niceties simply can't cover – how could anyone ever hope to navigate them?' she thought bewilderingly.

"Are mothers like you born this way or is it something you learn while pregnant?" the younger woman asked with a cheeky grin, steering them back to more certain topics, though the grin made her think it wasn't a real response she wanted.

"I'm not entirely sure," Molly said instead, as if the why behind her being was a mystery even to herself.

"So, setting aside the embarrassing stuff coming out about both of us," Gwenog said in the brusque way she had. "What was it you came to see me for? Because I don't think it was to get me to cry."

"Oh – no, dear," she said in an apology again. "I… Well it…," Molly fumbled around to find something that wouldn't make her look sillier than she already did. "Well, I don't suppose it matters much anymore," she finished feebly as work worries from before began to grow again from being mentioned.

The look on the other woman's face said she wasn't buying a word of it.

"You bang your way in here, wear a hole in the floor pacing, surprise gut punch me with a bludger – and now you say it's for nothing?" Gwenog said shortly. "Dude, you ran me through an emotional ringer here, so I'd say you owe me."

Whether telling more would make her look foolish or not, Molly had to agree that what had already happened had been very badly done. And when looked at this way, she supposed some explanation was in order, so she started to tell her about all her troubles. It was somewhere between telling her about how everything she does gets chopped up and rewritten, and how sure she was they would fire her that she noticed the girl was nodding to herself.

"–So not to interrupt," Gwenog interrupted, "but I've got to ask: how many times have you done this whole 'advice column' thing? Because last time here you said it was your first day."

"Er – yes, it was," Molly replied. "Cynthia and I have done it twice so far – the letters, that is – but she said they might run two more next time," she added as her stomach tied itself in knots.

"Yeah, I see what's going on here. You're Wrong-Way Wronskiing your way to Failer Bailing," the other woman said, though what she was trying to say Molly had no idea.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," she replied.

"We see it sometimes in new recruits," Gwenog explained. "We bring a girl in, we think she's got potential, we put her on the team – and you think that'd be it, right? I mean, you still gotta practice, but you'd think she'd be happy… only she's not."

"What's wrong with her?" Molly asked worriedly.

"She got screwed up," the other woman said, gesturing to her own head. "She looks at herself and you know what she sees? Nothing but her own mistakes. She looks around at all the other players and thinks 'I don't belong here. I'm not as good as them. It's only a matter of time before it falls apart.'"

"So what happens?"

"She makes it fall apart," Gwenog replied. "When you get lost in your own head like this, you're your own worst enemy because you keep hitting yourself with your own bludger. You're terrified of making a mistake, but you're constantly telling yourself that everything you're doing is wrong, so you've become what you're terrified of being.

"So instead of your confidence flying high, like it's supposed to, your messed up mind sends it plummeting straight down. Now you're stuck," the girl said. "You're too terrified of failing to say you're in a dive you can't pull out of, but if you don't do something you're going to crash and fail. That leaves you with only two options: you either fail in front of everyone, or you bail and run away."

"And that's a failure too," Molly said. "No matter what I do I fail."

Gwenog spread her arms in front of her, like the table was set and it was time to feast on crow.

'There's no way I could have done this,' she said to herself. 'It was mad for me to try.'

"So why are you trying to fail?" the sporty girl asked, sending her mind spinning backwards.

'Is that what I'm doing?' Molly wondered. 'It can't be, can it?'

"Or better question," Gwenog added pointing straight at her. "Why aren't you trying to succeed?"

Better question or not, it still made no sense.

"Because I can't," she replied. "You said yourself I'm not good enough."

"I didn't say that," the woman rebutted. "Your mind is saying you're not good enough, that you don't know what you're doing."

"–And it's the truth!" Molly confessed. "I really don't belong there. I'm truly not good enough to be anywhere near them."

Gwenog looked at her like she saw a joke Molly couldn't see.

"You never had a job before – but they hired you anyway," the other woman said. "Do you know what that means?"

Molly shook her head and Gwenog drew close.

"It means they already know you're not good enough," the woman whispered before withdrawing and punching her in the shoulder, like her sons used to do when one of them did something they thought was stupid. "So why are you worried they'll find out when they already know?"

"They already know?" she asked, nursing her shoulder.

"The girl in my story – the one we brought in and put on the team?" Gwenog reminded her. "Did I say she was the best, or even that she was as good as everyone else on the team? No, I didn't," she answered herself. "I said she had potential."

It was a topsy-turvy way of looking at the world, but Molly had to admit that for the first time since she walked into the Daily Prophet she didn't feel afraid, and the weight on her shoulders was gone.

'They already know?' she wondered. 'They did. They already know, so it can't be a failure.'

"You know what you gotta do now though, right?" Gwenog asked seriously, but Molly felt too uncertain to venture a guess. "You've got to practice."

"Practice?"

"Those letters you're writing? That's practice," the sporty young woman explained. "And that lady going through and redoing it? That's your trainer trying to show you the ropes – but you've gotta put in the effort."

"Right," Molly agreed, seeing how it would apply to sports. "But how do I do that?" she asked, failing to see how to link the sports thing to the work thing.

"Asking that question's a start," Gwenog nodded, "but the better question would be 'Why?'"

"Why?"

"Why's hugely important," the girl explained. "If this lady takes something out, asking her why makes you better, because you can learn what not to do in the future. If she leaves something in, asking why tells you what worked, so you can do more of that. And if she rewords your words, asking why can teach you how to word it better next time.

"That's why, in your next letter – your next practice – you'll be better than you were before," Gwenog said in a way that made sense. "Do that again and again, and before you know it, she'll get one of those letters, read it… and not have anything to change. You'll know all the tricks."

"But that sounds too easy," Molly said, sure there had to be something more there somewhere.

"Sure, it's easy," the other woman agreed, "–once you put in the hard work. So what are you going to do from here on out?"

"…Practice?"

"You're damn right you will," Gwenog said sternly, before flipping to a grin. "Speaking of, I gotta get ready for my own. Next time I see you we should make it for something positive – you could come to a game or something."

She felt the whole world roll just thinking about it.

"Oh, I'd get sick just watching you fly," Molly aid before she remembered something. "I do have something though. You know my daughter, Ginny? She made the reservists," she added with a swell of pride.

"Hey, that's great!" her girl's hero said before pointing at her grimly once again. "She knows what comes next though, right?"

"Practice," Molly said, the way forward clearer than ever.

'If Ginny and Gwenog can do it, so can I.'

.o0O0o.

"–The young farmer scoffed, floored the tractor, and the steel chain went taunt," Seamus said, getting to the climax of the story. "And just like that–," he snapped, "–the chain broke, went flying towards the tractor, and chopped the young farmer's head clean off!"

"Urgh! All for trying to move a dried up old bush?" Ron asked disbelievingly.

"Hey," the Irish boy said with a shrug, "that's why you don't piss off fairies and leave their homes alone."

"It's a curious story," the curly-haired Penelope said, still sitting on top of the teacher's desk she'd been at all class – or 'study group,' Harry supposed he should say. It was hard to think of it as anything but a class though, especially with his girlfriend busy taking notes beside him. "Fairies have been known to live in clusters of shrubs and brush like that, but they're not vindictive – and certainly don't kill people."

Hermione's hand shot into the air.

"Is it possible there was a burgh in that 'fairy circle' the muggles weren't aware of?" she asked.

"It does sound more like pixie behavior," the older girl agreed before getting back to Seamus. "How old's this story? Tractors and steel chains aren't notable now, but the story played it up like it was a big thing. It makes it sound like it's a hundred years old."

"Not as old as the one with the fairy ripping the skin off the man's fa–," Seamus grinned only to be hushed by Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"Let's not be reminded about that one," Penelope cut in to say. "I'd like to be able to sleep tonight, thank you very much. And speaking of," she added, glancing at her watch, "it looks like we've overrun our time for tonight."

Harry wasn't the only one sad to see the study session come to an end.

"Sorry we didn't get to any spells," the older girl called through the din of scraping chairs and book bags being collected. "But I'll make it up to you next time with a whole session dedicated to them. So bring a friend," she finished, "because I'll be pairing you off for some intense practice!"

"Hey Ron!" Seamus called from behind them as they made to leave, beckoning their friend over.

"I'll catch up," the redhead told them before running off to join Seamus and Dean, leaving him to feel a bit left out.

"Coming Harry?" Hermione asked, giving Ron a bit of a look as well.

Harry let the feeling go as he left with his girlfriend. He and Ron lived in the same room and took all the same classes, it wasn't like their friendship would fall apart if they didn't spend every minute with each other. Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have reasons to spend time without him too, even if it was mostly with Hermione, though that was a bit different.

If she had any misgivings about their friend spending time with other people Hermione didn't give voice to them. And when he thought about it, there was nothing wrong with Ron making new friends – he and Hermione had talked about doing the same themselves, though that had been with Lichfield and Ron's parents. He supposed it was only natural for Ron to talk with Seamus and Dean more when they'd been grouped together in Potions.

'And sharing a dorm would help,' he mentally added, which kind of made him wonder why he didn't talk to the other guys more too.

"I think the study session went remarkably well," Hermione said brightly as they made their way to the common room.

Harry smiled. It'd been funny to think the Defense Study Group might become Hermione's favorite class, but he hadn't expected it to happen instantly.

"There were no Slytherins," she continued, "but I don't think anyone expected any."

"Not if they were smart," Harry agreed, before his mind made an odd jump causing him to chuckle.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Now I'm picturing Malfoy helping Lockhart with his dramatic readings," he replied, imaging the blond boy's pinched ferret face contorted with a hag-like sinister smile as his eyes bulged and drool slimed its way down his chin to drip on spidery white fingers.

"That should've had them swarming into the study session," his girlfriend smiled. "They must really be allergic to learning to stay away."

"Perhaps we're lucky," Harry said, ready to deploy the verbal poke he'd been saving almost the entire study session. "If they'd shown up, they might have disrupted class more than you did."

He tried to keep the smile off his face as Hermione became affronted.

"I did not disrupt class!" she protested, like she'd been accused of a crime.

"You derailed everything she had planned with a single question," Harry reminded her.

"Asking questions is not the same as disrupting class," Hermione maintained in a minor huff. "There's no way I could have known Seamus knew all those fairy stories, or that it'd would spark a conversation that'd go on for so long. But regardless, we learned more about pixies, doxies, and fairies in two hours than Lockhart could have taught us in two months, so I hardly call that 'disrupting class.' If anything, it made it better."

She turned to focus her attention straight ahead, crossing her arms like they were protective armor. It made it all the easier to topple her off-balance with a nudge.

"Yeah, I enjoyed it too," he finally admitted with a smile.

Surprise warred with stubbornness on Hermione's face as she struggled to come up with a response. Finally she looked at him with a slight smile of her own.

"You know, if you keep flirting like that, I could actually get mad one day," his girlfriend warned.

"Alright," Harry agreed. "I won't flirt with you ever again."

"You know that's not what I meant," she said, nudging his shoulder and not taking his phony threat the least bit seriously.

Flirting with Hermione might have been his newest pastime but even that wasn't enough to distract from the shocking state the common room was in. Rather than the raucous roar it usually had, it was almost as quiet as the library. The smattering of people sitting scattered around the gloomy room were mostly girls, but nearly all of them had their nose in a book. The few mixed groups who were taking advantage of the uncommon quiet to get some studying done only heightened the strangeness to him.

This setup suited Hermione just fine though since they both still had their Potions essay to finish and a few hours to work on it before heading to Astronomy class at midnight.

An older girl shot them a nasty look as they passed, as if not being able to get their books out in complete silence was really that much of a crime. It was such a drastic change from being giggled at and talked about though that he wanted to think it was a return to normal and decided to try and get better at ignoring everyone but his girlfriend.

The overcast night time sky made Snape's essay an even more depressing prospect than it already was, at least for him. To make things worse, there didn't seem to be much in their textbooks about how any of their potions were supposed to work, no matter how fast Hermione's quill was scratching out her answer.

Perhaps it was having to sit down to do the drudge work after such an engaging study session that made it feel this way. Harry supposed he could ask her for a bit of a point in the right direction on where to start, but didn't want Hermione to think he thought he could use her to do his homework for him since they were boyfriend-and-girlfriend. That just seemed like a sure-fire way to lose her as a friend, girlfriend, and still have his homework to do.

He was saved from the thought when the portrait hole opened again.

The common room's silence was shattered as Ron, Seamus, and Dean laughed their way inside, only to be drowned out almost immediately by a chorus of shushing.

"What'd we do?" the Irish boy asked as Ron spotted them and split from his fellows.

"We're reading," the older girl said, now making sure her Prefect badge was noticeable, "If you want to carry on like that, take it to your rooms."

Seamus gave Dean a look before they headed to the boys' stairwell as Ron made his way to them.

The jaunty grin on his best mate made Harry realize something he hadn't before: When Ron was miserable, everything was miserable, but as soon as he turned that around, the entire mood of the castle seemed to change. The brooding clouds which had been threatening to stab them with lightning bolts now sat above them with a joking smile, as if trying to pick the perfect target to pelt with water balloons. Hermione would no doubt say it only seemed that way because Ron was so rarely happy, but with how often he's had that grin since being called up to the front of the class, it just might have been the greatest feat of magic Gilderoy Lockhart has ever done.

"Did you hear?" Ron asked excitedly as he flumped into the chair in front of them, the glowering of the female prefect making no impact whatsoever.

"You finished your essay early?" Hermione prompted, reminding him what their plans had been.

Harry gave his girlfriend a smile for the joke, though their friend didn't seem to get it.

"No," the boy said, scoffing at such trivialities. "Fernsby's quit."

"The Chaser?" Harry asked, trying to remember all the new players they had on the Reserve team.

"Why'd she quit?" Hermione added.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ron asked with a deepening grin. "You saw her at practice, she didn't make a single shot. I was too good and she couldn't take the competition."

Harry didn't want to say anything to rain on his friend's parade, but agreeing and inflating his head further didn't seem the wise thing to do either.

"Well I hope you use your talents for good instead of evil," Hermione said judiciously, giving him a quick look. Her sparkling eyes and bit of a grin told him she was internally doubled over with laughter.

"So what are they going to do about practices? Harry asked, hoping to cover his girlfriend's joke.

"George and Angelina are looking for a replacement," the other boy waved before running a hand through his hair to give it a windswept look. "You wouldn't be interested, would you, Hermione?" Ron asked teasingly.

"I'm not against flying when necessary," the bookish girl replied, "but helping catch the key last year is about the extent of what I'm comfortable with."

"So you're saying you don't want to go up against me either," his best mate pressed with a smile.

Hermione gave him a perturbed look.

"Don't you have an essay to get started on?" she asked instead. "You'll never even have an outline done before Astronomy if you don't start."

"Why would I need an outline?" Ron asked in return. "Dean reckons he's almost done with his, and Seamus and I can just copy off him."

"That's academic dishonesty!" she cried, earning her a shush from the room at large. "You could be expelled for that," she went on in a hushed hiss. "And even if they don't, you're risking Detention, a loss of points, a failing grade–"

"–What, you think he actually reads the hundreds of essays he's given every day before deciding how many Acceptables and Dismals to hand out?" Ron interjected, making Harry wonder where he ever got this idea. "I think you overestimate how much Snape cares about our education."

Hermione looked deeply disapproving, though still not enough to take up for Snape as a professor.

"You're still risking not being able to play Quidditch just to get out of an essay," she pointed out.

"I'm going to bed," the boy said instead, all her arguments falling on deaf ears. "Wake me for class, alright?"

"We will not," his girlfriend bitterly replied as Ron departed, but even Harry knew they would.

'It's not like we're going to let him miss class on top of skipping his homework,' he thought.

"He's going down a very stupid road," Hermione said, scratching her quill across her parchment like it had done something to offend her.

"Maybe," Harry said with a noncommittal shrug, "but if it is, he's just going to have to learn from it on his own."

For some reason the low rumbling grumble coming from his girlfriend made the essay a bit easier to get started on.

A cold shoulder through Astronomy did nothing to change their friend's attitude towards cheating. Neither did Hermione staring daggers at him through classes the next day. Harry wished he could have Ron's composure, but everywhere he looked he saw more worrying things.

Prompted by an influx of owls carrying small stacks of books to almost every table that morning at breakfast, the change in the girls was spreading.

Hermione took it as a sign of the Defense Study Group's success, as everyone was sure to be buying the books Percy and Penelope were using to replace the ones Lockhart had forced on them, but Harry wasn't so sure. He doubted anyone would have had time to send an owl to Diagon Alley since last night, much less get a response with such heavy packages. Plus, he'd learned the hard way that big changes like that took work, so whatever it was had to have been going on for some time.

While Lavender and Parvati were practically sitting on top of each other in class to cram their noses in the same book, between classes he saw girls darting to join others and whisper in small groups. Harry knew it had to be something they didn't want known because all boys were being shooed away and books were hidden whenever a professor was in sight. He briefly thought of getting a better look but reminded himself that not everything was about him, and he really had enough going on as it is, though it did nothing to lessen the weight he felt on his shoulders.

'After a week-and-a-half of being giggled at, being ignored had to be a good thing, right?' he asked himself again, still getting no definite answer.

A high-pitched squeal and hurried steps echoed down the girls' dormitory stairwell, distracting him from the cumbersome conclusion he was trying to work into Snape's essay for tomorrow. Lavender then came rocketing into the common room with a magazine clutched to her chest as he felt more of the uncomfortable weight settle on his shoulders.

'If it's Thursday, it's another Witch Weekly,' Harry grumbled to himself, quickly coming to hate the publication.

"Just ignore them, Harry," Hermione said as if she could sense his thoughts. "There's only so many things they can write about us. They're bound to get bored eventually."

"But how bad will it get before then?" he asked in return, hoping he wouldn't get an answer because he was sure it'd only depress him.

As if on cue, a dirty and sweaty Ron arrived as he finished his essay. Returning to the quiet common room after the reserve team's Quidditch practice with tales of how he might have scared off another Chaser, the grin their friend had from ear to ear certainly made the world seem a brighter place to him. He also took it as a sign of improvement that Hermione only huffed at the other boy once.

.o0O0o.

She was tired, sore, her hair was a mess, and she was sure her lips were getting chapped. The last part wouldn't have been so bad if it'd come from constantly kissing Harry, but there was no way that would happen as long as he was with 'Little Miss Perfect.' Wind-chapped lips was a poor substitute in Ginny's opinion, even if it did come from Quidditch.

Even then, Quidditch wasn't that much better. Everyone on 'the sucky people's team' was either playing badly, quitting, or both. Unfortunately, that included her too. She liked flying – everyone in their right mind did, except for Luna – but liking it didn't make a girl's broom faster, or turn quicker, or do any of the other things they needed to do during practice if she wanted to really play in the actual games.

She still caught the little white balls Angelina was throwing out for her to practice on, most of the time, but still thought she should be playing Chaser. She'd to a much better job than the quitter, "Phony Fan" Fernsby, or "I'm not even going to show up today" MacQuoid. Losing out to them was insulting, but what was worse was that they were still looking for replacement Chasers when she was right there!

It was so unfair. Ron's head might be getting to be as big as the moon, but nobody cared about Ginevra Weasley, sporty girl or not.

"I like Ginevra," she heard as soon as she hit the common room.

Ginny looked around to see the same older pair of girls who always smashed her dreams with Witch Weekly magazines.

"What?" the blonde one asked her darker friend when she gave her a look. "It's rather musical, don't you think? It'd be a pretty name for a baby girl."

"Not for anyone older than two," the darker girl replied. "It sounds weird."

That hit her right in a soft spot. Ginny had always hated her name because she didn't want to be made fun of for it, and here some girl she didn't know was making fun of it to the only person who'd ever liked it. It made her want to thump her with her broom!

"Oh, like Parvati doesn't sound weird," the first girl replied.

"Mine's cultural," the girl named Parvati rebutted. "There are loads of girls named Parvati in India."

"Yes, but we don't live in India, do we?" the blonde asked rhetorically. "If we did, both Lavender and Ginevra would sound strange while Padma and Parvati would be downright boring."

"They're not bor–"

"–And besides," the blonde-haired Lavender girl cut in to say, "Ginevra could be cultural too. It could be Welsh or something."

"I'm not Welsh," a confused Ginny heard herself say, snapping the girls' eyes to her in an instant. "A–at least," she stammered, "I don't think I am."

"The interview said she'd be new to Hogwarts," the puzzled-looking Lavender said to her friend before turning back to her. "But I never thought it'd be you."

The Indian girl took in the disheveled state of her new Quidditch robes.

"Well it certainly looks like she has all those brothers," she said critically. "She's practically a boy herself."

The urge to thump the girl flared up in her again.

"You don't really have six brothers, do you?" the blonde girl asked suspiciously.

"Yes," Ginny replied, though the girl's look might as well be calling her a liar. "Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron," she listed quickly. "What of them?" she asked, wondering why anyone thought having six brothers was special and not the fact the seventh was a girl.

Instead of answering, Lavender looked to where Ron was sitting with Harry and 'the enemy.'

"I didn't know Weasleys were so fertile," she smiled to her friend with a nudge.

"Oh – you are so bad!" Parvati exclaimed with a pop-eyed look of practiced surprise. Her gaping mouth made her look so hungry for scandal it was a wonder she wasn't drooling.

"Just something to think about later," Lavender said with an airy shrug.

"Why are you talking about my family in the first place?" Ginny demanded to know, remembering the insulting blond boy and his father from this summer.

"Who said it was your family we were talking about, Little Miss Butt-in?" the Indian girl asked.

"Psh! Don't be stupid, Parvati," her friend cut in dismissively. "How many first year girls with six brothers are named Ginevra, into Quidditch, and have brothers named Bill and Charlie? Those were in the article too. Prewett's obviously a fake name."

"It's not fake," Ginny said grumpily, getting very tired of being ignored. "It's my mother's maiden name. Now what's so important about it?"

Lavender smiled smugly as Parvati pouted at being proven wrong.

"Your mum just happens to be the hot, new advice columnist for the Daily Prophet," the blonde girl gloated as she opened the newest edition of Witch Weekly and showed it to her.

And sure enough, there was a picture of her mother standing next to Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies and doing the Harpy Screech. It was an exact copy of the one her mother had sent her several days ago – only this one was next to a headline: Quidditch Confusion? 'Polly Prewett Gets You Through It' In This Exclusive Sit-Down With Gwenog Jones!

It somehow made less sense than it did before!

"Didn't she tell you?" Lavender asked.

.o0O0o.

"You're being ridiculous, Oliver," she stated flatly, hoping to root the boy to the spot. "None of that is going to happen."

The boy turned to scowl at her, but seeing as he wasn't pacing anymore, she took it as a point for her. If his robes swept up any more dust Angelina swore she was going to start sneezing. Meeting in unused classrooms was vastly overrated.

"I wouldn't put anything past that Umbridge woman," he replied in as close to a nasty tone as he'd ever had. "And with the Quidditch teams leaving, I don't see how I have much of a choice," he added direly.

"They're not leaving," she said levelly. "They're threatening to leave. There's a difference."

"Not from where I'm standing," Wood said before starting to pace again.

"You're not standing anywhere!" a perturbed Angelina finally exclaimed. "I swear, you're kicking up so much dust we'll both be covered in it by the time we get back to the common room, and I don't fancy trying to explain it."

Oliver stopped again, seemingly confused at why that'd be weird – until what would've been obvious to nearly everyone else finally occurred to him and he blushed. Wood had become a good friend but he was bloody blind half the time when it came to things like that. He then nervously flattened his hair as he tried to cover his embarrassment.

"Well – you would've been ecstatic to have that problem a couple years ago," the boy retaliated.

"Oi! We agreed never to mention that," she said quickly, trying to keep covered what was best left buried. Oliver, however, seemed to have other ideas.

"Oh!" he cried, eyes alight. "If that bill passes, I could pretend to be dating you. That would solve everything."

The boy had left ridiculous behind and had truly gone insane.

"Look, I'm not against helping a friend," Angelina said to take the sting out of her words, "but can we at least try something that has a chance to work?"

"How would it not work?" an overly optimistic Oliver asked. "We say we're dating, hang out in the common room, get seen walking around Hogsmeade a time or two, and people are none the wiser."

"Sure, that's so easy!" she falsely agreed. "But even if we could parade around for two years until you leave school, what happens when I find a guy like I actually like? Or if one of our friends notices they've never seen us snog? Or if the Ministry starts testing everyone somehow to prove they're really dating?"

Suddenly the boy didn't look too confident in his hair-brained scheme, but she knew to make him see sense she'd have to push him further.

"Do you remember what it was like?" Angelina asked. "I get you alone, pluck up the courage to throw myself at you and plant a big wet one right on the lips, and when I do – you looked like you were going to be sick!"

In spite of herself, she couldn't help but laugh at how foolish they both were back then.

"Merlin, you were so out of it," she said before catching herself and continued in a whisper. "–You were so out of it you immediately blurted out you were Other Way."

"Well – I–I panicked," Wood stammered as he nervously ran a hand through his hair and shot a look to the nearest door to make sure they weren't overheard. "I mean, how often do you get girls trying to snog you in the locker room?"

"Personally?" she asked flippantly. "Never, but I'm pretty sure Alicia would try anything once."

"You know what I mean," he said stubbornly.

"Yeah, and you want us to repeat that for the next two years, so you can play Quidditch when you grow up."

It could be hard, getting Oliver to see sense, but it was possible.

"…Maybe it's not that good of an idea after all," Oliver admitted as he bid a hasty retreat. "I just wish there was something I could do so I wouldn't feel helpless," he added, looking dangerously close to pacing again.

"There is one thing you can do," Angelina offered. "Stop worrying about it."

Wood's patented hands-on-hips scowl was all she needed to know what he was thinking.

"No, I'm being serious," she continued. "Throw yourself into homework or Quidditch or something and stop thinking about it, because you're too tense, even for you. People are going to notice if you run away, and giving yourself an ulcer waiting for this to blow over isn't going to help."

Oliver sighed and ran a hand across his face.

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said finally. "We're just going to have to trust those oh-so-wise people in the Wizengamot to do the right thing," Wood added bitingly. "They've been doing a bang-up job lately, haven't they?"

"Exactly!" she said sarcastically as she stood to leave. "You see? There's no problem at all."

"Speaking of Quidditch," Wood added, verbally refusing to let her leave so she could change out of her Quidditch robes. "How's that going?"

It was hard for her to figure out how to put it into words.

"Fine, I guess," Angelina said finally, "for the people who're showing up."

"More people wanting to leave?" Wood asked, successfully shifting into his Quidditch Captain role once again.

"It may end up going that way," she shrugged, "but I think it's too early to say. We've had people forget or lose interest before, and MacQuoid didn't show up. George went off to find him, so we should know more soon."

"He's not trying to take over, is he?"

"George?" Angelina asked, baffled as to why Wood would even ask. "He's no McLaggen; that's your problem," she smiled. "George has actually been really helpful."

"I've seen him go around trying to scrounge up other players," the boy added. "For both Chaser and Seeker, which is strange since his sister's your Seeker."

"He's not trying to kick her off the team," she said defensively. "He's just a problem-solver."

Wood gave her a look she couldn't place, so she took it as curious disbelief.

"Yeah, I was skeptical too," Angelina agreed, "but I saw them at tryouts."

"Them?" he smiled. "Don't tell me George is splitting in two. I hope it doesn't spread, because one Fred's bad enough as it is."

"He was with his brother," she explained. "Somehow they got their sister to try out for Seeker – which she's a natural at – and got their other brother to give up his broom for her to do it. They were both involved," Angelina confessed, "but I think it was George who was responsible for it – only it's impossible to tell them apart.

"Anyway, that's the kind of thing I've been seeing from him lately," she summed up despite Wood's strange smirk. "He looked for someone for Seeker so he could present it as an option for me today – but it made sense and he didn't push it. When I said I wanted to keep her as Seeker if I could, he accepted it."

"Sure, he accepted it… for now," Oliver said noncommittally.

"Of course it's 'for now,'" Angelina said, wondering why the hell Wood was insisting on seeing the worst in George. "It makes sense for him to suggest training his sister when we have a hole to fill on the team, just like it'd make sense to suggest it again if the hole sticks around or gets worse."

"Alright, hold your fire," Wood said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't let it be said I'm not the first to admit when I'm wrong," the normally stubborn boy added curiously. "In fact, if I'm wrong, I'm glad to be wrong, because it sounds like George has really caught your eye," he added with a smile.

Angelina felt her whole face go red in an instant.

"Wh–where did this come from?" she asked.

"Tryouts, apparently. That, and the way your eyes light up every time you say his name is kind of a dead giveaway," Oliver grinned. "I'm starting to see why you didn't want to lie and pretend to date me."

"You – you're–!" Angelina stammered, desperately trying to come up with something horrible to say back to him. "You're as bad as Katie and Alicia," she spit at him before storming out to the sound of laughter.

Stalking her way to the common room, Angelina supposed she should be glad there was something that could lift Wood's spirits, but did it have to be picking on her and her non-existent love life? Why was that always what everyone went for? And why did it have to work every time?

'It sucks blushing about everything,' she said to herself as she felt herself blushing about how much she blushes. 'Have a crush on a guy, friends make a joke about it, and I'm still blushing about it years later – even after the crush is gone!' she mentally groused, wishing there was a way to stop blood from rushing to her face that wouldn't kill her.

Was it destined to be this way with any guy who got close to her, she wondered, not that she and George were particularly close. They were in the same year, had a lot of the same classes, but had really never talked to each other before, even about Quidditch. They spoke regularly now, sure, but that was just George helping her with the reserve team… right?

'Of course it is,' Angelina told herself, mentally thumping Wood for his stupid joke. 'George was just a convenient stick he could poke me with,' she rationalized. 'It was just because he was mentioned in passing, that's all it takes for some people. Heaven forbid a guy and girl talk to each other and there not be something going on between them.'

That stupid niggling part of her brain though chose that moment to pipe up to point out that it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen if it did. Being mature and acting responsibly were good qualities for a guy to have – but it also made for a good teammate. George helping her out and not trying to take over said he respected her as Wood's Assistant Captain – but there was no reason to think that'd disappear just because–

'Blast it, Oliver!' Angelina fumed as the heat in her ears lingered. 'I'm going to be thinking about this all day because of him.'

There was certainly one good thing about George being such a dedicated teammate, she realized as she neared the common room: George has taken things so seriously he hasn't once made her blush.

'How is it a point in George's favor that he's never shown an interest?' Angelina asked that stupid part of her brain as the Fat Lady let her inside. 'My brain's more messed up than Wood's,' she decided as she caught sight of her friends and made her way over.

"There's our intrepid Captain's Assistant Captain," Alicia said with a smile as Angelina flumped down in a chair near the younger Katie Bell.

The three of them were immediately shushed by some Prefect shooting daggers at them over her book. It was a look they returned, and the girl quickly decided it was better to take her reading elsewhere than face down half a Quidditch team.

"We thought we might have to send out search parties," Katie said once the Prefect had made it to the girls' stairwell. "Most of your team's been back a while, and it looks like the weather's turning bad."

Angelina caught a glimpse out of the nearest windows. She hadn't noticed just how much things had changed while Oliver paced.

"I always knew two weeks of practice without getting soaked was too much to hope for, but at least we got one," she shrugged.

"You had one," Alicia corrected her. "I'll be surprised if the pitch isn't entirely mud for us come Saturday – and we don't even have Wood to warm us up afterwards."

Angelina felt her face turn red again at the implication.

"I can see if he can fit you in, but I don't know if he'd be interested," she tried instead of her normal denials.

"That's too bad," Katie said with a smile not far from laughing.

"–Yeah," Alicia quickly agreed. "With how much she's glowing, I'd say he does good work."

Her ears felt like they were about to catch fire.

"I – will throttle – both of you," she threatened her two best friends, drawing chuckles from them.

"How long do you think her 'Dear Oliver' will wait to enter after her?" Katie asked the other girl as Angelina focused on letting the jokes wash over her. "Just another minute or the full five?"

Alicia opened her big fat mouth to say something, only to click it shut when the portrait hole opened and the Fat Lady let Wood inside. The two idiots looked as smug as the cat that ate the canary as Oliver walked through, but the horror didn't end there. That's when Wood did the unforgiveable: the boy glanced at her and chuckled at his own stupid joke from before.

'I'm going to kill'em,' Angelina decided. 'I'm going to kill them all.'

"Oohhh… busted," Alicia declared with a smile once Wood went up the boys' stairwell.

"Lee is going to be so distraught," Katie lamented with a similar smile. "I don't know if he'll ever recover. He'll be on his deathbed still longing for his angel, Angelina."

She tried to stay quiet and plot her revenge as her friends entertained themselves with their own stupidity. There was no revenge to be had though because she knew if the situation was reversed, neither of the other girls would care. So she was stuck blushing in unearned embarrassment as they went on to wonder whether Madam Hooch could marry her and Oliver if it was done during a Quidditch game, and whether white formal Quidditch robes fit to be a wedding dress existed in the first place.

"I need new friends," Angelina said finally, which only drew more chuckles from the ones she had. She knew what she really meant though was 'I need a way out of this mess.'

George instantly drew her attention as soon as he entered the common room – at least she took it to be him as he was still in his Quidditch robes, like she was. Thinking about her friends, and what Wood said, made her try to keep any outward acknowledgement of him to a bare minimum so the other girls wouldn't get any ideas. She didn't have long to think about how to handle this though because after a quick glance around the room he headed straight for her.

Her friends fell silent at his approach, for a boy had invaded their sanctum.

"Hey," he said to her, his eyes darting to the other two, seeming very aware of being a lone boy in front of three girls. "You got a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?" Angelina replied, making no move to leave the safety of her chair, imagining the new batch of teasing that'd come from talking to him privately. "You find MacQuoid?"

"Er – yeah. He was in a room near Ravenclaw," George said directly to her as a bit of pink colored his ears, though whether from anger or embarrassment she couldn't say. "Apparently he's all for playing in games, but sees practice as a waste of time."

'So we may have a future dropout after all,' she thought grimly.

"Hey, if he wants a game, I say let's give him one this Saturday," Alicia interjected with a smile, looking ready to thump some skulls.

Angelina shot her a sharp look. Wood may have joked about George trying to take over but she wasn't about to let a friend do it right in front of her.

The boy glanced at Alicia before speaking to her instead of the other girl.

"I know you and Wood wanted the reserve team trained before we had any games," George said in a way Angelina felt bolstered her authority on the team, even though she had never said anything like that. "–But having a game early could help, both in keeping people around as well as encouraging them to practice."

As good as the reasoning was, she couldn't help but notice what George didn't say. They were still missing a Chaser on their team, so this would've been the best time to suggest moving his sister from Seeker to fill the spot. He wasn't suggesting it though, and Angelina thought she knew why.

"If we let Harry fly around on his own, we could make it work, but we'd have to use your sister as Chaser," she said, publicly taking credit for his suggestion earlier. "You think she's up for it?" she asked, as if to say 'Thanks for letting me look good in front of my friends.'

"I think she'd do it," George nodded, "but she really hasn't done any close-quarter flying since tryouts."

Angelina didn't know if he included the last part as his honest assessment of the girls flying or for it to be an extra problem for her to look good by solving.

"We could set up an extra practice for her before the main team's practice," she said studiously. "That'd do her good even if we don't have a game with them afterwards."

"Katie and I could run her through some drills," Alicia suggested.

"–As long as it's not too early," Katie added, though whether the notoriously late risers did so to be helpful or just to be part of the conversation Angelina didn't know.

"We might bring you in later," she told her friends, "but it's probably best we start her out with people she's familiar with."

It wasn't until the words were already out of her mouth that Angelina realized what they meant.

"So, George, see you on Saturday?" she asked, feeling very much like she'd just asked him out as the familiar embarrassing heat flooded back into her face.

"Oh – absolutely," George agreed, his uncertain eyes darting between the three of them. "Want me to tell Ginny?"

"About the extra practice, sure," Angelina agreed, trying to regain control of her face. "I'll talk to Wood and see what he thinks about the game idea, then I'll approach everyone else if he agrees."

"Good plan," George nodded as if he hadn't had even the tiniest bit to do with it. "I'll – er – let you get to it then," he added before nodding a farewell to the others and leaving a bit more awkwardly than he'd arrived since it involved finding out that his sister had disappeared, causing him to change course and head to his dorms instead.

In the silence that followed, Angelina took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm herself without her friends noticing as Alicia looked from her, to Katie, and back.

"What the hell was that?" the girl asked.

"What was what?" Angelina replied unhelpfully.

"What was that?" Alicia asked again, gesturing to the stairwell George just disappeared through.

"The strangest thing I've ever seen is what that was," Katie replied for her.

"What's so strange about me doing my job?" she asked her friends.

"For you? Nothing," Alicia replied. "We're used to you being all responsible, but a Weasley twin? That's downright unnatural."

"Tell us," Katie prompted with a consoling hand on her shoulder, "are you a witch?"

That time the joke even got a laugh out of her.

"You two are so stupid," Angelina stood with a shake of her head. "I'm going to change."

"Don't change too much," Alicia smiled. "Whatever you're doing seems to be working."

Instead of replying, she bonked the girl's head and left before they could embarrass her any further.

.o0O0o.

Even after reading the whole thing Ginny didn't know what to make of it. All this 'Other Way' stuff was stupid, of course, because who cared who anyone else fancied – unless it was Harry. And as much as she was now for Gwenog Jones fighting that Umbitch lady, how was anyone supposed to follow Quidditch if all the teams leave the country?

Besides that, the Gwenog Jones part was really cool because it seemed like you really got to know her. All the other things she'd read about her made her seem violent and standoffish, because they never asked her about herself, like the people asking was afraid of her. Her mother though – or 'Polly Prewett,' as the article called her – she spoke to her like she'd popped by the Burrow for tea.

Her mum had even talked to Gwenog Jones about her!

Ginny had always wanted to be like Gwenog Jones but she had no idea they were already so much alike. They both had a bunch of older brothers, they were both the youngest and girls, and they'd had to fight them to play Quidditch – though Gwenog Jones said she'd had to hit hers, which she hadn't had to do yet. But perhaps she should, because maybe then they wouldn't have tried to stop her at tryouts or trick her into being stuck as Seeker when she should be a Chaser.

They even had the name thing in common! Gwenog Jones had always been 'Gwenog Jones' to her, so it was wild to think she'd ever hated her name and went by 'Gwen,' and only came to like it later, though 'like' might be a strong word – but at least no one could make fun of her for it now because she was too tough. Ginny had gotten a bit closer to liking 'Ginevra,' but she wasn't there yet, but maybe she could be if she got tougher and fought more – then nobody would think of making fun of her.

There were just so many connections between them it was mad. Like Gwenog Jones had been Captain of the Gryffindor team, recruited Charlie, and scared off Bill? Why hadn't either of them told her that? It was wild to think that 'Gwen' could have sat in this very chair, in this very room, and wore the very same robes as her!

It kind of make her seem like Angelina Johnson, the reserve Captain.

But as neat as it was to know more about Gwenog Jones, knowing more about her mum was just… weird. Like, her mum had always just been her mum, the same Smother Mother she'd always been: the one who stayed in the kitchen all day and never let her do anything. But here she was, telling the world that everything Ginny knew about her was wrong, and she didn't know what to think.

Her mum and dad had left school early? She'd run away from home to get married? They even built the Burrow by themselves?

None of these were things her parents would ever do. They weren't like the Twins, who tinkered around in their room at night and got into trouble, even if her dad did mess around with all that muggle stuff in the garage. Her dad worked with muggle stuff for the Ministry though, so that was his job. He wasn't a builder, and her mum was even less so, but how could she say it in a magazine if it wasn't true?

Ginny wanted to say that none of it made sense, but part of her kept saying it did. She kept thinking about Great Aunt Muriel, even if she couldn't put a finger on why. The nasty old woman wasn't a Weasley, so she had to be in her mother's family – her mother's father's sister, or even her mother's grandfather's sister, the woman was old enough for it – but a Prewett nonetheless.

Lavender had asked if her mother was one of the Prewetts, like they were special somehow, but gave it up when she said she didn't know what the girl was talking about. The only special thing Ginny knew about the Prewetts was her mum's brothers were dead and Great Aunt Muriel had a big old house and a lot of money she doesn't share. The old lady hated her mum and dad for some reason too, but no one had ever told her why.

'Does she hate Mum and Dad because they left school to get married?' Ginny thought to herself.

"It doesn't make sense. Why would anyone do that?" she asked, staring at the printed pages of the magazine like the answers might suddenly appear.

"Do what?" Lavender asked curiously.

"Oh – I was – just thinking about my mum and dad running off like that," Ginny admitted, more than a bit embarrassed by it.

"It makes all the sense in the world," the girl said gushingly. "A young noble lady gets swept off her feet by a knight-in-shining-armor – or perhaps a lower class bad boy," she added with a smile to Parvati, "–she defies her tyrannical parents to see him, they object, only for them to flee into the night to live happily ever after, just like one of the Harry stories."

"Sounds pretty dull for a Harry story," Parvati said critically. "There isn't even a dragon, monster, or dark wizard in it to make it interesting."

"A Harry story?" Ginny asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Oh–," Lavender blushed as she looked to her darker friend before answering. "They're a series of adventure books about the Boy Who Lived. They're much too old for you."

"They're not too old," she said defiantly to the girl who was just barely older than her. "The Boy Who Lived and Slytherin's Beast, the Treacherous Trials, the Returning Dark, the Cadaverous Cabal, and What Lies Beyond – I read them all years ago," Ginny added, trying to picture her mother in a story like that.

And as weird as it was, it did make sense, in a Harry Book kind of way – but if her mum and dad had been in a story like that, why didn't it work out for them? Was Dad not Harry enough? But why would her mum leave home for Dad if he wasn't Harry enough – and while it was crazy to think of her dad like a Harry, wouldn't that mean he had to have been like him for her mum to do what she did?

So, if her dad had changed, and things hadn't worked out, is that why her mum said the Harry Books were all lies? She had lived through a story like that and knew it wouldn't work and didn't want her to be disappointed too, because life doesn't work that way?

'That's a sad thought,' Ginny thought.

"Do you still have them?" Parvati asked as Lavender's eyes brightened at the prospect.

"The books?" she asked in return. "No, my mum got rid of them because they weren't like real life."

"Of course they're not, they're fiction. That makes them better than real life," Lavender said, like it was silly to think otherwise.

"It's a pity you couldn't keep a book or two," Parvati agreed. "They're in such high demand girls are having to share."

"Well, I let Harry have two of them," Ginny admitted, "but I don't know what he did with them."

The other girls shared a surprised look before darting their eyes to Harry.

"Harry has them?" Lavender asked in a whisper, making her remember she'd promised not to tell.

"Harry Potter?" Parvati pressed, making her also remember that it was only her brothers she wasn't supposed to say anything to, so she guessed it was okay. "How'd he get them?"

"He stayed with us this summer," Ginny shrugged, still too embarrassed about being eaten by the couch to add that part of the story.

"Was this before or after he got together with Hermione?" a curious Lavender asked.

Ginny immediately wanted to say Harry and that girl weren't boyfriend-and-girlfriend, even though she knew they were.

"Before," she said grumpily. "Why?"

"What are you thinking?" Parvati asked her friend.

"Isn't it obvious?" the blonde girl replied with a grin. "The evening stroll, hug, and goodnight kiss in Diagon Alley, the shopping trip date the next day – even the candlelight dinner down in the kitchens. For weeks we've been wondering where all the romantic stuff with Harry was coming from – well, now we know!"

"The Harry stories are what taught Harry to be romantic?" the Indian girl asked breathlessly, but all Ginny felt was doom.

'It's my fault,' she realized. 'If I hadn't given him the Books, none of this would have happened.'

"We have got to tell Witch Weekly about this," one of the girls said, but Ginny knew it was worse.

It really was like one of the Harry Books.

"They don't even know the two of them were kidnapped by the goblins this summer."

It wasn't until she saw the other girls' faces that Ginny realized she said that out loud. She wanted to tell them it was a lie – that nothing like it had ever happened – only she never got the chance.

Lavender snatched the Witch Weekly and both girls ran up the stairwell as fast as they could.

'It's a disaster!' she cried to herself. 'Now they'll be treated like they were destined to be together, so even if they break up, no one will ever accept me as Mrs. Potter! Life is so unfair!'

Ginny stomped her way up to her room, determined to tell this all to Tom and hope to sleep 'til next year – and destroy every Harry Book she found on the way there!

.o0O0o.

AN: As always, thanks for reading.